Tuesday 7 August 2007

Beer or wine?

There is this great place in Hanoi that is famous for its 15c beer, as well as the tiny plastic seats that you have to sit on while perched dangerously close to the traffic. An angry little boy walks around the foreigners, scowling and saying "money, beer!" regardless of whether you have paid or not. We went there last night, until a sudden arrival of the police meant that the owners tried to grab their small plastic seats and get off the street. Once the police had passed through they wanted us to sit back down and relax, but, unsurprisingly, the mood had been broken.
Sitting in the gutter with some people we met at Halong Bay. The little boy (on the right) is probably scowling "money beer", although we learnt about 5 mins later that he can also say 'police'

One of the guys we were with was saying that Europe can be divided into three areas - beer drinking (ie Germany), wine drinking (ie France) and vodka drinking (ie Sweden). He asked us what NZ is and I floundered for a moment. What are we? I wouldn't want to go to Mangatanouka and say wine, but nor would I want to go to the Hawkes Bay or anywhere in Marlborough and say beer. We went with beer drinking in the end. We were, afterall, in a 15c beer shop which involved pretty much sitting in the gutter. And as if to prove the point, it was the same place where we met the only other Kiwis we have seen on this trip so far.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think NZ is a beer place sadly. I think this weekend i'm gonna try and convert it to a vodka place....just one party at a time :)

Anonymous said...

Ops it was supposed to sat IT's me Ngaire no i's...my bad

Anonymous said...

not instead of no lol. I think thats a sign to go to bed