Month: March 2015

Sunny by day

Sunny by night

Spent 21 hours or so on the bus. Next to a crazy woman as it happens. She was about 60 odd – but mentally, like a puppy.

I offered her some of my drink, which she pinched off me and drank. So I offered her another one. And she drank that.

She then proceeded to start depositing money in my seat-back wallet which added up to a few dollars. No particular reason, just better there, I guess.

As we got going, she kept looking into my eyes, she was staring over at me and trying to play with the hairs on my arms muttering strange inanities, with wide eyes and an expectation that it was making some sense to me.

Sometimes, when I said the words back to her, this was very funny. Hilarious in fact.

I wondered what she was actually saying, because she seemed to make most other people laugh, the driver and the service station staff. And whether we would find her funny in England.

Not sure that we would.

So I soaked up some of this novel humor.

Collision

As we were coming out of Ho Chi Minh, the bus driver had a collision. Someone pulled out on him and he moved into the side of another vehicle.

After a while, this vehicle caught us up, and the two parties had a debacle on the side of the road. The crazy lady slept through it, but woke up shortly after and started ranting and raving and singing songs.

Warning

When we stopped for dinner, one of the other bus riders told me it would be better to stay away from her as she probably wanted to ‘turn me over’ as I believe the phrase is.

I said I thought she was crazy and a little funny, but I wasn’t intending on doing anything ‘with’ her. He said he thought that would be a good idea and that Vietnam was mostly ‘safe’, but you could still need to be careful.

 

Yesterday, took a cheap motorbike (for $2), and made a tour of the city.

Picked the bike up for cheap very close to my hotel, the Sunny Hotel, Hue. Didn’t seem like not worth doing for that price.

Had a little ride around, over to the island, around the citadel. Then out of the city.

Not a lot to impress really.

Motorbikes are simple too stressful in SE Asian cities.

It’s only a numbers game until someone smashes into the side of you and knocks you off.

My advice is stay off them. They’re a death trap. If you’re going any distance, take the bus. You’ll see just as much of the country with 1/2 the stress.

 

This time it was outside ‘Tet’ festival. This meant that the wonders of the ‘Foreign Patient’ wing were in operation.

The hospital was a lot more busy, and when I visited the counter for service, I was ushered to this ‘Foreign Patient’ wing, instead of being put in with the Vietnamese.

Foreign patients

In the Foreign Patient wing, I was feeling pretty crook. I gave the lady my diagnoses from 3 days ago, documenting my problem and the prescription the doctor had given me.

I was given a little form to fill in, with some basic details, including name address phone number and passport number.

I was then taken to ‘room 1’, which had a sign saying ‘foreign patients’ above the door.

I waited for around 1/2 an hour. At which point I was ushered in and had my blood pressure taken. I was then shown the doctor.

After asking me how I was feeling, she said I should go upstairs to the Urology dept. and they would sort me out from there.

I went upstairs, after paying 250,000 VND about $12, for the priviledge of being shown where the Urology department was.

Urology department

Once in the department, the doctor checked my papers, and said I needed another X-ray and CT scan. I said I already had an X-ray from 2 days ago and a CT scan in the accident and emergency department.

After this I spent another 1 1/2 hours hanging around the A&E, trying to get them to release my records from the previous day.

After some discussion and to-ing and fro-ing, they decided that they had the X-rays but not the CT scan and that the CT scan was going to cost me 1,000,000 VND, which is about $50.

I said this was a joke, and that they were simply fleecing foreigners.

The doctor sent me back upstairs to the Urology department. After some telephone calls and discussion, the Urology doctor wrote another prescription from the chemist.

All pretty crazy. All pretty time consuming.

I just wish it could have all happened during tet, then I wouldn’t have had to pay the crazy ‘foreigner’ charges.

:(

Still, never mind.

At least I have some prescribed drugs which will either heal me, or not, until I reach Hanoi.