Oops...

Couldn’t sleep this morning, so I woke up around 6, fought it for an hour, then decided to check out what was on the Discovery Travel and Living Channel (I’ve been watching a lot of it lately, especially the travel shows). Eventually got dressed to go running, as D and I were planning to meet at 11:30 to go play downtown, and I wanted to get a run in before then. Came back to the apartment, was in the shower, and I heard my phone ring. It wasn’t a really logical time for anyone to be calling me from home, so I didn’t think it was an emergency, and figured I didn’t want to leap out of the shower for it. I got out of the shower and saw that I’d missed a call from a coworker, so I called her back and she said that there was someone at the office (the person with whom I’m staying to overlap) and when was I coming in? Oh, and the PM wanted to talk to me.

Umm…

When I had asked the old PM on more than one occasion if we were supposed to work Saturdays, he said no. This is apparently not the philosophy under which the new PM is operating, and apparently we’re supposed to work a half day on Saturday. I don’t have a problem doing this – one of the things about field work is that long days and working on weekends are quite common, and we tend to work 10 – 11 hour days here anyway. It was just the not knowing about it that was irritating. So I called D and told her that actually, instead of doing what we had planned for today, we needed to head to the office. So we piled in a cab and got here as quickly as possible, both feeling a little frustrated that we weren’t told about it. Ah well – no harm done, I think, but it’s not the kind of impression I like to make.

So now everyone else has gone out for lunch, we’re having food delivered, and since the office is empty, we’re playing music loudly and being silly. Of course, it’s really hard not to be silly when you’re listening to Tom Jones and the Cardigans do their cover of “Burning Down the House”.

It also started to pour with rain, so we figured it was best to be at the office anyway. We’ll head out in a couple of hours – no great loss. As I said, we were both mostly just frustrated because it was unexpected. I like good surprises, like “hey – you just won a million dollars!” or “didn’t you know that Monday is a holiday?”. But Saturday morning “hey, why aren’t you at work?” phone calls don’t fall into that category. So here we are, on a Saturday, she’s working on some maps, I’m entering statistical data so I can make a socioeconomic profile of the region, and we’re both kind of wondering when we can head out for the day. However, it doesn’t look to be any time soon, because no one else is leaving any time soon. Plus, this is the kind of work where I could sit here indefinitely and still have stuff to do, so it’s not as though I’m likely to reach a logical stopping point. My brain, however, is totally somewhere else. For the moment, I’m doing something that will allow my mind to wander without major consequences – I just check my numbers at the end of each table to make sure they add up.

(I’d like to take this opportunity to note that it’s almost 5 pm, and no one has left yet. What is wrong with these people? There’s a lot of work to do, but there’s also tons to do in this city – all work and no play, blah, blah, blah…) I wonder – if you do this kind of thing all the time, does everything just start to blur together? Do you stop appreciating the cool places you get to see because you feel like you’ve already seen all of them? I really hope not – that kind of defeats the purpose, as one of the major perks of the job is that you get to see the world. Seeing it from the inside of an office doesn’t really count.

Round Three

Today we had another meeting with some folks at a government agency to get information we need and such. Once again it was conducted almost entirely in Vietnamese. Once again, I asked them who I should contact at the local level to get more data and lay the groundwork for the socioeconomic survey work we have to do here. And once again, after our local guy translated my question, I was greeted with blank stares and shaking heads. (How do you say “I have no clue” in Vietnamese? I think I’ve heard it a few times since I’ve been here.) So…I’ll just keep working on that secondary source data. To say that this is frustrating would be an understatement. Kind of like how my internet connection at work is now virtually useless. No particular reason, it just doesn’t want to connect. Oh, happy day! Everyone else is hooked up through the network, but since my computer isn’t on the network, and isn’t going anywhere near it, I still need to use the dial up. The price I pay for a functioning computer!

I got an e-mail the other day from the Pakistani guy I met in the Dubai airport telling me that his wedding was this weekend and that he would still like to invite me. I thanked him, but said that sadly I was still in Vietnam and would be unable to attend. I think it might have actually been kind of fun, to be honest. But if the house staff thought that my nonexistent unauthorized guests were “inappropriate”, I can’t imagine what they would have thought of me going to the wedding of some guy I met in the airport. Not that I’m overly concerned with what the house staff think of me – after August 10^th, they’re not my problem anymore. Hurrah for that, eh? Such a shame about all that – I would have liked to have more positive memories. No sense dwelling, though. That’s just the way things go sometimes.

We went to a restaurant down the street for lunch yesterday, a Vietnamese place with everything on the menu from turtle to frog to snakehead fish. There was a page of veggie-type things, so I ordered from that. I clarified with the waitress that there was, in fact, no meat and no fish in what I’d just ordered, which was sautéed sweet potato buds with garlic. She nodded and said something about potatoes, and I nodded and was glad that we were all on the same page. She brought out a bunch of stuff, and told me that my potatoes were taking a little longer, and I said okay – first of all because there was nothing to do about it, but also because it’s quite rare here for everyone to get their food at the same time when going out to eat. Then she came out with a plate of greasy french fries. I also ended up getting my sweet potato buds with garlic, which were actually greens, but I was a little confused and embarrassed – when I travel, I certainly don’t want or expect to find “American” food, so I felt bad that they went to the effort of making them when the other food we’d ordered was perfectly fine – although I let everyone else have the braised frog. Not really my thing. We then stopped for ice cream at this little outdoor café in the park in front of our building. The old PM gave me a guidebook for Vietnam, and D has the same one in French. This café was in the book, so we’re slowly but surely checking things off the list!

D and I went back to Ben Thanh and she got a couple of fake watches – one for her, one for her dad. If my skin weren’t so über sensitive, I would have considered it, but I took a pass. Probably best that way. But it’s amazing what you can get a Gucci watch for…

As I was reviewing data in a government publication earlier today, I was noticing that the numbers didn’t quite look right. In fact, they were definitely off. So I went through and did my own calculations, and for whatever reason, the government statistical data is inaccurate. Well, I don’t want to be the one to tell them, do you? I’ll just use my own calculations so that the numbers are correct and leave it at that.

The regional director for Asia is here today – he’s a very nice guy. Today is only the second time I’ve met him, but we’ve done stuff over e-mail prior to this, so I knew who he was. He’s one of those guys who travels all the time – he has an apartment in Hanoi that he said he’s in for, maybe, 20% of the time. I really couldn’t do that, I don’t care what kind of job I was offered in exchange. I don’t see how it’s possible to balance work and life when 80% of your time is spent on work. It seems like the end result must be that you have no life, or at least one in which you’re not really able to be present. Some people are built for that kind of life, but…wow. If you’re not spending the majority of your time in any one place, then where is home? And how do you know? Not that I’m exactly old, but as I get older, I seem to get more and more clarity about what I do and don’t want my life to look like. Sometimes it’s by experiencing what I don’t want, but it’s all valuable.

The local guy that we hired to work on my sector is turning out to have been a good choice to hire. We still have some communication issues, but he’s been great at tracking down information we need, and generally has been a huge help. Hurrah for a good hiring decision! (My very first hiring decision, come to think of it.) Although he needs guidance and doesn’t really take much initiative per se, when I give him step-by-step instructions on the kind of information I need, he’s on it. Things can always change, I suppose, but it’s an encouraging start. In any case, he’s definitely enthusiastic and works hard – can’t complain about that.

Happy Times

I’m still so relieved to hear that my London and beyond plans don’t have to change. My boss said, and I agree, that it’s hard enough to have a life when you do this kind of traveling all the time, so he didn’t want me to change my plans with family. Hurrah for that!! He’s quirky, but he’s usually extremely cool about this kind of thing, which I am SO grateful for – the world of consulting in general isn’t know for placing a high priority on the whole work-life balance.

I got an e-mail about a pre-bid meeting in Karachi for another project on August 3^rd, and someone asked if I would be available to go. I said that I was supposed to get in the evening of August 3^rd (although actually my boss wanted me to return on the 5^th, but if I have something useful to do there, I don’t think he’ll object), but if they could move the meeting to the 4^th, I’d be happy to go. Otherwise, I’d see what I could do. In any event, as I said, I’m sad to not have more time with the friends I made there, but I’m relieved to not have to spend any more time there than necessary. Apart from the fact that things there are getting tense again (I just got a warden notice from the American Consulate, telling me that they don’t recommend that American citizens travel to Pakistan unless absolutely necessary), I just didn’t exactly have a good experience there. I hate to sound like that, but – well, it’s true. It wasn’t what anyone would call a dream assignment. But I get to go back for a few days, wrap things up, take a few pictures, pack up my stuff, and get the heck out of Dodge. Maybe I’ll see if the tailor there can whip up a couple things for me before I leave…

Maybe I should just let that go.

In any event, it is officially less than three weeks until I arrive home, and now that I’ve got the countdown going in my head, it’s hard not to think of my remaining time in terms of number of days left. Funny – it was like that before I left, too.

It looks as thought we might be moving forward with getting the meetings we need to get, so that is a huge relief. The logjam that we were (and still are, in some ways) facing is just so frustrating, because it’s unnecessary, and it’s really in the interests of the government to help us as much as possible. And yet…no go. It’s very odd for me to not be able to just pick up the phone, call someone and introduce myself and set up a meeting.

As the old PM used to say, “ah...life in za trrropics.”

D and I have been practicing our French today. Well, she’s French, so mostly she’s been indulging my desire to practice my French. I have to say, though – I think I do fairly well, all things considered. And do you know where it’s going to be even easier to practice my French? In Paris!!!

I need to speak with a couple of higher-up types to ensure that the “one week in the ‘stan” thing that my boss and I agreed on isn’t going to ruffle any feathers. Well, it might ruffle some feathers, but we just want to stay within bounds of reason. It will be interesting to see how this goes. Now the PM here wants me to come back to overlap with my boss, but that’s right in the middle of my London-return home time, so I said I couldn’t do it. I didn’t specifically say why, I just said I couldn’t do it. I almost feel guilty of that, but I have to remind myself that I’ve tried to be flexible, and that this trip to London, and my return home, are both very important to me. So, that wins this time.

Apparently, even one week in the ‘stan isn’t necessary. I return there next Friday evening and leave the following Wednesday at a freakishly early hour. HURRAH! This really should be the last version…

D and I went swimming tonight after we got back from dinner – I am actually quite the fan of swimming at night, it’s really peaceful, and I haven’t been since I’ve been here. The pool is quite nice, and it’s good to have a change of pace. All the running is good for a lot of things, but my joints aren’t made for running every day – even when I was a kid. So it’s good to mix it up a little.

This whole trip has been very strange for lots of reasons, with all the back and forth, and the uncertainty. But in the end, I’m glad I came here. I’m sorry to have missed the things I’ve missed, but this was the right time for me to go away in a lot of ways. And like I said, that whole “I need a change of scene” itch has definitely been scratched.

What's That Sound?

That “thud, thud” sound? That’s the sound of me banging my head against the wall. I’m staying in Vietnam a few more days to overlap with someone else who’s coming to work on resettlement, and then my boss said something about “two more weeks in Pakistan”. Well…according to my calendar, I have *one* week in Pakistan. And unless they have something really useful for me to be doing, I don’t plan on changing my departure date. But I’ll have to talk to my boss about this on the phone tonight, off the record, because he’s a major player in the “reply to all” festival, so sending him an e-mail ensures that it will be eventually sent to everyone and their dog. Apart from the fact that I want to see family, spend time in London, and get back to my life at home, when my senior colleague left Pakistan, her response to my attempts to carve out a roll for myself and do substantive work was “just write that research report and enjoy the pool at the American school”. That was her “work plan” for me.

Wow – that doesn’t get any less irritating with time. I’d thought it would.

In any event, if I’m going to disrupt plans to do that, all for the purpose of placating the client, then I don’t want to be difficult, but I don’t want to do it, either. Because the report in question was busywork assigned to her by G-man which was then passed to me with her having done nothing on it, and I could do that from my desk in DC. Assuming that G-man’s replacement even knows or cares about it, which is highly doubtful, as he left no notes and no documentation of anything he’d done. (Mostly because he didn’t do much, aside from try to appear important.)

However, my boss could have just had the “two weeks” number in his head from way back when, so it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I think this should all be easier to clear up once I get the chance to talk to him, but I have no intention of launching another round of e-mails. Besides, after our conversation, I have a feeling he’ll do it for me. I’m also tempted to just not change my departure date from Karachi and feign ignorance, but I won’t do that. Not liking the assignment doesn’t justify being irresponsible, I just wish it did sometimes. However, my boss also mentioned something about the project folks in Karachi being “insistent” that I return. I also think that may be a holdover from the initial discussions about where and when I should be spending my field time. But I have an e-mail, which he hasn’t seen, from my senior colleague there who told me not to make myself crazy trying to get back there, and it wasn’t a big deal if I couldn’t. I think I might mention that to him in the “how about one week in the ‘stan?” context. Again, with the banging of the head against the wall.

In the meantime, things here are good, although I’m soon going to reach the end of what I can do without better local contacts. The thing here is that, before you can talk to anyone, you need a proper letter of introduction. People at the provincial and district levels will not work with you unless they’ve been instructed to do so from a higher level of government, and you can’t get to that higher level staff unless you have a formal letter of introduction. Well, that letter of introduction has to be in Vietnamese, and since we haven’t found a good translator yet, we have to send these things to Hanoi, which is why I’ve been waiting since Friday to get a translation of a 3 paragraph letter. (Not that it should take five days, in fact, it should take about an hour seeing as how it was e-mailed up there, but the distance and lack of ability to ride people about things that they’re sitting on doesn’t help.) So, for lack of this letter, I can’t get a meeting where I might, maybe, get local-level contacts, which is the only way I can progress beyond secondary-source data gathering.

You’re just *riveted*, aren’t you? I know. I get that a lot.

I’m trying to be a responsible computer user, and download recent virus definition files every week or two, since I’m not on our network at home and can’t get the live update. Downloading an 11MB file on a dial-up isn’t something I would wish on a lot of people, as it generally means that you have to sit there and stare at your computer for a good 30 – 40 minutes. All so I can do a virus scan and make sure that I don’t haul a very expensive paperweight back to DC with me. So far, so good.

We all went out to lunch today, which was nice. We were trading scary airline stories, and the best one I could contribute was my co-workers’ plane landing in Lahore because the wing was separating from the fuselage. But the new PM was telling us about the time he got on an Ariana flight and saw two men with very large, industrial-strength screwdrivers sitting near the door. Looked a little odd. When everyone had boarded the plane, the two men got up and screwed the door shut because there was something wrong with the locking mechanism and there was no other way it would stay closed. I guess that their attempts to use duct tape were unsuccessful. I can’t tell if that would make me feel better or worse, to be honest. Because, on a plane like that, it seems like an emergency landing would be more likely, therefore you’d want that door to work so you would have a chance of getting out once you hit the ground or the water – whichever you happened to be flying over when the plane started to drop from the sky. But if you don’t have an emergency, then it’s good if the door stays shut all the way to your destination, no? What a dilemma…

D and I just popped down to the coffee shop down the street to get some juice as a pick-me-up for the afternoon sugar crash, and I was reminded of something that I’ve noticed here. It seems virtually impossible to get something “to go” in the sense that you walk up to a counter, tell someone behind the counter what you’d like, pay them, and they hand you what you just ordered. Instead, you are flagged down by a server who takes your order, asks you sit at a table while it’s being prepared, and then brings it over to your table with the bill. Don’t get me wrong – it’s nice and customer service-y, but sometimes I just want to order my stuff and leave, ya know? Maybe I’m just becoming too antisocial for my own good. Okay, that’s highly doubtful; I suppose I’m just more accustomed to the way we do things at home. Where people in stores will ask you if you’re really going to buy something because the store is closing soon and if you’re not going to buy anything, could you just leave? Maybe we don’t have it all figured out either, eh?

What am I, Canadian? Take off, Hoser!

A post-script – just spoke to the boss, he said not to change my plans to leave Pakistan, and said that I should extend my time here longer, particularly in light of the “just write the report and enjoy the swimming pool” comment. So it now looks like I’ll be here until next Friday, returning to Karachi for just a few days to make nice. All things considered, I’m fine with that plan. It would have been nice to spend more time with the few friends I had there, but I’ll have time to take some pictures and spend a little more time at the pool. Much beyond that, I don’t think is terribly necessary as there’s not much for me to do there – at least not that I’ve been told about. So I’m very glad that my boss agrees! London, Baby!!! Yeah!!

I'm Not a Tu-tah...

Hong, the girl from the tailor shop, came over last night so that I could tutor her in English. She didn’t have any books or anything with her, so I didn’t quite know what to help her with. We talked a little about what she wanted to learn and she said that her written English was her big problem, so I had her write a few paragraphs about herself and I went over them with her to correct them. I’ve also realized just how much I don’t remember about the technical grammar of my own language. I can tell you how to properly construct a sentence; I just can’t always tell you why a given way is the right way. So telling a Vietnamese girl who’s learning English that you should make a certain word choice “just because” probably isn’t too helpful. But I was able to figure out the main things she needs to work on, I gave her some tips for practicing, and I think we’re meeting up again tonight…? She said that if I come back here longer, she’ll teach me Vietnamese, which would be really fun. I told her that, since her writing skills are what she most wants help with, she can send me e-mails even after I leave and I can try to help her out that way. She’s a very sweet girl, though, and she works in that shop for not a lot of money, and only two days off every month. But her entire family is poor, so she makes better money than the rest of them, because she’s at least in a bigger city. I was, once again, reminded of just how fortunate I am. If I *do* get to come back for a longer chunk of time (doubtful, unfortunately), I think I’d have to insist that she let me pay her for lessons or something.

Once again – if I *ever* mention anything about being “so poor” again, someone please smack me. Really, really hard. It’s all about perspective, isn’t it?

Yesterday was a good day – another long day at the office, but those tend to be typical when we’re in the field, from what I understand. The PM’s wife came by the office at lunch, so she and D and another woman here and I all went out to lunch – by way of a place that sold pashminas and pretty lil’ silk things. D had a silk shirt made, which looks lovely on her, so the rest of us browsed while she tried it on. I was looking at some of the things in this store, and I still can’t get over how little things cost here – you can buy a ¾ length, hand-embroidered silk coat for $60 - $75, but if you tried to buy it in the States, it would cost several hundred dollars if it was any kind of decent quality. However, I’ve gotten better at impressing upon myself the distinction between “want” and “need”, so I left the lovely coat on its lovely hanger in the store. (The sleeves were too short anyway…) The PM and his wife leave today, so we said our goodbyes last night, sadly. They’ll be in the US for a wedding in August, and she’s coming to DC for a couple of days, so I told her to make sure she lets me know when she’s in town. I don’t know when I’ll next be in Addis Ababa, so I doubt our paths will cross any time terribly soon.

Uh-oh – the IT guy is back. Apparently, he told D that he felt really badly about messing up her computer and wanted to fix it for her. Like I said – not a bad guy, just perhaps in over his head. So he’s here trying to, at least, get her administrator login changed back. The thing that makes me nervous about that is that my IT guy in DC said that changing the administrator login can be tricky, and he doesn’t like to walk people through it over the phone, because you can end up with a really nice paperweight instead of a functioning laptop, if you’re not careful. I clearly know nothing about this. I did, however, pass this little nugget of information along to D. I suppose she trusts him, so I *do* hope he can fix it enough for our IT department in DC to fix it. I, however, have learned my lesson and have no plans to let anyone touch my laptop ever again.

I just had a chat with the new PM about what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks (I decided not the mention the new bed linens and the Christmas shopping, as those parts didn’t seem really relevant), and once I said it all at the same time, it actually sounded like a lot, so that was a good feeling. Now I just hope that he doesn’t read the methodology that I’ve written and say “wow – what a moron”. Although he’s from Norway, so he might choose different words. I also haven’t heard him speak enough to really capture his accent yet. Just give me time…Like I said, however, he seems quite nice, so I think we’ll get along well for the one week that remains before I take off. Actually, less than a week – including today, I only have four days left in the office. Gah! Time is just flying these days, it’s all moving so quickly! He asked if I was available to come back for short periods of time in the fall, and I said that yes, I was. So maybe I’ll have a little time to return once again. Who knows? I am going to guess that I won’t know for a while. Since I already have a multiple entry visa that’s good through the end of December, a lot of notice isn’t likely to be required, despite the impracticality of last-minute travel. I would, however, like the opportunity to continue with this project, as it’s been a really good learning opportunity. But coming back for a few weeks would be preferable to a few months, all things considered. We’ll see.

So, do you know what I hate about Microsoft Word? Okay, that’s actually a trick question because I hate many things about Microsoft Word. But today the thing that I hate the most is when it decides how it wants to format things for me, despite me objecting and making it clear that I would, in fact, like my document to be formatted a different way. No, no that’s okay Microsoft Word, you know best.

Grr…

In any event, life moves on, and I should be able to wrap things up here fairly well. I have no idea what I’ll be doing in Pakistan, but it will be nice to see Lois, and Faruq and Samina. The rest of it…well, I hate to admit it, but I’m glad that it will only be a few more days, I think I’d start to suffocate beyond that. I’m going to ask Hamid to take me around on Saturday afternoon to take some pictures, though. I’ve taken tons of pictures since I’ve been here in Vietnam, but not so much in the ‘stan, even though I’ve spent nearly equivalent amounts of time in each place. With everything that’s going on in the world these days, I’m also thinking that keeping my time in Karachi to a minimum is a good idea.

We went to the market to get some produce today at lunch, we browsed a little, and I got a few last things for folks. It’s funny, when you’re bargaining with the sales girls, you’ll say, for example, that you’ll pay 55,000 dong for something when they’ve just told you the “price” is 75,000. They say 70,000, you say 55,000, they say 60,000 (last price!), you say 55,000, then they say “okay, 60,000, thank you, Miss!” at which point you have to say “no, 55,000!” because they’ve already started wrapping the stuff up, at a price that isn’t what you said you’d pay. Interesting sales technique – I wonder if it works often. As soon as we left Ben Thanh, my old curse came back and we were pelted with massive rain drops as we made our way across the street and over to our lunchtime destination. Unfortunately, D’s shoes aren’t made for running in the rain and she lost them halfway through the intersection we were running across. She recovered and managed not to get hit by a car, but we were all basically soaked from head to toe by the time we got to the café. One great thing about linen pants? They sure do dry quickly. Hurrah for that!

The afternoon dragged a little, because I still can't sleep well and I was fighting to stay awake. However, I'm back in my litttle studio apartment, which may be mine for even longer than I thought - my boss is coming and we may want to overlap our time here so that we can all have some time to be on the same page before I leave. I don't know what people in Pakistan are going to think about that, but...well, I like it here better. So I suppose I'll let everyone else work that out. Or something like that.

A Different Perspective

D and I spent the day Saturday walking around, I showed her the markets, and it was just really nice to have someone to do this with. It’s fun to have someone to laugh at things with, like when we saw some guy selling Viagra to another guy on a street corner, and it’s good to get a second opinion on things. We had a good time together, and man is she better at bargaining than I am. She’s absolutely ruthless, and far better at feigning indignation over a price that’s too high than I am. She’s spent time in Cambodia and Morocco, and she has local friends in each place who have carefully schooled her in the art of haggling. We spent Sunday doing some sightseeing, which I was glad to have the chance to do – and I brought several spare rolls of film for the occasion.

We had a really fun day walking around and sightseeing. We went to a few temples, the Fine Arts Museum, had lunch on the rooftop restaurant of the Majestic Hotel, and all kinds of other stuff. When we set out in the morning, we headed for District 5, Cholon (Chinatown), to see Quan Ang temple. We hopped into a cab, tried to pronounce the address, failed, and then showed the driver the map from the tour guide, at which point he nodded enthusiastically and we lurched off into the melee. When we arrived at our destination, we didn’t see a temple, but we did see a large market that had blocked off the entire street that we wanted to walk down. We decided to check out the market, so we got out of the cab and started to pick our way among the stalls.

We wound through stalls selling incense and fake paper money to burn at the Buddhist temples as an offering, and I took a picture of something that you would never be able to sell in the US – bundles of fake US $100 bills. I did a double take, but then remembered about the whole “burning paper money at the temple” thing from Taiwan, and it started to make sense. At least, I hope that’s what it was for. After the incense, there were clothing and jewelry stalls, where people were trying on shirts and bracelets and shoes under the tarps covering each stall. There were rows of butcher stalls selling every kind of animal product imaginable, from meat to organs to things I couldn’t quite identify. We rounded a corner and came to the produce stalls, with the sharp, musky smell of incense pervading everything. One of the cool things about traveling, particularly in places like Vietnam, is the produce you see and the new and unfamiliar things you can try. Some of them are good, some are wholly unappealing, but it’s all really cool to look at. The colors are fantastic, between the chilies, dragonfruit, the citrus fruits, and everything else. It’s almost overwhelming to try to take in, amid the din of people buying and selling and browsing and bargaining. I’ve also noticed that it’s easier to be stared at when there’s someone else that’s being stared at with you, if that makes any sense. D is the same height as me, and we both kept ducking slightly so that we wouldn’t whack our heads on the support bars that were holding up the tents covering the stalls. We probably would have cleared them, but it felt awfully close.

We walked down the adjoining street after making it out of the market, and were somewhat confused as to where Quan Ang actually was supposed to be. As we walked, we came across another temple and stepped inside. The attention to detail and level of artistry you see in these places are wonderful. There were massive spirals of incense hanging from the ceiling, with altars to different gods on all sides. In Vietnamese Buddhism, if I’m understanding this correctly, they believe in three Buddhas, not just one – one of the past, one for the present, and one for the future. So this trinity makes a difference in how they pursue their search for enlightenment, how they believe they should behave in their present life, and what eternity will be like for them. We took some pictures, and I had another Marlon Perkins moment, not wanting to be disrespectful, but also wanting to capture a little bit of what I was seeing. I’m sure that people in churches and synagogues and mosques and temples all over the world encounter this, but it still feels very strange to be taking pictures and marveling at the aesthetics of a house of worship while people are praying and exercising their faith.

After a few minutes, we wandered out, and crossed the street. And almost got demolished by an avalanche of scooters, which kept us on our toes, to put it mildly. As we walked down the curved street, surrounded by street vendors, foot traffic, and scooters, we finally stumbled across Quan Ang temple, which was absolutely packed with people. I don’t know what was happening yesterday, but I would guess that it was a holy day of some sort. After a few minutes, the incense started to sting my eyes, but I didn’t want to leave because there was so much to see. A few minute after that, after having gotten some more pictures, D and I gave up, as I could barely keep my eyes open. We exited the temple and selected a somewhat roundabout way to get back to the main road so that we could explore a little more.

We came to the area known for its traditional medicine practitioners, and the shops selling the herbs they use. We walked past shops that had the aura of an old-fashioned pharmacy about them, complete with shelves crammed full of mysterious looking substances in glass jars. Some stores had massive open barrels filled with plants whose names I wasn’t likely to remember, even if I could have understood them in the first place. The air smelled sharp and spicy, and all the signs were written in Chinese.

After exploring a little more, we decided to take a cab back into District 1 and have lunch at the Majestic Hotel’s rooftop restaurant. We sat down at our outdoor table, nestled comfortably into our chairs and marveled at the lovely view of the Saigon River available from the rooftop. However, shortly after our lunch arrived, so did the rain, so we had to hustle inside and find a seat. True to form the rains didn’t last long, but were very violent, so it was good to seek shelter. We finished up our lunch and sat browsing through our travel books, figuring out what to do next. We decided upon the Museum of Fine Arts, which was supposed to be quite good, and had several galleries in the ground floor with original artwork for sale. It wasn’t far away, so we set out on foot after the rain subsided.

I generally pride myself on having a good sense of direction, but it was failing me yesterday. Fortunately, not only is D’s sense of direction worse (her admission, not my observation), but she was a good sport about all of it, so we both kept our sense of humor. We got completely turned around, and had to whip out the travel book map frequently to get our bearings and see which way we should be going. I noticed that my gift for being outside at the beginning of an excursion when the rain starts has morphed into something else. Whenever I stop to look at a map or some kind of reference, I will invariably figure it out just in time for a cavalcade of traffic to come rushing down the street, preventing me from crossing for a few minutes. It’s a fun gift. Really. It is.

We eventually found the museum and wandered inside. They had a really beautiful photography exhibit featured, so we walked around looking at these massive photographs taken from every continent. The funny thing was that each picture had a caption with a cheesy tagline of some sort, like “The twinkling, colorful promise of a rainbow touches the soul of the rural farms”. It was great. We went downstairs to check out the art galleries as well, which had some fantastic work by local artists. There’s a large courtyard in the middle of the museum, which, oddly enough, is painted like a tennis court – and might have actually been one, for all I know. There’s no net, but the family of one of the gallery owners was romping out in the sunshine, so perhaps it’s just as well.

We were both feeling a little parched and a little in need of a blood sugar boost, so we walked over to a place that I’d passed by before, but had never been to. It’s an ice cream parlor, but it’s housed in an old French colonial mansion. The building is a warm, sunny yellow color, with a large, covered veranda dotted with café tables. The ice cream is all freshly made on the premises and it is delicious (I had some ginger ice cream that had real ginger in it…yummy…). It absolutely hit the spot, as it was another hot and steamy day here in Vietnam.

When we were finished, we hopped in a cab for our last stop of the day – the Jade Emperor Pagoda. It wasn’t quite as full as Quan Ang, but it was still crowded. There was actually a French tour group there, so D and I followed them for a bit. She, obviously, understood more of the explanation than I did, but I managed to catch a good bit of it. The pagoda was beautiful and ornate, with ponds of koi and turtles out front. The turtles were actually in really poor condition – tremendously overcrowded, in dirty water, pelted with bread by people “feeding” them, and some of them with rotting shells. It wasn’t something I wanted to spend a lot of time looking at, so we went inside and caught the tour group. There were lots of different tunnels and rooms you could go into, and it was nice to have someone there to explain what it all symbolized so that I could put it in some context. It was quite large, and as with so many things here, brought back echoes of my childhood. I’ve read that the sense of smell is one of the most powerful memory triggers, and based on a day spent smelling prepared food and produce from street vendors in Chinatown and exploring Buddhist temples where the air was thick with incense, I have to agree.

Once we finished looking around, we made our way up to the main road, collapsed into a cab, and headed back to our apartments. I fell into bed, managing a short nap before heading out for dinner. The new PM seems very nice and very mellow, so I can imagine that will change the dynamic around here considerably. (The current PM is very nice, but I would never describe him with the word “mellow”.) I didn’t sleep well last night (again), so it was easy to get up to run at 6 am, since my eyes first popped open at 5. Argh. I can’t wait to get a good nights’ sleep! It’s strange to think that I leave Vietnam in a week. But then I get to head to London the week after that, which I’ve been looking forward to for months. And a quick glance at my calendar tells me that I’ll be home in just 23 days!