.....just a groovy little motorbike

"Does it have training wheels?" "Did you get that in a toy shop?" "What's Mr.Bean going to ride now you've got his bike?" "Do they sell men's bikes where you got that?"

Yes I've heard many derogatory remarks (and there are plenty more) in reference to my motorbike, the legendary Honda Super Cub. To some people it looks old, ugly and under-powered, but to me it is one of the high points of human history in visual and mechanical design, and it also comes with 70cc of raw power.

The Honda Cub is not only the biggest selling model of motorbike in history, it is also the biggest selling model of any type of motor vehicle ever, with about 60 million sold worldwide. (it appears about 59 million are here in Vietnam)

For me the attraction lies in the Art Deco-esque curves, the old style instrument gauge, the round blinkers and of course the front mudguard which looks like a remnant from a discarded french horn.

These bikes are literally everywhere in Vietnam, some look great, some look like ancient mechanical relics. The most common is the 50cc, older models that are 70cc like mine are harder to come by and then there are the newer 90cc models, which don't have the nice curves of the older models. The one thing they all have in common is they are reliable and they keep going...and going...and going.

They are perfect for crowded cities, they use very little fuel and they are light, so are easily manoeuvred in the crowded streets and parking lots of HCMC. Their top speed is only about 55km but they get you where you want to go and they can be very good value for money.

Mine is an old one that a mechanic friend restored for me. He repainted it and rebuilt the engine. Some people want all original condition but I was happy to have mine customised. Total cost less than $300US completely restored with future services from the mechanic included.

I ride it every day and could not be happier. It is certainly popular with the Vietnamese, maybe it's the fact that a foreigner is riding around on such an old bike, but they seem generally enthused whenever they see it. I've had many comments of "Dep qua" (very beautiful) but unfortunately they have all been directed at the bike! It does feel good to be riding a bike with some history and they are far more practical, reliable and cheap than a Vespa.

The guys from UK Top Gear rode one about half the length of the country, at some point I'd like to attempt the full length. In another program they filled one with cooking oil and dropped it off a two story building....and it still started.

If you are very tall then maybe they will be too small but for average sized people they are fine. The 3-speed gear box takes a little getting used to, each has its own quirks, and checking the petrol gauge is done by lifting the seat, undoing the cap and looking in i.e. it doesn't actually have a petrol gauge, but it is a strong little unit and can carry a couple of 80kg westerners with ease, not quickly mind you, but with ease.

Even though I could easily get myself a nice, new, shiny, Honda that is covered in stickers and with a factory paint job like everyone else I'm more than happy getting to my destination on my little engineering marvel. It might take me a little longer to get there, but  it sure is a stylish way to travel.

 

Delta Dawn

Are you sure it didn't say "Army endurance course on the front of that bus?" asked my bewildered friend Jo in a weak, slightly quivering voice on our return from the Mekong Delta.

I had the idea of doing a trip through the Mekong Delta on a motorbike but I had only been in Vietnam for about a month so I was still a little unsure of my motorbike abilities. This element of self-doubt is what led to my moment of weakness (some may say madness) and caused me to say "Yes" when a Vietnamese friend suggested it would be much easier, and cheaper, to do a two day organised tour. Now I've managed to avoid organised (and disorganised for that matter) tours since I was ten years old and my primary school went on a tour to Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney. For the record, the zoo was a much more enjoyable experience than the Delta turned out to be. 

I'm sure being part of a large, strange group of people, being ordered on and off boats, buses and canoes under a blazing sun by a twenty year old, communist army sergeant reincarnate for 14 hours is some people's idea of a nice day out but it's not mine.

In keeping with the idea of army style deprivation, nutrition for the day consisted of some pieces of coconut candy( from the coconut candy factory we visited), some rice paper (from the rice paper factory we visited) and this feast washed down with that well known thirst quencher , snake wine, (from, you guessed it, the snake wine factory). I guess with that kind of daily intake it's little wonder the nerves became a bit frayed.

Now the Mekong Delta is, funnily enough, a delta thus there are many rivers to cross, and not many bridges. Ferries are therefore required and a ferry crossing with a lot of traffic invariably equals a major traffic jam. Unfortunately our accommodation for the night, the thought of which had sustained me throughout the day, was on the other side of the river. We were at least 3km from the crossing in bumper to bumper traffic and it was already 7pm. It was then the sergeant had an idea "ok, we walk!" "walk?!!" came the stunned reply in a multi-lingual chorus, "yes, much quicker!" Ok so he did have a point, walking is quicker than sitting in a stationary bus, or anything else stationary I guess, so we picked up our bags and climbed out into the humid night air.

Now Vietnamese highways are not the smoothest of surfaces around and the side of a Vietnamese highway is practically a cross-country course of broken concrete, cracked tarmac, potholes, rubbish and the random angry dog. The ubiquitous "You buy something?" (refer other story) is never far away either. Had someone been selling a helicopter I may have been interested.

Dripping like an 80 year old crossing the finish line of the City to Surf we finally made it to the ferry with heads spinning from the heat and the diesel fumes. "How far from the river to the hotel?" we asked the sergeant, "only two or three kilometres" he replied. At that moment my heart sank for he had used the word every foreigner dreads when they ask a Vietnamese a question and that word is "OR". When a Vietnamese uses the word "or" the whole phrase should be translated into "I have absolutely no idea!" and a 6km walk through the downtown night-life of My Tho in 30 degree heat proved this once again.

Finally we reached the hotel at about 10pm, at this point Jo and I decided we might forego the extra cost we paid for the home-stay and simply stay at the hotel with the others. Just desperate for a beer, a shower and a bed.(in that order)

"NO!" the sergeant told us, "no room here, you will go to home-stay". "Oh god" we thought "it's never ending". "How long to the home-stay?" I foolishly enquired, and you guessed it, "ten OR fifteen minutes" came the reply.

A five minute walk followed by a FORTY FIVE minute boat trip in pitch black darkness escorted by squadrons of Stuka-like mozzies saw us finally make it to our accommodation at about 11pm. The meal on arrival was great and the definite highlight of the trip but it didn't exactly have tough competition. We were offered the chance of an early rise to see the local village but we were like the living dead by this stage. We declined the offer. "The boat will be here to pick you up at 7am" "ok we will see you at 6.59am" were our final words uttered just moments before we crawled into bed and some long awaited sleep.

Day two was another endurance test, hotter than the previous day, but at least punctuated by small moments of interest. These came and went all too quickly however as the sergeant had us on a tight schedule.

We finally made it back to HCMC about 10pm, after a shower we sat down for some dinner and a beer and apart from Jo's original question, we just sat in silence. Both of us could hardly muster up the energy to speak. We both realised that experiences like this are all part of travelling. We were tired but kind of elated as well. To look at in a positive way, it is not often that you get the chance to pay $10 to use a machine and slows down time but this was one of those occasions as I can honestly say, those were two of the longest days of my life.

 

  Rupert

Rupert was a giant yet broken man. Some friends and I spoke with him for a few hours one night almost two years ago. None of us will ever forget him.

On my first visit to Hanoi I was blessed to be with my brother and a random group of people I'd met in the proceeding few weeks whom by that time had become, and still are, firm friends.

Denice was a flight attendant from Atlanta, a softly spoken teetotaller who had an enthusiasm for life and an interest in everybody. It was probably those traits along with a naive charm that lead her away from our small group one evening at a Bia Hoi and had her end up deep in conversation over at another table with its lone inhabitant. That was our first sight of Rupert.

Over six feet tall and about fifteen stone he had straggly grey hair and a longish beard that made him look like a cross between a veteran, long haul truck driver and Santa Clause. We invited him over to our table and over the course of a few hours, dinner, some beer and three different venues, Rupert told his story. A painful yet uplifting story that needed to be heard but I think, more importantly, needed to be told.

It was clear almost immediately from his slightly haunted eyes that he had been through a lot. It turns out, not unexpectedly, that he was a U.S. Vietnam Veteran. The following is his story.

"I remember when the war began, I was a teenager and at the time it seemed remote and at first it had an air of adventure about it as we had grown up with the glorification of war through the many stories of heroism, courage and victories from WWII. As I got older and the effects of what was happening over there were apparent closer to home, friends families losing sons, injured soldiers returning, TV footage etc., I started to question the whole idea of war and eventually turned against it completely. I registered as a conscientious objector because I could not entertain the thought of killing but it was not enough to get me out of the services and I was eventually drafted in as a Navy medic.

At the time of my deployment a new strategy was being implemented where small teams were being sent to live in villages in hostile territory to try and help the inhabitants resist the Viet Cong and to help them to live easier lives. Basically to show them they had an alternative to supporting the communist forces, this strategy was commonly called "winning the hearts and minds" and did have some success. Each team had various specialists including a medic and I was attached to one of these teams and sent to the village of Dong Ha just south of the DMZ.

I became very close to the people in my village over the space of many months. We managed to help with building projects, some small scale farming and improved the general health of the population, but I also saw some terrible things. The wife of the village head was blown up by a grenade that was thrown into their house within the first week we were there."

At this point Rupert could hardly speak, tears were welling up in eyes, and not just his. The things he saw were described in some detail but most are really too horrific to repeat here. The story of the narrowly avoided murder of a young, female VC prisoner by a young officer was just one of many. She had been stripped and handcuffed and was put on a boat to take her back to a U.S. base. As the prisoner lay naked and crying the officer, who's temper was boiling due to a recent attack on his unit had to be physically restrained from pulling the trigger. After witnessing these events first hand it's little wonder the scars have run deep and stayed so long.

Rupert continues "I eventually got into some disciplinary problems, I truly loved the people but I had a very hard time accepting some of the attitudes and actions of the officers and of course I was not fond of war at all. I was eventually discharged and went back to the States but I was completely changed inside.

I've lost wives and other relationships, been through a succession of jobs, drunk heavily and eventually found a little peace through therapy. I have not really slept properly in over 30 years and I always longed to go back to see my village and its people. I really believe I left a part of my soul there 35 years ago. This is my first trip back here since the war and in the last two weeks I have felt the only real inner peace of my adult life."

As he recounted this story in small segments over many hours with far more details, it was hard not to think of all the thousands of veterans on both sides who have lived, and are still living, disrupted or almost destroyed lives such as this. When we asked him for his thoughts on the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan he was articulate yet scathing in his response. The sentence that stuck in my head was "we are losing another generation of young men who, if they live, will be condemned to a life lived in a void like I was and we will do nothing to help them out of that void."

Rupert had found his way back to his village and found many of the inhabitants still alive but obviously very old. A "young" girl of about 50 ran up to him shouting "do remember me?" Despite having changed a lot from the young , fit man he once was she had recognised him because of his smile and his eyes. It turns out she was a small, underfed teenager then, and even now as a middle aged woman all these years later she had never forgotten his kindness to her and the others in the village. Old photos were produced and people came from everywhere to see the not-so young medic they remembered .

Rupert has set up a small trust fund to help rebuild parts of the village that were destroyed and were never rebuilt. He uses part of his small military pension to do this along with some money from friends and family. When he made the offer of financial help to the people of the village they decided that the person in the village who had lost the most in the war should be the one who decides what the money should be initially spent on, the decision would be solely his and he could do whatever he wanted to with the money. An old and very poor man who had lost all his relatives, his house and his farm was chosen and although he had very little of his own he decided that the money should be spent on rebuilding the pagoda so all could share in the benefits.

One gets the feeling that this will not only help the people but will also help to fill what's been missing inside Rupert for so many years and hopefully give his spirit some peace.

As we parted that night we thanked him for sharing a story that was so personal and painful to tell. He in turn thanked us and said he was deeply grateful for having the chance to tell it to some people who were actually interested and cared. I got the feeling that that hadn't been the case for most of his life.

 

 So you think you can't dance

(The legend of the Brothers Kilkenny)

By Simon Gibson

"Dancing's for poofs!" or so the drunk bloke in the corner of the nightclub with a beer gut hanging over his jeans and a body odour problem would have you believe. The thing is though, the blokes who actually are dancing seem to be having fun and actually talking to women whilst our friend in the corner just sits there alone, a fact that seems to undermine any credibility in his argument.

Dancing and males, or more specifically males dancing or even more specifically, Australian males dancing can often be problematic. It's been a problem for me since my first school dance. I'm not sure if a 12 year old is capable of having an existential crisis, but my greatest desire and my greatest fear that night was that Joanna from Year 6A might ask me to dance. I knew I needed some moves on dance floor if I was to put the moves on Joanna later, but I was also certain I completely lacked those required moves.

Let's face it, most Australian men have not been blessed with natural rhythm and very few ever spend the time to acquire it. We swim, surf, or play footy or guitar but most young blokes just don't dance....well anyway.

What to do then on my first visit to Vietnam where the beer is cheap, the weather warm and the bars are absolutely packed with people having a good time....particularly those dancing.

One of the most important and encouraging things you can have when travelling is a truly great wingman. Look, all power to the bloke who can walk into a crowded bar full of strangers in a foreign country, make his way to the dance floor and bust out the Arthur Fonzarelli Cossack dance, but that's just not me. I need a nudge, a small word in the ear "go on, what could possibly go wrong?"

And I've been lucky enough to have been blessed with one of the great wingmen in the shape of my brother Adam. We have travelled the world together for years keeping each other in check, or not, as the situation required. On our first ever night in Vietnam we were supremely fortunate to run into another wingman straight off the top shelf. Tim from Melbourne, he was sharp, funny, could drink a beer with class and best of all...he couldn't dance either!

WARNING: Sweeping generalisations approaching.

Australians seem to be fairly well-liked overseas (Contiki European tours excluded). We tend not to take ourselves too seriously and just seem to really enjoy just meeting people and having fun. Unlike say the French for example, who seem overly obsessed with image and how they are perceived to really let go and would probably struggle to have a good time in a brewery run by a nudist colony. Australians just aren't too fussed if they make a fool of themselves from time to time.

It was this attitude and with a burning desire to hit the floor (as they say) that the "Brothers Kilkenny" were born in the back of a bar in District 1, Saigon.

Riverdance, some people loath it, I love it, and it is in fact very easy to look as if you can do it well. Keep your upper body as stiff as possible, arms by your side, flail your legs about and most importantly, keep a ridiculously earnest look on you're a face and that's it, you're home.

Let me tell you, when the three Brothers Kilkenny hit the floor for our debut performance the effect was immediate and astonishing. A little embellishment of the actual facts later on and we had become the Riverdance champions of Australia, yes our roots were most definitely Irish, yes we dance for a living and yes indeed, we had had special instruction from Michael Flatley. Were we lying? Not really. Surely a lie is only something you expect to get away with, we'd already strutted our stuff so those that believed obviously wanted to believe. The story became more solid and the legend was born and began to grow.

And grew it did for the next 6 weeks up the length of Vietnam. First Mui Ne got hit, and then in Nha Trang it caused utter bemusement amongst the local Vietnamese crowd at the Sailing club but good natured pandemonium later on at the Shamrock Irish pub. Either way three blokes who couldn't dance were having the time of our lives due to our "dancing".  When three Irish lasses started chatting to us post performance then we knew we'd actually made it in the glamorous world of Riverdance.   

The one and only tour of Vietnam (or any country for that matter) by the Brothers Kilkenny came to an end in Hanoi but not without a final fling.

There's a rumour that Riverdance actually originated in the pubs of Ireland when under British control. Apparently dancing had been banned so to get around this the resourceful Irish pub goers developed this particular style of dancing so that if the British soldiers happened to walk by and look in the window, people were apparently standing around drinking when in actual fact the hidden lower half of their bodies had more moves going on than Kevin Bacon in Footloose!

A ridiculously great story that may or may not be true, but the young American college student, who'd been drinking "Bia Hoi" all afternoon and who happened to witness our final performance in a Hanoi bar was absolutely enthralled and convinced that the story was true. Who knows, the legend of the Brothers  Kilkenny may well be spoken of at this very moment in a dorm room at Boston University.

So next time you have a burning desire to dance, or do any activity for that matter, and know that you lack many of the skills required, do not despair. Think outside the square, look for your own angle, subvert the activity to suit your abilities and most of all, enjoy yourself.

And if anyone ever looks down their nose at you and says "you Australians, you can drink but you can't dance" gently pull them aside, adopt a soft, confiding tone and ask "have I ever told you about the Brothers Kilkenny ?"

Dedicated to Kilkenny Cavanagh.

 

Hey Ho, Tets Go!

By Simon Gibson

(Tet is the Vietnamese new year holiday. Lasts for about a week)

The Tet holiday for an expat can be a slightly strange experience. A little like arriving at a party that has been hyped up for weeks only to find a few people at the venue playing party games whose rules they are unwilling or simply unable to explain, and although you are made to feel welcome you can't shake the nagging suspicion that the real party may be tomorrow or may have in fact have been yesterday, that you've failed to understand the subtleties of the dress code and despite many assurances to the contrary, you were supposed to bring that bottle of wine after all.   

So it was that I approached my second Tet with some trepidation.

As a result of this confusion I decided to accept any invitation from a local so as to try and better understand the whole deal. I thus made the spur of the moment decision (read: promise, to a Vietnamese) that I would definitely visit the hometown of a friend from work sometime during Tet, at least for one day.

Now Tay Ninh is not exactly a journey of Magellan-like distances, however, a 200km round trip with a passenger (all 45kg of her) in one day is a fairly decent day's motorbike ride on Vietnamese roads.

The day started well enough, I met my passenger Trinh at the designated spot, simply described to me as "the place you bought the TV", right on time, and we were away.

With assurances such as "of course I know the way, I've lived here 15 years, I am Vietnamese!" my mind was at ease and I focussed on the relaxing day ahead.

It was after taking a left turn at the edge of the city that I felt worry creeping up from the downstairs department, up through the gut instinct area and onwards into the grey matter. "I'm sure the sun rises in the east" I thought to myself, "it's on our left" I observed inwardly, "we're heading south, Tay Ninh is north west" I muttered softly, "WE"RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!" I screamed above the highway noise. A quick stop for directions confirmed that we had in fact been going the wrong way since the left turn 15km back. We eventually got back to the city limit 45 minutes after the initial wrong turn, Trinh, unfazed, simply smiled and said "ok, now we go."

Tay Ninh is famous for three things apparently, the large Cao Dai pagoda that many locals and tourists visit, a mountain with a Buddhist temple on the top (and a fun park at the bottom) and the production of a special type of rice paper, which to this foreign mouth felt like chewing on a sheet of A4 covered with salt and chilli.

I'd been warned that I was to be the only foreigner to have entered the house in 35 years, I now believe that I may well have been the first foreigner in that whole village for a generation.

The welcome was great and I felt very honoured, the family of my friend Kim Tri were wonderful people. Once the introductions were over lunch preparations hit code red, this was going to be a feast.

Now a 100km motorbike ride tends to shake up the internal organs a little and a quick trip to the brasco was urgently needed. "Just go out through the kitchen door" I was told, "just turn to your left" I was also told, what everybody neglected to mention was that one metre outside the kitchen door were three of the largest pigs I have ever seen. I realised then what a unique experience this was.

Kim Tri's father later told me, somewhat dejectedly, that they only weighed about 250kg and that I should have seen the one he just sold that was 350kg! He was visibly swelling with pride as he told me this.

Lunch with the family was fantastic as expected and having your beer constantly topped up was enjoyable but probably not the ideal preparation for the ride home.

Now what is it with uncles? Every family seems to have one who is always late, always far drunker than anyone else and always insists on making sure that any guests get as drunk as he is. Needless to say, pathetic excuses of "no sorry, I've got a long ride home" explained in broken Vietnamese weren't going to cut it in this company, especially at Tet. Resistance was indeed futile. So later, after numerous rice wines, I was allowed to leave the table thinking a short rest might be in order. "No" I was told, "now we go climb the mountain, then go to pagoda, then you can go home".

It dawned on me that this was not actually the relaxing day in the country I had signed up for but the rice wine kicked in and along with it the second wind, off to the mountain we went.

The mountain has a theme park with no discernable theme and it was absolutely packed with Vietnamese, and of course one Australian, but it was a lot of fun. It is little disconcerting though when the only things taller than you in a very crowded space are a couple of giant, fibreglass chickens.

The Cao Dai pagoda just needs to be seen. Some will love it, others will hate it, I actually thought it was great. If Gaudi had have been Asian the Sagrada Familia may have looked like this.

As the clock struck 8pm Trinh and I finally set foot back in district 3, Hcmc. I could hardly walk for the next hour, was dying for a beer and I was absolutely filthy but I felt incredibly lucky to have had the chance to experience a small part of Tet like a local.

To flog an earlier metaphor, I still have no idea about the rules of the game or even its exact name but I'll always be thankful for being invited to run out onto the field to try and participate.

To Trinh and Kim Tri & family a huge THANK YOU.

 

 

YOU BUY SOMETHING

By Simon Gibson

"You buy something?!..", is it a question, a demand, or a desperate plea?   The Vietnamese street sellers have managed to combine all three at once into this unique catch call.

 You only need to be in Vietnam for a couple of hours before you hear this particular phase, if you live here, you've heard it so often it simply becomes part of the background din along with the bus horns and motorbike engines and the common reaction is to either ignore or actively decline, without giving much of a thought to the people doing the selling. This was my reaction too until an unlikely meeting and friendship formed between a small group of my friends and some sunglass sellers in Nha Trang on my first visit to Vietnam. We got to know them well over a week; they became our unofficial guides, ate with us, drank with us and talked to us a lot about their lives. We came to realise that they are good people, with families, friends, hopes and dreams.

One thing that intrigued me was why they all had exactly the same display, sold the same variety of goods and always dressed in a manner that made one indistinguishable from the other. The almost exact opposite of the Western rationale that to sell you need to stand out from the crowd and to make an impact. My suggestions that one of them should sell swimming goggles or dress up as a pink rabbit for the day to see if it attracted attention and increased sales were met with looks of utter dismay.

From then on I started taking an interest in the sellers I encountered and it got me thinking.

 Why do they sell that particular product? Why are the goods displayed as they are? Why are the same goods always sold in the same way in the same area?   

Although I was never able to answer these questions fully, the observations of the similarities and differences in different areas became interesting in themselves.

"Buy some book!"..The booksellers of HCMC all walk, carry high stacks of books and are mainly women who have a liking for the colourful Vietnamese pyjamas. In Nha Trang however, they always have their books in a box, are on a motorbike or pushbike and are equally young guys or girls.

I'm guessing geography plays a big part in those methods of distribution, but I'm not sure who decided, and the exact reasoning behind the decision, that the one place in HCMC that a tourist may be in desperate need of a cold coconut is outside the Presidential Palace, maybe they've based it on the amount of steps inside but the concentration of cold coconut sellers here at the exclusion of many other tourist hotspots in the city seems unusual.

"Pineapple..HAP-PY hour!!" , anyone who has spent a day or two on the beach at Nha Trang would be familiar with the jovial fruit lady, here's one seller who seems to have cornered the market as I have seen very little competition on the mobile fruit front in Nha Trang. When I questioned her as to when happy hour actually is, she laughed and replied "anytime you want darling". One Pineapple thanks!

The beach snack experience is actually very different between Nha Trang , where the snack sellers are almost exclusively young women, often wearing a light blue shirt, with an orange plastic basket packed with the identical array of goods as all the other sellers, and Hoi An, where the youngest seller on the beach is close to 90 years old, they carry a varied and quite eclectic range of goods and where dental care has obviously been low on their list of priorities over the years.  

If someone told me that one day I'd actually enjoy dried, smoked squid, marinated in motorbike exhaust fumes I would have laughed, or threw up! This most Vietnamese of snacks is always sold from the back of a pushbike in HCMC, or from a street side stall. In Hanoi however it's from the lady on foot who carries a bamboo pole with two baskets attached, one with a small coal fire. Why one is popular in one city and not the other is possibly because of regulations, geography, tradition or just another example of the mysterious ways of Vietnamese thinking.

Although many are similar there are some radical, non-conformists out there who have decided to go their own way so special mention must go to: the girl in Dis.1 HCMC who has decided that Tiger Balm and a selection of bracelets are a winning combination, the lady with the "authentic" range of perfumes who also walks around Dis.1, always alone, and who's English vocabulary includes "same, same", and a big smile but not much more, and my personal favourite, a gentleman who appears every few weeks near DeTham who manically strides up to you shouts "$5" and thrusts a random pair of sunglasses in your face (always carrying only one pair, often women's) before striding off without waiting for an answer.

So next time you're approached by a seller, before brushing them off out of habit, take a second to think about what their story might be and the thought that has gone into their particular display. Maybe sit down and buy them a coffee, it may lead to one of the more interesting conversations you will have that week and you may gain insights into the secret world that co-exists with but is little understood by the tourists. When you find out that the bookseller is married to the young guy selling lighters, whose cousin sells cigarettes with a cyclo driver for a father and a taxi girl for aunt, the complex and connected nature of Vietnamese society as a whole becomes clearer.

Or you could take a more detached approach and wear a t-shirt that simply states

"Do I look like I need a hammock!!"