I love living in Vietnam. I say this all the time, and I'm afraid it will bore my friends, but it's true. I really like being here. Do I love it every minute of every day? Of course not! No country is like that. And no life is like that. We always have good and bad moments. But I have lived in many different countries (I have traveled to 27 countries, and I have lived in 6), and being in Vietnam is both generally easy and very pleasurable.
One thing that I really like about living in Tra Vinh in the Mekong Delta is that it's a great place to ride a bike. The land here is very flat. In the USA, I've lived in Chicago for about 20 years, and Chicago is also very flat. Flat land makes for easy biking. Mountains and hills are beautiful for the eyes but painful for the legs. But flatness isn't enough. Tra Vinh province is a great place for bikers because the countryside is beautiful. There's always sun and water, everywhere you look there's green, and people are very happy to share their lives with someone with a camera. Because of these reasons, biking around Tra Vinh is a great experience.
At least once a week, I take a long bike ride. "Long" here means about 20 km or more. My favorite bike ride involves visiting Ben Tre province, which is right next to Tra Vinh and less than an hour away by bike. My favorite place to bike is Mỏ Cày district. The roads here are special. There are many trees close to the road, and this provide shade which makes biking more comfortable. Ben Tre and Tra Vinh always have a lot of sun and heat, so the shade from the trees really makes it easier to bike around for an hour or two. Also near the road there is always a lot of water. There are small ponds for fish and also small streams of running water. The houses are close together, and the children are very friendly. For all these reasons, I always look forward to biking in Mỏ Cày.
I am not alone in this. The world's most famous travel guides are the Lonely Planet guides. The book about Vietnam talked about biking in the country, and an expert in biking said that Mỏ Cày was also his favorite spot in the entire country! I read this after I'd already gone there two times, and I felt quite lucky to be living so close to what seems to be the best of all biking districts in Vietnam.
What do I do when I go to Mỏ Cày? Well, nothing really. I've never been to a restaurant there, and I've never bought anything there: not a book, not a shirt, not a coffee, nothing. But I've taken lots of pictures and have talked with quite a few people. I was invited to a wedding in Mỏ Cày district and there I ate (and drank!) a lot and certainly had a lot of fun. It was a Vietnamese wedding, and I was the only foreigner. In fact, only one other person there spoke English, so I had to use my limited Vietnamese to communicate. That wasn't easy, but making new friends, eating food, dancing, taking lots of photos, playing games with kids, all of this was fantastic.
I've gone to Mỏ Cày several different ways. Usually I take the small ferry from Tra Vinh harbor that is just a few kilometers from Khu công nghiệp Long Đức (Long Duc Industrial Zone). Sometimes I take the Co Chien ferry (phà Cổ Chiên). A ferry is a boat that carries people and things across a river. The Co Chien ferry is fun to ride on, but if I take it, that means a much longer bike ride.
For at least two weeks, I won't be able to take any long bike rides in Vietnam but I look forward to doing this again when I return to Tra Vinh from Cambodia. If you have any questions, requests, or recommendations, please feel free to write them here in the comment box or email them to me.
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