It's only a flesh wound

The heat finally broke today, which was quite a relief. It is still a lot hotter than I would like it to be, but you can make it more than three steps without feeling dizzy. For the last few days, I have been going outside in sprints: an hour or two around town, and then a swift retreat to someplace with air conditioning. It has actually become a sort of fun game. At first, I was going to cafe's, but then you have to buy something, and the A/C is normally pretty feeble if there is any at all. Then I realized that I can wander into any five-star hotel and plunk myself down in the lounge without any trouble--I guess there are some places in Vietnam where being obviously foreign works to your advantage.

Based on a tip from an ex-patriot I met in a bar, I have also begun exploring the culinary options at fancy hotels. According to him, you can normally find an amazing dinner buffet with drinks for about $7. I don't think I found the real hot spots yet, but I did have an excellent lunch buffet today for $12, complete with gourmet foods from around the world (there's nothing quite like mashed potatoes and kim-chee) and an amazing dessert bar. I justified spending as much as my room will cost for the next two days on lunch by trying to eat enough to hold me through dinner.

I attended a graduation party for some of my Lao friends on Sunday, where the theme was "chua say, chua ve" (you can't get home until you're drunk). It turns out that "drunk" really meant "essentially unable to stand, or, failing that, we have run out of booze." I thought I was in the clear when the last keg got kicked, but then the rice vodka appeared. We capped the evening off with a late-night banquet of duck's neck and pig's feet. Pig's feet (actually, I think we might have just had the toes) are surprisingly delicious if you can get over just how much they look like, well, pig's feet. Needless to say, I spent most of yesterday curled up in my bed reading a book, venturing out for a single meal, where I became quite nauseated when a table nearby ordered beer.

I watched a police bust of the foodstalls on my street today while I was sitting in a cafe. Most eateries have small tables and chairs out on the sidewalk for patrons, and the police occasionally sweep through, confiscating any tables the restaurant owners are unable to rush inside quickly enough. Policing in Vietnam is very strange. Most of the time, while you will see uniformed police at every other intersection of the central city (wearing hideously green, military-esque uniforms with red trimmings), they turn a blind eye to almost everything. When they do come down though, they come down hard, and for extremely minor violations. You can see the schizophrenic nature of policing reflected in the way people obey traffic laws. The streets are generally a melee of weaving bikes, frequently entering the lane of oncoming traffic. Traffic lights are advisory at best: typically, traffic will continue through a newly turned red for a good 15 seconds, and then a number of people will just stop for a second before going through anyway. However, when people do stop, they make sure to stay well behind the stop line, generally by about 2 feet. According to one of my Vietnamese friends, crossing of the stop line is a favorite justification for a shake-down.

In motorbike news, I got my first nasty muffler burn today, a veritable right-of-passage, based on the number of bandaged and blistered calves I see around. It must have been a pretty funny scene to all the people watching me. I was parking my motorbike across the street from a pho restaurant, and the space was a little tight. Getting off my bike, my calves touched the hot muffler of the bike next to me. Unfortunately, my position was such that I was basically wedged between my bike and the one next to me, and I had to delicately avoid putting any weight into either bike, lest I cause one of those comedic-for-everyone-who-isn't-me-or-an-owner-of-one-of-the-bikes domino tipover, while slowly lifting and pushing my bike over enough to get out. Thank God for the well-stocked medicine bag Jessica and Henry gave me before my last trip.

I am flying to Saigon on Thursday to meet Nathalie, where we will begin what promises to be an excellent adventure north.