The most unlikely religion teacher

Myself and Mr. Minh arrived safely in Dalat yesterday afternoon around 3.30, a little behind schedule due to a motorbike breakdown. But after 5 days, we had bonded, not in the familiar sense of being friends or anything, we could barely understand what each other were saying but we had made it, through jungles, across dirt tracks, and to be sure I had gotten off the tourist route. I only met one English speaker in the 5 days, paradise.
We left Hoi An in the rain, early and I was a nervous wreck. I had only lost my motor cycle virginity a week beforehand and now I was agreeing to a 5 day orgy. At first trying to balance everything, me, my day pack, my backpack and Mr. Minh's luggage was a bit of a challenge but soon we got everything right and hit the road, or I should say the very muddy path ... Now it had been raining in Hoi An for about a month and the Ho Chi Minh trail goes up through the jungle and into the mountains. This is the trail that was used by the VC during the war to smuggle weapons and soldiers to the south, it was one of the areas where the Americans used chemical weapons to defoliate the trees, something the locals are still recovering from. Mr. Minh was insisting that the mudslides and the collapsed roads were due to the heavy rain and to some extent he was probably correct, however, i think that it had more to do with the extensive deforestation in the area much left the hill sides vulnerable to the excessive rain. We drove through some parts where I really didn't think that we were going to make it, Mr. Minh really did an amazing job. On many areas the road was virtually impassable and we had to go over mud tracks and slide down hills all the time trying to avoid aggressive bus drivers who stop for nothing even a gaping hole in the road or oncoming motorbikes.

In Vietnam there aren't many cars but there are about 60 million motorbikes. A never ending stream of hondas, suzukis and other Japanese and koreans motos. After the war the Russians rebuilt a lot of the roads, so now you have these lovely wide roads, and no one on them ... except cows, chickens and maybe the odd weird looking tractor contraption, There is a weird pecking order on the roads here which seems to boil down to ... if i am bigger than you let me pass .... it doesn't matter if there is on-coming traffic when you wish to over take and pedestrians, once you beep at them that seems to get you off the hook. From what i could gather there are only three times where drivers feel the necessity to stop, when they are pulled over by the police to pay a bribe, when they get to their destination or when they crash. Other than these, it's go go go regardless. I only saw one accident, a motorcycle hit a dog. The driver flipped over the handle bars, the dog was okay.

The countryside was magnificent, high high mountains with dense jungle and beautiful waterfalls and gushing rivers. It is all just so green, they say that Ireland is the emerald isle, well if it is then Vietnam is the emerald land, it is so so so beautiful. The towns and the villages that we passed through looked very poor, with markets and little ladies selling fruit and veg the one thing that also struck me was the filth of the towns, garbage strewn everywhere without regard for hygiene or the environment, and it is such a pity because it is such a beautiful land. The other thing that struck me was the number of Catholic churches, in each town there would be at least one large white church with a big Jesus outside towering over the community. Mr. Minh explained that most of the people in these areas are hill tribe people and many of them are Catholic.
Mr. Minh is an absolute gent. I was a little concerned about the safety of heading off into the Vietnamese jungle with a strange man on a motor bike for 5 days but the moment i met Mr. Minh he put me at ease. He had a notebook with him of comments written by other travellers and all were glowing references. He is 53 years old, a grandfather and a war vet. He was an Officer in the Vietnam army during the war and afterwards was arrested and interned in a re-education camp for 2 years, I asked him if it worked and he just smiled. He was training to be a doctor before the war and afterwards because he was on the loosing side he couldn't get work and has been working as a motorbike driver ever since. He talked a lot about Vietnam, its history and its peoples' hopes for the future. He was super knowledgeable about the countryside and peoples and we stopped off to visit a pineapple farm, a coffee plantation and a forest of rubber trees.
On the second day we arrived into Kon Tum and visited one of the orphanages. 260 children from new borns to 20 all living together, the children were just adorable. Most of them, girls, are from various hill tribes around the region and most are not technically orphans. Most of them just could not be supported by their families. I was totally unprepared for the experience. But I just took off my jacket and got down on the floor and played, one little girl in particular seemed to really like me and when I stood up she kept coming over and shimming up me like I was a pole and then doing back flips off me. It was so funny then she brought me to a room and there were all these religious pictures, I ended up giving her a religion class about Baby Jesus and the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph the carpenter. It was funny. She didn't really understand what I was saying. I would point at Jesus and say Mary and she would go "no no no," and point at the baby and I would go "oh Joesph", and then she slapped me, I think she realised I was taking the piss. As I stood i would have one child in my arms, another gripping both legs and at least three others pulling at the ones gripping my legs and one just hanging on, and unlike Irish children the most precious thing for these kids was just to get a hug. What also really struck me was that there were no toys at all in the orphanage and the children didn't cry or stamp their feet, or throw tantrums, they just sat and waited their turn. I suppose if they did there was no one there to pay attention the staff are way too over worked and under resourced.
The following morning after a night spent sleeping in the hotel owner's daughter's bedroom, with a giant photo of Pope Benedict staring down at me, I met Mr. Minh for breakfast and he asked if I would like to stay in a homestay for the night with tribes people in a village up in the mountains, I thought well why not? Goddamn chickens, that's why not.

The village was cute in a touristy kind of way, I couldn't help but feel that I was intruding in on ordinary people's lives, and as much as if really gets on my nerves being stared at all the time here, it's also gets on my nerves to be the starer. I also couldn't help feeling that without the staring westerner these peoples' way of life would disappear completely, it's a nasty catch 22 situation. The wooden houses, the animals wandering around the old people just sitting around chatting while the pigs and cows meandered by. I sat at the lake and watched a beautiful sun set The sky that night was so clear that for the first time since Russia I got to see the stars and the night was so silent that the only thing could hear was the fucking tinnitus in my right ear. It really was so peaceful.

So restful ... until ... cock- a - doodle - fucking - doo, the hen was right under me, and it was so loud and it was 3.30 in the morning and then the other hens joined in ....then a dog started to bark, and pig somewhere close started to ounch and squeel, a cow mooed a couple of times, but all the time the chicken just cock-a-doodle-doed. I called that chicken some very bad names, and i for one will never ever feel bad for eating chicken. It was like torture, i was so tired and each time i was nearly asleep the chicken would go again cock-a doodle-dooooooo. And i needed to pee really bad but the toilet was out the back and it was dark and there was cow shit on the ground and i just knew that it was a bad idea.

The next morning i got up around 6ish, there was no point in my lying there listening to the bucolic symphony so i ventured outside and nearly tumbled over myself. It was feeding time for animals... And that made it all worth it. and that's the thing, for all the things that piss you off there's always some thing that happens that just makes it worth it.