dots on heat
I wrote this last year but forgot to press publish. Dear oh dear.
My mother’s sister is rebuilding the family house. A two story building with a width of 8.60m and built with a European facade. This house isn’t built to European standards however, as this morning shows. I awoke to news that 2 builders had fallen off the second floor. We got there and the site was a tip, 13 men and women were living, sleeping, eating and building in the same space.
The two builders were balancing on two planks when they fell. Luckily they fell onto the neighbours house, whereby the ramshack tin metal roof gave way and they landed on the bed. Unlucky but lucky as the Vietnamese say.
I’m living with my brother in law at the moment. They have over 100m2 in the burbs of Saigon. The tax is over $90k a year for the land alone. The house has 20 odd rooms and a batch of servents. It’s pretty comfortable. They have about 6 apparently house trained dogs which they twat over the head with a stick when mayhem erupts. I’m a little weary having not had any rabies shots nor insurance. I would say I didn’t buy insurance because I don’t believe in gambling but I went to a Casino yesterday.
One of the dogs, the prize of the brood is a dalmation. An adorable girl that is obviously the envy of all the other dogs. She’s allowed in the house. Anyway, she’s on heat so they decide to take her for an “interview”. She’s bleeding all over the taxi and it gets rather messy. When we get to another in laws house, she’s transferred onto a motorbike. She’s balancing for her dear life as we make our way to the meeting point. The dog is brought upstairs whereby a much larger male dalmation has his way with her. We watch rather tentively as he does his thing. Our dog is left there overnight just to make sure. Total cost, a fiver.
That was 2 days ago.
Yesterday
After having a good night sleep, we decide to head to the border of Cambodia. As Vietnam is a modern communist country there’s a dichotomy of different streams of ideologies. Gambling is prohibited in Vietnam so everyone jumps the border on the weekend to gamble in Cambodia. My in law has business over there, he’s loaned over $100k to the various Casinos on the border. We decide to go over there to collect the interest.
I don’t have a Visa for Cambodia and my Visa for Vietnam is a single entry only Visa. I therefore can’t enter Cambodia and then re enter Vietnam. We decide the most sensible thing to do is for them to go over and for me to hitch a ride on the back of a bike and cross the border through a forest. It seems odd that previously the only time i’d ever been in a foreign country without a passport was also Cambodia.
The trip is a nice dirt track around the border patrol, paying off various peasants, police and border guards along the way.