Short Story .... HCMC, June 17,2014 Okay, so I finish photographing the South Vietnam Womens Museum, all four unairconditioned floors of unrelenting heat... Im soaked with sweat, there is no air movement. Did I mention it was hot and muggy as hell? Although I like hot weather, here is pushing the upper limit)! Theres nothing to drink at the museum. So I finished, thank the museums gate keeper. Now Im walking down the street and pass what appears to be an open air restaurant - Im thirsty and decide to pop in for a quick beer. Im greeted at the entrance and given the universal sign to sit anywhere. Trying to see what the name of the place Im in is, I look around and find everything is in the Vietnamese language. But I know Ill be refreshed soon as there are beer coolers and signs (in Vietnamese) along the walls... A waitress comes over, smiles, and gives me a glass of an iced yellowish liquid. From the impish smile to my question of ordering a Beer (Bia) I know her knowledge of English is limited at best and likely non existent. She saunters away... Im thinking to get a menu or to find someone who speaks better English. So Im waiting, Im sweating buckets, Im thirsty, and Im HOT! I decide to chance the yellowish liquid and discover to my delight that it is a lightly flavored tea. This is good, but not what I need to quench THIS thirst. Im still waiting ... I again glance around and notice only one other customer sitting at a table, also drinking some concoction by himself but no food. He is joined shortly by a woman in the local business attire with some documents, indicating a lunch meeting. I look around further and notice the two waitresses sitting behind a bar, that now starts to look suspiciously like a counter top... They give me a shy, confused glance every few moments ... not being familiar with the place Im asking myself if I need to order at the counter? The cold tea delivered to me at the table suggested otherwise, but hey, when in Rome... I go up to the counter in my best English accented attempt at Vietnamese say Xin Chow, (hello), I say, may I have a bia (beer)? The waitress looks at me confused, and I follow her glance down at the counter and notice sheets of paper that now look for all intents and purposes like rental information and schematics of apartments and homes... A dawning reality starts to creep into my heat addled skull that I have wandered into a real estate type office ... That the beer advertisements and coolers along the wall were for their real estate customers... I sheepishly apologize and ask what I owe for the tea. The waitress now turned office hostess smiles and waves with her hand in the universal manner of saying dont worry about it... I decide to head back to the apartment where there is known to be a beer and several large bottles of water in the fridge... Luckily the three block went by fast... Now not only was I hot, but had the additional heat brought about by a bout of embarrassment - another fun day in Ho Chi Minh City...
Posted on: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:06:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015