VIETNAM: Clearly, I am at the back of this restaurant, and suffering where I had imagined not more than five minutes ago I would find respite. The heat and noise of the streets, of the children. The inexplicably relentless cacophany of metal hitting metal and teeth grinding teeth. They scream things that to me sound like bets being placed or threats against each other's wife. And now, just a few meters from the kitchen, I am pelted with the noise of two Vietnamese cooks screaming at each other; as each clang of the wok, each chop on the cutting board somehow substitutes for gestures they'd rather inflict directly on each other's face. But then again, I am probably not understanding this situation correctly. Is this what happens to a man who converts to Islam after six shots and a 3 mile jog? Or to a man who's decided to leave everything behind...for the third time in two years?