Soldier of Miss-Fortune

Well I guess every great story must have a tragedy and mine got off to an early start. After a decent nights sleep I am up at 6am and I head out to find some breakfast and get amongst the excitement of the awaking giant that is Saigon. I am no more than 5 minutes down the road when 2 girls on a motorbike stop and ask me if I would like a massage, I say no and continue walking. Seriously girls, it’s 6:30am! Persistence sometimes pays off for the Vietnamese so they pull up along side me once again and one gets off the bike and comes over to me insisting that she can really give me a good massage, as she grabs my crotch she says she can give him good massage too, thanks babe but not for me, she is quite pushy so I push her away and she climbs back on the bike and they leave. Unperturbed I push on to find a nice place for breakfast. About 5 more minutes up the road and something doesn’t seem right, I feel my pockets and………………………….oh how stupid do I feel?? It’s a pretty common scam but I have barely woken up so I was not ready for it……………yep, she got my wallet!!!

I went over to some police who were having breakfast but it became quickly evident that they had no interest in whatever I was raving about, most police cannot speak English and who the heck do I think I am talking to them while they are eating! So I go back to the Blue River and call the various institutions to cancel bank cards and try to arrange visa to wire me some money. There was only about $100 in the wallet but of course the real inconvenience is now I have no cards to access my own money and it will take 10 days for them to post me a new one.

So after breakfast at the Blue River, (the blue sign halfway down this back alley, 2 minutes walk from the main streets, just enough so i don't hear the traffic, perfect) currently I sit upstairs in my room waiting for the call to tell me I can go to a Western Union office and collect my money sent via VISA via my Australian bank. I have told the hotel manager and she is wonderful enough to lend me some money, good thing too, being hungry is one thing but I was down to my last 2 cigarettes and if I had’ve run out of them…………. She is also taking me down to the police station to report it so that she can translate for me as mentioned above, the police do not speak English. A form is filled out purely for insurance purposes. So I grab a cheap feed and head back to the hotel to await the call.