| | | From Nov. 24:
We returned to Saigon late yesterday after an uneventful flight from Hanoi. Not surprisingly the weather is hot and sticky. Not surprisingly it’s raining. Not surprisingly our tour operator arranged for our transfer from airport to hotel, just as he had done so professionally many times before. After having our baggage tickets checked I telephoned our new driver and found that his English was quite good. He asked which pole number we were at. Huh? I don’t see any pole numbers, not even any poles, so I handed the phone to my wife and she started talking away with him in Vietnamese. We almost reached the curb when I noticed a man and woman holding signs with our names. Huh? Who’s on the phone? Honey!!! Look left! Somehow she navigated the surprise on the left with the person on the phone and hung up, only to begin an excited, fast paced conversation with the couple who had been holding the signs. I couldn’t pick up enough of the conversation to figure out whether our driver had been formally changed or if we were being hijacked. The new driver claimed to be the older brother of our first tour guide, but there was no physical resemblance, and the age difference between the two did not support this claim. After several minutes things calmed down and we discovered that our first driver, when at home, goes by the same name as our first tour guide, but we know him by his given name, hence our confusion. To summarize, our new driver is the older brother of the driver who was with us for the first week of our trip after leaving Saigon 3 weeks ago (he also picked us up at the airport when we first arrived in Saigon)! If you have trouble following the preceding explanation, just trust us, we sympathize!
Upon arrival at our hotel, the same one we stayed in during our first week in Saigon, the doorman/parking director/security person gave us a big smile (he’s always there, early morning, midday, late night, when doesn’t this guy work?) and greeting, then we walked to the front desk and saw 4 other faces (bell boy and other hotel staff) with warm smiles happy to see us. Kind of like coming home again!
More from Nov. 24:
Informal. That’s a good word to describe how things work in this country. During our trip to Ha Giang we went to the tower that marks the northernmost point in Vietnam. Far from the base of the tower I saw a barrier beyond which only motorbikes were allowed. Those in autos had to park this side of the barrier and then make the long walk uphill to the tower. Our driver waved to the guy manning the barrier and, surprise, up went the barrier! Turns out our driver and the barrier controller are friends. How convenient!
This morning as we left the hotel for church (5:00 am, remember?) it was raining and we needed an umbrella. Mr. doorman/parking director/security person to the rescue! He handed us his umbrella, meaning that any guests entering or leaving the hotel for the next hour would not have the luxury of staying dry between their car and the hotel. Convenient again (for us, anyway).
Of course there are more such instances. I like informality! |
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