Peter's the type of guy that will stay in your house, eat your
food, watch your tv, and then complain about his experience. God
damn insufferable. But here we are after 15 years. A lot of people have come
and gone in that time but Peter's still here. Inviting himself to my home
year after year.
I met Peter in a run down dollar a night hostel in Hanoi in the
summer of 2008. It was a sequel, 'Happy Hotel 2', or something along
those lines. It was 40C, humid, in-your-face hot. Peter walked
in, tall and upright, laden with backpack and clad in a thick black
jacket zipped to the neck. His gait was rigid, arms unmoving, somehow
collapsing onto a lower bunk like a plank. Something about his movement
veering into the uncanny valley. He lay there immobile. Sweat running off
his forehead, just staring up at the upper bunk.
Within a few hours an English bloke called Karl was going bonkers and
chucking water cooler bottles down the stairs at hotel staff. There had
been a similar incident at an internet cafe the previous evening due to a
dodgy inkjet printer. A water bottle standoff had developed.
Peter and I squeezed ourselves down the stairs escaping the standoff onto
the streets of Hanoi. We would later find ourselves at a Puppet show.
