5
Chapter 5. The Role of the Camera Left Behind
Huy stared at me with a completely stunned expression.
Truong clutched her stomach and laughed loudly.
“Hohoho, how did the Trứng vịt lộn taste after all this time? Do you feel all energized now?”
“Shut up!”
Huy frowned.
In the end, he had failed to accomplish what he had set out to do.
He glared at me with an annoyed expression and asked,
“You never intended to eat it in the first place, did you?”
“No.”
When I answered without hesitation, Huy grumbled.
“Damn it. Just you wait until tomorrow. I’m going to recommend motorcycles that are in terrible condition.”
“I know you won’t do that, friend.”
“Hmph. You never know.”
Judging by his tone, he seemed genuinely upset.
However, I had one reliable ally on my side.
Truong looked disgusted and said,
“Huy! You can’t do that to Mino. He said he’s going to ride a motorcycle all the way to Hanoi. What are you going to do if you recommend him some weird motorcycle? Stop fooling around and recommend him a proper one!”
“I don’t know. I’ll do whatever I want.”
“Are you seriously going to act like a child?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Because Mino is my friend too!”
“You only met him today. What do you mean, he’s your friend?”
“If you keep acting like a child, I’m going to tell Uncle.”
“Ah, seriously!”
Watching the two of them bicker, it was obvious that they were very close friends.
After arguing back and forth several times, Huy was the one who finally raised the white flag.
“Fine. I never intended to pick out something bad for him in the first place. I was just thinking of playing a little prank!”
Just as I had expected, Huy was simply a mischievous guy. He wasn’t actually a bad person.
He had only been planning to tease me a little.
“What time should I come tomorrow?”
“How about noon? I think it would be good to check out and then go look for a motorcycle.”
“Okay. Then let’s meet at noon.”
We agreed to meet around noon the next day.
Truong said she would come pick me up with Huy.
Nam had another appointment, so he decided to leave. It was unfortunate, but there was nothing he could do about it.
“See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah. Thanks for today. Thanks to you, I got to eat some delicious local food. Thanks, Huy.”
“One day, I’ll make you eat Trứng vịt lộn. You’d better be prepared!”
Huy spoke mischievously.
Apparently, the fact that he had been the only one forced to eat the balut had left a grudge in his heart.
“Fine. Let’s eat it together later. How about that?”
“Forget it! I’m never eating it again.”
While I was bickering with Huy, the car reached its destination. It was the cheap hostel I had reserved before coming to Vietnam, costing only 10,000 won per night.
I got out of Truong’s car and saw them off.
Then I turned toward the camera and began speaking.
“My friends have left, and we agreed to meet again at noon tomorrow. I’m going to check in now. I’ll get some good rest today, check out tomorrow, and then go buy a motorcycle.”
I opened the hostel door and went inside.
After handing over my passport, I completed the check-in process.
Once I was assigned a room, I went up the elevator with my backpack.
The room where I would be staying for just one night was a dormitory room.
The staff member opened the door and showed me the room.
There were two bunk beds attached to the walls on both sides. On the wall opposite them were four metal lockers. They were lockers where I could store my valuables and backpack.
The room was quiet.
All four beds were empty.
“You can use whichever bed you want.”
“Looks like there aren’t any other guests staying here?”
“Yes. It looks like you’ll have the whole room to yourself.”
After the employee left, I cheered inwardly.
Yes!
I was already having good luck from the very first day of my trip.
Thanks to meeting two good people named Huy and Nam on the flight to Vietnam, I had been able to comfortably explore the traditional market and even try local food on my first day.
On top of that, the room I had booked at the lowest possible price had no other guests, so I would be able to get a good night’s sleep.
“I’m lucky that I get to use this spacious room all by myself.”
There was a reason I was so happy about this.
Five years ago, when I traveled to Munich to attend Oktoberfest, I had also stayed in a dormitory room.
Accommodation prices increased several times during the festival season, so there had been no choice if I wanted to save money on lodging.
However, the dormitory room I experienced back then had been absolutely terrible.
People would come back drunk and sing all night, preventing everyone from sleeping, or they would give off awful odors because they barely washed themselves. There were also quite a few people who snored horribly whenever they slept.
That was why having the dormitory room all to myself was especially welcome.
“First, I’m going to back up all the footage I shot today onto my external hard drive, and then I’m going straight to sleep. Tomorrow, before meeting the guys, I’m going to look around the area by myself. That’s all for today’s filming. See you tomorrow!”
I turned off the camera.
“This is harder than I thought.”
I still wasn’t used to talking to myself while looking at the camera.
Because of that, I sometimes forgot what I was supposed to say.
In those cases, I would probably have to add the lines separately during editing and record them afterward.
“I guess I’ll have to edit everything in batches later.”
When looking at travel YouTubers’ videos, it was usually possible to tell that there was a gap of anywhere from a week to a month between when they traveled and when they uploaded their videos.
That happened because travel YouTubers didn’t immediately edit and upload their footage after filming it.
Most of them filmed their trips and then found time to edit everything in batches, so there was inevitably a delay.
At first, I had wanted to finish all the editing as soon as I returned to my accommodation each day, but I realized that was realistically impossible.
The footage I had shot today alone amounted to more than eleven hours.
I would have to select only the interesting parts from all that footage and then compress them into a video lasting somewhere between twenty and thirty minutes.
Because of that, after finishing my trip around Vietnam and before moving on to another country, I would probably have to lock myself inside an accommodation for a week or two and devote myself to editing.
“Ugh, I should just go to sleep.”
After transferring all the footage I had shot that day onto my external hard drive, I stored my backpack inside the metal cabinet.
Only then did I collapse onto the bed.
Sleep immediately washed over me.
And in my dream, I had to keep running away from Huy as he chased me around trying to make me eat balut.
What a damn awful dream.
---
The next day.
I woke up early, took a shower, and went outside.
Before checking out, I planned to go out and have breakfast.
When I searched Google, I found a famous pho restaurant near the hostel. It was a large three-story restaurant, and even though it was still early in the morning, it was already packed with customers.
If I had come with several people, I would probably have had to wait for quite a while, but since I was alone, I was able to get a seat quickly.
I ordered one basic menu item.
It was pho containing rare beef.
Then I turned toward the camera and began speaking.
“I came out to have breakfast. There are so many people here, right? I heard this is a very famous restaurant, so I came here to try authentic Vietnamese pho. I’m really looking forward to seeing what it tastes like.”
A short while later, the food I had ordered arrived.
I filmed the pho with my camera.
There was so much beef in it that I almost wondered whether it was pho or a bowl of beef soup.
“Wow, it definitely passes the visual test. I’ll try the broth first.”
I placed the camera on a tripod on the table, then scooped up a spoonful of broth and tasted it.
The broth had a rich flavor, as though high-quality meat had been simmered for a long time.
“Wow.”
A gasp of admiration escaped me as soon as I tasted it.
I took another spoonful.
“Woooow. This is really good.”
Once again, I couldn't help exclaiming.
The broth was incredibly rich and deep.
This time, I picked up some beef.
They had said it was rare beef, and there were still reddish portions here and there.
When I lifted it with my chopsticks, I picked up a huge amount at once. It seemed like there was even more meat than noodles.
I tasted the beef.
It was incredibly tender. It melted away almost instantly, as though I were chewing pudding.
There was even a hint of sweetness to it.
Even though it was still morning, the weather in Vietnam was already hot and humid.
After drinking the hot broth, I quickly became drenched in sweat.
But I couldn't stop drinking it because the broth was simply too delicious.
I quickly finished the entire bowl of pho.
Now it was time to pay.
“Sixty thousand dong.”
Sixty thousand dong was about 3,000 won in Korean currency.
I handed over 100,000 dong, received my change, and then turned toward the camera.
“The pho I just ate was only 3,000 won. Wow, does that even make sense? Seriously?”
A bowl of such a generous portion of pho had cost only 3,000 won.
If I had tried to eat pho of this quality in Korea, I would have had to pay at least 15,000 won.
If I got the chance next time, I even felt like I wanted to try living in Vietnam for a month.
The food generally suited my taste, and the cost of living was cheap as well.
The only problem was that air conditioning seemed like it would be essential during summer.
After paying, I returned to the hostel.
Then I put on my backpack, went down to the lobby, and checked out.
It was slightly past noon when Huy and Truong arrived.
“Hey. Did you have breakfast?”
“Yeah. I had pho nearby. It was delicious.”
“Good. You definitely had to try pho. Shall we go buy the motorcycle now?”
“Yeah. Where are we going?”
“Huy says he knows a place. Let’s go there.”
“Sounds good.”
We put my backpack in the trunk and immediately set off.
There was a shop selling used motorcycles not far from there.
Dozens of motorcycles were parked in front of the shop.
When we got out of the car and entered the store, the owner welcomed Huy.
“Huy! When did you get back to Vietnam? You should have contacted me as soon as you came back!”
“I got back yesterday.”
“Can you even see me? I’m standing right here.”
“Truong, you’ve gotten even prettier! More importantly, what brings you two here? You’re not here to buy a motorcycle, are you?”
“I came to introduce you to a customer. Mino, say hello. This is the owner.”
Huy pointed toward a Vietnamese man who looked to be in his early thirties.
I greeted him.
“Hello. My name is Mino. I’m from Korea.”
“Huh? Ah, ah! I’m Khoi. You said you’re from Korea, right? But your Vietnamese is incredibly good!”
“Yes. I can speak a little.”
“A little? That’s not what I’d call it. Anyway, that’s not important. Are you here to buy a motorcycle?”
“Yes. I was hoping to buy a used motorcycle.”
“How much are you thinking of spending?”
“I’m thinking around three to four hundred dollars. I’d prefer something as cheap as possible because I’m a little short on travel expenses.”
“Hmm, three to four hundred dollars... Just a moment. Hmm, let me think.”
After thinking for a while, he pointed toward a black motorcycle.
“How about this one? The instrument panel is broken, but it shouldn’t cause any problems when riding. It’s 125cc, and the price is 350 dollars.”
I looked over the motorcycle he pointed out.
It didn't look to be in bad condition.
From what he told me, it was a popular model.
It was about five years old, and it had roughly 30,000 kilometers on it.
I liked that it had a tuned LED headlight as well as a phone holder.
It seemed perfect for a motorcycle tour.
Still, I needed to take it for a test ride.
“Would it be okay if I took it for a ride?”
“Of course. Go ahead.”
I handed him the camera I had been carrying.
Since I needed both hands to ride, there was no way I could hold the camera.
“Please hold onto this for a moment.”
I figured I would have to install a camera mount as soon as I bought the motorcycle.
After leaving the camera with the shop owner, I put on a helmet and began properly touring around Ho Chi Minh City.
---
Khoi, who had received the camera, turned to Huy and asked,
“Who is that guy? How did you meet him?”
“I met him on the plane when I was coming back to Vietnam. He’s a YouTuber.”
“A YouTuber? Is he famous?”
“He has around thirty thousand subscribers. He only has one video uploaded, but it has more than fourteen million views.”
“What? How does that make any sense?”
“I’m telling you, it’s true. I’ll show you.”
Huy opened Mino’s channel on his phone and showed him the evidence.
“It’s real.”
“Want to hear something even more amazing? He can speak more than ten languages. And it’s not just that he can speak them. He can speak them like a native.”
“Come on. Don’t tell me something ridiculous. How is that possible?”
“I’m telling you it’s true. Nam and I actually confirmed it ourselves.”
“Hmm, really? Hey. The camera is recording this right now, right?”
“Yeah. He seems to have left it on while he went for the test ride. Why?”
At those words, Khoi put on a meaningful expression and pointed the camera toward his shop.
“Hello. My name is Khoi, and I’m the owner of this shop. Our shop is one of the leading motorcycle dealerships in Ho Chi Minh City, and we also offer rentals for tourists visiting the city. If you visit our shop, we can give you a special discount of around ten percent, so make sure you remember the name of our shop and come visit us when you arrive in Ho Chi Minh City...”
While Mino had handed him the camera and gone for a test ride, Khoi continued filming his shop and explaining various things.
He was promoting his shop with the intention of having it featured on Mino’s YouTube channel.