Technically it wasn’t my fault, although I did quote Robert Frost when I sensed they were swaying. In their silence, those who did not dissent, agreed, and as we sat on the side of the road debating the better choice, I quoted the poem. “Two roads diverged in a wood,” I said, and Generous picked it up from there: “And I, I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.”
It was decided. Instead of heading back to Da Lat and finding the main road which would lead us easily to lake Lak, we chose the road that “wanted wear;” the one we thought would lead us the scenic way to the same place.” Tis the nature of the adventure,” I said enthusiastically, as I so often do. Jessie narrowed her eyes, annoyed. (‘Tis the nature of our relationship.)
Three hours later and having gone less kilometers than that, I emerged frantic from the jutting rock path entering the same pavement I had only recently exited. It was relief that filled me when my wheels squeezed the paved road and my engine stopped coughing as loudly. Oil dripped in my wake– my bike had suffered a hard blow. I needed a mechanic.
I tried to explain all this to Enri that night– about the cutting rock roads, the deep water holes, the thin, rickety bridge, the decision to turn around and then the suctioning mud that eventually led to my ruin– but with his limited English, he couldn’t understand. Instead he simply put his finger up for me to stop talking as his phone rang a country tune, interrupting all conversation. It rang about every two minutes, plucking high notes on a synthetic guitar. He’d answer and pretend not to hear the person on the other line. Holding the phone out, he’d look at it questioningly then decide it must be broken and put it away, continuing the conversation.
Enri is the brother of Joseph and Joseph, having met us while my bike was being repaired, invited us to his house for wine. Throughout the night, Enri continued ignoring his wife’s calls as his young neice poured water into a jug filled with fermented root. She handed the long straw made of thin bamboo and a plastic tube to me. Its taste was sweet and bitter, the color of honey and once consumed, made your body temperature rise immediately.
“I’m sorry,” said Enri after putting his phone back into his pocket. “But we talk about me now. How do you like Vietnam? America is my paradise.” This surprised me less when I discovered his sister worked for the US army during the war (and now lives in North Carolina). Later, when I tried to speak to him in what little of the language I know, he said his tribe does not speak Vietnamese.
As Ri began to explain how his tribe is a minority to Vietnam, his brother took out their Latin Bible and began singing Spiriti Sancti while Generous, quite sincerely, tried to sing along, mouthing the notes a half step too late and bending an avid ear to the singing man. Looking on, Mekong’s mouth got wider as he listened to Generous’ poor attempt. “Whhot is he doing?”
An hour later, we were drunk dancing to twist and shout and Mekong was debating whether to take the neice up on her advances. In my attempt to explain, somewhat belligerently, how that would not be a good way to thank the family for their hospitality, Generous stepped in, called Mekong a twat and told me if I were a man he’d hit me in the face and we all fell asleep.
Now, there are many ways to wake up after a heavy night of drinking. Sometimes it’s with a sore head, a heavy tongue, a physical hangover or a moral one. But this wakeup was much different. Enri walked in, short and confident and said, “Good morning. I’ve lost my motorbike and I’ve lost my wife.” As we sought responses fresh from sleep, his attention quickly turned. “Oh! Come see,” he said motioning for me to come out to the porch. “There they are.” I looked out onto the light blue lake that stood a stark contrast to their bright green coffee plants, bushy on the bluff. As I watched the two water buffalo slowly cross– their backs and horns reflecting white in the early morning sunlight–I wondered about his wife.
“Before you go, we get fresh water.” Ri insisted. “Just a short kilometer for fresh water.” We agreed and stopped at a cafe along the road (where Ri rightly speculated he had left his bike) and a waitress popped the caps off four Pepsi’s. Ri motioned for us to drink.
“Fresh wata!?” said Mekong. “Oh, you ah a legend!”
Ignoring the statement, Ri revisited the matter of his wife leaving him. “If she divorces me, I will take my water buffalo and go live in the hills.” I noticed him considering this possibility I couldn’t ignore the slight glimmer of hope in his eyes.
Two ignored phone calls, three hangovers of a higher evolutionary order and four “fresh waters” later, we hit the road that only yesterday had led us to this lovely family. Our next immediate destination wasn’t anything epic though. And as a jackhammer crumbled the sidewalk outside, it wasn’t particularly choice either. But as destinations so often are, our lunch spot was misleading as to what it actually contained. It was over lunch while scanning a copy of Lonely Planet when we realized where the road less traveled had truly taken us the night before.
“…While french-colonial rule recognized the Montagnards as a separate community,” Generous read aloud, “South Vietnam… attempted to assimilate them through… abolishing tribal schools and courts, prohibiting the construction of stilt houses and appropriating their land….In the 1960s the tribes were courted as US allies against North Vietnam and were trained CIA and US Special Forces.”
We spent the night with the Montagnards.
