I decided to buy some drugs. Sarah had made arrangements for a Ha Long Bay tour starting the next day, and I wanted a little more weed than the decoy crumbs I had been suckered into previously (Never Again, goddammit!). This time, I was going to be cool, suave, like those handsome celebrity drug buyers you see on the TV. But in the middle of Hanoi, where is a reliable source to turn to for drug trafficking? I spot a young man of indeterminate age selling books on the street. Bingo.
As it turns out, the theory I had developed in Ho Chi Minh City of "Fucking everyone around you is selling, always, yeah even that guy" held true. As soon as I threw out an inquisitive "Tai ma?" his eyes lit up in the way that betrayed his true vocation. Problem was, the stuff was back at his place, and he could only take one person on his scooter. I turn to Sarah.
"This is your deal. If you want, you go get it." Dammit. Now, I'm not exactly a professional when it comes to evaluating, buying, or even smoking weed. If you asked me the difference between a joint and a spliff, I'd probably just vomit nervously. Sarah senses my apprehension and gives me some advice: "Just make sure it's green and smells good. You'll know the smell." Not exactly Yoda, but better than nothing. I gesture for my newfound dealer/book merchant to lead the way.
He takes me across the street, and then motions for me to wait. "I go get my bike, okay?" Okay. I'm in front of an alley, flanked by old men squatting around their drinks. One stone-faced local offers me one of their tiny white plastic stools. Oh man. As I squatted with them, I felt like the coolest motherfucker for miles. I was James Dean buying pot off Frank Sinatra in a fedora. But, in a completely ignorant and slightly fearful way. My ride pulls up on his scooter, and I hop on.
I've never been totally sure on the accepted etiquette of riding bitch on a scooter taxi, whether I should put my arms around my driver's torso, or grab their hips, and the problem seemed compounded by the illicit nature of this particular scooter ride. Opting to play it as safe and awkwardly as possible, I grabbed the back of the scooter behind me and spent the trip looking "casual" with both shoulders stiffly locked and chest out. My driver spends the ride being legitimately casual, almost disarmingly so. After the usual "Where you from?" and "This your first time Vietnam?", he starts to brag about the varied westerners he keeps as clients, in particular one girl "from Chi-ca-go" who buys a bag every single week.
"I can get pounds if you need!" he shouts back with pride, veering in-and-out of oncoming traffic.
"Thank you, but I only need a little bit!" I shout back.
He doesn't reply, and goes back to talking of the girl from Chicago.
We enter a dense housing development, and suddenly his mood shifts. He preemptively hushes me.
"Here you no talk. They think I just a book seller. No one know I sell to you, okay? I don't want to pay police ten, fifteen million." I nod my consent. 500 bucks seems to me a stiff bribe, but what the fuck do I know? If this guy wants to keep his (obviously solid) book seller cover, I wasn't about to blow it for him. Clearly, his neighbors hadn't heard my theory.
He takes through a labyrinth of rickety, narrow staircases to his studio apartment, which despite being barely one room is still almost devoid of possessions. He goes to the closet and from a coat pulls out a large plastic baggy.
"This is Thai stick." Inside the rumpled bag is a 3" by 1" bar of what looks to be densely compressed marijuana.
There's no way on Earth I can smoke that much in the next three days. Hell, smoking that much in a month would require a perseverance and determination that, ironically, smoking weed does not tend to instill in me. But: "You want to try?" Well, I don't want to be rude.
He breaks off a piece and lights it in his fingers, cupping his palms around to contain the smoke. "Alright, you taste." I put my head in between his hands and breathe it in. It...tastes like pot.
"It's good, but I don't need this much. How much for, I don't know, half of it?" I ask. His face washes over with displeasure. "No, you buy all. Very good, yes? I give you good price. 1.5 million!"
Seeing as how I was leaving the country in a few days, and trying to keep to a budget after Australia bled me dry, I just couldn't justify spending 70 dollars on an impossible amount of weed. I insist: "I can only spend...Three hundred, maybe four hundred thousand." But my host was not going to be satisfied with an offer of 20 bucks.
"No, I can only sell all. For you, 1.25 million! Very good price!" Maybe it was a good price, but my resolve had strengthened from so many bad deals. Never Again. Mercilessly, I tell him: "I'm sorry, but no thank you. Can you take me back to my hostel, please?" And he does, to my insane relief.
However, he is not the type to give up so quickly. A trait that could come from either the book selling or the drug dealing, really. The entire ride back to the hostel, made infinitely longer by my having no idea where the fuck I was, he's knocking down the price little by little down to 800,000, pleading his need to sell and be rid of this really really great tai ma, and so buy food and English books and educate himself further in the King's tongue. Finally, to dissuade him I say that it is Sarah who won't let me spend the money, as she's my girlfriend, you see, and you know how girlfriends don't let boyfriends spend money on things like premium Thai stick and such. He thinks about this, and replies "You ask her! I will stay here." And thus he parks his bike in front of the hostel, where to my dismay both he and I can see Sarah through the window, using one of the computers in the lobby. "I'll uh...I'll go ask her," I say, heavy with the opposite of confidence.
Inside, once Sarah is close enough I start to rapidly whisper "Thedealer'soutsidebutIdon'twanttobuyanythingsoIneedyoutopretendlikeI'maskingbutyou'resayingnosojuststartshakingyourheadandsayingNoreallyloudlyokay?"
And to her infinite credit, she does. Sarah mimes an angry refusal, and regardless of whether the dealer saw, my spine grew back enough to walk outside and lay the news on him: "Sorry, man, she says no. You know how it is. Girls, right?"
He accepts the news, but still insists on being compensated for his time. "I drive you to my place, to here, I give you sample. You give me something?" I fish around in my pockets and find about 10,000 dong. In USD, maybe a couple quarters. I give it to him. He grumbles unhappily, and finally drives off. Back in the hostel I fill Sarah in on the rest of the story, assuring her of what she had already guessed. I am really, really bad at buying drugs.
Sarah suggests we get dinner and I agree, having been made hungry by a long night of leading on a poor (?) book/weed salesman. Using one of the hostel's computer, we scan Hanoi's wikitravel page for food options, and I come across this particular passage:
"The suburb of Le Mat (aka the Snake Village) has numerous restaurants specializing in cobra foodstuffs. Live cobras are stored on the premises much the same way one would find live lobsters at a Western seafood restaurant. If one orders cobra blood wine from the menu, the waiter will take a live cobra, kill it on the spot, drain the blood into a shot glass of rice wine, and top it off with the cobra's still beating heart for you to gulp down!"
I don't think I've ever had a goal so clear in my mind as that moment. If, by the end of the night, I had not feasted on a snake's living heart, I would consider myself a failure to me, my family, and a God I don't even believe in.
After asking around the hostel for some general directions, we grab a taxi and set off to eat the coolest fucking thing possible. Le Mat was a little outside of town, and it was either really late or they didn't receive many visitors, because as we walked along the street we were flanked on all sides by surprised, curious expressions and children screaming hello. I was mildly concerned we wouldn't be able to find the right restaurant, on account of the whole not reading Vietnamese thing, but the prevalent snake pictures nestled in store signs cleared any confusion. Finding one restaurant with their lights on and customers out front, we enter.
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| Somehow, it has to have flickering fluorescent lighting. It just has to. |
Some of the "customers" from the table in front get up and proceed to take our order, and I realize they're actually the family that owns the restaurant eating dinner. Regardless, they're certainly open now. As one woman waits on us patiently, our eyes scan their menu for the Vietnamese word for "horrible snake organ feast."
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| If I had to guess, the one with the most accent marks. |
Luckily, the woman speaks first: "Cobra blood?" We nod, trying to look as casual as possible. You know, if you've got some cobras lying around that'd be cool, no biggie. Whatever.
She barks a few commands towards her family, who rush off to the back of the house, some coming back with small dishes of appetizers and seasonings. Meanwhile, Sarah goes to the use the bathroom, and I'm left to admire the decor in such pants-filling anticipation as can scarcely be imagined.
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| The Merry Christmas banner in March was perfect. |
While Sarah was away, the boys in the family had come back, clutching a large, writhing sack. All I could think was "Sarah's missing this!" and "Oh my god I should be filming this". SO I DID.
And you are welcome forever.
Eating the heart was similar to eating chewy shellfish, but with an aftertaste of raw totem energy. And it wasn't over yet. There was also the matter of the blood:
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| OH YEAHHH |
If you'd like to know how a shot of blood tastes, I refer you to this series of time lapse photos:
If you've ever licked a cut, it tastes like a shot glass full of that, mixed with a little bit of vodka or some kind of noxious moonshine. For flavor, no doubt. Now that the night's "white people do quirky native thing" ceremony was finished, the family's daughter returned from vomiting in the bathroom, and the many, many snake dishes started to appear.
Somehow, our appetites had shrank from all that snake power coursing through our veins, and we were hardly able to finish half of the plates on our table. And they just kept coming! I started to think maybe I had rushed into this before thinking about just how much food could be produced from a four foot snake. Then we go to pay. I don't want to say how much it was, but I could have bought a great deal of Thai stick for that amount. But of course, then I wouldn't have a snake spirit giving me all that, I dunno, stamina, probably. It's always stamina.
The next day a bus picks us up and we're taken to the docks for our Ha Long Bay tour, but it almost feels anticlimactic after last night's fuck-you to the cobra gods.
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| I don't get up at 7am for anything less than a Natural Wonder of the World. |
With us on the tour is a number of French and Czech backpackers, some Korean and German tourists, an Australian family, and our guide: a diminutive Vietnamese man with confidence issues and a nervous smile. It's a two days, one night tour, and our boat for the trip turns out to be surprisingly nice.
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| Also disappointingly un-dragon shaped. |
Sarah and I make small talk with a couple of German ladies who were traveling together, and I'll save you some time, it turns out they weren't lesbians. Before long, the boat is moving, and we slip into the blue fog of Ha Long Bay.
Amidst the splendor of the limestone peaks lifting from the water, as if hazy, hoary giants were stretching awake from the green sea floor, I'm struck by how fucking chilly it is. No longer is the weather hotter than two rats screwing in a wool sock. No sir, for this I've got to bust out the microfleece.
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| More like UNESCO World Brrr-itage site! |
After about an hour of moving through the bay, we're taken to one of the larger rock islands for a tour of the cave system.
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| Where we got a good view of the bay within the Bay. |
Our guide probably said a lot of neat facts about the cave as we were about to enter, but no one cared because a cute dog was hanging around the front and biting our feet. His frustration at our group's apathy was palpable, but what can you do.
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| PUPPY! |
As our guide's dreams of being a cruise ship director were crumbling in front of his eyes, we're led up the rock face and inside.
The cave is packed with artificial lighting, old graffiti, and French douchebags. Disdainful glances, sneering at the sound of English being spoken, and of course they're wearing scarves. In the tropics. The cave is also full of more penguin trash cans, just like the rest of Vietnam.
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| Only these ones are a little more insane asylum-themed. |
And, there's a giant red penis rock:
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| It seems angry. |
All in all, not a bad cave. If you'd like to throw your money away, there's even a rock shaped kind of like a turtle if you squint a bunch that has a "head" you can rub. For good luck, or stamina, or something.
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| It's always stamina. |
After the cave tour, the group splits into pairs for kayaking. Sarah and I paddle around the karsts for awhile, take pictures, and watch a dog hanging out at the dock shit in a rowboat. There are some things that you don't realize you've never seen until they're happening right in front of you.
Evening soon falls and dinner is served back on the main boat. We sit at a table with the German ladies who aren't lesbians, but are awesome. They refused to kayak and, when told about the spring roll...rolling class that will be held tomorrow morning, they refuse that too. They just want to drink beer.
Dinner is a delight, but I can tell we unsettled our server when we ate the vegetable garnishes in the middle of the table cut to look like flowers. They were, we found, just for display. After everyone had finished their meal, our tour guide decided to kick this party up a notch, and brought out the karaoke. You know what a room full of white strangers being overcharged for drinks doesn't want to do? If you said karaoke, you are hereby overqualified to be a Ha Long Bay tour guide. And I think you hurt his feelings. I steal a beer can and, together with Sarah, head back to our room to smoke drugs.
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| And not do any of this. |
Sarah had managed to scrape together what few real bits of weed were in the tobacco scam-bag into a reasonable amount that two people of modest expectations might actually be able to get high on. In our miniscule 3' by 5' bathroom she also fashions a beer can I had nicked from dinner into a pipe, and then MacGyvers up a blow tube using toilet paper, perfume, and the cardboard from a toilet paper roll. She's quite a lady (uh-whoa, whoa, whoa...). We smoke up a decent buzz, although in the process I burn a finger because the can was- You know what? No one cares about the complaints of someone smoking pot. No one.
My original plan had been to get high for sunset over the Bay, but it was far too cloudy and also I forgot, because I was getting high. Now that night had set in, it was time instead to watch a movie neither of us had ever seen before, a movie that would perfectly encapsulate the experience of being afloat amidst this magical interplay of earth and water: The Deer Hunter.
And so we did. All one hundred and eighty two minutes of it, our stoned eyes glued to the screen as we shared pulls off a bottle of Smirnoff Sarah had smuggled aboard, De Niro and Walken yelling about...something. Meryl Streep crying. Vietnam. It felt like we had accomplished something profound.
Probably not though.
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| Apparently after everyone cleared out of the room as fast as they could, the Vietnamese servers just fucking jammed out all night. There's...there's a tinge of regret. |
