Sunburn, Sweat, and Subterfuge

Today was a good day. I woke up too early, having stayed up 'til later than midnight blogging last night (probably going to be the case tonight too...), and I chose to sleep in for another hour or so. When I got up, Hung served me a Vietnamese dish which I believe had noodles and pork in it. I should definitely pay more attention to the food that goes in my mouth, but my memory for tastes is pretty terrible. It was a good dish, though.

However, as something of a breakfast fanatic, I ended up getting a banana pancake later that morning at a restaurant somewhere else in town. It was good, but nowhere near crispy; it was borderline soggy, but it still tasted fantastic. Heh.

Ok, back on track. I finished breakfast and, remembering my debt from the previous day, applied a layer of sunscreen (who knows if the stuff works or not), and proceeded to bicycle the kilometer or so to the La Plage restaurant. There was hardly anyone there, as it wasn't near lunchtime or anything, and breakfast was pretty far gone.

One of the Vietnamese ladies attending the empty restaurant took care of my debt and I went back on my way; I intended to get my pancake fix there that morning, but they didn't have it. Oh well. There are only another fifty places within five miles where I can get them. Heh.

Speaking of which, I think it's impossible to go a mile in Hoi An's city center without finding anything and everything you'd need, as a tourist. That said, it might be expensive or a knock-off, or it might just not be what it says at all (I'm looking at you, already fake 90 SPF St. Ives sunscreen).

Pharmacies? Probably twenty or more. Restaurants? I don't even know. Too many to count.

Alright. At this point, not a whole lot happened. I went back to the homestay and tried to teach Hung how to pronounce vegetable a couple dozen more times, and then I went back to my room. After a while I reemerged, covered in another layer of faux St. Ives. I biked into town, and after a couple hours of wandering, I found a restaurant named Morning Glory.

Shops in Hoi An can sometimes be hard to find, and Morning Glory somehow eluded me for a good five minutes when I was within twenty feet of it. I eventually found my way inside and ordered a couple of the local specialties, White Roses, and Cau Lau. To drink, I added a pineapple-pear soda.

White roses are a delicious dumpling sort of thing which I couldn't describe if I'd read the menu, much less having not done so. If you visit Hoi An, try them. They're available in quite a lot of places.

The same is true of Cau Lau; it's quite a ubiquitous dish around here; you could find it on street corners more frequently than White Roses, which isn't difficult to imagine, as White Roses are dumplings and Cau Lau is basically a soup. That said, it was a very good soup, which included pork, sprigs of parsley, and a sort of cracker thing made of rice. It was delicious, and I think I'll try it again if I make it through the other half dozen dishes available specially here.

After leaving Morning Glory, I spent a good half hour or so biking around with one hand and shooting with the other. This was probably the second most fun thing I did today. The road was sparsely populated with people and other bikers, so it was reasonably easy enough to navigate. I actually managed to get some good shots while biking, some of which will probably populate this post.

Then, I went to a busy intersection nearby and began taking pictures as the people passed. I met a trio from Portland who apparently made a habit of jumping with strangers in front of a camera, and posting the resulting pictures on the internet. I should have exchanged information, so I could show you what I mean, but I just continued taking pictures afterwards.

At some point I decided that a sunset was almost as gorgeous as a sunset, and decided to take a timelapse as the sun set. A few people were interested enough to ask me what I was doing, as I merely sat down on the edge and waited. It's times like these, when your camera is tied up doing one thing, that you think how wonderful it'd be to have two cameras. I packed light, though, so two cameras wasn't really an option.



After I finished the timelapse, I returned to the restaurant I visited on my first day. At this restaurant there was a young Vietnamese waitress with a fair knowledge of English and a pretty face, who took the opportunity, on that first night, to trick this gullible man into thinking there was something on my shirt, after which she flicked my hat off.

I am a gullible man, especially in the presence of a pretty girl. A gorgeous girl once told me "gullible" was written on the ceiling, and I'm pretty sure I looked.

Anyway, we conversed in broken English for a while, and eventually she told me that she didn't actually have a boyfriend, which she'd previously told me, and furthermore, she hated me.

I was pretty done after that, so I biked away. And then biked back. I probably biked back and forth in front of the restaurant like five times before I walked in and ordered something.

Soon after said order, an Englishman sat down at the table nearby, ordered a Tiger beer, and we struck up conversation together. Eventually, I invited him to eat with me (you're as far as you can get from everyone you know, you might as well be close to someone you don't), and we talked about traveling and teaching English abroad and Korea and biking and motorcycling in Vietnam, honking, and so much more.

His name was John.

We parted ways as travelers must, and I paid for my meal, got on my bike, and rode.

This was the best part of today. I'd already booked more than two hours of biking today at this point, and now I pedaled like a maniac, overtaking motorcycle after motorcycle, ringing my bike bell constantly, running red lights, tipping my hat to pretty girls, and generally having far too much fun.

A motorcycle passed me on the way back to the homestay, and the rider (whose family was mounted with him) gave me the thumbs up, which I returned, jubilant. Further, after he'd passed me, I ended up overtaking him, with great exertion, to which he said, "Very good!" and gave me a thumbs up again. I sped off toward the main road along the coast, and, forearms glistening, I returned.

I took a short cold shower, and quickly realized that I'd burnt myself on my forearms and legs.

It doesn't hurt much yet, but I think I did a right thorough job with it. I did not reapply.

I'm mostly cold-free; I now have sunburn to worry about, instead. I spent over three hours today on biking alone, and I'm happy to be alive. Looking at some of the shots I took today...

What did I do to deserve this, Lord?

!Noah!