Bicycling to Ben Tre

Michigan time: 9:40AM
Local Vietnam time: 8:40PM
Date: 19-June-08
Location: Ben Tre coffee bar

6:00AM, our little watch alarm welcomed us to day 2 in Vietnam.
"Why so early?" you may ask.
If we had any hope of actually surviving our ride to the Ho Chi Minh bus station to write/tell about it, we had to leave early to avoid traffic. Unfortunately, the alarm did not sing solo. It sang in harmony with the buzz of the motorcycles. With an angered belly and anxiety on my shoulders, nervous about the ride, we left by 6:20AM and hugged the right lane as much as we could. Then after about 5 min, I found myself behind a slow lady biking with her child in front. I looked over my left shoulder and I saw a slight break. I swerved around her in slow movements, curving like a snake around her, giving the mopeds time to move around me. We swam like little minnows in a school of fish. Remarkably, we all glided and curved to a unified rythm. I caught on and slowly passed an older man a bicycle. Then I realized that the knot in my stomach was untied. I began to enjoy the ride. Really, there were few cars. NOTE: anything and everything can be transported on a bicycle or moped. Even mirrors and bed mattresses! You think you need a truck to move your bed. Well, apparently not. I wish I could have taken a photo of the matress with a cart, but I was too busy being a minnow in a school of fish.
It felt good to take off my helmet. We only biked 3.5 miles from the hotel to the bus station, but it was a 3.5 miles I will never forget. Fortunately, we were lucky with the bus. We just repeated My Tho (our destination) and through pointing we were directed the correct bus. They tossed our bikes on top. We cringed when they flipped on top as if they were bean-bags. We were the only white people on the bus. We were nearly the last ones to board the bus. I love it when it works out that way! No wait! However, we did stop every 20 minutes to load on wall tiles. I felt sorry for the bus driver. It must be really stressfull avoiding all the mopeds. He constantly honked and moved at a medium/steady pace to keep movement predictable. With each minute, the mopeds seemed to mulitply. More and more people were awake and heading to factories to work. By 8:30, traffic was very hectic and chaotic.
Suddenly the bus attendant smiled at us and said, "My Tho!" She moved her arm in a straightforward motion. Then several of the passengers also smiled and pointed forward. I followed Steve off the bus carefully with all the packs. A man swiftly passed the bikes down to Steve.
"Obviously, we need to go straight." And straight we went.
Off the highway now, traffic was lighter and easier to navigate. We just followed the bicycle/moped traffic flow all the way to the water/river front and spotted the huge ferry ready to leave. We hopped on with no trouble-perfect timing! I guess the angels or buddha must be watching over us. Without planning, everything seemed to work out today. The 15min boat ride took us across the wide river (also carrying cars, trucks, and cargo). We pedaled about 11 miles to the town of Ben Tre. Our thirst glands were turned too high and we drank bottle after bottle of water. Along with some coconut covered peanuts for a snack. More pointing and smiling made the purchase complete. Really, people do not speak English. It is really strange when people speak to us or try to tell us prices in Vietnamese. We smile stupidly, we find ourselves and illiterate and mute. We now carry a pen and paper and motion for people to write the price for us. At least they use numerals.
At Ben Tre, at 12:30PM Vietnam time, we called it a day. Sweating buckets and drinking bottles of water under the overly vibrant sun, I happen to see the word "Hotel" mixed with all the Vietnamese jibberish. We enter and a petite woman seemed to understand that we wanted a room, so she showed us one: air conditioning, fridge, beautifully remodeled toilet and shower. She wrote 160,000 on a piece of paper ($10!) Great! We smiled at her and nodded yes. As soon as she shut the door we began shedding our wet sweaty clothes and jumped into the shower. We also dumped all the dirty clothes in the shower with us and washed them. Without breakfast, Steve began to roar with hunger and we walked towards the market. Being illiterate was harder than we had imagined.
In the market, we pointed to some of the hairy ball fruits we recognized from our time in Honduras. I pointed to a weird spikey red fruit that matched the guidebook description of the must-try dragon fruit that supposedly resembles that of a kiwi. I also spotted peanuts and pointed to a giant bag of them. Steve calmed his hungry with a licha (red hairy fruit) and I cracked into a peanut shell and not yum! It was squishy and soft inside. "What is wrong with these peanuts?" I exclaimed. Then it dawned on me...usually peanuts are roasted. These were raw peanuts. We sat down by some tables where people were eating and smiled. I recognized the word "Pho" for soup. When the lady aproached us, we both said "Pho". She stared at us blankly, I guess we didn't say it correctly. So we pointed to a bowl of soup somebody else had. I tried to say "An Chay" for vegetarian in Vietnamese to no success. A minute later, she returned with a beef noodle soup. We politely smiled and ate the noodles. They were strange, thick, and bright white in color and took the flavor a sweet onion. Still hungry, we head back inside the market, and there, lit up like a treasure, was a huge bag of cashews. We pointed and made a shape of a small bag. We also pointed to a box of raisins. We successfully celebrated our purcheses and devoured the biggest cashews you've ever seen!

It's getting late after 11pm local time and we're off to rest in preparation for tomorrow's bike ride.