Wednesday 23 May 2018

After dissing all those people who go to a foreign country then don’t engage in the local culture, we went along the Thu Bon River in Hoi An yesterday afternoon to Shamrock, an Irish pub, drank Heart of Darkness stout and listened to singers with guitar from Philippines playing ABBA and Phil Collins. Then rode bikes to eat at Ganesh, an Indian restaurant. In fairness the beer was brewed in Saigon, our first choice for dumplings was closed and it was, after all, quite cosmopolitan just not very Vietnamese. Oh, we drank a local brew, Larue, with dinner, so there!

Although Vietnamese flies have no doubt been influenced primarily by the French and Americans, they seem to like stout. We chased them off for awhile, then considered the potential for protein. Regrettably your standard housefly has only .03 grams, hardly worth the effort even if you stuff your mouth full of them. Maggots on the other hand are 60% protein and considered a super food. Yum. Might have sucked one down with the beer anyway in hopes that word would get back to the hotel. Because “Fly Slayer”, the unerring Jan, is without her implements of death, we endured a couple of brazen ones in our room who were not impressed with a flailing hand as we attempted to sleep past sunrise.

Having packed only one collared shirt, thought to buy another while here. Madam Chau, taking pity on my sartorial deficiency and with an outpouring of charity, took us to her tailor shop for remediation. Her nieces were lovely and terribly persistent, but we remained resolute so only had them make five shirts, two shorts and three dresses. Tough bargaining got us slightly below two times regular price. They should be ready tomorrow afternoon. As we left everyone seemed wonderfully happy.

Jack