DAY 24
Still no luck with the Vietnamese invitation letter. There’s nothing at Guilin airport. Something doesn’t want me to go to Vietnam. I figure I was a draft dodger in a former life.
I fly four hours south to Kuala Lumpur to fly one hour north to Saigon. Beats me why. For a trip that was originally conceived as an overland route as far as I could go, something has gone badly wrong.
In Kuala Lumpur airport there is a Business Centre. It’s located in the Plaza Premium Lounge. I’ve gotten really good at it in China and I haggle down from 118 Malaysian Ringgits to 28 to use e-mail and print the Vietnamese invitation letter. I settle my business. Next to me an American surfer who missed his flight and says ‘bra’ to his buddy on the phone settle his business.
Onboard the first flight there’s a quiz near the end. They give away dinner for 2s. They ask for the flight number, then the Air Asia website, then the captain’s name. No-one has a clue what the captain’s name is so they ask the menu price for something and everyone goes for the in-flight menu card. People hold the same menus aloft on the second flight and stub fingers at pictures of mineral water, nuts, duty free.
Following so much time on trains, I am not a fan of air travel. In spite of being that much closer to my fellow passengers, I have next to zero inclination to strike up conversation with them. Build me a high-speed sea train and put me on that instead. Give the Chinese 2 years and someone will have come up with the plans.
At the airport I withdraw cash. It’s Mongolia all over. I have piles and piles of Vietnamese Dong.
I share a cab with a half-Vietnamese, half-German girl into Saigon. She has her own fashion brand and lives right near the American embassy. She gets out first and says I need to only pay the cab driver 50,000, she already agreed a price. I watch the meter rise to 200,000 then scram as fast as possible after giving him 50,000. He follows for a while, there’s some shouting, I wonder if it will get ugly, then I’m just another backpacker in the backpacker area.
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