So I’ve made new friends, having temporarily lost Joe and the hotel room key. With a shady character who attempts to sell you opium as you ride on the back of his moped. A cunning trick, and probably leaving both dealer and punter capable of evading low speed pursuit.

He filled me in, unbidden, on the local hooker scene. If you go to a disco, such as the one I told him that I and Joe were at the other night, hookers will dance with you and otherwise distract you while your pockets are picked. I suspect my little visitor in the cyclo the other night was attempting to pick my pocket from the comfort of my lap. Last laugh is on her in that I didn’t have any money.

So my new friend tells me that the way forward is to meet at the Four Seasons Cafe. The drinks are cheap. There are no women to pick your pocket. (Probably no women to tie bits of string and menus to your trousers, giving an indication of how light fingered they are, and how insensitive drunk people are to their pockets). The only people there are dealers and pimps, and they apparently just phone up for hookers as you need them. So now you know. These communists are very forthcoming with exposing their seedy underbelly sometimes.