It Is Very Hot in Hanoi

It is very hot in Hanoi, 35 degrees. We ate food off the bamboo mat on the floor, at a friends place out of the city. Prawns. Pig's ear self-rolled spring rolls. Chicken. Melon. Quail's eggs. Rice. I've smoked my lung off, as Sam continues to tell me. The traffic is as mad, I'm kind of dreading the next busy street crossing. Close your eyes and think of Britain, is as close as I can get to putting the feeling into words. The place is as exotic, though, as I remember it to be. A decaying beauty, not unlike Elizabeth Taylor in the full bloom of one of her many addictions. That is the degradation and not the high, you understand. French colonial in full disrepair. Noisy. Polluted. Every car toots to warn you that it is approaching. A billion motor bikes in a tropical wonderland.