left: This picture is awesome!! I wish I had taken myself. Mommies out there: if your daughter is caught with (or caught by rather!) a guy like this, be scared. Be very, very scared. No one with jeans tucked into his high-tops can be trusted.I had an hour before my train was scheduled to leave Saigon. It was hot. Cold beers are cheaper than water in most of Vietnam. Choosing what to do in this situation was easy.
I sat down at a bar with a few empty tables on the sidewalk. As I sat, a man with a chubby neck and sunglasses on a stool at the back of the bar waved one of three scantily clad girls clustered at a table to bring me a menu. When she stood, I realized my mistake: I had decided to sit at a bar with a pimp for an owner and prostitutes for waitresses.
A girl in a tank-top 10 sizes too small and a skirt that looked like a child's tube sock with the toe cut off sauntered up to my table. She smiled and dropped the menu on my table. She caught a glimpse of the tattoo on my arm.
"Oooooooo! Wow!" She reached out and lifted my sleeve up to rub the tattoo. As she touched my skin, she raised her eyebrows at me as if saying, Do you like this, do you like my hand on your arm? Her lips were doused in shiny lip gloss and looked like the polished fenders of a restored car at a sunny outdoor car show.
"Where you from?" she asked, smiling.
left: Still frame from the classic. The times have changed, but Vietnamese prostitute fashion has not."America. How about you?" The question threw her off guard for some reason.
"Me? Saigon. How long you stay in Saigon?" She smiled again. I looked at her mouth. How many sweaty white penises has that mouth enveloped, I wondered.
"I will leave Saigon in one hour to catch a train to Nha Trang," I said in my slow, English teacher voice to avoid any confusion. My answer hit her like a punch to her exposed, pierced belly button.
"Really? Only one hour?" She hoped that I'd ditch my beer and go for a quick romp in the back with her before I caught my train.
"Yes, only one hour," I said apologetically.
Now, fast forward to two days later. I'm in Nha Trang at some bar by the beach. The sun is doing a swan dive into the ocean and I'm drinking a beer while writing in my journal. I'm writing about the scene described above. Just as I write the line, "Really? Only one hour?" a woman approaches me and smiles.
Her high heels dig deep into the sand and she's wearing a mini skirt and snug baby-tee. She sees my tattoo on my arm from a few feet away.
"Ooooooo! Beautiful! Very nice!" she says as she reaches out and lifts up my t-shirt sleeve. "Where you from?"
I was shocked.
What are the odds of being interrupted by a prostitute who reaches out to touch my tattoo just as I'm writing about a prostitute who interrupted me two days before by reaching to touch my tattoo?!?!?
Only in Vietnam. Or Thailand.
The repetition of an event like this is only testament to the sheer volume of foreign semen discharged (for a price) in this country.
