Dan got a call from Charlie who had six young university girls at Lam café and asked him to come over and meet them, I tagged along for the walk but didn’t stay. I needed to eat then go back to my room to psych myself up for a visit to the police station to see about my police report – FROM FIVE WEEKS AGO! Breathe in – hold – and out
Hai came into work early to go with me and translate to the non English speaking police. I entered and left the station with a big forced cheery smile on my face, I had no idea what the conversation between Hai and the policeman was but it resulted in the usual dodging of work and responsibility. The officer who took my original report is the only one who can fill in the report that I need and it seems he is away for three weeks. I am aware that the right manoeuvring and passing of money could get the results I need but Hai is scared of this approach and I cannot push him.
I return to my room and call the insurance company and discuss the whole thing, of course I don’t talk to the actual insurance company I talk to a girl from the company who takes these calls for the company – why are all the people I deal with from companies that work for companies who report to the company I am actually involved with? What a messed up system of irresponsibility, the bank card replacement people were the same, “I’m sorry sir we are not the ANZ we are the card issuing department of the blah blah blah” Time for a beer……
I wander down to the GO2 for a comfortable seat and to watch the afternoon traffic go by, Zoe is there. We sip a few beers and play each other songs from our MP3 players as the rain moves in and the night descends.
There is a Tibetan café she wants to try so we find the address and head off across the park near the cathedral. After about twenty minutes of walking up and down the street we decide we are not going to find it so we just look for a place to have dinner, and look and look and look…………two hours later after looking at dozens of menus we just decide to go back across the park to Dung café for pizza.
After way too much pizza we agree on “one more” at Alley Booz before retiring but really “one more” this time – we mean it! There is a two for one on the cocktails we ordered so we get an extra one but the music is so bad we are in no danger of drinking too much, Zoe is getting out of Saigon early tomorrow for a few days, we say goodnight before eleven and disappear into the night.
