For Better or For Worse, Alone

There were only two souls stirring at the hostel this morning when I awoke to leave for the airport: me and a girl who had to taxi to the hospital to see if her boyfriend would be cleared to fly in a few hours.  I was grateful that I only had to take care of my risk-averse self on this trip and scooted to the airport as the city around me slept.  The airport, on the other hand, was bustling.  Nobody quite believed that I was traveling to Dong Hoi (instead rationalizing my words as a mispronunciation of another destination) and I soon learned why: I was the only non-Vietnamese passenger on the plane.  It was definitely a family flight, not a route for tourists or businessmen.  There were at least ten babies and toddlers (I do not exaggerate  when I say at LEAST ten), including one seated on his mother's lap in the seat next to mine.  The child became entranced by my iPad, enjoying the ability to flip between photos immensely.

I was met at the airport by a driver from the Phong Nha Farmstay, who then stopped to pick up an additional five male passengers traveling as a group from a nearby hostel.  As I said, most backpackers do not get to Dong Hoi by flying.  It is a culture that values money spared over time saved, while my philosophy on this Vietnam leg has been quite the opposite.

We traveled through quite a bit of countryside on our way to the Farmstay, enjoying the way green, rolling fields spread out in each direction, quite a few of them flooded for rice cultivation.  The Farmstay, on its small side road, probably had the highest density of foreigners for miles and miles.  But the most striking aspect of our arrival was the incredible views stretching out before us.  Fields swoop up into layers mountain ranges fading like echoes in the distance.  Its like the effect of using a stamp again and again, the prints growing fainter with each repeated use.  Rice paddies at the foot of the mountains provided just a hint of sparkle to jazz up the scene, the glass-specked Manhattan sidewalk to this incredible mountain range.

The other miraculous sighting? A pool, nestled into the pavement between the two main buildings, beckoning with cool blue waters.  After weeks of pining for a hotel with a pool, I had finally arrived at one - the only hostel on my trip to have one (our lavish Hong Kong stay at the luxury apartment aside). I enjoyed some pho ga (the chicken version of pho) and was relaxing at a table when I met John, a fellow solo traveler.  John is from Toronto, Canada where he works as a freelance accountant, a profession that I didn't know existed.  He hated working as an accountant for a major hotel chain, so he changed his clientele to artists and musicians and his schedule became flexible enough to allow a month to six weeks of travel per year.  The great thing about John was that he would come on my bike ride with me.  Since I arrived too late to go on a tour today, I wanted to use this opportunity to explore the nearby area and take in the countryside.  We rented bikes from the Farmstay (the one that fit me being a semi-rusted fixed gear with a very handy basket on the front) and set off.  As the Farmstay manager said, it was "time to go get lost".  Getting lost is a beautiful thing here in central Vietnam.

Stopping for a cool drink at someone's front-yard shop.  

Little children shouted out hellos, motorbikes tore down open stretches blaring their horns, cows wandered the road, and men fished from boats along the river.  We passed rice paddies, homes, and duck farms.  We passed a giant lake and a modest highway, and I could help but smile as I took it all in.  It was beautiful, but scorching hot and very sunny, the sunburns that I have (despite two applications of SPF30) serving as proof.  But it was worth it to be out there.

Upon returning to the hotel, we cooled off in the pool and I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and getting to know the other travelers here.  People really are interesting, both in their motivations for and approach to traveling.

Sadly, the evening ended with a disappointment.  One of the tours that I has booked was for a 7 km Paradise Cave trek tomorrow.  You go deep into the cave, which is large and incredibly beautiful.  It's a pretty rigorous trek, apparently, but everyone says it is unforgettable.  The problem is that too many people have already done the trek today and made their memories, while the other guests find the trek too expensive or difficult to do tomorrow.  With the two person minimum unfilled, that means I can't so the tour.  Such are the perils of traveling alone.  Oh well, make the most of the hand that is dealt to you, right?  I'll get to see the first km of the cave on another tour.  Enough of a taste to bring me back in the future, perhaps.

Oh paradise, always just a little bit out of reach.

Spotted: More caves!  Apparently cave systems in Lao practically connect with the ones here, but no actual link has been established.  There is, however, a mysterious underground stream that extends at least 400 m down (too far for them to safely explore its depths) that may be the missing link.  Normally blue, the stream turns a muddy brown following storms in Laos.  Maybe I'll sneak over to Laos and see where in Vietnam I pop up.