expatriatisms ulterior motives

I returned my motorbike to the Kodak guy, retrieved my passport from him and had several beers with a couple ex-pats with considerably better attitudes than the guy I’d encountered in the morning. They loved me and my attitude toward traveling, so I felt comfortable asking them questions about their decision to move over there. One of them was British and the other two were Americans, all three of which served in the war. The common consensus was that they fell in love with the country during the war and returned as quickly as they could, unfortunately that wasn’t until post-retirement for all three of them. Understandably, wartime talk wasn’t a preferable topic of conversation for them, so the bulk of our interaction revolved around me and my time abroad. Then one of their buddies came along, posted up with us, ordered a round for everyone and was beaming with excitement. The British guy asked him why he was so excited and he delved into an all too graphic story about how he had just “banged” a “very young” Vietnamese girl who ran off with his watch afterwards. His friends, the guys I had grown to quite enjoy, all patted him on the back for accomplishing such a feat, and I excused myself, and walked away. My admiration for their eagerness to live in the country in which they fought was immediately replaced with resentment towards them for more likely moving over there due to the ability to get laid by far younger, more attractive, and smaller girls for a fraction the price it would cost them in their home country. Making zero assertions about ex-patriots in general, because I’m am fully confidant that a lot of them have great intentions, I was disgusted by the few I had come across and became increasingly eager to flee the city the next day.
Once I decide I want to leave a city, the prospect of staying an additional day seems like absolute torture. It’s really quite strange how big a role the mind plays on ones happiness while traveling; this reinforced the happiness and contentment I possessed regarding my lacking an itinerary. People always ask me how long I’m going to stay and where I plan to go next, and I relish the fact that I can honestly say, “I don’t know” with absolute certainty.
In a drunken state I stumbled to a Vietnam Airlines office that littered the area in which I was staying and requested the next ticket out of town and up north to the old capital of the country, Hanoi. From there I would travel over land to Halong city and by boat out to Cat Ba Island in the middle of Halong Bay. I really hate flying when I travel because I feel like it takes a lot of the adventure out of it, but the Reunification Express train running directly from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi with stops at literally every city along the way takes a whopping 42 hours, and on a relatively short schedule, there was no way I was spending nearly two entire revolutions around the clock aboard a train watching the country fly by at the speed of sound.
Frankly, I don’t remember getting to my hostel after the number of beers I’d had with my new/old ex-patriot friends/enemies, but I know I made it there somehow because I woke up there the following morning.
Early mornings in Saigon are like the seventh inning stretch of a World Series Game, literally, everyone is walking around, yelling. They seem generally happy, but the morning noise is unlike anything I’ve ever heard.
Up early yet again, Vietnam Airlines beckoned my presence for my flight northbound. You can’t go wrong with a breakfast spot called Good Morning Vietnam, so I headed over there again, got hit on by the same server from the day before, ordered the same banana pancakes I’ve acquired a huge affinity for, and received the same weird coffee setup that you have to let brew for like ten minutes once it gets to your table; I managed to not spill it everywhere this time though.
The airport is quite a bit out of the center of the city, so it would have been a pretty serious ride had I hopped a moto, therefore I opted for the cab route. Two dollars later I was curbside at Ho Chi Minh Airport on my way to Hanoi.
This is what I expected planes to be like in Asia. Up until this flight I had had relatively comfortable flights with ample legroom and the ability to standup straight in the aisle; then there was this flight. Had I boarded this plane at 6’7” instead of a mere 6’6” than I legitimately would have had to lie down in the aisle to fit. It was the tightest squeeze I have ever had to perform in order to board an airplane, and it sucked terribly. There are flights in the US where I don’t have much legroom, where I have to sit virtually straight up as to pull my knees back as far as possible, and then there was this one. I was physically unable to sit straight in this seat, I had to turn my body 45 degrees to point my knees out into the aisle because the seat in front of me was simply too close. This plane was made for Asian people, not massive Americans. Thankfully it was only a two-hour flight.
The food on Asian airlines is supremely dodgy; I’m a huge fan of sushi in general, but there is something a bit off about having it served at 10,000 feet. It lacks the feeling of freshness and the ability to be awesome when it comes wrapped in cellophane in an airplane. But the crackers were good. And the Pepsi.