Karaoke stopped around 10. I revoke my apology to the roosters and maintain my asshole stance.
However, I do not care. I am ready to leave this country and move on.
I believe I will now forever think of travel as hiccups. Your doing fine, going along and in a sudden revolt for some misdeed, the gastro intestinal system glitches. Never one glitch. But unpredictable, random yet somehow perfectly not perfect series of glitches follow.
You try to correct. Pinch your earlobe. Hold your breath. Drink water from a glass while standing on your head. Eventually, nothing works except time and patience, and probably an internal fart that pushes the gas causing bubble out one end or the other.
The point is, you just never know.
I had a car arranged to pick me up and return me to Hanoi. It was to be there by 10. It was not.
I thought I had paid via credit card for the hotel, but I had only confirmed. He did not take cards. I had to pay in VND because my American $ were too wrinkly. It all worked out. Hiccup in the stomach of life. I had plenty of time to get to the airport, and I really did not care to walk around Hanoi, so perhaps a happy hiccup.
Everything worked out from waking up to getting on the plane. Everything was also delayed, different or just plan unproductive waste of a day in my opinion. Still happy to be leaving and do not care.
I went to get lunch, and the place recommended had a line around the corner. It was a line in a haphazard not organized way. I went back to Circle K, since it was my happy place and did not find anything I wanted. So I went back to my old hotel, where my car to the airport would pick me up, and I waited. Happily working on blog and pictures with spotty Wifi.
I got to the airport too early despite being late and the ticket counter was not open yet. My luggage was too heavy, so I had to pay extra to check my carryon bag. The flight was delayed over an hour for reasons we do not know.
I tried to use some of my VND at the airport, but they did not want it. They wanted American or card. I did not have much left. I am not going broke.
I changed my tune slightly on that last comment when I had 3 nuggets at Popeye’s Chicken and a drink from Starbucks… which cost more than all the food I consumed in Vietnam over 5 days. Granted, I did not consume much, but damn.
The flight was nice. Hour flight and we got a boxed lunch dinner thing. Customs lines were long and even though I had the proper visas and others did not, my line moved the slowest.
The driver was waiting for me, took me to the hotel, except he dropped me off in the middle of a street and pointed down an alley his van could not go.
Yeah, that was weird and troubling, but he pointed, was quite determined about where we were and where I was going… so I went. And guess what? About half way down the alley, there was the hotel.
And it was not another scooter of death, so that worked out.
The owner was annoyed by the late arrival and simply handed me a key and said upstairs. So I went upstairs and found a room… and that was the travel day.
Slight gas bubbles percolating through, keeping me on my toes. Slightly panicked and annoyed that life was not perfect, but realizing it never is.
At the end of the day, everything worked. Everything happened as planned, or at least as imagined.
Point A to point B achieved. And tomorrow is a new day.
I will avoid the bubbly drinks to reduce hiccups in the future.
