Advertisement
Published: March 22nd 2008
Edit Blog Post
Chuc Mung Nam Moi Mother-Fucker Pt. 1 04/02/08
We all step out of the Water Puppet theatre dazed and confused, reeling from the ordeal and stunned at the depths of depravity that the Canadian people are capable of sinking to. There is little option but to find a place to drink, so we end up stopping at a jazz cafe next to our hotel. The prices are high and the quality of the music low, so after one cocktail we move on. Asking moto taxi drivers for directions, we end up at Funky Monkey, a neon lit disco-dive, where we get mauled by Duke, a spindly little fuck who serves us our drinks.
At this point, I am far from in the mood. The music fists fucks its way into my head, mixes its shit up with my jet lag and India hangover, and leaves me cold to the night. Negativity is like a thick, heavy blanket - it wraps around tight and is not so easy to shrug off. I'm thinking about friends left behind, about being in a country and a city I don't know. There is no sun in Hanoi. I have stepped out of the light, and well and truly into the shade. The dustdevils and shit creatures of India are long gone, the children and the people of Shiv are just a smiling memory.
I look around at my companions, still strangers. Craig and Kat are doing B52's. The flame burns Kat's hand, and the glass falls to the floor and smashes. I can't hear the conversation, or summon the energy to join it. I need to do something, because everyone else is up for invading the dance floor, and I look like the odd man out, the miserable fuck who doesn't know how to enjoy themselves. The solution is tequila, and I knock back three or four. Soon, I'm able to command my body into motion. At first my legs are heavy, and my heart not in it. I abort my first attempt at dancing, and return to the bar. More tequila is disappeared, and then I'm back from outer space.
Gregg is owning the dance floor, thrashing about like a wild thing, arms flailing. The puppets have clearly got to him. Thank fuck there are no children in this joint for him to mess with and teach Canadian ways. I have my own style, unique and fucked up, totally without rhyme or reason. Fuck it, though. Tequila makes me very happy, and the pessimism has been put back in its box. The desert will wait for me, and I can catch up with the sun any time. Now, I will dance to the Prodigy, and all will enjoy my spectacle. Everyone is pretty wasted by now. I look around and see Marianne wearing someone's sunglasses, nodding her head and giving us all peace signs. At some point, I end up with a baseball gap, decorated with a picture of cannabis leaves. The dance floor, almost empty when we arrived, is now heaving.
We leave Funky Monkey behind around midnight, and look for something new. It's late now, and there is little open. We find our way into a taxi, and tell the driver to take us to a drinking establishment immediately. We are dropped outside a karaoke venue. They are shut, but we are important people and our arrival prompts them to re-open for our pleasure. We get shown to a private room, and brought a tray of beers. This is the second time I have ever participated in karaoke, the first time being way back in 1997.
The singing is enthusiastic and unpleasant. I spice up my songs with swearing - a cunt here, a felcher there, like Elvis with Tourettes and a severe throat infection.
I am too drunk to note the time when are kicked out. I half expect to be bundled into a cop car, charged with killing the music and sentenced to immediate death. We stagger about the streets, and the word on everyone's lips is marijuana. We seem to spend an age flagging down moto's outside our hotel, repeating the word over and over. I think at one point someone sells us some tea. Then, I'm looking up with blurred vision at a moto parked next to me. The driver says that one of us should hop on, explaining he will take us to marijuana. I don't need a second invitation, and we speed away. I feel hands around my waist, and realise there is a third person on the bike. I woman is running her hands over my trousers, getting closer and closer to where my manhood is resting. She is whispering something in Vietnamese into my ear. I try hard not to enjoy the groping, especially as it's difficult to see what exactly I'm contending with whilst she's behind me, half hidden by a crash helmet.
I look around, and there seems to be a whole convoy of bikes. I wonder, smiling, if I am about to mugged - beaten viciously, maybe raped, and then left lying in the gutter. I could end up in some boom-boom hotel, tied to a bed while the woman writhes on top of me, and the moto guys ride their bikes around the room, cheering. Perhaps triggered by mild paranoia, I find I badly need to piss. The woman is within reach of her target, and I doubt what she is looking for is a handful of urine, so I ask the driver to stop.
I try to walk in a straight line, down into an alley. Looking over my shoulder as I piss, there are four or five bikes, riders sitting, watching. This would be the perfect time to fuck me over, so if the raping is gonna come, it will be now. Luckily, nothing happens. I walk back to the moto's. One guy tells me to wait here, that he will be back with the weed. I stand on the corner for a few minutes, alone with the darkness. A lone moto drives up, and the first word out of his mouth is "marijuana". At first, I think this is my driver, back with the goods. However, he does not recognise me, and rather than get back off his bike, I ask him to take me back to the hotel.
I arrive back empty-handed. However, in my absence the group has done well. We have a big bag of weed, and I have a pack of king skins left over from India. We go up to the room I share with Gregg, and pretty soon the place is fucked - filled with smoke, and covered in drunken mess. Around 5am, everyone leaves, and we go to bed.
Morning. 8am. I wake reluctantly. We are leaving in an hour, and I still feel drunk. I try to have a shower, but the water is cold, so I just stand there, unsure what to do, unable to blow away the Tequila cloud and formulate any rationale thought. After a bit, I get out, pack some things, dress. Things are not so good, though, so I get back in the shower and try again. Hot water is necessary at times like this, to kick start the system. I get lucky. The warmth is like CPR, a sloppy wet kiss of life. I am ready to leave, and skip down the stairs like a sunbeam.
Everyone is waiting. They want to know why I spent so long in the shower, and when I explain I needed to have two, they make jokes. To me, the logic is clear, but then I am still very, very drunk. I dash to the ATM, laughing in the faces of the book sellers and touts that hang on every corner. Then, when I am back, we leave for our new home, in Yen Bai.
Vietnam, Vietnam. Not so bad, after all. The skies may be grey, the temperature low, the cultural highlights perverted, but things could be worse. India is gone, and may never come back, so I have to make friends with my new home. I think I will get a hangover every time I leave a place; a throbbing headache and stomach cramps that painfully remind you that good times come at a price, and the price is that they end. Now, I am having a new kind of fun, a new kind of madness. The bus bounces along, and people sleep. Gregg flops from side to side, smacking his head into the window as we bear left, falling into my lap as we go right. It's the fucking puppets, man. Those puppets - they mess you up.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.094s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 9; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0553s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb