14-15/2/2011
I’m lying in my bunk of the train right now, with a sleeping couple below me. Not directly below of course, but in the pair of bunk beds. Given that I look very much like a Vietnamese, no one has been trying to rip me off so far, except for the lady that sold me a beer.
Is it possible that a can of beer costs 15 000 Dong? It is said that a loaf of Ban Mi bread costs only 10 000! Well, I don’t care, it’s a S$9 mistake, but then again I had a fantastic meal for free! (Later on I found out that 15 000 Dong is around S$0.90, not S$9. Sorry train people!)
The meal came courtesy of Keith, my friend’s boyfriend, who really knows how to be a good host. This I should have expected, because how else would he have gotten a girl like Shisei? She’s also very nice and this visit to Saigon reminded me of why I thought she was amazing! We went to a restaurant housed in an old colonial building and that served amazing Vietnamese food. I brought along my new Vietnamese friend Alexander, who offered to give me a lift on his moped while I was lost and confused in an internet cafe, and we had a great time with a steady flow of Saigon beer. In Vietnam, you don’t drink alone and instead you clink your glasses together every time you want to take a sip! This makes for a very merry dinner! The twist of fate that led me to meet Alexander came out of the blue, as I called my friend in the internet cafe to tell her that I didn’t have any USD or vietnamese Dong on me, and I didn’t speak any vietnamese while people hardly spoke english. The guy sitting beside me asked whether I was American and that’s how our conversation began. Alexander speaks good english, is funny and sort of cool, super hospitable (he spent 5 hours sending me around on his moped on Valentine’s Day), and he knows how to host a guest! Most of my small expenses he paid for, even refusing my compensation!
Back to the train, it’s funny that the Vietnamese train conductor tried to get 500 000 Dong from me just so that I could return to my own bunk, but right after I refused to pay her, she tried to hit on me by grabbing my book and asking me questions about it! This is really funny because she couldn’t speak nor read English, and I couldn’t speak a word of Vietnamese! Just as we were getting into a cuddly position (My arm was on the back of her chair and I was leaning over in an attempt to point out some intricacies of the English language), her supervisor popped up. She was a pretty and young conductor and I would have continued our conversation just to see where it would lead, since the train was rather spacious, at least in the cabins where I was bunking.
My adventure in Saigon has started off on the right foot, now I’m curious to see how the next few legs of my trip will go.
Saigon – Quy Nhon – Vinh – Hanoi – Thai Nguyen – Thuy Bac – Hanoi – Singapore
(It turned out to be Saigon – Dieu Tri – Quy Nhon – Vinh – Thanh Hoa – Hanoi – Thai Nguyen – Hanoi – Singapore)
