To Hue... The eating of hearts... I can see their fucking eyes...

Woke up buzzing, the sun blazed from above and streamed through the double French Doors of our balcony overlooking a narrow awning covered alley of sorts. Urban space is never wasted in Vietnam and even in small cities the most unlikely side-street, alley, narrow path, or walkway will lead you through a wondrous rabbit warren of micro-neighbourhoods assaulting your senses with the smells of the lives of those who live there. Here, you are as likely to find an amazing guesthouse or a nice salon down an alley a Downtown Eastside junkie might shy away from.

Today the plan was 4 moto-scooters, Jess had hired guides and they were going to give us a back-of-the-bike tour of Hue and her surroundings. We started off at a dock, climbing aboard and well kept if not aged dragon boat. However this Dragon Boat was not driven by high-powered and upwardly mobile corporate teams across False Creek. Nope. Just diesel and and what sounds like a Cessna engine from 2 feet away. The trip downriver was boring and uneventful, and our only interactions with the boats inhabitants was a short low pressure sales spiel to try to sell us some trinkets. I have no need for more trinkets. Unless they are awesome. I will accept awesome trinkets but alas she had none.

Pulling up to a small docking point we de-boarded and made our way up to our first stop. Thien Mu Pagoda. It has 7 tiers, is quite tall and older than your grandpa's dad. It is on the grounds of a functioning monastery and also has the Aston Mini that was driven to Saigon by Thích Quảng Đức, who subsequently immolated himself in order to protest the war in Vietnam. (See: Rage Against the Machine's debut CD cover - Way to capitalize on that you hypocrites)

After perusing the rest of the grounds we exited to the parking lot to be picked up by four scooter drivers who then took us on a round the region tour on the back of their motos. Trying our best to get into the Easy rider spirit, it was difficult to feel the rebel flair on a 150cc honda with a full helmet wearing a bright purple rain parka. I figured i could make it up at the bar later.

The tour ended at a massive Citadel. The seat of the Nguyen emperors was in the Citadel, which occupies a large, walled area on the north side of the river. Inside the citadel was a forbidden city where only the concubines, emperors, and those close enough to them were granted access, the punishment for trespassing being death. Today, little of the forbidden city remains, which we found frustrating as we slogged trough foot deep warm swampy puddles of reddish water searching the grounds for things of note. Nothing to note. Except the $5 USD i gave to a man in a dark temple for some incense. Due to my general dampness and tired exasperation I failed to realize until it was to late that $5 USD is about 1/6th of what a skilled worker makes in a month I probably made him quite happy. For the cost of a beer at home i bought a mans family food for a few days. I guess that's pretty cool.

I'm still a little bitter though.

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That night we ate at an amazing restaurant elevated 3 metres off the ground on stilts. Having thoroughly dried off from our earlier tour we dug into whole fresh grilled fish and an intoxicating plate of Morning Glory Greens sauteed in a garlic sauce. Both dishes were the best food food i've eaten yet on the trip. As we gorged, chopsticks darting in and out of the fish nipping bits like wasps at a picnic our jovial server walked be an pointed at a mass of flesh we'd left off to the side. Having recognized the heart and larger organs of the fish we had in our Western way just moved them aside. "That's is the best part of the fish," he pointed out. "Vietnamese favorite."

So, of course i proceeded to pick up the heart to have a look, which prompted my companions to all start goading me into eating the largish dense fish bits. Given that my liquor levels were where they were at (I'm generally drunk 18 hours a day when i travel) and my adventurous foodie nature, i popped the heart et al into my mouth and bit down.

The texture was at first dense almost gristly but then the meat yielded and a sublime foie gras meets veal texture presented itself. The flavour was liver like and not at all fishy. Completely self-satisfied i took a big swig of my beer and smiled. Satisfied, our server smiled back and for all i knew perhaps even the Vietnamese don't eat that part of the fish and this was all a huge joke on the Barang. Having been to their markets though: I highly doubted this was the case...

We headed back to the hotel after this, drunkenly stumbling into at a children's recital glorifying Vietnam and Uncle Ho (Huge Ho Chi Minh festival was occurring all week) and stopping in what we suspect was a prostitute bar, which ostensibly is no big deal given their prominence in Asia, it just seemd odd that we were the only customers at first and then it clicked when we observed a number of women milling about. We were served politely and then ignored. Sometimes that's the best kind of service. Alexis had to pee, which is why we stopped in the first place, and when nature called i took the opportunity to use the "facilities" there.

Now, the concept of bathroom/toilet in Vietnam falls under any number of definitions. Many times at a roadside restaurant you will pass through a family's house, living room, kitchen etc before coming to their facilities and very much unlike the West, no one would think to say "no" when one requests a toilet. This was true not only in restaurants but pretty much every store we went into. For a country that is always asking, "You come into my store and buy something..." "Hey lady, you like scarf..." etc, it was very rare to have to pay to use the toilet. Now... The toilet itself. It might be fully western, but it may not flush, in which case the huge bucket of water beside it with a smaller bucket will do the job. Toilet paper is a luxury and if you have none, enjoy either a) the same water bucket you flush with (ewww) or b) a high pressure cold hose attached to the wall (effective and not as gross) (We all learned to take TP with us at all times) Just as often there was no toilet, merely a large ceramic hole that one squats over then repeats the above steps re: flushing/wiping.

Back to the toilet at hand.

So, like always the toilet is at the rear of the bar, through a living space, past the motorcycle parking and around a corner. I pull open the rickety door and "Hey! Look... a real toilet... cool...' I stand and deliver and then as my eyes adjust to the dark I notice every inch of the space outside of standing range is covered with spiderwebs in which spindly legged spiders the size of a small plum are standing there watching me. The worst part is i can see them watching me because i can SEE THEIR FUCKING EYES!

Do you know how unnerving it is to look into a spiders eyes form 12 inches away while pissing? I'm not much of an arachnophobe but holy fuck. I turned my head to the left and the webs were larger and there were more, many many more... Why these numerous arachnids hadn't entered into some cannibalistic death match was beyond me ( I did notice that there were no other insects in the vicinity though... Hmmmm) I finished as quick as i could and got the fuck out.

We had to catch a bus early the next day to Hoi An so it was bed time. Having learned the larger of the two beds had a mattress akin to sleeping on cardboard over top of straw we chose the smaller one and slept well into the next morning when my god forsaken alarm clock went of at a lovely 5:30am.

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