~ down but not out ~
May 14. Sihanoukville, Cambodia. You retrieve your passport from the Ana Travel office. It's now near the Golden Cirlce, Ochheuteal Beach. It's 8:15am. After you pay the US$64 for the quick processing of the Vietnam one month tourist visa and the bus to Saigon you've got a dollar left! You'd arranged this the evening before on arrival from Trat. You'd got a little shut-eye in a dorm at Utopia for $2. It's a Friday. You have about US$450 in your Vietnamese bank. Your ATM has expired though. You need a bank. You must make a 'manual' withdrawal on arrival in Saigon. Otherwise it's going to be a destitute weekend!
A slight predicament. It's only vaguely possible you're going to arrive in Saigon before the bank closing time of 5 pm. There's a long delay of about 3 hours at the Bavet~Moc Bai border. A Frenchman on the bus hasn't any space in his passport for a Vietnam entry stamp. He has to bribe $5 to get it. You're sunk!
The bus arrives at Pham Ngu Lao backpacker zone at 9:30pm. It's been a tiring 12 hour bus journey. First thing you check your Sacom account. It's the one used for the travel expenses over the past 2 months. You've got VND50k or about US$2.50. You're thankful. It lasts 'til Monday because it has to. You stay again at the Hoang Yen which is in a lane off Bui Vien. You're in a cheaper room than the one vacated in February. The staff there inform you that they still have the left-behind box of somewhat sedentary possessions. Your old room, however, is not available because they've found a long-term tenant. Fair enough! Today's room is $7. It's on the second floor of their older building. There's a small terrace with talkative [real] birds on the next balcony.
May 15. You make inquiries if maybe some branches of the Vietcom bank open Saturday morns like they used to do. You take a cheap 3k dong bus over to your branch. NO. You'll have to sit it out until Monday morning. All remaining money is blown on bread and “revive” brand 'soft' drinks. It's gonna be a long weekend.
May 16. No money, no eat. In Vietnam, hotels hold onto your passport and you pay the bill and get it back on checkout. You could get a small advance You decide not to. You drink the water from hotel though. Keeps you going...the workers supply. You stay in your room all day and contemplate. Things past...and more importantly future.
Feels like this is the last day of your journeys in 2010. Best to focus on job-search now. You resolve not to stay in Saigon again. You're not a big-city boy anyway. Vung Tau appeals. If you have over $500 come Monday morning it's also possible to continue this year's journey further afield. Towards Hanoi. You've visited some of the coastal towns before but never stayed for long. You check your wallet. There's still the lucky ringgit tucked away. The note you found at Kudat washed up among some plastic garbage. Noni was walking behind you at the time. She wouldn't have missed it either. She used to pick up heaps that you hadn't seen. Guess you have to know what you're looking for, just like in life. You picked it up and showed it to her. On the spot she origami-ed that ringgit into a little boat and placed it into one of the credit-card spaces. Well, it's been good luck ever since! When you think of such stupid little things, tears well up. They did the same on the train ride up from Penang when you played some Macy G. music. You wish sometimes you could've stayed in Sabah. Don't think you'll ever return though. A sleepless, tearful and emotional night is spent reminiscing over the Noni affair...the lack of food doubtless adding to the depth of feeling!
May 17. Morning. The end of the foodless weekend. Over to 'your' bank branch by bus to apply for a newATM card. It'll take a week. You've just over VND9.6m or about US$500. Final pay from back in February. After a little more deliberation you can't resist the temptation. You buy an open bus ticket north to Hoi An, via MuiNe, Dalat, and Nha Trang for $27. Buses in Vietnam cost about $1 for every hour of travel. You reckon you have about 10 days to get to somewhere with English language teaching jobs. By then you reckon on having about $230. Two more weeks and a visa extension too. You give your mother a rare and brief call. She's happy to hear your voice. It's good to know she's doing OK even if she did fall and break her hand. “Will be out of plaster in a few days”. “Take care, son. Love Ya”.
May 18. You linger another day in Saigon when you know that you should be moving on. Maybe you should check out the Central Highlands towns of Buon Ma Tuot, Pleiku and Kon Tum for work on the way north, rather than Nga Trang. They'd be more interesting to live in for sure. They're off the well-worn coastal tourist strip and bound to be cheaper.
May 19. It's out of the Saigon circus on De Tham and Bui Vien. To the surprise of the staff you pay the bill and check out of the Hoang Yen. You now have the DVD player to add to the baggage. Not that it makes much weight difference. The backpack's already very heavy. Now you can play the CDs and DVDs you've been carrying around for the entire journey since mid-February. Vietmanese hotel rooms, even the cheap ones, more often than not have TVs.
You arrive at Mui Ne in the heat of the day...about 1pm. You call friend Maurice. The Ngac Thi is a good and reasonable place to stay. It's not a long walk from the TM Brothers office at kilometer 14 (from Phan Tiet). Mui Ne tourist town has just the one parallel-to-the-beach-front street. Very straightforward. The over-laden, middle-of-the-hot-part-of-the-day walk turns out to be about half a km. You enjoy the exercise after the bus trip. You've been doing this for over 3 months now! Big Man John an American friend is staying at the Ngac Thi too you discover. Maurice calls round later in the late afternoon. It's like former days on Bui Vien in Saigon except for the much more relaxing surroundings. There's a pleasantly cooling onshore wind blowing across this incredibly photogenic country.