Northern Laos

I met Jane at the airport in Vientane, having survived my second Laos Airlines flight. It should be noted that flight departure/arrival boards here are printed pieces of paper, taped to a wall like a display in a third grade classroom.

Jane is a Canadian who talks faster than a six year old on cocaine. She is the character who enters each scene talking, machine-gunning syllables. The best way to adjust is to turn on the Janefilter, listening to only the important bits ("hey, are we lost?") and tuning out most of the rest ("this one time I was at a shop opening and Chevy Chase was there and I had a margherita that was so good but anyway back to Chevy Chase who does not look good by the way but wow, was that a margherita").

I have such a filter.

Vientiane is a sleepy riverfront capital. Our two days here cruised by, with eating taking center stage. I finally got my pasta fix at a great place called Sticky Fingers. We splurged for two nights at Lani Guest House and had huge rooms in a colonial-vibed French house. It was a dream to stay somewhere opulent, especially at the price of $30 a night (I had been averaging $3-5 per night for the past week). The sights here are fairly limited but it is an excellent place to kick back.

We pushed north with a 5 hour bus ride to Vang Vieng, which has a decidedly Spring Break vibe despite being in an incredibly beautiful location. The locals have their hands dirty with backpacker money. Even the most scenic riverside bars blare rudimentary techno and serve "happy shakes".

My guest room had a series of warnings posted, including this one: "Do not bring both men and women which is not your own husband or wife into room for making love." Also: "Do not allow tourist bring prostitute and others into your accomodation to make sex movies in your room. It is restriction". Other than the signs, Le Jardin Organique Guesthouse is wonderful and a highly recommended find.

We spent a full day here tubing down the river, which was great fun. We took a tuk-tuk to the drop point for the river, although it took a while because the vehicle kept dying (we pushed). We grabbed mulberry mojito's from a stand and jumped in the river. There were about a dozen kids swimming along with us, all asking us for money for "helping" us into the water. One kid swam up with my sunglasses, which he had deftly swiped, extorting a buck from me for their safe return. I admired his ingenuity so much that I had to smile. Little fucker.

Tubing in Vang Vieng is the kind of thing that has never been replicated elsewhere; a true original experience. Granted, the river is full of drunk idiots but if you let go, you can become a drunk idiot too. The drill is simple. Get in tube. Stop at makeshift river bar. Climb up an aparatus and jump from a rope swing. Get back in tube. Repeat. The actual float time for tubing is 2 hours; the rest is stopping for a refill and socializing.

Some people love VV dearly but a few days was enough for me. The parties might have been exciting for someone from Maine but they failed to impress this New York City Boy. A neon sign, a couple of hammocks and a bonfire hardly rivals a NYC night out. With a Douchebag Factor of 93, I was ready to head to Luang Prabang after three nights.

Jane and I took the infamous bus ride north, a 7 hour affair involving massive inclines and declines so sinister that would even make Rambo whimper. A thunderstorm hit on the way, which only slowed our driver after he skidded us into the other lane, barely recovering the wheel as even his hands flew in the air.

Luang Prabang is sensational and was easily my favorite place on the trip. The town is parked perfectly on the Mekon, its charm obvious in every street and alley. It has a movie-set quality at night, with twinkling overhead lights and endless craft stalls. Monks nearly outnumber tourists. You cannot walk down a road without seeing one in his bitchin' little orange robe, often carrying a matching umbrella to block the hot sun. Jane became a monk-magnet, talking to them endlessly. I am a little monk-shy, fearful that I will make an unprovoked dick joke in their presence.

We took a trip up to the big waterfall, hiring a tuk-tuk with a Canadian couple we had met down in Vang Vieng. It was a hot and humid day, so the icy little pools below the falls were The Best Treat Ever. We settled on a serene spot away from the tourists, which was also being enjoyed by a couple of young monks. We jumped into the cool water and joined them, all taking turns jumping from two massive trees that had fallen in the pool. The monks swam in their orange robes, looking like some kind of blooming flowerpeople as they treaded water. You really can't have a stressful day when you're hanging with monks at a waterfall.

That night we ate at Lao Lao Garden, a great spot built into the mountain. We cooked food on our own mini hibachis and drank too much Beer Lao. The staff here was as gay as it gets, flitting from table to table in order to show the white folks how to properly cook their food. The owner was dating an Australian guy, who hung with us and gave us all of the town gossip. Asking him how he ended up here, he replied "I am a motherfucking rice queen, why else do you think?".

Jane left for Singapore the next day and I decided to spend my last Laos week at a guest house across town. Luang Prabang was so relaxing that I just couldn't pack up my bags and trudge to another place - I was spent. I explored the Wats and took a full-day cooking class, boozing afterwards with a woman in her forties who had traded her Australian banking job for a teaching job in China. I wandered every corner of Luang Prabang, from the river restaurants to the endless night markets.

It was finally time to enter my trip's endgame, headed towards Bangkok for five last nights. I woke at dawn to catch my flight and met my yawning tuk-tuk driver. We drove through the misty streets and both chuckled when we encountered a procession of at least a hundred monks. We had hit the only rush hour this town has - each morning the monks walk from one side of town to the other, collecting gifts of sticky rice from people along the way (this is mostly what they eat all day). It was a very different kind of traffic jam. The oranged robes parted a hole for us to pass through and smiled, knowing that I had a flight to catch. I can't think of a better last memory of this wonderful place.

Sometimes I Still Feel The Bruise

I have only been in love once. I am talking about the kind of love that dazes your days and smacks you like a UFO sighting. Overpowering, crushing, kneedropping, how-did-this-happen-to-me love.

I met Dan through a 14.4 dialup modem in 1996. It was a challenge to access the World Wide Web in those days, let alone view anything that loaded in under five minutes. I had just been given a monstrous laptop from my new job and it accessorized perfectly with my lunchbox-sized cell phone. I began doing something called "surfing", which meant finding websites linked from others. I suppose I was trapped in some pink linkring when I stumbled on Dan's Diary. Nowadays, just google "hamster in the ass" and a wiki will come up, explaining some fetish and its mistaken correlation to an actor with grey, feathered hair. Back then, if you were not linked, you were invisible.

As everyone knows, the internet was originally invented for scientists and lonely gay people. It was the shot- heard-round-the-world for men who looked like Rick Moranis; the kind of guy who had an incredible brain but a discredible body. It was also the most embarrassing place to meet someone romantically, thought of as a sewer where rats met and bred. Thousands of mid-nineties relationships were given false beginnings to the outside world. "We met in a bar, mom" was much easier to swallow than "we met in an aol message forum about Vulcan roleplaying".

You must also understand that people used to genuinely work at the office. Ten minutes was never wasted on Britney' snatch or Scrabble battles with Betty From Duluth. It wasn't until my laptop arrived that I began wasting time on the clock. My modem was constantly dialing, trying to find a local number that would connect me to America Online's labyrinth of message boards. It was during one of these wasted office hours that I discovered Dan's Diary.

It was a seemingly simple site, which required hours of programming back then. The idea that somebody would regularly document their life online was crazy. That somebody would take the time to code it was just plain batshit insanity. The webmasters of those days were regarded as gurus, pulling off something that any douchebag with a keyboard and wifi can do today. The truth is, Dan's blogging preceded the term by ten years. He was a Woe Pioneer.

I read as many entries as I could in one work day, before packing the Black Monster into my bag and flying to Cincinnati for a business trip. I finished the final entries on an airport floor, dialed up through a newfangled port on a public pay phone. Technology was moving fast.
There is no understating what Dan's Diary did to me. It made me feel like there was someone else exactly like me (who wasn't Morrissey), a real person capable of breathing the same air that I breathed. He even liked my favorite band, a semi obscure shoegazing outfit called Spiritualized. I was thrilled.

I wrote the email to Dan all night long. I knew that it was a futile exercise; that I would never see a reply from someone who probably got dozens of emails per day (dozens was, like, a lot back then). The letter was the most honest thing I had ever written. It was the first true proclamation of my gayness and one of the few times that I showed all of my cards. I confessed my huge high school crush, my deepest secrets and my favorite Mazzy Star song lyrics. I pushed send as soon as it was finished, for fear that I would lose my connection.

Then, nothing.

Then, something.

Two days later an email arrived. It was surprisingly long and began with a confession. Dan was not, in fact, writing the diary in real time. He was posting bits of his early 20's experience while now in his late 20's. It was more a memoir and less a diary. This did not phase me because he went on to write the best letter that I have ever read. It was like the someone telling me that I was the guy in his songs.

I walked around the East Village ninety times, re-reading the line-printed copy of his letter and trying to fathom my response. I had nobody to call because I was entirely in the closet, without a soul to talk to about the chemicals screaming through my brain. I was at the emotional level of a fourteen year old, having never had any feelings for the dozens of girls that I fingerbanged and dumped. This was all frighteningly new.

I wrote back a letter that rivaled the length of something written by Tolstoy, unable to stop myself but sure that its length and contents would put Dan off me. My new letter, further pouring out my heart and pathetic feelings, might as well have come from the psych ward at Lennox Hill Hospital. If it was a Harry Potter howler, it would have screamed "I AM IN LOVE WITH YOU AND I DONT EVEN KNOW YOU."

Then nothing. Then something.

Lots of something. Hundreds of pages of letters flew back and forth over the next two months, often even slowing down the progress of the website, which angered many addicts of the diary. Dan regularly received letters from bereaved men in their sixties who were tired of watching Dallas re-runs and ignoring their wives. He confessed to me that many of these men offerred him money, plane tickets and promises...they felt like they knew him from the diary and were in love with him too. The thing was, my creepy love was requited.

We both changed our calling plans so that we could talk into the night. I would dial his nine digits into my plastic Connair touchtone, praying that my roommates could not hear my fluttered conversation. I would lay on my floor like a fifteen year old, twirling the cord between my fingers and toes.

The first call was the most terrifying thing I had ever done, besides fingerbanging the girls previously mentioned.

"This is weird".

"This is really weird".

"Are you breathing normally?"

"No"

"Me neither. I might have an embolism"

"Don't".

"Ok".

"What's an embolism?"

We were pushing the three month mark when one of us finally brought up the idea of meeting. He lived in Boston and I lived in New York, so the distance was surmountable enough if we were not so chicken shit.

Anyone now knows that you should move a relationship offline within a week. I was not even experienced enough to ask for a picture. Keep in mind, this was when a modem made a high pitched shrill upon dialup and jpegs were still not in fashion.

I was too scared to make the simple trip - our relationship was just too perfect. Any chance that it might deflate was just too scary to consider. So, we continued until I finally had to be in Boston for work, a couple more months later.

"I am going to be in Boston"

"My boston?"

"Yeah, your Boston. The one at the end of the Mass Pike "

"Oh"

We were both witty on paper or after 2am. 11pm to 2am was not our strike zone.

"So, we should meet?"

"This is going to be a disaster"

"Challenger level disaster".

"Exactly."

"We have to."

"I know."

Everything about the meeting was ill- conceived, from the location to the plan. We were to meet in my room at The Park Plaza Hotel, an institution that was glorious in 1962 but, despite hanging onto it's prime real estate, could never quite maintain that original polish. It was where wives went to drink champagne and men went to hammer their secretaries.

From there, there was no plan. I was so nervous that I could not work out a proper first date. First, there was the (ludicrous) proposition that somebody should see us and learn of our homosexuality. Second, I had no idea where we could go and be comfortable picking up the dozens of conversation threads of the past five months.

Third. Oh god. This was happening.

I was pacing at seven, when he was supposed to arrive. I was frantic by 7:20. By 8:00, I was nearly throwing up, imagining that he had panicked and fled for home. I pondered running through Cambridge with a boom box overhead playing "Fade Into You".

Then a knock on the door.

I had told myself that I would not look at the keyhole but I did anyway. Imagine how many people have been inappropriately judged through a keyhole since its invention.

I opened the door to find the opposite of my dreams. Dan was, it seemed, human. His hair was thinning, his waist was expanding and his glasses were the size of icecaps. He looked twice as frightened as me, which put him at Defcon Five. I invited him in.

I was so busy being nervous that I could not even process how to handle things. Physically, this was not the man if my dreams. My mind was trying to catch up, to figure out if I could accept this substitute. Had I simply expected too much? Were the pages more important than the cover?

Anyone who tells you that the cover is unimportant is lying, or needs to drop forty pounds. The cover is what sells the book. Over the past few months I had read the forward, contents and the press quotes without seeing that it was bound with. I knew after seeing Dan in person that I could not purchase this volume.

He knew it before he even came into he room. Being older and a natural fatalist, he knew that it was going to be a tragic occasion. He had driven around for an hour stalling the inevitable but eventually swallowed his medicine.

There we were, alone in the room, already weary by the seconds of anxiety. Neither of us could get out a full sentence.

"So what do."

"Not sure. Do we?"

"I guess stay or."

Maybe something just here. "

"In the room. Movie maybe. "

We payperviewed a thriller starring Gina Davis, when her career had promise and zing. We watched it sitting inches apart on the full-sized bed, both pretending to watch the movie and both doing the opposite. Our minds were racing, doing triage. Neither of our diagnosises seemed promising. This silent hemorrhaging continued for over two hours, at which point Gina Davis' career began its descent.

"That was horrible."

"She'll never recover."

"So, I should go. You think?"

"Yeah. I think."

"OK".

A walk to the door. A horribly confused moment. An exit.

Three days passed before we interacted again. The meeting was such a letdown that neither of us had recovered well. I came home and called in sick with what every New Yorker claims ails them (sushi food poisoning). I didn't listen to melodramatic music. I did not write in a journal. I did not drink or smoke too much. I just wallowed on the bed in my tiny bedroom, trying to figure out how everything could be fixed. I didn't want Dan out of my life - I just wanted the memory of The Park Plaza Hotel to be wiped from my brain. I wanted to go back to the way things were when I did not know what he looked like, or that our chemistry could be so disrupted. I wanted back my virtual reality.

It was never the same. Dan kept me at the center of his life, while I tried to be more absentminded about his existence. I used to crave his emails but now they plagued me. My guilt over this made me feel even worse. He called me out as I dodged him, which made me even more cagey and distant. His tone took that of a person losing love, yet I read it as that of a stalker. He became somebody who would not take no when it came to being in my life. I became a giant asshole.

So, it ended. I don't remember how. It may have been something quick after one of his long, confused emails. It may have been one of my brief letters with lines that were meant to be read through. Either way, I found ways to occupy The Space of Dan in my life, locking him into the part of my brain that stores anguish.

I still think about Dan all of the time. It happens at the best times, like when i discover a new band or read a new book. Or travel somewhere that he would never want to go because they don't have hamburgers. I smirk and laugh and have a moment. I imagine that he is there, comprehending.

Getting older frames things in ways that they were not intended to be hung. The time between Dan's Diary and now has negated the bad things and brightened the good ones. I can only remember how romantic it all was and am sure that I will never feel this way again, mostly because my innocence is now polluted to the point of toxicity.

I will feel this strongly about someone else, someday. But I worry that the marker has been set too high, if anything can ever achieve the intensity of Dan.

It's funny how two hours in a hotel room can completely fuck up your whole life.

Laos and I

I flew from Siem Reap to Pakse, Laos on a prop plane with neon seats and a terrifying reputation. I then took a tuk-tuk to the southern bus station(a dirt parking lot that resembles a fairground in the off-season). I negotiated a lift towards Si Phan Dom on a local bus, a pickup truck with seats in the back (and a basket of pigs). They stopped about half way and added a freezer our load, right next to the swine and just shy of my right foot.

I found people from nyc on my bus. They were a couple in their early twenties who had been teaching in China. We agreed to stick together and found accommodation on Don Det island, which involved hiring a motorboat after the bus dropped us in a another dirt field (bus station). Travel days are a pain in the ass.

Don Det is surrounded by an alleged 4000 Mekong islands and the river itself. It has about 30 guest houses (huts with hammocks) and generated electricity from 6pm until 10pm. There is a crazy rumour going around that there will be electricity here by 2009 and this means that it's only a matter of years before float planes and a Sofitel appear. Until then, it's a backpacking stop where days are spent hammocking (new verb) and riding around the island. The sunsets are shocking and I could easily have spent a week here doing nothing.

One hilarious thing is that the walls of most huts are paper thin and conversations easily floats from bungalow to bungalow. So does the noise of sex. Take a stroll around the island just after the generators kick and you'll hear hut after hut of backpacking couples doing the nasty. My neighbor on one side said "Fucking Hellllllllll" as he was busting into his girlfriend last night. The guy on the other side just got a blowjob, which I knew because I heard no girl-moans to indicate sex; yet out of the blue I heard the sound of a man who just couldn't hold it any more. "Guuaawwwwwwwwwahah". Then his girlfriend opened their door and spit off the balcony. Total sorority girl move.

I blew the bank on a 15km kayaking trip, which was the highlight of my time on DD. We were dropped in just after the waterfall and had to traverse some nasty Class 4 rapids quickly. I flipped going into the biggest rapid - anyone who has spent time in rapids will tell you that this the worst time to wreck. The realization that you have to go down the whole stretch this way is terrifying. I desperately clung to my kayak as I was thrown down the river, gulping for air and using ny knees as a shield oncoming rocks. The guide was shouting "STAY LIGHT" (right) but I was pulled by the much harsher current on the left. Scary, scary shit. I was pretty banged up by the time I was spat out. One puncture wound on my right shin is going to take months to heal and could probably have used some stitches (if there was a doctor within 200 miles).

Three nights passed quickly on Don Det. It's got just enough tourist charm and just enough rural feel. With all of the construction going on, it's obvious that won't last for long. Right now I can even overlook some of the douchier backpackers because it's so lulling. Ok there was one I couldn't overlook but he should face a firing squad - anyone sitting in a hammock in yoga pants, smoking a joint and playing Radiohead's "Creep" deserves a good kick in the cock.

I made a fast decision to head north for Champasak, which was a relatively quick bus+boat trip away. It's a sleepy town with few tourists and I loved it immediately. I fell in with a couple from California, who were also staying at my guesthouse. Over the next two days we drove motorbikes up to the local temples (Wat Phu), ate a fuckload of delicious Lao food and drank cheap whiskey.

The whiskey here is $1 a bottle and is sweet, kinda like Soco. The brand is called Lion King. The best part about it is the typo on every bottle's sticker, which purports the contents to taste "smooth and mellon".

I have now landed on the island of Don Daet, which has increased the number of tourists here from zero to one (me). I am at the island's community guesthouse, which has two mattresses on the floor and a balcony overlooking the river. Everyone is quite curious why a tourist would come here and dozens of kids have ridden by, smiled and shouted "Sabadii!!" (Hello). I rode a clunky bike around the island today and became a local attraction. Tomorrow morning I have to find a fisherman who will take me back to the mainland, were I can head up to Pakse.

After Pakse I meet up with a friend. She is with me for one week and I am sure that this will be a shock to the system. It's been ten weeks since I've seen a single person that I know. I am not sure if I am nervous or excited. No wait. Nervous.

I'd suck each of the Seven Dwarfs off for a slice of good pizza.

Back Problems and the Cu Chi Tunnels

It was enough to make me recoil in fear and nearly vomit. I was standing at the top of a staircase that led into one of the Cu Chi Tunnels when I saw it. I stood motionless, frozen at the sight. It was enough to make me recoil in fear. I held a hand to my mouth and gasped at the one thing that can send a shiver straight through my soul: back hair.

There need to be seminars. Huge, mandatory camps where all men must be detained until they learn The Correct Ways of Grooming. Better yet, Norelco lessons in the Eighth Grade, when even the wimpiest kids have finally sprung pubes on their dick. I encourage any technique needed to drive home the point, from Chinese Water Torture to Enema Water Torture. Guys have to understand that they are not primates and remove all hair from their backs, as well as properly trim whatever forest grows under their wear. For the love of God and all that is Holy.

Take, for example, the gentleman in front of me. He was a striking British guy in his early twenties whose teeth were not like those of an otter, as are the choppers of so many English guys. Yet he had completely overlooked the hair which was growing on his back. It wasn't as offensive as some I've seen but it was there, and surely there were paths of it down his spine. I wasn't even going to think about the underbrush.

Nobody told me. Nobody said "Hey, you know, there are about ten square inches of hair on your back". I just figured it out. Over the years I have waxed this spot before long holidays and buzzed it flat during the winter, when even girls don't shave. It was never something to be embarrassed about and something that could be discreetly taken care of in my home. Wham, bam. Gone. Please take a long look in the mirror and, if necessary, go gardening. Or find a woman named Olga, who will be happy to rip it off for 20 bucks. You will get laid again. I swear.

So anyway. How did I end up following a Muppet into a tunnel? Tourism. The Vietnamese have opened up the tunnels that were used with dramatic effect against the Americans. The Cu Chi Tunnels go for miles underground and are surprisingly intricate. Dead ends with boobytraps were created for any American whom dared to enter. Rabbit holes were poked for VC to pop from and shoot incoming troops. It was so effective that despite the enemy's tanks and bombs, this region never fell.

Walking through the actual tunnels brought on a feeling of claustrophobia that I have never before felt. There was no light and I could only walk slowly, completely hunched over and feeling into nothingness. It was very Frodo. After two minutes there was the fear that I had taken a wrong turn. After five there was a paralyzing fear that I would never get out. Ten minutes later I found an escape hatch and breathed fresh air again. Enough already with the caves.

Lucky for me there was a firing range, with leftover war weapons that could be fired for a price. I plunked down $15 and manned up to a machine gun. My tutorial was brief - "you squeeze trigger". I followed the expert instructions and was spraying bullets in no time. Not only did I hit my target but the gun's kick had pointed it at several OTHER targets, making me look like a casting leftover from Police Academy. It was like watching someone bowl a strike from three lanes over.

The last stop on this tour was the most amazing. Displayed in front of us were all of the jungle traps that the VC had set for The Americans. Most involved a pit with spears - it would be simple to mistake these places for solid ground. Others were more gruesome, with spikes that contracted upon a limb when engaged. Most mindblowing was the front door trap, a wall of spikes that would fall from the ceiling and gore a soldier who was trying to enter a home. These were not replicas and all of the spikes had been forged from the steel of fallen planes and bombs. American Made steel had killed Americans.

Back to Saigon and then off for Cambodia. Vietnam must surely be ready to spit me out by now.

Miss Saigon

Nobody calls it Ho Chi Minh City. The new name has stuck about as well as New Coke or Clear Pepsi - everyone still calls it Saigon. It is my favorite place on the trip so far. Reckless, insane and alive. Even the people who live here can't believe that they live here. There are seven million bodies and five million motorbikes. Every crosswalk is a new way to die - fender in the face, kickstand in the liver, tire in the anus. You can't even hear yourself think during rush hour. With so many people in your business, I would have to imagine five pm as the ideal hour to get a rimjob. Nobody would hear you moaning as thousands of horns blared outside of the window.

I saw the sights in Saigon. The War Remembrance Museum was as brutal and sobering as I expected. I am glad that I was still playing with Weebles in the early seventies and did not understand how miserable the "conflict" with Vietnam was. The History Museum reminded me that these people were just not to be fucked with. Each room was a different century of failed invasion, from the French to the Chinese to You-Know-Who.

I pulled the ripcord on Saigon early so that I could take a three day Sinh Cafe tour of the Mekong Delta. Day one was a motherfuckload of bus travel, spruced up with cultural stops that did little to provide culture. Watch people make candy, opportunity to buy candy. Watch people make rice wine, opportunity to buy rice wine. Watch people puff riced...yeah. Clearly someone in this country had visited Disneyworld and learned that the ride's exit should be constructed directly through a shop. I believe that the world's capitalism was created in Tomorrowland, just outside of Space Mountain.

The bus contained French people who had not discovered deodorant, fat English girls who talked too loud and four Dutch guys who, combined, might be taller than The Empire State Building. I sat next to Phillip, an acceptable German man. Neither one of us was in love with the match but given the friendship options, both of us knew that we could spend a few days together. It turned out that we both like super hot men, which means that neither of us is attracted to the other. At least we had common ground and I was reminded that he Cosmos sure does have a way of pairing The Gays.

There was also a deuce of Lesbians on the trip, who naturally kept to themselves. There is simply no mistaking dykes. They wore smart, sensible Northface daypacks and halter tops. They ate nutritious pineapple snacks. They had tight frosted hair, cross-training sneakers and shorts that will never be in fashion, anywhere. Mom + Pop sporting goods shops should never fear financial difficulty, so long as their town has a baker's dozen of rug munchers.

Chau Doc is near the Cambodian border. Our hotel was on the river. Herpes ridden whorehouses are a notch classier than river hotels in border towns. Dozens of people asked me if I wanted a massage but every time I explained that I am just not that kind of lady. The truth is, I am just not that kind of lady for asian people.

We spent two days touring floating markets and non-floating markets. You can get a good sense of the big differences between life here and in the north by taking one of these tours. You can also come to loathe markets, which never seem to have a salad bar like Whole Foods, never mind a buffet like Souplantation. Aisles are filled with stinking fish, buckets of dried fruit and restaurants that could collapse in a Two earthquake. I had only paid 50 bucks for the whole trip and couldn't really complain, even if the windowless one star hotels were located above Peavey amps blaring Toni Braxton.

Our guide spoke a smattering of english and was always keen to point out that we could make a pretty picture at each location. This could be a rice field full of graves, or a town that had been flooded with bodies in 2005.

Tourist village kids were sent out by their parents for our money. I learned how to furrow my brow just like them and mimic words back like "PLeeeeeeez" and "KoKonut", which pissed them off to high heaven. After about the thirtieth child attack I began pretending that they were all ShortRound from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which gave them a Speilberg quality and made them much more palatable.

Phillip and I did our best to be Foodies, eating at neighborhood haunts. All of the guide books say to go where the locals are eating but I think they have missed an important point - just because locals are eating chicken feet does not mean that it is good. We began ordering at least two unrecognizable items per meal, unsure if they were Ox balls or Venison Vagina. They often looked like things that could have been either, so we tended to sweep them under our piles of rice and cut our losses. This was impossible to do when they brought out an foot long catfish, which turned out to be quite delectable. Neither of us tried the whiskers.

The days took on a Super Mario quality. No obstacle was too difficult to overcome, but each was rather tedious and something that we must do to advance. Bus. Market. Bus. Bad lunch. Bus. Bowser.

We had to take a few ferries because the bridges had once collapsed and killed hundreds of people (engineering goes out the window in monsoon season, when everything sinks further into mud than anticipated). The chaos of hundreds of people embarking and disembarking resembled the Superdome circa 2005. Couples argued over which blue bus was theirs, amputees on boards grabbed at the knees and old ladies laughed like witches amidst the chaos. There were also the requisite old men selling Rayban sunglasses, all with logos that could be scratched off with a fingernail.

One thing has always kept me from crisis mode in Vietam - the promise of strong, sweet coffee. No matter where you are here, even if you are a field of treefrogs, you can get the most delicious coffee. It is unlike any other. Imagine the last concentrated drips from a filter tasting like pure sugar cane and you will come close to it fathoming the deliciousness. Poured over ice, it is orgasmic. Handed to me in trying circumstances, it is a nipple to my mouth and instantly quels my whimpering.
...

I just became distracted because a man with a bicycle full of dried quid and fake lonely planets tried to sell me both and I purchased neither.

...

I am writing this from Saigon, where I am spending my last days in Vietnam. My flight leaves tomorrow for Siem Reap and I am very excited to arrive in a new country. Especially since I have picked a posh hotel to crash at for the next few days.

Homestayin'

I arranged a homestay through the travel agent in Chau Doc, Vietnam. Uncertain of what I had just negotiated and booked, I boarded a bus for My Tho. Three hours and one Crocodile Farm visit later I had arrived in town.

I was met by a beautiful young woman wearing a pink and black sweater and white furry gloves. It was eighty degrees but I knew that this is how people dress for long motorbike rides - you never know when the weather or your vehicle will break down. She introduced herself in Vietnamese as Hanh and then spoke seven sentences that I did not understand in the slightest. Smiling and nodding, she grabbed my pack and put it on the bike between her knees. I strapped my daypack to my back, put on a helmet and jumped on the seat behind her. We flew out of the dirt lot in light speed, me clinging on for queer life.

Wide bridges and wide roads became narrow roads and terri-fucking-fyingly narrow bridges. There was no communication between us, other than nervous laughs as we went over bumps or nearly died crashing into oncoming vehicles. Somewhere in those seven sentences she probably told me that the trip would be forty minutes long but I was fucked if I knew how long it would be. I had a horrible itch on my nose but dared not take my hands off of Hanh's shoulders. It was my own kind of waterboarding.

Moving to dirt roads, we began to blow through villages as kids were being let out of school. They all pointed at us when we drove by. These people were used to seeing almost anything transported on motorbikes but we still turned heads - tiny pink girl, whiteman and one hefty backpack. This combination was about as improbable around here as seeing Scooby Doo nail Pamela Anderson on a pool table.

We finally arrived at Hanh's house. My friend Glenn has a habit of calling accommodations by the synonym "property" and I snorted at what his description would be. "It's, how shall I say, a rather modest property that has its own unique charm and atmosphere." It was a house on a river with a brick deck. It was exactly what I hoped to see.

Seven or eight people came to check out the arrival. Everyone talked about me while I was standing there, trying to figure out what they were saying. This would happen repeatedly over the next day. It was like being an infant...I only knew five words in their language and Poop doesn't get you very far in conversation.

I imagined if it would be this crazy to be airlifted into my own family and realized that it wouldn't be nerve-racking, it would be downright frightening. My mother would be whizzing around with a four hundred degree baking sheet of Fridays' Stuffed Mushrooms, my sister would be yelling at football players on the TV and my uncle would be skunk-drunk by four pm and discussing how horrible the world was going to shit, I tell ya, you can't even go to Costco without running into goddamn Mexicans. This before Nana even arrived with her nine plastic bags full of combs, Saltines, Sweet N Low and yarn.

So this was a piece of cake.

I wrote for a while, in between playing with the puppy and eating lunch (something called Elephant Ear Fish). Hanh took me up river for a boat trek and it felt like a reverse African Queen with her as Bogie and me as, well, the Queen.

A couple of the neighbor girls decided to show me off and take me up to the village. Lots of the normal in the market - squirming eels, flopping fish and dried quid. More Scooby Doo pointing from the locals. One kid of thirteen years said something unflattering about me as I walked by (I just knew it). I turned around and walked back toward him like only a New Yorker could, with severe attitude - he screamed and ran away. Little bitch.

Six O'clock is when kids start taking baths. This involves taking some shampoo to the river, stripping and jumping in. The grownups lifeguard and the little ones wear life jackets, lest they drown or get eaten by crocodiles. Adults begin taking river baths around seven. I even saw one guy hurl a bottle of shampoo across to his neighbor, who had clearly run out of Herbal Essence.

I spent the rest of the afternoon watching a man make a chair. This sounds mildly interesting until you really process that I mean MAKE A CHAIR. Home Depot had not contributed. He had found the appropriate pieces of bamboo and carved holes in them, carefully piecing together the interlocking parts. No bolts. No drills. He used leaves to sandpaper it. I am impressed when I make fajitas from an Ortega kit. This dude...this dude made a CHAIR in an afternoon.
.
Night fell and I had a great dinner. Everyone sat on the deck and told stories but I only listened because they sounded like this:

"Neow tong mee kayartima chee chee yowl horra meeeeeee".

Then laughter. I prayed that these were not tales of previous guests, all now kept chained in a pit.

Four French people showed up by boat around 10pm, looking for rooms. Their arrival ruined the whole balance that I had with the family. Worse still, they talked loudly and excessively in, get this, French. Each person smoke ninety two cigarettes and none of them made an effort to communicate again with me or the family. I am sorry to generalize about an entire people but

I
Fucking
Hate
The
French

Worse still, I have three school years of their language and could understand half of what they were saying. They spent a good deal of time ridiculing Vietnam. As an American, I have spent some time being judged by The French and I wanted to kick them all in the balls and vaginas. Had they asked where I was from, they surely would have scoffed or done that lipcurl-while-smiling thing. Like when I order a Croque Madame in Paris. Yet here they were in the home of a people who had been tortured and "colonized" by their ancestors. Laughing at them. Not sure how to properly say "suck me" in French.

My dreams were intense. I had popped my first pre-Laos anti-malaria pill and knew from a trip to Africa what could happen. Crazy dreams are a common side effect. I do not recommend French Anger and UFO podcasts before a first night of Larium sleep. Like, whoa.

I woke up at 6am. I ate the same thing that has been served to me for the entire time I have been in this country - two eggs, a massive roll and the strongest cup of coffee you can imagine. The French were asleep and it was blissfully quiet on the river. Then Hanh took me over the river and through the woods on her motorbike again. This time I recognized many of the kids from the past day and they waved at me with a smile and familiarity.

"Hello Meester. Hello!"

Do I really have to go back?

Nha Trang and Dalat, Vietnam

I met back up with Alec The Dogeating German in Nha Trang. He had seen enough rain and was headed for the west coast. He had a guy attached to his hip, a Brit who seemed like a total douchebag. We had a sidebar when the guy went to the bathroom.

"Alec, why are you hanging out with a douchebag?"

"I know. He's totally like douche".

"Then why?"

"I got lonely"

I can understand this. I have had a few drinks with DB's just to kill some time. They almost always tell me about how corrupt America is within the first five minutes. I have taken to chumming their water, creating an entirely false self. I claim to be Republican, pro-Iraq and from an oil family. They go fucking beserk.

"Alec, how do we ditch this guy?"

"So simple. Just leave"

And just like that, we were out the door. We never saw him again. I like to imagine that he was excited to have met Alec and was destroyed that we had bailed on him. This was probably better for him than hearing my sermon about sending more weapons to the Saudis so that we could control more oil.

We had an amazing night. We found a seafood cart by the water, pointed at two huge lobsters and watched them grilled live on the curbside hibachi. We ripped them apart with our hands, sitting at a kiddy table and chairs. Lots of Tiger beer. It was like a shellfish tea party for two. Grand total: $7. We barhopped after this, finally settling on The Sailing Club for jugs of vodka orange. Alec had peeped my Facebook and asked why I didn't mention that I was gay. Unsure of how to respond, I went with "don't tell me you want me to suck your dick now". He laughed until he couldn't breathe. Then we drank too much and walked home, mindful of the packs of roving girls (big scam here. the group of them pretend to flirt and embrace you while fleecing your pockets). Alec was annoyed that my goodbye hug was too mindful of his heterosexuality and demanded a second one "for real". We said goodbye and good luck. Good Ol Alec The Dogeating German.

The next two days in Nha Trang were mostly a waste. It rained. All of the boats stayed in harbor and people did cultural things like watch Blades of Glory. I managed to take a taxi to the hot spring and sat for 20 minutes in a hot mud bath. Big whoop. Tips: stay at the Ha Van Hotel, drink the Bellinis at Guava and get a lifechanging massage the place that begins with an "s". Oh, and go to Nha Trang when it's sunny.

The ride to Dalat was just past hazardous and just before terrifying. Huge mountains. Oncoming buses. Roads more narrow than Bleeker Street or Brick Lane Road. Seven Hours. Thank god for my Coast To Coast podcasts, which never fail to distract me with thoughts of UFO's and Atlantis.

Dalat is a town in the mountains, originally built by the French. It is centered around a lake and has the freshest air in Vietnam. I found the Dreams Hotel and haggled a room down to $15, then went for food. I met a French Canadian named Julie (joo-lee) there; she would play an interesting part in my evening, which is best described in another entry. Not like that.

The Easy Riders were once a group of motorbike guides who began running mountain tours from Dalat a few years ago. Like everything successful in Vietnam, it was copied a thousandfold. The town is now over-run with knuckleheads on bikes, goading you for a ride. They haunt the cafe's, the bars and even the hotels. If you stop to look at a map or admire the lake, there is one on your shoulder in under a minute. I beg the town of Dalat to do something about them because they have ruined a beautiful place to visit. It's worse than any kind of touting because they usually engage in conversation first. "How are you? Where you from. Where you go next?". Then you wait for it. "So you want easy rider?" A "no" turns into two more minutes of pitch, quieted only after two more "no's" and one "NO". I am not lying when I say that this happened to me forty times a day, even when I had my headphones on and hoodie up. Imagine not being able to relax in a lake town. I cut my trip short to two nights. Fuck the Easy Riders.

Off to Saigon on a seven hour bus ride. Completely unsure of what to expect.