9-5-2012 Setbacks and a Silver Lining

There will always be setbacks in traveling. But when they hit, it's hard to have been prepared. Even harder to be easy going about it. When your whole life for the next month or few months is on your back, it's a bit of a disaster if anything happens.

After an almost 30 hour bus ride through the night and the rain, our bags underneath the bus got soaked. Luckily not mine as much, but Kathleen and Julia's were spake through. They had to send everything to the cleaners. After our days in Hoi An and the amazing time we had, it was a difficult pill to swallow.

The upside to sewage bags was a nighttime ride through rural, farm Vietnam on a top bunk with no safety guard, reading a book in a pouring rain lightning storm. Really not a bad way to spend the night.

After the rough start to the day, we had some of the best food. Just what we needed, too. We found a random place on the corner of a busy intersection, the seats were all on the sidewalk- arms length from the busy evening traffic. Small, short plastic tables and even smaller chairs you'd buy for a children's party. Not the most comfortable, but the food looked amazing. How it worked was there was a whole table piled with different skewers of fish, meat, vegetables, meat wrapped in vegetables, vegetables stuffed with meat, everything. We chose beef wrapped mushrooms, beef wrapped lettuce, bacon wrapped peppers, beef and tomatoes and zucchini, some salmon, some marinated chicken, and possibly some marinated pork. You put them in a little basket, bring it to the workers, they cook the skewers for us, bring over a little stove type contraption and put the cooked skewers on the heater to keep them warm. We also got baguettes that they grilled with a honey glaze and cut for us so we could make little sandwiches with the meat and vegetables. It was incredible. We feasted. Such a cool atmosphere too, traffic buzzing all around, meat sizzling at the table, the rush of life infiltrating you, juxtaposing. A calm, enjoyable dinner with the buzz and hum and rush of lights and traffic and speed on pavement. Something you'd never see back home. Beer, good conversation, amazing food, great company. Silver lining.