The long and winding Ngoan-Muc passDoes it sound like the Beatles' song "The long and Winding Road", eh? Yeap, I "have seen these road before" in travel and in my struggle life - which now as I am daily reflecting upon, I know it's nothing compared to many people that I met on my journey.
As I always do when we arrived at a new place, I rented a motorbike that cost $5 USD/day so we can go anywhere, anytime as we like and don't have to wait for taxi, 'xich-lo' (a three-wheel cyclo) or hire a motorbike for short trip. The picture above took after Kathy & I returned from a trip to a resort 45km north of Nha-Trang. We were told that up north, there is a place called Doc-Let, which is not fully developed into a full scale, commercialized tourist like Nha-Trang city. We arrived at Doc-Let and facing a dilemma, on the right of the picture below is the luxury resort for tourist with more money to burn, and on the left is for middle class or mostly college students to visit during summer - where should we stay? Well, you should know me by now, right? lol
Even in the area reserved for "cheap" tourist like us, there was a fence with a stern warning sign - saying it's prohibited street vendors from enter the restricted place, which I later ventured into that slump area, to find out how these people live.
As you can see in the picture above, these simple tents and folding lounge chairs is for low income tourist to rent , and this is the place where street vendors making their living by selling mostly sea food they just catch from the sea early today or yesterday. When they saw me wandered into their area, within minutes I was surrounded by so many I can't count, they all pleading me to buy their products like live clams, shrimps, lobsters, crab, etc...which they can also cook to our ordered. After few minutes visit and talking to them, I told that my wife will come over to order some sea foods and asking them to cook for us to bring back, since they are not allowed to come to our place. I figured that even I know they charged us more than local tourists, but it was off season not many business lately, and the global finance crisis also impacted the travel industry, Viet-Nam could not escape the same fate, so I figured it was their chance to earn some money. "Oh well ! what the hell..."
typical fishing boats in Nha Trang
Time fly faster when we have fun. After 3 days and 2 nights in Nha-Trang, we took a night bus back to Saigon, which the tour bus pickup passengers at 8 PM and scheduled to arrive about 6 AM next morning. At the second rest area somewhere along the way, around 1 AM our bus stopped at a restaurant on the highway to let us out for a walk with fresh air and toilet duty. I get off with my camera and wandered to the near by parking lot, where I spotted a man curved up to sleep on the porch, near to his home cook hum-bow cart. Perhaps, it was a slow day/night for him, where not many vehicle to make a stop at this nowhere place for passenger, who mostly not likely hungry like I was - to buy his steaming hum-bow, because I took a peek inside the huge pot and it still full of un-sold hum-bows. After I took a snap shot below, I bough a cup of coffee then walk over and gave the man a nudge, which seem to startle him a little bit. I then gave him the coffee and started chatting with him, inquired about how his business that morning, mentioned about the weather was much colder than during the day, how much does it cost for a hum-bow, etc... Slowly awaken and sipping some hot coffee to help his mind clear and back to reality, the man told me that business this year much slower than usual, each hum-bow cost only $5,000 dong (25 cents USA) and more likely that as we approaching near Tet (Viet-Namese's new year), people tend to stay home rather than travel, and those who yearned to travel, return to their home after a year or more away working in a farther distant to make a living - since many don't have any way to earn enough money in their village - they often bring their own foods & snack to save money on the journey, therefore made this man even more struggle to make a decent income (that he said around $500,000 dong = $25 USD per month) to support his family, when both his wife also sell hum-bow during the day and him with night shift.
click on the picture to see a larger sizeBefore getting back to our bus when the bus driver started the engine and waiting, I told him that I was not feeling hungry even though his steaming hum-bow was looking very tempting good, but I gave him some money with hope that it could help his family for a few days and wished him luck. The man was stunt and still hold money in his hand while standing still watching our bus slowly making back to highway. I thought about my current situation - that after this trip, I would officially become jobless until God know when, but compare to him or perhaps even billion more people on this earth, I know I am more lucky and was blessed with what I got.
It's even more important to know that with all of the materials thing or perhaps with a better health that I currently possessed, there is one treasure that God has given to me that no one can take it away: it's the wisdom to know that God's love is always there for me, and for me to share it while I am still wandering around this earth. For now, I just pray that we will be safely at home soon in Saigon and to see my dad, since I talk to mom the other day that he was getting sick soon after we left.
(next: Back to Saigon)
It's even more important to know that with all of the materials thing or perhaps with a better health that I currently possessed, there is one treasure that God has given to me that no one can take it away: it's the wisdom to know that God's love is always there for me, and for me to share it while I am still wandering around this earth. For now, I just pray that we will be safely at home soon in Saigon and to see my dad, since I talk to mom the other day that he was getting sick soon after we left.
(next: Back to Saigon)
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