Last night I watched the first 30 seconds of “The Quiet American.” That’s how long it took me to realize that the posters reading “English with Vietnamese subtitles” were not entirely truthful.
I ended up in a bar watching “Beastmaster 12: the Eye of Bathrrag” instead. The movie stars a pair a ferrets and Casper Van Diem in a Barbie wig. I left while Casper was being tortured with something called the Shawl of Agony.
Did I mention I’m looking forward to Hoi An?
Yesterday, nevertheless, was a good day. I biked out to the Marble Mountains and spent a few hours exploring the chimney caves that house huge carved buddhas in dripping recesses. In the evening, I found an outdoor cafe that serves mugs of beer from a keg for a dime apiece. I bought some beer, peanuts, and a bag of hardboiled quail eggs from a street vendor. My fellow patrons were solitary old men, scarecrows in baggy clothing. We all sat in plastic children’s chairs, facing the street, sipping our beer silently, watching the traffic rush by.
My visa extension came through, so today I leave Danang.
