post 3: day two, The Hobknobber Principle

My pets,

Plan for day two: Follow up on some of my brother’s experiences here. First agenda: attempt to find the locus of what he termed “shit alley,” to which he appends: “The shit, in case you are wondering, was all human. Dog shit doesn’t leave the same kind of memory.” He nonetheless assures me of finding excellent soup and the opportunity to get a less-than-one-dollar, post-punk (if accidentally) haircut. I seem to recall he also got his ears scoured by a man with a testtube cleaner – clearly the cumulative wisdom of 10 millennia of eastern medicine. Sadly he can’t remember where he saw the bottles of snake “wine” (he brought some home and we tried the stuff – it was grain alcohol with a cobra and some spices in it -- tasted like celery-salt kerosene) and the giant vat (for those more enterprising who brought their own bottles) that contained 50-odd various snakes and a whole crow -- in full feather. I’m keeping an empty 2-litre fanta bottle with me just in case. My brother is clearly my brother.

Ok, due to my odd sleep schedule, didn’t make it to the central market till 10, and it was already overrun. Wow do white people look fat and pasty (oh wait, it’s because their aussies). But I wanted to find out what yesterday’s crazy noodle dish was, and I was armed with the vital phrase “what do you call this” that I learned from two Vietnamese college girls who stopped me on the street and asked if I’d fill out a survey on communication in Vietnam (and no this is not the beginning of a Penthouse letter...)

It turns out the noodle is called bahn beo, which is explained rather well 2/3 of the way down this chowhound post: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/576591
I was unable to do any more searching, as both google and yahoo here bring up their Vietnamese versions, so I can’t get anything in English. Alas.

From there the morning went rather downhill. The market was annoying, and I managed to eat bad Chinese-style noodles, thinking they were shredded squid. I no longer endorse that whole neighborhood and will never return. Then I went on a especially dusty and smog-filled goose chase through a charmless zone with perpetual peleton-like moto traffic, looking for another bridge over the river (it was on the map but is closed). Thankfully I got a cheap alveoli transplant on the way home and then went back to bed.

I had meant to return to district 4 (they aren’t called sectors, apparently, and, I’m told, the war is over), but I had to respond to so many emails teasing me about using facebook that the early afternoon got away from me. So I went back to my skanky snail alley (by the by, both my personal epidemiologist, dave kaufman, and my stepmother, a china expert, both cautioned against me taking in more asian shellfish in slums, but why trust them?) looking for the meatball bahn mi that eluded me yesterday. I tracked it like a guided missile. It was sold to me by one of the now 5 people I’ve seen in my life with that disease that gives you shockingly disfiguring bumps all over your skin -- in one extreme case the worst human deformation I’ve ever seen. Hers was very mild, mercifully. Still, not the best meatballs. And for a moment I thought I felt an internal gurgle. False alarm.

Next a trip back to yesterday’s fish cart where I had a whole one this time, also very yummy. Then through the other half of the sidewalk market by the river and under the bridge (pretty clearly the poorest of the poor parts of Saigon that I’ve seen yet) and sat down for a bowl of soup. Now, it’s an unspoken but religious sentiment in my family (at least between bro and me) that if the lady serving you food has three or fewer teeth, none of which in remote proximity to any of the others, that is a good sign. (though not agreed upon, I’m sure we would both call this the hobknobber principle, based on the café in new Orleans where I was asked, “How it was?!”). Spotting just such a woman crouched next to an enormous pot, i approached with interest. Now at least two further of my private principles were in play: 1) always eat under bridges by the river (preferably having just stepped out of your van-home), and 2) always get soup that has congealed blood cakes in it, even if you, like me, feel that congealed blood cakes – especially when floridly spiced – are perhaps the one food on the planet you know you don’t like. Get the soup, avoid the puddings.

The confluence of these made me feel that her cauldron -- what with the fish balls, wontons, pig tubes, and winter melon floating in it -- might give erik’s shit-alley special a run for its money. And my friends, it was sublime.

Now I was on a roll, and discovered one more street that I can endorse, packed with food stalls. Despite dave and beth’s advice, I couldn’t not round out lunch with a few fried shrimp, especially because they were still legged and with shells and embedded into the sides of a donut crueller (with a hot ketchup and chili dipping sauce) -- yummy (the legs provide a nice countercrunch to the donuty softness). Tomorrow or the next day I’ll go back and try the muslimy brik-looking thing that I saw (while hearing some middle eastern music) and the stuffed chilis that looked incredible.

So a bad day saved. Home now, I notice that the fan in my room says Asia in big letters. Yes, asia fan, I say back. Me too.

2nd asia post: dangers abound

all (lovelies)

it looks like my strategy for saigon is going to be that whenever i see the beaten path, to beat it. the LP guidebook (which i heard someone unsarcastically call The Bible) says most tourists never make it out of sectors 1, 3, and 5, so i took the 20-minute stroll to the river and across, into sector 4, where something between adventure and abduction beckoned...

along the way, vicarious gastronomes, i thought i'd take my GI tract for a workout at the heavy bag with some roadside snails and clams, wolfed down on the most disreputable alley i've seen yet (it literally took only 4 minutes to escape all honky-ville and emerge into narrow unpaved streets hung with laundry and teeming with pregnant dogs. haven't seen scenes like these since india)

also stopped for this intricately spiced fried fish -- utterly incredible (the clams, by the way, were very delicate, as were the smaller white with brown boxes snails; the slightly larger ones less exciting, and none living up to the giant snails that were on the Balthazar shellfish Babel that jeremy -- shout out, homie -- treated his all-beef moving crew to back in the day.

i sat down to eat the fish but got no laughs for my travails with the raw chilis i hoped to use as a cultural icebreaker/shibboleth. still, the endorphin spike was nice. then i noticed that the whole back of the dingy dark frontless space i was in was filled with women packing what looked to be tourist=trap salesman kits. i started writing in my journal about the fish, and i think the proprietor thought i was writing about the women and sat at the stool next to me and gave me the evil eye. i tried to show that i was writing about the food, then i said i was a "teacher" and he took up my vietnamese/english book and we both practiced pronunciation (don't ever attempt to say their word for "help"), and all was well.

the alien then crossed the bridge, watching a skiff propelled by foot-oars trace over the muddy eddies.

i was in the provinces.
a group of boys called out Hello to me and punched each other when i responded, clearly embarrassed. this was a "The Weird Guy Spoke Back" thing, which i've experienced before (like in high school). now i'm getting continuous eyeballs from nearly everyone, somewhat suspicious but still friendly. i'm walking through a long sidewalk market of shockingly diverse beautiful fruits and greens. (conner, i could deviate from my daily kale here...) until i saw and approached a cart with big heaping bowls of pickled shredded evil-chili-laden salad looking things, very colorful. my interest and bafflement drew a communal whoop from the women nearby. eventually i explained that i wanted to try them (the salads), but couldn't get across that i only wanted a little (as they seemingly sold them by the kilo), until i took a small bag from my bag and pinched off the corner. now a crowd has formed and i get my salad and start to eat it and it's good but not great (the way all the side dishes are at the broome st bahn mi). then, however there was some confusion because a fruitseller is asking me some questions, and i have no idea, and am just trying to say that i like the salad (though my friggin phrasebook doesn't include such esoteric lexography as "good" or "delicious" -- presumably because it's for brits and aussies who only eat pasta when they're abroad). so i'm saying what i can say, and it turns out that they're not talking about the food, they're talking about the coffee vendor, a woman in her late 40s. i figure it out when someone says, You boy, She girl, and then quickly find the "i'm here with my girlfriend" line in the book (which i had originally wondered why they bothered...), pointed to my ring finger (though vacant), translated We are here on holiday, and scampered off and away from all the laughter.
in retrospect, and considering how good the coffee here is, i might have missed the love of my life.

long nap. then the quest for bia hoi, "fresh beer," the one-day-shelf-life low-alcohol slightly fruity less-than-a-buck-a-liter beerish stuff my bro said i must find and consume with abandon. all the bars with palefaces made me nervous, so i zip again into my secret saigon but only find a place to have bottled beer and stir-fried beef (delicious). i sit down alongside gangsters with their heinekens, me with my saigon (i've long wondered why southeast asian gangsters always drink heineken -- no joke. anyone know? that's market cornering!)

finally back to my hood and the one bia hoi place i'd seen, very crowded, half local half white, and i sit and drink a liter ultimately getting into a conversation with a pair of 60yrold brit travelers, the kind who trek for a year at a time to places like Goa. They were sweet and we talked a lot about books (they prompted but then were gracious even after my predictable excoriations of kerouac, orwell, and ouellebecq). nice to speak a bit, and nice to go to sleep a little tipsy. maybe i will dodge jet lag completely.

a fine first day all around

love, the b-c b