Moses - our very own teacher

---

On our usual trek to the "party hostel" which usually had a handful of people in, 4 of them being us, this one night we heard from the corner a strong southern Texan accent. It took all of 5 minutes for this person to approach us and ask where we were from, he introduced himself as Moses, at this point we didn't know what an impact he would have on our trip! He was originally from Vietnam but moved to Texas with his parents. We got on like a house on fire, he had so many stories and had travelled Vietnam on his motor bike. He told us that he had hit a bear when he had borrowed his friends truck and had photographic evidence, it was huge! He showed us all his videos on the go pro of his journey.



We decided to carry on the party with Moses in another bar and managed to persuade/bully Nickolei from Russia to come with, he was so shy and couldn't speak a word of English! But what happened next no one could have imagined, the club was full of locals dancing their asses off then suddenly Nickolei sprung into action, jumping on podiums, straddling poles and raving to his hearts content. It was the best thing I have ever seen.....



After the night out and a Ban mai (baguette with omelette, pork, coriander, salad) best street food in Vietnam we arranged to meet the boys the next day to climb the mountain. We set off at 10:30 and as Moses could speak Vietnamese we were able to climb the mountain through peoples back yards where there were dogs all tied up with muzzles barking the entire time, the locals would show us the way through there back gardens so we would reach the summit!

Later that day he took us to the dirtiest looking food place where all the locals ate and ordered us lots of food, it was by far the best thing we had eaten in Vietnam and we were the only western people to keep returning! He then taught us Vietnamese words which we practiced all day and explained all the different vowels and how many different "a" there were with the different accents. We used this when buying in shops and bartering and the locals instantly came down in price and we had a new found respect.



Moses truly showed us what the real Vietnam was about and the culture we cannot thank him enough!

---