Follow Me Around the World

The girl got up next to me and this sketchy dude sat down next to me.  He was sitting sideways facing me directly two feet from my face as I typed away.  He was still smoking a cigarette, now he was starting to make me nervous.  He started to blow smoke in my face.  Eventually as I turned to see who was next to me a few times, the guy who owned the internet café came over to this guy and said a few words to him in Vietnamese.  The guy didn’t move, then the dude said some more things and the guy got him, but was still staring right at me as he was being spoken to by the owner.  Finally the guy left, my heart was beating really fast.  This guy was probably some drug addict who was looking for money and wanted to rob me as I left the shop or maybe in the shop, who knew.  I had decided that I wasn’t going to leave the internet café until this guy left, no matter how much time or money it cost.  I figured this guy wanted me to get up and leave so he could follow me or something and have his friends waiting to jump me.  Granted it was the middle of the day, I had no idea what Hue was about, nor how safe it was, day or night.

Within five minutes of the guy leaving, I got up, paid my tab and walked quickly back to the hotel.  If the guy emerged from some alley I would run like I had run to catch the train.  I had no qualms doing so and had nothing with me to hold me back.

Once I got back to the hotel I had a little while before we were supposed to meet up to head to dinner.  I relaxed and didn’t do a whole lot.  Seven O’clock rolled around before I knew it and surprisingly Cyclos were waiting for us to take us around Hue at night and end at the restaurant where Andy had decided to take us.  The ride around Hue was awesome.  A lot of buildings were lit up, the bridge in the center of town was lit up as well.  It changed colors between purple, blue, yellow, red.  Going to the restaurant we didn’t have a chance to cross it but passed it.  We got to the restaurant and it was a place that Intrepid seemed to go to quite often.  It was a quirky little place where most of the people were deaf mutes.  They were all related either brother/sister or cousins.  One of the guys had this contraption where he would take a piece of wood, drill a hole in it, and then attach a screw with a lugnut.  This device would be used to open up beers or bottles of soda.  The guy at one point laid out four of them at once and cracked them all open at once.  It was pretty cool and I got a video of the whole process!

The great part was that he made one of them for all of us.  He showed us a book of pictures from people who had visited the restaurant in the past.  Each of them had a picture of themselves with a bottle of beer opened with this wooden bottle opener in the picture as well.  They were from all over the world, shots of people in their houses, in famous landmarks around the world, etc.  Dinner was good, it was fun, and after we got a Cyclo back to the hotel.  Others went out for a nightcap, but for some reason I was really tired and wanted to go back, so I did.