-^-for posterity-^-

eating in slummy environments.

tonight we had goat meat. the restaurant is an odd mix of tables and the ambiance can clearly be defined as 'dank'. old men sit around with their shirts unbuttoned and their cigarette smoke wafting through the air inhaling goat meat of all sorts. well, actually, they only have three dishes: curry goat, grilled goat and goat stew. we always opt for the first two seeing as how the last dish is full of stodgy bones. no american likes bones.

we eat and people marvel at our presence. it's like beign super heroes. we sit there and people come up to us and ask us where we are from and are 'shocked and awed' at our vietnamese. they spend too much time with us and we get perturbed, but not visably. a long time ago i wrote on this blog about being a super star and how i wouldn't be able to handle it. it would all be too fake and there would be too many people who wanted to talk to me and something would die inside of me. it turned out to be an ominous forecast. i am a super star here. the relationships are incredibly fake and, when we go out, we are followed. when no one approaches us, we wonder what is wrong.

we leave the goat restaurant in all of its bleakness. we walk past the dirty tables and the filthy floor. we pick up the motorcycle. it is parked out by a tent which houses another three tables. people at the tables ask us to walk over and talk. we sit and talk and enjoy the fame. we know we won't be famous for long.