Vietnam-Haircut and Luge Ride

I got a haircut for 20,000 dongs ($1.15 USD). They gave me a straight razor shave with that. What was unexpected was that she started shaving my forehead. I never knew that my forehead needed a shave. She asked me if I wanted to have it waxed. I thought that was a bit overboard and declined. I handed her a 50,000 bill and she gave me back a 20,000 and a 10,000. After consulting with dad about what was a normal tip he said 10,000 was very generous (remember that’s 50% tip). I gave her a 100% tip and made her really happy.

In Da Lat there was a gravity-tracked ride similar to a roller coaster down the mountain. Being completely gravity there were no gears to slow you down. Dad sat in front of the two-person car so I was in the back with control of the break. The car reminded me of the cars that you go down some water slides in, not much more to it than a tray with a brake. We picked a time when there was no one in front of us and took off. I took off under the philosophy of “I don’t need no stinkin breaks!”. So off we go flying down the mountain and swing around the turns at full speed. They have people seated on benches along the way. I hear one of them shout at us, dad hears it too but can’t understand him because we are zipping by. We zip by another one of them that is shouting at us and again dad can’t understand him. We use the context to assume that they are yelling for us to slow down. Those guys on the bench wouldn’t be able to do a thing to stop us at those speeds. At this time it dawns on me that we are in Vietnam and they probably do not idiot proof their rides. So I decide to yank the brake slightly before the next turn. I don’t think I actually yanked it hard enough slow us down, I think I just kept us from accelerating. I did notice that this turn had netting around it, I assume that is for those fools that flew off the track because they were going too fast. The netting looks pretty feeble and I wonder if it would actually have stopped a full speed car. I continue this responsible course of action for the rest of the turns down the mountain, never really slowing down just not picking up more speed before a turn. After the ride dad said he was concerned about how fast we were going.