Day 18
Finally we have arrived at the China / Vietnam border. Having chosen a route around many of the mountains, we’re now heading for our first climbing destination – Huu Lung, approximately 160 miles or 256 km from our current location. Upon entering Vietnam, we will no longer have the benefit of Cher’s language skills to navigate so we decided to purchase a map.
We set out on a motorcycle taxi bounding for the nearest bookstore. With the both of us on the back, we made it across the city in a matter of minutes. We both were amazed at the speed and ease of traveling on a motorcycle compared to our trikes but we quickly dismissed the thought of changing to motorcycles, since I almost killed both of us after 5 seconds on a scooter in Thailand.
There is one bonus to not knowing the language though: Cher will no longer have to endure the never-ending stream of questions she has to answer or divert on a daily basis. Last time when we were in Vietnam, I stepped up as the communicator with the locals. They would watch me performing the international body language dance for a moment, before turning to Cher as if to say, OK your white boy has had his fun, now let’s chat. They would then launch into full speed Vietnamese thinking Cher is one of their citizens, only to see the perplexed expression on Cher’s face.
To save us some trouble, we have downloaded a free pdf of Vietnamese phrases. Looking at our new phrasebook I just realized that Vietnamese is a tonal language, despite using a roman alphabet, with a variety of diacritics. No wonder no one understood my attempt at Vietnamese. As Cher can attest, in singing and Mandarin, tone is not one of my strong points.