14:00 Time to GET UP !
The clouds have been looking like rain clouds for a while. I'm just about to light a cigarette when it starts. And it REALLY starts. Distant buildings vanish from view and the watery onslaught sounds like high-caliber hail on the tin roofs. The wind is pushing layers of the wet stuff in front of it, something I last saw in Bangkok about a year ago.
15:00
I should go buy smokes. It's still raining, but then it's warm rain.
I get to the lobby and I think I'm talking to Phuong. But she looks different somehow. It's not her, but I manage to pay for my hotel room. When she get's out the reservation for later in the year, she says "OH, you are YOU ! My colleague told me about you !" It's the nick-name thing, so under the circumstances it is imperative that I find out this new receptionist's name: Xuan.
Plans to go anywhere are cancelled immediately when I get DRENCHED on the road. Warm or not, the rain is still WET. But I grab some sua chua, more wine, and peanuts in the store across the alley.
I download the pictures of the last day into my computer and then upload them to Blogger. I actually laugh out loud when I notice the Blitz-Speed, with which the pictures are uploaded. No more waiting for every single picture; it's just DONE. I'm finally back in the digital 1st world, LOL.
I have to ask Phuong where Huyen's hotel is. She asks: "You looking for Huyen? She has boyfriend already!" LOL, Phuong has changed my SIM card 4 times now and has seen the screen picture of George & I. I'm back in Vietnam, LOL. Seeing Huyen again is strangely subdued. But when I see her again half an hour later, she is herself again.
Before heading over to Huyen's hotel, a sun-glass & fridge magnet selling woman calls to me while I put on my shoes. At first i wave her off, but a split-second later remember that I NEED shades for my scooter riding in the coming days. I find a pair I like, but hand shades and mirror back to the seller when she mentions a price of 200,000 VND (US$ 8.60). THAT is a tourist price if I have seen one. I offer her 100,000, even though that is still a VERY good price for her. But what's the point of haggling her down to the extreme limit? In my mind that would be a loose loose situation. And this way we part in a good way, with a lot of smiles and hand-shakes on both sides. Money is NOT everything.
After spending another US$ 10, I have a new SIM card. 2 GB per day for 30 days. And the Viet network coverage doesn't seem to have any holes. GOOD DEAL.
When I walked to my hotel earlier, I walked by Bun Cha 145. And there was a CLOSED side in front of the OPEN door. OH NO. But it is OPEN at 18:00 and the line-up is very short. I'm going to eat Bun Cha again ! Four Koreans arrive just after me and want to leave when they see a 1-person line-up. But I convince them to stay with the argument that I'm here for the FOURTH time.
A job well done.
At first I feel like a walk through the buzz of the city after dinner, but after a few 100 meters, tiredness hits me like a brick.
Time to go home.
Is 19:30 too early to go to bed? My brain says yes, but my body says NO!.
I wake up at 22:00, 23:00, and finally make some coffee at midnight. Bui Vien Street is booming loudly over the roofs with Friday night party tourists. Up here in the dark, on my terrace over the roofs of Saigon, bats circle like mad and I can see from the individual red-flaring dots that I'm not the only one smoking in the night.
More coffee at 2:30. Jet-lag at its finest ;-(
In the news: All those plastic rain-resistant clothes that Vancouverites love to wear and wash: Microplastic goes into the water-treatment plants and a huge portion makes it into the ocean where fish eat it. YUMMY. Also: Vancouver's cost-of-living has risen so high that restaurants can't find servers anymore.
3:10
WHY does my Canadian cell phone NOT allow me to make calls to Canada this time? It roamed just fine 10 weeks ago! There is always something new they come up with to make life difficult.
I try Skype on my laptop. I can hear Grandma but she can't hear me. Oh, for FUCK's SAKE !!!! This all worked fine before I was FORCED to upgrade to Windows 10.
What to do?
Oh, doesn't that Vietnamese SIM card come with some phone minutes? NO, that wouldn't work calling Canada. Or would it???? Even my Canadian cell phone provider would only give me 2.5 minutes for the whole $10, which includes that huge amount of data as well. The $10 is really for the data, and not for phone calls.
Ah well. It doesn't hurt trying it. I get to talk to Grandma for 2 minutes and 49 seconds before Grandma's voice vanishes. Thank you, Vietnamobile ! I must fill up that account so that I can call Grandma in the coming weeks. And SCREW Freedom <sic, more like the opposite> Mobile !!!
Ok, so I won't sleep tonight, LOL.
At 4:20 I still hear shouts and booming music coming over from Bui Vien, but I also hear the first roosters and CHURCH BELLS. Church bells at 4:20? WTF? More likely that it is NOT a church but a wake-up call for a military or fire-fighting building close by.
6:15
7:20
I'm out of wine and almost out of cigarettes !
That's a reason to walk the streets, LOL.
There is Chuong, LOL. Shy and awkward as ever, but such a darling!
Coopmart doesn't have any white wine in regular-sized bottles, I get the last 2 demi-bouteilles ;-(
No fabulous shirts in the clothing section either. This Coopmart branch is going downhill!
Time to talk to Phuong about refilling my phone minute balance. She tells me that the SIM had 20,000 VND account balance for phoning. That got me almost 3 minutes long distance to Canada. "Yes", she says. "International calling is VERY expensive". I have to laugh. Because that is about 33 cents per minute. Freedom Mobile was charging me FOUR DOLLARS per minute, LOL.
Live & Learn!
14:30 bloody Jet-lag, I MUST get up now ....
Oh, good, they still have some white wine at my hole-in-wall-store across the alley. It's 'only' Dalat, but it's wine. Song now has a nick-name for me. Mr. Nick-Name. Could be worse, LOL, but I'm not sure about my feelings about Huyen blubbing about me .....
17:15
OMG, how much can one person sleep? But I'm feeling better after each nap. I can feel my body and mind reclaiming their shape of 8 weeks ago. A different kind of food, those stairs back up to the 5th floor every time I go out, the physical and mental distance and separation from the worries in my life, all these are doing their job.
On my way out to eat, I run into Huyen AGAIN. Now I have to try her 'cake' infused with the wine I brought her earlier? More food. But first some BBQ mackerel ;-)
I'm FULL, but I still have to see Huyen for her banana cake ....
Actually it's Banana Something, not baked together, but warm pieces of soft bread mixed with mushy warm bananas. It's still good though, LOL.
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