“Not so good.”
-a man participating in the marathon after we asked him how it was going
Yeah, you read that right. Marathon. In these mountains. Running. Uphill. Running. Downhill. Mud. Catastrophe.
Personally, as an avid Non-Runner, I hate the idea. But I’m generally weak and there are many people in this world who are stronger than I am, so really, if you have the ability to do That Kind of Running, I support you. I’m suspicious, but I support you.
There were a lot of people doing it too. Some were smiling and were very friendly. Some looked like how I felt. One guy was blasting a Martin Garrix song (you know, the one you never expected to hear after high school homecoming finished, let alone on a rural mountain in the middle of Vietnam). So it was really the whole spectrum of human emotion. But there was definitely a sense of solidarity between us, like finals week.
Some people even told us that we were going the wrong way, which was funny and also very kind of them to assume that we could do any sort of running on this mountain.
And then Lily told us that this was an annual thing and they have different distances they can run. The longest of which is 100 kilometers.
100 Kilometers.
100
Kilometers.
One hundred.
Kilometers.
That’s 62 whole ass miles.
Are you kidding me? I couldn’t even look them in the eye after I found that out. They’re too powerful. We’re walking 26 miles over three days. That’s a regular marathon. And again, walking.
But now we’re off the road for lunch and away from the marathoners, so I don’t have to feel directly inferior anymore. The lunch is also at another family’s home. This one is next to a river and has lots of little kids and ducklings running around. A Big Truck just drove past and all the kids ran out of the house to watch it go by. I’m glad that childhood awe at service vehicles is universal.
The House we’re eating at also doubles as a kind of general store and has a few shelves of goods for the weary traveler to peruse. I was in desperate need of water, so I scoured the shelves and found a lone, dusty bottle. And next to the bottle was a white box filled to the brim with Super Glue.
Now, why am I telling you this? Other than the fact that I like to talk about stupid shit I see everyday?
I figured that any shoes I brought on this trek would be lightweight destroyed afterwards, so I packed a pair I’ve had since middle school (big ass feet since day 1) as I was going to get rid of them anyways. But I think my shoes knew it was their last rodeo and decided to get their final revenge by literally falling apart at the seams. Lily tried working some of her mountain knowledge on them by tying a plant around them but the whole front had basically come unglued and the sole was ready to separate from the rest of the shoe.
So finding super glue on that mountain was like finding me at the gym. (Although, upon review, super glue is probably one of the most useful things you can have out there. They build a lot of stuff by hand and that kind of glue is probably a life saver.)
I also feel like I need to non-sequitur and talk about Lily and how capable she is for a sec. Because seriously. She knows so much about everything on the mountain. She made us plant crowns out of ferns and flowers. She knows which plants kill you. She makes her own clothes. She’s paying for two people to go to college in the city. And she’s so friendly. And she’s 22, which, what have I done with my life?
And also, another semi-non-sequitur, but it’s about something that Lily said so, related.
Yesterday, she said that we were lucky it wasn’t foggy because if it was, we wouldn’t be able to see five feet in front of us.
We experienced that today. There’s something to be said about knowing that you’re walking through a huge valley with lots of mountains and rice paddies and not be able to see any of it. I distinctly remember looking at a tree that was very clear, but just beyond it was a wall of white, like someone had done some dedicated photoshop work to remove the background.
It wasn’t always like that though. Sometimes it was partially cloudy and we were eye level with it as it rolled between the mountains, which was rad.
–
We made it to the home stay.
Right now, I’m doing it old school right now (well not right now right now, but when I was writing initially) and handwriting this entry as my phone is completely dead and I’m too tired to get up and hunt down a electrical socket. Plus, my body has basically calcified and become one with this chair. I will be a fixture on this mountain that they will tell stories about. People do that about vaguely people shaped things, right?
If I do end up permanently in this spot for the rest of all eternity, at least I’ll have a pretty solid view. The home stay host’s kids are sitting on the fence, sharing a fruit and looking out over the land.
I’ve definitely been guilty of not appreciating the views of places I’ve lived before, so I wonder if the people who live here wake up, look outside and go “oh? A misty Mountain View with sun light coming down and lighting up the fog, making everything look like it’s dusted in gold? Who cares?” But people here seem very mindful of being alive, so they probably take the time to take it all in.
Lily is deeply appreciative of her life out in the mountains. She told us that she knows it is a simple life, but the chaos of being in the city is way too much for her. I can see it. Ha Noi is very loud, there are cars and motorbikes everywhere and honking is used more as a “hello I’m on your right” (and a lot more) than the “screw you” that I’m used to.
One thing that is semi alarming though (for my city bitch ass who has never really had to confront the concept that the cute pigs we keep seeing = pork) is that sometimes you hear squealing and then silence. It’s unsettling, but it also gave us the really awesome line of, “as I was saying, before the pig died…”, delivered by Kelly.
But anyways. After lunch-
Oh my god wait.
They have garlic fries again.
It doesn’t get any better than fries at golden hour on a mountain that took blood, sweat, and tears to get up. I wonder if they have a formula to make Americans happy and if it solely revolves around garlic fries.
Anyways, I don’t need to wax poetical about the fries again. We did other things. Today was a little rough on the bod. The initial descent was very slippery this morning and we all fell about twenty times each. But my most impressive fall was when we got out of the forest and I thought we were clear. And then I fell walking on some concrete, which is arguably the terrain I’m the most familiar with. I even bled (remember, blood, sweat, and metaphorical tears for my ego) a little bit, which makes it more pathetic.
Besides that though, today was very cool. After lunch we took a short cut through the rice paddies. Which, objectively is awesome. Walking through the plants with the rest of the fields spread out in front of you is incredible. But everyone in this valley farms for themselves and their family. So if you fall in, you’re directly impacting someone’s food source. I don’t want to be that bitch, you know?
We walked through some of the fields yesterday, but they had already been harvested, so it was low risk, like a tutorial level. And this was the real thing. These rice paddies are contained with mud barriers to keep them separate. They’re about 5 or 6 inches across. This is what we walked on. Historically, I don’t have a good track record with doing things people tell me to do. Not on purpose, but it usually just happens so I was very concerned. But me (and the rice paddies) made it out unscathed.
And then, at the bottom of this valley is a river. We’ve crossed rivers before, but this one was deep in the Earth and there were no rocks. Luckily there was a bridge. It looked like something straight out of Indiana Jones(more in vibe than physical similarities, but it was made out of bamboo and looked like a really big version of the bridge I made out of tongue depressors for science class in 7th grade), but a bridge none the less.
Lily even said that we should go one at a time, which added to that zest. It ended up being fine, which was expected. But the way it bobbed as I walked across kept it spicy.
I don’t know. There’s a lot to look at beyond the rice paddies and a lot to talk about but dinner is now and honestly I’m too tired. I hope there’s chili sauce.
Comments