Back in the City

We had kind of a long day yesterday, starting with a 6:30 breakfast, followed by a 7:30 meeting, and a two hour drive back to Nha Trang. Then we found out that our flight was delayed by a few hours for no particular reason. In the end, it’s all fine because we made it back here, and it’s not like I had anything else to do anyway, but *wow* are the airport seats in Nha Trang uncomfortable. It actually used to be a US military base during the war (it’s in Cam Ranh Bay, south of Nha Trang), then it was a Vietnamese military base, and was finally converted to a public airport a few years ago. In fact, I think one of my co-workers was based there when he was in the Army during the war, and I think I drove on some of the roads he built – I was told that one road we were driving on was built by the US military during the war, and that these roads were still some of the best in the country. So, well done, Colonel.

But to give you an idea of how much time we had to do not a lot of anything, I made it through a 300-page book yesterday, no pictures, and no big print (in case some of you were wondering…Matt.)

I was awoken at 5 am by the ol’ public broadcast once again, but then we had another power outage – and the hidden benefit of that is that there’s nothing to power the speakers airing said broadcast out into the open, so I got an extra 30 minutes of sleep. Yay! I also don’t think that I shared the room with any roaches of any description, and the ants seemed to be going away (although, I had to rinse some dead ones out of some of my toiletries last night. That’s a whole other level of nastiness, let me tell you.) We packed everything up, I lugged my ridiculously huge-mongous suitcase down the stairs, and we went to meet some people for breakfast. It was nice, but WOW was this the slowest place I’d ever been to in my life. Even slower than Thyme Square in Bethesda, and that’s really saying something. Millie was in full “mother in law” mode after we’d been waiting for our food for over 40 minutes, which was actually kind of funny. She’s great, but I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side!

The meeting went quickly and I think it went well. I’m never sure if people listening to me speak at these things are thinking “how can one woman be so dumb and still remember to breathe?” or “hey – that’s a good point!” But since several people said something about “I think Amanda made a good point”, I think it was okay. Although, I only knew for sure that they were saying my name, Itsy Bitsy could have been making the rest up, for all I know.

In any event, we got on the road a little ahead of schedule, which was good because I’d rather have too much time at the airport than not enough. We had hired a van with two drivers to take us there, and it was funny to watch the two guys interact. I couldn’t tell if they were actually friendly with each other, and if not, that’s a long time to be in a car with someone, considering the four hour round trip. Half of the time, they were chatting or driving along in amiable silence. But once in a while, the guy driving would say something, or would swerve around a car on the highway, and the guy in the passenger seat would look at him with a withering glance that was a mixture of disdain and profound irritation. At this point, I would just turn back to my book and chuckle quietly to myself.

We found out en route that our flight was delayed by about three hours for no particular reason that we were aware of. Unfortunately, though, the guys driving the van had to pick up another guy and haul him back to Phu Yen, so they couldn’t stick around to let us do some things in Nha Trang before going to the airport. We got to the airport, and there was a small café where we decided to get some lunch and chill out until we could check in. Now, this is a small airport. It makes the airports in Madison, WI or Burlington, VT (both lovely little airports) look like O’Hare or JFK. So there wasn’t exactly an abundance of activities or venues to explore. The café was it. We ordered lunch, which wasn’t bad, and got comfy in our chairs. PM decided to go take a nap in a little side room, and we read and chatted occasionally to pass the time. I went into the terminal to use the ladies’ room and saw that we could check in for our flight, an hour sooner than we’d originally been told we could. I came back in and told the group that we could check in, so we gathered our things, and IB went to go wake up PM. She came out a few minutes later and said that he told her to check in for him. Millie didn’t really like this approach – she said “well, who does he think will carry his bags??”, a fair question, as he’d bought some coconuts and other food that were now wrapped in a large and unwieldy Styrofoam box. She said something that didn’t sound very nice in Vietnamese, and when I looked at her, she said “we should feed him to the sharks!” I totally love Millie. So IB went in and told PM that he had to check himself in, and we all made our way up to the counter.

To say that security procedures in this airport are a little more casual than elsewhere is quite the understatement. Our boarding passes were hand-written, with a stamp for our destination, and our names completely absent from the document. When I went through the metal detector and beeped, the security guy touched a metal detector to my waist and apparently that was sufficient inspection. They have a large TV monitor in the gate (there’s only one), and it was playing a video loop that included some music videos, most in Vietnamese, and a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Unfortunately, the loop lasted for about 30 – 40 minutes, and we were there for three hours. It’s good thing that I like Tom and Jerry – and it was one of the good ones, before Hannah-Barbera decided that they should talk.

As we were sitting there, PM asked me about my new hotel, and IB and I were telling him. He then starts to talk about how the hotel is in a terrible location, it’s not near anything, and why would they put me there? Well, all of this is really irrelevant, because it’s where I’m staying and I don’t have much choice. But he just won’t shut up, and finally I say “Why are you telling me this? You’re just making me feel worse?” and he said “I just give you advice” and got huffy and turned around. IB then went to call Teeny Weeny, unbeknownst to me, and came back and said that if I didn’t like the hotel, they could put me somewhere else. I said that I was sure the hotel would be fine, not to worry about it.

We got to Hanoi uneventfully after boarding the plane 3 ½ hours after our scheduled departure time. The driver was waiting there, and had apparently been waiting since 2 pm, since no one told him that the flight was delayed. Whoops. We went to the Zephyr Hotel so I could collect the bag I’d left with them, then went to my new hotel. Interestingly, it’s called the Saigon Hotel, though it’s in the middle of Hanoi. It is farther out than my old place, but not prohibitively so, and in the end, it’s probably okay that I have to walk farther to get to my favorite ice cream place. It doesn’t have a gym, so I’ll have to improvise something, but it’s nice, they have laundry service (thank goodness), and it’s not in the boonies, it’s just outside the district I was staying in. Although it’s right across the street from a building that’s under construction, and apparently the construction is going on around the clock. I actually slept fine, but it would be nice if my room was a little quieter, as it’s also on the first level above the lobby, so there’s a lot of traffic noise. Well, I figure that if I’m desperate, it’s nothing a little Benadryl won’t cure. But like I said, I slept just fine last night.

So, I’ve got a week back here, then out for a few more days next week, and then my last week here. Then off to Paris! I can’t believe how quickly things have gone already. Crazy!