Cuéntame: The Longest Day of My Life

Lost in Vietnam's DMZ on a Russian Motorbike.

Below is a written version of the story I performed at Cuéntame, the monthly live storytelling event I host in Mexico City on the first Friday of every month.

June’s theme was “The Longest Day of My Life” in honor of the summer solstice. You can listen to a recording of me telling the story below.

📍Ho Chi Minh Highway; Me and the Minsk, hours before disaster.

It’s 2009, I’m 23 years old, in Vietnam, and desperate to have an authentic travel experience. But I am stuck on the “banana pancake trail,” the nickname for the once-off-the-beaten-path places-turned tourist traps thanks to Lonely Planet. 

I’ve been working in Asia since graduating college and writing a blog called Celestial Navigation about my adventures. And I am starting to build an audience beyond just my mom and my college friends. I love writing and want to make it a career, but feel the need to live an adventure worthy of publishing. 

Months earlier, Obama had been elected promising to remake America’s image after a decade of war and aggression. I want to be a citizen diplomat representing this new face of America in a part of the world where we are known for war. 

I dream of using my blog to heal these wounds, but I struggle to meet any locals who aren’t selling me things or working in the hostels of the Banana Pancake Trail. I want to connect with the real Vietnam.

But how? 

First, I throw away my Lonely Planet guidebook. Remember, this is before smartphones and Google Maps. So now I’m just lost.

Then, on this drunken night in Saigon, I see my answer — a 125cc Russian-made “Minsk” motorcycle.

Designed to be the workhorse of the rural proletariat, Minsks are everywhere in Vietnam and famous for being as unreliable as they are simple to fix with a beer can, chewing gum, and duct tape. 

Indeed, this one is held together by duct tape. It’s older than me, it’s bleeding motor oil onto the sidewalk and when Darren (the British backpacker who’s selling it) assures me that it’s made the trip to Hanoi and back plenty of times, I know that’s no guarantee it will make it the 2,000km back to Hanoi again. 

But I don’t care. Because more than an adventure, I need something we’ve all come to know and need — content. And I seem to get the best stories when things go wrong.

This bike is a disaster waiting to happen — especially because traffic in Vietnam is absolutely crazy — and I barely know how to ride a motorbike. 

So when he tells me that I should buy it because “chicks dig motorcycles,” I instinctively open my money belt and remove three crisp $100 bills my grandmother had given me before the trip specifically so that I could eat more vegetables and I hand them over in exchange for the keys. 

📍 Mui Ne: I’m smiling because I survived my first day on the insane Highway 1

I have two options for the 2,000 km drive from Saigon to Hanoi. 

First, I try Highway 1. Being from California, I picture something like our Highway 1 — an idyllic two-lane scenic road hugging the coast. Instead, I find one of the most dangerous and deadly highways on earth. A two-lane road — but one in which buses, trucks, cars, motorcycles, and ox carts all battle for dominance. I know I will die if I take Highway 1 to Hanoi. And besides, it is still the Banana Pancake Trail.

So I take option 2 - the Ho Chi Minh Highway. A two-lane rural road that goes through the Central Highlands, the mountainous border with Laos. It follows the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which once supplied the Viet Cong with arms to fight the Americans. Risking run-ins with ex-Viet Cong feels safer than the traffic on Highway 1, so I go inland and chug uphill on the Minsk. 

I leave the tropics behind and climb above the clouds, past French colonial hill stations, past coffee plantations, past villages of hill tribes who speak different languages and live in wooden huts with peaked roofs reaching to the heavens.

As I get deeper into the jungle, I can’t help but think - this is some Apocalypse Now shit!

My bike breaks down constantly. But the breakdowns don’t just make good stories - they also help me meet locals (usually mechanics) who even let me sleep on the floor of their humble homes while they repair my bike. 

And when I finally return to the coast to rest at halfway point of my trip, I roll into Hoi An on the bike and see that Darren was right - Chicks do dig motorcycles. 

But after a few days’ rest, I had to face the second half of the trip — North Vietnam. The half that my country was once at war with. I set off to cross the DMZ - the Demilitarized Zone — and right away, everything feels different.

The ground is still dead from the chemical called Agent Orange the US dropped to clear the jungle. There are signs warning motorists not to step off the road because of unexploded bombs. And when I pull into the former Marine base of Khe Sanh, eager to see a place I’d studied in history class, I feel like I’m surrounded by the ghosts of the thousands who died fighting over these small hills in the jungle.

There is one man there. He’s old enough to have been in the war. He limps up to me and opens a box. It’s full of things he’s found in the ground - bullet casings, shrapnel, lost medals, and the dog tags of a soldier probably listed as M.I.A.

I wave him away, but first I ask in phrasebook Vietnamese which way to the Ho Chi Minh Highway.

He points back to where I came and says Hanoi! 

But I’m looking at my map and it looks like the Ho Chi Minh Highway starts right here. I’m sure of it. And I figure he’s just trying to get me to go back to the tourist trail.

So, through that uniquely American blend of arrogance and ignorance that led the United States into war in the first place, I ignore him and I turn down the highway. 

It’s beautiful. There’s not a soul for miles. The road is fresh and new and I’m zipping around corners with all 125ccs of the Minsk’s power. I’m hungry, but I don’t see any restaurants for hours. No gas stations either. Nothing save a few construction trucks heading the other direction. 

Then I lean around a corner and have to slam on the brakes. There’s a huge hole right in the middle of the road. I almost fell in. And beyond it, a dirt path. I realize now, what the man was trying to say to me.

This road is under construction.

I could turn around, but I know there’s nothing for a few hours. What’s worse, it’s almost dark. My stomach growls and I realize I haven’t eaten all day. I unscrew the gas tank and get even worse news. I’m almost out of gas. And as the sun sets, the jungle comes alive all around me. And I realize that if I don’t find gas soon, I’ll be sleeping in the middle of the jungle. 

I take my chances and push forward. I go around the crater and see a big hill. It’s so steep I have to get off my bike and push the Minsk uphill. But when I get to the top of the hill, I see a sign of hope — a convoy of construction trucks on the other side of the valley. I figure that they must be going to civilization, so I saddle up and take off. 

The road is in various stages of construction. Some is paved, some is dirt, but most is loose gravel that makes my tires swerve underneath me. I have to go slow to avoid losing control. 

But the problem is that my headlight runs off the engine, which means I have to go fast enough just to see. So I’m going faster than I should be, which is made worse by all the dust kicked up by the trucks. 

Finally, I see a truck pulled over. There’s a bunch of workers smoking cigarettes and I point to my gas tank and they laugh as they fill my tank up with their jerry can and then charge me 10 times the price. I’m pissed but I have no choice. So I hand them over all the cash I have, knowing it means I won’t have money to eat dinner. 

I push on. And now I’m not just hungry and tired, but I’m gripping the throttle with anger. So when a piece of paved road emerges, I open up the engine. It looks like I’m back on a real road - until a huge cloud of dust comes up out of nowhere.

I slam on the brakes, but it’s too late.

Gravel fills my field of vision. Everything goes into slow motion. I feel my tires skid out. I jump from the bike. I land on my feet but fall and roll across the road.

Finally I stop. The only reason I know I’m not dead is that I can hear the engine revving next to me.

I fear I’m paralyzed and wonder — what the hell am I doing this for? I’m risking my life for a blog post? How self-centered am I?

Now I just want to get home safely. I pick up the bike, I continue down the road.

I’m still hungry, exhausted, and scared, but now I have adrenaline pumping through my veins. And just a few minutes later, I see something that looks like a mirage.

A big roadside restaurant surrounded by dozens of trucks and motorcycles. As I get closer I smell barbecue. ABBA is blasting from the speakers — Dancing Queen. I limp up to the door, look inside, and see 50 Vietnamese truck drivers eating, drinking, and smoking.

Then they all look at me and their jaws drop. 

My clothes are ripped from the crash. I’m covered in dirt and blood. I have a huge beard. I look like an American prisoner of war. 

I’m so exhausted that all I can do is put my hand to my mouth and utter Food.

Two shirtless dudes grab me by the arm and pull me into the room. They sit me down at a large table and place a huge plate of food in front of me — steaming rice and barbecue chicken. They give me a beer and pour me a shot of rice whiskey and I accept it without worrying about finding a hotel.

I’m just so relieved to have found shelter and stunned by how warmly I’ve been welcomed by everyone. 

Everyone but one man. 

An old man in the corner wearing the green hat with a red star of the North Vietnamese communist army. He’s even got a wispy beard like Ho Chi Minh. And he’s staring at me so hard I can feel his hatred through the cheers and excitement of the younger generation. 

Then I see him get up, walk over, and stand right above me.

I’m scared to look up and make eye contact.

He puts his hands in the air and everyone falls silent. 

I stare up and in his eyes a hatred and pain that pierces to my core. I try to imagine whatever horrific day from the war is burned into his memory, but I know nothing of this man’s experience.

For a moment I fear that he’s going to pull out a gun and shoot me in the head, just like he’s probably once watched an American soldier do to one of his friends. 

America!  He shouts, pointing at me. Then he makes his hand into an M16, points it at me, and goes Bang! Bang! Bang! His hands become planes dropping bombs all around me, each one washing over me like the shame I feel for a war I can not defend that happened before I was born. 

I look up, unsure of how to react. I want to tell him that the war happened before I was born. I would not have supported it if I’d been alive. Besides, I voted for Obama!

Instead, I say nothing. And he motions for me to stand up. As I do, my eyes are fixed on his hands, which are clenched in a fist that I am sure is about to come swinging for my face. And in that moment, I feel so guilty that I’m almost ready to take it.

Then his fist relaxes, opens, and comes towards me.  

For a second I’m in shock. I set out with the naive belief that I could be a citizen diplomat for Obama’s America, and here I am, about to make symbolic peace with a former communist guerilla.

I place my hand in his battle-hardened grip. Everyone is watching as he raises our arms in the air in a declaration of peace. The room erupts in celebration.

I know it does not do anything to change the past, but it somehow it makes my entire trip worth it.

But when I look back into his eyes, the anger has given way to tears. And I saw the true meaning of the moment.

My day had been one of the longest and most difficult of my life. But for all I knew, this man had been haunted from a day from hell that had been torturing him for decades.

And that maybe, just maybe, my quixotic quest to find the real Vietnam was just the universe’s bizarre way of leading me right here to this exact place to meet this man at this exact moment to give him a chance to finally close the door on a never-ending day from hell that had haunted him for years.