Friends, Words, and Snails

So tonight was cool. I went downstairs around 6:30, at Hu'ng's mother's invitation, and ate supper with them. The food I had from this point onward wasn't really the same as what I'd had up to that point. Street food is hit or miss, in my experience, and the typical pho, spring rolls, and some kind of rice or other eventually gets old. It's delicious when prepared right, but I'm spending thousands of dollars thousands of miles away from home, so I might as well try a few new things.

Supper tonight was good, but not particularly unique or spectacular. This is not detriment to the hospitality of my hosts here, who have been kind and generous in equal measure with my expectations and my experiences thus far in Vietnam.

I guess it's just the juxtaposition with what followed afterwards. After supper, Hung took me to town. We attempted for about five minutes to find a helmet to my size, but my head is genuinely big. The fact that my trilby happens to be an XXL doesn't seem to be a fluke or coincidence. I really do have a big noggin. And big feet.

I'm big in Vietnam.

*chortle*

Anyway, once we settled for a helmet still too small for me, which couldn't properly buckle up (especially with my beard to reckon with), we headed into town on his motorcycle. Riding on the back of a Vietnamese motorcycle can be extremely stressful if you choose to let it; I think given you've got a sober rider to drive for you, you should be fine. I reckon the Vietnamese are about as good at collision avoidance as anyone. It's simultaneously terrifying and impressive, when you're riding with one of them.

Once we got into town, he parked his bike with a lady offering space by the side of the road (probably three feet of sidewalk to work with, but she made the most of it), and we started walking around. Hung told me about the city and the markets; some of the city is different because of the Tet Holiday. There is a bridge in Hoi An with a pretty storied past; the bottom part of it was built by the Germans, the middle by the Japanese, and the top by the Vietnamese (if I remember correctly).

The bridge's design and placement also had significance; it was placed on the Silk Road, which was symbolically represented by a dragon whose head and tail were far off, but whose middle was in Hoi An; the bridge's design was that of a sword's hilt, such that the dragon would be pinned down and not move. Am I good at telling stories, or what?!

Anyway, a few minutes later we sat down at a street...setup. You can't really call it a shop as it has no roof or walls or even floor, really, but there's merchandise and a salesperson of one sort or another. Ours happened to be female and the only beverage she sold that I was really interested in was Fanta. Vietnamese Fanta.

It was branded as Fanta, but it's anyone's guess if that means anything. (the sunscreen I bought today for such an absurd price was labeled as St. Ives, a pretty familiar brand back home, but the printing looked blurry. I checked the UPC online, and couldn't find anything. I have no idea what I'm depending on to provide "90 SPF." It looks brown, or at least tan.)

Anyway, I had a Fanta and they had some iced coffee, presumably in Vietnamese style. A friend of Hung and her friend sat down with us. Both of them spoke somewhat basic conversations in fairly good English, and with Hung there to speak Vietnamese and English, conversations in both languages went on pretty smoothly. I spent a lot of time trying to help Hung pronounce "vegetable" correctly...or at least the way I think is correct. He was having particular difficulty pronouncing the V sound at the beginning, repeatedly, which is odd; I couldn't think of a Vietnamese word to get him saying the V sound, and just now I realize that, hey! His country's name starts with that sound!

Fejetubble.

After coffee, he got us tea; apparently Vietnamese drink tea after they drink coffee; not coffee alone, as Americans do so often. Perhaps this is more healthy somehow, but regardless, I drank some iced green tea.

After drinks we walked around for a while, Hung and I talking about music. Hung was singing the lyrics from A Sky Full of Stars, by Coldplay. Eventually he asked what I listened to, and I said one of my favorite artists is Regina Spektor. Hung had no idea who she was until he remembered this one song from a movie he'd seen. Thus I found out that Hung was a pretty big fan of the Narnia series.

He hadn't heard of much of her music but the one song from the Narnia movies, The Call.


Regina Spektor is one of my favorite artists, and she sings a lot of songs I love; this is somewhat unique. Often, I'll find one song by an artist, and that'll be the only thing I listen to by them. I love it, but when they sing other things, it's just not my thing, or isn't the same sort of stuff. Whatever. With Regina Spektor, while her music does vary and change over time and between albums and songs, I can almost always enjoy the songs she sings.

We ended up on another bridge in Hoi An, on which there was much traffic, foot, bicycle, and motorcycle (as is Vietnam's specialty). We stopped near the middle and stood to the side, against the railing. For a while, we just stood there, watching the people pass, and talking to each other. We took some photos. The motorcycles were honking, there were tourists and locals everywhere trying to get selfies, but it was still kind of a peaceful thing. I don't know. I enjoyed those moments. There was a sort of silence here and there in those moments, and...I don't know.

Some sort of eye of the storm thing.

Anyway, when we were done having our moment (probably more like ten minutes, really), we returned toward where we'd parked (two separate locations). My companions wanted to eat some more, and I was eager to continue talking and acquainting myself with them, so I agreed wholeheartedly.

I hope to wake up tomorrow before the sunrise and take a timelapse, but with any luck, I'll have more than two days here in Hoi An. I'm pretty sure I'll stay far longer than I should here. But I'm doing things. I'm seeing things. I know what I can do and want to do. I'm marking things on Google Maps to look at later.

We arrived about fifteen minutes later at a restaurant back down some dark alley with motorcycles parked all along it. And this alley would be difficult, even without the bikes, to drive a normal vehicle down. Probably impossible. And the "restaurant?" That's kind of generous. There were plastic tables about two feet off the ground, and plastic tables probably half that. It helps to be short when you're eating street food in Vietnam.

I am not short.

However, the food was interesting. Good, I would venture to say. Food today has been a spectrum of good and bad in one; the shrimp I ate this afternoon was delicious, excellent, but for some reason it really irritated one of my thumbnails. Might have been trying to get the shell off or something, or the marinade they used, but my thumb ended up hurting by the time I was halfway through my five shrimp. It was still delicious. I'm definitely going to pay for that when I get back there tomorrow.

Đan and her friend were seated at a table when we arrived, and had already ordered and received some food, which consisted primarily of snails; however, these snails had been cooked with spices and were pretty spicy. Extracting the snails from the shells was a pretty simple process, but a difficult one to master. The snail shells have their tips cut off, such that if you suck on the opening of the shell, the snail will zoop into your mouth.

In theory, anyway. As a beginner with these things, I managed to extract maybe one of the snails on the first try, and probably five of the snails wouldn't budge at all. There's a method to this, and I definitely haven't got it yet. Hung stopped me eating them after a bit, as they can apparently cause problems with digestion if you're new to them. He made me some ginger tea when we got back home to combat these effects. I have yet to explode violently, so all seems well, for now. Perhaps my stomach is stronger than most.

I can only hope I come home with zero incidents, so I can boast of the character of my hearty internal organs to all.

I think I've covered most of what happened today. Hopefully. This is an incomplete and imperfect record of my adventures and escapades. It shall serve to impart some portion of the truth of the matter to myself and others. Hopefully the other part of the truth shall be retained in some crevasse of my mind.

I'm well, despite riding motorcycle multiple times without a helmet, or with undersized, unstrapped helmet. I don't yet have diarrhea (I spelled that right the first time), my nostrils are clear, my skin isn't yet burnt, and I think I bit my tongue. I'm in debt to an Aussie and have yet to feel the sand between my toes.

If you've got questions about what's up or how my trip is going, you can definitely place such questions in the comments section. I do have time to answer them, much as Hoi An has to offer.

I apologize if my posts are getting longer. I guess it's okay if you don't read the whole thing.


!Noah!