So the arrival in Saigon goes without a hitch.  I present my copy of the pre-approved visa info to immigration (and of course fill in another form) and sit and wait patiently until my name is yelled.  Fortunately the girl used the full name, as the only bit that I understood was “Valentine”.  I am reunited with my bag and go to the taxi transfer desk and pay my 22,000 Vietnamese Dong and am sent out in to the humid air to rendezvous with the driver. There only seem to be about 500 people awaiting the arrival of loved ones.  It is not as busy as later when many flights arrive and the crowd will be at least 1000.

Saigon is just coming back to life after the Tet holiday.  Today is Friday and everyone will be returning from visiting the rellies and by Monday all will be in full swing.  I return to my airbandb accommodation and Mamasan and Papasan are there to let me in.  Quite like coming home. I lug my bag up four flights of stairs.  Enough exercise for one day.

First stop is the supermarket, to stock up on the necessities of life.  Always great to push a cart around a  place like this and see what is happening.  Masses of staff, of course, many standing around just gossiping and some not even managing to do that… they just stand.   Foreigners have ceased to be a novelty, so they ignore you.   At checkout, the international “I’ve only got one thing, can I go ahead of you  ..”? look from a sweet looking grandma with a small girl, so I do and the child is prompted to say thank you and I wish her a Happy New Year and she is overcome.  Prolly her first interaction with a foreign devil. The nice lady rings it all up and I hand over the cc with the right hand and have the left limply holding the top of my right wrist.  That is VN polite.  She does the same when she returns it to me. 

Fridge stocked, I even manage to unpack as plenty of places and hangers.  I am here for 6 weeks, so I really do move in.  Good not to be living out of the proverbial suitcase.  

On the Saturday, Huy turns up for breakfast.  “Is it too early for a g and t”? he says. I say most definitely.  I jump on the back of his motorbike and we cruise the thin Saturday morning traffic and go off to a noodle shop.  First plan is to sit outside on one of those dolls house plastic stools.  These are the lowest size, literally 8 inches off the ground and having already fallen off one on a previous visit, I nix that and we go inside where there is larger more human sized furniture.  We catch up.  He has just had his final interview at the US consulate and will be departing for LA with wife and daughters, probably in March.  He is almost an American already, as his mother and sister have lived there for years and he has visited often.  But it will still be a shock to arrive on a one way ticket.   I asked about the final interview, knowing all the dramas that have been going on lately.  He said they waited 2 hours after the sked time and then a woman looked through the papers and asked who his sponsor was (his sister-duhrrr) and how long had she been there and having correctly answered she said “Welcome to America” and it was over.  Somehow I cannot think it would that easy in Cairo or Islamabad. 

Then to his fancy new offices.  It’s normal in VN for them to work on Saturday mornings. The lease ran out in the old place, which was in one of those long tall buildings the VN love so they were perpetually running up and down stairs, whereas now all one big open plan offices and no one has a fixed desk either.  They all work off laptops and many 4-6 seater tables and all wired for everything. It looks like a mini-Silicon Valley start up to me.  Some of the old staff are still there and all happy to see Uncle Tim.  I am happy to see them too.  A few of them have been there since I first started doing business with his company which was I think in 1997, so we go back !

Before I know it, I am being given many sheets of paper, relating to tourists they have coming in and do some proof reading and editing.   And I am awarded several more to work on.  Huy says it will be good to do when I cannot sleep, as it will def. make me sleepy.   Then we have to go for lunch – (remember I am in the country of ‘we need food every two-three hours’) so we repair to a vegetarian restaurant. Turns out his has gone veggie and is also all into doing yoga etc and he wants to take me off to a retreat he has been helping set up, near Dalat, so who know what I might be transformed in to.  Don’t hold your breath (though I know you do a lot of that in yoga !)

It has been raining, which is ALL WRONG.  Just more evidence of global warming and we have a short but strong storm that night.  Does not stop the folks on their motorbikes of course and they produce brightly colored ponchos and splash along.

On Sunday I am invited to Huy’s house which is about 30 mins outside the city proper, so that I can see the wife and two teen daughters.  Mr Hai (pronounced hi) is of course sitting outside my residence at the appointed time and we stop to pick up Huy (who keeps a small pied a terre in town) … he has Beethoven blasting out, so no doubt as to which is apt is his.  Over the years he has developed a passion for western classical music, without really knowing too much about it.  I brought him some CD’s to add to the collection.   I should think the neighbors will be happy when he goes.

So we go home and the girls are happy and even happier when I produce some nice and tarty bright red lipsticks and nail polish.  Mimi, his wife, receives a calmer lipstick.  I have always noticed here that when they receive a present, there is not a great gushing forth of thanks.  They take it politely and say thank you and then put it down or away and that it is.  I usually bring stuff for the girls in his office too and no one jumps up and down or gets excited.  So if you are expecting a VN to get effusive with thanks, it is not going to happen.

I am back in my SGN street café, the Café Nhi and one of the girls is still there from last year.  The effusive (by VN standards) Ms Tan.  Her English has improved and no doubt I shall soon be doing impromptu conversational English lessons.  My tall glass of Café So Dah is produced and of course the obligatory ditto glass of jasmine tea, which comes whether you want it or not.  You are never going to dehydrate around here.  New furniture too, with folding canvas chairs for the pavement part and miracle of miracle, padded benches inside, so my poor skinny bum may survive.  

All human life is passing by outside.  It is a three way intersection so much in the way of crossing each other’s paths and somehow, without the help of lights or people waving batons, they all get to the other side unscathed.  It’s amazing just to watch.  Majority of the traffic is motorbikes, with anything from 1-5 occupants.  One beautifully arranged family formed a perfect wedge as the height decreased from front to back.  Then it is taxis and buses and even folks on good old sit-up-and-beg pushbikes – the real old iron monster things and always with a basket on the front.  It’s normal for a bike driver to be arched forward over the handlebars, due to the load on the back, just HUGE cartons and boxes that no one in the west would ever think could be carried on a motorbike.   A bike was seen with the passenger separated from the driver by an approx. 8 feet mirror, so the passenger had no idea where they were going and it may have caused center of gravity problems for the driver going round bends.

OK… enough for now.   Next time, if you are wearing flip flops and want to sit down on the sidewalk and don’t want to get your bum or your feet dirty, what do you do ?

Pictures may be forthcoming.  So far, I haven’t taken any.

Tim

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