Here Comes the Rain Again

After a night of gentle rain today feels fresh and the temperature is perfect. After breakfast I walk to the end of the lane for a coffee before heading off to the Embassy and duck back into my room to grab the paperwork to find Mun sitting on my bed watching TV, busted, I say nothing but now maybe he will stop hassling me about smoking in my room, wink wink.

I go to see Wah but he is away so Lin says she will take me. I’m a little curious as to how this old girl who needs to squint when I show her my school timetable will be on a bike.............but she’s fine.

She drops me off and I head up to the fifth floor of The Landmark Building by the river where the Embassy is, there is a full security check as soon as I step out of the elevator. I go to the window and hand over all the documents “that will be one point seven five million Dong sir” “of course it will” I reply with a smile. The Embassy is charging me eighty eight dollars to sign some papers – the RTA is charging me twenty three dollars to send a replacement licence overseas.

I don’t have the cash on me so I head back out to find an ATM – this will be interesting – I am a little tentative. My first time to use the new card with the new PIN in a Vietnamese bank ATM, will it work? I get to the cash out part and realise there is no money in my savings account, I transferred it all into my online saver when the wallet got stolen so I step out of the ATM (yes they are little air-conditioned cubicles like a telephone box over here) transfer some money on the iPhone and step back in and take out two hundred dollars, technology is brilliant when it works!

Back up to the Embassy and pay the money, give them the documents and wait to be called. I get a half a chapter read when my name gets called, the consul, a guy not much younger than me politely fills it all out and I am done.

I cross the road and watch the local fishermen for a while who are dragging in big plastic bag fish from the murky water – I don’t want to know if they actually catch some where it ends up. It is very over cast today and with about 5 seconds warning of a few drops it buckets down. When I left the hotel I took whatever I didn’t need out the bag to reduce weight and of course I won’t need the rain poncho today – rookie! I run into a little riverside café and sit down for half an hour with a juice until the rain eases up.

Two blocks up is a riverside skyscraper area so I set off to explore it, the Bixteco Financial Tower is here. Yes, I don’t know why but I am a bit obsessed with it, it’s just a really cool looking building (I would love to see those ones in Abu Dhabi). You can go to the top for ten dollars but with the rain and cloud it would be pointless today. After walking a few blocks and photographing it from each side I’m hungry and wander in the direction of my hotel looking for somewhere to eat.

Because it’s lunchtime and raining, most places are packed and I end up satisfying my curiosity about “Lotteria” a kind of Vietnamese version of KFC which is the only western fast-food chain they have here but Lotteria are full of locals instead of westerners like the KFCs. It’s as good/bad as any other fast-food place but the burgers are half the size of what I am used to.

After realising the rain although mostly light, is not going to stop anytime soon, I grab a cab back to Alley Booz for some more food and a read. The place is pretty empty and Doyen is able to sit with me for an hour or so, she is not busy because of the lack of customers and we have a really good conversation that I enjoy after last nights encounter.

I’m wet and not what I would admit defeat and call cold, but definitely cool so I head back for a warm shower and Chan from the school has TXT me the pages I need to cover so I can get in some study for tomorrows two classes. As I walk into the hotel Hein asks “so do you still love Saigon rain?” I smile coyly “ok, not so much”.

I got the Australian phone bill today – Vodaphone sent me a TXT saying we have cut you off for excessive use your outstanding balance is twenty six dollars – I paid that and thought it was over - $1,039. I will sleep on it tonight but I think tomorrow I shall enjoy composing an email that will involve the F word quite a lot, credit rating be damned, I’m not paying!

                                                                         Anne
I head out for the evening and the answer comes to me, I can kill two birds with one stone. If I go to Anne’s and have a small dinner (tonight I had a amazing pork penne in cream sauce – not as good as yours Max) then on the way home I go to Dung and have a small entrée, I keep both places happy and spread out my eating and drinking with a walk in-between, genius! But first I start at a random bar to test the water and get through a couple of chapters.

Tonight I saw a guy ride past on his bike smoking a pipe in the rain…………..ah Saigon you’ve picked me up again.