Bai Bien Cua Toi (III) ... slaying the Dragon ... chicken dinner .... and perusing floor plans

3:00

TOO MUCH is happening..... this ain't a holiday after all ....  YES, I go swimming, drink & socialize.... but I'm also about to build a house .....  that introduces a certain element of STRESS !

But I can only imagine what it will feel like when Chez Chris is complete .... AWAY from the sometimes negative energy of my present abode ....

5:30

What is he doing ?

oh... is that a net ?

definitely a net 

7:00
I talk to the guy from the next room again. 

Yet another German who now starts whining that semi-racist rant about the topic that Vietnamese should clean their beaches....... 


And yet AGAIN.... 


Mr. Chubby next door LOVES to whine but hasn't bent down yet to pick up a single piece of garbage...... 

AND .... 

here is the punch line .... 

he has a VERY well-paid job in Development Assistance in Cambodia .....   
I feel sorry for the Cambodians!

.... and it gives me a new perspective on development assistance to the 'third world'......

I fly the Dragon kite when T & B are at the beach...... I can't even remember who lets the string bottle slip from their hands .... I sprint after it and a woman coming out of Bobby's actually manages to catch the bottle and I get a hold of the line and the kite....

.... just seconds before it gets entangled in the tree.....

12:00

14:00
WHAT are they doing ?     The contractors are trying to stretch a giant tarp over my terrace..... B's idea to keep the rooms from heating up in the morning..... but now my room has become dark and the space in front of my room invariably reminds me of Bavarian Oktoberfest beer tent ...... WOMAN, you have NO taste.... I even tell her that I will move to a different room the next time I'm here...

Ooops..... M came to my rescue, Tin concurred, and when I come back from my swim, the hideous thing is GONE......Gone so quickly that I don't even have time to take a picture of it ....

15:30
Is it time to FINALLY shave and take a shower?   This has been a day to my lazy liking ;-)

16:30
Meeting Lisa & Quang at Cafe Tina again seems silly, but unfortunately it seems a necessity to ward off certain spirits.  It's the Grilled-Chicken place on the highway again.... the one we went to with the woman from Mun-Chess-Ta.... I'm surprised at how much I eat but I'm even more astonished by how much Lisa puts away ;-)

18:30
No rest yet ... we're off to Quang's place..... he thinks my place is HUGE.... but then Vietnamese houses are usually only 5 meters wide.... and Lisa finally gets to drink the left-over wine .... we chat about the world and in context I quote "We don't pray for love, we just pray for cars"..... and she knows the song and even knows the name of the artist, LOL.

19:45
Back at the house.... Tin is talking to the Austrian woman ... am I jealous?  
... or just lonely?  

21:00

Bai Bien Cua Toi (II):... Heart thaw ... the Hand of God ... and Chez Chris is taking shape

My neck was killing me half the night, so I didn't sleep well.  So 3:00 is a good time to get up and have some coffee....

VN Express has some GORGEOUS pictures of Vietnam ....

...but NO, these are NOT the places you will see by just traveling the Western way to the main tourist hot spots ....

....to see this, you have to leave your physical comfort zone....

.... AND own a camera drone, LOL.

There is an e-mail from Ti/n.....The kid has a heart of gold.  I am at a loss for words and have NO idea how to reply ... As I did read in this extremely well-written and VERY perceptive article ....... "Vietnam will at times bend you, break you and put the pieces back together again, sometimes in the course of a day".  

Can you even imagine how ADDICTIVE that is?


6:00
I'm listening to Dylan's I and I with a view of the watery horizon which is about to give birth to the sun again..... 

and only a little later

Nothing compares to this.... and this brings peace to my soul.

Quite a number of German tourists were taking pictures of the sunrise this morning..... at home they'll be able to show off the AMAZING beach that THEY discovered ...... they're all half my age ...... but NOT a single one of them was loose enough in the hips to pick up the flotsam and jetsam garbage that they walked through .... consume, consume, consume .....that is all they know....  Get a LIFE !

7:00

I wouldn't mind vegging out more, but I have a breakfast appointment at 8:00 and I have to take a shower before then .... so I might as well go swim NOW.

7:50 
Time to get going ....

Lobster cages and their owners

Breakfast at Quang is the usual.... but this time with a translator...... 

and here is one of those AMAZING coincidences again..... 

I mention the book Sungs Laden to Lisa.... a book partly about the fate of Vietnamese foreign workers in the factories of the former East-bloc nations...... 

....she has never heard of the book.... 

BUT it turns out that her mother WAS a foreign Vietnamese worker in Russia and almost suffered the common fate of having her pregnancy forcibly ended by the authorities.... 

Asian workers were wanted.... but Asian babies NOT.

Fortunately for Lisa, her mother went underground ....

So she is going to read the book..... 
























Can this still be called a coincidence? .... or is the Hand of the Universe almost showing itself ?

9:30
it's time to try the old kite string on one of the Phnom Penh kites..... it takes flight beautifully after being kept captive in Grandma's garage for 2 years..... but the SONY camera decides to act up again just at that moment, so there is no picture ;-(

13:00
I've downloaded Sweet Home 3D, a FREE house/interior design software.... and I'm starting to work on the ground plan of Chez Chris !

My palm trees ;-)

14:30

and here is yet ANOTHER of those uniquely Vietnamese moments.... A group of 5 or 6 Vietnamese are at the beach in the finest clothes..... The live in the highlands presumably, because they take selfies and pictures of each other in front of the ocean.   I give them room to take those but then the lead male notices me... I bid him Xin Chao.... he doesn't reply but shortens the distance and pats me 3 times on my left pec......  checking whether it's real man meat or a strangely shaped female breast?  ..... I really have no clue what that was about .... but we part smiling ...

15:30
Time to walk to the future site of Chez Chris

Vang. No la cua toi !

I'm happy with my decision of almost 2 years ago.....

 I've seen worse views in my life ;-)

Then Quang takes us to Cafe Tina

(little does he know that Lisa's partner's name is Tina)....

Over dinner I chat with a newly arrived Austrian woman.... a very funny and warm-hearted person. I wish there were more tourists like her!

20:00

Bai Bien Cua Toi (I)... Disillusionment & Disappointment followed by Ecstacy

2:00

The guests in the room next door are sitting on their terrace and are talking LOUDLY....... GONE is the peace and quiet this place used to offer at night .....

Together with the new info that Lisa's planned beach bar will be situated RIGHT NEXT to Chez Chris has severely dampened my mood.... 
I have to come to terms with the idea that Paradise will no longer be quite the paradise I imagined it would be....

OMFG, the neighbours are still talking loudly and banging doors at 3:00 ...... Some people's kids!  Do I really have to move to the central highlands to get away from disrespectful Westerners?

So much for sleeping more... I might as well stay up, call Grandma at 4:00, and ogle the dawn at 4:45....

Grandma sounds well & happy.... a relief!

5:45

The dark thoughts of night quickly evaporate as soon as the light returns......

... and there is NOTHING better than having the sun illuminate the back wall of your room ;-)

By 6:00 the ecstasy has returned ...... A married couple walks by and I bid "Chau buoi sang" to them...... I can hear the woman comment on that to her husband..... NO, white people do NOT speak tieng Viet, LOL.


6:30
Time to go the market.....I buy cam quyt, trai du/a, banh mi trung.... and I can't help but ask to take this picture.....

.... and after I take the picture, the woman with a big smile lifts another long and skinny piece of pig...... a pig penis?

7:30

9:00
I apologize to Mathias for my grumpy comments last night.  I have brought some of the rash behaviour patterns common in the West back to Vietnam..... toi xin loi !

12:00 - 14:30
A clandestine meeting at Bobby's with Lisa & Quang..... We drink & chat about what to build how and when and where.... OMG, it's starting to look like Chez Chris might become a reality sooner than I thought ...

And I see something ENTIRELY NEW again, as I do almost every day in this mircaculous country..... 

A Lizard Hunter stuffs the last of his catch into his net .... I have to ask Quanq what the little salamanders will be used for .... Western terrariums or dinner plates......and the answer is:  they will be eaten... the man earns 400,000 VND for 1 kg of salamander ....

I re-read the blog post of the time after Grandma fell ......  WOW, I am in a much better place today 

Time for a beach walk....

I talk to my new neighbour, a German man working in Development Assistance in Siem Reap..... interesting .... but he's a tall FAT WHITE GUY.... what does he know about the needs of hungry little brown people?


Pho Bo as dinner.....

.... and I need to get some sleep!