Vietnam 5-5 Emma

So.  When Things Happen in the UK, it can sometimes cause annoyance, or temporary discomfort or loss of time.  When Things Happen in Vietnam/Singapore and you are a slightly disorganised British citizen, it can be heinously annoying and have repercussions that vibrate outwards like the sound waves from the bang of a huge Mongol war gong that echoes over the mountains of your life to strike fear into the envisioned future you hiding over the horizon.

Boris knows the feeling:



For example:

Some Fridays, I take a flight to Singapore to see Frenchie.  In itself, the fact that I take a flight to spend time with my almost-other-half is complicated enough.  The happy routine that I have grown accustomed to involves me riding to the airport on Little Moto, parking, strolling to the check-in desk five minutes before it closes, strolling through immigration and asking the passport man/woman to help me save valuable pages in my quickly filling passport, having a beer and a sandwich in the restaurant and waiting for Tiger Airways to call my name and inform me that I need to report to the boarding gate, pronto.

All was going according to plan this Friday until, arriving at Changi airport, which is essentially like stepping off a budget airline into a paradise of orchids, Starbucks, eateries, shops, free internet points, boiled sweets and places to charge your phone in tiny phone lockers, I decided to broaden my Asian literary awareness by getting over excited in a book shop.  If you know me, you will know that this is not an uncommon occurrence.  However, much to my dismay and embarrassment, when I searched through my compactly organised hand luggage, my wallet was not there.

We shall cut forwards to my return to Vietnam, with a brief interlude of pictures of chickens I cooked this weekend for Sunday lunch:

Hideous.

Like something from a nightmare.

Yep, we don't know how good we've got it back home with our Tesco-butchered headless and footless chickens.  It had all the guts in it as well.

So, after saving some children from a Chinese international school from being taken to the "special room" by immigration staff back in Saigon (another story for another day), I changed the Singaporean rations Frenchie had entrusted me with to Dong (hehehe, dong) and set off home.

Step 1: cancel all cards.  What would be easier: contacting a bank on the telephone that was a million miles away and 7 hours behind and explaining that you live in a different country to their records, cannot remember any of your security details, and need the card sent to a branch, and not your old address?  Or cancelling and renewing a card in your current country of residence?  You guess.  It is a trick question.

Step 2: figure out problems caused by loss of drivers licence.  According to my friends at the DVLA, the fact that I have taken four practical and two theory tests, and passed three out of the six, hold a British passport, am a British citizen and am capable of driving a motorised vehicle is entirely invalid because I live outside of the UK now.  Their automated machine told me to get a new license in my current country of residence as they would not be renewing mine.  What?!  Can you feel the repercussions shattering windows in nearby temples with their reverberating?  This means that Frenchie will be doing all the driving on our 5 week holiday to Australia.  It means that unless I figure out a way around the system, I will be car-less in the three days before my wedding at Christmas.  It will mean that I have no way of driving a car anywhere, in any country, until I am once again a permanent resident in the UK.

Step 3: pick up new Vietnamese bank card.  This first involved looking up where the heck my bank was actually located, as I'd never visited before.  Google Maps showed me a location I felt confident finding.  I drove to it.  I drove around it.  I drove on the pavement.  I asked a man.  I drove around some more.  I retraced my steps.  I looked at road names.  I checked the address.  There was no bank.  The next day, Risk-or-Death snorted and said, 'Why were you around there?  The bank is near the zoo', and I felt like I was in a strange, twilight zone KS3 French lesson, or a mid-nineties Eddie Izzard sketch: 'La banque est pres du zoo'.

Step 4: combine trip into town with attempt to get wedding invitations printed.  My goodness: I wasn't even aware that so many things could go wrong in simply trying to get a picture printed onto a piece of paper.  The paper wasn't thick enough.  The paper wasn't the right colour.  I had to get a certain number printed.  The paper was a weird texture.  My USB stick stopped working.  There were an endless number of complications!  Eventually, after about eight different printing shops (they have a whole street of them) and the death of my USB stick, I gave up, disheartened and blaming it entirely on Frenchie, who - bless him - had not received the pdf I had sent - which was obviously the most heinous of crimes, and returned to my bike.

When you start a motor bike, it makes this sound:

BrrrrUMM-brum-brum-brum-brumbrum.  BrrrrrUMM BRUMMM BrrrrrrrRUUUUMMM brumbrumbrumbrumbrum.

And lots of little lights flash in front of you, around ribcage level in a happy, dancey, colourful sort of way.

I put my key in the ignition, turned, and heard this:









I was in the middle of an unfamiliar district, at about 7pm at night, little cash, hadn't eaten lunch or dinner, was very thirsty and my. bike. would. not. start.

I did almost cry like a big girl, but a man came and helped me kick start Little Moto, my relationship with whom is now irretrievably damaged, and I rode home in the dark, with no lights, horn or indicator, with no idea what gear I was in.  This is not as big a deal as it is in the UK, but still!  Half way home, Little Moto tried to make amends by flashing gear lights erratically and straining to turn on his headlight, and I'll admit, I was excited for a second, but then I slept on it, and woke with the realisation that Little Moto is a hunk of metal, and I shouldn't be so attached to an object and should exchange him right away.

So, in the space of 5 days, Vietnam 5-0 Emma.

Happily, though, Wednesday was a Good Day and I figured out where my bank was, got a new card, swapped Little Moto for Wibbly Wobbler, got my invitations printed and tricked the DVLA into renewing my license.

Vietnam 5-5 Emma.  It's a tie.  For now.