Happy Budda

Communist Poster
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Hoi An, beautiful little town on the south china sea.  It's been tough, getting up and having a swim while the sun beats down well into high 30's here.  Then breakfast and cycle to the beach. Life is just so hard.

We went to the beach today and sat down for 30 seconds and we hadn't even put our towel down before a pineapple seller tried to sell us mangos, pineapple and other strange fruit.  "A pineapple a day keeps the doctor away" she said.  Yep but maybe not a pineapple every 30 seconds which was the time window before a new pineapple attack.

Lantern Shop Hoi An
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I bought a football and immediately started playing with it on the beach.  A little pineapple-selling kid of 12 put his fruit down and asked to play.  I took my shirt off and the little bstard patted my belly and said "happy buddha"...yeah well you are a.... a...little vietnamese....err...err...fruit-selling...er...er... The elapsed time for a valid come-back is definitely over 5 minutes...damn my lack of wit....time to break his legs instead...... come on you little cheeky monkey, show me what you've got..... so he did, ball through my legs in a variety of humiliating manouvers, flipping the ball over my head, past me...I would like to say this was some kinda footballing hero but no, he was a 12 year old kid....all be it a talented 12 year old kid.... After 30 minutes my only response was to retch at him as he went past as the combination of heat, lack of fitness and being generally shit took it's toll.  I lit up a "Mild Seven Light" cigarette Think it says on the pack in Vietnamese "for those contemplative hacking your lungs out moments".  He picked up his fruit and left, only to return every 30 seconds with the other sellers.

Hoi An Beach
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"My name is c'est la vie, you only buy pineapple from me" said one.  "my name is brenda (unlikely but i'll give you the benefit of the doubt) you only buy from me"....So cue the inevitable kick off when we dared to buy a frisbee off some woman who wasn't one of the other 90 sellers.

"I am not lucky today, you buy from someone else, you said you would buy from me?"...

"Sorry"...

"sorry doesn't cut it mister"

3 and a half sellers attack - Hoi An beach
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Another 70 year old seller cursed Ruth and kicked the football into my leg with an accuracy i can only aspire to achieve.

After another 30 minutes playing keepy-ups in the surf with some other random vietnamese blokes i retired to the beach towel.

An old woman came up to me, crouched centimetres away from my face and then said "same same beano"..

"What you are selling Old English Childrens Comic The Beano? and you only have multiple copies of the same issue?"

Lagoon on Way To Beach - Hoi An
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"Same Same Beano"

"Yes i am aware of your product but not really what i need right now"

"Same Same Beano"....hmm getting kinda annoying and repeatitive now...In a show of strength she picked up our can of diet coke and crushed it

"same same beano".....now come on, after that trick i am definitely not buying your comics.

Japanese Bridge - Hoi An
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"Pineapple"...god it was someone else

"No pineapple"

"Same Same beano"

"No beanos thanks"

Chickens At Hoi an Market
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"Pineapple"

"No"

"Pineapple a day keeps the doctor away"

"Apparently so"

Fisherman Getting Attacked By Green Pteradactyl On Right Of Photo
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"Massage, you want massage"

This is a record right? 3 sellers at once upon us...i looked around, oh no my mistake there are 4 with some guy over there.

So then it was the wonderfully melodic "same same beano, pinapple, massage, same same beano, pineapple, massage"...I started beating out a rythym on a coconut and started jamming with a bit of jazz speak thrown in, shouting as i went "skippy bap,biddu biddu, bippity bap".."same same beano, pineapple, massage","bippity do, bip bap, skippity bow"... after a while we had some guitars round, some bongos, the old women were passing joints round, everyone had cracked out rum, the sun was going down and an accordion player in laderhosen came out from the palm trees and started jamming with us.....oh actually, no my mistake, I recall it incorrectly,,,i in fact told them to f*ck off.

for 30 seconds at least anyway......."pineapple"...

"No Pineapple"

"A pineapple a day...."

"yes i know...it won't keep him away when i shove it up your arse"

"massage"

aggghhhhhh.

Apart from the sellers it was quite relaxing and actually to be truthfull all the sellers were all characters and had a great sense of humour.  It kinda added to the ambiance after a while.... Life here is not bad at all, good cheap food, lovely people, constant sun... If only i had some pineapple and a beano my life would be complete.