If the reaction of the young western woman in the above video is anything to go by all the Vietnamese need to do to repel invaders in the future is to pass around the bamboo water pipe.

In a scene you’ll see on almost every street corner throughout the country friends sit on short squat-stools, sipping tea, telling yarns, and smoking long, hand-made bamboo water pipes called điếu cày (farmer’s pipe).

However, one can only suppose that the pipe in the video above may have contained something other than local Vietnamese tobacco.

In a scene that provides one staff-member (who can not stop laughing) with flash-backs to long-closed Northern Thailand opium dens of the 80s, a young western woman takes several deep tokes on the bamboo water pipe.

After nodding her head once she suddenly goes limp and appears to loose consciousness and collapses onto the road (Ed: thank goodness those were squat-stools) where she appears to experience body spasms.

As the locals call on her to get up, a western male leaps up and attempts to lift her from the road. The ever helpful (fearful of attracting unwanted attention) locals continue to call for her to ‘get up’, one not realising that the offered cup of water is not much use to someone who has passed out.

As quick as it begins and it is over. The young western woman awakens and promptly sits up, looking dazed and disorientated, before appearing to leave the tea stall with no apparent harm having been done, except perhaps to her pride. We also suspect she may have had a lump on the back of her head as a reminder of the potency of Vietnamese bamboo water pipes a few hours later.

Luckily the young woman in the video had a friend with her who didn’t take a toke of the bamboo water pipe and was able to take care of her for the 30 seconds that she was horizontal. Perhaps smaller puffs are in order when away from home and trying a bamboo water pipe for the first time?

Feature video uploaded to Facebook by Tin tức Móng Cái 24/7