Adventure travel in questionable taste.
It isn’t like climbing Everest, but eating in Vietnam is nothing short of high adventure. For us, filming a pilot for a cooking show, was just that.
You are what you eat in Vietnam. The more ferocious the animal, the more like it you will be. If it is virility you seek, you might choose the rabbit— if it is brute strength you’re after, don’t choose the rabbit.
Eating fresh, takes on a whole new meaning in Vietnam. You choose your fish entrée from the aquarium at the entrance to the restaurant. A carp hot pot will come with the hot stock on a burner, and your choice of carp hacked into 4 pieces, fins still moving, mouth opening and closing. If you prefer some warm-blooded animal, there is a zoo at the front of the restaurant. The higher class the café, the more exotic their zoo.
You are, of course, welcome to attend the execution of your dinner entrée. The chef cuddles your choice from the endangered species list, gives it a drink of water, says a prayer then slits its throat. The blood drips into a bowl to be mixed with fish sauce for a delicious dip. Then bunny is skinned and cooked, head on, guts and all. Yum!
This kind of stuff is not really what North Americans want to watch on TV. So we decided to follow a popular tourist activity, a trip up the Mekong River. On a typical excursion you might see kids going to school, a coconut tree sawmill, a coconut candy factory, a bee farm, snake farm, fish farm ending up at a floating market.
It starts out with an hour-long taxi ride. The staging area beside the river was a picturesque spot beside a small lagoon surrounded by palm trees, with a long pier lined with boats waiting to take tourists up the river.
The taxi ride left me in need of a toilet. I was pointed towards the outhouse, a small thatch-roofed, windowless brick bunker beside the lagoon. It had no door, and just a small 2 inch hole in the floor. Now I’m a Canadian boy, I’ve written my name in the snow, I could have handled Number 1, with that size of hole.
Problem was, I was after Number 2. Even Canadian boys can’t aim that well with Number 2. A two-inch hole, no door—no way. I stepped back out, and looked at the guide. He snickered as he pointed to the slough beside the outhouse. There, in the centre of the slough, was a concrete post. Perched on the post was a little platform with a three-foot high straw-mat wall. The gangway to the platform was a 15-foot plank, barely a foot wide. The water below was murky brown.
It might even make good footage, me ducking behind the wall. Squatting, only my head would be visible, and I could look around. It would be obvious what I was doing. After all, it was the toilet. The plop in the water might be heard, and in this case seen, but I could live with that.
Getting to the platform on that narrow plank, was another matter. Falling in was not an option. This was no swimming hole. I stepped up and gingerly bounced, testing its strength. It seemed strong enough. The vibration moved up the plank, the concrete post shuddered. Suddenly the water began to swirl. It was feeding time for something in the water.
I could see nothing through the murky water. “What are they growing in there?” I thought. Eels? I thought of the Tin Drum. Snakes? Shit eating Snakes? Piranhas? Alligators? There was no way, I was going to walk that plank. My need disappeared. I quickly peed into the 2-inch hole and got in the boat.
We headed across the brown and murky Mekong river, almost a mile across, and then up one of the brown and murky tributaries. The sky was obscured by jungle greenery; it was very cool, great stock footage. We saw the kids going to school, the bee farm, snake farm and a candy factory. The fish farm was a maze of narrow waterways, snaking back and forth at the edge of the river, again, murky brown water.
We immediately commenced filming. The gleeful host catches a fish. He carries it triumphantly to the cleaning lady, who scrubs it and passes it on to the cooking lady who drops it, scales and all into a giant wok and fries it. Then on to the table where the jovial, hungry host has dinner with the family. Mama san teaches him the fine art of making rice paper rolls with the freshly fried fish. He learns about fish sauce, chiles, fresh basil, lime. The producers are going to love this.
Then I remembered that I still hadn’t done the Number 2 thing. I assumed we were done filming. Where is the toilet? I asked. I was pointed towards a concrete bunker beside the water. It had a door, and inside a toilet, with a seat, and toilet paper, and a sink.
Yes! Relieved, I sat down to business, and my mind wandered to the logistics of a toilet this close to the water of this fish farm. I mumbled to myself out loud, “Where does the toilet flush to? How much fish did I put into my wraps? How many of those delicious salad wraps did I eat?
I was still wearing the mike. The camera man had stayed on me the whole time. He was wearing headphones and heard me. Laughing, he told me to come outside and see where the toilet flushed to.
I didn’t have to. I flushed the toilet and saw the daylight at the bottom of the toilet bowl, and murky brown water below.
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