I was as red as a cooked lobster, which is why on this, my last night in Vietnam after six weeks of traveling the length of the country, I was easing myself into the white sheets of my hotel bed with a grimace.  But I wouldn't have traded the last few days for the world.

I stopped at this woman's house to take a break from the sun during my first day's drive.  We sat together on the porch, not understanding a word the other side yet smiling deeply.

I had just completed a two-day motorbike trip in the Mekong Delta, making an approximately 175-mile circuit between the towns of Chau Doc and Ha Tien.  For most of the journey I had no map (or sunscreen, unfortunately), just a decent sense of direction and the crucial aid of locals at those intersections that left me perplexed.

I hadn't died in a motorbike accident; this was one of the most pleasing aspects of the trip.  But I was also excited to have finally visited a stretch of country that few other visitors had.  In Ha Tien I never saw another Westerner, and I certainly saw none on the roads I took between there and Chau Doc.  This was rare in Vietnam, where a very well defined “traveler's circuit,” complete with multiple bus companies specializing in shuttling foreigners from one popular destination to another, guarantees that most travelers will never have a sense of having “left the beaten path.” 

A child at harvest

This is why spending a night in Ha Tien came with a sense of having “gotten away from it all.”  Geographically the town was squeezed against up against the Gulf of Thailand on one side and the Cambodian border on the other.  There was a palpable sense of being in a far corner of the country.  I will always remember, I think, how nice it was to reach Ha Tien at dusk - not only because I had arrived safely but because the sinking of the sun had eased some of the pain on my burnt skin.  I rode through town, stopping at a food stall for a fresh seafood dinner.  I checked into a hotel and parked my bike in the lobby (where it would be secure overnight) and then made another loop around town on foot.  I walked across a long pontoon bridge that I was told had been built by the US Navy, and I drank delicious, addictive fruit shakes at a street stand near the market.

Seldom were two days of travel so rich in the moods and sites they offered, and a full account of them is impossible here.  But because it isn't common for the traveler to recall Norman Rockwell while puttering around the Mekong Delta, I'll share the following:

On my way back to Chau Doc, I stopped in the village of Ba Chuc.  In April 1978, Khmer Rouge soldiers crossed the border from Cambodia, entered the village, and massacred 3,157 men, women, and children--almost the entire population.  Today the skulls of the victims are on display in an outdoor memorial, and a nearby room displays photographs of the most nauseating acts of sexual violence and killing most will have ever seen.  After spending several minutes here, I returned to my bike and continued toward Chau Doc.  The sun would set within the hour, and golden rays had lit up the landscape in soft, vibrant colors.  I was enchanted - with the colors, with the peace that had finally come to Vietnam after decades of strife, with my own health and freedom to travel as I was now.

A portion of the memorial at Ba Chuc

In this mood, gliding along at 30 mph down a paved portion of road bordered on either side by a sea of green rice paddys, I saw a boy, maybe three years old, standing on the road's edge.  His back was to the highway as he peed into the field, and to his right stood a girl, maybe a year older, who also faced the field.  The boy's left hand was necessarily occupied, but his right was firmly in the grasp of the girl's.  She seemed in no hurry at all, as if nothing in the world was more important than keeping this young boy company even in a moment like this.

An aging bridge

It was the most beautiful site I had seen all day.  I think Norman Rockwell would have liked it too.

Joel Carillet, chief editor of wanderingeducators.com, is a freelance writer and photographer based in Tennessee. He is the author of 30 Reasons to Travel: Photographs and Reflections from Southeast Asia. To learn more about him, visit www.joelcarillet.com.