Home Coming: SGN - UIH - HPY

I'm sure you have heard the tune on the radio.  

But you REALLY should WATCH THIS VIDEO.   

It is topic-related, because Half my heart is in Vinh Hoa, oh na na ... LOL

Plus it provides great background music for reading ;-)

As an early riser, I can witness....

... how Saigon changes colours

6:00
Time for a Banh Mi Cha Lua and two mini bottles of wine.

7:30
Check out and pay for room on 21.

Bus

LOVING this city

Boarding pass

Another Banh Mi, this one from the store in the parkade across from the domestic terminal building.  A MUST on any trip through here ;-)

 I sleep through the whole flight and only wake up once the wheels touch the ground.  2 minutes later the plane is angled right across the runway and NOT moving.  Turns out that we landed on a soaked runway and must have slipped a bit at the end while turning around.  The pilot is afraid that hitting it with the jet engines will cause his front wheel to go in the ditch instead of turning the corner.
So now we are waiting for one of those plane pushers to push us back a bit, in order for the plane to be able to taxi on its own again.  It's a looong runway and those pusher things are slow, so I fall asleep again.

When I get to my hotel, Mr. proud Viet Kong is sleeping on his wooden reception bench in his white underwear.   I check in, walk up to my room, and do the same.  After 2 hours I wake up slightly rejuvenated.  Better not sleep more now or I'll be up all night.

Time to hit the town and its Coopmart ;-)

When I get back the hotel, two freshly arrived Frenchies are being boozed up by Reception Man (all they did was try to check in ;-)

It's too early to get wasted and I still have an errant to run.  

remnants of Typhoon Damrey

Over chocolate ice cream & white wine I negotiate the rental of a scooter for the next 18 days.

Back at hotel, the easily predictable happens.
The owner is joined by yours truly, then by the French, and then by a young Canadian teacher couple.  We finish my bottle of wine, the bottle of Viet Medicinal wine, as well as the bottle of Vodka the Canadians have left.  GREAT FUN ! 

But I'm just slightly worried about what I will feel like tomorrow morning.

At 2 am I am briefly convinced that I broke my foot in the worst possible way.  I slip on the wet tiles and slide with the side of my foot violently against the rectangular metal edge of the door jamb.  OUCH.   

4 am.  I don't know HOW I managed NOT to break that bone (especially given the pain and throbbing shooting through there at the time) but I can WALK normally.   Thank you Guardian Angel !

Half of my heart .....

... is in Havana, oh na na

Time to walk to the beach.  My STUPID Panasonic Lumix camera is giving me issues AGAIN.  WHAT is the point of carrying that expensive thing, if at the relevant moment it gives me Zoom or Focus error messages?  Good thing I went through my boxes at Grandma and I'm traveling with also a Canon Digital Elph and a Sony Alpha ;-)  Time to weed out the crap !

The last shot the Lumix will ever take .....

Some mandarins on the way back, leave the broken Lumix, grab the Canon and try that again ..... and whom do I see?  My 70 year old drinking companion of last night returns on his bicycle from his 6 am morning ocean swim.   I keep humming "half of my heart is in Vinh Hoa, oh na na" and I am confident that THIS is the life I really want ;-)

NOT afraid of colours, LOL

Kung Fu on Mars?

By 8:00 I've been to the Coopmart and loaded up on noodle soup (no street food available at 4 am) wine (always good to have ;-), yogurt and other stuff I won't be able to get in my village.   The bill comes to 496,700 DONG !  Almost half a million !  That actually only converts to US$ 22 and I got 2 bottles of wine, cheese, butter, etc etc etc.

By 9:30 I have my scooter.  They have neither my passport or a photocopy thereof.  They know me, so they let me ride off with the motor without leaving security.   This is the life ;-)

It's raining just a little ....

10:30 I've seen Viets transport refrigerators on their scooters. So why am I having problems putting a simple small roller suitcase and a backpack on there in a way so that they don't go flying?  Need practice ;-(

At least I'm smart enough to leave all my luggage at Barbara's and go the gas station FIRST.  No point strapping all that crap to the bike TWICE.

12:00
I've made it to Life's a Beach.  I navigated the village street that has turned into a small river.  This is not rain.  This is the end-of-the-world FLOOD.  I'm drenched to my undies despite the plastic poncho I'm wearing.  

The waves at the beach here are as high as I've even seen them.  The SCARY type!  Photographing them is a problem though.  The RAIN along the line of sight utterly confuses the auto-focus system.

More people who are happy to see me.  The waitress mentions that she saw me in Quy Nhon yesterday.  I feel AT HOME here .....

But I can't stay here forever. 27 more kilometers must be driven to get to the real HOME.

Flooding does not describe what I am driving through next.  The world truly is coming to an end.  Half the #1 highway is under water for God's sake.  It gets worse when I turn into the local road.  There are creeks flowing across the road.  One is so surprisingly deep, I almost get stuck right in the middle of it. The situation is insane by any normal standards.

  What do I do?  Maniacal laughter in combination with LOUD singing of Half of my heart is in Vinh Hoa, oh na na. But the worst hits me 200 meters from home. For about 50 meters the water on the road is higher than the floor board of my scooter.  We're talking 30 cms here, LOL.  I can feel my larger backpack, which is stored sideways in front of my feet, being pushed back violently.  I'm ramming my way through the remaining wall of water and I'M HOME.

still pouring.  And is that a LAKE covering most of the yard?

family dinner

Here ... we ... go ..... AGAIN ! (YVR - TPE - SGN)

Wednesday.  November 29

I'm hurting.

My legs hurt.  My head hurts.  My energy hovers at negligible levels.

Drinking with Eda was fabulous fun but also was dangerous to one's health.  A bottle of wine each.  And then I walked back the 4 km to my hotel in the freezing cold at 11:30 pm.  And I wasn't feeling any pain. 

But I am feeling that pain now.

Doom & Gloom & Construction noise

By 1 pm I have completed the last shopping trip for Grandma, started the last load of laundry, and am preparing to visit Grandma, to drop off the rental car, and to completely empty my hotel room.  Same Same but different...

It's fucking COLD outside.  While there is snow on the top of the mountains, it's a miserable 7 degrees (feels like 2, the weather forecast kindly adds) in the rain and wind down here.  

That's OK:  T minus 8 hours.

Walking back to the hotel after dropping off the car, I witness again of how Vancouver drivers release that tremendous powerless frustration of being boxed in by rush hour in salvos of angry honking and squealing tires.    As if that really helps matters....

Is that the life we really want?

Hunger strikes at 6 pm and what better way to start this journey with some ruou vang trang in the restaurant around the corner.   I sit right next to the heater and eat some boiling-hot chicken wings.

I set my alarm clock for 8 pm, which should give me ample time to finish packing and catch my 9:35 pm bus.   The alarm clock wakes me, I kill the nasty sound, and the next thing I see is that the time says 9 pm.   FUCK!   RUSH!  RUN!  

I do catch my bus with 7 minutes to spare.
On the skytrain my cell phone informs me that I got more translating work.

China Airlines is code-sharing with Vietnam Airlines.  They accept my visa-approval letter and I get an aisle seat for both flights. 

China Airlines provides the most comfortable plane in which I have flown so far.  Oodles of legroom.  

 The food is only average but this is one of the most relaxed flights ever.

Let's hope Trump behaves himself; I'm too close to Pyongyang !

But I'm still glad when my feet connect to solid Taiwanese ground (HOW MANY Chinas are there?). There are no currency exchange booths and most stores are still closed at 6 am, so I can't buy any food or drink here, but there is a SMOKING LOUNGE. 

civilized !

I'm back in ASIA, where things make sense and the citizens' daily life seems to be less controlled by Big Nanny.

waiting at the gate

6:45 This flight schedule kind of works.  I left Vancouver 13 hours ago at just after midnight and now it is morning in Asia.  Yes, I'm tired but it doesn't feel like I'm in completely the wrong time zone.

A middle aged Viet lady from San Francisco seems to in a chatty mood on the flight to Saigon but I escape too much of that by dozing off through most of the flight.

I take a picture of the stewardesses while they are serving the meal.   Gorgeous faces in strangely gorgeous uniforms.   The stewardess is NOT happy with that and tells me so in an authoritative tone.  Yes, I usually do my utmost to respect people's wishes about being photographed.  

But in this case something tells me that the risk of being photographed is part of the job of a stewardess.

Half an hour to get my visa stamped into my passport, 10 minutes to get through immigration, and another 20 minutes standing at the luggage carousel (I swear to myself to NEVER travel with checked luggage again), and then:

I'm back.   

And I'm quoting Bourdain again, because I can't express it any better:

I'm back.
Back in Vietnam.
Shit-eating grin for the duration.
A giddy silly foolish man, beyond caring.

Actually, there is one better way of putting it:

My soul is at peace here.

I step out of the terminal building into the 29 Celsius heat.

Bus 152 is parked right in front of the door and half a cigarette later I'm the first one sitting in the bus.  Since the bus driver is still having lunch outside, I use that opportunity to shed my long pants and change into shorts.  Try THAT in your local public transit system, LOL.

I get to my hotel at 13:00 hours, collect the hot-water kettle I left here only 10 days ago, and WALK up to the 6th floor with FOUR bags.  

A quick trip into the street gets me a bottle of ruou vang thrang, noodle soups, and cookies.  I have arrived !

It's a small world indeed.  An e-mail informs me that I barely missed M, B & T, who flew out of Saigon this afternoon.

At 19:00 hours, I do feel peckish again.  Since I'm staying just around the corner from THE street food place, I decide to go.....

choices ....

GO and EAT here !

divine mackerel

20:30
I am dead tired at exactly the right time !