The DMZ and Tony's last night

After a day of exploring combat bases, important bridges, underground tunnel systems and old battlefields throughout the demilitarized zone, Tony and I were pretty warn out. It was however his last day night in Vietnam and our friend Clark has sent over a twenty dollar bill to buy us some drinks for a night out on the town. Twenty dollars can by you a ridiculous amount of beer in Vietnam and we made sure to put it all to good use. At about fifty cents each for a beer, it turned out to be a pretty fun night!

At dinner we met a couple of girls, Amy and Jo and invited them to join us at our table. They turned out to be pretty fun girls and even offered to pose for pictures holding Clark's twenty with their teeth. We followed dinner with some more drinks and a few games of pool before the girls decided it was time for them to get some sleep. Still awake and with a few dollars left, Tony and I decided to find another place to have a drink. My guide book for Vietnam had mentioned that the best place to have a drink in town was on the rooftop of the Imperial Hotel with views overlooking the city. It was really late and the lobby of the hotel had all of the lights off, something that is pretty typical over here, but back home would seem really strange. We waved to the man at the desk and found the elevators and pushed the top floor. A few seconds passed and we were on the top floor. The doors opened revealing complete darkness. The only light was coming from a window at the end of the hall. We set off exploring the deserted hallway and found no bar or rooftop at all for that matter. It appeared that this floor wasn't even in use as it was completely dark and completely quiet.

After unsuccessfully finding the rooftop bar, we were determined that their was a place in this fancy hotel to have a drink. We explored a few more dark and empty floors without any luck. With one floor left between us and being back in the empty lobby, we pushed the two button and heard some sounds and saw a bit of light coming from around the corner. As we walked into the lighted room, emerging from total darkness, Tony and I found ourselves to be the only patrons of a twenty four hour casino. With electronic black jack dealers and all kinds of games in this tiny little casino, I found it quite hard to believe that I was in a Communist country. We stuck around long enough to down a couple of beers and long enough for Tony to loose twenty bucks to the electronic black jack dealer. With no luck at the tables, we decided to call it a night.