Rocket Fuel and Reggae

My last night in Hanoi was also one of the most memorable of my whole Vietnam trip. Myself and my travelling friends had decided that not only would we head out for dinner and go and watch the water puppet show, but also planned on getting very drunk. Now to anyone who lives in a buzzing, cosmopolitan city, this may seem like a normal and very reasonable itinerary for a night out. In Vietnam where everywhere shuts down at midnight it was a different story. Especially considering that the moody woman at the ticket booth at Thang Long Theatre tried to tell us that all of that night’s performances for the water puppets had sold out apart from the last showing and even then only half of us would be able to get tickets (this later turned out to be untrue, as we all turned up just before the performance and walked straight in!). Anyway, I digress. The point was if we weren’t going to get out of the show until at least 9.30, it didn’t leave us much time to get our drinking hats on. We needn’t have worried.

We had earmarked a reggae bar we had learned about from one of our guidebooks, but we got lost and ended up wandering the maze-like streets of the city with the clock ticking. Luckily we stumbled upon another bar we had had recommended to us, Le Pub, and so decided we’d head in there and get a few rounds in. What happened next is much of a blur. The first round was very reasonable: bottles of beer all round. Great. Then we made the mistake of actually perusing the menu, at which point our eyes fell on something called Rocket Fuel shots. According to the blackboard on the wall, the shots came in a variety of flavours (garlic, coffee, soya sauce to name just a few). They were the alcoholic version of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans (Harry Potter reference for all you muggles) and it was luck of the draw which ones you got. I also got very excited when I spotted that if you ordered ten of the shots you got a free t-shirt of your choice from the pub’s own range. Having spotted the “Keep your hand on your dong” shirt as soon as we entered, I knew that I had to have it. It will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine. (What’s with all the movie references today?). There were five of us. Two shots each. How hard could that be? So we stepped up to the challenge and I donned my new t-shirt with pride, promising the rest of the group that we could take it in turns to wear it throughout the night. Yeah right, suckers.

The rocket fuel arrived and we all sniffed at the shot glasses. Yuck. I had got soya sauce and garlic flavour. How unlucky could you get? All of us seemed to have a combination of aniseed, coffee, garlic and soya sauce. Being the gentlemen that they were, two of the men in the group agreed to swap the garlic shots for coffee ones and so I was appeased. The shots were knocked back and everyone’s faces turned green. But we were all still standing. Well, sitting. So it appeared as though we had defeated the dreaded Rocket Fuel. We skipped out of the pub as it closed feeling elated and ready to take on the streets of the city to once again try and track down the reggae bar.

The next day and no-one emerged from their rooms until at least midday. Looking through the photographic evidence from the night before it appears as though several spirits and luminous cocktails were consumed once we were in the reggae bar. We also managed to convince the owner for a lock-in and stayed there until at least 2am (shocking in Vietnam), whilst also taking over his DJ booth and playing whatever tunes we wanted. To protect not only the identity of my comrades but also save myself from gross embarrassment, I shan’t be posting the pictures here. All I can say is that Rocket Fuel has a lot to answer for.