Thunder over Sai Gon

There won't be any creativity here because I'm hung over. It's a celebratory hangover though, because it's the first one i've had in a long time. That's because I caught the flu. I don't think it was the flying pig flu, but it was a flu nonetheless and I had a fever for like five days, so if anyone ever asks me what Hue is like, I'll just say "it's pretty comatose" Cause for me, that's what it was. So I am celebrating the fact that I can drink. That and we said goodbye to our Amercian friend Wade this morning. Wade was hilarious. Wade was for some unknown reason a platinum member of the Sheraton hotels chain, and so when Kate and I flew to Sai Gon the other night, wade said we could crash on this floor/bed. We didn't realise he was staying 16 floors up in a luxury suite with more glass and marble than you can shake a stick at, three plasma screen TV's (one in the bathroom) and bowls of water with flower petals floating in them. LEaving that for the little dirge we're staying in now was harder than you might think. Last night is in bits and pieces for me, but I remember crawling in a sketchy brick hole that passed for a bar and being the only three in there playing pool for a few hours and drinking beer and Jamieson's. Then the world goes into fast forward and we're 5 floors up above the city floor at a table with a burner built into it. I ordered goat, which meant the burner got fired up, everyone got a bowl and a dude stood there and cooked the whole thing for us on our table while we watched. Fast forward again. I heard some techno beats and got this appetite for going somewhere that had a DJ. I wanted to exercise our right to party without a curfew, since Sai Gon is cool like that. Next thing I know i'm on the back of a motor bike, city lights screaming past and we're outside a throbbing joint called Apocalypse Now. Inside there was a DJ (that's all I wanted) A surfboard on the ceiling that said "Charlie don't surf" on it in huge letters, and a couple of hundred people obeying a ratio of 1 white rejected man to 2 gold digging vietnamese girls. Just standing in there was a cultural experience to say the least. Kate, Wade and I just stared, and when things got too blurry we pulled the pin. Fast forward montage to sitting on the back of a motor bike again, this time I feel like i'm going twice as fast. I have can of beer in my hand and I'm lavishly signing Robert Goulet. I am remotely aware that Kate is on the back of the neighbouring bike sliding in and out of my periph, she's got a beer can too, and so does her motorbike driver. Nice of you Kate. Wade is on the other side and the ribbons of road whip past and the lighs trace and streak until we come out of hyperspace and we're standing outside our little hovel. At 2:30 in the morning the nice lady slides the armoured door open enough for us to squeeze through, and kate and wade blast the arrested development DVD's they're addicted to while the world shuts off like a TV for me. Poof, here I am, hungover, listening to the din of motorbikes and horns under the thunder brewing over Sai Gon, and thinking about how nights like that become average in your life.
Bye Wade, it's been real. Kate and I are going to check out the Mekong delta now.