Gulagbound: SGN - TPE - YVR

Reading Google news further reduces my already non-existing excitement about going back to Vancouver.  The city of Vancouver just announced that it WILL NOT REMOVE snow from residential streets.   







1st world taxation for 3rd world service.  


And Vancouverites LOVE their city. 


'nough said?

Shite!   This feels so UNREAL.  I have to go back there today!

But I'm NOT there yet (sigh of relief ;-).

The LOUD aerobics (or whatever it is called these days) music in the streets of Sai Gon started at 5 am.  The globe is rotating into light.

Grandma exhibits her usual behaviour when I call her.   Complaining and shoving the guilt for her miserableness onto innocent parties (NOT me today). NO, life can't be easy at her age but there are people out there who have aged with grace and wisdom.

My mood picks up after doing what I usually do before leaving home and returning to the Gulag.  I book a ticket out of the Gulag.  This one is intended to get me to a wedding in Salzburg.  But the ticket lists Vancouver & Saigon as the flight end points.   I'm going the wrong way.  WTF?

All part of LIVING life before it's over.   What could be more adventurous than a wedding in the middle of a circumnavigation of the globe?

Dance if you want to dance,
Please brother take a chance !

But I still have time for one more excursion. 

I'll have a look at that Catholic Church right across the road.  Nuboy is getting dangerously close in the TripAdvisor badge count, so I have to do some legwork. 

Nothing special really (except that THIS church happens to be in Viet Nam).  But I still get some decent pictures out of it.

But I LOVE the fact that all those Xmas stars on strings look quite a lot like Tibetan Prayer Flags, LOL.

10:00 TWO hours until check-out?   I REALLY have to leave? I have THREE flights already booked that will get me back here, but leaving STILL gets so much harder every single time. 

 It must be the particular time of day or the pre-Christmas shopping madness (yes, even here), because the 152 bus is PACKED for the first time ever.

 The check-in counter for my flight is not open yet, so I eat at Big Bowl.  My advice:  AVOID the Western-type places at Viet airports. They're outrageously expensive and not good.    My pho ga actually has a whole chicken leg in it.  There are some other things in there that look like they definitely came from an animal, but I refuse to eat them just before a flight, LOL.  Amazing food!

 There are some Tourists at the next table.  Australians.  They pay for their food with a Credit Card LOL (probably stayed in a resort and never had to exchange money to the local currency). Ask for glasses for their beverages.  Don't speak a single word of Viet while ordering.  Don't even say thank you in English.  

WHAT is THIS? It's NOT vegetable. I'm pretty sure it's ANIMAL.  

 Naturally, they leave a great mess on their table when they leave.  After all, that’s what the servants are there for.  Despicable.

And I'm heading to Canada, which is not so very different from Asstralia ;-(

My last glimpse of the Sky over Saigon for a while ;-(

 I'm sitting at the gate at 14:00 (after ogling 6 ft tall young Viet men in the line-ups for immigration & security; I remember my spare mom voicing non-belief when I told her that there are tall Asians these days ;-) and my flight is not until 16:45.   I HATE airports!  Good thing this one has smoking lounges.  

After napping for one hour on the gate benches and visiting the smoking lounge, I ALMOST fall for the boredom-induced-compulsive-purchase trap at the watch stand.  A square-faced simple watch.   Of course I would have regretted buying it later, I have more than enough watches, but I am not quite awake yet.   When the saleswoman repeats with a frustrated look fiitty Dollar instead of the tiirty dollars I heard earlier, I see fate waving with a fence post and say NO.    Phew.  That was CLOSE. I almost would have fallen off the consumerism-free wagon !

Still almost 2 hours until lift-off and that is only the first flight.  3.5 hours to Taipei.  Then another 3 hours of waiting and 10 hours to Vancouver.  Those Vancouver immigration guys better not ask me stupid questions or I'll bite.

The flight from Saigon to Taipei is easily the WORST flight I have ever taken.  The crew is unorganized and that food cart by my no-legroom seat at least 7 times before I finally get some food. 

There is NO entertainment being offered, besides the movie CARS with no sound and Viet subtitles being displayed on the 10 small cabin screens.  Wow, when I was 10 years old, planes at least had hand-out-and-collect headphones and 2 radio channels in the arm rest.  Progress?  The two and three year old Taiwanese youth behind me are tearing each other to pieces, kicking into the back of my seat every 10 seconds, while their parents are consulting their smart phones.  OMG, what a nightmare !

At least Taipei International Airport has smoking lounges.  By now I know the location of 3 of them. Which is a good thing, because the walking distance between the A, B, C & D gates is bloody VAST.  Conveyor belts only work in one direction and if that happens NOT to be the direction you want to go in, you're WALKING FOR A LONG TIME.   20 USD and 20 HKD get me about 630 units of some currency with Chiang Kai Sheck's picture on it.  A 'tall' (why not call it small?) Americano & a stale dry chocolate cookie (YUK) at Starbucks (WHY?) cost me 130 Kai Sheks or whatever they are called (Some later research reveals that they are called New Taiwanese Dollar).

Given the parenting issues witnessed in the plane, the display of Western brand-named, expensive, and useless stuff on display in the airport, the LOUSY Airport WiFi, and the walking issue, I no longer have ANY desire to enter the country of Taiwan proper.   Sayonara !  (ok, different country, but you get my meaning)

21:50 Saigon time; 22:50 Taipei time, 6:50 Vancouver time.  One our until lift-off.  I have an aisle seat in the very back (? row 67) of the plane.  There are no screaming toddlers in the gate area yet and I'm still hoping that I'll be able to get a good sleep.

China Airlines is using a fabulous brand-new Airbus 350-900 again.  Ample legroom even in Swine Class and the washrooms get cleaned every 15 minutes.  Go Air Canada Go!   

Touch-down in Gulag at 18:40.

I punch my answers into the immigration machine.  Then I answer the questions of the guy in the booth.  Another officer catches me right behind that and subjects me to the Canadian Inquisition for 15 minutes.  Welcome back to Paranoia Land !

COLD GRAY DIRTY 

When I arrive at my motel, the dark lot is illuminated by the flashing red & blue lights of FIVE police cruisers. 

not my cops; just a stock photo

Nothing much has changed.  ONE unruly guest and FIVE cop cars show up.  Cowards !

I'm paying $897 for 12 nights in my dingy run-down motel.  In Vietnam I'd pay less for my beach-front room.  Ah well. It's Christmas and I should be in a giving mood !

I hand out the first of two illegally imported packs of Cigarettes to the receptionist.  I'm pretty sure it would be bad Karma if I smoked them myself, LOL.