That evening I went for dinner to one of those weird restaurants where the plates go round the rotary system and you pick what you want and boil it in a pot. I put chicken in but then didn’t eat it because I had a suspicion I was going to die. I stuck to prawns, (which I hadn’t realised were grey before they’re cooked!) and leaves, sweetcorn and mushroom. It was surprisingly filling! We then went for ice cream at a café… amazing.
Que randomly told us a story about her grandfather who was never found after the war until some “mediums” came to town and possessed her nephew. Her nephew (who had never known his grandfather, and neither had his father, so he couldn’t possibly have known anything about his grandfather) was “inside his nephews body” acting and behaving exactly like her granddad, with all the mannerisms, and he was talking to the grandfather’s sister about all the little things they used to do, and reminiscing about stories from when they were younger that only him and her would know… I am a complete non- believer and think this can all be explained, but then apparently the nephew, still possessed by the granddad, said he would show them where his body was. Ho Chi Minh himself apparently made an announcement at the same time saying “This is the time to bring them home. These people have come to find our loved ones” etc. Then the nephew led them on a two day trip to the middle of a forest and showed them where to dig, and low and behold, they found their grandfather’s body. Apparently many families found their relatives this way…. Again, I’m a complete non believer but that’s a massive coincidence… any thoughts???
Today was the worst start to the day! I bought phone credit because I needed to check with the embassy how I was meant to “prove my address” when I’d only been here three months, and didn’t want to go all the way to town, only to be sent away again. However, the top up card didn’t work and when I gave it to the woman in the school office she tried so many times that my phone became blocked. So, instead of heading straight to the embassy, I went back to the shop I’d bought it from, who told me after much discussion and in very broken English that I needed to ring the phone company. I then had to go online and cancel the appointment at the embassy as I didn’t have enough time to go now and couldn’t ring them to check what documents I needed…!
Annoyed, I then walked over to the volunteer house to find someone who could translate for me or lend me a phone. I found Que who said I could use her phone, which was back at the house. I walked all the way back, to be rung my Thuy and told she would ring up and unblock my phone for me, but that I needed to go over to the volunteer house… so back I went! Eventually, my phone was unlocked but I apparently need to take the 200,000 vnd phone card to the phone card office and provide them with my passport so they can exchange it…. There goes 200,000 VND…. (Again, only $10 but that’s a lot in Vietnam!)
While I was walking backwards and forwards up the street, a group of guys noticed me and kept shouting hello and getting their phones out and waving them at me. In the end I gave in and gave them my number, and then received many messages telling me they could fix my phone and would I like to go for coffee?! Ha.
In the afternoon I went to the hospital with Rory and George’s wife and we paid 1 million dong (£35) and que jumped in front of the hundreds of people at the hospital- thanks to the fact that George’s wife is Vietnamese and George is loaded so can pay bribes.
We had an eye check, measured or height and got weighed. However, no-one actually helped us, we just did it ourselves! We were then taken to give blood, and they took four tubes of it, and instead of using a device to change the pot they just switched them half way through with our arm still leaking blood… it made my legs go funny.
We then had to answer some questions, one of which was “Have you been ill here? E.g. diarrhoea?” to which Rory instantly said “No!” so I followed suit… Everyone suffers from it a bit, right?!
