In search of a tampon in Ninh Binh

Oh my goodness! I have to share this story because it was like participating in some embarrassing scavenger hunt. I needed to buy tampons this morning so I had to somehow convey to our non-English speaking cab driver that I needed to go to a pharmacy/store. He didn’t understand so Jesse did the whole washing hair, taking a shower charade figuring a place that sells that stuff must also sell “lady supplies.” 🙂 I certainly didn’t want to do a charade for feminine hygiene products. I’m not shy but come on! So we stopped at about six stores and I had to show them a tampon- people wanted to hold it and examine it like it was a new fangled hi-tech gadget. Some male store owners seemed offended. One shooed me out of his store! Store after store and we were still empty handed. Our cab driver was having a hard time making eye contact with me at this point. Oh for Pete’s sake! This was getting ridiculous.
We finally found a store with women in it. One woman grabbed the tampon and said “no! you’re in Vietnam!” Then they sent me to a shed out back for a week (just kidding!) A woman stuck a large, neon packaged pad in my hand. An old woman sitting on a chair taking in the whole scene smiled big (she only had one large tooth left on her top row of teeth but that’s a whole different story.) She started yelling “Kotex! Kotex! Kotex!” All the women were talking about me and laughing as I left. At the last store I went to -the shopkeeper woman examined the tampon. She looked at it and shook her head disapprovingly. Then she put some pads in a black bag and tied a tight knot at the top. I handed her the cash, she slipped me the bag. I felt like a drug deal just went down. So strange!
A little sidenote: The amazing part for me about getting older has been the fact that very few things (if anything at all) can embarrass me anymore. It is like I have grown immune to what people think of me. Thank goodness- otherwise my face would be red a majority of the time and I’d probably be embarrassed about that!