No means noooo

Day 92 - Vinh

Even in the most nihilistic recesses of a life lived under a 'light-touch' regulation of desire I struggle to justify the decision to ride with a steepling hangover. Not only because it increases the likelihood of death but also because it makes the time leading up to that death also feel like death. Not for me the rat-a-tat of Bonnie and Clyde's defiant end nor the Thelma and Louise weightlessness of being beyond reach. I haven't named the bike so I can't even meet my surely imminent demise was a plus one. Not that the bike would die of course, just look at the speedo. They'd pick it up, the police perhaps if they could spare a second from grift but more likely the locals, and it would be dusted off and back on the road in a day or two. Me they'd sluice into the gutter like they were shopkeepers cleaning their shopfronts, which they could be. To die on day two of this epic journey would make it look like a foolish idea and I can't have people back home saying that. The 'I-told-you-so's' at my wake would be annoying. Would I get a wake? I've been sluiced into a gutter after all. Anyway dying somewhere after day five would be better for appearances. What are the chances of me making it to through the day? Or all the way? Marvellously impossible to quantify. Ask any person and the less they know about something the greater they perceive the risk to be. The more they care about the outcome of something the greater they perceive the risk to be. But do they understand risk as an objective measure? As the banal but somewhat scientific process it has been corralled into? They do not, it is for them an emotive assessment and they sit at ease with the cognitive dissonance it produces. For them the chances of me dying while riding this bike for 10 days of a year are immeasurably higher than them dying while driving a car every day of the year. Anyway this digression is more tangential than some of the wrong turns I took on my way out of Hanoi.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. My eyes skitter over the road surface looking for potholes, loose material, fatality. Information floods my senses and my brain is too tired, too hungover to filter it. I tried not to make it this way. The very best of intentions and cheap beer and an early night. Ah but I wasn't in Hanoi anymore. A tourist in a local's joint in the capital is no great shakes. Did I mention I have the shakes? But in Nimh Binh it's more of a novelty. Enough of a novelty to invoke the famous (and seemingly extant) Vietnamese hospitality. Let me wind back to the previous night. I'd got to Nimh Binh in one piece and decided this was cause for (quiet) celebration. My love of bia hoi hadn't abated and with some effort I managed to locate a bar serving it. Fresh beer and monkey nuts were placed on the table and I leaned back with the contented smile of a man who had exceeded expectations, cheated death and been cheated by the police. Day one of my journey was done and the relief was palpable as was my appetite. The menu, however, was unfathomable. Either Google translate was dropping acid or I really was going to have to choose between 'crap hot pot' and 'buffalo looks table'. I was saved from the dilemma by a Vietnamese guy from a table nearby that asked me to join him and his friends. I was aching with exhaustion from brain to arse and company was not what I wanted but what the hell was traveling for? Carpe noctum Vasco. It was a group of about 10 colleagues, several of whom were engineers so we instantly had something in common. The standard of English was quite variable but they ordered beer by the crate so soon enough that didn't matter.

One of the more fluent speakers devoted considerable time to trying to get me to stay in Vietnam and act as a personal tutor to his uncle who wanted to improve his English. Highlighting the numerous barriers to the plan's success did not deter him and as he got more pissed the topic was returned to every five minutes. The Vietnamese are an affable bunch but get drunk at ferocious speed and often turn, as we all tend to, into ferociously tedious bores. On the bright side they wouldn't let me pay for a single beer when the time came to make my excuses. I stumbled home well-lubricated by my unemptiable glass of beer and wondering how well it would go with the riding. And the answer was, as has already been disclosed, not well. Proficiency in riding is, I imagine, much like a fine forehand or virtuoso violin solo in as much as a great deal of the effort that goes into it becomes unconscious after enough repetition of the activity. I was a way short of my 10,000 hours though and every action required to keep me from going under the wheels of a lorry had to be done with a painless deliberateness. Every hole in the road needed my attention, every other road used menaced my peaceful progression with their chaotic potential. This was defensive driving turned up to 11, my mind whirred like an out-of-control steel-making machine in an Eastern German state. Staying alive was proving to be exhausting but cutting short my day's riding would put me behind schedule and make for longer days down the line which was not an appealing prospect either. The day had started with a short ride to the outskirts of Nimh Binh. Partly to do a questionably worthwhile tourist activity and partly to get an idea of how unpleasant the rest of the day's riding would be. I sat in a boat that was rowed by a woman using only her feet. That's it. That's the thing. The reasons for the foot-rowing are probably historic and interesting and I gave far too few shits to find out what they were. We went through some caves (ok there were caves too), got swarmed by floating souvenir stalls, went back through the caves and that was it. The only other notable event of the day was google maps again pushing me to my limits. For reasons best known to itself it diverted me off the highway and onto a parallel road that I followed for long enough that it was apparent this was not 'the way'. I was, however, reluctant to retrace my steps and waste another 15 minutes so I got the accursed app to plot a route ahead of me that lead back to the highway. Fool me once Google, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me 17 times... The road back onto the highway was in excellent condition...the bit that had been built anyway. I could see ahead of me that it abruptly terminated in great piles of soil and sand. Construction workers milled around a digger looking like they were in no hurry to finish the rest. After a minute or so of sitting and seething in the hot sun I glanced back to see them gesticulating at me. Arms were enthusiastically waved towards the end of the road as if to suggest there was a way through. I compliantly rode to the end. From a distance what looked like great piles of soil and sand were in fact great piles of soil and sand. With a resigned look on my face I looked back again to see the waving intensify. I'm on a bike you stupid bastards, not a fucking tank. The workers strolled over and using only hand gestures left me in doubt that they thought there was a way through for me. And now saving face (as is the local custom) became more important than my objective evaluation that continuing was a bad idea and so I gingerly edged the bike onto the crumbly mud. There was a narrow ridge that ran through the dirt piles and was the only conceivable route. But I needed to go up a steep incline of about a metre to get onto it. I dropped the bike into 1st gear and gave it some beans but the old girl was struggling with her own bulk, mine and all the luggage. The construction workers, who were now invested in my success or else preferring this to actually working, swung into action and started pushing until they heaved me up there. In my eagerness to be polite (as is my local custom) and thank them I took one hand off the steering to wave and nearly tumbled down the other side of the ridge. As I re-joined the highway I could only smile at the vagaries of life. After a few more hours and with eyes glazed by effort I got to Vinh and swore to never again drink and ride.
As sparks flew from tubes either side of the stage like an out-of-control steel...you get the idea, and dancers tottered out on vertiginous heels the word 'never' had never seemed so misused.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. I _tried_ not to make it this way. I really did. I went in search of a quiet place to celebrate another successful (non-fatal) day on the road. Fresh beer and monkey nuts were placed on the tables and I leaned back with the contented smile of a man who...had the oddest sense of déjà vu. I was saved from the feeling by a Vietnamese man from a nearby group who came over and asked me to join them. Seeing with greater clarity where this could lead I politely but firmly declined his offer, carpe noctum be damned. I was then carpe'd by the arm and lead to their table with polite but firm force. I started to cry but, politely, I did it inside. My insistent new friend was the owner of the bar and it was the rest of his family I was now toasting (the males anyway). After predictably rapid beer drinking they suggested moving on and, absorbed in my poor life choices, I agreed. We unsoberly streaked through rain-soaked streets on bikes towards god-knows where. Now of course I wasn't driving in my affected state, that would be irresponsible, I got on the back and let the bar owner drive in his affected state instead. As we entered the club he took me by the hand, his brothers following, and lead me to a private table on a walkway around the large sunken dancefloor. I felt like his pet westerner. A Bubbles to his Jacko. Bottle of brandy were brought, platters of food and a shisha. We had our own pourer who stood by the table and leapt into action with the bottle whenever we took a sip from our glasses. And those sparks flew and the dancers danced. Another quiet night, another fine mess you've got me into, me. My eyes open, when did they close? I don't know where I am for a moment. For anyone hoping this was about to turn into a date-rape or organ-harvesting story then I'm afraid I have to disappoint. Ah, I'm still in the club. But somehow I'm sitting on the opposite side of it from where I was and I'm surrounded by people I don't know. But they know me it seems. Little by little the nitrous fog clears and my senses regain some grip. I'm still sat exactly where I was before I took an almighty huff on a balloon and the people around me are my adopted family. Don't give chimps drugs, kids. Or give kids to chimps. Or give drugs to kids. All permutations are bad. The owner was, by this point, rolling drunk and I, by way of an argument with his brother, was out of the door. I walked back to my hotel through empty streets stained with neon. Even the stray dogs had found somewhere more hospitable after the earlier rainstorm. I'd suffer for all this tomorrow...again. Hangover piled on hangover like late game jenga. But what price experiences? What cost an anecdote? Probably nothing and possibly everything. But, again, it's those vagaries of life and a straight line can't always be drawn between cause and effect without eliding the winding road. God, I hope the road doesn't wind too much tomorrow...