James Graham

Today, I was in charge of the budget and activities. We started off by walking a little way to an American-style restaurant, which was tasty enough. It was entertaining watching the older boys, high school kids from across the way, wander in and out of school, crossing to our side of the street to sit in groups and eat freshly prepared pot noodles served by one old lady to about 30 kids.

We then walked slowly through town to get to the Vietnamese Historical Museum, stopping off along the way to get me a SIM card. We passed some pretty interesting things, including a man on the side of a four-lane road selling goldfish in bags and a row of barbers giving trims under nothing more than tarps.

When we arrived at the museum, we lazily began reading the history, which started with prehistoric man and continued to modern day. While looking at a mummified noblewoman, recently uncovered in the city, a young man who worked there began speaking to us and encouraged us to take photos of the mummy. He then followed us around the exhibit, trying enthusiastically to point out interesting things in broken English. James quickly abandoned me with him, leaving me to make awkward small talk and feign interest in what I was reading and looking at, while hoping he would leave me alone. He was very nice and told me he loves history and is trying to be a kickboxer, but I was just tired and not really invested in the museum, especially as I was also being badly bitten by mosquitoes that gave me 11 bites. It all kicked off when suddenly a huge downpour of rain started flooding the courtyard and streets outside and dripping from the ceiling. I quickly found James and took a moment to observe the probably looted artifacts from Angkor Wat, where we'd just been. We quickly saw the rest of the museum and then waited impatiently for the rain to subside so we could grab a taxi back to our apartment.

We chilled until that evening, when there was a fireworks display planned for a festival the city was hosting. As I was chatting to my mum on a video call by the window, I heard a bang and saw a huge ball of fire billow up from a raft on the river. A few stray fireworks shot out of the fire, but quickly another boom and more fire and smoke followed. Oops, I don't think that's what they'd planned to happen. This was on another side of the river, so I assumed our display was still going ahead. We headed to the waterfront but quickly realized we weren't in a spot to see them. We moved with lots of other people to another position, but it was then blocked by a tree. Overall, it was probably good, but we saw very little of it.

The next day we were leaving via an overnight train, but that wasn't until the evening. However, we had to check out of our accommodation by 11, so we packed up and then headed to the handy cafes below the building to chill for the next five hours. As there was little else to do, I decided to get my nails done at the salon where I did my lashes. After much deliberation, I settled on a turquoise blue, as I figured it would look good when I'm tanned at the beach. These would end up lasting six weeks without a single chip or lifting, amazing (and again, so cheap!).

An hour and a half before our train, we got a Grab to the station and ate a quick McDonald's knockoff, which was quite tasty, and then tried to figure out which platform was ours. We found our cabin, which we were sharing with two mothers and their combined total of four children. James and I had the very top, third bunk, which was more cramped than we'd expected. As we were trying to get into them, one mother laughed at us, as it was probably very silly seeing a tall, fully grown western man trying to squeeze himself into a cramped top bunk. A few hours in, I went to the loo, which was pretty clean compared to the Indian train toilets, and came back to find all the little girls asking me questions and vying for my attention. Questions included: where was I from, what was my favorite food, what was my favorite color, was James my brother, and more. They also said I was pretty, which was sweet. I know it was probably because I was just western, but it still played to my vanity. I eventually extricated myself from their questions and crawled back into my bunk to lots of giggles. We managed to fall asleep eventually and passed a weird night sleeping in our bunks.Baca lagi