Supply and Demand

In Hoi An a few days back, an area in heart of Vietnam which is experiencing a crop-threatening drought, I was caught in two days of torrential downpour. Enough water to instantly flood the road. Twelve dollars per cubic metre of water, my arse. Sitting in a cafe under some tarpaulin, I spied a young boy peddling his bicycle through the six inches of surface water outside. He was holding a rather nice umbrella, so it seemed logical to shout that I wanted to buy his umbrella. I was surprised when he stopped and turned back, and by the fact that he spoke English to a sufficient extent that I might negotiate a fee for him to fetch me an umbrella as I sat and drank rum.

Sitting at a cafe in Nha Trang, I watch a hungover English person stumble towards a chair. He sits and orders a beer and a curry for his mid afternoon snack. A True Brit abroad. A cyclo driver lurches past slowly, and True Brit looks up from his stupour and takes a puff from an imaginary cigarette. The cyclo driver raises his eyebrows, turns back and returns the sign, nodding. After the arrival of the samosa course, a moped driver arrives with a big grin, and buys a cola. He looks at True Brit and says, “Marry Wanna?” True Brit nods and a newspaper packet of what looks like about a pound of grass is handed over and a price agreed. Simple and not particularly subtle.

Conversely, one tactic for deterring hawkers is to ask them for ridiculous things that they don’t have. This can sometimes backfire. I was stumbling home last night when yet another toothless cyclo driver asked me if I wanted anything, and reeled off his inventory of “lady” and “marry-wana”, adding, “very good, very cheap”. I shook my head and told him that I only wanted smack, horse, haich, junk etc. I tapped a vein in the crook of my elbow to demonstrate. “No have heroine.” Good. However, an enterprising pick pocket turns up. She is an old hag with lots of makeup, sharing a moped with two grinning blokes. The middle bloke tells me he can get me some smack, and is tapping his forearm in sympathy with the obvious withdrawal pains I must, as an alleged smack-user, be feeling. Meanwhile, the old hag is off the moped, asking if I want some “sucky sucky”, while lunging at my trousers. With one lewd hand, she tries to grab my little chap, while using her devious hand to pat down my pockets for cash and wallets. I guess she thinks I’m a junky, and can’t feel her devious hand. I unhand her, and have to admit I don’t really want any smack. I resort to telling them I’m actually after a water buffalo, and I can just see them coming over the horizon now with a large animal with a ring through its nose.