Asia by Hammock

It had taunted us since the moment we showed up Nha Trang. Not on the regular menu but hidden on the bottom of weekly specials was the devilish cretion known as the "Real Nhatrang Bucket". Sure, there were lots of buckets there, ones in jars, ones in coconuts, blue ones and green ones but only one really deserved the name "bucket". Made with a bottle of vodka, two of rum, one of gin (just for good measure), some sprite and juice, they promised us it would hurt.

One of the proudest moments of my life was handing the bartender 600,000 Dong (about 40 bones) and casually informing him we we'd like to try one of those little real nha trang buckets. Armed with a platoon (we've been reading war books), they presented a bucket that was more of a hollowed out cofee table and proceeded to pour alcohol for well over two minutes. It was done with the flair and class only seen in over indulging in alcohol. The straws were actually fleixlbe tubing and I think a piece from a motorbike (I really wish that was a literary exxageration).


We made quite a few friends over that bucket, including an unlucky man turning thirty who enjoyed the closest thing there is to a "bucket-stand". A poor unlucky Englishman spent the entire next day booting (he claims it was something he ate), two people missed their dive course, I jot chased home by a persistent whore on a motorbike and Ed lost his wallet.

In more constructive events, Ed got his open water padi certification (which he lost about 18 hours later with wallet) and I did some pretty nice diving - except the one where I ran out of air and couldn't inflate my BCD on the surface.... but the weather was nice, water pretty warm and vis probably 20meters down to about 12. Fish and corral were decent, there were neat little caves and tubes you could through and the floating bar (literaly: styrofoam floating on the water) was stocked with cheap wine. We also did Mama Hahn's island tour which was fun and gave us the willpower (and friends) for the bucket extravaganza. I think one of the coolest things about Nha Trang are the old women that walk around with a pot full of raw lobsters, prawns, oysters, musells, etc in one hand and a barbeque in the other. I don't think the travel nurse would approve.

Turns out the key to overnight busses is getting really drunk the night before and then taking sleeping pills. We're in Saigon for two days then the Delta then Cambodia. Hi to everyone at home and that we've met. Boo Lions Go Lance

Steve + Eddie