Right, enough Sinatra reworkings. This blog salutes the end of my too brief soujourn in the most beautiful country of Vietnam. Of course, moving a whole person out of an entire country takes some time, planning and many refined and detailed to do lists but luckily (despite what you may have heard from family members/ devined from previous posts involving passports) I am very good at all of these things. The last five weeks has thus been spent transporting suitcase loads of Stuff to Singapore and invasively settling into what has, until recently, been mostly Frenchie's domain. Now said domain is filled with photographs of my friends' faces, elephants, magnets and tea cups, none if which match, and none of which would feature in any high end Parisian interiors boutique. Hoorah! All that has been left to do are a few minor administrative banking tasks and the management of a little puddle of luggage that make up my remaining possessions.
When the bubble wrapping and file transferring are all over, though, and before the cling film wrapping and taxi hailing can begin, there are those thumb-twiddling hours that you're not quite sure how to fill: all your clothes and drinking receptacles are packed; the Internet has been cut off and you've moved out of your apartment; you are relying on the generosity of friends and sleeping in their spare room and you really hope you don't spill oyster sauce on your white top because it's the only thing you've left out to travel in the next day and closing the suitcase earlier was traumatic enough to favour looking like a slob over re-opening and having to go through the whole ordeal again. The only thing you can think to put on the final to do list is 'shower' and 'change currency' and 'switch off hot water'. Then you sit and watch a whole Mariah Carey film and feel hollow inside.
Fortunately, I am blessed to have lingering friends out here, and was delighted when Saigon offered me a last minute parting gift in the form of an exploratory bike ride that unveiled cultural delights in a hidden temple down some back street that took the fancy of Shining Shamrock and I...
... and this enviable home that I have only ever seen in the distance on my way into town:
...and this sunset view:
What a beautiful country and exciting city I have had the privilege of inhabiting for the last two years!
That wasn't the best of it, though, because Saigon decided to throw me a goodbye party at a much-loved barbecue restaurant that involved these lovely ladies:
Tiger Girls! I feel that the general sweatiness and hideousness of me in this picture makes up for the complete objectification and oppression of women that is the Tiger Girl career, but they're like celebrities in partying expat circles so I thought it acceptable to take a break from militant feminism for a moment (especially as I managed to get a shout-out for the cause in both my leaving speech in front of All Staff and an awards presentation in front of the whole school) to get papped with some glamorous beauties on my last night in-country.
Gosh, justifying 'a bit of fun' is hard when you're a feminist, hey?
So now that all that unexpected excitement is over, I find myself stopping in town for a Long Phuc, I mean a Phuc Long coffee, before having to give back Dark and Stormy to her real parents. You can see her out of focus outside the window. We're currently avoiding eye contact because neither of us can cope with the emotion and sense of abandonment.
Now, I have made some brilliant friends out here (who better stay in contact, OR ELSE), meeting and marrying Frenchie has been significant and my students and I loved each other so much that they dressed up in drag to dramatise a play they entitled 'The Quiet Maiden, Hedda' and made bunting with my name on it. I salute you all, but I have a cold, cold heart, so I'm not going to get upset about leaving you (charming). I'm sorry to disappoint if you were hoping for tears. The biggest wrench - more than small children, solid friends and supportive colleagues - will be parting from my beloved motos. Little Moto, Kicker, Wobbler, Roger Red Bike and Dark and Stormy, truly you represent the liberty, adventure, strange noises, disregard for sensible traffic rules, broken indicators and permanent scarring that have characterised my brief life in Vietnam. It is very possible that I may never ride a moto again because apparently, in other countries you need something called a license. Adieu, adieu! Goodbye! Farewell my motos!
Fear not, the blog won't stop for a while, as there are more adventures to have around the globe but please consider this goodbye phò now, wonderful Vietnam...
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