So been in Hue for 3 weeks now. And I'm really loving it. In particular, I don't speak the language and have few friends here. So I'm able to be alone for 95% of the time. Which I was unsure about at first, but I've come to realize how much I love being alone. Not being anti-social per se, but having the opportunity to think and self-analyze. It's really a luxury. And I have no one to report to. Being with some of my married friends here I've re-remembered how lucky I am that I don't need to field calls of "where are you honey?" or "i'm waiting for you at home, when are you coming back???".So I've been spending my endless amounts of free time working out, reading and practicing Spanish, applying to fellowships and working on other side projects. It's awesome, especially considering I spend about $10/day living like a king doing it. One of my fav activities is going for long runs into the countryside, through rice paddies and by mud huts, with everyone looking at me like an alien. Time will tell if I turn into Teddy Kaczynski but so far so good.
My friend from Guate, Shelley, paid me a visit a couple weeks ago and we had a good time traveling around Hue and then motorbiking it up to Paradise Cave. We got to hum through the same karsts and rice fields that I traveled through via train. Of course, we ended one of the nights "nhau'ing it" as I would say, getting hammered over grilled meats and rice wine in Khe Sanh. The concept of "nhau" btw, is uniquely Vietnamese. The loose translation is "getting wasted and eating lots of grilled meats". So I can't come up with a single word translation in English.
Obvi we traveled with Nam, the same driver that took me and Alby to Hoi An last year. I'm actually staying at his brother's hotel. So basically through a variety of connections and the ability to speak English, I've partnered with a handful of folks here in Hue and am acting like a biz dev consultant for their businesses, all related to tourism. In fact, a "quick" biz meeting with Nam tonight turned into a booze fest (vietnamese biz meetings either leave me hyper-caffeinated or drunk, drunk in this case) where we discussed starting Hue's first real homestay. A small but growing part of me wants to become the Shantaram of Hue, with a hand in all tourism-related businesses like currency exchange, drugs, tours, homestays, restaurants, etc. But no hookers. I'd never do that. Speaking of which, the low lifes about town have finally remembered me I think. You know, the guys that offer you weed or girls or whatever. I started saying things like "no hablo ingles" or "nah, I'm good your mom blew me this morning" and though they didn't understand a single word, I think they got the point that I wasn't interested.
But yeah, I'm gonna keep my feet moving. Just focused on this silk tour in Hoi An for now...which is shaping up to be a fun project. I've found my go-to's here, the places with good food and fair prices (the amount of arguments I've gotten into over white people prices is insane) so I feel really comfortable in my lil shell here in Hue.
Yeah, that's pretty much it for now. All quiet on the western or far eastern front if you will. Adios cabrones.
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