LARRY'S DISPATCHES FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA
Thailand / Laos / Vietnam / until the money runs out

I'm Larry Hubbard. I graduated from college in Wisconsin in May with a degree in history and no plan. I painted houses for six weeks, bought a backpack, and on Monday, July 12, I flew to Bangkok with a guidebook, a journal and a return ticket for December 20. I figure the money runs out right around Christmas, which is also when my mother says I'm required to be home.

I type these in internet cafes, by the minute, on keyboards that have been typed on by ten thousand other backpackers eating banana pancakes. That's why this page is plain. Every picture I don't put on it is about three minutes of my life. Newest dispatch is right below. The older ones are by country.

Older dispatches:
THAILAND  (#1-2)  Khao San Road, the night train north, three days walking in the hills
LAOS  (#3-4)  Two days down the Mekong in a slow boat, and the monks at dawn
VIETNAM  (#5-6)  Hanoi's Old Quarter, Ha Long Bay, and the train south to Hue

DISPATCH #7
Hue, Vietnam · Thursday, September 23, 1999

It rains every afternoon now. Not drizzle. Rain like somebody upstairs tipped over a bathtub, for exactly an hour, starting at about two o'clock, and then the sun comes out and the streets steam. The family that runs my guesthouse says this is nothing and that in October and November the river comes up into the streets. They say this cheerfully. They have a boat.

I've been in Hue for two weeks, which is longer than I've stayed anywhere since Bangkok. I keep meaning to leave and then not leaving. Part of it is the guesthouse. The grandmother has decided I'm too thin and puts an extra egg in my noodles every morning without asking. The youngest son is sixteen and practices his English on me every night, and I've been trying to learn Vietnamese from him in return. I can now say "thank you," "how much," "too expensive," and "I am from America," and order coffee with condensed milk. The tones are killing me. Apparently I've been saying something rude every time I try to say "sorry." He thinks this is the funniest thing that has ever happened.

Yesterday I rented a bicycle and rode out along the Perfume River to two of the royal tombs. They are enormous and quiet and green: walled parks with lakes and pavilions and stone mandarins standing in rows, all built for emperors in the 1800s. At one of them I was the only visitor for an hour. I sat on the steps by a lotus pond until the rain came, then rode back eight miles soaked to the skin, which, honestly, was great.

Tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn Festival. For a week the market has been full of paper lanterns shaped like stars and fish and carp and rabbits, and the bakeries are stacked with mooncakes, which are heavy round pastries filled with lotus seed paste and sometimes a whole salted egg yolk in the middle. The grandmother gave me one. I didn't tell her about the egg yolk being a surprise. Tomorrow night the kids parade with their lanterns, and the son says there will be lion dancers going door to door with drums. I'm staying for that. Then Hoi An, I think, and then south.

For the people who keep e-mailing to ask: yes, I'm fine. Yes, I'm eating. Yes, Mom, I'm wearing the hat.

Questions people have e-mailed me:

Isn't it dangerous? Crossing the street in Hanoi is dangerous. Everything else has been fine. I've been treated with more kindness by strangers in ten weeks than I could pay back in ten years.

How do you afford it? House painting, a lot of rice, and the cheapest bed in every town. I won't tell you prices because they change and because my mother reads this.

What are you going to do when you get back? Please stop asking me this.

Do you have pictures? Twelve rolls of film, in a bag, getting heavier. You'll see them at Christmas if you come over. Bring snacks. There are a lot of temples.

Readers so far:
(Hi, Grandma. Hi, everybody from the house-painting crew.)

E-mail: [email protected] · I check it about once a week, wherever there's a cafe.
Last updated September 23, 1999, in Hue, on a keyboard with no letter M (I'm using copy and paste).