Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
We tried to speak with her, and with the older woman who, I thought I understood,
was the chef's mother, and with the various neighbors who dropped by to look at the
white strangers, but communication was limited. We did, however, enjoy a delicious
lunch—I have a picture of that, too—the spicy vegetable soup known as
pho
, a deep-
dish omelet, and a platter of grilled chicken.
Afterward, before we said our good-byes, the older woman approached us and with
unmistakable gestures offered either Albert or me—or both of us—the opportunity to
spend the afternoon in bed with her daughter, the chef.
We looked over at her and she blushed. We declined politely, and as we got back on
our bicycles, I gave the proprietor my baseball hat—dark green, with the insignia of the
La Jolla Playhouse on it—which she put on immediately and with a thrilled grin wore
as she waved at us, continuing to wave, I saw as I looked back, until we were just about
out of sight.
The hilly battlefield at Khe Sanh was an empty jungle by then, the kind of place where
a movie director would imagine a dissolve, an establishing shot of a peaceful, lush, yet
vaguely threatening landscape that becomes a noisy, sepia-colored, angry scene out of
the past. We didn't spend much time there, instead pressing on into the town itself,
