the clinton administrations impact on vietnam

Pham Ngu Lao is the Khao San Road area of Saigon. It’s loaded with budget accommodation, bars, restaurants, and cafes. Unbeknownst to me, it’s also where the vast majority of the major sites are located around. When I woke up a couple hours later with a medicine hangover, but feeling considerably better, and very rejuvenated, I set out for a casual stroll around town to find some dinner and have a drink. My inadvertent walking tour started at the Hotel de Ville, which is a throw back to the colonial era hotel in Paris, though not nearly as big. A bit further on down the way I stumbled across what looking like a spitting image of Paris’ Notre Dame, and sure enough, when I asked someone what the spot was called, it was called Notre Dame. Why all the French rip offs? I have no idea, but they are certainly the spots that people flock to, as these were two of the busiest places I visited that night. There is also a “French-style” post office right nearby that was getting quite a bit of attention, but I’ve been to France, so I wasn’t all that rushed to spend my time in Vietnam looking at French replicas. It seemed almost as though there were more people driving at night than there were in the day, the traffic was absolute chaos and seemed to grow busier as the night dragged on.
I’d been meaning to try pho for a number of years, dating back to when I dated Dona, the Vietnamese girl. She was always telling me about pho and how good it was but I never got around to trying it with her, so I figured what better time to try the traditional Vietnamese soup dish than my first night in Vietnam. There is a pho restaurant called Pho 2000 that everyone raved about that I spoke to, so I figured I’d give that a shot. It was certainly very crowded, so my hopes were set high, and if the pictures on the wall of a happening restaurant are any indication of a countries feelings about another, there were multiple pictures of President Clinton eating pho and shaking hands with the cook in that very restaurant. Perhaps it was called Pho 2000 after the Clinton administration. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. The pho was good, but I literally had to eat an hour after because it was everything but filling, which is not a good attribute for food when you’re six and a half feet tall like me.
I found myself at the acclaimed and historical Rex Hotel for a nightcap. I couldn’t tell you where I’ve heard of it before, but I can assure you that it is indeed both acclaimed and historical. I’d put a new shirt on by this time, but was still kicking ass in my denim shorts and flip-flops, so when I swam through the bourgeois lobby I would have put money on them at least questioning my presence if not physically escorting me out of the establishment. No such luck though, because that would have made for a much better story. I took the elevator to a roof top bar and was pleasantly greeted with a number of things. First there was a terrible cover band playing brown-eyed girl. Then I realized I was, without a doubt, the only person at this rooftop bar who was under 35 and over nine, traveling by myself, staying in a hostel, looking to spend about 15 dollars a day, and not in the market for a variety of very “Asian” trinkets that were on display. Several of the middle-aged businessmen and their tag along wives were dancing and schmoozing with one another on the dance floor, but when I weighed my options against going to a bar that would be overrun with shitty backpackers discussing the meaning of life and smelling worse than me, I opted to stay put and order the most expensive cocktail I had during my trip. My Gin and Tonic and a Crème Brulee set me back three times as much as my room cost for the night, which, while that’s actually reasonable at home, I was expecting Third World prices, since, after all, I was in a Third World country.
An hour passed while I sipped my drink, trying to enjoy every cent of it, and while I listened to the classics of yesteryear, after which time I paid my bill, was vibed into tipping the waiter, which was something I hadn’t experienced in Asia, and headed back to my hostel where I swallowed three Tylenol PM with great pleasure and a desire to knock myself out for a solid ten hours for the first time on my trip, and passed out on my bottom bunk with a metal frame.