Well, you’ll finally be done with us after this message, save our inevitable upcoming messages regarding our photos.
Our internet connection at home went down a few days ago, so we were able to write from Hong Kong.
The second day of our Mekong Delta trip was good, but a bit boat-heavy. We started the morning in a bunch of rickety row boats rowed by women who stand at the stern. I find it very odd that all rowboats in Vietnam are rowed by a person at the stern. I personally find it much easier to row backwards than forwards. Anyway, our boat was more rickety than the rest. Right next to me, there was a little jet of water coming in, about as high as a drinking fountain. It was spraying water about 3 inches into the air. I discovered this and pointed it out to Ian, who wasn’t too pleased, given that he can’t swim. When I showed it to the German in front of me, he spent a few minutes trying to plug it with his finger, but I guess only the Dutch can do that successfully. The boat lady took some goo from one crack and tried to plug the hole with it, but all it did was stop the jet, the water was still seeping in. When the boat with our guide pulled up, Ian asked how long we’d be in the boats and he said it would be another 30 minutes. This is when Ian really got nervous. I had visions of making floats for him out of empty water bottles. I yelled to the guide that Ian couldn’t swim (something he studiously avoids mentioning). Luckily, we had a scheduled stop at a floating village just a few minutes away, so we boarded a different boat for the rest of the journey.
We stopped in a Cham village later during the rowboat ride. The people in this village are Muslim, not Buddhist as elsewhere. It was odd to see a mosque. The kids in this village were just dying for pens or gum. We’d encountered kids in the town where we stayed with the same requests. Our guide told us that they needed pens for their schoolwork. I found this particularly frustrating because we have one zillion pens and I considered bringing some on our trip so that I’d have something to give to the kids that wouldn’t have a terrible cultural impact, but then I figured that they wouldn’t be interested in pens. Oh well. We had three pens with us, so I gave one away.
Once we got back to Saigon, we picked up our bags at the tour operator’s office where we left them. When we got back to the room, I was taking some clothes out and discovered ants on my trousers. I’m not a bug-lover, so this was very displeasing. We couldn’t figure out where they’d come from. After we managed to pick them off of everything in my bag (they were reasonable localized to a single area), we discovered a hole in the bottom of my bag and quickly realized that a rat had clearly eaten a hole in my new bag to get at the power bars that were individually sealed and stored in a heavy-duty ziploc bag. You’ve got to be impressed by the rat’s nose. There was a half-eaten bag of power bars in there, hence the ants. I’m not happy about the hole in my bag, although the rat did pick a decent spot to make a hole in that it didn’t compromise the structural integrity and it was pretty easy to avoid having stuff fall out of it due to where it was. We got the bags at REI. I’m told that REI is like Nordstrom’s in their dedication to customer service. Who knows, maybe the lifetime guarantee covers rat holes.
We arrived in Hong Kong in the afternoon of the 29th. In Hong Kong, the immigration people each have ballots on their desks for people to vote for the most courteous immigration officer. I voted for our guy because he smiled, more than I can say for most immigration officers who speak only the language of grunt. We got to our hotel in record time, thanks to the very efficient airport transit system. Our hotel was marvelous. The lights, air conditioning, and do not disturb and make up the room indicators were all controlled by a panel on the bedside table. There were real towels, full-sized and not like sandpaper, and, best of all, a down comforter! Of course, the price tag was somewhat higher as well.
Hong Kong is a shopper’s paradise. I like to shop, but only for bargains. Not just for stuff priced at or above its value. So Hong Kong wasn’t all that interesting to me. It is very beautiful, but most of the beautiful areas are residential, so access to them is limited to time spent on the bus. The weather was pretty crappy for our whole visit to Hong Kong, so we missed out on the view from the Peak 🙁
We went to Macau on our final day. We got there via a very nice, very smooth, very fast ferry called TurboJet. On the way there, we were mistakenly seated in Super Class, which was aptly named. It was just like first class on a 747. You go upstairs, someone smiles at you and kisses your butt and you get a big seat. The bathroom was fabulous. It was all marble and gold.
Macau was a bit of a disappointment, though there were good parts. The architecture is nice, but run-down. We found a great bakery and had yummy pastries. Pastries in the rest of our destinations left a bit to be desired. We went up the Macau Tower, a big Space Needle-looking thing. It was very funny there. In the floor of the observation deck, there were two areas with glass floors. I walked up to this, looked down for a moment and stepped on it. After all, I know that it will be fine — I’m certainly not the first person to walk on it. Ian had a different reaction, which was made doubly funny by the fact that he claims to want to sky dive and bungee jump. He got one look at this thing and said “I can’t do it.” I kept trying to get him to walk on it but he wouldn’t. Finally, I coaxed him into doing it, he inched his way on while I got the camera out to take a picture. We were at the end of a set of batteries, and the camera refused to take the picture, as it sometimes does when the batteries are sluggish. I told Ian that I had to rotate the batteries and he yelled, “Sarah, just take the $%&*@# picture!” He was a real grouch. His hands were almost as sweaty as they were during our wedding ceremony. That’s the only other time that I’ve felt his palms sweat. Later on, I stood on the biggest glass panel and jumped, just for the effect. It’s fun to be the brave one.
Our flight home was uneventful, other than the whiner sitting in the seat behind Ian. At the beginning of the flight, she asked him if he usually reclines his seat. He said that he usually did on an overnight flight. She asked him not to so that she could see the movie. I told her that the little screens imbedded in the backs of the seats swiveled a bit to counteract the effects of the reclining chair, but she seemed to already know about this. Ian never really responded either way to her request and just left it as he told her in the beginning, that he usually reclines his chair. After all, who doesn’t? So he reclines his seat an hour or so into the flight. We both hear her say something, but we have headphones on and don’t know what it was. Clearly something indicating displeasure. Later, Ian told me that she had clearly just woken up because he felt a big thump on his seat and heard her say “I can’t move!” Of course, the person in front of Ian (and everyone else on the plane) has reclined her seat. At the end of the flight, she said, “you know, it was really frustrating the way you reclined your seat for the whole trip. I couldn’t move.” He reminded her that everyone had the same amount of space and that she must have known prior to purchasing her ticket that the seats recline. He suggested that she fly first class next time. She grumbled some more and said that she didn’t recline her seat out of respect for the person behind her. She kept talking about it being disrespectful to recline your seat. So folks, keep this in mind next time you board an airplane: don’t press that recline button! It’s there as an aesthetic feature only.
Since we got home today, we’ve had too little time to sit around on our butts, so I’m going to sign off now and do just that. Work tomorrow, ugh. Oh, I almost forgot. So far, the homeopathic jet lag pills seem to be doing an equally good job for the return trip as they did for the outbound trip. We recommend them. Get them at REI or Whole Foods.