Spent 3 days motorbiking in the Central Highlands of Vietnam with the sons of coffee farmers. We went to the highlands to escape the heat and to immerse ourselves in hills of coffee. The surprising highlights of our trip quickly became mealtime with our drivers, “Rocky” and Loi.
The first night after barrelling through a thunderstorm, we took shelter in a village longhouse next to a lake with a backdrop of verdent rice paddies. As the rain passed, we settled on the floor for dinner. Plate after plate of food was delivered along with a charcoal fire bucket to grill wild boar and bananas. This was all washed down with homemade rice wine stored in a plastic water bottle. Under other circumstances, this meal would have kept us asleep until well past dawn, but the ruckus of barking dogs and crowing roosters under our stilted house insured we would start our sightseeing early.
Lunch on the second day, after riding through hordes of butterflies, was DIY spring rolls comprised of cold rice noodles, grilled pork, lettuce, herbs, cucumbers, starfruit, green mango, and pickled garlic, all wrapped in rice paper and dipped in a peanut chili sauce. This is perfect picnic food for sitting on rocks overlooking the largest waterfall in Vietnam.
In the evening, we ate supper at a coffee plantation, the family home of Rocky, Cara’s driver. Once again, plate after plate of food was served including frog, pork, beef, pate, soup, pumpkin leaves, mushrooms and more DIY spring rolls. We’ll unfortunately never be able to recreate any of these dishes. The father’s rice whiskey resulted in a lot of animated talking at the table which we did not understand and us learning how to toast in Vietnamese (“Yo!”). Dessert and breakfast were the plentiful fruits of their orchard – guava, jackfruit, papaya, longan, and watermelon.
Our last lunch with Rocky and Loi involved pointing at a chicken running in the yard and all of it served on plates. It wasn’t nearly as plump as a Purdue chicken, but it’d be impossible to find a fresher one.
We have often been stubbornly independent on our trip so far. This motorbike tour was a deviation, and it was difficult for us to not make all the decisions. Though we never would have eaten all those memorable dishes, we’ve learned to laugh at our sour kidney soup mistakes and realize that finding the good things on our own makes them all the better. Rocky taught us one very important thing though, “Cafe Sua Da”, iced coffee with milk.
Leave a Reply