Wednesday, February 22, 2006
knock knock...
gosh... i think this is like 3 wks late?!?!? it'll b amazing if i can rem everything... hahaha, anyway, here we go again...
left bach ma on foot coz we couldn't find any1 with transport to go down from the mountains... we realise that vietnamese start their excursions rather late coz we hardly saw any1 gg on apart from a few motorcyclists... the climb down was so so so much more relaxing... alexis even had the energy to count the number of sharp bends n steep slopes... well, losing memory but i guess it was around 60... it was amazing how we made it up so far... well, as i rethink the experience at bach ma... can't help being thankful to God for constantly reminding us of His presence and the reality of His divinity through His creation. wonder how we forget n fail to see Him all the time... no wonder He said we hv eyes but dun see, hv ears but dun hear... how true... learning to appreciate the wonders of His hand moment by moment...
anyway, back to vietnam... we got a ride down at bout the 12km mark. yeah! AGAIN! so surreal dat it was always at the 12km mark dat we get a ride... wanted to take the car to hoi an but he quoted an exhorbitant price. ahhh!!! ended up taking the same motorcycles to the main road... they wanted to ketok us for the ride to hoi an so we declined their services n they started to terrorise us... asked this drinks stall lady to overcharge us for coke. imagine paying 1.50 for a can of coke in vietnam. over my dead body. SIAO! den later when we were trying to get the buses to danang/hoi an, they demanded dat the bus operators overcharged us. we were really angry and moved further away but they tagged along. we literally had to tell them to buzz off. on hindsight, God's protection was really upon us. 2 helpless ladies bullied in a foreign land. they really mar the image of vietnamese man! thank God He also provided helpful ppl along the way to correct our tainted view of unruly viets.
ended up taking a severely overcrowded mini-bus which had a capacity of 11 but took a load of more den 20 ppl. i spilled coke on the seat n had to sit on a coke-drenched surface... den later my backpack kept falling onto this viet passenger n he demanded dat i carried my bag on my own... despite all these unpleasantries... there were also helpful facets of the locals. for instance, some of them asked the bus operator to help in carrying my backpack... n when the driver saw me zipping one of the bags, he thot dat it was mine and refused to let a passenger leave with it until he checked with me. although they kept trying to ketok us for the bus fare, they still had integrity in this sense... which i felt touched by... later he even directed us to the bus to hoi an... n when there were comfortable front seats, they all beckoned us to them... hahahaa... in contrast, i sometimes feel ashamed at my mistrust for them... like when i refused to pay the fares first for fear dat they might shortchange us...
the bus to hoi an from danang was another amusing encounter... they are such easy-going ppl... they simply sat in the bus n watched tv until it was time to go... alexis n i were pretty sure we had to wait the entire noon but we waited for less den an hr b4 we departed. den at various stops, they'd wait for extended periods b4 proceeding to wait for passengers... n people carried their baskets of wares and bicycles onto the bus too!
nearing the end of the trip also as we arrived in hoi an... with no prior hotel reservations... as usual. hahaha. in God in His goodness still provided us with a decent place... this time got cable tv somemore n i got to listen to james blunt n watch his MTV! hoi an was a v relaxing part of the trip... we got to spoil ourselves by shopping, shopping n shopping... even had a massage at L'occitance... no less man! was utterly pampered... tailored clothes as well... had set dinner... cao lao was their specialty... loved their fried wantons too! even had manicure! wahahaha... but we had to dip our hands n feet into ridiculously small bowls... ultra hilarious lah! our legs looked like pig trotters when we had to immerse the toes into this puny vessel... chk out imagestation lah. u'll c wat i mean.
den we even went to their markets to buy radishes!!!! our family! one vietnamese man was so amused we were buying radishes he asked us for our reason for doing so. even bought those cone hats for our radishes... kekeke... had a chat with an elderly viet man too as he shared his family history n we got him to tell us our viet names! mine has DUNG in it! n the best part! the pen ran out of ink as he was writing dat n when he finally wrote it down, it was in CAPS n BOLD. wow lao!
on the last morning at hoi an... we were still making our rounds shopping... wahahahaa... towards the end of it, spotted motorcycle seats n decided to do something stupid n get it. wat's new eh? well, to make up for not having a motorcycle in sg... cheap thrill lah. alexis' shoemaker tua her so she din get her loafers on time... we waited for them to send it over den suddenly, by His grace, through this delay, i rem dat we havent gotten our passports back. had we left hoi an without passports, den it'd been almost an hour's ride back again from danang airport. so really thank Him for the ways things work out man! amazing!
n in true blue murphy's law... even when we were to leave vietnam, someting had to go wrong. tiger airways was delayed in sg so our flight was delayed for a good 2 hours... leaving us without lunch at the airport n they din even hv the decency to inform us till an hour later. so much for budget airlines... very rushed ending to the whole adventure but i'm sure all these memories r gonna remain for a long long time...
still ultra amazed by the stars.... God's convenant with Abraham sounds so much more magnificent now dat i see how many stars they really r... really. MANY.
love ya, GOD
1:42 PM
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