The dawn drives it home...... I have to leave here today... and not just from here, but in 3 days I will have to leave this country.
And I already know how much I will miss the smiles of the people who have become friends..... somehow I can't get those kind of smiles from people in the West....it's the combination with those utterly unrestrained open laughs ... Muoi, Tam, Ti/n, Chau, Quang, Phap, god, I will miss that SO MUCH .... strange how that thought brings tears to my eyes even though I will be back here again in 15 days, LOL..... but then they say "Home is where the heart is".
I talk to Quang (entirely without Google Translate!) and he tells me Lisa is coming to stay at his house in March (B is NOT pleased), LOL.
When I come back to my room there is this on my desk:
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| Yes, you were nice meeting me! Cam on NHIEU, Ti/n! |
It's people like THIS that make it SO VERY HARD for me to go back to the place I used to call home.....
Time to shower and drive to Song Cau. I told Chau that I would be at the hospital at 10:00. When I get there at 9:58, he is already waiting in the parking lot..... (Good thing I wasn't late!) and shows me through the surprisingly large hospital to Muoi's room. The maternity ward: 10 women with babies and relatives in a smallish room on cheap metal beds. Muoi will be happy to get back home but for now she is happy to see me...
Pack, drink a beer in reception and saying good-bye gets even worse. The guitar players wife wants to say good bye in person too and ends her words with a God bless you. And she is the type of person for whom this is not just an empty phrase.
I try to be Vietnamese polite by starting to give Ti/n the double-handed good-bye, when he grabs me for a bear hug. Oh, NO, not another one....
On the road... toi muon khoc! I can't get over the BEAUTY of this country and the feeling of well-being riding through it on a scooter.
Life's a beach. OMG, Ta\o and Wy also understand my Vietnamese now....
I finish the last bits of my translation after arriving in my Quy Nhon hotel..... FINALLY!
Hotel-Man Dung invites me for dinner again. The constant egg-walk. Don't want to be rude, don't want to be a glutton. At least this time it's a simple dinner, Canh ga. But those peanuts are easily the BEST peanuts I have eaten in my life ;-)
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| Yes, he is pouring homemade ruou nep (I saw the rice rotting on the table with my own eyes) |
I pass out by 20:00 after sending off the completed translation with a few juicy comments. Probably not something I should do in a traditional business sense, but .... When I turn 46, I say no more nonsense!
Yes, 4:00 is too early, but I get my Vietnamese lesson done early....
toi muon dung ton tai va bat dau song ( I want to stop existing and start living)
And going back to Canada is the wrong move for that objective !
8:00
I needed that extra nap apparently, because NOW I am dancing in my room again ;-)
1.5 hours until taxi time .... must hurry ... the fact that I will be back here in 15 days keeps my mood ecstatic ;-)
There are some Canadians from Qualicom Beach at reception. They end up having their smart phones with Google Translate out, but I actually can manage the English-Vietnamese translation between them and Dong. How friggin freaky is THAT? LOL.
The taxi arrives 15 minutes late (this is Vietnam) and the driver at first demands 300k from Dong (a regular taxi is > 500k) but Dong insists that the price will be 250k..... the driver drives well but the increasing number of cars in Vietnam has started to slow car traffic down..... I get to the check-in counter, which reads Check In Closes 40 mins before Departure, a mere 55 minutes before scheduled departure..... but then when I'm sitting with a Heineken in the departure lounge at 11:05 there is another announcement "check in will close shortly"
11:15
still no sign of any boarding procedure..... but 6 weeks here seem to have taught me something.... it doesn't really matter, LOL, they have beer here!
The plane takes off 30 minutes behind schedule and after I fall asleep instantly.
In the bus from the plane to the terminal I see THIS:
Pride in Red Blood and Yellow Skin? The message does not let me rest and I have to find the distributor online and I get the whole message :
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| toi thich ! |
As soon as I leave the HCMC airport, I feel like I'm back in Vancouver. I smell car exhaust... but then Saigon has at least 9 Million people living here ...
The 152 bus is almost empty (I hope it won't go the way of the Greyhound!)
Trang, the new receptionist has to learn to LISTEN to people..... but she thinks she knows everything and charges my room to my credit card.
Huyen still thinks that if she holds my stuff hostage I will stay longer to talk to her...... At least I get my order for the puppet tickets in ...
And we chat. She tells me that there are problems with most Western guests that stay in the hotel. Biggest problem as she puts it: They have a cold heart. I have to giggle. If I had said that, she wouldn't have believed me.... but she is SO RIGHT.... and THAT is the reason why I am in Vietnam. Cold Heart Syndrome is still a fairly uncommon condition here.
A last visit to Huyen. Her friend is there.... the woman who organizes tickets to the Golden Dragon Waterpuppet Theatre.
One last run of the day to Coopmart.
Nivea, more wine, corkscrew (@ 1$ a piece, you can never have too many ;-), Slide chips (OMG, I am getting addicted to them).
20:00
it was a long day.... but at 20:30 I'm walking downstairs to look up Huyen at GS1 but she is in my lobby....... long story, short summary.... first she drinks her yogurt with wine (after always telling me that she does NOT drink), then she drinks her wine with some yogurt remnant and we finally TALK for a long time ..... Chuong arrives at 21:00... I am delighted to see him and I'm in awe at his fashion conversion..... how the hell does he remember that I wear Converse shoes?..... his SOCKS are SO amazing, LOL.... but I can feel and hear from his comments how the evil of the world is gnawing at his insides... I tell him to never loose that smile from his inside... but he doesn't know how to preserve it if the outside is killing it.... and it breaks my heart seeing another God child being wrecked by the world without me being able to do anything about it.
23:00?
WTF? I bid Chuc Ngu Ngon to Huyen & Chuong and CRAWL up the many stairs to my bed....
5:00
Yes, I wake up with a tiny bit of a what must be a hang-over, LOL.
I keep dozing and drifting in and out of sleep until the rising sun hits me right in the face.
It makes you JUMP out of bed in expectation of something BEAUTIFUL!
And there it is, blazing brightly over the roofs of Sai Gon ;-)
8:00
I'm finally catching up with some blog writing. And re-reading while finishing some posts and also thinking about the people here makes me realize how friggin happy I am in Vietnam.
8:30
So happy to have found this place.... and thankful to Vietnam for providing it. The 'penthouse suite' (not really but that sounds good) on the 5th floor for a pittance One doesn't hear cars or other people..... and it provides a space for peace & reflection.
9:11
OK, so I am DRUNK in the morning.... but given the fate that awaits me the day after tomorrow.... I think that counts as an excuse .....
9:30
I'm having a cigarette on the terrace in my underwear..... 29 degrees Celsius .... Paradise...... maybe I shouldn't bite into that apple ....
... and I finally fully understand what that Italian I met in Cambodia who works in Germany meant when he said "Vietnam is like therapy".
YES, that hits the spot:
The reason for my DESPERATE URGE to come back here again & again is my NEED to HEAL in body & mind! Cam on nhieu, Viet Nam !!!
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| The old man and the mirror |
And YES, I am aware that if I tell anyone in the Western world that this place has the power to heal my soul, I will get a lot of strange looks.
But that is YOUR problem, not mine, LOL.....
12:00
Time to visit Huyen and what have we here? A SUPER-CUTE puppy
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| Huyen & con cho |
I walk over to my Bun Cha place and find the owner is running through his restaurant with a broom while half the female guests have pulled up their feet: Con chuot LON (a BIG mouse; ok ... let's just all it what it is, a big RAT) was running through the restaurant and is now stuck on the inside of the all-glass entrance wall.
So what? This is Viet Nam!
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| NO rat in my bowl ! |
I bring a bowl of Bun Cha back for Huyen (she is voluminous enough, but then if I had to work 10 hours at a reception desk, I'd be a blimp!) and I start talking to some Western guest.
Where are you from?
Canada.
WHERE in Canada?
Peace country.
Oh. My grandparents had a farm in Dawson Creek.
THAT is where I am from! Where in Dawson creek?
Sweetwater.....
And then I hear place names I have not heard in 20 years. Killkerran, 17th Street. Rolla, Taylor. What a friggin SMALL WORLD ....
16:00
WOW....
Another visit to Huyen.... now that she understands that I will come back to talk to her anyway, she no longer tries to keep things of mine hostage to keep me there...
Coopmart.... 3 bottles of wine, 1 for the newly created drinker Huyen ;-), 2 for me..... and an almost full moon accompanies my way back to the hotel.
Bun Cha 145.... no rat this time, just FABULOUS food again....
Visiting Huyen again, I find that she is just going out to get food, but she is telling me to drink wine with yet another cute & adorable, most likely be de, less than 30 year old receptionist, with naturally an adorable smile. I am Alice in Wonderland, LOL.
20:30
Time to be a social animal in the lobby (Canadians, Huyen, Hollow-feeling sweet Chuong; how can I help that kid ? ...) and at 22:30 I find myself sitting on small chairs drinking with the Viets and some German-speaking Lithuanian outside on the street. I love life in this country ;-)
5:45
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| Der Himmel über Sai Gon .... there be angels |
Another emotional morning, brought on by my imminent departure to somewhere I do not want to be. WHY would I EVER leave a place where I have FINALLY found the person that I always knew was deep inside me ???
But there is a smile behind the misery..... I will be back here in 10 days, in two months, and always...... That's a good plan for the future if I ever heard of one!
8:00
time for a booze-refill mission to the store across the alley....
Even the new receptionist kind of understands me when I say "Toi se di ba gio, tot, khong?"
9:00
I've paid half-day to stay in my room until 15:00.... Chuong is still there and they all have to laugh when I manage to say "Chuong, Cam on nhieu. Ban da noi voi co ay, toi thich phong cua toi!". The new receptionist had wanted to 'upgrade' me to the family room but Chuong had insisted that The German would want 'His Room'. And he was right ;-)
11:00
In 4 hours, I will have to GO ;-(
12:30
A short visit to Huyen and my FOURTH visit to eat Bun Cha in 3 days; I'll have to live without that stuff for 10 days, so I might as well eat all I can now ;-)
13:40
SHIT, I have to get ready ..... can somebody PLEASE remind me WHY I am leaving my place of happiness ?
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| the note in the bag with my stuff I always leave in the hotel: The stuff of Christ.... but who am I to argue? |
14:00
THE HORROR: it is finally sinking in.... harshly .... I am going to the airport .....
a last shower.... I pack my kettle, my shorts, my sandals, my cork-screw into a bag to leave it at the reception desk ...what would be the point of taking shorts & sandals to Vancouver? LOL.
14:50
it's time.... I am putting on socks & shoes, LOL.... what a ridiculous thing to do !
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| a last look.... |
At the check-in counter, I get an emergency seat for the first short flight and an aisle seat for the 2nd, long flight. All is good. There is almost ZERO line-up at the immigration desk & at security, which is nice for a change.... a good day to travel.
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| guess which seat I have ;-) |
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| funnel retracting |
The plane takes off half an hour late ....
Despite the late start, we make it to Taipei with plenty of time to have 3 cigarettes in the smoking lounge. When I finish the long march to the gate, I realize that I could have had 3 more cigarettes, because the boarding time has been pushed back by 20 minutes.
With 160 km/h tailwind, the second flight is only 10 hours long ;-)
On the flight, occupied predominantly by Asians, I have a strange feeling that these Asians bound for Vancouver are not the smiling Asians I have gotten used to for 6 weeks....
back at the airport. A HUGE line-up with cattle gates to get to the 5 or 6 immigration officers that are placed behind the automated machine-assisted immigration procedure, hoping to catch the odd criminal with their lame loaded questions.
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| notice the lack of SMILES ? |
As if standing in line for 20 minutes in that meandering line fenced in by cattle gate wasn't bad enough....there are female airport employees posted along the human line, shouting every 2 minutes "Keep Moving! Keep the line going!"
What a nasty and pointless way to make corralled people feel even worse.
I briefly consider taking a taxi from the airport but then realize that I can take the Skytrain and donate a portion of the savings to a good cause.
Of course, I instantly regret that decision when I get to the station and see an EMPTY train pull away with the words NOT IN SERVICE displayed.
20:45
I need a taste of Vietnam, not just food but I also already miss the language. So I fight my way through the DARK COLD to my Vietnamese restaurant.....
But while in Viet Nam, EVERYONE would talk to a white person mumbling a few phrases in Vietnamese..... here people stay non-committal. I've been coming to this restaurant for 7 years now, but the Vietnamese staff have become Canadians....except maybe that new waiter.....
Back at my hotel I try to upload some pictures and a video and at first I think my computer is broken or might have a virus. Then I realize that it's just that I'm back in the country of SLOW internet speeds ;-(
And I MISS sitting & chatting & laughing with people ... there is no life in the streets of this city.
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