Oh Lord, I'm Stuck in Lam Dong Again

When the weather cleared up in Dalat, I hit the road to Nha Trang. The road from Dalat to Nha Trang has got to be one of the prettiest in the world, but I only made it an hour and a half outside of Dalat before the light rain turned into a severe rain. I stopped at a restaurant with an awning to park the bike under. My attempt at covering my bags hadn't worked, so they were pretty well soaked. A lot of the clothing inside was damp, too.

The lights were off in the restaurant and it appeared closed, but a few other people stopped to get out of the rain and the owner came out to serve us all tea. I had an intermittent internet connection, so it took quite a while to look up a forecast and determine that the weather was only going to get worse as I got closer to Nha Trang. Fortunately, while there weren't any hotels nearby, there was a coffee plantation that operated a bed and breakfast with three quaint little bungalows overlooking the canyon where they grew their coffee. When I headed out, I offered to pay the restaurant owner for the tea, but she wouldn't hear of it.

The family members who ran the coffee plantation were busy battening down the hatches when I arrived, but without establishing why I was there or what I might want, they sat me down, brought me a towel, served me a noodle soup breakfast, and waited for their English-speaking sister. The thatched roof patio of their restaurant had a beautiful view of the plantation, huge coffee roasters, and a gift shop with displays of coffee and signs explaining the history of the property. A young Russian woman sat vaguely smiling at the rain. The wind had knocked a potted plant over and its soil had blocked an essential culvert, which caused their whole patio to suddenly flood. We all jumped up to sweep water away from the patio and clear the culvert as a tour bus filled with Koreans pulled up to the property.

The Russian woman, a few of the men, and I continued to sweep away the rain water while the women ran off to prepare a spread of coffee and snacks for the Korean tourists. In the middle of all of this, the English-speaking sister appeared to greet me and I asked whether they had any vacancies for me to stay until the rain let up. She informed me that they did have vacancies, but that I would probably have to stay not just until the rain let up but until the road to Nha Trang reopened—it had been blocked by a landslide.

At this point, about fifty Korean tourists had entered the little patio. They seemed very annoyed by the flooding and required a lot of attention from the staff. The Russian woman walked around greeting each table in Korean, so I guessed she must be volunteering at the plantation with a program like Workaway. After a twenty minute flurry of activity, the Koreans all piled back on the bus and took off. The English-speaking sister returned to apologetically inform me that the room would be ready for me in about an hour, but I was extremely grateful to get a room at all so early in the morning without a reservation.

With the rain pouring and the patio now quiet, I picked a guitar off of the wall and starting working out the chords to "Have You Ever Seen The Rain?" When I had mostly figured it out and started singing, the staff gathered around to watch and asked if I could start over so they could take a video. I agreed but concealed my diffidence about performing it on camera. I haven't been playing or singing much lately and I could only remember half of the lyrics. When someone is singing and playing guitar unobtrusively in a public setting, it can be kind of nice regardless of the quality, but when someone's viewing a video later on their phone, it's held to the standard of everything else they've seen on they're phone. The rain suddenly became deafeningly loud, though, and they gave up on the idea of recording it.

The Russian girl attempted to make conversation but her English was very limited. She spoke just enough that I could understand the premise of a story, but not enough to fully decipher what had happened.

"Motorbike."

She held up her hands to show that they were covered in road rash.

"Vietnam people help me. I live here. I go back. Motorbike have key. Vietnam people help me. I come back. I live here. Ah? Ah? Ah?"

She attempted to pantomime some additional elements of the story, but her gestures elucidated even less than her words.

I tried to steer the conversation back to something simpler, so I introduced myself and asked her name.

"Ha! Oh! My name? Ha! Is your name? Ha! My name!"

When the English-speaking sister returned, I asked for the WiFi password and she informed me that there was no power. I looked around and realized that all the lights were off and recalled that there hadn't been any evidence of electricity at the nearby restaurant with the motorcycle awning, either. She left quickly, and I asked the Russian woman how long they had been without power. She got up, sifted through some things at the check-in desk, produced a small power bank, smiled wide, and offered it to me.

I politely refused it and attempted to clarify my meaning, but it was hopeless. She took a great interest in decoding what I might want as though I were two years old and could only use language to request things rather than share ideas. She performed a few more confusing rounds of pantomime. She cheerfully demonstrated how to use the power bank until eventually I gave in and plugged my fully charged phone into it. This pleased her greatly.

I was relieved when one of the staff returned and waved me on to follow her to my bungalow. I bade my inept interlocutor farewell and gathered my things.

It was boring but peaceful having no power or internet for two days. The view from the bungalow was stunning. The Russian woman had apparently checked out, but I shared a few meals with a young couple from Quebec who had been taking an identical motorcycle route as mine before the roads closed.

On the second night the power came back on and I was much more excited to have a hot shower than I was to have internet. Everything I owned was cold and damp, so it was a real treat to be warm and damp. That evening, armed with the internet, I strategized with the French Canadian couple to find a route to Hanoi that would avoid more rain. We saw news articles with pictures of boats going through the street in Hoi An, and the weather forecast predicted intense rain in Central Vietnam throughout the following week. Since all of the destinations I wanted to see most were impassable, I proposed riding back to Dalat and flying to the north. Pasquale took a long drag of his cigarette and said "Well you know, know one can predict the weather." His delivery was so cinematic that it was almost convincing. Almost. The storm maps we had been viewing had done a pretty good job of predicting lots of rain.

My friends from Saigon were already in Central Vietnam and had been sharing news stories of boats replacing cars in flooded areas of Hoi An and Hue. They had all gotten sick of the rain and headed to Hanoi early. I worked out a way to return the motorcycle to Dalat and decided to head back there and either fly or take us a bus north.

I felt like I had already explored most of what Dalat has to offer, so I wasn't thrilled to return there. I was really happy to see one of the hostel workers, though. Lily is an absolute treasure of a human being. Making guests feel welcome is just good hospitality, but she makes guests feel loved. I halfway expected her to enter the dorms at night and read us all a bedtime story.

The weather was cool and dry in Dalat, so even though I had seen most of what I wanted to see, it was nice to just motor around the city. The one new attraction was an art installation called Crazy House. It's reminiscent of Maze Bar—lots of windy staircases to nowhere and surreal art.

I had a bit of trouble working out the terms to return the motorcycle. I had prepaid for a month but was told that they would prorate if I returned it earlier, which I fully expected to do. Since I was returning it much earlier than anticipated to a different location, it made sense that I might have to pay a higher daily rate and compensate them for the cost of shipping, but they wanted me to pay for half the month plus a daily rate. We finally worked out an agreement that wasn't great but wasn't atrocious, and they became very eager for me to return the bike immediately. Bizarrely, when I got to the shop, no one was there. The owner of the neighboring restaurant sat me down, served me tea, and called the motorcycle shop owner on my behalf. Meanwhile, I got a text from my contact in Saigon who asked me to come back the next morning. Once again, the restaurant owner who served me tea wouldn't dream of being paid for it.

When I returned the next morning, the shop owner had my $1000 deposit and $200 refund ready in cash. Vietnamese cash! 30 million dong is a few months wages for most Vietnamese people and it looks like it. It's a fat wad. I felt strange collecting it.

What was truly strange, though, is the relationship between these rental companies. They're not part of one big chain—they're just local shops partnering up in a high trust society. It's incredible that they were able to work this transaction out with one another. I have to wonder what US business would like if we extended this kind of trust.

Later that night at the hostel's parking garage, I ran into the Russian girl from the coffee plantation, who cheerfully gestured back and forth between her scooter and the other side of the garage. I inferred that she was confused about her bike being moved around in the parking garage (this is a totally normal phenomenon all over Asia). Her expression bore no recognition, though, so I told her we met at the Coffee Plantation. Still without any hint that she recognized me, she said "Ha! Coffee! Yes! Ha! Ah?" Later, at the hostel's family-style dinner, she suddenly made the connection and stared it me with astonishment, demanding to know how I had gotten there and understanding nothing of my response.

Next stop: Vientiane, Laos. I had a stopover Hanoi that I'll probably write up in the next post.