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.

In case you’re not a planespotter

CX – Cathey Pacific
BA – British Airways
HKG – Hong Kong
SGN – Saigon
LHR -London

I landed in Saigon last night. After hitting the hay for what seems like an eternity, I believe i’ve beaten the jet lag and am back to normal.

The trip here was quite uneventful. The BA25 flight was delayed by 1 hr at LHR, but the plane made up some time overnight so I was able to make that short connection in HKG. I asked the gentleman at checkin to seat me where he’d sit. He promptly chose a seat next to an empty one and told me in all likelihood I would have a spare seat next to me. He also said that he was pretty sure a cute girl would be sitting next to me.

I gave him the obligatory cheers mate, thumbs up salute and headed to the flight. He was right on both counts. I got an empty seat beside me and a cute girl next to me. The dilemma began. Do I start talking to said girl, as if I did, the odds were i’d be stuck between empty place and a 12hr flight with a dull wittering girl. I chose to chance it. Thankfully she was rather amiable and we had a nice congenial chat.

Her name was Regina, a daughter of those bygone colonial days of Hong Kong. British passport in hand; her family had obviously done well for themselves, able to send 2 children off to a boarding school in Bath and her off to a University in Geneva – studying hospitality?!.

What struck me was her well mannared groomed appearance and a lack of aspirations. The all too common characteristics of children sent to study in foreign lands. Her ideal job would be a receptionist in a 5 star hotel and onward to management; maybe even an events coordinator.

What happaned to being an; actress, singer, ballerina or writer. Where did the dreams go.

This theme of bumping into children of famalies who’d lived off of the fat of the land continued. The next flight was CX725 HKG – SGN. BA vs CX, CX wins hands down. Their staff are chosen on appearance first; I had 4 amazingly attractive girls scampering around daintily doing the odd chores; this was juxtaposed to the family friendly BA staff who had a lot of nous albeit not much grace.

I land in Vietnam. I’d only bought the tickets 10 days ago so didn’t have time to prepare. It hits me. I’m here in a dusty developing country, the taxi’s are all into bartering and the population are all seemingly out bartering everything from fried fish to lottery tickets.