(*) i read about 100 pages, and i got fully going to head out to meet kristan at about 11am. i left to go to ho chi minh's mausoleum, where both myself & kristan agreed to meet at half way around the world. an interesting note: we had planned this entire trip with me in chicago & him in los angeles. and being that both of us are basically, "eh, fuck it" when it comes to planning outside of our day jobs, we figured this would be interesting. it was. i got to the mausoleum at around 1. the mausoleum was closed. of course. note to others: the mausoleum is closed on fridays.
---------> this is how vietnamese individuals sleep on benches.
---------> get a haircut at your local sidewalk barber shop. and by shop, i mean, the guy has a chair and some scissors.
i took a rest stop atop the stairs to the museum and started writing / catching up on my journal. it ended up with me making friends with a driver who grew up outside hanoi. he is 31 years old. his teeth consisted of two layers - a good white top row of teeth, and a brown nasty bottom row of jacked teeth. there was also a group of 7-8 asian tourists who stopped to admire my writing in my journal. it was odd to be the focus of someone's amazement. what's even more, it was not the way i looked or the color of my skin, but the simple way in which i wrote words. they stared at a page of just plain written english with complete amazement. i shook hands with a few of the individuals. i had to find a place to piss, so i walked to a convention center where i found a visually pristine, but odor-filled pisser. too much information, perhaps, but it was written in my journal.
(*) i walked around post-urination, and saw a few embassies and clothing stores. i got back to the mausoleum at around 2:30. expecting to wait another hour, i was shocked to see a tall white guy with some local individual pointing at me at the end of the block. it was THE KRISTAN. not how i expected to meet him - not as hollywood as i had envisioned, but amazing still to meet your friend 1/2 way around the world. makes me laugh at the childhood saying of "you digging a hole to china?"
the craziest portion of this story is that the local individual who was pointing at me next to kristan, actually helped kristan find me. this is how absolutely in tune vietnamese hustlers are with their surroundings. apparently, kristan was meandering around the mausoleum with no real focus of his energies. the local had seen me sitting on the museum's stairs an hour or so earlier, a half block from the mausoleum. kristan's newest tour guide, the pointing local, had seen Kristan wandering and came up to him and stated that the person he was looking for (me) had just been sitting down in front of the museum. insane. the eyes of vietnamese big brother are everywhere. just a lesson.
(*) kristan and myself walked back to the hostel, hand in hand, merrily skipping along our way. ok ok. so we weren't skipping. we discussed our different recent adventures. as i directed us back to the hostel using my ridiculously on point navigational skills, i happily watched myself enjoying kristan go through the shell shock that is walking through asia for the first time, on top of walking through vietnam for the first time, all sprinkled with the experience that is walking through hanoi for the first time. he had to wipe drool off his face at several times.
we stopped at the "jasper hotel", just for the hell of it to check the price for kristan. we then returned back to the hotel, where they had a double for kristan, alone, for $8. although extremely expensive for hanoi vietnam (seriously), we figured if at any point we lost contact with zee germans, we could split the room for $4.
he showered, and his jet lag continued as we walked out into hanoi. i walked him through the old quarter with its shops stacked on top of each other. we also stumbled upon an outdoor market where fish and snakes were being sold. i punked out and did not buy snake. to my adoring fans, i apologize. i did not buy a snake and then drink its blood. our travels also took us around the lake.
(*) i brought kristan to mama's. we ate at the same child table as another vietnamese family. our travels brought us back to the hostel where we met up with zee germans & rufus. rufus lead us in a charge to eat, again. this time we dined on "bun ga". kristan & i drank the beer i had accidentally bought a few days ago while i spent my last day in china. the bun was good, minus the peanuts. peanuts always ruin meals. plus, i was too full. but what was my loss, was rufus' gain. he cleaned up everything i did not. and, i kid you not, after this eating, rufus left for more food. kristan, zee germans & myself made the more appropriate and intelligent choice by choosing to consume more, not food, but liquid. we went to dragonfly.
(*) while looking to get to dragonfly, we had to stop at "minh's jazz lounge" for kristan to piss. while there, i was feeling generous and bought 4 shots of jack for 210,000 dong. that is what they call in vietnam "ripping off a tourist". although this is nearly 2 full days to a traveler, i retreated back to my chicago days in which 4 shots for about $13 and no need for a tip really is not that bad. after the shot, our group left, and we walked through the night market - basically clothes and fashion with amusement type food.
---------> while walking through the night market, which was basically shops set up on addison outside of wrigley field and addison being closed off to all vehicular traffic, i noticed an odd occurrence - construction. at midnight. construction at midnight utilizing jackhammers. these vietnamese construction workers were ripping up sidewalks right outside of people's homes, with jackhammers, at about midnight. if that happened at my apartment in chicago, i would throw a shitfit.
in vietnam, nothing. just the usual.
(*) after weaving in and out of traffic of human feet - we took off to dragonfly. we got there just in time for 2 for 1 happy hour of Halidas for 15,000 dong. we played foos. i ran out of money and went with sabine to find an atm in the darkened streets of hanoi. the first atm did not work. the 2nd atm machine worked. although the 2nd atm machine was odd in that i had to walk up 4 stairs to get to the machine. one of the odder atm machine placements i've seen in my life.
i attempted to learn german on the walk back with sabine. at the end of the night, nobody was working at the bar - all were dancing in a circle trying to get thhe tourists involved. crap music. it was at this point, i felt like i was at kam's. however, one of the kids / tourists who loved it was the 16 year old kid with the white popped collar. oh tourists are so entertaining. we destroyed at foosball that night. as we would for the next few nights.
(*) the bar closed at midnight. oddly, i was able to leave the bar with a drink in my hand. the bar emptied out into the street. despite it being a friday night, eerily enough, no one was out on the streets. the streets were empty and the shops were closed, minus the frickin motobikes. it seems communists and socialists tend to shut things down a bit early before the rock n roll music too fully corrupts their youth and chaos manifests itself through mischief. we would later learn, this is absolutely true.
sabine got a free ride down the street on the motorbike of a vietnamese girl we had met, named "ni". we're pretty sure she only talked to us to try to get us to go somewhere at the end of the night where her & her friends could jump us, take our money, and beat the hell out of us. i think we made a smart decision with this one. we went down town to the main intersection, and after being engaged in drunk conversation to see what the best club is, we chose to head back to the hotel for the night.
(*) the walk home was uneventful, minus us being completely lost. thankfully the yellow bakery sign saved the day yet again. whenever i was lost in hanoi, i would continue to wander in circles until i found this particular yellow bakery sign. this sign would eventually become a physical manifestation of eternal salvation. once i saw that lovely yellow awning, i knew how to get home, and at the same time, became instantaneously excited to lay down and rest my weary bones. i'll always have a special place in my heart for that sign.
we entered the hostel with bodies, once again in a hotel i was staying at, strewn across the lobby in cots & a fan going and doors unlocked. we went upstairs. i entered kristan's room for something. sabine followed,. i got whatever that something was. jokingly, kristan spits the following line that will live in infamy:
i'm not saying anything, i'm just saying - there's an extra spot in my bed.
and with that, we all passed out.
---------> the world is too large to settle. period.
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