Wednesday/Thursday November 15/16

 

For the first time in what seems to be ages there were no major external crises weighing heavily on me before leaving.  Perhaps it was because of my work environment, but at the moment I can’t remember at trip without some kind of external misery setting a tone before closing the door behind me.

 

I couldn’t decide whether to stay up all night or to catch some winks and ended up procrastinating packing until the early hours of Wednesday morning.  I went to bed around 3: 30 am and woke around 7:15 completely disoriented.  I was fully prepped though and spent the time cleaning up the house.

 

This trip was really the first done with the journal in mind.  I’d had a hell of a time deciding where to go last time and Vietnam was on the list.  Scott recommended I go there, if only to give me something interesting to write.  I often acknowledge that Scott sometimes knows me better than I know myself.  Although I didn’t take the trip to Vietnam last fall, the encouraging comments Scott made stayed with me long after.

 

By this time, writing and maintaining the journal was a much more serious hobby than record collecting.  Adding to this the upkeep of the website, and I found myself almost constantly busy with journal related activities. Vietnam would, as Scott suspected, give me plenty about which to think and to write.

 

Andy was late, fighting traffic, but I allowed for plenty of time for a delicious breakfast at Tom’s Pancake House, managing to exorcise Lauren’s ghost a little at the same time. Much to my surprise, the Northwest counter at PDX was chaos, but I was thankfully steered to an automated check-in, which probably saved me at least 45 minutes of line time.  I spent the time before boarding reading the paper and admiring the miscellaneous Asian women gathering around the gate at the far end of the concourse.

 

My relationship to Lauren died a rather clinical death. She came over for a couple of months to see if we could make it together and it had been my decision that we couldn’t.  She ran on a wild race course of mood swings, often sinking down to plain nastiness.  Given my rather serene and uncomplicated existence, I couldn’t justify making sacrifices both emotional and financial for someone who apparently was completely ungrounded.  Despite my very strong feelings for her, I let her go after she returned to home.

 

As always in such a situation, ghosts of a memorable time haunt me indefinitely.  One of my favorite ways of exorcising these demons, binding them if not completely banishing them, is to repeat an experience.  In this case, Andy, Lauren and I once had a memorable breakfast at Tom’s, and I thought Andy and I could go there to neutralize the memory of the previous visit in trio.  It seemed to work.

 

The flight was disappointingly full, but I sat by a small framed girl who was quiet and completely inoffensive the entire flight.  I did not hear a child scream the whole journey.  Too late, I struck up a conversation with my female neighbor, who was just attractive enough and British enough to have been of interest.  She lived in Japan and claimed it was cheaper than living in the U.S.

 

Well, I don’t think I can buy that.  I suppose it depends on what you like, and I’m pretty sure than anything I want costs twice as much in Japan. She wasn’t that special looking, either, but she would have made for some pleasant conversation.  Wonder why I didn’t bother?

 

Getting off the plane and through customs didn’t cause me to break stride.  While going through X ray the guard even zipped up the small pack for me.  The girls working security in Narita were cute and giggly, just the way I like ‘em, wearing the same red berets and white gloves as always.  I sat at the gate watching CNN Asia, writing and waiting for my 17:30 flight out of Japan.

 

The flight to Singapore was half full or less, but this was compensated for by a gaggle of screaming infants sorted liberally through out the plane.  One in particular, a boy of an ethnically Indian couple screamed bloody murder across the aisle from me the entire trip.  So despite the extra space I was quite restless and irritated.  I ate on the plane in order to save myself from being rousted by the ugly flight attendants more than anything.

 

The plan this time was to fly to Singapore and catch a flight to Vietnam at some point.  I’d had a little trouble figuring out how to do this.  Since around 2000 I had been booking my flights and hotels by myself, using travel agents only on rare exceptions.  Generally I found my own web work to be the same price or cheaper.

 

This time what I was finding to Vietnam seemed wholly unreasonable, costing USD400-600 more than the $750 flight from Portland to Singapore. I gave the matter some thought and came up with the bright idea of checking the arrival schedule to Changi (Singapore) throughout the week, so I could see who came and went directly from that airport.  This is the way I found a budget carrier, Tiger Airways based out of Singapore, and was able to arrange for the trip at reasonable prices.

 

Arrival in Singapore this time was more crowded than my first grand arrival, but there was hardly any waiting at immigration.  My wait for the big bag, however, was surprisingly long, but probably no more than I’d typically wait at home.  I wrestled up an ATM and found the long line for the taxis, just where I left it.  Halfway through the line it crossed my mind that I should have gone upstairs to the departures, but the line moved quickly enough and very shortly I was in a cab and on my way out of the airport.

 

A seasoned traveler’s trip is to go to the departures area and get a taxi that is dumping someone off.  This usually avoids the line and any surcharge that the driver might have to pay, and further could serve to avoid the taxi hucksters in places like Bangkok and Lima.  Here though, things were arranged so efficiently and the line moved so quickly that such a scheme hardly mattered.

 

The driver was chatty and we talked about the casinos in Singapore as well as the inconveniences caused city wide by the nearly simultaneous visit of George W. Bush. He knew how to get me to the York which I found to be a little further off of Orchard than perhaps I would have liked.

 

At this time, George W. Bush was in trouble.  The war in Iraq was dragging on badly, he was hated overseas and the Republicans had just lost majorities in the Senate and the House in November only a week or two before I left on this trip.  By the time I returned home, I was shocked at how deserted he was.  Although highly disliked in the Portland metro area for a long time, it seemed that suddenly it was acknowledged that he was despised throughout the country.

 

Bush was in Asia for the APEC conference, a Pacific regional economic discussion held in Hanoi.  He used the opportunity to visit neighboring countries, including Singapore and served as a complication for this trip.  I would find Vietnam in near hysteria at being the center of attention to the world for the first time in many years.

 

The lobby was dead and reception told me they were full, but they did have my reservation thankfully. The lobby reminded me of the Meritus in Bangkok, which certainly bode well, with marble, wood and tasteful track lighting.  The room had two twin beds, to my disappointment, and although clean and nice, it was clearly well used by my BKK yardstick.  I stripped down, fooled with the lights and the A/C and surfed the meager TV offerings (which included a movie with a cover of the obscure “Lover Don’t Go” by Nick Lowe).  I slept hard for only a few hours, but it seemed like six or eight.

 

Why anyone in the world would want two twin beds in one room is beyond me.  Two people sleeping in the same room in separate beds sounds like someone’s grandparents to me, and it makes me want to puke quite honestly.  I suppose I should have complained, and I would later during the trip. If the hotel was in fact completely booked, I doubt I would have gotten anywhere, despite the fact that I certainly requested a king bed when I booked the room through Expedia.

 

I had half a mind of going down to Orchard Towers and hiring my own welcoming committee of one for the evening, but after I saw the sleeping arrangements I gave up and called it a night.  Slight compensation was the Nick Lowe song, which still puzzles me how it ended up in a movie.  I’ll take my Nick anyway I can get him, though, even in the wee hours of Singapore.

> >

CURRENCY

MAPS