Bai Bien Cua Toi (III) Losing P&M as neighbours & meeting Canadians at Life's a Beach

1:00 wide awake until 4:00

My alarm was set for 6 so I wouldn't miss Peter & Marion's departure.  

The people one meets while traveling are more important than the destination one visits.  I'd rather meet truly interesting people in a boring destination than the other way around.   

Of course, I don't mind meeting fabulous people in a fabulous location ;-)

Yesterday was a great day. In addition, this beach works wonders for my psyche and for my physical well-being.  Enough reason to drop my plan of riding a scooter up to Da Nang on this trip.

Enough vegging out!
I hop on the scooter and ride towards Life's a Beach.  I'm pretty much out of cigarettes and coffee, and it would be nice to buy midnight snack cookies and yogurt.

A few weeks ago, still in Vancouver, someone contacted me on TripAdvisor with questions about Bai Xep. The man would be HERE with his wife at the same time as I would be and they are from Maple Ridge.   A quick look around the bar and I recognize that typical BC look in only one person.   But it seems he doesn't remember the TripAdvisor conversation as well as I do.....

I ask: Are you from Canada?  
Yes, from Vancouver. 
From Maple Ridge ?   
WTF?!? 

Sometimes a good memory can beat even clairvoyance ;-)

Am I a douche bag? I try my "Ban ten la gi?" on the waitress whose name I don't know.  I get a blank look.   

 Jovially and smug (and with evil hubris, I realize now), I ask the man from Maple Ridge ' Can you do better?'.     He starts rattling away in Viet to the waitress.   I am SPEECHLESS !     It's only his third time in Vietnam! I have been put in my place and I MORE than deserve it. 

toi se hoc tieng viet !

BUT .......  there is another side to it and I tell him:   There is HOPE. He actually puts a lot of time into his effort of learning tieng viet.  His wife thinks he's simply NUTS.    But then..... 
if he can do it ...... I can do it !












Last night's strange sleeping pattern still leaves me mumbling, so I head back home.   The head wind that was gouging out my eyes on the way there, now lets me carve up the roads with 80 km/h.  I could go even FASTER if I had shades !

The Octopus dinner is disappointing.  Octopus has to be cooked for EXACTLY the right time. Cook it too long and it becomes chewy.   

Add to that: the new German neighbour couple is antisocial and I'm bored.  But then I'm already dead tired also, so that is OK.