Day 27

May 17 2013

Hanoi

Good days and Bad days

I didn't feel like writing at the end of the day. (27/5) I only made the following entry on face book. Today, one day later I give it another go


8 am Got up and had breakfast
10am Spent two hours trying to find the Mongolian Embassy only 3.5 km away
12 noon, after 1.5 hours searching for the address commended dentist
1.30 pm had a haircut
2 .00pm Saw my friend Minh Hoang, of Off-road Vietnam
4.00 pm Back to the dentist for root canal treatment and mend a broken tooth
5.30 pm Left the dentist in excruciating pain even...when my jaw is still numb
5.45 pm It is getting dark and on my way to the hostel; sudden downpour, I get drenched to the bone
6.15 pm I am in bed with 4 painkillers at once.
10.00 pm I woke up very hungry, the pain is gone. I only had breakfast today as I wanted to keep my teeth clean so went out for a feed.
11.15 Still busy in the streets, someone hops off a taxi- scooter. walks over and talks to me. Suddenly hops back on his scooter and I lose my $400 camera.
12.00 midnight I am back at the hostel and Really ****** off !
First time in my life I got robbed

Anyway, that was yesterday as but let me elaborate on it. I still needed a Mongolian visa. I enquired about the location of the Embassy via their website. The GPS told me where to go if you hit the right button of course. Problem number one is when you enter an address it gives you dozens of locations all with Vietnamese addresses attached to them. Even if you type in a city name it may come up with five or six locations. Often I ask a local to identify the location for me, to avoid heading into the wrong direction.

When I got to the location I was told that it had moved further down the road but I have already learned that taking direction from local (even if a policeman) you have to take with a pinch of salt. The sentence "I don’t know" does not seem to exist. Then there is another problem that not the name Mongolia or China for that matter may be called a different name altogether like Cambodia being Kampuchea, Hungary being Magyar etc. Addresses here are vague as well. Anyway two hours later I found the place and was back at the hostel within 10 minutes. It turned out that Mongolia is called Mông Cổ and China, Trung Quốc, and of course if the tone of voice is slightly different than it should be they look at you with an empty expression. I found the place and was told by a non English speaking old man that I had to come back next week and that it would take another three days after that to process the forms. I showed the man the expiry date of my Vietnamese visa after which he made a phone call to a lady upstairs. The lady came downstairs and introduced herself with and unpronounceable name which I immediately forgot and looked at my passport. I told her that I had emailed the embassy and wasn’t told about that visa’s were only handled on Thursdays and Tuesday’s and that I would have known, I would have come yesterday. She nodded and said “no problem” you can pick it up on Tuesday.

Challenge number two. I had asked to see a dentist who could speak English. Another hour went by to do the 4 kms to the place, even with the help of my GPS. The broken tooth I was suffering with could be fixed but would take some days, but seeing I didn’t have much time the made the first appointment at4 pm. The ultra modern premiseswas operated by a soft spoken American dentist who had been living in Hanoi for 15 years. There were several treatment rooms all separated by glass walls and bathing in overhead LCD lights. Large 50” plasma screens on the wall and soft music to calm the nerves. Two female assistants got the soft spoken orders from the dentist in Vietnamese or English.

The root canal treatment was the start. Injections etc plus the works. Two hours later I was outside. Numb face and in severe pain. I had already taken 3 of the painkillers tablets given to me but without direct result. It was getting dark and now I was facing peak hour traffic.

In pain and not well I started the ride back to the hostel slowly being moved along by the 1000’s in all directions like centipedes racing towards a goal. Suddenly there was a gust of wind followed by a sudden downpour. I was not far from my hostel so I kept going. As I had come from a different direction I got lost in the one way streets resulting a time delay and in being drenched to the bone. However at around 35 degrees it has a cooling affect (just to stay positive on this one) Two more painkillers and I crawled into bed in excruciating pain. I woke up a few hours later, the pain was gone. Terrific!

I was hungry as I only had breakfast and no other food as I wanted to keep my teeth clean during the day. I walked out into the heat of the night. Food is being served just about everywhere you look including the sidewalks so you never far to go. I found a place which was frequented by locals only. Pointing at someone’s plate I said “Yes, one of those thanks” The meat served in the dish of noodles could have been anything incl. cat or dog. I just didn’t care, it tasted good. After a while I ended up at a night market and spent an hour there just having a look around. At the end of the market there is an area were a lot of men hang around waiting to get a client for their motorcycle taxi. They take you anywhere you want on the back of a scooter just like a normal taxi. I wanted to walk back and kept on saying “no thanks” to anyone who asked me if I wanted a ride back to the hotel. Than a guy turned up and asked me where I was from and where I was going. Than everything went very quick.

He distracted me by touching me and saying that I was a strong man while pointing to something across the street. Then said Ok no ride for you? He quickly walked to his scooter and raced off. Strange I thought; why the sudden hurry. A minute later I noticed that my camera had been lifted from my pocket. Great!

The thing is to stay in a positive frame of mind, I had met a Singaporean who had something similar happen to him and was in such a shock that he had decided to leave Vietnam.

I am glad it wasn’t my wallet and that all the pics where downloaded on my laptop. Not a good feeling though. It does not change my opinion on the Vietnamese people as a whole; I have too much experience for that. One just has to be aware that the occasional ****er who may be around does not hold up a sign identifying him / herself. However I did feel really ****** off at the end of my day.

Overall I really enjoy being here. Usually I get up between 6 and 6.30 and go to bed at midnight or at times when I am writing at 1 am. Many of my fellow travelers I only see sleeping in their beds in the morning and again at night. I still try to get the most out of the day and don’t waste too much time sleeping in case I miss something. I have to admit that travelling alone has its lonely moments, however I have noticed that the majority of travelers travel alone or team up with other for a short time if they have a matching schedule. Most people I see are between 20-25 years old with I guess 70% being female. This morning I had breakfast with another lone grey wolf from New Zealand, Travelling like I do at 72 years of age. So at for today I am not the oldest one.