Taking the long way home .... Bai Xep, Tin & the Bulls, and Tam's house & family

5:30
Is that a HANGOVER I am feeling ?  Oh, right.  I drank beer last night.

6:30
Even the hair-of-the-dog treatment does not seem to be working at first .....

but by 8:15 I am dancing in my room to this ....LOL

Then the phone rings.....it's Tam's daughter...who lives close to Bai Xep, where I am going in one hour....  I promise to call her again in about 2-3 hours to get directions to find them.

TET MANIA, I love it ;-)

Tin is already waiting when I call him afterwards.... strange for a guy that usually has trouble getting out of bed at 9:00.  But I will find out later why he seems stressed.  So I rush towards yet another unknown place....

I tried to take a picture of these white birds while they were walking around the cows.... but for some reason they are VERY people shy (maybe they taste good?) and they ALL fly to a safe distance as soon as I stopped the scooter.

I get a message from Tin along the way asking where I am.... HOW THE HELL am I supposed to know? It's not like they have village name signs around here, LOL.
I finally reach this gate and am not sure which way to go.... so I call Tin and send him the picture. He's on his way.

I'm only waiting here for maybe 8 minutes before 10 in the morning but I'm starting to SWEAT.  It's HOT!

Tin arrives and we head through the gate.  Since he is ahead, I am unable to prevent him from paying my entrance fee as well (this kid only makes 6 Million Dong per month) and we drive into the parking lot.   Again I notice that he is stressed .....  Time to walk up the first hill... I notice that my legs are still sluggish from yesterday's beer.
It's TET.  The Vietnamese travel and enjoy the shocking beauty of their country.

The view North

The view South.... out next destination at the horizon

Time to go down again, hop on the scooters and follow a narrow sand track to the southern hill. 

The hill where we just came from in the top left

Tin's home village is right behind us and this is the place he comes to when he wants to find peace.

The reason he is stressed today is that he is heading back to My Beach to resume his role of 'manager' (really work slave for all things to be done).  He is afraid of arriving late and upsetting 'the boss'.   Not only does that indicate the Vietnamese work ethics but it also shows that he is still young and still has to gain insight and confidence into his own qualities and value.

There are cows up here

He wants to show me something.... 
.... but only seconds later he will be RUNNING AWAY from the bull as fast as he can.

The feeling is mutual.  The right front foot is doing what bulls do before they charge, LOL.

While we are up here, another bovine of undetermined gender starts charging Tin. He quickly darts away but I, in a slightly insane move, step towards the rapidly approaching hunk of meat, point at it with my hand, and shout "FUCK OFF COW".  And that works, LOL

I tell Tin to leave and drive to his work so that he doesn't have to worry any longer.  He does but drives very slowly and waits repeatedly to make sure that I find my way out of here.  Sweet.

After a few minutes in the shade of a tree, I take the quickest route to Highway AH1....I stop at a gas station and I call Lyn.... but how I am supposed to know what that place where I am is called, LOL.
I approach the Viets where I just bought beer & smokes with my phone in hand..
Lam on, ban noi voi co ay.  Toi khong biet toi o dau.   I'm sure it's gibberish, but it gets the job done, LOL.

"Drive 5 km down the road that way" the Viets tell me... in Vietnamese naturally.

I do as I was told..... and there is NOTHING HERE either .... I'm ready to give up but Lyn on the phone tells me that her mother REALLY wants to see me (apparently, when her phone rang early this morning, Tam jumped up and shouted Quistian!!! ;-) ..... OK, same procedure as above with letting Vietnamese talk on the phone.
5 minutes later, two Vietnamese on a scooter indistinguishable from all the others stop at my spot along the highway.  The woman gets off the back and says in German "Ich bin die Lyn". I follow them to Tam's house..... a narrow dirt road.... roosters maybe a meter from my scooter.

And from the moment I see Tam, I am SO HAPPY that I made it.  So is she ...

Lyn tells me her mother's first name, Xuan, which apparently she herself is not allowed to address her mother.  Neither are the other sisters, that's why B always calls her Tam (#8).  This society has an intricate web of WEIRD but astonishingly beautiful customs woven into it and I'm only looking at the overall big pattern right now...

I MUST eat and I MUST drink.... I have to defend myself against the onslaught of hospitality because they keep bringing MORE and MORE.

All of a sudden, there is THAT NOISE.   They see me turning my torso and head to all 4 compass directions because I want to see from which direction THE TRAIN is coming that by the sounds of it is just about to barrel right over me.

They just laugh.  OMG, they go through this 10-20 times a day ????

Leaving is complicated.   I MUST take a can of beer and a dragon fruit with me!  Apparently NOT taking anything would be an insult...

I finally manage to break free (NO, I would love to stay with these people all day, but they are SO HOSPITABLE, staying too long would abuse that because they simply would NOT stop bringing me things) and head towards BBCT.

The Bamboo Bridge ;-)

A nice surprise in Song Cau.  My Internet-cafe-come-Booze-Store has another 4 bottles of that fabulously intoxicating Chilean wine... 

Having been hot all day, I don't waste any time jumping into the ocean.

After the last two days, the difference in joie de vivre is overwhelming and the level is underwhelming.... at least Ti/n is still there to provide a cheery person to talk to.  What a darling.... and he himself has come to the conclusion that BBCT is, in his own English words, "not the right environment for me".  Honesty, integrity, and the trust he puts in me require me to tell him that I fully concur.

I guess it doesn't really matter whether you or I believe in reincarnation.  Because in contrast to fanatic Christianity, which constantly waves the big threatening stick of the guy with the horns at non-believers (you will NOT go to heaven if you do NOT believe in HIM !), the religions that reincarnation is part of don't have to wave the big stick.  Your behaviour in this life determines who you will be in the next.  But the sentence / reward is not forever... and you'll just be tortured / rewarded by your fellow souls..

But I am SERIOUSLY digressing here...  what I am TRYING to say is that the TET routine of the last few days made me realize something..... For a big white guy, I fit in here TOO well..... and the enthusiasm extended towards me by a lot of people seems to support this crazy idea: .... if reincarnation really exists .... then I must have been a Vietnamese person in a previous life !