Country Hospitality and Memorial to an Atrocity

Despite the hard plank bed, I sleep through the night like a baby. At six o'clock in the morning, I wake up to the chorus of crowing roosters outside. For a second, I don't remember where I am. But the familiar voices of Chuong and Thu talking outside immediately brings yesterday's events back to me. Feeling refreshed, I roll out of bed.

The rain has stopped, the sky is still overcast. I walk outside and see Chuong, his mother, and Thu already tending to their livestock. "Xin Chao!" I say to the three of them. "Good morning," Chuong replies in English. "Did you sleep well?" he asks. "Like a baby," I assure him.

I ask to use their outhouse. By the time I come back, breakfast is already sitting on the table in the living room. We sit down for a delicious meal of chicken rice porridge. Then it is time to say good bye to Chuong's mother. At this point, I am kicking myself for not having brought anything to give her as a token of gratitude. As I say good bye, I try to give her some money as a way to say thank you. She steadfastly refuses to take it, as do Chuong and Thu. The only thing they want is for me to take a few snap shots of them and send them the pictures. I happily oblige. After a cup of coffee with Chuong and Thu, I say good bye to everyone at Chuong's cousin's shop and ride towards My Lai. My sneakers are still soggy from yesterday's rain, so I strap them to the rear rack and ride in my thongs.

As I ride slowly down the road, I replay in my head the events that happened in the last fifteen hours: the chance encounter, the halting conversation, the invitation, the feast, a night in the humble house... I am astonished by these people's generosity. It is clear that, although not mired in wrenching poverty by local standards, they are by no means rich. Yet they go out of their way to show a foreigner they barely know the kind of hospitality no amount of money can buy. It is the kind of hospitality to which even a free stay at the most luxurious five-star resort would pale in comparison. Did I take a huge risk by accepting their invitation to their home? Sure! But if I were averse to risk-taking, I would not even have left home in the first place. And maybe "never take candy from strangers" is not such a hard and fast rule after all. In fact, candy from strangers tastes extra sweet.

With this going through my head, I ride through a few small villages. The road is a mix of decaying paved surface and compacted dirt road. I slow down and follow the somewhat smooth trails on the road formed by countless wheels that have gone by before.

At noon, I reach the village of My Lai, site of the 1968 massacre of hundreds of civilians, mostly women and children, by American soldiers. The village looks like any ordinary Vietnamese village save for the memorial and museum built at the original site of the massacre. I park my bike and walk in to the museum. A simple but effective exhibit recounts the bloody morning of March 16, 1968. Walking past graphic photographs of the lifeless bodies of the elderly, men, women, children, and babies strewn across fields and roads, crude models of US soldiers firing at civilians, and reading about the cover-up that happened afterwards, I can't help but think of what is going on right now in Iraq. I desperately hope that we will not one day learn about a My Lai of Iraq. I come out of the museum and walk around the memorial, part of which consists of foundations of houses razed that morning. The frame and one wall of a burned house stands in front of a concrete statue, memorializing the horrors the villagers faced that day.

For the rest of the day, My Lai weighs heavy on my mind. I ride out of the village and the road rejoins Highway 1. I ride slowly, thinking about the emotional up and down I experienced today. Time passes by as the wheels roll past one town after another. In the late afternoon, I decide to stop at the drab town of Duc Pho for the night.

Stats:
Distance: 87.6 km
Time: 4h 16m
Average speed: 20.4 kmph
Odometer: 791.6 km