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Well, Long An turned out to be some rural town that felt like it was in the middle of nowhere. Hot and poor and dusty. Still, nice to actually see some trees. Saigon is like a jungle of tall and narrow colourful concrete buildings, narrow alleyways and a ridiculous amount of motorbikes. Its hot, its vibrant and its chaotic, but its certainly not very green. Theres a few parks around, but they don't feel very 'natural'. So it was nice to see green again.
I was warned by my hosts that it was a dangerous drive, because the road can be as narrow as 30cm wide in places. But I insisted on driving anyway, I thought they were exaggerating. Turns out they were totally right! Once we got off the highway and into the rice paddies, the 'road' became this narrow dirt path, winding between the paddies. To make it worse, it was night by then. If I fell off, I would have gone straight into the wet ride paddies. I didn't though, kudos to me!
I spent the time there playing with the kids, being stared at and talked about (in Vietnamese of course) by a bunch of excited wrinkly grannies with no teeth, and fishing. If it wasn't so sticky and hot, it would've been fun. As it was, I just sat around sweating profusely and waiting for my chance to leave so I could have a badly-needed shower. But the family were very, very friendly and hospitable. They kept feeding me the whole time, and trying to make me keep taking shots of heinesse (its like 70% alcohol or something ridiculous). I had to mime what would happen to me if I kept drinking and then drive back along that dodgy narrow path. They thought it was hilarious, and insisted even more that I keep on drinking with them!
But that was over a week ago. I spent the weekend being sick. They say you know you've grown up when you're sick and you have only yourself to look after you. A combination of a cold, stomach ache and a mild case of conjunctivitis which I almost definitely caught off one of the kids who had it in my class last week. Hurrah.
In other news, the ex-president of Vietnam died. Boo hoo. So they've gone and closed most public venues for three days of mourning, including the cinema so I wasn't able to see the new Indiana Jones movie yet. What a great way to be remembered...
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