I knew things were off. I had a bad feeling about this from the moment we set foot in that cafe. Now we’ve been taken down the road to a dusty restaurant by this weird Vietnamese guy in an orange jacket.
We’ve bandaged Andreas up. He crashed his motorbike in the mud after giving it too much gas through a mud trail. We’ve just got back on track after a surprise 40 KM down a dead-end road. The scenery was spectacular, but we were running behind schedule.
Some things know no language. The vibe here continued to get weirder. The man in the orange jacket keeps coming up to us and doing a three with his fingers, and then an X with his forearms. We shrug, and look at each other annoyed. It’s either this, or he keeps talking at us in Vietnamese and laughing. It’s like an infinite jest. We wait patiently for the food, which was taking forever. I’m getting more sketched out by the minute.
Andreas didn’t help the situation. His Vietnam flag shirt was covered in mud, and it kept running into his wound. “Lose the shirt” says Nurse Kevin. Andreas pops off his Vietnam flag shirt and throws it on the ground. He then crumples it up and shoves it in his luggage rack. I don’t think they liked that.
“Are you from America?” asks our waitress. “Canada, Canada, England, Sweden” I say to her, pointing at the respective group members. She nods and the Vietnamese chatter continues around the restaurant. The group of strange men continue to talk about us in Vietnamese, but we hear “Canada, Canada” thrown around. She must have communicated that to them. It’s a little less hostile feeling, but still quite off.
David’s fixing Andreas’ front brake lever with 1,000,000 zip-ties while the rest of us are left waiting for the food. These Vietnamese guys are watching me write this story in my journal in amazement. I think they’re illiterate or something. I wrote that word for word while they were reading it. My stomach grumbles–we haven’t eaten all day.
Finally, the food is finished. The waitress sets it up in the back of the restaurant, about 30 feet inside the business. We were seated out in the front beside the road–close to the bikes. How strange that she wants us to eat so far away–is it because we’re white?
The fried rice looks really good. We dig into our meal and discuss how weird a vibe we are getting from this place. “Some people are just racist towards white people” says one of the group members. As we begin to enjoy our peace, the orange jacketed man shows up at our table, and does the three with his fingers and an X with his forearms again. We all shrug and then ignore him completely. Whatever it was he was trying to tell us we had no idea, and we were beginning to lose our patience.
The meal was tasty, and we ate it greedily. Kevin isn’t using his chopsticks like the rest of us. Oh great, now this skinny old man wearing some sort of Vietnam War era fatigues is up at our table doing the three and an X in a hostile fashion. Maybe it’s our orange friends dad. Then he’s doing some boxing pantomime shit. What in the hell do they want? We all look at each other and wonder what the fuck is wrong with this town. Did they spray agent orange near this area?
We theorize that maybe the three meant three of us, and that the X was two crossed chopsticks. Maybe he wanted us all to use chopsticks and eat properly. Perhaps that’s why they sat us in the back. He fucked off once Kevin started using his chopsticks, and we all wonder if we’ve cracked the secret code.
“Do you think they sat us back here so they can rob our bikes?” I say. David’s already finished his food, so he gets up to check on the bikes while we continue to eat. Something doesn’t feel right–I’m sketched out.
So now David’s stuck talking to the Vietnamese guys again–I guess that means all of our bags are still there. David’s got his shirt off, and he’s showing off his big muscles to these fascinated Vietnamese men. Classic. We’ve finished eating and want to exit this sketchy place.
Our waitress sits down at our table and sits across from me. She glances over her shoulder to the men seated outside distracted by David’s muscles. She starts talking to us in slow soft-spoken broken English.
“They want 300,000” she says timidly.
“For the food?” I reply
“No, those men, separate from us.” she says quietly.
We all burst out laughing.
“300,000 for what!?” We say incredulously.
“…….”
She was speechless, but that worried look on her face said it all. This is something that knows no language barrier–a woman’s intuition. It was clear as day now, these men were trying to rob us! The three and the X made sense now. 300,000! Time slows a little bit as adrenaline enters my bloodstream. We had to get the fuck out of here.
The other waitress brings over a stack of money to make change with and our waitress starts taking our money very discreetly so that we can make a quick exit and escape these bandits. I’m cash poor and need Kevin to pay for me, so I’m saying “Let’s go, let’s pay and the get fuck outta here!”. Kevin’s digging in his wallet thinking hmm I thought I had another 500,000 in here and sorting bills and shit and I’m like “Fuck man, just give her the 200,000 and let’s fucking go!”.
David’s off in the front part still, about 30 feet away, still flexing his muscles and posing. The old Vietnam veteran who wanted to box David is feeling up his muscles. I was yelling “Yo! Get over here!” but he ignores me. Finally after we’re all like waving him in he gets the message and returns to us–oblivious to the revelations made at the table.
“We need to get the fuck out here now.”
“Why? Why?”
“Those guys want 300 from us, we gotta leave”
“300 for what?” he says, looking over at them.
“I don’t know man, but it’s a bad situation, we need to get on our bikes and get the fuck out of here.”
He gets the seriousness of my demeanor and we all stand up, grab our helmets, and head straight for the bikes.
We walk the 30 feet, B-lining it to our bikes parked out front. I throw the keys in the ignition and saddle up. Andreas is saying he wants to fix his luggage but I’m already on the bike saying “Fuck it, let’s go, let’s go.”
I start my bike up and so does David. He’s the first out the gate, bombing it down the road. The Vietnamese guys notice and they start yelling at us. All I can think is go, go go! I’m the second one down the road, looking behind me to make sure we all got out. I see that familiar Vietnamese flag shirt, Andreas is right behind me.
Kevin’s bike doesn’t start, and Agent Orange is in front of his bike now. He does the three and the X again, and then grabs his ignition key so that he can’t turn the bike on. He yanks the keys out of the bike, but Kevin grabs his arm. As we’re hightailing it back to rescue Kevin, another Vietnamese man appears and shoves Agent Orange off of Kevin, and says “Go! Go!”
“Kevin! Let’s go! Let’s Go! Let’s fucking go!” I’m yelling. He takes off out of there and makes it towards us–he’s escaped! I whip the bike around and we gun it full throttle down QL32. I pass the bend and David is turning his bike around to check on us. “Go! Go! Go! Go!” I yell, throwing my arm forward with each go. He whips around and we tear ass out of there for 10 kilometers.
We stop on the side of the road and all have a what the fuck just happened moment. Afterwards, we keep going and stop at a lookout tower to reflect on the situation over a beautiful view of terraced rice fields.
What a day.
