South East Asia on a Hamstring – March 3

Hoi An, Vietnam – March 3, 2000

Lochie’s alarm went off at 7. She dragged herself down to reception to tell the others that she wouldn’t be going to see the Cham Ruins with them. I hadn’t planned on it anyway, fortunately.

She came back to the room.

“I have never done anything like last night, ever, in my 43 years,” she said just before going back to sleep.

Previously, Lochie had owned a farm in New Zealand. She has three grown daughters. She doesn’t usually drink snake wine and carouse. I admitted to her that I didn’t either.

We had a late breakfast of perfect banana pancakes and I went to My My Tailors for a fitting. I dropped another $175 on more clothes before leaving.

I went with Lochie to Cafe Scout. She had to place her sandwich order for the train and understandably didn’t want to face Mr. Hai alone. He was very polite about the previous drunken night – he’d been as drunk as everyone else had been and was just as embarrassed.

We wandered around Hoi An and at 7, I picked up three bags of clothes from My My. I fled before the clerk convinced me to buy something else.

None of us had seen Mark all day, but the entire group met for a meal at Cafe de Amis. Julia and I hired two local kids to take us and our packages on motorbikes to the hotel. We dropped off our clothes and paid them another dollar to drive us back to the group.

Julia, Lochie, and I ended up back at Cafe Scout where Mark finally made an appearance. He had been in Danang all day. One of his Vietnamese friends was getting married and Mark had been riding around on a motorbike all day, dropping off wedding invitations. One of his stops had even been the local prison, where he had dropped off an invitation for a policeman.

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