Last night we painted the town red. Increasingly, Ilene and I feel like chaperons on these outings, though the young people we're running with don't need much looking after -- they drink the minimum and a late night ends at midnight. One of our friends has been taking salsa lessons and has become a regular at the Caravelle Hotel's rooftop bar where a Cuban band plays a couple nights a week. The crowd is a mix of hotel guests and young Vietnamese. The band jumps off stage to lure people on to the dance floor. The Japanese businessmen grab the asses of the hostesses. The middle-age Westerners try to get the phone numbers of the young ladies. The big screen TV runs a slide show of hotel services -- massages, drink specials, breakfast buffets, sightseeing tours. Every few minutes, a picture shows a smiling young man dressed in the costume of a Vietcong soldier popping out of one of the Cu Chi tunnels, one of the popular destinations for war tourists. Towering above on every side of the patio are the skeletons of the next generation of hotels and office towers. The sparks of the arc welders working late on Saturday wink inside.
Last night we painted the town red. Increasingly, Ilene and I feel like chaperons on these outings, though the young people we're running with don't need much looking after -- they drink the minimum and a late night ends at midnight. One of our friends has been taking salsa lessons and has become a regular at the Caravelle Hotel's rooftop bar where a Cuban band plays a couple nights a week. The crowd is a mix of hotel guests and young Vietnamese. The band jumps off stage to lure people on to the dance floor. The Japanese businessmen grab the asses of the hostesses. The middle-age Westerners try to get the phone numbers of the young ladies. The big screen TV runs a slide show of hotel services -- massages, drink specials, breakfast buffets, sightseeing tours. Every few minutes, a picture shows a smiling young man dressed in the costume of a Vietcong soldier popping out of one of the Cu Chi tunnels, one of the popular destinations for war tourists. Towering above on every side of the patio are the skeletons of the next generation of hotels and office towers. The sparks of the arc welders working late on Saturday wink inside.
