Hitchhiking in Vietnam

I remember well my first time on the Vietnamese track. I was returning to Hanoi from Halong Bay. An employee of the hostel where I spent the night explained to me how to get to Hanoi, although I did not ask him about it. According to him, I needed to get on the bus to get to the place where you can take the bus ... I did easier: I left the hostel, walked 500 meters along the road to a convenient platform and stopped the car. The driver was driving to some island and drove me only five kilometers to the turn, but these were significant kilometers: they made me understand that hitchhiking in Vietnam is possible, that there are friendly people on the highway and I'm lucky enough to meet them . That day a bus picked me up and drove me to Hanoi for free. In five hours I drove only about 200 kilometers, despite the fact that I practically did not have to stand by. Hitchhiking in Vietnam was slow.

Traveling across the country from north to south was also especially interesting because I was moving from the rainy season to the dry and clear weather. Dull and dirty roads, gray landscapes outside the window, wet concrete boxes of village houses, water and dampness - all this at some point left and was replaced by warm, clear blue sky, views of the sea and green rice fields. The change was so joyful and pleasant that it remained in my memory one of the most vivid moments of the trip.

Women weave Vietnamese hats in a cafe by the road

Farmhouse and rice field

View in one of the towns in the rainy zone

Wet track in the north of Vietnam

The view from the car window in the north of Vietnam. Perhaps this is a cemetery

View from a car window in the north of Vietnam

Bright colorful posters and dull gray reality. North Vietnam

Sea outside the window

View from the window. South of Vietnam

There are, of course, a little sad memories. Cars on the Vietnamese tracks, let's say, are not very many. Therefore, it took a long time to wait for the right car. This occupation is especially unpleasant in the rainy zone, when you walk in your clothes soaked wet and sneakers along a deserted road along which cars occasionally pass, and even they do not want to take you with them.
The people in the cars were different. Someone drove to a nearby town for personal business, someone traveled between the nearest towns to work, but all the drivers were friendly and friendly.

I especially remember the Vietnamese at the age who was traveling from the city of Vinh in a car with a driver. The Vietnamese learned that I was from Russia and began to try to speak Russian with me using the translator on the phone. Then he turned on the Russian lesson, probably wanting to show me that he was going to study Russian or was already studying. We listened to the recording. For half an hour, the presenter of the audio lesson taught his listeners to say hello, repeating "hello" dozens of times. Probably, all my life I will remember the sound of this record: "Hello. Hello, friends. Hello, Arkady Borisovich." Arkady Borisovich from an audio lesson.

Halfway to the town, the Vietnamese offered to call in a restaurant for lunch and asked what I prefer in food. I said that in Vietnam I want to eat only Vietnamese traditional food. He gestured that he understood and everything would be at the highest Vietnamese level. Indeed, we came to a pretty good restaurant, not a cheap eatery. The waiters bustled around us, brought us fresh greens on a plate, heads of garlic, small hot peppers and vinegar sauce. Everyone was given a small cup in which they were supposed to crush and mix garlic, pepper and herb in the desired proportions and then use as seasoning. For a snack, they brought us soup made of small bony fish and leaves, a saucer with anchovies and ... burnt rice. Yes Yes! Imagine that you heated boiled rice in a pan and forgot about it. It burned on one side and stuck together in a sort of cake. This is the kind of cake we were brought to in a good Vietnamese restaurant. We gnawed dry burnt rice and tough anchovies while waiting for the main course. It turned out to be ... In fact, it was not immediately clear what it was, since it was littered with a pile of stewed salad leaves and some other tops. A small tile was placed on the table, a fire was lit, a dish was solemnly hoisted on it. My Vietnamese comrades did not particularly appreciate the solemnity of the dinner ceremony: they deliberately rummaged in the leaves, dug up a large fish lying on the whole dish, picked it with forks and said something to the waiters. They dragged the entire structure into the bowels of the kitchen and returned with fish cut into pieces, but already without tiles. Less pathetic, but it’s more convenient to eat. It was exclusively a fish dinner. So my Vietnamese comrades apparently wanted to tell me that fish in Vietnam is a traditional dish.

The best passing trucks in Vietnam, I consider truckers. Cars in this country drive slowly, because the roads here are not very good, so I drove a little during the day, about 300 kilometers. I had to stop overnight in some town, and in the morning get out onto the track again. It took time and effort. Truckers can go day and night, replacing each other. So, if you are fortunate enough to get hooked by truckers traveling to your destination, you can relax and enjoy the road without worrying about mileage and overnight. The only inconvenience is that you have to sleep in a sitting position in an armchair.

Truckers invited me to eat. In the evening we stopped at a small roadside eatery. One room of a small concrete box was intended for visitors, and the owners of the eatery themselves lived in another. Through the opening in the wall I saw their simple room with a bed and a TV. We were fed noodle soup and fish. Quail eggs went to the soup for a snack. A cup with them was on the table, and two small children were spinning nearby, waiting for us to eat all the eggs to bring us more. It amused them.

The next morning we arrived at a rather large street cafe, where the drivers made a real feast as breakfast! We were brought ingredients already familiar to me for seasoning: herbs, garlic, pepper, vinegar sauce. Then on the table were thin dry cakes. Soon, other dishes began to appear: liquid porridge-soup made from rice, boiled meat and liver, cut into slices, small cold noodles, pressed into flat cakes and pancakes made from translucent dough, which are also called “rice paper”.

Truckers have shown how to properly eat all this: you need to wrap meat, liver, noodles and greens in “rice paper”, twist the “paper” into a tube, dip a tube into the sauce - and the dish is ready! Truckers carefully watched so that I did not forget to try anything, even put me meat on a plate. I think these were the most sincere people I met in Vietnam. They took me to Nha Trang, and there our paths diverged. I wish I would never see them again. I would have enjoyed treating them with Russian food and driving along bumpy Russian roads.

Truckers

Dinner at a roadside cafe: noodle soup and quail eggs

Vietnamese trucker and his truck

Ingredients for seasoning: in vinegar sauce you need to add pepper, heads of garlic, herbs, crush everything and mix

Dry cake

Cold noodles, meat, soup

Translucent pancakes or "rice paper"

Although these guys were not the only kind people I met in Vietnam. If you recall, I came across quite a lot of good people. The hitchhiking accurately showed that, despite all its tourism and commercialization, Vietnam remains a country where you can meet, talk and even make friends with real people.