Back in The Matrix .... Day 1-4 ...... in Jet-Lag Limbo

THU, DAY 1, 48 sleeps until I get to go home.

Yup.... I get up at 1:30 am...... too much sleep in that plane yesterday....

4:00
NO, there is no possibility of sleep.  I've just pulled a bag of trail mix out of the vending machine using my credit card...... gone are the days of smiling people receiving wads on Dong notes ;-(  And gone are the days when the $2 that I paid for the trail mix could have paid for an amazing bowl of bun cha....

Caught in LIMBO AGAIN.... I read that it takes 8-10 MONTHS to process a Beibehaltungsgenehmigung......


4:45
The hotel WiFi DIES......  but comes back half an hour later....


6:15
I HATE JET-LAG, LOL

My back is still-out-of-whack as I notice when I see a crooked hunch-back staring back at me in the bathroom mirror.    I'm NOT having a good time right now ;-(



8:30
My car rental place should be open now.....

I keep talking to Joana for half an hour...... She is from Southern Albania and wants her Grandchildren NOT to grow up the Canadian way...... she tells me stories how she collected the chicken's eggs every morning as a kid, learned how to milk goats from her grandfather, etc etc...... I know exactly what she means..

9:00
Mystery waitress at Denny's is happy to see me again.... and it is reflected in the size of my '5oz' glass of wine, LOL.  Watching the glacial speed that images upload to my blog fills me with amazement and dread!  They call THIS the first world????

14:00
OMG, I just slept for 4 hours...


14:45
A visit with Grandma....

It's frustrating...there is still no understanding of other people there..... ba toi van la mot nguoi phu nu ich ky .... 

Since my hotel doesn't have laundry facilities for guests.... I run my laundry through Grandma's washer & drier ...

When I try to hop on one of the e-bikes, I discover to MY HORROR that the little controllers are NOT working.... Oh, what NOW? 

17:00
And I get STUCK IN TRAFFIC trying to get back to my hotel !

20:00
I just slept another 3 hours ..... I hope I can get some sleep tonight ....

I'm worried about my bikes..... what if I can't revive the controllers?   Buy new ones?  I even check a local company and almost convince myself to buy a brand-new bike if I can't fix the old ones ...... I am THAT DESPERATE to finally ride a bicycle again....

21:30
I'm back at Denny's ..... too much eating .... I NEED my bicycles to be operational again ....


22:45
I stop at the liquor store and the gas station for wine & salty pretzels..... what leaves the BIG impression is NOT the high prices.... but the unhappy & unfriendly demeanor of the people behind the service desks...... there is NO JOY in this city ..... I CAN NOT wait to be in the land of SMILES again ....

I waste time watching Netflix.... the thing one does when one doesn't have a REAL life ..... I realize this and I hate the fact that I'm doing it ....

In the News:   I once considered traveling to Brunei, the Muslim state situated in the North of Indonesia.... now I read that this country wants to introduce the DEATH PENALTY for people engaging in gay sex.......  I'd rather spend my money elsewhere !  The number of moral NO-GO zones around this planet seems to increase..... Hungary, Russia, the USA, Myanmar, Australia... and now Brunei ! Dark Ages 2.0 is coming.  This world is heading in the WRONG direction!  

FRI, Day 2, 47 sleeps until I get to go home.
3:30  way too early to be wide awake but to be expected after all that napping yesterday ....

I'm not only sick of constantly waiting but I also want to know whether I can rescue the bikes so I drive to Grandma's house at 10 am....

the bike's alive
laundry

I'm too tired to ride the bike today... I don't want to end up in a ditch!

and I wake up at 4 pm, that's 6:00 in Saigon ...

I should have slept more..... I just feel useless.... the cold weather is not helping....


I drag myself to Denny's, hoping that some food will revive me.... but it's no use ...I'm back asleep by 8 pm

.... and I sleep until midnight, after which I only toss and turn ...... too many worries in my head..... and they are not about things I have to do for myself but the things I have to do for others...

SAT, Day 3, 46 sleeps until I get to go home.
so I finally give up and get up at 4:00

Denny's at 7:30 ..... NO, I can't get any wine at this hour (STUPID country!) but I am HUNGRY and I hope that food will somehow battle my fatigue.

Oh, they have something new.... A Greek Vegetarian omelette ! Not bad actually, but the portion is way too big for me.

8:15
It's time to renew my room...... I don't want to be forced to stay at Grandma's..... that would be undeserved torture !

9:00
There it is again.....One constantly has to watch one's back or one will be taken advantage of:
 I go to the front desk to ask to extend my stay by 2 weeks....... $1700, the clerk says....... WTF?   I mention that I could get it cheaper on Booking.com and he goes down to $1350.....  I go back to my room and I book the same rooms for the same time period using Booking.com for $1160.   And NOW the hotel has to pay commission to Booking.com.  WHAT is WRONG with these people ?

Back to Denny's, LOL, I need a drink to digest this bullshit!

9:52
The bus is actually punctual !   Up the hill to Grandma, liberate the bike & the saddle bags, and back down to the hotel......  I'm wearing a H'Mong hat and gloves and it's still COLD !


But at least the battle of the bulge has commenced ;-)

11:00
I've been up for ever .... should I nap .... and miss the warm hours of the day?

NO!

yes, there is another incentive ...

my pelvic bone is no longer used to supporting my weight on a bicycle saddle.... I haven't ridden this bike since .....WHEN was that?   FUCK... September 15.... 6.5 months !   No wonder the hip gold grew unhindered !

Sunday, Day 4, 45 sleeps until I get to go home.
5:00

I didn't sleep enough and have to catch up on that later ....

Maybe that lack of sleep is good for something...... there is an article about the movie The Matrix, which came out 20 years ago ..... and I watched it on the first night ;-)

And the article rings a bell in a very strange way........ You know that annoying feeling when your gut or subconscious keeps telling you that something is WRONG!     I get that feeling every time I come back to The West.

No, we are obviously NOT living in a dream world that was created to use our bodies to generate power for The Machines......

.... but it becomes more obvious every single time I return to The West........ Yes, you people ARE living in a DREAM WORLD ....... Vancouver is the 3rd most livable city on the planet ?   YVR is North America's best airport ?   Vancouver is a fabulous place?

Am I ever GRATEFUL that someone or something somewhere offered me the blue pill and a chance to see of the world outside the Matrix.   Coming back here, it is overly obvious that Vancouverites are still busy popping their red pills !  But that's understandable.   Because waking up would mean that they would have to do something about their lives ;-)

9:30
I finally drag myself over to Denny's ..... and I'm not the only one not in top shape.....the staff is overworked, distracted, stressed......  WHY is this normal in The West ?

Tomorrow is the day when the serious work will commence..... fixing Grandma's basement.  So today I have a tiny bit of leeway and can run some smaller errands that need doing .... buying screws for the other bike's fender at Obsession bikes .... looking for new shorts .... finally providing a long overdue signature to the pharmacy where Jessica picks up Grandma's pills on my credit card ....buying an apple strudel for Grandma ..... not too bad, at least two out of those four errands are for me .....


I ordered my dish with the so-called Hearty Sausage (think Bratwurst).  When it arrives, there is no Bratwurst but two of those typical tiny Denny's sausages that look and taste like SHIT. 

Only after I try to re-order the Bratwurst, does Kenny tell me that they no longer have it... WTF?   You couldn't tell me that when I ordered it?   I would have ordered something else had I known that.

4:30 pm
It's time to leave this room before I turn into a vegetable again!  Temperatures have hit today's high of 13 degrees (In Hanoi they would call this a vicious cold spell!), which is bearable in the sun but still COLD in the shade, especially on a bicycle.
I don't have the least bit of craving for the food available at Denny's or my Viet place, so I'll give a new place a try....
alas, the Sushi is a bit bland, so no loss that I haven't been here before.

1:00
An e-mail from Lisa:  The usual suspects want to build a ROAD over my property, even though I have told them numerous times in no uncertain terms that I do not want one..... seems they waited until I was gone to try to get what they want after all.

Monday, Day 5.

4:00 

Enough sleep?  I remember that today is April Fool's Day....

the long and dreary way back .... SGN - TPE - YVR

I sleep for ever..... until 6:00

the melancholy sets in again..... anything and everything I will be doing today will be useless..... it will not lead me to where I want to be and it will not be what I want to do...... but it must be done..... but it also sharpens my resolve that it's time to live MY life .....

.... consequently I am SLOW progressing through today's tasks...after all they don't lead where I want to go ....  I have got used to instant gratification..... and a 6-week project seems overly long ...

10:00
My new swim trunks have been delivered to the sewing machine guy for shortening..... he did such a brilliant job on my backpack.... I'll bring everything here from now on!

11:00
toi say va toi muon an.... but my sandals have been washed and are drying (they are staying here)... Huyen still has my batteries & toothpaste (will she NEVER learn ?), the nail place across from GS1 refused to service my finger & toe nails (WTF?)....

12:00
I pick up my shortened shorts.... 45k VND again.... less than $2!...

.... and right next door, I eat my last bun cha for a while... toi muon khoc!

14:30
Time to bite the bullet...... toi di

The 109 bus takes forever to leave its driver-rest position....

... but we finally leave at 15:05..... a bit late but I get to the airport by 15:55... still two hours until lift-off..
.... there is an e-mail from Huyen....... she took a picture of me and morphed it...

I think....

...I prefer my natural look!

17:00
It's a beer & a muffin at the airport...... it's 3 am PST .... and I'll only get out of YVR airport by 8 pm PST..... that's going to be a fucking LOOONG day!

17:15
time to board .... I'm leaving Viet Nam..... SHIT!

The nice check-in guy wasn't lying....

I'm getting the middle bulkhead seat in the premium economy section......

... and that means leg room!

3 hours to TPE

22:30 Taiwan time....  half an hour until the official boarding time ....

Oh HO!  Middle side seat at the emergency exit..... EVEN MORE LEG ROOM!

11 hours to YVR

I manage to sleep through most of the flight...nice ....I don't even watch a movie .... 

I already have LOW HOPES every time I return here....but this time I was being still overly optimistic:  The usual being herded like cattle through the LOOONG line-up to immigration by women with bitter voices ..... 

"Keep Moving!  Keep Moving!" they keep shouting.  When I mention to one of them that we are human beings and NOT cattle, she just gives me a blank stare..... 

It takes me ONE WHOLE HOUR to get from the plane door to the front door of the airport for my first cigarette in a long time ...... LOUSY airport performance....but then YVR was just awarded with a prize as the airport with the BEST SERVICE service in all of North America again...... 

Oh c'mon people, it's REALLY time to take the RED pill and wake from your delusions!

21:00  ..... I waddle over to White Spot .... a glass of wine and a small bite would be nice.... OMG prices are INSANE here...... 

....the service quality is OLD .... and after 4 weeks of eating in a place where food actually has TASTE, the chicken here tastes like cardboard again..

...I should have just hopped in a taxi and eaten at Denny's.

And WHY does YVR WiFi NOT work ????






21:30
The food and wine cheered me up a little...... I am in no rush to get to my motel in North Van..... first I have to smoke and then I see the HUGE line-up for taxis....

... oh SCREW THIS !.... I might as well take the Skytrain !

I take the Skytrain and fortunately, there is an empty taxi already waiting at the City Centre Station.

WHY does my cell phone not send text messages ??? 

Doesn't ANYTHING work around here?


22:45
I'm finally in my hotel...... let's see if Eda is working tonight ... ;-)

She is and cheers me up!

Midnight: Time to sleep ...

1:30 am..... and here is the downside of having slept for 6 hours in the plane ;-)

Ho Chi Minh City ..... Four Fun- & Frenzy-Filled days of it !

I already had considered eating Bun Cha on my walk from the airport bus to my hotel..... but the line-up was too long, so walk back to the restaurant line-up after checking in and showing my face at GS1 ;-)

In retrospect I am shocked remembering that I haggled (in Vietnamese) with a street vendor for a finger nail clipper ... must do better next time.... but that earns me some praise from a Vietnamese woman also waiting in line ..."your Vietnamese is very good".  Yeah right, LOL.
All Mr. Bun Cha has to say is "No bowl today?"  LMAO, I guess I did bring a bowl a few times to feed Huyen.  Right now I'm only feeding myself!

I visit Huyen again though.... and she has a present for me:  Chocolate M&Ms!  Which is kind of funny because I brought her Peanut M&Ms .....

Back in my room I receive an e-mail from today's visitors:
Their flight seems to be late they e-mail me while sitting in the plane on the tarmac.... and I can see it in real-time.

16:00
I already did my sink laundry to kill time.... and I should get ready to meet these people, before I start noticing how early I got up this morning ....

17:00
I can't sit in my hotel room any longer ! Time to walk across town.....

A sure sign that one is getting old:  The people you went to university with have a grown kid!

Bun Cha, what else?

WHY do we follow Moe's directions when we are looking for a place to drink beer?   Alpha-Man has never been here before! .... but we humour him anyway...  

NEVER EVER eat or drink here!  RUDEST owner EVER !

The roof-top bar of the Grand Silverland Hotel is a nice change..... for my presently achieved state of Vietnamization it is a tad too colonial, but it is NICE to sip beer, chat, and look down on Ben Tanh Market !

After way too many beers it's finally time to walk back home..... which means I have walked 7 km today ;-)

The usual suspects already sit in the street in front of my hotel.

Let's hope Huyen never sees this picture, LOL.

Ouch.... things HURT.... where am I?  
What time is it? 
6:45!
I've SLEPT through the SUNRISE ????
OMG is that a HANGOVER I'm feeling?

An e-mail from Sylvia?   The German Group???? OMG, memories of a distant past !  

9:00
Is it time to slowly get ready???

The trip to Coopmart gets me bon chai ruou va mot cai ao mau tim dep

And I get back to the hotel in time before the rain hits.

16:00

Drinks on the roof terrace of the Grand Silverland again... G&T this time .... and I learn something new and IMPORTANT..... Canada & the USA are MINING airline passenger data for departure and return dates of their citizens.... the airlines obviously have no choice in the matter..... so the avenue of massaging my departure dates to reduce the time absent from Canada to maintain my permanent resident status is NOT available to me...... and it's a very fortuitous thing that I learned this ;-)   


Good thing there is a Plan B: 



 I will swear allegiance to the Queen of England!










Time for more food......

I need to PEE !

This time it's BBQ seafood across from my Bun Cha place

Responsible parenting ;-)  (I had my first sip of wine as a 5-year old at Christmas )
OK, so maybe I am not the best example ....

20:30
I'm back in my room ...... and after all this social frenzy I feel bored ....... WTF?

21:45
Where are the usual suspects?   They are NOT sitting in the street drinking & chatting?   I'm shocked how quickly I have got used to that apparently NOT-never-ending routine .....   But Chuong is cheering me up a bit..... He want's to quit his University-English program (He DOES speak MUCH better English already) and he doesn't know what to do afterwards...... which IMHO is a healthy attitude for someone in their early 20s. 

22:30
Another bit of revelation..... it's nice to live in a place where one can follow the phases of the moon....  it adds a sense of continuity to life.... it was a full moon on the first day of the village festival just a few days ago.... and now it's a waning moon ....

23:00
I have to tear myself away from watching more of The Umbrella Academy on Netflix .....
... but then it will still be there tomorrow ;-)

5:00
I'm slow & sluggish today... and only manage shaving & showering by 10:00

Time to go to Coopmart for more wine & a power bar....... The ONLY thing I HATE about my room is the fact that the power outlet is BEHIND the TV.   So EVERY time I want to plug in my laptop, I have to TAKE DOWN the whole friggin TV.....

.... but this nice brand-new power bar (67,000 VND) will hopefully eliminate this annoyance forever ;-)

11:30
Let's see whether Huyen is hungry ;-)
She's not even at her desk!
Then she arrives, tries to put a ring on my finger, and then disappears...

12:00
Time for Bun Cha.... I don't know how the man manages to smile all day .....

.... I notice two Germans sitting kitty-corner-across from each other at a table for 4..... and there is a line-up outside.....  to be considerate of others no longer seems to be part of the German culture ;-(

12:45
I think I'll have a NAP now ;-)

15:45
WHAT THE FUCK is this BANGING....... someone moved into the other top floor room and was nice enough to drag hard-shell suitcases over every single step of the stairs .... bang  bang bang bang  bang bang .....

Just before I have to leave at 17:30, I check my e-mail ... a small downer.... and I'm torn between giving in to my future neighbour's demands to build their stairs on my land and standing firm because I'm already putting up with their Beach Bar right at my property line..... Ah, better to forget that right now and sleep over it.

It's time to go to a SHOW !

Ben Thanh Market

old and new

The Saigon Opera House

The Caravelle Hotel reflected in the best tea I've ever had ;-)

European style cherry cake on the left and stick-rice sweet on the right
I can't decide which one is better !

18:00


The use of cameras & cellphones is NOT allowed during the performance and that's a GOOD choice.....I remember how furious I was during the last water-puppet-show at all those idiots waving their cell phones and using flash photography...... so here are some of the Teh Dar promo shots:

This is what Cirque du Soleil wants to be but never achieved.... I cry through half the performance.....  the choreography, the lighting, the movements, the music, the bodies, the weightlessness, the joy..... I am entranced....

Time to walk back to my hotel....

Did Uncle Ho ever imagine himself in this spot or position?

I race back to my hotel because I am HUNGRY...... and Huyen grabs my camera....

.... but she doesn't give it back!  Oh, P-Lease, NOT again!  

Screw it, I'm starving!

20:00

Bach tuoc

Back at the hotel, Huyen still refuses to give the camera back....

And do I really manage to say "Ban uong nhu mot con ca!" (you drink like a fish!) ?

Quoc, One-Eye, Mousy Face, Skinny Fruity Guy, and Muscular Straight Guy do their best to drink me under the table .... 

...but they don't succeed...... 

well, not properly ....

Two whole bottles of wine fall victim to this debauchery with the Viet crowd in the street.

...but then they aren't too sober either anymore...

There is a saying in Vietnam.... Khong say, khong nha ...(not drunk, not home, i.e. you can't go home before you're drunk).....but I am definitely drunk enough when I leave the group at 22:00......

"Chris, Wait!" is what I hear from Chuong.   OH NO!  I instantly know that something is NOT right and I am proven correct when he grabs The Shirt from under the counter.   He was wearing this absolutely fabulous shirt 10 days ago and I complimented him on it (in retrospect: I should NOT have asked him where I could buy it).  Now he gives it to me as a PRESENT.

I am embarrassed !

It gets worse...... I ask him what his shoe size is..... planning to repay him with a pair of fabulous Native Art Print Converse High Tops from Canada..... and all he says is "I know what is going on" and doesn't give me his shoe size.

WHAT am I to DO ?

Relax, I guess.

Then there is the issue of Quang wanting to build a staircase on my empty land strip......

23:30
SLEEP

4:30
Too early....not really enough sleep.... but my head is racing..... too many things on so many levels happened yesterday.... I can always have a nap later

6:00
SHIT.  I put my back out ....   This hasn't happened in SO LONG now....years !
But I'm back to limping bent-over around my room.....

9:30
Lisa calls from The Beach.... it's about the stairs again .... and about my wall.... why does all this crap come up when I'm NOT there ?

A young guy with an old mechanical sewing machine is always sitting next to Bun Cha 145..... I'm bringing my big North Face backpack there to have him fix the little slit that has been opening along the zipper of one of the compartments....  Come back one hour, he says.

I end up back at Bookworm's Coffee for breakfast.... and I order the King's Breakfast.....

NO idea why I order expensive calorie overload.... probably because my back hurts and I need comfort food.

An hour later, my backpack is fixed. Better than new! For 45k! (less than 2 Dollars)  Amazing ;-)

A few hours of trying to alleviate the back pain by laying in bed don't really help.... FUCK, it SUCKS being decrepit !!

17:00
I'm out of WINE !   I wobble towards coopmart and the walk seems to relax my back temporarily..... I am GLAD that I visit Huyen afterwards (even though she harbours some kind of odd grudge), because I finally learn what was so funny about what I said yesterday....

Embarrassed I am !

I thought I had perfectly pronounced:

Ban uong nhu con ca (you drink like a fish)

but apparently what everyone heard was:

Ban uong nhieu cong a (you drink a lot of cock, eh?)

I should REALLY pay MORE attention to my enunciation & tones, LOL




18:00

NO, I can NOT get enough of this stuff !

19:15
I'm home and crippled and done with the day.