Barry: Tale of an Inebriated Scotsman

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There are some travelers who are just unforgettable and Barry the Inebriated Scotsman was one. I met numerous other travelers in Vietnam who had encounters with Barry. This guy is a living legend and will not be forgotten on the Southeast Asian backpacking circuit any time soon.

I first encountered Barry when he sat next to me on the 14 hour overnight bus ride from Hoi An to Nha Trang. Vietnamese buses are cheap ($6 for this trip), but are painfully slow since the drivers cannot exceed 50 kilometers an hour. The drivers honk constantly and swerve all over the road dodging various vehicles and pedestrians, so it is almost impossible to sleep on the overnight buses. Add Barry to the mix and you are looking at one loooong but entertaining journey.

I did not think it was humanly possible to be that hyperactive after popping four Valiums and drinking a half case of beer, but Barry showed me otherwise. He talked constantly and bounced up and down in his seat. I think he was speaking English, but he has such a thick Scottish accent, I couldn’t understand him half the time.

Barry drank beer nonstop and chatted with my Kiwi friends and me for the entire trip, slurring through such topics like how he got kicked out of Australia for overstaying his visa, how much he liked New Zealand, and how much he liked the swimming pool at his guesthouse in Hoi An. I didn’t sleep at all and every time I dozed off, I was awakened by the sound of Barry cracking open another beer or the driver swerving and honking. He asked the bus driver to stop for unexpected bathroom breaks and at places where he could buy more beer (usually from kid vendors out selling beer and other refreshments at 3am). Barry kept offering us beers, but took them back a few times with promises of buying us another at the next stop because he ran out and needed more. He was so hard core that he was even drinking beer when the sun came up and when we arrived in Nha Trang at 7:30am.

Barry was traveling with a German guy named Simon, who also popped a couple of Valiums. Valiums are cheap and available without a prescription at Vietnamese and Cambodian pharmacies, so many travelers use them to make long bus journeys a little less painful. Simon and Barry had been traveling together since New Zealand and seemed to be the perfect match, though Simon obviously didn’t have Barry’s tolerance.

At one point, I heard laughing from the back of the bus and turned around to see Simon passed out on the shoulder of the Englishman sitting next to him. The Englishman had a good sense of humor about the German draped all over him and said, “But we only just met. I’m not the kind of boy who does this on a first date.” Everyone, including the Vietnamese, was laughing, but Simon obliviously slept through almost the whole bus ride.

We finally arrived in Nha Trang and went looking for a guesthouse so we could get s few hours sleep. I am going off track here, but I realized I never wrote anything about Nha Trang in my other entries. I only spent two days in this beach town before taking off for Saigon. The first day, I hung out on the beach with a bunch of street kids trying to sell me postcards, photocopied books, tacky souvenirs, etc. I taught them some English slang phrases and they forced me to sing “Hotel California,” which they all had on printouts in their pockets. The second day, I took a booze cruise out to one of the local islands to do some snorkeling. I mostly hung out with my Kiwi friends and this group of Russians, but we had lunch and drank rice wine with some cool Vietnamese people, including a really nice newlywed couple from Saigon. I somehow managed to do a face plant on the lower deck while waiting for the toilet, but escaped injury besides bruising my ego from the shame of everyone laughing at me.

I thought I would not see Barry again, but I randomly ran into him on my way from Nha Trang to Saigon when the bus stopped for a lunch break in Mui Ne. He was staying in Mui Ne for a few days and somehow remembered us from the earlier bus trip. He went into some long, disjointed rambling about how he liked Maoris and French girls and how he lost his wallet a few days but it didn’t have his credit cards in it so it was OK. He said he’d been off the bevy for a few days but was still popping the Valiums and that he’d been up until 4am watching the footy on the telly. The Kiwis and I were laughing so hard that we could barely eat our lunch.

I still had not seen the last of Barry. I ran into him again at a guesthouse/travel agency/Internet café in Saigon a few days later. He was staying at the guesthouse and had just come back from (what else) buying a huge bag of beer. He thought my name was Kim and invited me out drinking with Simon and him that evening. I had to decline because I already had dinner and drink plans with other friends, but I’m sure it would have been an interesting experience. I thought maybe I would stumble over him lying in a gutter, but that was the last time I saw him.

Here’s to you, Barry. I hope you’re back in bonny Perth, Scotland now. Cheers.

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