May 9th 2015
Last night
we slept in a pagoda about 200 kilometers east of Saigon in a small coastal
province. We entered to ask the head
monk for permission to set up our mosquito net amongst the mango and coconut
trees in the temple’s courtyard. Over
the past two months we have often slept in these quiet, peaceful pagodas
throughout Vietnam, but this one was a little different. As we came through the front gate we were
greeted by dozens of children, all of them boys ranging in age from three to
sixteen. Several of the older boys
seemed to have mental disabilities and they were all wearing brown or gray
robes with their heads shaved bald save a small tonsure of hair in the front.
“They are all orphans,” said the
monk when we finally met him, “you two can sleep anywhere you like, and there
are rooms with mats for sleeping as well.”
The monk was old and thin and wearing an orange robe. We were very grateful and Chi and I went back
outside to where our bikes were leaning against a wall.
As we began to string up our net
from two trees we were encircled by smiling young children eating sloppy ripe
mangos. The courtyard was dotted with
sculptures and statues depicting various Buddhist themes like patience, wisdom,
and restraint. Several varieties of
flowers, some stemming from plants and others from the branches of trees, were
being visited by hornets the size of quail eggs and Chi and I watched as a
lizard climbed the trunk of a cashew tree and then suddenly disappeared into
its own stillness. “This'd be a lovely
place to grow up,” we agreed. The
children watched as we began to lay out our bedding.
We were approached by a young man in
his twenties wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
He explained that he lives and works in Saigon, but he often comes back
here for months at a time to help with the children and it became apparent that he also grew up here as an orphan. He was very curious about our time cycling
around Vietnam and he insisted that we sleep in an empty room. Minutes later we were sitting on mats in an open-air room which was lighted by a single dangling bulb. Children were watching through the doorway or
standing on stools outside the glass-less window.
“Tonight we will all eat cơm chay together,” said the young man as he got up to leave our room and go assist with
the cooking. Cơm chay is the array of
vegetarian food that would be served for supper – rice with roasted eggplant,
fried tofu in tomato sauce, stir-fried cabbage and peppers, and morning glory
with garlic. This is the standard
food in temples and for the pious that come here to worship. Within these walls it is never okay to kill sentient animals - not even for food.
Curious and quiet faces watched us
as we wrote in our diaries and rolled out our bedding. A deaf and mute boy around six years old
began crying and the crying escalated as though made worse by the frustration
of not being able to say what was wrong.
Chi and I noticed an older boy, handsome and compassionate, attending to
the crying child.
“Con bao nhieu tuoi?” Chi asked him,
“How old are you?”
“Thirteen”
“How long have you lived here?” but
the boy didn’t answer, he became uncomfortable and just looked down at his
feet. “Come sit next to me,” Chi said
touching the straw mat next to her. The
boy was hesitant and it seemed that he rarely got attention from adults. He carried an air of maturity and politeness
and he came into our room and sat down next to Chi.
“Who brings these children here?”
she asked him.
“Most of them are left in the road
outside the gate,” replied the boy, “we hear them crying and bring them in.”
“And what about you?” Chi had her
hand on the boy’s shoulder. Again the
boy didn’t answer and Chi realized that her curiosity had surfaced another
awkward moment. “Never mind that…” she
said, and began asking him about his studies. Moments later they
were laughing.
As I fell asleep I thought about the
nature of the world in relation to all of these unwanted children – vulnerable,
helpless, and abandoned as infants by those who are supposed to love and care
for them the most – ice-cold reality.
Even Dr. Pangloss would have to admit that there seems to be some
underlying cruelty woven into the fabrics of our world. A cruelty that lashes out, indiscriminately
striking the lives of some more severely than others. So…does nature inflict these hardships in
some predictable way? Is it somehow
aware of its effects on the affected?
That sounds ridiculous, I’m going to sleep.
…
May 10th
2015
We left the
pagoda early in the morning before the sun was up and we pedaled west along an empty road lined with beautiful empty beaches. Around noon we desperately wanted to cool our
sun-baked bodies in the ocean. As we
left the road and began plowing our bikes through the sand we were approached
by a Spanish guy in his mid-twenties cycling east. With a genuine smile he explained that he
abruptly quit his job working as an aero-engineer in Berlin, sublet his flat,
and bought a plane ticket to India. He
bought a bicycle in Bombay and spent the last five months cycling alone from
India to Vietnam.
“They have a caste system there and
the poor people are…extremely poor,” he explained as I probed him about cycling in
India, which is where I am slowly headed.
“And how did they react to you?” I
asked
“They didn’t! Often it
was like they didn’t notice me, like I didn’t exist!” He spoke flawless English in a thick Spanish
accent, “and their faces, their faces were just…empty,” was how he poetically
worded it.
About an hour later, with the South Vietnam sun in her full
photonic fury, we cycled through a small town and were confronted with a
horrible scene. Two police officers were
loading the remains of a young man into the back of an army green truck, along
with the man’s mangled motorbike. The
curb was lined with somber onlookers and a lone woman was squatting on her
haunches, crying hysterically right next to the chalk outline. Next to the head of the outline lay a pool of
blood about a meter in diameter and a deep red, almost purple color. The blood was cooking on the
hot black tarmac and it gave off a horrible stench – if you’ve ever been to a
large-mammalian slaughterhouse then you are familiar with the smell here. All morning there had been a breeze, but it
was gone now and the smell hung in the air like steam in a sauna – emptying the
faces of everyone watching, Chi and myself included. Slowly cycling past the
front of the police truck we saw another policeman in the driver’s seat with the
windows rolled up and his face buried in his crossed arms on the steering
wheel, as though the scene outside his cab was too unbearable and all he could
do was sit, try to think of other things, and wait for it to be over.
As I write this, by flashlight under our mosquito net, so
many thoughts are bouncing around my mind – yesterday’s unwanted children, that
horrible scene this afternoon, and the empty faces awaiting me in India. These are contrasted by the beautiful
beaches, the charitable pagodas, and the strength and character of the thirteen
year old boy from last night. I was
particularly struck by the look in the eye of the Spaniard as he excitedly
explained how he abandoned a promising career to travel aimlessly around the
world. He was almost trembling with a mix of anticipation, fear and jubilation. I
know this feeling and from my experience there is only one way to conjure it
up: you must keep the future a secret from yourself; and tap into the excitement therein. You cannot know where you will be or what
will be happening in a week, a month, or a year’s time. It is through this self-inflicted uncertainty
that I have felt the happiest, the most emotional, and the most alive. I can feel it right now: the tightening of my
abdomen and throat muscles, sporadic breathing, a tingling sensation in the
front of my brain – as I try to imagine the unimaginable, the mysterious possibilities of the future.
Chi and I have now been cycling together for 58 days from
Hanoi to here. It has been beyond
incredible and the only bummer is that when we reach Saigon in a few days she
will fly back to Hanoi and I will continue on alone, sunset chasing through Cambodia, Laos, Burma, etc. We have been in love for over two years, but
now both of us are painfully unsure whether or not we will ever see each other
again. Chi is sound asleep next to me,
but I know I will be awake for hours – staring up at the stars, listening to
the wind pass through the trees and the thousands of insects calling out to one
another – while my mind instinctively fortifies itself for its next period of
prolonged loneliness.
