Tết had just begun, and all of Vietnam was entering a deep hibernation for a week. It was a little after 9 p.m. and Frank could probably survive at slow speeds. I could attempt to go back to Hanoi, where Tết would be boring, but at least I knew my way around; or, I could press onward to Ninh Bình, where mechanics are more rare, but at least it would be scenic, and I could show the guy what a death-trap he had sold me.
Still an hour away at full speed, it took three hours for Frank to limp to Ninh Bình. I drove into increasingly dirtier and darker roads, careful not to give the engine enough power to wrench itself off, and trying my absolute best in the dim headlight to avoid the pothole that would finally, fatally finish Frank. My cellular data was indecisive, and the sound of birds and barking dogs echoed from the limestone mountains all around me. Some roads were just marsh with wooden boards thrown across them. A man blinded me with a flashlight when I dead-ended on his property and got all five of his dogs barking. I failed twice more before I found the right road. The directions from the group had been useless in the dark. The jungle was thick, and monkeys screeched an unsettling radar into the cricket-soaked night.
The bike seller and his girlfriend were asleep when I arrived. Only one person in the travel group was awake; we didn’t know each other, but he confirmed I was in the right place. Dinner had long ago been served and eaten. I ate a stale baguette and an orange from the table and fell asleep with all my clothes still on. If my two-dollar bill was lucky, I’d have hated to see what a curse looked like.
Vietnam has relatively few public holidays. Tết is like Christmas and Thanksgiving and New Years—the entire Holiday Season—all in one week, with in-laws cramming into the biggest household in the family tree to eat and talk and drink and sleep. Even tourism and hospitality businesses largely decide to take the week off. It is an unlucky time to need major mechanical repair.
Frank was still drivable, in a shabby and fragile way. I spoke very briefly to the seller. It’s great that I made it, he said, and then he left to get breakfast elsewhere. I was too hungry to wait, so I ordered some banana pancakes and chatted with the rest of the group. They were friendly, gregarious, full of that joie-de-vivre of being on an adventure. I started to recount the many trials of the night before. They’re sympathetic, they say, but they already checked out, and they were leaving. The eco-lodge looked stunning in the daylight. According to the group, it was too nice, and they (or we) needed to move somewhere cheaper. Starving, I reluctantly follow them out of the marshes. Unlike the bike seller, they didn’t let me fall behind.