HARMONICA "SHORTS"

BANGKOK, THAILAND

As I made my way through the various stages of security throughout the Bangkok Airport, I walked straight through the Metal Detector ...

No problem.

Smooth sailing. 

You see, I feel that I have become somewhat of an expert at "preparing" at this point.

The belt has been removed. Pockets emptied. Any and all jewelry safely tucked away in my backpack which was rolling through the x-ray scan at that very moment...

I've also got this one nailed. The X-ray machine/carry-on routine.

BICYCLE "SHORTS"

VIENTIANE, LAOS

Yeah. It's another "sketchy" rental. At least this one has gears (4 of 'em!).

HERE is a friendly recommendation for anyone traveling anywhere:

RENT

A

BICYCLE

Renting a bicycle serves many purposes:

FIRST and foremost: Any traveler that is, or has been gone for any length of time is in danger of becoming, or has already become, a slovenly, formless, outta-shape slug....

HOOCH

That cackle was starting to freak me out a little....

I had just tossed back the shot of colorless homemade "hooch" that she had shakingly poured from an unlabeled plastic bottle and placed in front of me. It tasted of whiskey and the sea and of strange things unknown. It went down like napalm and I reacted dramatically - the way that an amateur reacts: with a frantic head-shake, and a rapid, machine-gun-like exaggerated, exh-a-a-a-a-led groan.

It was voluntary - that groan. I realized it even as it was happening. I could have just as easily prevented it. I'm sure that with very little effort, I could have probably scaled it down to, say, little more than a barely-perceptible grimace. Yet, I voluntarily chose that amateurish reaction and I wasn't even sure why. Perhaps, I thought, that was the kind of thing that might pass as a compliment in that small shack along the sea. Regardless of the motive, it earned me another unsolicited cackle.

Each one freaked me out a little more...

A FISH TALE

When I was about nine years old we rounded up the family, loaded up our American Motors Matador Station Wagon (still a front-runner for one of the ugliest cars ever created) and took a drive to the shores of Georgia. There we boarded a fiberglass fishing boat (that was a big thing to me back then - water, especially something as large as the Atlantic ocean scared the shit out of me and I needed to be assured that we wouldn't sink - somehow, for no particularly good reason, the word "fiberglass" instantly calmed my pre-adolescent, sugar-laden cerebral cortex) that belonged to family friends and we gurgled our way far, far into the Georgia sea to go on our first-ever fishing excursion. Deep sea fishing.

BIKE RIDING THROUGH SAIGON

"What the fuck? NO! Really?"

-" Really!? You're really gonna...."

"Yep - you're gonna...AW, C'MON!"

"Yep, You just did..."

This is the kind-of continuous internal dialogue that plays through my frontal lobe as I set foot-to-petal, hand-to-handlebar and careen dangerously atop my borrowed bicycle through the motorbike swollen streets of Saigon. It's been about a week now since I have "thrown myself into the deep-end" along with teenagers, old men, wobbly grandmothers and men and women of all ages, and although I have inhaled as much petrol smoke as the next guy, I still cannot fathom what the hell is

OVERNIGHT BUS HANGOVER

"You no marry? Really?"

We were halfway through the usual tick-list of questions routinely extinguished within the first five minutes of meeting pretty much anyone in Vietnam. The list usually went like this:

"What your name? Where you from? How long travel in Vietnam? Your first time Vietnam? How old are you? Are you marry?"

We had gotten to this point when he took one of the less-common forks in the road of this seemingly scripted conversation - still not entirely uncommon:

"Maybe you marry beautiful Vietnamese girl...?"

"Yeah, sure, maybe some day I'll marry a beautiful Vietnamese girl...".

OH, THE VIETNAMESE!

Things that I have learned about Vietnamese people thus far:

1) They are, overall, the kindest people that I have yet to meet (with the occasional "dick" or two thrown into the mix -I think that it would be unrealistic to imagine otherwise)

2) Vietnamese men smoke more cigarettes than any that I have seen (cigarette related deaths are the #1 killers of Vietnamese men!). When it comes to indulgence in tobacco, they put the Euros and the Aussies to SHAME (not an easy feat, I might add) One possible explanation is this: Average price per pack of cigarettes in Vietnam = $1, while Europe = $8-$9 (AUSTRALIA comes in at an astounding $17!) Vietnamese men, can and WILL do pretty much anything and everything with a "butt" balancing delicately off the edge of their lip. Unfortunately, much like the Euros, they

BOTCH the SYLLABLES - NAIL the TONES

How many different ways can someone pronounce a fucking word?

An infinite amount apparently.  Though, OF that seemingly infinite amount, in Vietnam, only one seems to hold the magic key that will bestow meaning upon the listener.

Yeah, "bestowing meaning upon the listener" is kinda what a language is all about, I would say....

'cafe SO-A da?'  'cafe so DA?' 'CAfe so da?' 'caFE so DA?' 'cafe soA da,?'