The cows took the road on the way to Suoi Dau

The first thing I noticed was the car. It had pulled all the way over to the left, half in the other lane, with its brake lights on, and I could not see why. Then the bend straightened out and there they were. A herd of cows, calves in the middle, big brown ones with horns on the outside, walking down my lane like they had been told to keep right. Nobody was with them. No stick, no man on a bike behind them. Just cows going somewhere at their own pace, past a blue fuel station sign, on the road south out of the city.

I slowed to walking speed and sat behind them for a while. The one nearest me turned its head, looked at the scooter, and then went back to walking. That was the whole reaction. The car eased past on the wrong side and I followed it, close enough to the last cow that I could see the flies on its back. Then the road was empty again and I was doing the same speed as before, and it felt like the ride had properly started.

Getting out of the city

I had left the city centre just after half past twelve, which is the wrong time to leave anywhere in August. The light at the big junction was green and the sun was straight down on the road, so the tarmac ahead looked white instead of black. My forearms were already warm through the sleeves. I crossed the bridge a minute later and the river was flat and brown under it, with the hills behind the town looking closer than they usually do. Someone had hung yellow plastic flowers on the lamp posts. They were still up from some holiday, I assumed, and nobody had taken them down.

The boulevard after the bridge is the easy part. Trees on the divider, painted trunks, a wide pavement nobody walks on because it is too hot. Then the town thins out. Houses with green metal gates, a hill with a bare patch cut into it, a white car ahead of me taking the bends slowly enough that I did not bother to pass it. Little roadside stalls with blue umbrellas and plastic chairs where people were sitting out of the sun. I did not stop at any of them. I had a place in mind.

The road opens up

After the cows the road got wider and quieter. Two lanes, a yellow line down the middle, and a sky that had more clouds in it than I expected, which was good news for my arms. Two scooters ahead of me for a long time, then none. A hand painted sign for a tyre pump and repair leaning on a post, in case anyone needed it. The hills on the left had those patches that looked like orchards from the road, rows of something planted in lines, and I kept wondering what they were without ever finding out.

There was a stretch where the road climbed a little and turned into something that looked more like a highway, with a guard rail and blue signs, and trucks coming the other way. I did not like that part much. Then a smaller road peeled off, with a red and white barrier on the left side and thick green on both sides, and the noise dropped. Bends, shade, nobody. I turned the throttle a bit more than I needed to.

The lake

524W J3 View Coffee is in Suối Dầu, south of Nha Trang, and I got there about forty minutes after leaving the city. From the road you would not know there was water anywhere. It is a gate, a few scooters parked under trees, a purple umbrella over a stone table, and red plastic chairs. I parked next to the other bikes and walked in, and it was only when I got past the umbrella that the lake showed up, below and to the left, with the hills on the far side and a line of cloud sitting on top of them.

I ordered a coffee and carried it down to where the trees stop. The water was a green grey colour and the shoreline was bare rock and sand, the way it gets when the level drops. Dry season leftovers, I guessed. Somebody's friends had already found the good spot under the coconut palms, and I did not mind that, because it turned out the good spot was everywhere.

The others walked off into the orchard behind the cafe, and I followed a bit behind with the camera on my chest. The trees looked like mango or avocado to me, I am not sure which, low and wide with big leaves, and the ground under them was dry and cracked. Then coconut palms, then a green net strung between two trunks like somebody had been catching something, or drying something. Then the water again. It kept doing that. Every time I thought I had seen the lake it appeared from a different side.

One of my friends stood at the edge of the shore in a pink shirt and pointed across at the hills, at what I do not know. I was sitting on a wooden bench in the shade behind them, and I did not get up. My legs had done enough for one hour. There is a kind of tired that is not tired at all, just the body deciding it would rather stay where it is, and I had that.

We stayed a long time. I looked at the clock once and it was past three, which meant two hours had gone somewhere. I remember sitting on the grass with my knees up, looking at the shadow of my own head on the ground, and thinking that this was the whole point of having a scooter in this country. Not the riding. The place you end up sitting.

The ride back was the same road in the other direction, with the light lower and kinder, and an orchard on the right side that I had not noticed on the way out. Rows of trees behind tall grass, with the hills going blue behind them. No cows this time. I looked for them at the bend by the fuel sign and the lane was empty. I suppose they had got where they were going.

This was my first proper ride out of the city. I had only landed in Vietnam five days before, on a dawn flight from Incheon, and this road was the first thing the scooter and I did together that was not an errand.

The numbers

Destination

524W J3 View Coffee, Suối Dầu, Khánh Hòa

Direction

South out of Nha Trang

Ride time

About 40 minutes one way by scooter

Left the centre

Just after 12:30

Stayed until

Past 15:00, then rode the same road back

Ridden on

Sunday, 23 August 2026