For reasons far too entangled to go into, Nurse Myra and I were bounced from our booked flight from Danang to Hanoi, and the enchantingly polite and apologetic staff* from Vietnam Airlines bundled us off for a few hours to Danang’s Bamboo Green hotel.

Some people might see this as an inconvenience. Here at The Cow, we look upon such things as an opportunity.

Aha! More guest rules:

Bamboo Rules

Well, of course I already knew by now to check my dry squids at the kitchen, but Conspicuously bulky materials? And Animals including pets? Damn that souvenir water buffalo! Busted on two counts. Well, three I guess – it didn’t smell too good either.

Bamboo Green is the only hotel I’ve ever stayed at which had its own theme song (handily provided as a laminated sheet on the bedside table†):

Bamboo Song

I think Hyatt and Hilton could learn something from this.

I’m available. And not too expensive.
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*Seriously, how can these people possibly be so nice? It doesn’t matter what goes wrong they handle it with such manners and aplomb that you can’t help but smilingly go along with whatever alternative they offer. (“We are so sorry that your plane has been engulfed by toxic fumes, please accept this plate full of crushed jagged glass and a trip on a rusted bus as a substitute…” Sure!)

In fact, in this case because they had to put us on a later flight, they paid for our temporary stay in a Danang hotel along with a meal, and, I discovered later, crammed a wad of cash (nearly half the fare) in our ticket folder by way of compensation. I guess I’m not used to this kind of concern. Well, not without a lot of whining anyway. In my experience it’s usually: “Your plane’s grounded bud, deal with it.”

†Well, I suppose you never know when you’ll be at a loss for material for a singalong…

Over at Radioactive Jam’s pad, the discussion turned to some issues of Political Correctness and I advised a trip to cartoonist John Callahan’s website for a good dose of (humourous) reality from someone who sits (in his wheelchair) on the other side of the able-bodied fence.

Callahan has a great selection of hate mail he has received for his work. It is possibly the funniest part of the site. Cheeze, people are so humourless and easily upset. It’s just cartoons folks, he’s pulling your strings!

I thought this was particularly chuckle-worthy in reference to some previous Cow observations (Now Pil, no hate mail, you know it’s just a joke!)

Huong Hai 17

Our floating home for a couple of days in Vietnam’s North, on beautiful Halong Bay. The junk Huong Hai.

We have Room 101:

Keys Huong Door

Reverend: “Wow, this floorboard is really squeaky… listen to this,” (pushes foot up and down on board): squ-e-e-u-p, squ-e-e-u-p, squ-e-e-u-i-o-p

Nurse Myra: “Um, I heard that sound before when I wasn’t near the board. It was doing it all by itself. I don’t think it’s a squeaky board”

Reverend: “Sure it is. Listen – when I push the board, it squeaks,” (pushes board): squ-e-e-u-p, “When I push it again, it squeaks,” (pushes board again): squ-e-e-u-p, squ-e-e-u-p -chitter- squ-e-e-k-k-k-ity-squ-e-e-k.

Takes foot off board, and walks away a few paces. Squ-e-e-u-p, squ-e-e-e-e-ek, squeek, squeek, squeek.

Uh-oh.

Oh man. Room 101. Of course. Everyone knows what’s in Room 101.

Stalactite

Nothing about photographs though.

May Contain Traces of Nuts*

Nuts 1

This is a little bag of snacky-type things they hand out on Vietnam Airlines.

This is the ingredient list on the back:

Nuts 2

So far so good. Roasted mixed nuts, salt, vegetable oil. Yep, you know exactly what you’re gonna see when you open that little packet, right?

Wrong! You are in Vietnam, remember, where all rules and laws are merely suggestions.

This is what you’re really going to see:

Nuts 3

I have marked for you the actual nuts. Yes, you counted right, three (3) cashews. Which as my friend Simon pointed out, are not even technically nuts. Everything else is definitely not a nut, even the cunning little things that look like peanuts. There are peas, little starchy corn things, and the fake peanuts that are probably made of some kind of crunchy soy product.

True, there was salt (probably – it tasted salty), and vegetable oil (I guess being charitable it could even have been peanut oil…). All in all though, the ingredient list is a much better guide to what’s not in the packet.

I had such a great time in Vietnam.

In Quang Ngai City, where I spent most of my time, there is a new supermarket. We love the supermarket. It is a place where you can spend a good few hours browsing.

In the liquor section, there was a bottle of wine which was labelled ‘Wine with Young Bees’. Floating in the bottom inch and a half of the bottle was a sludge of bee larvae. I held it up and to an old man who was watching us curiously examining the swirling insect brood.

“Good?” I mimed, with a big smile and a raise of the eyebrows.

“Nope”, he mimed back, shaking his head and making a face that said “this is one of the most disgusting things ever invented. I don’t know what they were thinking.”

Outside the supermarket, the road is divided into two sets of two lanes by a median strip. This is the only median strip in Quang Ngai. A median strip in Quang Ngai makes about a much sense as an amber traffic light.

You don’t need to understand Vietnamese to get the sense of perplexity people feel about the median strip.

“Why have they done this? What – we are supposed to cycle all the way down the end of this to the corner, turn around and come back to get to something on the other side? Why are they messing with our heads like this? Next they’ll be coming up with some daft concept like, oh, saying you can only go one way down a street or something.”

Consequently, if you need to get to a place on the other side of the median strip from where you are, you just ignore it! You just get on the other side of the median strip and cycle to where you want to be. Like it doesn’t exist.

I love Vietnam. Did I mention?

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*If you’re lucky.

WasteBasket 1 WasteBasket 2 WasteBasket 3

The Waste Baskets of Vietnam.

Be sure to click for bigger versions. You can only be further impressed. Number 3 is particularly interesting in that one of its offered features is that it is comfortable.

I ask you to reflect on what might find a waste basket ‘comfortable’ for we shall have cause to ruminate a little more on such things in due course.

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