A late-night multi-day ESCAPE: YVR - TPE - SGN - UIH

HERE IS SOME BACKGROUND MUSIC TO PLAY for this post ;-)

April 12 Thursday

OMG, my plane leaves tonight and I still have so many things to do !  There is fresh snow on the flanks of the local mountains.  I am SO SICK of this COLD !

I visit my kokum to wish her well and drop off some money.  She talks about going to Edmonton to die and I can't wait to leave this city of worrying & misery.

But there are other things that help speed my leave.  Maniacal drivers, atrocious hotel conditions, third-world level internet connections


It's too bloody cold again to stand at the bus stop, so I take a taxi to the SkyTrain station downtown.  


I stare at a huge advertising board and I hate this city even more. 

Shoebox-sized condos in a highrise at Fraser & Marine, FAR AWAY from any useful fast transit connection START at $429,000.  

Has this city gone completely MAD?  

The counter clerk at China Airlines is very friendly and I get aisle seats for both legs of my journey.  All the stores seem to have closed at this hour except Wendy's and a fast food fish&chips store.  LOUSY airport !  Airport Wifi still works out here, so I watch the last 20 minutes of the final episode of Downton Abbey.  I've managed to binge-watch all six series in one week ;-)

I'm always surprised anew at the rudeness of the security personnel at YVR.  They manage to be friendly in most other airports; why not here?  Today they seem to be paranoid about laptop computers.  Mine gets swiped for explosives residue at two different points.  Good thing they don't test for anything else ;-)

All the bars inside the secure zone are CLOSED now as well. NO wine for this traveler until it gets served in the plane ;-(  YVR also seems to have shut down its WiFi at midnight because there is no way to get it working at Gate 67.  

But why do I still expect things in Vancouver to work?  Vancouverites think they live in the land of milk & honey, so why should they bother fixing things that don't work? 

At least China Airlines steps up to provide another highlight. A table with coffee & tea dispensers AND large glass decanters for orange juice, apple juice, and ice water. 

Behold China Airlines !

I've noticed the coffee & tea on the last few flights but the glass juice dispensers are new.  A nice touch.  Can you even remotely imagine Air Canada coming up with and actually implementing a similar idea?  Didn't think so.  Air Canada only becomes imaginative when the lack of customers resulting from their atrocious service forces them to request another bail-out from the Canadian Government.  Just wait for the next time; can't be long now.

When it comes time for boarding, the line-up at my gate is promisingly short.  And YES, this times my hope is justified.  I get 3 seats in the centre section to stretch out on and sleep.  And I'm not the only lucky sleeper. 
Also: I finally figure out what song is playing in the China Airlines toilets.  Yes, it is an instrumental version of the song you are just listening to.  After the Goldrush by Neil Young

I'm used to the Taipei Taoyuan Airport routine by now.  First stop is the smoking lounge at gate A9.  

a smoker's view

It's actually more a cage with seats attached to the outside of the terminal building and consequently is exposed to the outside air.  And that air is at a temperature of 26 Celsius at 5:30 am.  I feel stress and depression lifted like morning fog on a sunny day.  FINALLY.

The Americano & tiramisu at Espressamente Illy is average, but I welcome the caffeine & sugar kick. 

 A bit more than one hour until the scheduled departure of my flight to Saigon ;-)

This time it's  a China Airlines plane that takes us to Saigon and not one of the worn-out Vietnam Airlines buses.  More leg room, every seat has a screen, and the food is an improvement too ;-)

Immigration is super-fast but I made the mistake of checking-in my larger backpack.  Of course it arrives on the conveyor belt as almost the last item, about 40 minutes after the first ones. Ah well.

There is a #152 waiting in front of the terminal and I even recognize the bus driver.  I take that as a sign to travel to some other parts of the world, LOL.

Sun & scooters again !!!!

A Danish man (living in San Franciso) with a Viet woman friend provides some entertainment on the bus.  It's his FIRST time in Vietnam but he already managed to find the right bus and he recognizes that replacing all those scooters by cars will cause a traffic chaos in this city.  Chapeau ! 

I walk into the tiny dingy store across from my hotel alley.  YES, they FINALLY have MORE than ONE bottle of white wine in the shelf.  The woman behind the counter recognizes me and gives me a sly grin.  OOOH. It's SO good to be BACK !

My hotel is like an orphanage for middle-aged males.  I recognize people who were here two weeks ago, LOL

I'm back in the centre of Sai Gon.  8.6 Million people and I don't hear ANY traffic noise.  FUCK YOU, Vancouver, LOL.

I'm listening to music, finally replying to e-mails, and I find myself dancing in my room.  WTF?????  I didn't manage a single one of those things in Vancouver. Vietnam is GOOD for me !

No time to sleep: I'm e-mailing with Joanna (Phu Quoc last November) to meet up with her in Saigon.  She's in District 3 and a bit slow to provide the exact location.  I hope she gets her act together before I fall asleep! 

She does ;-)

en route: I wonder what the fuck Americans thought they were doing HERE !

At 14:50 I have walked 3 km in the scorching heat.  And I just arrived from Vancouver. 

swanky !

 It's good to see Joanna again.  We're sitting on an outside roof restaurant/bar on the 11th floor of her swanky hotel.  The breeze is cooling (so is the Gin & Tonic) and the view is quite something. Cigarettes across the street from the hotel still are only 22,000 VND.

But at 16:30 I realize that the fact that I'm getting tired might have something to do with the fact that it's 2:30 am in Vancouver right now.   The 3 km walk back seems even longer now, but at least it's interrupted by a stop at Coopmart.  Coffee, cheese, bread, yogurt.  I'll be TOO TIRED tonight to head out for mackerel dinner ;-(
It's high time I get back to the hotel; the last few hundred meters my sandals catch on the pavement three times.

5:30

Neil Young is playing on the laptop in my room.  I'm having my first cigarette on my terrace.  The emergence of pink in the sky makes a silhouette of the Saigon skyline.  

Small dark grey clouds move rapidly against that stark pink & black background.    

I dreamed I saw the dark-grey space ships flying in the pinkish haze of the sun ...   Look at mother nature on the run, in the 21st century ....
It's magical.  And astronomically sad.

The sky is getting brighter and at 6:00 a concert for numerous bells inundates my terrace with the sound of church bells coming from all directions ;-)

Huyen is on a trip, but it's good to see June again.  I even learn his name even though I have no idea how to spell it (Chuong ;-)

Another bus ride..... #152

Getting the boarding pass for my Jetstar Pacific flight is not easy.   The clerk is confused because she sees two VERY SIMILAR names in her computer.   Only when I tell her that I had a senior moment a month ago and bought the ticket for this flight TWICE does she finally clue in and gives me my boarding pass.

The flight is a bit late taking off but when we get to Phu Cat 55 minutes later, the Vietnam Airlines bus is waiting as always.  50,000 VND for the 45 minute ride into town.  Beats taking a taxi for 10 times the price ;-)

The village scenery close to the airport ...

.... soon gives way to the large plain of rice fields.   

Just looking at this finishing this post a year later in Vancouver brings tears to my eyes

Mr Hotel is napping when I arrive.  But as soon as he is conscious, he puts the tea, the bean cookies, and the cigarettes on the table.   I know the ritual dance by now.  Asking for my key right away would be RUDE.   Even more so when I hear that the time I was sick for 24 hours the last time I was in town, he actually came to my hotel to check on me.   

The hotel is constantly improving.  Last time was the first time that every room had a kettle (I had mentioned that in a TripAdvisor review) but now he installed an additional free coffee station in the lobby.   What will be next ? :-)

Time for Coopmart. When I walk out of the hotel, Hotel Man is back on his wooden bench and snoring loudly.   At Coopmart, two bottles of wine, a lavender shirt, Gouda cheese, Nivea lotion, a corkscrew, a knife, yogurt, bread shaving lotion, 2 boxes of instant coffee & a box of tea, yogurt, oranges.  All for 900,000 VND which is less than US 40.   And the shirt was 1/3 of that.  I can live with these prices. 

It's just supposed to be a short nap, when I lay down at 4 pm.

9 pm.