Entry Wounds. Episode 11:"Disneyland. Fuck, man, this is better than Disneyland"

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01/05/04 2pm HCMC 'All Apologies'
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Despite rumours to the contrary, I am not dead, nor am I shacked up in some OPM den on a mountain side doing dispicable acts for my next toke, nor have I been recruited by MI6 to infiltrate gubberment installations. In truth, I've just been to busy and boring to write home. I went through a stage of attempting to
reply to all personal emails, but lost the drive, simply due to the fact that since I've been here the longest period of time between receiving an email from someone is three days (for this I'm flattered and grateful). I then attempted to write postcards home, but they are frustratingly small and not suited to my
tendency to dribble shit for extended periods of time. In addition they inevitably became repetitive, and repetition irritates me no end, so here I am back to my original plan; one big b'guckoff shemale. Ahead lies near death experiences, a giant motorised blue dolphin, a giant chicken, and hermaphroditic
love. These are strange bedfellows I agree, but they all have their place so let us take a trip back in time to three weeks ago today.

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09/04/04 9pm HCMC 'The Eagle Has Landed'
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OK, nigh on four months of teaching can take its toll, what with the relentless late nights drinking, smoking and such, so Julez's decision to spend a few days trippin' round the Vietnam countryside couldn't have come at a better time. Julez arrived at the airport tanned with Thai sun, and I welcomed her with a
rapidly warming Heineken and the news that we were getting drunk at a housewarming party in an hour.
The next morning our trip was organised, that being; bags packed and no idea how to reach our destination other than knowing 'we had to catch a bus'. We waited at the bus station for twenty minutes before being convinced by two cyclo drivers that no buses to Mui Ne or the coast stopped where we were. So for a fee of 10,000 dong each they'd take us to where we needed to go. The cyclo's peddled us for 800 metres to a street corner where another man started barking commands to others. In a flurry of activity we're shoved into a small minibus and relieved of 300,000 dong without time for negotiation, and before I can ask
for change from the cyclo's another 50,000 dong. After some curious navigation skills, and a driving style that included rapid acceleration, heavy braking and the driver getting out of the bus in the middle of the street, we reached the open road and began our extended game of chicken with buses and trucks. The
three hour trip soon became four, then five, until it was dark and Julez and myself were the only passengers left. I was stuck attempting to not only convince the driver that I knew where I was going, and that I had a clue what he was saying, but also to convince Julez and lastly myself that I knew where to go. "See Jules, last time I came here it was light and I'm going by memory
so........ hey there it is..... oh no wait... keep going."
Finally I recognised the thatched roofs of the resort and we unloaded. The fact that thatched roofs are ubiquitous in Vietnam and that it wasn't the resort I thought it was, was inconsequential because it was infact the last hotel on the
beach strip. But this small grey cloud had a big silver lining. It was quiet, clean, opened on to the beach and had palm trees and a good restaurant, and best of all, it was completely empty, save for one or two staff and the owner. Perfect, within an afternoon I'd moved from 9 million people to five humans, a
few beach rats the odd mosquito and the endless lappings of the South China Sea. So with little time wasted I rolled a scoob, ordered some beers and me and Julez then spent the evening swinging in hammocks, spinning shit and weaving thoughts.

We awoke to fishermen casting nets, cows roaming the beach and fruit salad. Over breakfast I organised a motorbike to rent for the day, and we subsequentally spent the rest of the day cruising down winding beach roads, finding outpost hotels of dubious character and hillsides peppered with shacks. The rapidly
fallling fuel guage signalled our return to town, but not before a stop to Mui Ne's biggest attraction; sand dunes. Massive peaks of golden sand, where dusty kids coerce you to sit on sheets of hard plastic and surf down the face. However like everything in Vietnam, it's half arsed and in reality is more of an
anti-climax than anything. After lunch we headed out over the mine infested hills and stumbled upon an oasis of palm trees and rice paddies. All of it so vividly green it hurts your eyes. After hello'ing and swerving around seemingly every school kid the region had to offer we signed ourselves in for some massages. Julez going first and then me an hour later. After my massage I
started talking with the husband of the Vietnamese lady who pummelled us. His name was Up and he was a retired police chief from Amsterdam. He regailed stories of bureaucratic absurdities in Vietnam and the hotspots for mines in the area, he then told me of a conversation he had with a middle aged lady up the
road. A story which struck a nerve in me so raw, that it woud outshine an entire season of Dr.Phil episodes.

It begins; in '66 or '68 or maybe even the 70's the US Army planned an attack on a nearby town of 500 Vietnamese vllagers called My Linh or Ly Minh or something (I'm not a facts and figures guy, it is an infamous attack I'm assured). Anyhow,
suspecting it of being a Viet Cong hotbed the US Army made a decision to investigate. That being; bomb it until it was charcoal, then with an even mix of machine gun fire, mortars, grenades, and flamethrowers, slay all the inhabitants. In just over six hours the township had been annihalated, with the
villagers lying in dusty pools of their neighbours, and family's blood. One seven year old girl however, was not dead. Her arm had been burnt black, back to the bone and part of one of her feet was missing, yet under the cover of smoke and flame she managed to crawl into a pile of dead bodies and hide. She was terrified and immobilise by shock, and so there she stayed all day and night in a blanket of blood and suffocating stench. The following day a US Army Captain returned to search for Viet Cong intelligence. He found none, but he did find the girl. Being a potential source of information she was taken to a hospital,
treated and then interrogated. Many weeks later, broken in mind, body and spirit, she was taken back to the town and abandoned. There she sat amongst the burnt out husks of houses, without friends, without family, alone. She lived off coconuts and things that washed up on the beach for almost a half a year, before being discovered by some Vietnamese soldiers and sent to an
orphanage. Now that young girl, is this middle age woman. Up, distraught at hearing of her horrific life could only think of one thing to say. "You're not angry at Americans or foreigners? Why aren't you angry? How can you not be angry?" Calmly she reponded, "How would that help me get over this any
quicker?"..........
...............
...............
................
.....................................BAM!......
..............
............
..........Profound.
This simple yet powerful concept is something that I've detected since being here, but could never quite put my finger on it. How, a culture that has been punished so extensively and over such a prolonged period of time, seemingly harbour no resentment towards their attackers. From time to time I'll be half way through a conversation with a person younger than my parents and realise;
'they were here then'. They saw that war, they were part of it, and here they are now, going about their day like nothing happened. Mental trauma and a vast variety of psychoses are par for the course amongst allied Vietnam Vets. Yet here the entire population over the age of 40 are war veterans, yet the trauma
just isn't evident to the eye. Remarkable.

After returning to the cabin, I found Julez undergoing a sort of trauma of her own. Impatiently awaiting my return to deter the return of a local boy who in an attempt to communicate with Julez, decided shoving his hand down the front of his pants and groping himself might help to convey more meaning. Disgusted and
freaked, Julez locked herself in the cabin, which the boy responded to by attempting to climb the walls of the cabin, and gain entry. Fortunately he failed and I returned soon after. This is my first and only account of such harrasment that I've heard of in Vietnam, but enough to reassure you that evil still has a home here. On the upside Julez, it's nice you know you're wanted.

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12/04/04 12pm Mui Ne - Dalat 'The Road to Immoral High Ground.'
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The 200km bus ride began at 7am. The distance suggested 3 to 4 hours. I was wrong, six hours later we ascended into the rugged highlands of tea and coffee plantation and after another hour arrived in the rainsoaked mountain city of Dalat. With inclement weather and travel weary bodies we found a nice little mini-hotel and attempted to sleep off our mental and physical atrophy. I was
exhausted but sleep did not come quickly, for one thing played on my mind; our hotel room had three double beds in it. What sort of clientel requires three double beds? Pictures of Vietnamese swingers parties came to mind, which soon progressed to images of hog-ties and sodomy ( I should never have read the Marque de'Sade, I'll never have a pure thought for the rest of my life now). I consoled myself with the notion that there was a lot of love in the room, and in combination with an incredibly comfortable matress, nodded off for an hour. Recharged by our nap we went for a walk, but to rid us of the grogginess of slumber we needed coffee. And.. oh... did we find it. In a little cafe a little lady made us little coffee's. I ordered mine black, no sugar, but it was unlike any coffee I've had. It was strong, rich, syrupy, a little spicey and a little sweet. Not a trace of bitterness. It was without doubt the best coffee I have ever had, Julez concurred. This is how coffee should be, and consequently all others dissapoint. I may yet move to Dalat just for the coffee and dispense with sleeping all together.

So buzzing in unison with the poorly insulated powerlines above is, we paced around in the clean alpine air. As sundown came we found ourselves a restaurant by the lake and drank two bottles of Dalat's most famous commodity; Dalat Red Wine. This bland, textureless, acrid tasting booze is worse than your cheapest
goon bag. It is infact not a wine, but rather a crime upon humanity. That being said, it did get us pissed enough to hire a boat shaped like a big goose and via bike peddles, slowly and noisily whirr our way around the lake. The goose of course was a second choice, the first being a giant, fully enclose, blue,
fibreglass dolphin mounted on a jetski.....but alas, it was broken.

The following morning began just after 8am. We met my old friend Thai the Easyrider who drove me around for five days back in December. He had another riding partner named Ngyuen, and from there we packed as much into our day as we could. Firstly the Crazy House. A ghastly creation spawned by a Vietnamese lady
who studied surrealist painters. The result; a massive house/hotel that is half Dali and half ultra-tacky-failed-theme-park. It was comprehesively gaudy, tasteless, garish and tragic. However beginning the day with such absurdity set me in a good frame of mind. The next step; the Crazy Monk. Down an unsealed
road, an old dark, and damp Buddh|st pagoda was set into a leafy edge of a hill.We were welcomed by a curious little monk, with a curoius little hat. The entire
place had been boarded up, and inside was lit only through cracks in the boards and a few errant candles. Entering the rear courtyard however was very different. Densely packed with pot plants, vines, creepers, ferns and orchids; it was dark and lush. From here we made our way into several wooden sheds, all of them packed with hundreds of thousands of paintings and poems. Most of the paintings were mediocre and all the poems were painful.
i.e. 'The river of ambition flows into the cloud of contentment'.
'The timelessness of contemplation carries the unknown'.
'The road of hope leads to the gate of happiness.'
Blah Blah Blah! This impotent, wishy washy metaphysical masturbation gave me a jaw breaking yawn and while I was intrigued by this man's obsessive passion, when the silence was broken by the sound of Windows booting up on his computer,
with his multimedia CDROM (only 70,000 dong) I knew it was time to leave.

Having our dose of 'crazy' for the day, we spent our last four hours in Dalat touring the agricultural hub. This valley has steep inclines either side with thin steps etched into the face of the mountain. This terrain requires manual labour and thus renders it quiet and peaceful. We then took an equally quiet and
peaceful cable-car ride, which despite any of Julez's reports, did not any way have me terrified to my very core, and white knuckled with every jerk and lurch of the car. From there it was a winding drive down from the mountain, to a waterfall. It was beautiful but not spectacular and when I caught sight of the
Vietnamese man dressed as a cowboy holding his white pony, I got the urge to pelt rocks. But when I saw his cohort, dressed in a black bear suit, the kitch factor went off the scale and I felt driven to push them both into the icy torrent.
My better senses prevailed (or maybe it was just the rain) and we left to visit the minority village of the Mung people. Arriving at the village, two things strike you. The first being the vibrant and beautiful handwoven silks, and the second being a giant 5 metre high cement chicken.The explanaition? The constant expansion of the Vietnamese population into the countryside has placed immense pressure on the natural resources. As a
consequence, the nomadic liestyles of the 54 tribal minority groups in Vietnam are now deemed too destructive, and the gubberment has made efforts to make them settle in one place. These groups sit at the lowest economic echelon and support
from the governement used to come in the form of rice. However for whatever reasons of social erosion, they favoured their rice fermented and alcoholism began to run rife. As a solution the gubberment stopped aid, and instead offered them a symbolic momento to celebrate one of their central myths, a giant, grey,
garish cement chicken.Can't eat it, but on the upside you won't catch the flu from it.

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13/05/04 3pm Dalat-HCMC 'The Devil Rides Shotgun'
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Our time in Dalat over, we were rushed to our bus and returned to our game of automotive chicken, but this time the odds were cast against us. A thunderstorm brewing above, rain slicking the road, over one hundred blind turns on a mountain that clung to edge of the mountain range, and all of it to take place at sunset...........poor life choices. In my mind all I had was an image of Charles Darwin slapping me round the head screaming "Natural fucking selection Amlom!!!...........have you learn't nothing?". Julez and I steadied our nerves with some confidant swigs of Strawberry wine, and we needed every iota of that 20% concoction. Secondly we needed a distraction from the constant visions of immanent death that unfolded before us every few seconds, thankfully the norse god Thor provided, by putting on the single most impressive lightning storm I've experienced. Every few seconds neon fingers blazed their way across the sky, and it continued for some four hours. However the terror evolved. As we descended into a section where the rain had ceased, the heat of the air and the moisture of the forest combined to produced a thick blanket of fog. Visibility dropped from 30 metres to 20 and then 10, the speedo stayed the same. Unable to see the corners ahead, or the barriers on the other side, our driver forged on, overtaking on blind corners, swerving into suddenly appearing oncoming traffic and swerving away from the odd overturned truck. Our nerves, numbed by liquor and dazed my atmospheric pyrotechnics held out until at 120 kph on a wet
decline, our driver attempted to overtake a bus. Ahead in the fog were a pair of rapidly approaching glowing white spheres. Half way into overtaking the bus, his confidene faltered and he taps the breaks. The spheres are now accompanied by a horn and high beams, but alas, no decelleration. Now left in a deadly limbo of
indecision 'saving face' comes into play..... No brakes, No fear. He plants his foot and everyone takes a deep breath and tenses pre-empting the worst. With inches to spare he wrenches the steering wheel across and we slip through to the right side of the road. The truck flies past our windows, the blast force enough
to push the side mirror back upon the window........ or was contact made?..... i did hear a noise. Best not to mention that to Julez; her nails now deeply embedded in my forearm and the armrest. Wide-eyed and wired the strawberry wine was attacked with fervour, and the entry into HCMC after some five hours of
madness was welcomed. Our challeneges weren't over yet however, the driver whose compassion towards his passengers was minimal at best, was now non-existant, as he ignored my directions to my house and stopped in some backstreet in District 5, Ho Chi Minh's Harlem. Men approached the van and started dragging our bags
out. I snapped at the first guy and we were then left alone. There we stood an hour from midnight on the pavement of a less than wealthy community with backpacks, the international way to say 'mug me!'A passing cab provided salvation but relief only came with the sight of my alley way and hotel and its bar.

Eight hours of sleep later and Julez awakes to her final day in Nam. We have six hours to see the sights of Saigon. We hopsotch around town collecting souveniers and memories until its time to check in at the airport. With a little confusion and a lot of relief we find what we consider to be the cafe; a cement barrier in the parking bay. Despite hating long goodbyes we sit there for over an hour as the circulation to our asses ebbs away, and it's only minutes before she is to leave that we discover an actual resturaunt, with air conditioning to boot. So numb assed and sweaty like lovers at Mardi Gras, we farewell each other and prey
all that H, I stashed in her backpack gets through.

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17/04/04 6pm Vung Tao 'Two X, or Not Two X, That is the Question?'
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Not wishing to succumb to the woes of lonliness after Julez's departure, I meet up with friends at an overpriced bar. I drank my remaining cash away on double Johnny Walker Black's till I'm seeing double thus doubling my companions. By midnight I've somehow ditched my friends, and now am dribbling bullshit into the ear of some short skirted Vietnamese/Japanese girl. I don't know what I'm saying but it's effective, because my hands are indecently positioned on her thighs, enough to offend passers by. Offering to take me home, I accept, too pissed for lateral thinking I fail to conceive that she meant her place, so I
direct her to my place, give her a peck on the cheek, fall off the bike, and stumble into my abode. She's left staring blankly from her bike, confused, before turning around and riding home.
The next morning my phone chirps to life with a reminder: ' Go to Vung Tao at 8am'. Information rains down drom the darkness of the night before and I remember agreeing to riding the Hydrofoil to the resort town of Vung Tao with a
Sydney bloke and a kiwi chick. I throw up, wash up, and put the backpack I still haven't unpacked on my back, and head back outside into the hot morning sun. I arrive just in time to meet Nannan and Jess and board the rumbling diesel vessel. Fearing sea-sickness, I'm pleased that the hydrofoil glides seamlessly
across the water and in just over an hour we arrive at Vung Tao.
We are harrased by cyclos, xe oms and taxis from the minute our feet touch the ground, and after an hour of walking and finally succumbing to the cyclos we discover the beach. There, packed with people, umbrellas, deckchairs and litter,
I immediately long for Mui Ne. I go to the toilet to get changed and upon my exit am asked for 1000 dong (10c). We make our way over to the chairs and as soon as our butts touch the furniture we are given a bill for 150,000 dong ($15). Urghh! What are we doing here?
Vung Tao is situated around 110 km from HCMC and as a consequence it is a favourite weekend destination, where Saigonese empty their pockets into shoddy accomodation, shifty brothels, and a number of other less obvious services you'd expect to be free. It lies in the current of HCMC's sewerage and
a near by oil rig. And even if you do have the courage to swim, you must battle the schools of plastic bags and chip packets, and all this at Australian prices. The mood here is also like that of HCMC, hungry and unscrupulous. None of the politeness and kindness of Mui Ne and Dalat. Here the city comes to escape
itself and instead just relocates for the weekend. By 3pm Nannan and Jess had decided to leave. I was less than eager to spend my holiday in the city, and decided to stay. But on my own it seemed disatisfying. Scrolling through my phone for people to call I see an unfamiliar entry, and initially I read it as Hentai, a.k.a. Japanese cartoon p0rnography. Soon after I decipher it as Hanh
Thai, but I was unaware how close to the truth my first assumption would be.
After some calculated guessing I became reasonably confidant that it was 'the girl' from the night before. The passive nature of SMS seemed a suitable form of communication and so I sent out a cheerio. "Hey, I'm in Vung Tao relaxing by the
beach. What are you up to?" Reply message: "I'll be there at 6." Not knowing if it is 'the girl' I also realise I don't remember what she looks like, and so either scenario is a great unknown. At six o'clock I wait at the jetty. She recognises me first, and my calculations were proved correct, it is her, and she is as cute as I hoped, with the standard tiny frame of Vietnamese women, and the complexion that suggests an age anywhere from 15 to 30. However her penguin sandals are a little perplexing.
We return to the hotel I had found, and I sheepishly walk in with her, fully aware of how illegal it is for a foreigner and a Vietnamese girl to share a room. Images of deportation procedures invade my mind. She on the other hand shows no qualms, and is very matter-of-fact about the whole procedure. This
familiarity makes me start to wonder. Yet the room has two beds so it still leaves me guessing as to what to expect from it all.
Down on the beach at sunset, we sit in chairs and make cumbersome small talk. At this point I ask to see her phone, a snazzy piece of hi-technology. Flipping up the screen I'm startled, there as a wallpaper in glorious hi-resolution is a naked blonde woman in a prowling cat posture.... ass raised suggestively. Crivens!!!
She notices my alarm, and says 'I like beautiful women'. And then opens an expansive list of photos on her phone, the likes of which were enough to make a hardened net veteran like myself blush. Cool..... so we finally have something in common, we're both fans of high quality, morally reprehensible pornography.

My mind, undoubtedly moved by these appetizers soon becomes aware of how far a pair of C cup breasts can go on a tiny asian frame.............for those of you still pondering, I'll save you the mental mathematics and tell you; TO THE MOON AND BACK! My appetite for food however quickly came to the forefront and we
left to find a resturaunt. At dinner I ask her what she drinks, and she responds... "Beer is my favourite."
Cool times two.... a second commonality.
After dinner she then says "Can you play pool? I love pool."
Cool times three.
Over a game or three of pool she tells me without a hint of modesty that she really loves sex, although the only word she knows for it is 'fuck' which immediately gives the conversation a pornographic tone. It occurs to me then that I could be trapped in some sixteen year old boy's dreamworld. A beer drinking, pool playing, porn loving, nymphomaniac, with preposterously
proportioned breasts. If Morpheus from the Matrix had arrived at this time with his Red pill/Blue pill skit, I would have laughed in his face......"Morpheus my dear friend, you can take your red pill and shaft it."
My head, swimming in hormones and Heinekens fell silent in speech and I broached the topic of returning to the hotel. Consequently, my drought was broken with a monsoon that would have left Noah in awe, and I felt like I was in a John Holmes film, while she did things that made Jenna Jameson look like a
girl scout. During this time I was also able to appreciate her baffling basastos, both massive, perfectly spherical, and impossibly firm... car tyre firm! And at this point I wonder.... 'could they be?.......they must be?.......they're fake...........maybe?' In combination with this she had a
large tattoo of a naked woman riding a unicorn in the middle of her back. A tattoo! This in Vietnam is taboo beyond measure, essentially reserved for gang members, and the darker elements of society. This only re-affirmed how wild this woman was. These concerns were soon replaced by more serious ones, a rapping at
our door. I opened the door, and their was the hotel owner, barking Vietnamese with urgency. Hanh dresses and rushes out of the room. I'm naked and bamboozled, I peer out the window of the room to see a blinking red glow reflecting off the opposite building.
Police!
Shit! Shit! Shit!
I look around the room...... her backpack near empty and her clothes strewn across the room, my backpack near full, containing a fist size bundle of ganja and an OPM pipe..... that's jail time. Deportation seems suddenly preferable. I pack what I can of her clothes, and hide my gear as best as possible, but simply
turning on a light will undo my efforts. Anxiously I lie in bed, trying to spy through a gap in the curtains, at the same time ready to fall to the bed and feign sleep.

A knock at the door.
I ignore it.
A second knock at the door. It isn't the forceful, demanding knock I'd expect from police, so I open the door. Hanh dives into the room and collapses on the bed. She explains that the police have come and gone. These raids which are almost unheard of, are common now because elections are occuring next week, and so the gubberment is eager to portray itself as a diligent upholder of the law.
With my anxiousness subsiding I sleep heavily.

The next day was spent entirely by the beach. And after my second Saigon beer,out of nowhere Hanh says .........................."I used to be a boy."
"Ha ha ha ha, I used to be a girl." I respond dismissively, and continue reading my book.
"No, look at me.. look into my eyes. I... used..... to..... be..... a.... boy."
Her face speaks volumes of sincerity, and my head begins to swim.
........
.........
........
............
.........
..........
.........What? (blank stare, crumpled eyebrows, hollow
head, twisting stomach).
.............
...........
...........
........."I used to be a boy. Are you disgusted? Do you not like me
anymore?"
...........
...........
...........
...........
..........
..........
.........Blank stare, disbelief, belief, disbelief, not wishing to offend.
............
.............
........." Um..........no..........."
.....
.... "You do, I can tell, you think i'm disgusting" This statement is delivered with a tone of self loathing and I suddenly feel immense sympathy for h...he...him...her?
"No, no, no... it does'nt disgust me, you just surprised me...um....." Still in disbelief I recall all I learnt from the twenty minutes of Law and Order SVU, I saw the week before.
"So, what was your name as a boy?"
Instantly she responds "I had five, Tan, Toan, Hien, Han and Hanh, for when I was at different stages."
"Oh.......ok then.... where did you have the operation?"
"In Bangkok, in a surgery where they only do that surgery... my doctor was the best in Thailand"
Yeah, no shit..............he gave you a clit!
"What about your throat, what about you're Adam's apple?" I reach out and she brushes my hand aside. "No....you'll find something you won't like and you'll go back to Saigon."
"And what about hormone therapy?"
"I have to take pills everyday for the rest of my life to keep me a girl, if you dont believe me I can show you them at the hotel."
"Yes you will.......so... they're implants?"
"Uh-huh."
"So where are the scars?"
She raises her arms and there is a slight, one inch scar in each pit. "Holy shit!" This remark of mine was feulled firstly by the credibilty of her responses and my final acceptance that she really was a he, and secondly, at the fact that they could fit those enormous globes through such a small incision.

I begin to rationalise as curiosity takes over.
"So, when did you feel like you were really a girl?"
"About seven I think."
"So you felt like a girl inside, but a boy on the outside?"
"Yes"
"So you had an operation to make you a girl on the outside?"
"Yes"
"So, now you're all girl.. right?"
"Yes, yes, ... thankyou, that's so nice of you to say. No one understands that. So you still like me even though I'm a ladyboy?"
"Well you're not a ladyboy are you, you're a girl on the outside and on the inside... you're all girl."
"Yes!" She begins to giggle and hugs me. A big deal in public in Vietnam, where holding hands is considered a grotesque display of public affection. I suddenly felt elated. Convinced by my own rationale, and happy that she felt accepted for what seems like the first time in her life. The rest of the afternoon and early into the evening I attempt to explore her history. How her family reacted, how her friends reacted, the transition stage, the effects of hormone therapy. Her past and present emotional state. Each response was a story of emotional torment, and abandonment, it soon became obvious to me that I was the first person she'd met that hadn't spat on her sense of self and considered her a vile freak. So there I lay for the next four hours, in a sense of wonderment of this marvel of modern medicine, and she in
overwhelming gratitude. Then she turns to me and says, "I'm a woman." I congratulate her on her realisation; "Yes, you were a girl in a boys body, but now you are all woman, completely."
"No, ..... I'm a woman, I always have been." And a grin spreads across her face, and she begins to laugh hysterically..... my stomach knots again, and my jaw drops.

THE BITCH! Oh god! THE BITCH!

She laughs continuously for another 20 minutes and in between breaths she says "You actually thought I was a ladyboy..... bwa ha aha ha ha ha! You believed me.... ha ha ha ha ha ha."
My ego fractures and crumbles to the ground. Anger rises... but then I realise my anger is a second win for her. So I tell myself, admit it, you got played good and proper. Accept it. So I take a deep breath, shake my head and laugh, knowing that I'm on an indefinately long list of foreigners who fall prey to the
games of local women.
Vietnamese women :1 Amlom: 0

Yours in hetero-machismo,
Agent XY