things have shifted character quite a bit since the last post three or so days ago. we extended our beach time another two days and only arrived here in Saigon yesterday. our last night in snookyville we went out to a hilltop french restaurant for some great seafood and afterwards on our motorbike drivers' advise we opted to go to a cambodian bar with them rather than the meager strip of 'laid-back' tourist bars off the beach.
this entailed sitting in plastic lawn chairs around a big table with about a dozen khmer dudes, drinking small glasses of iced black and tan and singing karoake (in khmer) and force-swallowing unchewably tough beef jerky as they watched and laughed. apparently of all the teeming hordes of whitey, we were the first to join any of these guys at the cambodian bars, of which there was a strip of about forty indestinguishable establishments all in a row. as such, they were very enthusiastic and hospitible and we basically gave a standing cheers every two or three minutes, laughed a lot, complimented this awesome old man on his chopsticks, glasses and tabletop drumming along to the hot cambodian pop hits (about 3 songs over and over.) these are heart wrenching love songs usually sung by a guy standing in the rain amid vintage 90's editing and what look like scenes from a low budget soap opera. they also show these music videos on all the buses, for hours and hours. anyways they resisted our paying for anything until everyone ran out of money and we bought the last pitcher to applause, and then someone bought us a song which was in english and linz and i sang it duet to continued applause. pretty funny that it was all dudes passing the mic around and singing these shmaltzy love songs.
we finished off the night back at Cloud 9 guest house with the new bartender Sop who is not only super competent but has the best facial expression vocabulary i have maybe ever seen. even the most simple question receives a barrage of grimacing/squinting/pained smiling. we drank the working dudes rice wine on the house before we finally had to close the book on our beach dream and pack.
the last two days at sihanoukville, after the raging electrical tstorm, were hot and clear and relatively calm. spent most of it horizontal on the beach, and swimming, boogie boarding, playing pool, watching a group of knick-knack hawking local kids (about 1o years old) use our borrowed boogie boards and generally eat shit up and down the beach and laughing their faces off.
i lost two out of three games of tic-tac-toe to a 9 year old and had to buy a cheap bracelet off of him.
last night we went to a restaurant here in HCMC (ho chi mihn city, not Hennepin County Medical Center) that linz remembered fondly from her time here (the memory of its location being somewhat more hazy :) ) , it has apparently endeared itself to quite a few other people in the meantime b/c it was slammin'-but the service was great as was the food. people eat really fast here, barely pausing to breathe.
i'm reading this awesome book, its called "and the ass saw the angel" by nick cave (the singer) and it is some Black Bible Aussie shit and i want to make the movie of it.
backpackers pour off busses with the uniformity and regularity of army troops, but the hawkers here a bit less persistent.
linz and i watched the movie 'Poseiden' last night in our room, because it sucked a small amt less than "the Guardian". still, probably the hardest choice between the worst movies i've ever had to make.
this entailed sitting in plastic lawn chairs around a big table with about a dozen khmer dudes, drinking small glasses of iced black and tan and singing karoake (in khmer) and force-swallowing unchewably tough beef jerky as they watched and laughed. apparently of all the teeming hordes of whitey, we were the first to join any of these guys at the cambodian bars, of which there was a strip of about forty indestinguishable establishments all in a row. as such, they were very enthusiastic and hospitible and we basically gave a standing cheers every two or three minutes, laughed a lot, complimented this awesome old man on his chopsticks, glasses and tabletop drumming along to the hot cambodian pop hits (about 3 songs over and over.) these are heart wrenching love songs usually sung by a guy standing in the rain amid vintage 90's editing and what look like scenes from a low budget soap opera. they also show these music videos on all the buses, for hours and hours. anyways they resisted our paying for anything until everyone ran out of money and we bought the last pitcher to applause, and then someone bought us a song which was in english and linz and i sang it duet to continued applause. pretty funny that it was all dudes passing the mic around and singing these shmaltzy love songs.
we finished off the night back at Cloud 9 guest house with the new bartender Sop who is not only super competent but has the best facial expression vocabulary i have maybe ever seen. even the most simple question receives a barrage of grimacing/squinting/pained smiling. we drank the working dudes rice wine on the house before we finally had to close the book on our beach dream and pack.
the last two days at sihanoukville, after the raging electrical tstorm, were hot and clear and relatively calm. spent most of it horizontal on the beach, and swimming, boogie boarding, playing pool, watching a group of knick-knack hawking local kids (about 1o years old) use our borrowed boogie boards and generally eat shit up and down the beach and laughing their faces off.
i lost two out of three games of tic-tac-toe to a 9 year old and had to buy a cheap bracelet off of him.
last night we went to a restaurant here in HCMC (ho chi mihn city, not Hennepin County Medical Center) that linz remembered fondly from her time here (the memory of its location being somewhat more hazy :) ) , it has apparently endeared itself to quite a few other people in the meantime b/c it was slammin'-but the service was great as was the food. people eat really fast here, barely pausing to breathe.
i'm reading this awesome book, its called "and the ass saw the angel" by nick cave (the singer) and it is some Black Bible Aussie shit and i want to make the movie of it.
backpackers pour off busses with the uniformity and regularity of army troops, but the hawkers here a bit less persistent.
linz and i watched the movie 'Poseiden' last night in our room, because it sucked a small amt less than "the Guardian". still, probably the hardest choice between the worst movies i've ever had to make.
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