It took me a moment, but I remembered what had brought me to that point before passing out for another six hours.
I suppose last night was yet another example of why I feel incredibly blessed to "burn" these four months chilling in Vietnam. Except of course the projectile vomiting. It's been a month since my last post so lemme back track a bit and I'll return.
Many people have asked what I do here so let me explain. When confronted with the reality that I had to ship my passport to the UK for two months to acquire my Mongol Rally visas, I had the option of returning to Guatemala, kicking it in Vietnam or sitting on my thumb with mommy and daddy. So obvi I chose Vietnam. My heart remains in Latin America and I figured it'd be good to spend time in bewildering SE Asia before I headed back to Latin America for a long stint. So, WTF do I do here?
Well honestly I live much like any other underemployed 25 year-old but I don't do drugs all day to burn the time. And I don't even like that term underemployed. Let's call it funemployed. What's nice about living in a country where I don't speak the language and don't know many people is that I do whatever I want, whenever I want. I am, in other words, precisely embodying the virtues outlined in the Bachelor Party Year constitution. I came to Vietnam to focus on myself and my biz. I live like a monk. I awake around 630am, out the door and on my bike by 730am. Head to one of three noodle soup stands and get bun bo cha (spicy beef noodle soup with meatballs) or if I'm feeling a bit naughty bun bo cha cua (spicy beef noodle soup with crab meatballs). I've recently found a place that serves up the Southern special, bo ne (fried eggs with meat on a cast iron skillet covered in spicy tomato broth). I down a caphe sua daa (iced coffee with condensed milk) and hoover my breakfast.
Then it's off to one of two coffee stands. I go to one when I want to be left alone and the other if I feel chatty as I know about half the clientele there by now. Another coffee and then it's back to the hotel room/junkie den/office by 9am. Then, jittery and bugged out by the multiple coffees, it's headphones in, EDM live set on and to work I go. I spend my day working on a few projects:
1) Promoting and managing this Spanish school in Guatemala which at this point has become my main source of income. Thanks Wikinvest for the online marketing and SEO experience - the school's killing it now.
2) Kijani Grows biz dev. We just got funded for our Guns 2 Gardens program in Oakland and are moving in to our first real office this week. I've decided to move back to SF in January 2014 for at least 6 months to help grow the biz.
3) Hoi An Silk Village - like I mentioned earlier, I've been doing some consulting for this new tourist attraction in Hoi An. Got the sales manager removed, made people like us again and built a new site. Glad that project's done.
4) Working on fellowship and research applications.
5) Mystery guest - I fortuitously found myself as a mystery guest and quality assurance spy for a 4-star beach resort in Hoi An. Free unlimited food, private beach access, amazing room. What was the first thing I did when I checked in? Yep, you knooooow it! Took a bath. Bathtub even had a headrest homie.
6) Cunt punting this stupid bitch from Oz and rebuilding Hieu's business. You see, this fat chick named Sarah Avenell that lives on 375 Benowa Road in Gold Coast, Australia (for SEO purposes) helped Hieu build a website and TripAdvisor for his motorbike tour business five years ago when she was living here. Noble right? Well not if you're this abominable whore. So she took a 20% commish for simply forwarding online bookings to him (no translations or anything) and is such a drunk she only had about a 50% response rate to emails. Then she went back to Oz several months ago and fell completely off the radar. Zero responses to any customers. She didn't even pay her hosting fees so the site shutdown. Customers find them via TripAdvisor, click to the site, and then nothing. So long story short, we finally got a hold of her and said look, just give Hieu the passwords. You clearly have moved on and he has no way to earn money right now. She gave us an unrepentant NO, which I can only imagine was accompanied by her jowls jiggling as she stuffed another Twinkie in her fat face. She said it was her business and she would do as she pleased. Right, so even though you're 35, live with your parents in a gated community and drive a $60K Mercedes (thanks Google StreetView), you're more important and you don't mind putting Hieu and his 9 drivers out on the street. So it took about two weeks, but I've made a new website and TripAdvisor account and gone guerrilla on the old TA account so we're now redirecting all business to Hieu.
Then I go eat lunch, generally com thit heo (rice with pork and veggies), then charge into the countryside on my bike. Come back after an hour or two ride, snack on banh mi op la thit heo (baguette with fried egg and grilled pork), shower and then practice Spanish before the gym and dinner. After dinner I chill on the corner with my adopted Vietnamese grandma (I swear the most amazing smile ever) and a promoter from a local bar. Chat a bit about culture, life, watevs. Walk home, relax a bit, pop a sleeping pill at 9, read until 10 and then I'm out. I drink very little and have stopped smoking pot (sorry, I cracked the other night, but no more). My body and mind feel pretty tits mcgee right now.
Right, so back to the beginning. After helping Hieu get his business back in order, I've become a bit of a legend with his family and other riders. So I get a free ride to meetings and such and I've spent quite a few nights with Hieu and his family at his house over dinner and drinks. He invited me to his house last night, the anniversary of his father's death. Apparently in Vietnam the entire family, extended family and any family friends gather to pray to the altar, feast and get really wasted. It's not the first time I've been invited to an Asian family's gathering, so I knew what was coming - "the let's get the white boy shithoused game." Hieu's nephew picked me up at 4pm and we headed over. A few beers and an onslaught of incredible foods. Appetizer of jellyfish salad (much better than Chinese jellies), then soup with fried wontons stuffed with pork and shrimp. Beers and the omnipresent "Yo!" or cheers were of course abundant. Then out came banh cuon, or soft rice noodles with roasted pork and then stewed pork shoulder. Redonk.
So, feeling a bit buzzed, I sat back and soaked up the experience. Here were 50 or so family members and friends in this tiny one-bedroom house partying and feasting, all in the name of a dude that died 40 years ago. Pretty sweet tradition. I felt honored to be part of the celebration. It's one of those things that make me happy I'm spending a lot of time in one place, really trying to get to know a particular culture instead of only nibbles of a handful as typical traveling enables.
So as the plates were being cleared at around 6pm I thought to myself, "Hey that wasn't so bad, I haven't drank too much yet." Ah but then the big boys showed up. So I get invited over to one table. One of the guys spoke a bit of English so we started talking. Turns out he was a soldier for the South during the War. He spoke fondly of those days, when he was my age, blowing lines of coke before jumping onboard a Huey and manning a 50 caliber machine gun. Things weren't so nice, however, when the North won the war and he was sent to prison.
Anyway, he really got the drinking going. "Cheers" isn't the same here - you don't say cheers and then have a sip. Well, sometimes you can, but the general expectation is that you kill the glass. So as I was the first foreigner to attend this family event, amplified by my help with Hieu's business, the remaining crew was pretty keen on this whole "let's get this kid blackout." Saying no to older people in Asian cultures isn't really recommended and I especially wasn't going to do it at a semi-sacred event. When I did try to suggest we merely take a sip they said something in Vietnamese which I can only assume meant "Don't be a pussy and drink honkie."
So we played that game for a bit and then they went home. I was relieved. They had brought out drinking food - cha, nem and garlic cloves and I thought I could just have some food, sneak a ciggie and relax as people filtered out. But no. Then a new batch arrived. And another case of beer. And so it went. Pretty soon I wasn't even able to touch my elbow with my off hand as you do when cheers'ing older folks. They were relentless. It was like we were boxing and I couldn't get off the ropes. Just taking one punishing blow after another, chugging beer at an alarming rate.
But I stayed composed. Composed-ish. Finally pleaded for a ride home at 9pm, stumbled into my room, spent a good 15 minutes vomiting and then passed out. Happy anniversary dude.
The girl that works reception at the hotel next door is quite possibly the hottest girl on the planet. Like no joke. And I don't even like Asian girls. Sleeping with her has honestly not even crossed my mind she's so hot. I feel like if I did, it would I don't know, tarnish her or something. So everyday I've said hi and we've had short conversations but I finally BPY'd it and asked her to dinner the other night. You know, I'm pretty judgmental. Very judgmental actually. I've been called a "judgmental asshole" on a few occasions if memory serves me correctly. But I admit that. So since I judge all these white dudes young and old that come to Vietnam and Asia at large and marry a local girl that doesn't really speak English while not really speaking the native language, I thought hey well maybe they're on to something. Maybe you can love someone without much verbal communication? I mean, after all, who I am to judge if I've never experienced it?
Yeah, f that. I'm going to judge the hell out of those guys. After my experience there's no possible way one could ever have a meaningful relationship with close to zero verbal communication. And this is like the hottest girl ever!!! Don't get me wrong, I had a great time...we went to nhau, had some grilled meat and morning glory, drank a ton, got to know each other a wee bit better through broken English and very broken Vietnamese. But yeah dudes, like WTF? Don't be a creepy white guy just exchanging awkward smiles and high fives with your "girlfriend."
Alright ya'll so that's what I've been up to here, jus straight kicking it. Gonna be here for another month or so til Borneo and then London. Remember kids - not all who wander are lost.
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