This is the first bowl of phở Matt’s had since arriving in Hanoi. On the cusp of too-spicy, but well into the savory-as-hell zone, it’s an enjoyable experience trying the soup at Phở 10. The patrons scoop and slurp their noodles, rated among the best the city has to offer. And for only fifty-thousand dong (~$2.50 USD), it would be a crime not to eat here. The American is breaking off a leaf of basil before downing his own spoonful and– Hey, is that guy wearing a ‘pura vida’ shirt?
“Pura vida!” Matt calls out from the patio to the young man on the sidewalk.
Distracted even before the outcry, the man turns his searching gaze towards the noodle shop. He’s wearing a tanktop bearing the unofficially official slogan of Costa Rica, pura vida. His gently-curled dark hair fades down into a close-cropped beard, which perhaps was once well-kempt, but is now well past the start of backpacker stubble. It gives the tico (slang for citizens of Costa Rica) a rugged polish. This is all aided by the matte black camera slung around his neck. Olé.
Omar, as he introduces himself, is all too happy to meet someone who knows of his small-but-exciting country. The two travelers talk briefly though animatedly. They’re able to share the basics of the who-what-wheres of their travels before the North American remembers he interrupted the Central American.
“You were looking for something, no?” he asks, soup long-forgotten. “When I pura-vida!’d you off the street.”
“Oh, yes. I’m looking for a place to book a trip to Halong Bay.” Omar’s English is flawless.
Matt laughs. “Really? I literally just booked my trip down around the corner. It’s called Lily’s Travel Agency and she’s great.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, man. I looked online and she’s got almost a dozen reviews on TripAdvisor, all good. What travel agent gets that? I got a three-day, two-night trip, kayaking et cetera all included for just seventy-five dollars.” This is quite a good price when most people are paying upwards of a hundred. “She gave me her WhatsApp number too, so if there are any problems I can talk to her directly. I don’t leave until tomorrow, but I’m pretty sure it’s one of the best places to book.”
Omar’s smile grows as Matt talks and when the sales pitch is done he thanks his fellow backpacker. He sets off to find the fabled Lily, leaving Matt to contemplate whether he’ll eat the slices of pepper floating in the shallow remains of his soup.
The red rings of death are ultimately left for the waitress to bus away while Matt pays his tab. No need to jinx his last night in Hanoi.
Matt steps up into the mini-bus the following morning. He tosses his pack onto a pile of already-tossed bags in the front and makes his way to a window seat. The van starts moving before he even has a chance to take his seat.
He sits down and looks across the aisle to the windows on the other side. “Omar!”
“Hey Matt!” the tico smiles. He explains that he got the same package Matt did, down to the day, thus a chance encounter on the street has turned into sharing the next few days together on the scenic waters of Halong Bay. Pura vida!
They high-five. There are far, far worse people to spend a vacation with than each other, they will soon discover.
After the bus has made its rounds of the city’s hotels and hostels, picking up tourists in ones and twos, it makes its way to the highway. As it picks up speed for this more direct leg of its trip, one of the young Vietnamese men ferrying them along stands up from the front to make an announcement.
He has the build of the vast majority of the locals in this area of the world: thin and wiry. His hair is jet black, which sets him apart from the pack not at all. “Hello,” he starts, having trouble pronouncing the L/R difference that many out here do.
Matt turns to pay some attention, but is distracted from the man’s words by his mouth, the very mouth that is currently grappling with the English language. It’s not just the unfamiliar consonants that are causing trouble for him, but the fact that he has a third tooth protruding from behind the top front two. It stabs out from behind them like the mythical Atlantis jutting out from the ocean. The pearly off-whiteness dribbles wet with saliva. It’s mostly overshadowed by its brethren, but glimpses of it sparkle in the sunlight that shines in from the windows as he talks.
It’s mesmerizing.
“I think… I’ll call him Snaggletooth,” Matt ultimately concludes to his lunch table.
It’s hours later and they’re all aboard a junk boat on the bay. There are about fifteen to twenty of them in Snaggletooth’s troop: one east European family, a local couple, and an assortment of backpackers of all ages and backgrounds.
Snaggletooth’s real name is Timmy and he’s long since checked their tickets and ushered them onto the boat. He’s now giving them yet another set of commands. These prohibit them from going up onto the roof deck to watch the sunset later, from jumping into the water after dark, and from sitting anywhere other than their designated seats in the interior dining area. One of the backpackers at Matt and Omar’s table, Thibault (pronounced ‘Tih-balt’), has already tried changing seats. Unsuccessfully.
Thibault is a Frenchman approximately Matt’s age. Somehow he’s found a way to stay in shape as he travels, evidenced by the hard curves on his arms. Really good shape. He’s not overly outgoing, though, which combined with his fitness, lends him an aura of gruff coldness at first meeting. This usually ends up giving way to a personable demeanor. Usually.
“I’m telling you, guy, this is bullshit!” he complains in the slight nasality of a French accent.
Omar nods in sympathy. Thibault is looking to rejoin Wallis (yes, it’s a girl’s name), who had been pulled from them to another table. Wallis is a lightly freckled and redheaded (though not ginger) girl from England traveling on her own before starting a law career. She’s a bit younger than Thibault, having just turned twenty-three today, though just like Matt, she too is embarking on writing a blog of her travels.
She’s trying to get back to Thibault and company as well, but if she wants unlimited beer she’d better stay where she is. That’s right, Wallis had bought a three-day package that includes unlimited beer from the semi-cooled kegs on the creaking deck. Everybody else has to pay for their bottles of overpriced (35k dong, ~$1.75 USD) beer from the ship’s canteen. It seems immoral to buy more than one or two and support this kind of high seas piracy.
Matt doesn’t even have enough money for a single beer; he’d forgotten to stop by an ATM before the trip to the bay. Omar lends him 500k, half of all the money he has for his own trip. Matt swears to pay him back. His first purchase with the loan is to buy his benefactor a drink. Omar accepts it with a rueful smile.
Back at the free beer table, Wallis is joined by a Swiss named Erick, a tall Netherlander named Ruben, and South African Shai (‘Shay’) who has a short goat patch beard under his chin. The four of them are living the Vietnamese equivalent of the Miller high life.
Erick is a generous and talented man of thirty-one. Earlier on the trip, his angled features were witnessed speaking English, French, Spanish, and German, translating difficult phrases between backpackers. The Swiss are born and bred diplomats. Being a man of so many cultures, he frowns at Snaggletooth’s insistence on rules on his beer.
He beckons Matt over to the table next to his once the lunch of stir-fried noodles, vegetables, and fish has been finished. Only scattered conversation and the beer remain. He winks as he palms plastic cups of the stuff to the American when none of the crew are looking. It’s quickly disposed of.
Between furtive chugging sessions there’s time to admire the view from the windows. Halong Bay is regarded as one of the New Seven Natural Wonders of the World, which is a fancy way of saying it’s fucking gorgeous. Like errant teeth, the nearly two-thousand spits of limestone islands dot the waters around them. The islets (‘hòn’ in Vietnamese) are slashed with emerald tapestries of tropical vegetation. From closer up, the tapestry’s threads are seen to be vines that dangle into the gentle waters around them.
“How close do you wanna get?” Matt asks the Brit sitting in the front seat of their kayak.
“Just a little bit more,” Wallis says, easily heard over the shadowed silence of the late afternoon. “I wish I hadn’t forgotten my GoPro.”
Matt grunts in affirmation, churning his two-sided oars once again. He’s been given the regular paddle, but Snaggletooth’s minions had only had a laughable spoon of a paddle left for Wallis. Thibault’s arms had inspired him to take up the challenge of ferrying the birthday girl around and so here he was, kayaking up to a cove.
Behind them, Erick flirts with a Korean co-tourist, the junk boat anchored even further back. Stories of jellyfish aside, it probably isn’t a good idea to spend too much time in the bay’s waters; UNESCO site or not, the waters aren’t reported to be the cleanest. But the still-nascent couple is having fun, Erick pretending to be pulled underneath while the woman covers her mouth and shrieks with laughter.
Quite a bit farther behind even that, the sun is just starting to dissolve into the sky. Reds and oranges explore out from around hindering white clouds. The kayak drifts slowly on the blue-green waters.
“So do you have a boyfriend back home?” Matt asks. He’s resting his arms for like, just a second.
Wallis doesn’t even have to think about it. “No. You?”
“Yeah, her name’s Chelsea. Just thinking about how romantic this would be. Not that you’re not great company,” he adds.
She laughs. “I understand. What’s she like?”
* * *
Every round Chelsea starts laughing just before the rest of the circle of friends playing Cards Against Humanity. She’s quick on the uptake. They’ve all finished eating their potluck dishes and after Heather had seen to breaking out more wine, they’d broken out the board games.
Melissa, the hostess, had invited clusters of girlfriends to her elegant Washington, DC apartment for her annual Thanksgiving potluck. She’d of course also invited the guys who had expressed interest in cooking for said potluck, which amounted to just Sadek, James, and Matt. And Sadek and James had chickened turkeyed out and showed up tonight with only some wine and store-bought habanero vodka! Amateurs. Matt had more sense than that and had made some slow-cooker pastrami for the party. It’s a hit with all those who try it.
Chelsea has not. She’s still a vegetarian. For now.
It’s an eclectic group that’s turned out for Thanksgiving Potluck ‘12, perfect for Cards Against Humanity, the politically incorrect party game. It’s played by one person reading a black prompt card (something like “Coming to Broadway this fall: ______, The Musical!”) and then each other player anonymously contributing a white answer card from their hand of ten. The prompting player then reads the answers aloud and picks the funniest/dirtiest/best card to be the winner for the round. This goes around the circle until the night is over or they exhaust their supply of alcohol. In the end, the player with the most rounds won is the winner of the evening.
“Okay now,” Liz, one of the potluck guests, says as she slips her selection for the round into the center pile, “don’t get offended by this.”
“Pfffft!” Matt dismisses the notion, deciding which of his own cards to throw in. “I think the only way you could offend me in this game is by thinking I could even be offended by your card.”
Chelsea’s face lights up and she looks up from her hand of cards. “That’s what I always say!”
Liz’s card would later be revealed to be ‘Auschwitz’. Even later, the game would end with Matt having scored six to Chelsea’s winning seven. It would be the first time he’s lost the game since he’s started playing this summer. He would get Chelsea’s number, if only to schedule a rematch.
* * *
“She sounds pretty fun,” Wallis admits as they paddle up to the anchored boat.
“She is,” Matt confirms, climbing the ladder up its side.
They scurry up to the main deck and then defy orders by ascending to the roof to catch the last of the sunset. The many islands make for a dynamic horizon for the sun to retreat behind.
Once on the roof, however, they run into a set of new Western faces lying on the lounge chairs.
“You’re on our boat?” Matt asks the three stowaways.
“Yeah, bro,” one of them steps up without missing a beat at being discovered, “you wouldn’t believe what we’ve been through!” He identifies himself as Chris, specifically Pizza Chris.
“Why Pizza Chris?”
“Because we have a lot of Chrises!” he laughs. The spokesman is dirty blonde and shows off an even tan. He’s not quite as cut as Thibault, but definitely in shape and definitely stronger than the Frenchman. He speaks with an overflowing energy and a dentist’s smile. Charming Pizza Chris.
“Right on, but why Pizza Chris?”
“Oh. Because I like pizza.” Another smile. “And this is Dog Chris, he has a dog, and this is Josh Chris. His real name is Josh, so he’s Josh Chris.” He stops his introductions. “Hold on, I gotta tell you our story, bro.”
* * *
Pizza Chris can’t contain his excitement, which isn’t anything new. He’s always the life of a party and is, naturally, a salesman for his PVC card firm. He’ll enthusiastically explain to anyone that it’s based in Shenzen, China. It’s a small business, but growing, and it affords him the time to hang out with his roommates and enjoy the vibrant city.
They often order pizza to their apartment, an apartment where the delivery man has an easy time identifying their door. It’s the one with the key stuck in the lock. Yes, they know it’s there, they’re calling a guy to get it fixed. They’re not actually calling a guy to get it fixed. They’ll remain in an apartment that is perpetually unlocked. It’s been over a month and nothing’s been stolen yet. The streak cannot be broken!
To test the theory, Pizza Chris has recruited Dog Chris and Josh Chris, a lanky research assistant and a taller English teacher, respectively. They’re on a whirlwind two-week tour of the Southeast Asian area, current stop: Halong Bay.
Pizza Chris and company have booked the Castaways Tour of the many islands. Boats? Check. Booze? Check. Beautiful backpacker babes? Check.
“Last time I checked,” Josh Chris says, “the Castaways Tour didn’t actually look like you’d been picked up from a shipwreck.”
He was exaggerating, but only a little. They’re the only Western faces of an otherwise completely Asian crew. Comprised almost exclusively of grandmothers and young children, it was hardly the booze cruise they’d been sold on.
“Hey man! So um,” Pizza Chris asks their guide, “when do we get to the real boat?”
“Soon, soon!” is all he’ll tell them.
Pizza Chris looks around. He sees a ship in need of some interior decorating and a fair bit of renovation. There are holes in the walls and the paint is peeling off in splinters. The grandmothers and children sitting in their corners of the ship’s hold return his silent gaze. They do not return his nervous smiles.
The trio cannot wait very long before Dog Chris steps up to the guide to ask again. He tries talking to him in Chinese, a language that gets a fair bit of use here, so close to the northern border. Though Dog Chris’ Mandarin is excellent, damn near locally fluent, the man will still give no explanation other than ‘soon soon’.
“Soon, soon!” he repeats, at a later questioning.
From the windows in their corner of the rocking hold, they see no sign of another boat.
“You know as well as I do what’s going to happen,” Josh Chris complains. “He’s going to keep driving us around the bay until it’s ‘too late’ for us to get a refund and drop us off back at port. It’s fucking bullshit.”
It’s true, the other Chrises both know this shady tactic of regional culture. And they won’t stand for it.
“Come on, man,” they complain to the guide. “Just let us off on the other boat!”
“What,” the man turns back on them in anger, raising his voice, “is this not good? Are the Vietnamese people bother you?”
“No, what? No, they’re not bothering us,” Pizza Chris lowers his voice, “but we signed up for the Castaways boat. You know, the party boat.”
“Oh, so you no want these people on your boat?!” The guide’s volume is back up to shouting. “You want me to kick off all of these people? Off the boat?!”
“No! That’s not what– Gah!” Pizza Chris has no more patience. “Look,” he lowers his voice, but dials up the intensity therein, “you take us to another boat, or we will tear this fucking boat apart.”
Josh Chris and Dog Chris grab hold of exposed pipes and loose boards.
“You can’t just–!” the guide starts. Then he notices the straining in the Western faces as they begin to tug on the pieces of the ship.
The ship starts to sound like it’s straining as well.
“Okay! Okay!” he relents, waving his hands at them and rushing over. “Okay! Okay!”
* * *
“So they brought you to our boat?” Wallis asks.
“Yeah, because I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news, but this isn’t exactly the party boat,” Matt adds. “I mean, we’re social, but we’re definitely not the party boat.”
“No, this was yesterday. They actually brought us to the bungalows on Monkey Island, out by that big island, Cat Ba? And bro,” Chris’ face explodes in sincerity, “it was good. I know we’ve still got tonight, but I’m gonna say that that place made it all worth it.”
Behind him, the other Chrises nod.
“So is it just you guys on this boat?” he asks the kayaking pair.
“No, but we don’t know where some of the others are… Have you seen Omar?”
Later, when a dinner of the same dishes from lunch is finished, they discover where he’s been.
“They moved us!” he exclaims. His usually calm and pleasant attitude has given way to ruffled feathers from the ill treatment of Snaggletooth and company. “They told me I need to take all my stuff and go to another boat. Over there,” Omar points over the roof’s railing.
Next to them, another junker of similar-though-unique wear and tear is moored to the dock, spilling it’s own yellow light into the night-darkened bay. Vague shadows loom in the distance, the black cinders of the once radiant daytime view.
“I’m going to have to tell Lily this,” Omar says, shaking his head. He’s reluctant to complain to the smiling woman, but the rude treatment he’s received is just not what he was expecting.
“I hear you,” Matt murmurs.
“Hey,” Pizza Chris empathizes, “have a drink.” He passes a plastic cup of some of the ship’s free beer.
The Chrises had been comped the unlimited beer.
Omar’s eyes light up, then darken. “Can I drink this?”
“Yeah, bro,” Chris shrugs, “just don’t get caught.”
Omar quickly downs the vaguely cooled beverage. He grimaces. It’s not very good beer.
Matt’s abstaining from buying drinks, even though it’s Wallis’ birthday, refusing to support Snaggletooth Timmy. The Snaggletooth Timmy who has just stepped up to the roof and pulled him aside.
“If you want drink, you can pay,” the man says to him in a quiet corner of the roof deck.
Is this about sneaking a beer?
“Oh, no, I’m fine. I’m not drinking tonight.”
Timmy frowns. His tooth smolders in the yellow lamplight. “I can sell you all-you-can-drink for…” he looks around before leaning in close to Matt’s ear. “Two-hundred thousand dong.”
“You want to sell me all-I-can-drink? For… like ten dollars? Two-hundred thousand dong?”
“Yes.”
“But I just told you, I’m not drinking tonight. Thanks, but I’ll stick to my one beer.”
“No, no,” Timmy shakes his head. “You no understand. This is good price!”
“I know it is, I’m sure it is, but I don’t even want the product. Now, maybe if you bring down the price to one-hundred thousand dong…”
Snaggletooth creases his forehead and juts out his over-toothed jaw. He sits and pouts there for a few long moments and then he huffs away in disgust.
“What’d he want?” Wallis asks when Matt returns to their card game. “Get in trouble for sneaking some beer?”
Over the course of their game of Kings, he’s been refilling his single beer bottle with the pitchers of free beer from downstairs and alternatively the vodka smuggled aboard from the mainland.
“Nah, he wanted to try and sell me the all-you-can-drink package.” Matt sits back down in his seat on the recliner chairs, retrieving his bottle from near the railing. “For two-hundred thousand dong.”
“Haha!” Chris laughs, giving himself over to his amusement. “Fuck that guy. Who’s turn is it?”
They resume playing, drinking as the rules dictate (or a close enough approximation). At one point, Pizza Chris is regailing the group about how all of the Chrises, even the ones back in Shenzen that couldn’t make it to Vietnam, will go into business together.
“And we’ll all get the same tattoo,” he tells them, nodding. “Right here, on the inside of our lips.” He pulls down his lower lip to show everyone.
“I knew a guy who got a tattoo there once,” Matt counters warily. “It wasn’t very good.”
“Ours will be better! I don’t even know what that guy’s tattoo was of, but I can tell you ours will be better! See, it’ll be hashtag swag–”
“Hashtag swag?” Wallis asks.
“Hashtag swag. And we’ll all have it, and anytime you want, you can just pull down your lip, ‘hashtag swag!’”
“Hashtag swag!” Dog Chris and Josh Chris echo, pulling down their own mouths as if they already had the tattoo.
“Hashtag swag.” Pizza Chris releases his lip. “Like, we could be in a business deal, sitting across from each other at the table, the other guys, The Big Decider, his Right Hand Man, they’ll be talking over a deal or something and not looking at you, but the secretary, the secretary will be watching. And he’s taking notes or whatever and he looks over and all three of us just pull down our lips, straight-faced, totally blank, just pull down our lips. Hashtag swag!”
“Hashtag swag!” the other Chrises echo again.
“That’s ridiculous,” Matt laughs.
Wallis can’t even form words, she’s doubled over laughing.
“You gotta help us spread the word! You said you’re gonna write about our story with the Castaways Tour on your blog, yeah?”
“Yeah, probably,” he admits.
“Well, it’s gonna be an awesome post, but to really put it over the top, you gotta title it ‘Hashtag Swag’!” Pizza Chris wheedles.
“I dunno…”
“I’ll do it!” Wallis cuts in. “I’ll do it on my blog!”
“Yes!” Pizza Chris high-fives her. “Wal’s got it!”
“Fine, fine,” Matt concedes, “I’ll do it. And who’s turn is it in this goddamned game?”
They continue to play and drink until just past midnight when, even though her birthday’s technically over, a frosted banana cake appears on the roof from below deck, covered in flickering candles. Wallis blows them out to a myriad of accents singing Happy Birthday.
She swiftly makes her way around the deck, smearing frosting on the unsuspecting revelers’ faces. Definitely a birthday for the blog.
A view from out on the bay, on one of the bigger islets