24 April 2011

SpiceRoads Cycling Tour – Day 7
Khe Sanh to A Luoi (70 Km)

Yesterday in my cycling despair I asked for a right hand turn.  Today, I got what I asked for.  After a 14 kilometer descent down a windy, scenic and slightly congested highway, we turned right.  Right across a bridge, right onto the type of road we’ve been longing for since the early and sporadic teasers of such on our trip.  The road went up and down and all around and nary a big truck in sight.  Exactly how a cycle touring road should be.

What we come to see on roads like these, as we weave our way through relatively remote villages, is that the people of Vietnam work very hard for very little.  Where we in the States would accomplish a physical task with the aid of a machine – say a backhoe or a rototiller or a hydraulic winch – the villagers in Vietnam are using only simple tools, driven by their own muscles.  A hoe to till the field.  A shovel to dig a pit.  A rope and pulley and brute strength to raise that bucket of bricks to the top of the bamboo scaffolding.  I wouldn’t last a day doing what they do.  And for all that labor, the average income in Vietnam in 2010 was only $1200 USD a year, or $100 a month.  Looking at the conditions out here in these villages, I would imagine that these folk don’t fully share in that same slice of pie.  But would you know it from the demeanor of the children?  Not today, not out here.  We may look at them and say to ourselves, Wow, these kids have nothing, but inside themselves, I suspect that may have more than most.