| Muller | Hitchhiking Vietnam
Page 204 |
Jochen had taken a year off from his studies in Stuttgart and come east on the trans-Siberian railway in search of adventure. The thermometer had fallen with alarming velocity as his train approached the frozen tundra, leaving him shivering in his bunk. He had been saved only by the happy confluence of his birthday and the arrival of his girlfriend, who managed to knit a pair of wool socks entirely without his knowledge, despite sharing a sleeper only marginally larger than a coffin. He had enjoyed the Chinese to distraction, mourned his girlfriend's return to Germany, and left himself less than a month to dash down Vietnam's backbone in a hideously reliable Minsk. He arrived in Nha Trang with his boots full of rainwater after thirteen days of nonstop driving, spent two days wincing under the hands of a firmly therapeutic beach masseuse, and saw no earthly reason why we couldn't be in Saigon by the end of the week.
