The idea of the Easy Rider concept is that you get to see a few places that not many people visit – "The Real Vietnam" as my driver Sinh is keen on repeating.

On the way between places that tourists rarely visit, you pass through a whole bunch of places that tourists almost never, if ever, visit. We stopped for a short while in one of those places today. Sinh sat and had a turbo-charged Vietnamese coffee, while I wandered around a small market.

Now it's probably an exaggeration to say that the people in this town had never seen a Westerner up close before, but by the reaction I got it certainly felt like it.

As I walked through the market, I created a wave of people stopping what they were doing and just staring at me. When I smiled I got big smiles in return but all in all it was a very strange experience. Like being a celebrity without actually having earned it.

There were some fairly choice items for sale in the market, like this freshly-skinned pig's head:

I walked through the market and out the back where there were a few houses running alongside a dirt road. Just as I was about to head back to the market, a man appeared in an open doorway and beckoned me frantically to come inside.

Once inside he sat me down in a tiny plastic chair poured me a large beer and tipped a plateful of peanuts into my hand. He was suitably impressed with my Vietnamese drinking toast (basically "One Two Three Drink!") and as soon as I drained any beer from the glass, he immediately topped it back up again.

Then a small child of about three years old wandered in (the man's son I think). As soon as he saw me, his eyes widened in terror, he screamed, then he ran out of the house crying, which the man thought was hilarious.

After about five minutes the child ventured back in, edged slowly up to me, prodded me with his finger, then ran away again half-shrieking, half-giggling. It was like the opening scene in 2001: A Space Oddessy with him as an ape and me as the mysterious monolith. He did this several more times, becoming bolder each time, until he was relatively comfortable being in the same room as me.

In the twenty minutes or so I was there, I had two beers, and about 6 glasses of dubious rice wine. Not a huge amount of alcohol but enough for 11am, particularly when you've got another four hours on the back of a motorbike ahead of you. Throughout this time, as news of my arrival spread, various faces appeared at the door to gawp.

Although the man clearly wanted to me to stay for lunch, I thought Sinh might start to get worried about my absence, so I made my excuses (well, a bunch of slightly lame gestures including some watch-pointing, shrugging, and revving of an imaginary motorbike) and got up to leave. I left some money to cover the alcohol I'd consumed, which was either much appreciated, or hugely offensive. It was difficult to tell which.

When I got back to Sinh – who hadn't been in the least bit concerned – I could feel the alcohol kicking in. I looked at my rucksack, strapped tightly to the back of the bike with bungee cords, and couldn't help wondering if there was a way that I could be secured in a similar fashion.