The end of an era, the start of the hangover

On the surface, Joe and I don’t have much in common, except that we both agreed to go and save fish with Greenforce. But we’ve spent the last couple of months mainly touristing around together. And saying goodbye to Joe and going on to Singapore is part of a strange change process. Apparently, if you read the bumph on the left of the screen, this blog talks about the effects of this so-called ‘sabbatical’. So here goes.

During our time together, we would have cycles of activity, followed by staying somewhere for a few days getting shedded, and then we’d scoot off again, spending a day or two moving about to sober up. Our last night in Saigon was pretty typical. We’d just got out of the War Remnants Museum, which has some pretty harrowing photos of war. A bit of aimless wandering afterwards revealed no pirate DVD movies to buy, so we went to a bar, and ended up playing pool for quite some lagers. A quick trip to the hotel for showers, party clothes, and cheap rum resulted in Joe cutting his own hair, and throwing condoms filled with water at the street below our balcony. More lager and a bit of food followed that – playing Connect 4 so that Joe can win some money playing people in bars in Thailand.

Another Apocalypse Now bar. This was on a Friday, so it was heaving, yet we didn’t pay any entry fee. The ladies who entered did have to pay I noticed, perhaps this was some kind of equality sponsored ‘gentlemen’s night’, though I doubt that very much. A bit of dancing with the motley assortment of pimps, expats with their temporary lady friends, and I decided to see if Saigon had anything else to offer in the dancing stakes. We went outside and an obliging moped driver took us to a brothel called Green Hill following our request to go dancing. “No, no, no! DISCO dancing,” we hollered at him, and he took us to a few other places which also had no dancing. So we went back to Apocalypse Now after exhausting our driver of ideas. We danced a little more, befriending a pimp who had perhaps had a few too many shandies. He kept asking if we were interested in his particular protege, who seemed unaccounted for. We assured him that we were quite fine, while thanking him for thinking of us. Apocalypse Now finished, but we were not. I remembered that Green Hill had a pool table in the ‘meeting area’, so that’s where we went.

We started playing pool upon entering the brothel, and drinks were brought, as were doubles partners, should we need them. Joe’s partner had little sticky plasters on her temples, so I thought I would show off my grasp of Vietnamese, saying that she was crazy. I didn’t know the words for electro-convulsive shock therapy, but I don’t think that would have helped. My quip had fallen short of the mark, and the lady stormed off, replaced by one who had no signs of attendance at thought correction school. This lady proved to be a bit of a pool player, so Joe and I decided to play for money. We figured that this would kind of cover the opportunity cost of us taking them away from their line of business. Although there were no other potential punters vying for their attention in the Green Hill, we figured that we shouldn’t leave them empty-handed.

We played pool. We lost. We played again. We lost. Tequilas came and went (the ladies liked Baileys) We doubled the stakes and lost again. This was hysterically funny for Joe and I, as we had to get rid of the last of our currency, had no intention of having the ladies escort us anywhere, and were keeping them off the street. Very noble. I can’t remember when we left, but I have flashes of memory. I phoned my mother at around 5:30am Vietnamese time, and sent a few random SMS messages, including one to someone in Thailand whose number is written in the back of one of our books.

The important thing is that we managed to wake up at 7:30, and I managed to get my hangover onto the flight to Singapore. I’m a strict believer that you should always fly with a hangover, so that you don’t notice any dehydration that air travel might cause. Somehow, while standing in line for check in, while weeping toxic rum from every pore in a very badly ventilated airport, I was selected to be upgraded to business class. I didn’t realise until I got onto the plane, I was too preoccupied with keeping my breakfast south of my throat. I sat in the comfy seat on the plane, trying to hide my mud splattered walking boots, thinking there’d been some kind of mistake. I still think they made a mistake – perhaps the check-in people didn’t have a sense of smell.

I found myself in Singapore where everyone speaks English, and alone in a hotel room for the first time in about 2 months. It wasn’t hard to see the staggering difference between life in Vietnam and that in Singapore. No-one has tried to sell me guns, girls or ganja. No-one has tried to sell me books about guns, girls and ganja. No-one has really tried to sell me anything. You kind of get annoyed sometimes by the attention that you get in countries like Vietnam and Thailand because you are visibly different to most of the poverty striken people there. But you get used to it, and now the absence of attention is alien. You just become someone walking around in freedom, no longer a pretend celebrity with a wallet to be taxed. And they don’t watch wrestling much in Vietnam – probably the WWE figured there’s no-one with enough reddies to buy the merchandising. So I watched Brock, and the Rock last night, and am strangely slipping back into my old civilisation. The one with computers that have big screens and fast connections. The one where Kane is coming back to the ring soon. And booze is expensive.