Finally I have something to write about. As you may know, I find my life here in Saigon quite boring. Between going out to the local bars, entertaining clients from the big international companies entering Vietnam and playing darts, there just isn’t much to do.
But last week was the most interesting I’ve had in a while. On Tuesday, we had our darts tournament at Ice Blue (Across from the Underground) and this was the first knock out round which means we were playing for the championship for the year. We all got our beers and started to throw the darts. About three hours and five beers later, we had won the match and decided to celebrate. One of the guys parting with us I had not recognized before and introduced myself. He was a furnature buyer from Australia and had business with one of our team members also in the furnature business. I started telling him about the nightlife here and offered to show him around.
So we left the bar together and went over to the 17 Saloon. That place is pretty popular with older people on business trips and it’s not that easy to meet people since the live band plays really loud. So we had one drink there and then went to Allez Boo in Pham Ngu Lao. I was a little disappointed at first because there were not that many female tourists around but after an hour a group of 4 beautiful Indian/British girls walked in and I couldn’t help but introduce myself.
They invited us to sit with them and got a real kick out of the fact that the only thing I know about Indian people now living in England comes from the television show “The Kumars at No. 42.” They were also interested in other bars in the area but as it was pretty late everything was closing except for the infamous “Lost in Saigon”
So we ended up going there and dancing for quite a bit and ran into the usual cross dressers, gays, and shady tourists. Around 4 am I finally ran out of gas and went back home.
Thursday night the same thing happened. We usually only have darts tournaments on Tuesday but since this was knock out week we had to play again that night. I got to the bar around 6:30 and soon the power went out. By 7 when the game was supposed to start the power was still not on so it was decided that we should go to the other team’s home bar (No. 5 bar) and play there.
After everyone had got in the cabs except for myself and another teammate the power came back on. We called them all back but a few players from the other team refused to leave the No. 5 bar. So we decided we should just go there and kick their ass which we did. I almost didn’t get to play my singles match because the game was already effectively won just before I was about to start. But the other player said it should be for beers and luckly I ended up winning and we drank more beer than we should have.
After that we ended up going back to Ice Blue where I ran into more tourists. These people were from Ireland and a few others from New York. They were also interested in going out and since I was pretty happy from the beers obliged to show them around. This time we went straight to Allez Boo and although it was crowded I was able to find two flight attendants from United Airlines who let us sit with them. One thing I learned that night is one should never try to keep pace with the Irish when it comes to beer drinking.
So after feeling like hell on Friday and Saturday I finally am feeling better and am done with the beer for a long time.
One other interesting thing happened to me on Saturday. I had to take a nap since I was feeling bad and since it was a daily downpour there wasn’t a better time for a mid-day nap. As I was slowly drifting into sleep the rain kept me slightly conscious and I slipped into a lucid dream. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s when you realize that you are dreaming and can control your dreams. When this happens I always like to fly. It’s just like reality except you can do anything you want to do which is simply amazing. So I told myself that I was going to start flying and did.
Then it occurred to me that I should also be able to go out into space at warp speed and perhaps visit some other planets. But as soon as this thought entered my head I got scared since if I did make it to the edge of the universe I might see God which really freaked me out.
At this point, I slipped slightly out of my lucid dream but didn’t have complete control of my body. I think some people may consider this point the effect of an evil spirit or some other nonsense, but to me I’m simply in-between the dream world and here and I have to wake myself up completely. It can be scary since it’s very hard to move the body but my technique is to simply start rocking my body, gaining momentum until it forces me to wake up. After I had control, I really thought I should try to slip back into the dream and try flying again but unfortunately I was so freaked out about not being able to move my body that it was impossible.
Weird post huh.
