Tail of the Makarel, Brain of the Prawn, Leg of the Octopus, ..... and Hair of the Dog

18:20.  Alan is supposed to have left HK an hour ago, but he's still there.  Delayed flight.   It's going to be a late night, LOL.

On a quick walk of the neighbourhood, I realize that I ended up in Sai Gon's version 'Khaosan Road'. 

Drunk Yout'

19:00 Where did the first 3/5th of the wine go?

20:00 I grab myself a Banh Mi around the corner.  Not bad, but far from one of the better ones I've had.  But then it costs 10,000 VND (44 US cents), so I really shouldn't complain, should I?

21:00 I've had a brief nap timed by my cell phone alarm.  Alan still hasn't landed.

22:00 I'm getting worried that the pilot of Alan's plane has a liking for the Indian Ocean.  That plane is way overdue.

23:30 I'm sitting in the lobby of the Pullman Saigon Centre Hotel, waiting for the arrival of the traveler who e-mailed me a while ago that he finally landed.

Midnight
I had been afraid that we wouldn't get any food anymore at this time of night. Close enough. It is difficult.  But NOT the food part; getting a seat is difficult !

AMAZING mackerel.  With amazing green Japanese sauce (store-bought as Alan finds out)

Alan takes this BRILLIANT picture.
 The woman behind us soon notices that the phone is in Selfie mode and clears the shot, LOL

Somewhere in here a passed-out blonde young woman is being carried out of the street by her friends.  That's what they come here for, LOL.  Glad to say that NEVER happened to me.  OK, so there was that night when I was 18 and mixed tranquilizers with beer, BUT I was still conscious.  People only THOUGHT I was OUT.  
Absolutely NO fun (OK, so it was kinda fun before I semi-passed out).  
But that one time cured the desire to do that again for my entire lifetime.

That must be the kitchen back there !

I'm sitting here with a a non-stoppable eater.   Good thing too, because otherwise I would have never tasted THE BEST OCTOPUS of my LIFE (NO, I kid you not). Tender, crispy, juicy, FULL of flavour.    This stuff is AMAZING !




Next course.  Giant grilled prawns.  
Alan insists on eating them without peeling them first.  

Of course, I can't look like the wimp here, so I have to TRY that too.
While I do like the flavour that I taste when my teeth sink into the beast's giant head, I have problem with its thick skull.  I have to spit out the remaining bones (exoskeleton).  

One of the next prawns must have had a leaky ear because its well-cooked brain squirts all over Alan's beer bottle when his teeth sink in.  

YUMMY (NO, I DO mean that, LOL).

Waddaya mean?  There are people who PEEL prawns?

Street performers try to lure Dongs out of the eaters. We see at least 3 fire-breathing performances.

See the skinny guy in the white shirt with bottle and bucket at his feet?

He's drinking something out of a bottle

Only a split second after this picture was taken, the woman who has the fire in her back starts screaming like a Banshee

She's STILL freaked out !

2am
Yes, there are STILL people here and they're STILL serving food.  It's a good night and I probably could sit here for hours more (ok, so maybe I'm getting a tiny bit tired), but I know that my alarm clock will ring at 6 am so that I can catch my plane tomorrow.  So it's time for me to hit the bed soon.

When I stumble into my hotel lobby at 2:15 am, I neglect to think of the fact that hotel lobbies in Vietnam are the bedrooms of the hotel staff.  I'm almost at the stairs when I see this slender figure rise up from his bare-bones sleeping arrangement.  

What does he say after I so rudely woke him at an ungodly hour?  

 "Good Night  Sir!".