Stranded in Saigon. Still.

When you lose your passports just before Tet in Vietnam, you're in for a long wait.

I've been trying to see my detention in Saigon as a wonderful experience.  Get to immerse myself more in the culture. Was so excited to be returning to Vietnam and hanging about for a couple of nights in steamy Saigon bars drinking cheap wine and watching the traffic chaos.  That part of it hasn't been bad either. We've knocked back a few bevies between us, Al and I. Self-medication for sure. But we've been here twelve days now.

It takes two days to get your emergency passport.  Once Tet is over.  You go to the 20th floor of the new Vincom Centre in District 1, pass through a friendly security check and then you're in quiet, pristine air-conditioned surrounds.  A beautiful, personable Vietnamese woman with impeccable English, sits behind glass and listens sympathetically as you relay your story.  You shed a few tears of relief that you're there making progress; finally organising your precious passports.

The middle-aged Aussie woman ahead of you has a worse story to tell.  She was attacked by two men on a motorbike, who nearly ran her over, then fought with her to get at her bag. She had it under a jacket and across her shoulders.  They won.  She was on the way to the airport; just stepped out of her hotel.  Her travelling companions gave her some money to tide her over, then caught their own flight home, leaving her alone to sort it all out.  During Tet.  She hadn't left her hotel room except to taxi to the consulate.

You fill in a new passport application and write a statement explaining how you came to lose your documents.  BTW, make sure you pack a few spare passport photos.  We had.  We thought we might need them to get visas to visit Cambodia.  As if.  But they came in handy.

It's Friday, so you have to wait through another weekend.  You finally return to the Consulate and collect your passports the following Monday.  Huge, inexpressible relief.

But wait, there's more.

You have to take a letter, and your passports, across town - two dollar taxi ride - to the Vietnam Immigration centre.  It's a pushing, shouting, crowded run down official building.  Total confusion for us idiots abroad.  We take a place at the back of a shuffling mass of people.  Couldn't call it a queue.  It's edging forward and we don't even know if we're in the right place.  I hold our spot while Al does a recce.  So relieved when he signals me over.  He's found the right counter to line up at.

Remember, keep smiling.  Speak slowly.  Don't shout.  Don't lose temper.  It get you nowhere.  (Learned that lesson when me, Al and sister, Reggie, got thrown off a Vietnam cycling tour a few years ago.)

We're interviewed by a cross, uniformed officer.  He inspects our documents, reads our police statement, shakes his head.  "You. Photocopy.  All this.  You go.  Over there."  He waves us off and we get into another touchy push of people.  Another grump snatches our documents.  Photocopies them.

Back to the other guy.  "You come back yesterday,' he says.  "Counter 6.  Three hours."

"Tomorrow?"

He laughs at his mistake.  "Yes.  Tomorrow."

It's 12.45 pm here.  Killing time on this blog waiting for 3 pm pickup.  Can't relax until those passports with visas are in our hot little hands.

Stranded in Saigon. Day 9.

Been spending lots of today, Day 9 in Saigon, Day 15 in our stranded-without-passports adventure, trying to think of reasons to be grateful that I'm in this situation. Hmm. They're not flying thick and fast.

Met a couple of English tourists on Friday, the day we finally organised and paid for our passports, which should be available tomorrow, or the day after - ie.: before our rescheduled flight on Wednesday.  That was good.  This couple was our age; they'd arrived in Saigon from England, via Hong Kong. We met them at a crossroad bar when we were feeling buoyant, and not a little drunk. We shared travel stories, as you do, and decided to have dinner together.  Lovely.  Contact with people who speak idiomatic English, albeit with a London slant. No matter.

At the end of the first evening, decided to meet up and swap stories the following evening, which we did.  That meant they'd had two entire days walking around District 1, I suppose.  They'd been to a couple of tourist meccas and done the done things.  They'll be in Nha Trang now.  They decided that after two days in Saigon, they'd pretty much had it and needed to move on.  Really enjoyed their company. Even took photos of them and swapped email addresses.  But sorry, new BFFs.  If it's a choice between meeting you, and blinking ourselves back to January 14 and not losing our passports, I'll take the passports.

As I was saying, for us, this is Day 9 of Stranded in Saigon.

I know my way around now.  After breakfast, we do this amble down through a park, down the seafood aisle in Ben Thanh markets, down a few streets around there towards the Saigon River - wide, muddy, fast flowing wash with vegetation scudding along. Water lilies? Not real sure.  We walk up through the manicured garden displays in some CBD area. Stare up at the buildings, swig from our water bottle and walk on, holding onto each others fingers, like elephants, trunk and tailing it.  No public displays of affection, please, in Vietnam.  Won't get started on what apparently is allowed cos I don't want anyone reading my anonymous blog, tracking me down and making me stay here any longer.

The food is definitely good and cheap.  Try Vietnamese Kitchen.  Couldn't tell you where it is, but it's good. They don't rush you from course to course, and by god that Johnny Walker hit the spot after today's shit walk.

Back in our air-conditioned hotel room now, showering off the shit walk grime and I inadvertently found something that I think the Vietnamese - and the Europeans - do really well.  Much better than Australians, who should adopt this practice.  English guy last night told me it wouldn't be too hard to plumb in, and I'm thinking of investigating the possibilities when I'm safely home in Aussie.

It's a very useful gadget; easily operated.  Serves a variety of functions - foot washing; shoe washing, and that little frisson of delight, bum washing.  I'm talking about that hose, hanging by the toilet cistern.  Extremely useful, especially when one's paper may not be flushed tidily down the toilet.

Still would have rather not lost the passports though.

Just sayin'.  Cheers from Fraudster. (More sanguine than even she realised; second detached retina seems to be hanging in there.  Year 10 English, last period Friday Feb 3 is looking awesome.)

Fine dining in Saigon.

Thought we'd try out a more 'upmarket' looking Saigon restaurant; a place with several smiling, solicitous uniformed wait staff in red monogrammed shirts and black pants. A bigger place, with polished wooden tables and chairs, it looked reasonably appealing after our morning 'shit walk'.

(Today's 'shit walk' featured a middle aged man on a motor bike, riding through the park. Yelling something unintelligible, while riding his motor bike, he corralled a younger man who'd irritated him in some unknown way, and beat him with a piece of bamboo.)

But back to New Pearl restaurant.  We ordered our 'Lip-ton tea, fresh milk', and snack of choice, deep fried bean curd and Hong Kong spring rolls.  The tea came quickly.

A considerable time later, so long that we were going to cancel the order, out came some squishy fish-fingery looking things and a plate of dog biscuits.  Except the dog biscuits were harder than dog biscuits.  I know, having tried a doggy treat back in my childhood. (Al was surprised at this. I thought everyone had eaten at least one dog biscuit.)

Al tried to bite into a dog biscuit. He barely made an indent, just a few little teeth marks, which we surveyed with amusement.  He then tackled it with a knife, slicing motion and full bicep press. No luck.

Decided to return  the dog biscuits posing as deep fried bean curd.  A waiter removed the dish. Half a minute later, his male supervisor and an authoritative woman in very tight aqua jeans and black high heels returned with our dog biscuits and told us to eat them.

We can't, we said.  Too hard.

Bemused they looked at each other, at the dog biscuits, at us and seemed reluctant to accept our verdict.

So Al picked up his knife and demonstrated that indeed the little brown squares were impenetrable.  But they still wouldn't have it and pushed the plate towards us.

Look, we don't want them; too hard.  I demonstrated the consistency of the biscuits by rapping several times on the wooden table.  Seeing Madam Aqua Pants' still incredulous look, I leaned forward and mimed taking a bite out of the corner of the table.  Also picked up a chopstick and demonstrated that I couldn't bite into that either.

Finally, the plate was removed.  But when we tried to get our bill, the waiter indicated that we must stay and eat some more dog biscuits that would be ready in five minutes.

No, we don't want them, just the bill, said Al, miming the bill using the universal signal of scribbling with an imaginary pen on the palm of his hand.

You must eat them. Five minutes.

No, just the bill.

The only way we were getting out of there was by paying for them.  Not much, of course.  It's Saigon. But enough for a waiter, or chef perhaps, to 'lose face' and maybe his job.

Stranded in Saigon

Went out for a 'shit walk' in Saigon this morning, for about two hours. There's nothing wrong with my bowels, it's just the environs of Saigon are less that appealing at the moment. Dirt, stench, broken pavements, constant traffic noise. Beep beep and more beep.  I've learned to cross the roads like a native. Basically, don't look, just walk steadily across. If you look, you might panic and try to dodge. Not a good idea. Motorcycles, cars, buses tend to avoid the pedestrian. I say that yet sister, Reggie, got a nasty bump from a motorcycle when she was walking along the pavement a couple of years back.

Saigon is actually a fascinating place, as is the rest of Vietnam. That's why we're back for a fourth visit.  I'd highly recommend it, and could just about suggest a great travel itinerary for anyone who's interested.  The food is brilliant, and cheap.

This trip, however, has wiped any smug travel smart-arsed-ness right off my dial.  Have already said how bleak you feel when you've done something really dumb that was avoidable.  Well, it's gotten worse. 

I'm focusing,  in my mind's eye now, on a man on a skateboard this morning.  He was resting his pelvis, where his legs used to be, on the board.  He was propelling himself with a short piece of dowel with a handle on it.

Who am I to complain?  Always someone worse off.  And we're not in a tsunami or anything.

But we're dealing with our own little bit of shit due firstly, to 'our' carelessness - not mine; Al's. (Just sayin'.)  Secondly due to Tet.

After we'd reported the loss of our passports to the police in Hoi An, and obtained the required 'letter' we rang the Australian Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City.  An English speaking woman there told me to get to HCMC ASAP because it takes 48 hours to get an emergency passport and exit visas.  We are due to fly out of Saigon on January 27.

We visited Sinh Tourist - best travel agents BTW, with offices in the major tourist places - and were told that we couldn't fly south, nor could we catch the train, due to having no passports.  We had to brave another 'sleeping bus'. (Only try that if you're young, flexy, thin and have a bladder that can endure. It's lots cheaper than flying though.)  We also found that the buses were pretty fully booked, due to Tet travel, so we had to wait for three days for seats.

Another 20 hours on buses. Awful.

We arrived in Saigon on Friday at six. Of course the Australian Embassy would be closed for the weekend. Stymied again, we tried to make the best of it; find our 'happy place' which usually involves a walk, a look-see round a local market with squirming live things in shallow bowls and copious amounts of alcohol. (It has a calming effect.)

What we weren't expecting was that the Australian Embassy would close for the entire duration of Tet.  It's possible that it may open tomorrow, but chances are it won't open until January 27, our departure date.

And what I personally wasn't expecting, was that the retina in my left eye, like its counterpart on the other side, 12 months ago, would partially detach from my eyeball this morning.  Didn't see that one coming.  At least I know what's happened and that I'm not having a stroke or a diabetic retinopathy bleed.  Didn't know that when it happened last time. Quite hair-raising in the list of scary stuff that can happen to you if you're getting on in years and you happen to be short-sighted.

Have to say that my resilience is amazing me. And there is a certain symmetry in matching scrawls on my eyeballs.

Fingers crossed that our luck will change and the Australian Embassy will be open tomorrow.  

Down and out, nearly, in Vietnam

Ever wondered what it's like to lose your credit cards, cash and passports in a third world country?  Al and I are in the process of finding out.

Also finding out about sleeping on cramped buses overnight, then swapping to another cramped dirty sleeping bus for the second part of the journey from Ninh Binh in north Vietnam, via Hue to Danang and Hoi An.  Big ride that one.  Potholes. two lanes.  Suicidal traffic.  Top speed maybe 70 k, occasionally, but mostly about 50.  All up, about 20 hours.  Because foolish me wanted to do the overland trip, rather than flying and seeing nothing.  Didn't the fact that we were the only old people on board tell me anything?

Picked up sleeping bus in Hanoi originally.  Thought it seemed all right.  Was only a 2 and a half hour journey.  Bus was near empty.  We can do this, we thought.  Not bad at all.

But Ninh Binh onwards was quite different.  Caught the bus an hour after it was scheduled to leave.  Told through hand gestures that after removing and plastic bagging our shoes we needed to squeeze down the back.  Hard enough in itself.  Two sleepers were left.  In a dark, barely ventilated, coffin-like pod.  Immediately started hyperventilating of course.  Sat hunched over for a while - no head room.  Eventually battled claustrophobia and settled. Slept, sort of, through a bumpy dream beleaguered few hours of the night.  Not so poor Al.  He's tall and didn't fit.

Ordered off bus at Hue.  'You take taxi.  Meet at office.  1.30.'  Can't describe - nor want to - the tone.  Let's call it imperative.

Which office?  Where? 

Some local touts put us in their dodgy van and 4 k and 'three dollar US' we were there.

Quick lunch, then onto a different older bus for the Hue to Hoi An leg.  More spacious, but grotty, with a suspicious little stain where a previous bumhole had been on my lift -off mattress.

Who cared?  Al was totally bloodshot, but I'd snatched a few naps along the way.

Finally arrived in Hoi An, a place with which we're quite familiar, having sojourned here on three previous visits.

Maybe that caused us to relax a little.  Or perhaps it was relief to get off the bus after 20 hours.  But that was when Al left his money belt on the bus.

Upon discovery, he left me forlorn on a darkening corner and ran back to the drop off point.  We'd already seen the bus leave but the driver was contacted within 20 minutes of us leaving the bus.  He hadn't picked up any more passengers, and 'he knew nothing'.  And that's the line at Camel Travel, the bus company.  What can they do?  We're the idiots abroad.

Sunday today, so police and Australian consulate are having a slow day.  We have a bit of cash, given my secret emergency stash.  Who knew I'd need it?

The worst thing:  that feeling of despair, sick in the tummy, when you're a grown up - old now - and you've done something really dumb.  All the rest is a first world problem which I hope will be fairly easily resolved tomorrow.  Spoils the beautiful Hoi An day though.

Christmas Cheer.

For some unknown reason, we had our Xmas breakup at the local lawn bowling club - the last bastion of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant and/or Catholic at leisure, maybe. No idea what to expect, apart from the stereotype of the elderly Aussie lawn bowlers' hangout.

Signed in - Fraudster, C/- The Windsor, Melbourne.  My nostrils were assailed by something foisty, faintly mothbally, and something else; essence of je ne sais quoi.

'Don't like the smell.' Fraudster curls lip, sneers a bit.  'Smells of old.' I'm sitting there at noon on Thursday before Christmas, kitted up to out-do a Christmas tree.
'Quite like it,' says Work Husband, guarding his pot of beer.  'Reminds me of my great-grandfather's house.'

The rest of the staff arrive.

'Don't forget to sign in.'

We sit in a bar around capacious ten-seater Formica topped round tables.  As people make their way across the enormous wooden dance floor, some of them trying out a few tap steps along the way, their faces, too, take on that look of searching for the source of the odour.

The brick bowling club dates from late 'fifties or early 'sixties.

'Perhaps someone could pop back to school to get some music,' a teacher suggests, given the echoey bleakness of this old people's place, bedecked with pennants from bowling comps past.  But that wasn't to be.

'We're here for a spit roast.  You can bowl later if you want to.'  That's our officious, put upon staff association leader, who'd organised the venue and catering..  (A coup was mooted by some of the young things last year, but ultimately no one either cared that much come the new year.  Or dared.)

I sipped my 100 ml of Chateau Cardboard wine and tried, unsuccessfully, to savour the ambience, like waiting for a game of bingo to commence.

We lined up like refugees for our 'meals'.  It was the usual spit roast fare, or what was left of it by the time I got up there, not being one to enjoy queuing for fifteen minutes in a pair of, for me, moderately high heels.  It was nutritious, I suppose.  The beef end was quite tender.  I don't eat much.

Then the floor show:

An aussie gent, sixty-something, Ted, in washed out striped polo shirt and shorts, unceremoniously held up a used Bandaid - sticking plaster.  'If any lady's lost the Bandaid off of her nipple, I've got it here.'  Embarrassed laughter ensued briefly.  Is that what the old 'ladies' do to prevent high-beams penetrating their bowling shirts?

Unabashed by lack of appreciation for his jest, Ted held up the wire stopper from a bottle of champagne.

'How long's this wire?' he shouted.

'What do you mean?' called one of my colleagues.

Ted frowned, a bit put out.  He spelled it out for the idiot.

'If you unravel this wire, how long is it?' Jeez, dumb teachers or what?

'Why?' called another temeritous soul.

Finally he explained that it wasn't a trick question, but a competition.  Ah!  The correct guess would win a bottle of wine.  Next question:

'How many hankies high is a horse?'  Huh?

'Men's or ladies'?' called a female teacher, getting into the spirit of it.  He reached behind the bar and produced an ironed, folded men's handkerchief.  Ostentatiously, he shook it out, grabbed it by two diagonally opposed corners and held it up for his captive audience.  Can't remember the answer.  I'd downed three 'cardies' by that stage.

I approached the bar.  Ted was the barman now, floorshow being over.

'Diet coke, please?'

'You don't look like you need a diet coke,' He narrowed his eyes; leered at me. Perhaps I only imagined him licking his already wet lips.  Wink.

'Ahahah!'  Hilarious. 'Thanks, but I'd like one anyway.'

'But you don't need it!'  He cast a raunchy eye over me, grinning lasciviously.

'Oh!  Ha ha ha, too kind.'  I tittered  'Can I have a diet coke, please?'

'You don't need one, love.'  Same deal.

'Look, I actually have diabetes.  Can I please have a diet coke?'

At that he changed tack; beckoned me along the bar, away from the others waiting for drinks.

Here we go, I thought.  Wants to share his own diabetic trials, or those of his dead grandmother.  Go with it.

Rictus smile on my face, I indulged him.  He waved me closer, the better to hear his confidence.  Okay.

With one elbow on the bar, grinning, catching me in an eye-lock, he recited some doggerel.  For about two and a half minutes.  A long time for me to smile and occasionally shrug politely, to feign interest.  Wasn't really focused, given 300 ml of chardy, that early in the day.  But the protagonist of the poem, a dog, was 'piddling' here, there and everywhere.  Meanwhile, a heavily made up, coiffed bowling club lady, ceased polishing the bar, to lend a delighted ear.

The rhyming punchline of his recitation, which he'd waited perhaps forty-five years to deliver?  'That dog's got diabetes!'

Unbe-fucking-lievable.

'Can I have my diet coke now?'

'No, you can't.  We've only got Pepsi Max,' he said, grinning like an imbecile, pleased as punch.

Merry Christmas.

That piece of doggerel?  The piddlin' pup.

Being at the mercy of tradies.

I ‘hooked up’ – to use modern parlance – with my husband, Al, because he was tall, good looking, well built and athletic.  Chemistry.  He also cooked breakfast when I had sleepovers.  He was, and remains, kind and considerate.

When we moved into our rental house, we didn’t have to do home maintenance.  Al did paint the bathroom once.  It looked all right.  Who cared?  We were renting.  He also installed a bamboo blind in our front room.  He got it backwards so the draw string was on the inside, against the window.  No matter.  He removed the blind and got it round the right way.

Al cooks.  Every night.  The best spaghetti marinara ever on Saturday nights.  He continues to give good breakfast in bed too. He's been a great dad to our two kids.  He can do complex mathematical calculations in his head in an instant.  He's a fair gardener.  He can do heaps of stuff.

But he can’t do ‘home maintenance’.  And neither can I.

As home-owners, therefore, we’re at the mercy of trades-people. 

After 25 years I decided it was time to replace a grotty jerry-built hall cupboard.  Do you know how hard it is to get a tradie to even return a call?

After hours searching the net and making phone calls, leaving messages that didn’t get responses, finally got through to a carpenter who seemed interested in taking on the job.  He asked me to phone through some photos, which I did.  He sent back some rudimentary drawings then quoted close to $10,000 to build a largely chip-board, melamine lined two door cupboard.  WTF?  An entire bathroom renovation not that long ago cost that much.

Perhaps he didn’t want the job so over-quoted it.

The only other person who returned my call - a ‘handy man’ -  was Costa.

Costa said he’d ‘make a few calls’ to his friend the cabinet maker and see what he could do.  Having done that, he quoted less than half the price of the other tradie.  With only two options, I ‘commissioned’ him to do the job.

Here was the rub.  He wanted, up front, $3,500 – most of the cost - before he’d take on the work. 

‘Youse’ve got to see it from my point of view.  If youse back out, I’ll be stuck with a cupboard I can’t do anything with.’ I suppose that was a fair call.  He seemed polite.  Didn’t let the black strands combed over his bald pate put me off.  Bells were ringing, but I gave him a cheque anyway.

‘Youse’ll have your cupboard finished in five weeks, once the cheque clears,’ he said, writing a receipt in one of those receipt books you can buy in the stationery section of Big W.

That was on October 14.  On December 8, we were still waiting for him to start the job.

‘What youse’ve got to understand,’ he said when I called, ‘is that everybody wants the job done before Christmas.’

‘But when I gave you a cheque on October 14, you said it would take five weeks.  See it from my point of view.  I’ve paid you $3,500 up front, and you haven’t started the job yet.’

‘I’ve been a business man in this area for twenty years.'   Costa was arcing up. 'Do you think I’m gonna run off with your money? $3,500 is nothing, anyway.’  

‘It’s a lot of money to us.’  He couldn’t really argue with that.  Moved me up his priority list.

The other source of anxiety?  What if he was crap?  I’d handed over heaps of money without having any idea whether he was up for the job.

Costa almost finished the job yesterday, December 15.  He proved to be polite, and did a clean job, but he kept weird hours.  He only did half days.

‘Are you doing another job?’  I demanded.  Well, I was interested in knowing how it worked. ‘Or do you have to look after your mother?’ He’d told me when I’d interrogated him at the first meeting that he was thirty-eight, single and lived with his mother.  Amazing what a nosy person can discover.

‘Mornings just don’t work for me,’ he said a bit too loudly.

So Al and I took two consecutive days off work to let him in.  It’s taken three half days and a couple of unscheduled after hours visits to do a job that could have been completed, as far as I could tell, in a day and a half.. 

The door knobs aren’t quite aligned, but overall, he’s done a good job. I trust the $400 I’m still to pay him will be enough incentive for him to return in the new year and ‘finish the seams.’

Meanwhile, I needed an electrician to replace the thermostat displaced by the demolition of the old cupboard.  Booked the electrician; took yet another day off work.  The bastard didn’t front.  No call; nothing.

At that stage I was prepared to live without heating until autumn – it’s summer after all.  But I made one last internet search and called some random electrician.  Lo and behold, someone answered the call.

Next day, right on time, two thirty-something sparkies arrived and briskly completed what looked to me like a tricky job.  Up and down the ladder; ‘fishing’ for flex behind the walls, as they do.  Swept up after themselves.  Great legs.   

I was curiously aroused.

And as soon as Al gets home, he'll cook dinner.  I've only had to replace the cupboard once, but I get dinner every night.  So you can stay, Al.