hustled in hue

we're so sorry we haven't posted in so long, but since we got to hue, we have been lazy. make that lazy with a capital L and 6 As, so Laaaaaazy!

now, we will make up for it by giving you an example of a typical day in vietnam:

allie and tim wake up in hue, in their spotless (save for one giant roach in the throes of death in the bathroom) hotel room. the sun is finally out for the first time in days, so they think 'hey! let's take a boat trip down the perfume river to check out those temples we keep hearing about!' allie and tim then venture down to the harbor (or, as tim calls it, 'the lion's den') to wait to be propositioned by 5473957349 boat owners offering to take them down the river. sure enough, a bunch of them come flying out, offering varying deals. allie and tim ignore them and ask the woman at the tourist desk how much it will be, and she says for a full day trip down the river, 300,000 dong. tim and allie leave the desk to ponder the issue and are then accosted by tam, a boat owner. tam says he will take them for an hour trip for 80,000. allie and tim walk away. tam follows them, calling out different prices for different trips. allie and tim tell him they need time to consider the matter. tam says he will return in 10 minutes and leaves them time to ponder his whole day for 200,000 dong offer. he makes it clear that the offer does not include admission to the tombs, which they already knew.

10 minutes later, allie and tim are ensconced in two remarkably comfortable shrunken red plastic chairs on tam's boat, with his wife at the back, looking sullen. tam starts up the boat as though it's a lawn mower, and once it starts, it doesn't sound all that different. allie and tim sit, staring out at the river, for about 20 minutes until they reach the first pagoda, which is noteworthy for being the home pagoda to the first self-immolating monk. allie and tim go up to the pagoda, expecting to fork out 60,000 dong each, but are happily surprised when entry is free! they walk around, delirious with excitement at anything free in vietnam. they return to the boat, where tam tells them the two tombs are next.

tim and allie sit happily until tam's wife offers them a soda. AND THEN IT BEGINS. out of the corner of allie's eye, she sees the wife setting up a blanket: a sure sign that major selling is about to occur. sure enough, 2o seconds later, the wife is suddenly chirpy and is thrusting postcards in allie's face. "$1! $1! very cheap!" she cries. allie, the sucker, thinking that buying the postcards will end the onslaught, buys the postcards. allie is foolish. as soon as she has bought the postcards, wife unveils a very large collection of artwork. allie and tim buy some artwork. as soon as they have bought the artwork, wife whips out some scarves. allie and tim (surprisingly) say NO. wife then pulls out some jewelry. NO. wife then holds up some ao dai. NO. (what the hell is allie going to do with a vietnamese outfit in a size -17?) tim and allie, despite having been attacked by surprise two days in a row (the day prior, they were propositioned by a series of men selling paintings for disadvantaged children, and, just for themselves, and of course, the suckers fell for it), are feeling quite pleased with themselves for their restraint. after all, they haven't spent THAT much.

yeah, right, losers. tam lands the boat on the side of the river, with nothing but a muddy path in sight. he jumps out of the boat (he's pretty spry, being only about 5" tall) and helps allie and tim up the path. "now you go to tombs by motorbike," he tells them. a little confused, they continue up the path and try to ignore the woman inside the house they are passing, who is standing on her porch waving biscuits around and yelling "COOKIES? YOU WANT BUY COOKIES?" they get to the top of the hill and tam repeats the line about the motorbike and points to the two dudes standing there with bikes. tim and allie think "ok, we hadn't planned on riding motorbikes in this country where lunacy and complete recklessness rule the roads, but hey, what the hell?" the head motorbike dude then says "two tombs. $5 per person." excuse me, WHAT? $5 in vietnam will buy you a feast or about 100 paintings--maybe even a small child (although we haven't tried that one yet). $10 will probably buy you a house and a chauffeur! tim blandly tries to argue with the man, knowing he and allie are screwed and will have to fork over the money. tam hides in the background, looking uncomfortable and frightened that the giant american girl will kill him with her bare hands and eat him for dinner ( well, just as an appetizer, because he is only very tiny). finally, allie and tim acquiesce, and get on the stinking motorbikes, and tam runs for cover.

the good news is that motorbike riding is great and is the only way to travel (well, apart from the other ways, of course). the man driving tim doesn't speak english, but when he stops for gas, the gas attendant asks tim where he was from, and when tim says england, the man asks "do you speak vietnamese?" uh, no. english is actually the national language of england, mister. as tim's friend is refueling, allie's friend decides to take off without them. allie's driver speaks more english, and shouts out random phrases along the way, yelling mostly "TOMBS VERY BEAUTIFUL!" ya think? why do you think we are spending our life savings and risking life and limb to see them, man?

allie and tim finally arrive at the first tomb, which is indeed very beautiful. they fork over their 60,000 dong each (starting to feel very poor by this point) and wander around for the "TWENTY MINUTES!" they have been allotted. then, it's back on the bike for the journey to the second tomb. at the second tomb, they get 30 minutes, and they actually took a little too long.

something is funny when they get back on the bikes after the second tomb. allie tries to take a video of the road from the bike, and it comes out okay. however, her driver is acting weird. he keeps yelling 'GOOD DRIVER!!" and cracking up. allie assumes he is merely drunk, having spent half an hour in the cafe at the tomb, and she blithely agrees with him, praying that he doesn't run into a tree. at the same time, tim's driver is also yelling "good driver!" and laughing uproariously with allie's driver while talking about beer. tim and allie exchange glances, but hey, this is vietnam. weird stuff happens all the time.

they get back to their starting point, and the men immediately sit down at a table in the first cafe. a woman comes out with a tray full of food, and allie, too tired to argue, says she will buy the local snack, which is the cheapest thing on offer. suddenly, the woman starts saying "good drivers!" and pointing at the men. yeah, yeah, they're friggin' great, lady--give me my peanut stick and let me get on the road! then the men start patting the seats next to them, so allie and tim sit down. only THEN does it become apparent what the scheme is. they are supposed to buy the men BEER to reward them for not running into a tree! so, they do. the men smile widely and crack open their tiger beers, pleased as punch with their day's bounty.

thinking (don't even comment on how dumb allie and tim are) that they are done for the day, tim and allie walk down the path back to the boat when the owner of the second cafe comes flying out. "COCA-COLA?" no. "YOU SAID YOU WOULD BUY FROM ME WHEN YOU CAME BACK!" uh, no. "YOU BOUGHT FROM HER, YOU HAVE TO BUY FROM ME!" (please take note that "you buy from her, you buy from me" could well be and perhaps should be the national slogan of vietnam.) the woman starts to follow allie and tim down the road, thrusting various items in their faces. tim is visibly annoyed at this point, and says, no, no, no, no. with every no, the woman gets more upset until she looks as if her head is quite literally going to fly off of her head. thinking that the woman is either going to have a stroke or pull out an axe, allie makes tim buy a coke from her for the grand total of 75 cents. of course, the woman doesn't actually HAVE coke on her little tray, so they take a warm pineapple juice and hit the road.

when they get to the boat, they are so tired that they don't have the energy to kill tam and drive the boat back themselves, so they sit quietly, eating peanut stick and drinking warm pineapple juice and calculating the damage of what they have spent. the grand total? $40 and an unexpressable amount of energy.