I got Kim on stage last night.  With our rendition of Drink the Wine we managed to inch ahead of the other worst singers.  This accomplishment earned us another bottle of pretty bad champaign.

Today was a boat day.  I've been reading some CIA spy novels so a day of reading is perfect.  We spent the day on the deck, drinking beer, reading, and listening to MP3's.  We had made plans with some friends we met.  Trivia at 3:45, drinks at 7, dinner at 8, and Peer Factor at 9.  We lost at trivia, and drinks were great.  We've been hanging out with a couples from Scotland Ross & Ann, Suzie & Tim from Austrailia, and Michelle & Lee from Washington DC.  They're a hoot. 

We've been such celebrities on our ship.  We were the champions for Scary-o-kee (think really bad keraokee) with our rendition of Ebony and Ivory and Drink the Wine.  We've played jeopardy a few times and have won 4 bottles of champaign for various events.  Because of all that we (including our new friends) were approached to participate in Peer Factor. 

Peer Factor is a game where there are two teams (Kim & I with Lee & Michelle vs. Ross, Ann, Suzie, and Tim) that compete.  Michelle and Ann competed in a blackjack dealing competition. Lee and Tim had to put boxer shorts on wearing boxing gloves.  Kim and Suzie had to spin pizza dough.  Ross and I had to wear a large clown outfit and have big balloons stuffed all around us.  The final competition was doing a Michael Flatley style irish jig with the ship dancers. 

This was a ton of fun. 

Our second day in Vietnam didn't go near as well as our first.  We didn't dock until 8am or so and we didn't actually dock.  Again we had to take tenders from the ship to the shore.  Since we weren't taking a tour the soonest we could hope to get off was at 9am.  We got breakfast (they finally served grits) and then went to the lounge to wait...and wait...  We didn't get on a tender until almost 11am.  One of the crew had recorded the Bronco game so I got to see them win in the last 2 seconds with a field goal.  I don't know when they played though.

Once we got to the shore it was raining and hasn't stopped.  Our first thought was to wander from the port and look around.  We were again hounded by the local hawkers.  After we walked two blocks with a couple of motocycle taxis following, almost begging us to ride with them we decided to go back and take the ship's bus shuttle into downtown.  The shuttle dropped us off at the Dam Market which was promptly left. 

It was a short walk to the beach which was beautiful despite the rain.  I was a little turned off when first saw a man peeing, and then shortly later a woman.  That was a little disturbing since I've never really seen a woman urinate before.  The beach is huge.  Kim has a goal of putting her feet in to all the seas of the world and this was no exception.  She marched out there so I could take a picture....constantly running back towards the shore fearing the waves would splash her back.  Did I mention it was still raining and we were already soaked?

Fortunatly it was warm...warm enough that I didn't mind being wet. 

We wandered around in the rain a bit and then decided to eat.  Our first atttempt was a seedy bar.  Everyone looked at us..peering..and I was pretty sure they didn't want us there.  We stayed for a moment, only long enough to confuse the wait staff who didn't speak english and then left.  I did leave a buck for a tip so I don't think they were too offended.  We decided to go somewhere a little more public and ended up at a great small family shop selling Pho.  This is probably my favorite asian dish now.  It's in competition with Pad Thai.

Pho is a noodle that they put in a flaverful broth.  You can order it with cooked beef, raw beef, chicken, shrimp, or really anything else...your limited only by the cook.  I typically get the raw beef because it is sliced thin and cooks in the steaming hot broth.  Along side they serve an assortment of sauces and vegies.  Typically there are bean sprouts and basil but I've had it in the past with other things.  Today I got the pre cooked beef and put a bunch of veggies in it.  It was great, better than I expected, and everything I had hoped it would be.  We had a Saigon 333 beer which was good too.  While they have refridgeration here it isn't widely used so all the beverages I've had have been warm and this was no exception.  They served the warm canned beer with a mug that contained a brick of ice.  I don't think that it's safe to drink water in Vietnam yet so I just drank the beer warm.  It was good...I should have had two.  The total meal for both of us costed $46,000 dong which was about $2.50USD.  I gave them a $5 and didn't ask for change although she offered several times.

From there we wandered a bit more and then ended up in the internet cafe.  We only have about an hour left before we have to return to the ship.  Our day here was scheduled from 9am to 5pm, however we had to catch the shuttle bus at the market by 4pm and we didn't get to the market until nearly noon.  All in all we've had 4 hours.  Not enough time but since it's raining oh well. 

As soon as we're done we'll wander the market a bit and then get on the bus.   Tonight they have Scary-o-kee (I think that's what they called it).  Kim told me that when she's not much of a singer...and the byline to the advertisement is "Have you got a voice that can peel paint?  Then this is your night"  I'm going to try and get her on the stage.

Island Cruise

Train from Nha Trang To Hanoi

The sleeper carriage was small and clean. The walls & bunks a utilitarian grey-blue, with thick bright blue curtains corceteenered aside the very scratched window. On the 2 bunks opposite me were a young couple and their daughter. They knew not a word of English and I could only manage a feeble ‘Xin Chao!’ in Vietnamese, but for the duration of the journey we exchanged nods and smiles.

One time when the daughter was feeling particularly bouncy she boing-ed all over me & my bunk, gently pulling my hair, clasping my I-pod and laughing sweetly as she stared at my strange blue eyes. With the exception of her mottled brown teeth (which I hoped were only milk teeth, and her mum would discover the benefits of fluoride soon) she was truly angelic looking; thick dark hair tangled from her acrobatics, creamy skin, slanted eyes shining nutella brown and pouted pink mouth which would frequently burst into happy smiles, each time delighting her proud parents, who would beam back.

The mother was perilously thin, even by Vietnamese standards, and after our lunch of steaming hot rice, vegetables & meat (all provided by the train company) I found her being delicately sick in the toilet cubicle making small agonised mews like a tortured kitten. I rubbed her back softly but didn’t fuss as I felt this would have embarrassed her. She spent the remainder of our trip lying down holding her minuscule waist looking paler than pale.

Her husband’s outward concern was sparse but sincere. I saw him once stroke her face and for the rest of the time he busied himself playing with his daughter or, whilst she was sleeping, he’d stand smoking and staring out of the window. 

The passing views in central Vietnam were of a flat landscape punctuated by towering monolith rocks crouching among the paddy fields like ominous figures on a giant chess board, poised to slide into a new space when no-one was looking….At times the scenery would chance & we’d roll past the shoulders of a village with its chickens, bicycles, crouching mothers & waving children. Other times we’d pass through a small pastel painted station, empty but for a rigid guard dressed in olive uniform holding up a flag to acknowledge our passage.

It was hard not to gaze at the husband as he himself gazed through the window. He was impossibly good looking, like Johnny Depp but even more delicate if you can imagine such a thing.

I didn’t know it at the time but this was the first of many occasions when the sheer perfection of an Asian face would move me like some sublime experience. As long as I can remember I’ve been fascinated by faces. My school, and later my college, then University, text books are quite obsessively covered with sketches of faces; male female, young, old, happy, sad… searching for what I don’t know. The mother of my first boyfriend once glimpsed a page of eye -doodles and hurried to tell me that the eye was the sign of Satan and I was evidently deeply disturbed. I countered that in many cultures the eye was symbolic of intelligence, but she just huffed loudly, suggesting it was much more likely that I was possessed by the devil.

Anyway, the real beauty of this man and his family was more than skin deep, it was in their manners, grace and tenderness. Neither man or woman raised their voices above a whisper and whilst the girl would shout and scream (as all healthy children should) her few protests were quiet and fleeting despite being cooped up in this small dreary space for almost 20 hours.

The family busied themselves to depart the train just short of Hanoi. Mother standing weakly holding her daughter’s hand; Father having magically changed into a crisp white shirt. We smiled goodbye and they were gone, leaving the carriage full of empty space and mechanical train sounds.