A drink at the Continental
Had a walk over to The Continental yesterday to tick off a small bucket list item: a cocktail at the favored watering hole of spies and war correspondents alike during the Vietnam War. Or as they call it around these parts, the American War.
Beautiful hotel. Probably a lot flashier than it used to be. It was weird sitting there sipping on my Margarita across the street from a Louis Vitton and a Hermes store. BMWs and Porsches everywhere. It was like the war had turned out very differently to how it actually did.
Mrs W and I sat at an outdoor cafe with beers, watching a massive roundabout, for an hour or so. It was mesmerising, like watching waves, as motorbikes streamed through and stopped as the next group got right of way. Occasionally an octogenarian would hobble confidently across the road and everyone would just shift slightly to allow them to cross against the flow of traffic.
The Continental? Isn't that where John Wick drinks (I've never watched it, but I hear that's the title for the coming series) I do love hearing the wars described from the other side. The Soviets called WWII the The Great Patriotic War , the Chinese call WWII the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. So I was delighted to find the Vietnamese call it the American War.