Indochina, Day 6 — The Prostitute
Hanoi
We take a taxi to the airport. The metal detection apparatus beeps insistently at Rex as he passes through. He jiggles his pockets and out comes the room key from the Bodega. “Maybe they need that,” he says, handing it to a stone-faced communist. I roll my eyes and follow him through.
It’s an hour before our flight. A dozen natives sit at the gate, browsing newspapers or gazing out absently at the hot green landscape; children lay sprawled across the seats, napping. At the souvenir shop a clerk, his head upon the cashier counter, dreams sweet dreams of Marx, Lenin, and Uncle Ho. We browse the liquor and costume displays. “Think this would look good on Ju-hee?” Rex asks me, holding up a pink, long-skirted, Vietnamese-style dress.
“Nice.”
A female clerk is slumped in a chair, dozing off. With a start she notices us. The concepts of capitalism and salesmanship having been demonized and purged from the minds and hearts of two generations of kin, she harries us with a cold glare. Rex approaches her nonetheless. “How much is this?” he asks. She yanks at a dangling price tag. “Oh — cam on,” he says, hanging it back up on the rack.
“Thank you for your kind service,” he says under his breath as we walk away. “No wonder these third-world countries are so poor. The dudes selling weed and sex can’t wait to sell you their shit; these people here, at an actual store, just look like they wanna punch you in the fucking face.”
At the bookstore we flip through books on the “American War of Imperialist Aggression.” They include pictures of American soldiers and American planes and American bombs; half-naked Vietnamese women and children running, crying, screaming, caught in the nightmare of a deadly fireworks show. Their farms resemble fields of fire; their homes, heaps of rubble and straw.
“It’s good to learn about things from other viewpoints,” Rex states. “If you think about it, we’re brainwashed just as much as they are.”
“Maybe.”
We purchase a few books and at the diner order ham-and-cheese sandwiches. As many defectors have said, communist ham-and-cheese sandwiches have really thin ham.
Boarding the plane, we find our seats beside the emergency exit. “You know what this means, don’t you?” Rex says, placing his hands on my shoulders and facing me mock-gravely. “The life of every single passenger on this plane depends on you. Are you ready for this responsibility?” I shake my head melodramatically, contorting my face as if about to cry. No, I whimper. “Are you gonna be a man, and sit here? Are you? Can you? Will you?” I can’t! I can’t! I throw my red face down into his chest, producing muffled sobs.
We notice a flight attendant and turn towards her, hopeful for a laugh or, at least, a smile.
She offers neither.
Ho Chi Minh City
The old city, still known privately among the natives as Saigon, is coated in drizzly grayness. Our taxi crawls along, windshield wipers wiping, swarmed by motorbikes that buzz like an army of mutant bumblebees. A new law decrees that riders must wear helmets; no one does, and no one cares.
After the war, it seems, the communists hoarded all the paint and shipped it to Hanoi; the once-white wash of the buildings here in Saigon is stained with unsightly deposits of black and orange scum. Power lines form thick webs that wrap the city, spoiling the vistas.
We arrive at the six-dollar-a-night Yellow House Hotel, climb a steep stairwell to the fifth floor, and find our room. Three mattresses lie on the floor; an armoir stands in the corner; there’s a mirror, TV, table and fan against the wall facing the beds; finally a dust-coated air-conditioner sits high up in the opaque transom window. The shower and toilet are in a separate room a few steps outside the door. There’s a pervasive musty odor about the rooms.
Rex and I walk out for dinner. Repeating “no thanks” to a parade of insistent peddlers, we find the Saigon version of 17 Saloon and take seats out on the wooden verandah. The sky brightens with lightning; then rumbles, cracks and booms with thunder. Wind-swept sheets of rain drive us to a table inside…
“Would you like another Tiger beer?” the waitress asks, eyebrows raised expectantly.
“Sure,” I say.
“Oh yeah,” Rex says wild-eyed. “You better believe it.” The waitress giggles and imitates his gesture before departing with our emptied glasses. Rex admires her receding figure.
“I like these Saigon girls,” he states.
“Me too,” I add, blowing smoke. “They’re spunky.”
“Oh, you got that right — spunky in bed.” He thrusts his pelvis and contorts his face to resemble a porno actor. Rex then affects an accent: “Tonight we gonna move our asses to Apocalypse Now, we gonna meet us some fine bitches, and we gonna get us some fi-i-ne booty.”
“Tha’s right brutha,” I say. “A-men.”
“Hallelujah. We gonna be bangin’ dem hos.”
“A-men, brutha.”
The waitress returns with our beer. Rex shakes his head and breaks into a mischievous grin. “Dude, we’re so bad.”
“We are,” I agree. “We’re definitely going to Hell.”
“We are!” he laughs, and raises his glass.
“To Hell, buddy — “
“To Hell — “
The sky suddenly splits with thunder.
II.
The taxi driver drops us off at the wrong bar, the Allez Boo. Under the cashier counter sits a glass case of cigarettes. “Marijuana?” asks the clerk pre-emptively. He takes out an old pack of Winstons; the weed is hidden inside. Rex laughs. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Nobody’s at Apocalypse Now; it’s too early. Rex and I shoot pool, drink beer and smoke Indonesian cigarettes. We thrill in the strong, sweet taste; the way the tobacco crackles upon inhalation; the thick clouds of smoke…
An hour has passed. Rex keeps glancing toward the distant bar. “I’m gonna go talk to those chicks,” he finally declares.
I watch him stand up.
“Coming?” he asks.
“Nah,” I reply. “Maybe later.”
“OK.”
Rex walks away holding his beer. Groups of middle-aged Europeans are sitting at tables out on the concrete patio. I grab a seat facing the big-screen TV and watch a soccer game.
III.
They’re playing “Love Generation” as I finally find Rex standing at the bar on the edge of the crowded dance floor. Kaleidoscopic lights beat down on us to the rhythm of the music. “Jake,” calls Rex over the music. “Come here, I met some cool people.” I nod at two Vietnamese men who sit tall on their stools and ash their cigarettes with effeminate flicks. “We are photographers,” they chorus. The one with an earring gestures to a couple of female compatriots. “They are models.”
One stands with Rex. Her body is a seductive mold of tanned curves. Her face, however, is the most cubistic one of Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon.
The other woman sits in front of me at the bar, swirling a drink in her hand. She swivels toward me. Bright blue makeup coats her eyelids; her plump cheeks are caked a jubilant pink. “Hello,” she says, her eyes both critical and suggestive.
“Hi.” I step toward the bar and order two gin-and-tonics. She asks me a few getting-to-know-you questions. I don’t bother to return the favor. Soon tiring of chit-chat, we drink our drinks, smoke our cigarettes and sway to the music on airs of blasé coolness.
After my first drink I’m lip-synching to her; after the second we’re kissing.
The photographers disappear. A little breathless, the woman grabs bodily evidence of my excitement and cocks her eyebrows in mock reproval. I shrug and kiss her again.
A tanned, balding white guy taps her on the shoulder and says hi. They put their heads together and talk inaudibly as the music beats forward on the waves of speckled, shaking silhouettes. The guy suddenly looks at me and grins as if recognizing some delightful conspiracy between us. I nod and raise my drink a little.
Rex walks over laughing. “Hey Jake,” he calls. “Having fun?”
Arms around my girl’s torso, I nod and sway my shoulders and hips to the music.
“I got something to tell you,” Rex says. “Do you remember that girl I was with? The really hot one?”
“Yeah. The hot one.” I reassure my girl with a squeeze of her flabby shoulder. She turns away from Rex.
“Well,” he says, his face lighting up, “I just found out she’s a hooker.”
“What?”
“She’s a hooker!”
“How’d you find out?”
“Well, we were talking, and I asked her, ‘What’s your job?’ and she didn’t say anything; she just answered like this” – he makes the motion of undoing a shoulder strap. I join him in a raucous laugh. He assumes his George Costanza voice: “Oh my God, Jerry – a hooker!”
I look down at my girl. She absently blows smoke which drifts up and takes on a psychedelic rainbow of light.
“Anyway,” continues Rex, “I just met some Germans — they got weed.”
“Cool.”
He pounds the last of his beer. “So, Jake,” he grins devilishly, glancing at the prostitute beside me, “what about you? Are you staying?”
“Yeah. I think I’m gonna test the waters.”
Rex cracks up and punches my arm. “Yeah!” He smiles his broad, half-drunken smile. “Well, I gotta go. See you, buddy.”
“Later, Rex.” I call the bartender over and order two more drinks…
… The woman and I are kissing, gyrating with sexual pulses. She licks my earlobe and whispers, “You and me go, fun time?” She looks up at my face. I shrug, sip my drink and continue grinding. She stops and eyes me insistently. “You and me go. Fun time.”
I indicate my half-empty drink. The prostitute nods and grins smugly like the winner of a crooked game of dice. I gulp the rest of my drink and wipe my dripping chin. She grabs my hand and we walk through a smoky, kaleidoscopic maze of gyrating phantoms, their faces slick with sweat.
We stand outside, the music now vaguely echoing in our heads. She leads me down a few dim, gravelly alleys, the two of us participating in a staggered biracial parade from Apocalypse Now to a white, proud, well-lit hotel. There, at the bar, I order two Long Island Iced Teas; a tuxedoed concierge serves us from a tray as we stand among Greek columns and vases of flowers in the lobby.
The drinks are strong. I kiss the prostitute and accidentally spill some on the white-tile floor. In a flash, two concierges bend and wipe the spill dry with towels as I stand staring. The prostitute wraps a plump arm around my torso. Hearing only human voices in the lobby, we sway to remembered beats of music from Apocalypse Now. “Upstairs,” she moans into my neck.
“After next drink,” I mumble down into her black hair.
“No. Now.”
“Next drink.”
A few male passers-by greet the woman. One, a Korean, talks to her in Vietnamese. His hair is dusted with gray self-assurance. After a minute the prostitute turns back to me. “Upstairs!” her eyes hiss, aflame, indignant. She hands me her drink and storms away, disappearing behind a Greek column.
The Korean turns to me. “Hello,” he says affably. “Your lady-friend will return soon.”
“You’re Korean,” I blurt out.
“Yes.”
We chat for a minute.
“How about going out for some beer?” the Korean asks. “I know a good bar.”
“Sounds good.” Holding two drinks I step back toward the door.
“Wait — what about your friend?”
I peer around the Greek column. The prostitute hasn’t returned.
“I don’t wanna do it.”
The man nods.
I glance around, quickly place the two glasses behind a vase upon a high ledge and follow the man out into the night.
There are many taxis lined up out front; we hop in one and the driver shifts gears into the darkness. After a minute the man says something to the driver in Vietnamese. The vehicle stops along a lit backstreet and we go out for a piss. A great many crickets, revolted, chirp at us in a loud, insistent chorus.
The Korean man is a plastic surgeon. The bar he knows turns out to be Allez Boo, where it’s mostly empty now; chairs stand inverted upon tables in dark corners of the bar. We sit, drink beer and talk. “Visit my office tomorrow,” says the doctor, handing me his card. “I’ll introduce you to some beautiful women.”
“Thanks. We’re here for a week.”
“That’s too short.”
“Probably.” I tuck his card into my wallet and notice its conspicuous and rather sudden dearth of dong. I finish my beer. The doctor calls for another round.
“What should we drink to?” he asks.
“Um, how ’bout you, Doctor,” I suggest.
He looks puzzled.
“You saved me at that hotel. For whatever reason” — I yawn — “For whatever reason I was thinking about doing it.”
The man smiles like an omniscient Buddha. We clink glasses and drink. He clears his throat and discreetly points toward the table across from ours. “Surprise!” he whispers. Through wisps of cigarette smoke a slouching figure looks familiar:
It’s the prostitute. She sits at the table alone and eyes me with crossed arms. Perfunctorily I rise from my seat; the bar wobbles before me like a flimsy ship in a stormy sea. I take a few steps and, regaining my balance, stand and look down at the prostitute.
“You don’t want?” she asks, glum-faced.
“Xin loi,” I say. Sorry.
She looks down at her glass of water.
IV.
Hints of dawn tint the starless heavens a lighter shade of blue as the doctor sees me off at the Yellow House Hotel. The wall clock in the lobby points to five. I trudge up the long flight of stairs and turn the doorknob at room 501.
Inside, a glow hums from the TV. The sickly sweet smell of marijuana wafts to my nose. Clad in boxers, Rex sits up in bed, his face dashed with cosmic blue brushstrokes. He looks at me like a kid who’s been up all night waiting for Christmas. I notice his excitement and grin helplessly.
“So, what happened with that girl?” he asks. “Did you seal the deal?” I laugh; he laughs; we share a laugh.
“Nothin’ happened.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothin’. I jus’ bought ‘er, like, a lotta drinks.”
He cracks up. “Dude, I know there’s a story. You gotta tell me the story.”
“Maybe,” I say, peeling off my shorts and T-shirt and tossing them beside my bed. “The story’s on t’morrow, CNN.”
Rex puts on a phony British accent. “‘Going to Ho Chi Minh City now, where last night Jake Barnes made a costly boner, so to speak, with a yet another Vietnamese hooker. Next, only on CNN.’”
“You’re funny.” I turn away and close my eyes.
Rex zaps off the TV and, very much awake, squiggles his body upon the bed as the light of a new day seeps into the room.
Indochina, Day 5 — Three Young Women
Halong Bay — We’re ashore, wobbling a little under the heat of the sun and the weight of our packs. A van takes us to a quaint old diner; with the girls we pick cautiously at lunch.
It’s a three-hour ride back to the capital. Men, women and barefoot children dally aside the narrow, dusty road as a dangling rope leads a brown cow toward a state of listless complacency. Our driver roars around this traffic at maniacal speed, often heading straight toward oncoming, honking vehicles. There’s a gasp, then collective sigh of relief when he steers an inch clear of a cement truck.
Young Spanish men, trim and tanned, lord over the back of the van. One, Diego, nudges the bookish Vietnamese guide, to the delight of his friends. “Hello,” he coos. “What is your name, lovely guide?” Dung, she replies. “Dung? That is a beautiful name for a beautiful lady.” She folds her arms. “How about Diego, me? I am a sexy man, no?” She considers him blankly. Diego inches his five-o’clock-shadow face down to hers. “You are curious about me, no? Tell the truth.” His friends are throbbing with restrained laughter.
Suddenly the driver pulls over, some distance short of the tollgate. He unbuckles his seatbelt and starts to hop out. “Where are you going?” sputters one of the Spaniards. The driver points to a shack beside the road. “Monthly ticket,” he answers.
Question-mark bubbles pop up over our heads. “Monthly ticket?”
“I know!” Diego blurts loudly — “He has to take a piss!”
Rex and I laugh along with his friends. Diego turns to Dung, eyes lit up like Roman candles. Her facade of cold impassivity quickly melts from the glare, revealing an inner disgust.
“He has to take a piss,” Diego repeats, pursuing a proper response to his joke. “It is funny, no?” His friends are now doubled over, yelping in painful delight. “Monthly ticket!”
Dung crosses her arms and squints her eyes. “What funny?” she demands. “Why laugh?”
~~~~~
The driver returns.
“Driver! Mr. Driver!” calls Diego. “Can I ask you a question?” The driver nods. “How was your monthly ticket? Did you enjoy your monthly ticket? Your nice, long, relaxing monthly ticket?”
“Monthly ticket,” giggles his friend.
Proud, Diego squeezes Dung’s slacks-covered thigh; she squiggles in silent protestation. When the fat, red-haired American is dropped off she gets up, worms her way past Diego and his friends, and hops forward to take the empty seat.
~~~~~
Hanoi – Back at the Bodega, Rex and I consult Tran and the concierges in planning the next leg of our trip.
“Let’s do Laos!” Rex declares, beaming. We clink beer bottles.
Travelers will tell you that Laos is an amazing country, but they can never seem to come up with an adequate explanation. Everyone loves Laos. Why? What makes it so great? “You just have to go there,” is the inevitable reply.
~~~~~
A concierge approaches Rex, staring at his arms. “Ho-ho-ho!” he exclaims, astonished. “Big!” Proud, Rex flexes his biceps. “Exercise?” Of course I exercise, he answers.
Three young women enter, heels clicking, hoop earrings dangling, all dolled up and innocent behind the stern, matronly aegis of their chaperon. The girls whine at each other in Korean; Rex and I raise our eyebrows at each other, our curiosity piqued. He puts down the beer and rises from his chair. “Excuse me,” he asks the girls in Korean, smiling apologetically in imitation of their own custom — “By any chance, do you happen to be Korean?”
The young women gasp, cover their mouths and giggle with wonder. Their chaperon steps forward like an alert, wary feline, resolving to carry out her moral duty: to protect her kittens. She interrogates Rex in rapid-fire Korean, hoping to embarrass him. But Rex holds his own, thoroughly answering her questions. The girls, glancing coyly, now and then betray looks of dreamy yearning, like flowers toward a distant sun. Or so I imagine.
Annoyed, the chaperon interrupts Rex and stepping quickly leads her brood upstairs. We wave up to the girls, who wave down. “See you,” Rex calls.
But the beautiful girls are to be cloistered away forever.
Indochina, Day 4 — The Halong Bay Tour
Hanoi – Eyes half-shut with sleep, I fumble down to the front desk and tell the manager I’m afraid we can’t go on the trip to Halong Bay. “You had a lot to drink last night, didn’t you?” Yes. So we’re kinda tired… He sighs patiently. “You can sleep on the bus.”
Upstairs, Rex is already back in deep, luxuriant sleep. Hesitant, I lean forward over the bed. “Rex. Hey.” He opens his eyes and, squinting around, checks his senses for signs of a hangover. “Rex, I think we should go. The guy said we can sleep on the bus.” He yawns. “Sounds like a plan, buddy.”
~~~~~
Halong Bay — Scores of boats line the docks; scores more humans are descending steep, rickety wooden boards to embark them. There’s a shriek from one who has nearly slipped into the oily water. Next, an obese woman wobbles precariously down the board. “Poor board,” next-in-line murmurs to me. The woman embarks with a loud thud.
We take seats inside. No, the guide says. Not there. He moves us to a table with a pair of tall young women — a Welsh blonde and an Australian brunette. We chat, excited about the trip… The engine rumbles steadily; we face the windows as our boat heads out with the flotilla — past kissing rocks, verdant islands and islets, all toward a vast enchanting future.
Lunch — mainly crab and shrimp — is eaten. Soon Rex excuses himself. The forested islets look nice over the aqua sea, under the blue sky and its white sun. Rex returns with an embarrassed smile. Are you OK? “I got Montezuma’s revenge.” Oh, man. Diarrhea. We sympathize and hypothesize. “Something in the shrimp,” he concludes, rising to go again.
~~~~~
The sun at its zenith, we board the deck to bathe in its rays. The insides of my eyelids glow red hot and I throw a shirt over my face. Soon we’re asleep… There’s a thud; Rex and I jerk awake, take a look at each other, shrug, wipe the drool from our chins and roll back to sleep. Everyone else disembarks. The guide wakes us some time later with a hint of annoyance; to drop us off the boat must revolve back to shore, and the result is a log-jam.
We descend into the caves. Cool and large, they echo with the wisdom and wonder of many foreign tongues.
~~~~~
Baby sharks swim under the planks of a crowded wharf, as vendors circle around on kayaks loaded with drinks and snacks. “Coke? Water?” they call.
Rex and I don life-jackets, grab plastic paddles and settle into a kayak. Where do we go? I ask the kayak guy. “There,” he points nonchalantly, to a nowhere on the horizon.
We begin paddling. A cloud of smoke trails a big boat which cruises threateningly close. The resultant waves make paddling more difficult. As the steady effort begins to tire our arms, we find a destination — a small beach scattered with a handful of tourists. Jumping out of the kayak we find refuse — soda cans, beer bottles and bags of chips — littering the shore. God-damn. We tie the kayak to a wooden post in the sand and jog into the sea, where a young couple are passionately making out. Not wanting to stare, I float on my back and look up at the twilit sky.
~~~~~
Back on board the boat, Rex snaps pictures of the rocks and islets. A thirty-something Quebecois couple joins us, and at dinner we have a chat. Just hearing the name “Bill O’Reilly” sends them both into a polite fit of indignation and despair. We, too, wonder about Americans.
On deck, the Europeans coo at each other as Rex and I find the girls playing cards in the darkness. Fancy a game? they ask. Sure. They hand me a tiny headlight; I wear it on my forehead and deal the cards very slowly, my arm muscles still tight and painful from the hotel workout with Rex. Everyone stops to watch me deal the cards. One… two… three… Can’t you speed it up any? giggles the blonde. “Maybe not.” I shake my head. “It’s a long story.”
Rex is eating Oreos. “I wish I had some milk to go with these,” he says happily. “Milk?” Yeah! Milk! “That’s so American,” they sigh. “We have cookies with tea.” Tea, huh? Rex jokes. Well, whoop-de-fuckin’-doo!
~~~~~
The girls and most of the Europeans having departed for bed, Rex and I recline, gazing up into the night sky. The stars and moon play peek-a-boo from behind swift masses of clouds. A few chairs down, a blob of darkness in human form is doing yoga. Rex takes out the camcorder and we record each other’s monologues on life. There are more questions than answers.
Rex turns off the camera and we lie quietly for a while, our eyes searching the heavens. He suddenly erupts in a fit of laughter. I smile, getting ready to laugh along. “What is this? What are we doing?” he asks us — me, the blob doing yoga, God. “Sitting here on a boat, talking into a camera?! What the hell are we doing?” I nod and smile. He sits up. “You know, I’ve suddenly realized something: Life has no point! Life is pointless!” Yes, says a German voice. We turn. The silhouette nods, balancing on one leg. “That’s true.” See! says Rex, delighted.
Old wooden boats litter the bay, lit from the inside like jack-o-lanterns. Drunken revelers scream a karaoke version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” as we retire to our cramped cabin. Rex enters the bathroom, Vietnam guidebook in hand. I kneel upon the far bed and pull the window open. The lapping waves put me in a trance…
“Hey,” Rex interrupts, flipping off the bathroom lights, “would you mind closing the window? The mosquitoes eat me alive.” Oh, sorry. Forgot. I shut the window and the room is suddenly quiet. “Thanks, buddy. Good night.” Good night, Rex. I open a magazine and look out now and then at the calm dark water.
Indochina, Day 3 — The Romanian Guy
Hanoi – We take a guided tour of the city.
There’s an hour-long line wait to see the embalmed remains of Ho Chi Minh. The guide points to a German woman dressed in a tank-top. “You can’t wear that,” he smiles apologetically. “Because of the not respectful.” She locks her jaw, angry. “Then vat do I vear?” she harrumphs. She and other inappropriately-dressed visitors are scurried to a small store on the premises. They must buy scarves, to cover their chests and shoulders with. The rest of us continue marching under the hot sun, past guards who wield semi-automatic weapons.
I conjure an appropriate expression of respect and enter the Mausoleum. We snake around the glass tomb; peering around the enormous Dutchman in front of me, I catch a glimpse of the waxy remains of the dead communist.
Uncle Ho’s precious ’54 Renault still sits in a garage at the Presidential Museum.
The guide power-walks us through the National Museum of Vietnamese History, evidently doubting its significance. Next, he brings us to a lakeside temple, which — oops — is closed for the lunch hour. Grumbling “What the fuck?” in a medley of languages — Dutch, German, Spanish, English, Turkish and Chinese — our group files back into the van.
~~~~~
The Museum of Ethnology displays the various, bright raiments of Vietnam’s ethnic groups; and documents the post-war shortages, when people had to queue for hours to buy necessities like rice.
Outside, a traditional thatched house begs for attention. An elder with a Uncle Ho-style goatee teaches a young Brit how to smoke from a humongous wooden pipe. The two disappear in a cloud of smoke. A row of old trees stand adjacent to the boulevard; a barber gives a haircut in the shade. Children run around as women chop, gather and haul fruits and vegetables.
At the Temple of Literature, behind all the polite nodding, no one really understands the guide’s English. Rex, frustrated, disappears. After the tour, we wait for him outside the van. Minutes pass. The guide asks me where my friend is. “I don’t know.” He raises his eyebrows. The other tourists are looking at their watches. We all stand around a while. “Maybe we can leave,” I finally mumble. “He can meet us later.” The guide frowns. Just then Rex appears, strolling towards us. Where were you? I ask. “Taking some pictures. Check out this one,” he says jubilantly. Without a word I turn and follow the others into the van.
We stop at Hoam Kiem Lake. The wooden, red-painted Huc Bridge brings us to the Jade Mountain Temple. The guide tells us the legend of the emperor who, having succeeded in a revolt against the Chinese, returned a magic sword to the Golden Turtle God. Rex rolls his eyes. “O-K.” Be nice! “Nice?” he says, affecting the Texas drawl of our president. “I don’t have to be nice — I’m an American. And if you don’t like it, well, uh, I’ll just have to, uh, shoot you in the ass.” I laugh.
The guide points to a bronze plaque that had obviously been blasted by a bullet. “It’s from a gun,” the guide whispers dramatically, pointing his fingers like a gun. Duh, Rex mimes, rotating his head like a madman, driven mad by utter boredom.
Motorists don colorful rain slickers as rain begins to fall. We are released from the tour van in front of our hotel.
~~~~~
At 17 Saloon, we sit at the bar and exchange napkin-notes with a couple of bar-girls in red cowgirl dresses. The younger one smiles cutely; the older one wears a stern yet provocative mask. “Are you stay in Vietnam?” writes the cute one. “Maybe, for you,” writes Rex. The girl giggles: “Maybe? For me?” Rex smiles coyly and shrugs.
The lights dim for a fire-bottle juggling show. The girl juggler thrice drops the bottles, spooked perhaps by the grim stare of a communist bouncer.
A Vietnamese American says hello and takes us to a second-floor bar with a balcony that overlooks the lake. We meet the owner: a young, blond, pony-tailed Romanian named Nikolai. He’s been studying at a local university for three years, has a Vietnamese girlfriend, and a side gig teaching English to kids — accent notwithstanding. He’s drinking a bottomless glass of Red Bull and vodka and telling us hilarious stories in rapid English. Now and then he gives an order to his girlfriend in fluent Vietnamese.
“How about smoking some hookah?” he suggests. “I have mint, cherry, and fucking banana.”
We sit around a table with a group of his friends. Rex and Nikolai discuss working out. The former flexes a bicep; and the latter, in a rapid series of movements, sips from his drink, puffs a smoke, ashes the butt, sips again, and — eyes aflame — raises an indignant finger to the sky. “You cannot tell me your arms are real,” he proclaims. “Your arms are fake, bullshit. Look at my arm” — here he flexes his own bicep — “this is real. See, all fucking natural, no bullshit, I’m telling you. But you do the juice, no?” Rex begins to crack up. “No!” he laughs in mock-protest. Nickolai continues, “No, no. You cannot tell me you don’t fucking juice.” He takes a quick puff from the hookah pipe — “Oh my God,” he winces, “this cherry is fucking shit” — and points to the bald, bulky, quiet Ukrainian. “But go arm-wrestle my friend; the juice cannot even help you against him. He is a strong motherfucker. No one ever beats him, because he is fucking strong and does not lose. Let’s go” — he rises, claps, and points to the bar — “I will be judge.”
The bar is cleared as Rex and the Ukrainian each dig a foothold and lock grips. After a few false-starts, they have a go at it. Rex grits his teeth and an artery bulges from his neck. The Ukrainian is behind and — try as he might — can’t grunt himself back into the match. Suddenly he looks small and weak. I feel proud. Rex finally pins the guy’s wrist. “Again!” declares the Romanian. Rex wins two more with increasing ease. He shakes hands with the defeated Ukrainian. Excepting Nikolai everyone sits back down.
“Yes, you won,” he says grandly, “but we all know you are on the fucking juice. If you are not on the fucking juice it will be impossible to beat him, trust me, I know. He is like a fucking beast, he will destroy you, but you are on the fucking juice.”
At three o’clock in the morning everyone’s a little drunk. The Romanian, still sipping his Red Bull and vodka, offers to take us to his apartment. “I have some weed, some great shit, unbelievable. Ask him.” He points to a guy who’s passed out on the sofa. “Look at Trevor.” Nikolai shakes his head. “Always sleeping, like a fucking baby.”
Rex gives me a hopeful look about the weed but I frown and shake my head a little. We have to get up early for the tour. “Oh, right,” Rex says. “Tomorrow we’re doing the Halong Bay tour.” Nikolai jumps from his chair. “Oh my fucking God, Halong Bay? Are you serious?” What do you mean? “It’s the worst fucking tour in the world! In the world, I’m telling you. The worst. It’s like taking your money, wiping your ass with it, and flushing it down the fucking toilet. It’s fucking terrible. If you really want to see Halong Bay I’ll drive you out on my fucking bike and we’ll rent a fucking boat but you can’t go on the tour. It’s so bad it will make you sick, believe me.” Thanks, Rex says, yawning, but it’s probably too late to get a refund. “That is a fucking shame then,” Nikolai says.
He offers to take us back to our hotel. I ride with him and his girlfriend — whose waist I hold and squeeze with my thighs. She scooches forward and redirects my hands to Nikolai’s torso. We speed ahead on the quiet, lamp-lit streets, zooming by dripping trees, flying past rain-slicked intersections, regardless of the future. Heart racing, I take a breath and resign myself to Fate.
Indochina, Day 2 — Midnight Curfew
Hanoi – We climb a steep wooden stairway to the hotel bar for breakfast: milk tea, French bread and jam, eggs, and plantains. Outside it’s hot and sunny. A woman street vendor grabs our arms and has us pose for photos bearing traditional Vietnamese baskets and hats. While she snaps away her friend covertly stuffs fruit in our bags. They point to the fruit and in English demand the equivalent of three bucks but we give only one. A crowd of beggars young and old swiftly surround us; slowly we extricate ourselves from the horde. “Xin loi.” Sorry.
Willowy trees shade our path around the lake. At a major crossing we momentarily shadow a local woman to dodge the unyielding rush of humming motorbikes. A few blocks later, ashore of the polluted Red River and under a grove of trees, a small band of men (and their dog) lounge about a beat-up truck. Rex offers them fruit; they slowly and grimly shake their heads.
We take seats under a parasol at a riverside porch and wait for service; finally a waitress appears. “Ba-ba-ba,” I chirp proudly, holding up two fingers. She nods, disappears and returns with two cold bottles of “333 Beer.” We clink bottles — “To our trip, buddy” — and drink. “Take on Me” plays softly from a distant radio. The waitress slumps in a chair and gazes out into the blue sky.
~~~~~
At sunset we take a walk and find the grand elegance of the Sofitel Metropole. We go up to the small, carpeted gym and pump iron for a couple hours. Rex guides me; in keeping up it’s painfully exhilarating. Afterward, we traverse a lush courtyard, dripping with sweat, still wearing our work-out clothes. A manager, wearing a suit, holds the door open for us. “Good evening, gentlemen,” he says in an American accent.
~~~~~
We dine on noodles and beer street-side amongst the natives. The stools and table are quite small — as if from a kid’s play-set. After dinner we walk next-door to 17 Saloon, a cowboy-western bar with live music. We ogle the communist cow-girls till eleven, closing time.
A pair of motorbike guys give us rides to the Old Quarter. We find a back-alley place and enjoy the cold beer. Cute vendor girls — no older than ten — hit us for not buying their gum. We want to joke with them but don’t remember any Vietnamese from last month’s class.
Just short of midnight there’s a sudden flurry of activity: lights are turned off; tables, stools and patrons are brought in from the street. A police truck pulls up; its headlights catch a few cats scampering across the pebbly pavement. The engine is quieted; cicadas sing as dogs bark in the distance. Grim policemen stare out from the shadows of the rear of the vehicle; a voice over a bullhorn repeats a message. Rex gives a what’s-going-on? look. “Curfew,” a young man whispers. The cops can obviously see our silhouettes and hear our murmurs; they are only acting under pretense.
After a few minutes the truck roars back to life and rumbles away down the alley. Lights flicker back on, heralding the return of a familiar cacophony — tables and chairs dragging, motorbikes zipping, bottles clinking, beer pouring, dishes clashing, babies crying, children laughing, women scolding, men bellowing, cicadas singing…
Indochina, Day 1 — Two Million Dong
Hanoi – Darkness lurks outside the airport. At the info desk we ask for a taxi and the guy points us to a short native. “Where are you going?” he asks, his speech clipped, tonal, vaguely Martian. The Bodega Hotel, I reply. “Yes. Bodega.” How much? “Ten U.S. dollars,” he answers. OK. Cool. “Follow me.” The air is refreshingly calm and tropical. He helps us load our heavy bags into the trunk. “My name is Chinh.” Beaming, he points to his chin. “Like ‘chin,’ see?”
Rex and I sit in the back; Chinh takes the passenger seat up front and asks, “Is this your first time in Vietnam?” Yes. We’re really excited. “Yes, good. Welcome to Vietnam.”
~~~~~
We head out at a leisurely speed, passing a lot of bicyclists and motorists who skirt the dark, anonymous plains. A family of four drapes a single scooter. The mother, wearing a conical hat, holds her brood in place.
Chinh teaches us Vietnamese, penning phrases in my notebook. He raises his voice a little, to fight the sound of air rushing through the open windows. “Do you know how to say, ‘I love you’ to a girl?” How? “Anh yeu em.” Rex sits up. How do you say, You are very beautiful? he asks. “Ban dep gai lam.” We practice; the man corrects our pronunciation.
“Do you like Vietnamese girls?” Chinh winks. Sure, yeah. “Do you want to meet beautiful Vietnamese girls?” Yeah, that’d be cool. “I take you to dance-club, OK?” He readies a finger to tap the driver’s shoulder. Wait, wait. Not now. We wanna get to our hotel first. The man nods. “Tomorrow I can show you beautiful girls. Beautiful girls who really wanting boom-boom.” With a devilish grin, he rapidly pounds a fist up against his palm several times.
“You know boom-boom?” Rex and I look at each other and crack up. Boom-boom. “I think I might’ve heard about it somewhere,” Rex finally answers, ironically. “You like?” Yeah, yeah. What’s there not to like? “You boom-boom a lot, yes?” Chinh winks at Rex. “Oh,” he shrugs, conjuring a look of comic modesty, “you could say that.” He does his sleazeball pose: tilting his head, winking, then pointing and clicking his tongue. Merrily, I perform my own interpretation.
~~~~~
Bedroom lingo litters the opening pages of my notebook. Giddily we read and repeat the phrases.
Chinh points out a number. “Call me tomorrow. I take you to dance-club. You meet beautiful Vietnamese girl. If you get lucky maybe you can boom-boom with her. OK?” OK. Boom-boom. Sounds good.
~~~~~
The Hanoi Opera House stands under a half-moon, draped in orange light. We penetrate the Old Quarter, where the architecture, trees and humid warmth remind me of New Orleans.
The taxi stops beside the curb as motorbikes flit past. I got it, Rex. He goes out to get our bags from the trunk. I offer Chinh a ten-dollar bill but he waves it away. “No,” he frowns. “You pay one thousand five hundred Vietnamese dong.” Huh? You said ten bucks. He shakes his head and repeats the new fare. I’ve forgotten the exchange rate, but the figure seems too low. Maybe his number English isn’t so good, I think, taking out my wallet. I hold some currency out under the interior lights. More, Chinh says. More. More… OK. He grabs the cash and quickly hands it to the driver. I hop out.
Where’s the hotel? asks Rex. “Over there,” points Chinh. “Not far.” OK. Thanks. “Bye-bye,” he waves. The taxi speeds away, its red tail-lights soon obscured by traffic in the distance.
Hauling our backpacks we walk the dim street. A guy appears beside us on a motorbike. “Hello!” Hi. “Mah-lee-wanah?” Marijuana. I look at Rex. We grin helplessly. No thanks, says Rex, waving his hand. Regardless, the guy shadows us on his bike, the motor purring along.
Rex turns to me. “Hey, I owe you a few beers.” No problem. I think two million dong is good for a beer or two. “Two million dong?” The guy didn’t accept the ten. “Two million? Sounds a little high, buddy.” I shrug. That’s what he asked for. Kind of.
Suddenly Rex stops. “See it?” he points. The Bodega Hotel.
~~~~~
Two million dong?! At once the hotel staff halt all chores and circle the front desk. The mustachioed manager, named Tran, taps a calculator. “Oh my goodness,” he winces. “That’s 120 U.S. dollars.” I stare blankly at the calculator. Rex and the staff chant condolences.
“Do you have any information about this taxi?” Tran asks. “License plate, phone number?” Maybe, I tremble, opening my notebook and flipping a few pages. Could this be a phone number? I ask, hiding the smutty lingo Chinh had scribbled on the same page. “Can I take it?” Sure. He steps over to the phone before shaking his head. “No,” he sighs, “this is not a real phone number.” I twist strands of hair around a finger. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. “In Vietnam you must be careful.” Yes. “Many bad guys in Vietnam.” There’s a somber pause. “Would you like some beer? Free, of course.” That’d be great, thanks. He grabs two cans of Tiger beer from the mini-fridge.
We sip our beer. Rex takes a puff of his cigarette. “Well,” he says resignedly, blowing smoke, “there’s nothing we can do about the money now, so…” — he holds up the beer — “… let’s get drunk.” He laughs his infectious laugh. I manage a forlorn smile. “Don’t worry about it, buddy,” Rex assures me, play-punching my arm. “You’ll be fine.”
~~~~~
Upstairs, our room is a vintage affair with twin beds, high ceilings, canary yellow walls and bedding. The bathroom includes a spray hose bidet. Strange spiky fruit sits in a basket by the phone.
Outside, in the dim quiet of the Old Quarter, a few locals are perched street-side on low plastic stools. They appear less-than-happy to see us. The elderly shoot us especially murderous looks. A motorbike driver follows us, trying to eke out a living: “Hello?” he chants affably. Hi. “Where you from?” We’re from America. Sorry. “Oh, good! America good!” Thank you. “Where you going?” Nowhere. We’re just walking. “You want marijuana?” No, we’re OK. “Beautiful girl?” No thanks. “Boom-boom?” Not tonight, says Rex. But maybe tomorrow.
