Today's Thought

An excerpt from an email from a friend who is motorbiking around Vietnam...

Vietnam bike road trip. Day (?) After riding on a small road through mountain jungle, I came upon a military station. I asked them if they had food. They made me a bowl of instant noodles and mystery meat, which I later realized was dog. I was offered homemade rice whiskey (which you can't politely reject), except they gave me a full cup to shoot instead of a shot glass. Then they gave me another, which got me drunk pretty quickly on an empty stomach. Then they butchered another dog for dinner as I'm eating. Then a superior guard came to inspect the unit, and they hid me away in another building to finish my dinner. I left some cash and quietly snuck out the back to continue driving through the jungle. Later that night still on an isolated trail, I had burned through my reserve gas bottle, and was starting to get pretty nervous. (The bike doesn't have instruments or a fuel gauge.) Eventually I came upon a tiny village and stopped to ask if they had any. Before I had a chance, I was taken by the hand to a dinner table. Where once again, I had to do shots of rice whiskey. One with every member of the table. 8 shots later, I had eaten 3 pieces of some sort of mystery dog organ. Which was impressive because at this point I thought I was able to identify all of the dog organs. Anyway it tasted like something Anthony Bourdain might have politely eaten and then spit out. And I was really glad I got the whiskey beforehand. Even though the whiskey tasted like gasoline. I got 2 liters of petrol and politely returned to the road. Headphones back in: Bob Dylan: Isis: (resume play)