Finally today there is sunshine!!! Haven’t seen the sun for over a week so it’s a good start to the day!! Maybe the clothes I washed three days ago will finally dry if I wash them again to get the damp smell out.
I re-wash everything and hang it on the clothes rack I bought. I spend some time on skype throughout the morning – thank God someone invented Skype – free international phone calls over the internet!! Ad it comes with video too so you can talk face to face. I have missed skype for the past few days while the internet was down. I don’t feel so far away from home or as isolated some I make the best of the sunny weather. I am told there are 10 more days of rain forecast …………….
I go down to reception to get my passport to get some details of it for Linda so we can get permission to go to the orphanage on Sunday and am so excited as they tell me my parcel has arrived !!!! Someone has gone to pick it up for me on the motorbike. He comes back while I am there and is just as excited as I am and takes it up to my room for me…… all those stories I heard mustn’t have been true after all!!
Ha throws the box upside down on the bed and starts to tear through the strange blue and white tape that is holding the box together!!! I get him to stop as it is obvious that the box has been opened and looked through. He hands me a note that has been stuck to the box but I can’t read it – it is in Vietnamese. I head back down to the office to find someone who can translate the form for me……… the young girl looks at it and asks me to sit at the table ……. This isn’t good, I am thinking….. You have 2 balls, and pen and book she says. I say “yes” (warily) she says ‘they are not in the box” I say “why? She says, “You look” I say “no” she says “you look” I am thinking I am confused, why would customs take these things out of the box. She tells me to not worry, but I am. Someone has been through everything in the box and I don’t know what is there and what isn’t. I skype Lyn and she wants to have a box opening party after work so I decide it is best to leave it as I think I want a witness when I open it properly – not so much for what is missing but for what else might be in there. I have to leave anyway to go work with Linda. I take the form with me and ask Linda – she doesn’t know enough of the language to translate either and thinks that some items have been confiscated until I pay the tax on them – apparently if you send anything into Vietnam that you can buy here, you are taxed on it – if that is right I owe 241,000 VND and have to go to the Post Office to pay it before I can get my things back.
I work with Linda until 6pm and she invites Lyn and I to dinner and a movie. Lyn arrives in a taxi to pick us up and we head ff to Ahn Bung beach just a few klms away. When we get there I am amazed – it is just beautiful – so different to the rest of Hoi An – something like you would find on a tropical island!! Little grass huts and huge pot like things lined up on the beach. We go to investigate and find that the pots are actually the biggest can baskets you have ever seen!! We ask Linda what they are used for and she tells us they are boats!!! What the…. There is no way I would go to sea in one of these!!! Doug Jones and John Williams, eat your heart out!!! I’d like to see you at sea fishing in one of these!!! We watched a fisherman ride the waves in a basket just as the sun was setting. As far as we could see there were lights everywhere from all the basket fishing boats out at sea fishing!!! - never seen anything like it. From there we went to a little open restaurant on the beach with sofa chairs under grass thatched roofs – felt like Robinson Crusoe!!
A French man and his American wife own the place and we are introduced to them. Sam, the wife, tells us someone has dumped some kittens there today and when I look to see them, I am horrified ……. 2 of the three kittens are paralysed in the back legs and are dragging themselves along the floor!! Lyn and I don’t know where to look and try not to appear distressed !!! As if no-one noticed…….. As the night wears on we learn that the kittens are quite happy, although on the thin side, and manage to get around quite well. We don’t even want to think about what has happened to them. There are so many kittens everywhere as no one can afford to have a cat desexed. There also is no humane way of destroying kittens such as these……. The kittens are always really small and so thin and so far Lyn and I haven’t brought any back to the hotel but it is hard not to. We try to avoid the crippled kittens all night but they eventually find their way onto our laps, and everyone else’s throughout the night… no one has the heart to turn them away…… they have survived so far…..
After dinner the lights go out and while the surf pounds in the background, out comes the data projector and we watch a movie on the side wall of the house! It is wonderfully relaxing night in paradise. It doesn’t get any better than this! We say goodbye to the kittens but they are busy skating around on the floor playing with each other… this puts our minds at rest a bit – they seem happy and capable…… Lyn’s suggesting we find a miniature skateboard for them – we can’t even find paper!!! How are we going to find MINIATURE skate boards…… Sue and Wendy???? …. How big was the shoe box I was allowed…..???
I re-wash everything and hang it on the clothes rack I bought. I spend some time on skype throughout the morning – thank God someone invented Skype – free international phone calls over the internet!! Ad it comes with video too so you can talk face to face. I have missed skype for the past few days while the internet was down. I don’t feel so far away from home or as isolated some I make the best of the sunny weather. I am told there are 10 more days of rain forecast …………….
I go down to reception to get my passport to get some details of it for Linda so we can get permission to go to the orphanage on Sunday and am so excited as they tell me my parcel has arrived !!!! Someone has gone to pick it up for me on the motorbike. He comes back while I am there and is just as excited as I am and takes it up to my room for me…… all those stories I heard mustn’t have been true after all!!
Ha throws the box upside down on the bed and starts to tear through the strange blue and white tape that is holding the box together!!! I get him to stop as it is obvious that the box has been opened and looked through. He hands me a note that has been stuck to the box but I can’t read it – it is in Vietnamese. I head back down to the office to find someone who can translate the form for me……… the young girl looks at it and asks me to sit at the table ……. This isn’t good, I am thinking….. You have 2 balls, and pen and book she says. I say “yes” (warily) she says ‘they are not in the box” I say “why? She says, “You look” I say “no” she says “you look” I am thinking I am confused, why would customs take these things out of the box. She tells me to not worry, but I am. Someone has been through everything in the box and I don’t know what is there and what isn’t. I skype Lyn and she wants to have a box opening party after work so I decide it is best to leave it as I think I want a witness when I open it properly – not so much for what is missing but for what else might be in there. I have to leave anyway to go work with Linda. I take the form with me and ask Linda – she doesn’t know enough of the language to translate either and thinks that some items have been confiscated until I pay the tax on them – apparently if you send anything into Vietnam that you can buy here, you are taxed on it – if that is right I owe 241,000 VND and have to go to the Post Office to pay it before I can get my things back.
I work with Linda until 6pm and she invites Lyn and I to dinner and a movie. Lyn arrives in a taxi to pick us up and we head ff to Ahn Bung beach just a few klms away. When we get there I am amazed – it is just beautiful – so different to the rest of Hoi An – something like you would find on a tropical island!! Little grass huts and huge pot like things lined up on the beach. We go to investigate and find that the pots are actually the biggest can baskets you have ever seen!! We ask Linda what they are used for and she tells us they are boats!!! What the…. There is no way I would go to sea in one of these!!! Doug Jones and John Williams, eat your heart out!!! I’d like to see you at sea fishing in one of these!!! We watched a fisherman ride the waves in a basket just as the sun was setting. As far as we could see there were lights everywhere from all the basket fishing boats out at sea fishing!!! - never seen anything like it. From there we went to a little open restaurant on the beach with sofa chairs under grass thatched roofs – felt like Robinson Crusoe!!
A French man and his American wife own the place and we are introduced to them. Sam, the wife, tells us someone has dumped some kittens there today and when I look to see them, I am horrified ……. 2 of the three kittens are paralysed in the back legs and are dragging themselves along the floor!! Lyn and I don’t know where to look and try not to appear distressed !!! As if no-one noticed…….. As the night wears on we learn that the kittens are quite happy, although on the thin side, and manage to get around quite well. We don’t even want to think about what has happened to them. There are so many kittens everywhere as no one can afford to have a cat desexed. There also is no humane way of destroying kittens such as these……. The kittens are always really small and so thin and so far Lyn and I haven’t brought any back to the hotel but it is hard not to. We try to avoid the crippled kittens all night but they eventually find their way onto our laps, and everyone else’s throughout the night… no one has the heart to turn them away…… they have survived so far…..
After dinner the lights go out and while the surf pounds in the background, out comes the data projector and we watch a movie on the side wall of the house! It is wonderfully relaxing night in paradise. It doesn’t get any better than this! We say goodbye to the kittens but they are busy skating around on the floor playing with each other… this puts our minds at rest a bit – they seem happy and capable…… Lyn’s suggesting we find a miniature skateboard for them – we can’t even find paper!!! How are we going to find MINIATURE skate boards…… Sue and Wendy???? …. How big was the shoe box I was allowed…..???
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