Stories Time

First off, I'm heading to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) tomorrow, finally getting my ass off the beach. Been too long here, even if I've absolutely loved it.

Now, I promised some stories and shall deliver. Might have to do this in two installments though, as this is gonna take a while.

First off, on the beaches there are local women and men who walk along the water all day selling tours, sunglasses, massages, food, etc. They're a pain in the ass but they're good people and they learn to leave you alone if you've been there a while. One grumpy woman though spent a couple of minutes berating me one morning for never buying anything, telling me that she thinks I'm from No(r)way (get it? Noway?). Was funny stuff. Anyway, one of the services offered by these people is hair removal by a method called 'threading', in which they basically use a spool of thread to strip away the hairs one by one. Seems legit, right? Lots of ladies have their legs done, all seems well. But one adventurous group of guys decided to have their chests done, their unibrows taken care of, etc. Nobody warned them that the process is actually kinda painful after a while, gets infected easily and that it stings like hell when you get into salt water. The next day these guys had big patches over where they had bled from the hair removal, all kinds of lotions and stuff on them to help it heal, etc. They even had some areas patched up with duct tape! Wish I had've taken a picture.

One night we're sitting in one of our usual spots in the bar when this kid walks in, must've been about 20ish, and literally goes over to a table, and looks at no one while saying nothing. The staff take his order, he sits there waiting for it. The food comes, he eats, he sits for about 15 minutes afterwards, the leaves. Looked straight ahead out at the ocean the whole time. Would have been creepy were it now how easy it is for me to identify another introvert. I kinda wanted to give him a hug, but I didn't.

Hoz and Stace and I play a card game called 8-5-3 that's perfect for 3 players and quite a lot of fun, and I got a chance to teach it to the two German girls that I've been hanging out with. They are bad at it. Like, really bad. I won twice from a position that you should never really win from (and 'winning' can happen any hand, but almost never does), and was generally able to make them cry. They liked the game though, and it only took them one night to grasp it and get much better. I haven't won since. Great to have a card game for 3 people in your back pocket.

One morning I saw a fish jump out of the water 3 times, all in a row. Jumped pretty far too, a solid 4 feet each time. Hearing a splash, then looking over to see a fish suspended in mid air is a very strange thing though. Was one of those moments when the world seems like it's all just for you. I've barely seen any fish of decent size, but this guy was worth the wait.

The German girls that I've been hanging out with have a friend back home who recently had a birthday, and they recruited me to help them make a video (I really should have asked for a copy, I'll see if I can find it on youtube for you guys later). Anyway, seemed like a walk in the park: they asked me for ideas and I suggested one they liked, so we went to work. The premise was simple: just two friends sending a video home and complaining that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be: that the water was too warm, there was too much sand, etc. At the end were some clips from people at the bar saying happy birthday, and that was it. Seemed easy enough, but of course I should have known it couldn't possibly be. Among the snags we hit were needing to download the world's worst editing program to use since windows movie maker wouldn't work with the video format her camera shot in, needing to find a way to rotate some clips as the girls weren't thinking and shot them sideways, trying to find a way to put some audio overtop of one of the clips, etc. All things that I could have done in seconds on my computer at home, but working on a slow netbook with the most painfully basic editing software just made me want to punch things. But we got it done and the friend loved it, so worth it in the end. I tried to explain to the girls that working in TV is good in theory but not usually in practice and I don't think they fully understood what I meant until that process.

Night swimming here is absolutely incredible. I REALLY wish I had a way of taking a photo of this, but the plankton in the area are actually bio luminescent, and it makes for an AMAZING show at 2am. Every time you move your hand, it's like a trail of green magical particles follows it, almost as if it your hand were a green sparkler at night, or as if you just radiated magic. I really don't know how else to describe it, it's just too cool. The night we discovered it, we probably spent about an hour just drunkenly floating around playing with the effect: it never gets old.

On a related note, one night I got out of the ocean and a woman sitting on one of the chairs asked me if I was worried about the sharks. We talked for a bit, she knew Dougie (the bartender where I'm staying, one of those 'knows everyone' type of people) and kept trying to tell me that the sharks come out at night to feed, that she and her husband watch the National Geographic channel all the time. Anyway I'm a little freaked out at this point given that I swim pretty much every night, but a quick conversation with Dougie at the bar revealed that she's pretty damned crazy and had no idea what she was talking about. Quite a relief, once you discover night swimming with bio luminescent plankton, you don't want to give it up easily.

Met a kid named Fred from England who plays poker online professionally. Not a bad gig, given that he can make between 100-200$ per day playing and that he's living out here with 2 other guys that also play poker, renting a flat and such. In other words, living in paradise, paying like 500 per month tops in expenses and living like a king. One thing he didn't count on though was renting a motorcycle and having it stolen. Apparently it's pretty common and this guy screams sucker when you see him (nice guy and everything, but he really does), so I'm guessing he was simply tailed and then had the bike stolen. Regardless, he negotiated the rental company down to a grand to replace it. not the end of the world for him, but it's one more reason that I'm really wary of renting anything in Cambodia, especially a motorcycle. Hell, the number of injured young men I've seen in the last 2-3 weeks has been pretty ridiculous, and every injury happens on a bike, usually in the rain without a helmet. Marlow, if you're reading this then sorry for making you cringe. I'm pretty sure that by the time Nora is old enough for me to teach her to ride a motorcycle (we're talking like at least 7 or 8 here), they'll have some sort of fancy new technology to prevent in juries. Maybe.

Khmer New Years was pretty fun, but more for seeing the locals get out and have fun than for the gong show parties on the beach. The beach parties were fun, but very much not my style (surprising, I know). Just a lot of people drinking way too much, listening to bad music and making attempts at dancing. I feel old after typing that sentence. Anyway, went to one party where the staff decided it would be a good idea to let off fireworks on the beach near the large crowd of people that had spilled out of the bar. I nearly took a firework in the face, it fell short by an amount I'm less and less comfortable about every time I think of it. Worst part was that we were sitting near this tent made of netting with 2 bottles of gasoline that belonged to the fire-stick-twirling performer we had been talking to when the fireworks started. So things could have been bad. Maybe don't tell grandma that story.

Also at the party was another kid who had been hurt when he trashed his bike on a rainy night, and who tried in vain to chat up the girls. I felt bad for the kid because he was barking up a tree he couldn't possibly access, but on the other hand having that knowledge just made listening to his lines and attempts so much more fun. He was a very typical BC kid, and he landed about 0% of his attempts at interesting the girls while I sat there giggling to myself. But I guess that when your opening line is 'Hey, I was standing over there staring long enough that I thought I'd just come and say hello', well, you're setting yourself up for failure.

And last but not least, this one just happened to me today but is so funny that I'm going to include it in this batch despite having more stories left that I'll post on another night. Anyway, I get up this morning at around 8ish as usual and head down to the water to swim. Normally I'm the only one up at the time except for the staff, so I was surprised to find two of the young British guys that are also staying there occupying a couple of beach-front seats. They're both trying very hard to stay awake, with one guy succeeding more than the other and constantly nudging his buddy to wake up. This goes on for about 20 minutes until they start talking to me about their night, etc. They told me they had taken valium in order to sleep, that they'd been smoking lots of weed, etc but that they were gonna stay up. They didn't say why initially, as the conversation turned to  other things then went on the most scattered series of tangents I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. About 30 minutes after this we'd been done talking for a bit and I was reading something on the internet when one of the guys turns to the other and says, 'The sunset is yet to come man, wake up'. Now at this I start laughing, getting up and pointing out to the two young scholars that they were facing where the sun sets, and that the sun had been up for well over an hour, more like 2 at this point. They were disappointed for about 5 seconds, then promptly both passed out, where they stayed for the remainder of the morning, crisping in the sun and being painted on by their friends.

So to recap, these idiots took VALIUM to STAY AWAKE and watch a sun rise FROM THE WRONG DIRECTION. I honestly don't know how they could have gotten the direction wrong, the sun sets spectacularly every day in the same sport and they'd been there nearly a week. Blows my mind, and made me giggle to myself throughout the day.

Ok, that's it for now, more to come when I get more time, probably with a recap of the first couple of days in Ho Chi Minh. Until then!