V for Vietnam: Various Vagaries

I fall easily in love with foreign countries, but Vietnam, seems to have captured my heart most completely. Possibly it’s because I was there for a long time, or maybe this is because they have the best coffee ever. This is coming from someone drank her caffeinated way through Europe. But nothing, absolutely nothing, compares to the intense richness of Vietnamese coffee, blended with condensed milk and poured over ice. It’s sweet, but not sweet enough to drown out the intenseness of the coffee, which is the problem of American coffee with condensed milk: the sweetness completely overpowers the delicious bitter goodness that makes coffee coffee.

So now I’ve been spoiled by Vietnam, and any other coffee will never, ever completely satisfy me again. I may make an exception for Viennese mélange. Perhaps the secret ingredient of good coffee is a name that begins with a V.

(This now reminds me of V for Vendetta, which lots of words that begin with V, and Guy Fawkes, and Edmund Dantes, who was the ill-starred victim of a 20 Questions game that I bungled, and the answer was never attained.)

Cliff was actually almost not let into Vietnam—or rather, he was almost not let out of China, by the Chinese border officials, because they suspected him of leading an international spy and smuggling ring. He did actually have an extensive and cunning plan for the demolishment of Vietnam’s population of pineapples, shrimp, and general seafood, but they didn’t know that. Meanwhile, I had my eye on their sticky rice.

We did a lot of motorbike riding in Vietnam. Sometimes we rented our own motorbike, and went about according to do our own whim and fancy. This was awesome—as the lazy passenger I had nothing more to do than, you know, sit, and enjoy scenery, etc, so perhaps that's why I enjoyed the entire process more. Cliff had to ride through some drizzle, dust, mud, wind, rickety bamboo bridges. Pictures will soon testify to this.

Most of the other times, though, we were at the mercy and skill of a motorbike taxi driver. This is exactly the same concept as a taxi, except there are about 30 other motorbikes in the same street, coming from all directions, and you suddenly realize how exposed you are. Whether your driver has showered recently also becomes much more obvious and relevant to your enjoyment of the ride.

Then, imagine having 3 people on 1 motorbike. One of them is 6’3”. And it's a one hour ride down steep mountain roads, no railings, lots of hairpin curves and switchbacks. It's windy. A hat gets blown away. And it's getting dark. And you possibly just pissed off your driver by bargaining a bit too hard on the price (admittedly he was trying to rip you off).

Or, maybe it's completely dark and you're going down a road at surely illegal speeds—but probably not, as there are no speed limits ever posted—with a giant backpack whose weight is pulling you backwards.

Anyway, that's a few thoughts on Vietnam, most of which I wrote at work, so that's why it reads so haphazardly. There will be more later, with later being an uncertain span of time, because Internet access is sporadic and uncertain. I'm in a cafe right now in Jianguomen, but I must be getting home. Dinner calls.