Beware the Street Meat Sold Outside of Vietnamese Train Stations

Food poisoning is never fun, but having it hit you in the middle of the night on a train is enough to spoil anybody's day. I'll spare you the graphic details following those first desperate moments—waking in a cold sweat, fumbling around in the dark for a roll of toilet paper—and let it suffice to say that I painted the porcelain in two different tones, and it wouldn't flush in between.

So bad was my condition, that when we arrived back in Hanoi four hours later, I couldn't get into a taxi, because I felt I might repeat the incident on the train at any moment. So, I limped towards our hostel, stopping to make urgent use of the first bathroom I could find—a squatter—before heaving in the gutter, and going right back to the squatter again, practically rendering it useless for anyone else. I doubt the owner of that particular restaurant thought that this was worth the price of the single cup of coffee we bought.

Somehow, I made it back to our hostel, a room, and a bed, where I spent the entire day, sleeping and watching excellent Vietnamese TV. When I could finally keep fluids down, I knew I was getting better, but not nearly good enough to make it to Cuc Phuong National Park, a trip that required an hour walk, 3 hours on a bus, followed by an hour-and-a-half long motorcycle taxi ride. Cuc Phuong was out of the question. A pity too, as I was very much looking forward to seeing my first real rain forest, but this experience would have to wait until, three weeks and two countries later, we rode elephants through Kao Sok National Park in central Thailand.

While still weak, sore, and slightly nauseous the next day, I felt well enough to make it out for a few hours to a museum, a temple, and take my first solid meal. Following the Pho, we went to sit by the lake, where I was approached by a teenage boy, who first asked me where I was from, and then gave me a roach. Surprised that I should be offered weed—for free and at midday in urban Vietnam—I at first refused, but after he insisted, what could I do?

I walked a little ways down the lakeside, puffing the joint stub, looking out across the water through the blowing willow branches at Turtle Tower, standing stoically in the center of this chaotic city, a place in perpetual motion for a thousand years*. I was cured; and not a minute too soon, we had another train to catch.


*The city of Hanoi turned 1000 in October of 2010, just one month before our visit.