Moto Viet

Well, here I am in Hoi An, having spent the last five days straddling a Vietnamese man named Yang as we rode his motorcycle from Da Lat, through the Central Highlands of Vietnam to this fairly touristy little town.
Da Lat, where I met Yang, my tour guide, is the government-appointed flower capital of Vietnam, so the flowers are all very beautiful and efficient. We arranged this five-day tour which I wanted very much to center around coffee, seeing as this area is the prime coffee growing area of Vietnam.

Coffee #1; outside a Pagoda in Da Lat which had a neon buddha and a dragon made of old French beer bottles.

"a robust and hearty blend which whispered in lofty plumes of rosewood."

After coffee #1 we had tea #1 which was an artichoke tea that advertises itself as a diuretic; so naturally we went to a waterfall after drinking it -- you can imagine how that went.

Coffee #2; about 2 hours outside of Da Lat, at the house of a coffee farming couple who, in 1987, moved to the area (Nam Ban) from Hanoi along with 90% of the other inhabitants as part of a communist economic recovery project between the provinces. We found the house in search of a rice-wine still, which was evidenced by a smoking chimney.

"Rich diesel tones yield to softer acorn aspirations amidst a sea of copper filings"

after coffee #2 we saw a flower farm, a silk factory and a mushroom farm, rolling fields of coffee terraced up the sides of the misty mountains, and elephant waterfall, all of which sounds like some kind of alice in wonderland thing -- just how far down the rabbit hole were we willing to go? Near elephant waterfall was a gigantic statue of happy buddha. Inside the statue, some monks were eating lunch and I noticed that the skylight and buddha's belly button were one in the same.

Coffee #3; at a longhouse in an ethnic minority village. We saw a couple of these minority villages; the funny thing about these villages is that when my pale face is walking around them, I'm the minority -- and actually, the way people stared or laughed or simply greeted me made me feel better about visiting the place, since their reactions were more natural and they weren't trying to sell me anything. I had my coffee by the lake which was swollen beyond its normal size and had swallowed up some of the tables outside the little cafe where I was sitting.

"a medley of earthtones confused by hazelnut's shadowy hand"

Coffee #4; the next morning in the minority village. We woke up to the sound of a thousand roosters crowing a thousand times. There was a barnyard outside our house, pigs snorting around, chickens clucking with little chicks following them. The weather was perfect as Yang and I prepared for day 2 on the road.

"brooding and quirky"

Coffee #5; that night at the next longhouse where I spent much of my time talking to a monkey who lived in a very small cage. I brought him rice and he threw his beer can toy at me.
I conspired to free him but my efforts were thwarted by the ever conservative Yang who wouldn't let me do things like free the monkey or wear my pants inside out (which sound like metaphors for the same thing ... don't they?) Here is also where I found out that even though they grow a lot of cofee in this region -- which is true as you can tell by the fields and fields of it, the carpets of beans drying out on the side of the road -- they don't actually roast it anywhere near here. So, despite all of my little descriptions of the coffee, it was probably all just Trung Nguyen, Myheco, or G7 coffee -- the three major Vietnames companies.

"disapointing and stale, gray with the pallor of whithered vanity and unmeaning dreams"

Coffee #6; in a gazebo which overlooked a waterfall, the weather is perfect. We are on our way to Kon Tum, little town by the mountains, by way of a tiny town, four houses long, where the central concern is cock-fighting. Here we saw a group of toothless men throw two birds at each other in the middle of a ring made of motorbikes. This was not a legitimate fight, just a practice round. The birds would be strapped with razors for the real deal. Here they just ruffled each other's feathers a bit.



"a flirtatious aroma combined with a gossipy glue-flavor glows with sandalwood jealousy."

The trip was cold and rainy after that point, though there were some great mountain views. There was also much karaoke singing at night, seems that Take Me Home Country Roads is pretty popular out here, though nobody is really sure what West Virginia is.

Children waved at us. We saw a battlefield or two; some of the hills are still a bit bald from the defoliants used in the war. In Kon Tum we ate something that Yang could only describe as "a porcupine without quills" so my best guess is some kind of wiesel. I Also had Kangaroo in Saigon, so add those to the list.

In one town, sometime after coffee #8, we stopped to stretch our legs. Within five minutes of doing so, I had a girlfriend who had introduced me to her father and some of her 16 brothers and sisters. We had a little rice wine but I politely refused the plate of pig intestines.
The trip ended after we rode a good deal of the Ho Chi Minh trail, which twisted and turned through the compact and cold mountains that separate the highlands from the lowlands and the dry season from the rainy. So now its raining and it won't stop until February.

To Hanoi!