Octogenarian Exhibitionist, Parking Attendant with Seven Wives and Silent Man Not Quite Dead

[Nghiệp Ký Mỳ Gia in Vung Tau on 12/21/24]

In Vietnam, the cheapest places to get food or drinks are at sidewalk stalls where you perch on low plastic stools. Your average sized Westerners would have a hard time balancing himself on one. If slightly big, he would surely crack it, then his pelvis or skull. Sleeping on a motorbike is also not advisable for Occidentals.

A block from my room, there’s a minimal coffee spot run by a woman from Thanh Hóa, a thousand miles away. There, I had a brief conversation with a street sweeper three months ago. She told me how sorrowful she was at seeing that injured toddler pulled from the mud in Lào Cai. She also asked what was wrong with my ankle? I hadn’t seen her again until last week. In the dark, some street sweeper asked why I was walking around barefoot? And why, she added, haven’t I returned to that coffee spot?

This morning, I did. The street sweeper was talking to a housekeeper from a nearby hotel. Ten feet away was a dark, wiry man in a baseball cap. Soon, the street sweeper had to start her shift, so I chatted with the housekeeper. Since her hotel had an unpronounceable Western name, she couldn’t tell me where she worked. I’m guessing it’s the Red Parrot. There’s a bar on the ground floor.

“Who live there? Westerners?”

“Westerners. They stay there for months.”

“No Vietnamese?”

“They only rent for an hour.”

So it’s one of those places. One hour is plenty for a certain English lass and at least 30 suitors. Hazmat suited housekeepers must pick up plastic wrappers and soiled tissues, then bleach all surfaces thrice. Sheets, towels, curtains and throw rugs must be burnt at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Grimacing casualties must not be tossed into the Pacific, but somehow repatriated in industrial grade body bags.