Kilometers Biked Today: 166, Hours in the saddle: 6
We started off the morning by heading to the market in Sin Ho. Sin Ho is a small city of 8500, though those numbers likely take into account the villagers in the outskirts of the town. The market itself is a daily-run affair that has basics like meat, rice, fruits, and vegetables. However, there are also clothes, trinkets, cell phones, and toys available. It seemed to be stocked with a lot of junk from China, but was still a nice experience. We even had the fun opportunity to see a slaughtered dog on the butcher’s table for sale. Why Shara didn’t take that picture, I’m not exactly sure...sarcasm certainly intended. On the way back to the hotel from the market, we took a picture of some villagers coming in from the hills to sell some of their crops. The locals greeted us with curiosity, chatter, and friendliness. One older man even grabbed Bryceson’s hand (and inner thigh, strangely) and mine (just hand, though) as he passed us.
The ride out of Sin Ho to Chan Neua passed quickly in the crisp mountain air. We covered the 40 or so kilometers in around an hour with no incidents. The Lonely Planet travel guide call these hills, “roller coasters,” but I’m not so sure of that. At 40 kph, they aren’t exactly roller coasteresque, but are a lot of fun.
After grabbing a drink in Chan Neua, we pushed on to Muong Lay for lunch. Between Chan Neua and Muong Lay is a newly constructed reservoir, actually it is still under construction. We took quite a few photos of the construction along the route, and had to slow our speed a bit, as there were quite a few construction crews working along the road. Due to the slash-and-burn farming that is taking place in the hills of Vietnam, there are also quite a few landslides making the trip adventurous in a few spots.
While leaving Chan Neua, Shara had a bit of an embarrassing moment getting her bike ready to leave. You’ll have to ask her about that one...I’ll say no more. It was entertaining for her and the locals who were watching.
Muong Lay is the former provincial capital formerly known as Lai Chau- yes, the same Lai Chau we traveled through yesterday. We asked our guide what happened there and discovered that the government moved quite a few of the villagers off of their land in order to build the dam. Good news (again, sarcasm intended), the government paid the people for their land. All is good in the name of progress, I suppose.
We ate a nice lunch and got back on the road. We had to push hard to make it to Dien Bien, as the museum closes around 4:30 each afternoon. However, we stopped along the way to watch the Black Thai tribe harvest rice. They are called Black Thai because, as their name suggests, Thai by race. They look very much like Thais from Isan or Lao people. I even saw a girl wearing a shirt that said “กด...เบาๆ.” I should have stopped for a photo, but we were in a rush. But here is a quick snapshot Jenna took from the bike:
We got into Dien Bien and headed straight to the museum. It was a three room museum dedicated to what amounts to the largest military victory in the history of Vietnam. While actual accounts of history will mention that the Battle of Dien Bien Phu was Ho Chi Minh’s last-ditch effort to prevent defeat at the hands of the French, the museum does not address this. Rather, the museum plays upon Vietnamese (read, communist Vietnamese) triumph over the superiorly equipped French colonizers. In truth, the Viet Minh were also very well equipped thanks to the Chinese and they forced quite a few of the tribesmen to “volunteer” moving their artillery pieces over the rugged mountains into position overlooking Dien Bien’s outposts. It was a stunning defeat of the French at the hands of a numerically superior Viet Minh force, but it would be nice to have seen an accurate addressing of history. However, something I have taken away from my experience so far in SE Asia is that an accurate portrayal of history isn’t deemed all that important. Nationalism, particularly one that supports the party, Royal family, or party in charge, is the most important part of history. I’m fairly sure that, had the Army of a SE Asian state committed the Mai Lai Massacre future generations wouldn’t study it in school (i.e. Pol Pot’s atrocities in Cambodia).
We walked up to outpost A1, the command and control bunker and site of the final French surrender, and looked out at the battlefield of what is now Dien Bien proper and I was astounded at the fields of fire that both sides possessed. It was awe-inspiring to survey the terrain and think about how horrific the battle must have been for the soldiers on both sides. The men who fought in this battle should certainly be remembered as brave, regardless of their political leaders.
As an aside, as we left outpost A1, there were four ladies selling t-shirts, VCDs, and other memorabilia from the battle. One lady was a Black Thai tribe member. We started negotiating on the price of a t-shirt, and I figured I'd see if she understood Thai. Her face lit up as I started speaking, and, while the dialect is different, she did speak with me in Thai (I'd liken the dialect more like an older form of Isan or Lao than Thai) and stated that she was ไทยดำ or Black Thai. Funny how things work out like that.
Well, we have a 200 kilometer ride ahead of us in the morning, so it’s time for bed.
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