I woke up around 4 in the morning by a goddamn rooster who, it sounded like, was right outside the window. The street had been quiet in the evening, so how on earth was I supposed to know there was a rooster somewhere so close by?
I put my earplugs in but it didn't make a huge difference to the penetrating sound. I tried putting a podcast on that I listen to when I can't sleep but then the dilemma was: earplugs for rooster? Or not earplugs for podcast?
I eventually managed to fall asleep but was awoken again around 7 by, I assume, the same rooster. Eventually, I decided it wasn't worth trying to fall back asleep and did some writing before I headed out just before 10 to meet with the journalist who had published my article while I had been in Laos. She had told me she would bring along a journalist who was proficient in English to interpret for us, as well as a reporter specializing in the medical field, as she would maybe be able to push the hospital for some information.
She had suggested a cafe nearby so that I'd be able to walk there. She hadn't been there herself but had searched the the internet for a quiet place, suitable for conducting a second interview (the "first" one, for the first article, having been via writtrn questions). I was, unusually enough, slower to get to the place than Google had suggested. Partially because of all the curious things I was looking at in my tiny street, but also because the street was so narrow that you often had to stop to let the scooters past. You don't really have any rights as a pedestrian; the scooters take priority pretty much all the time (except on the pavement during rush hour…).
I only arrived a few minutes late. The English speaking and medical journalists were there, but the one I had spoken to via Messenger was not. The other two were waiting outside on their scooters; the place both seemed closed and we didn't even know how to (try to) get in. It was on the second floor but how to get there, we couldn't figure. So when the last journalist joined, we ended up riding the scooters to a nearby cafe they knew, saying their office was close by.
On one side of the street, there was nothing but some construction grounds. The other side was lined with a couple of cute looking cafes. It looked like they had intended to go to a different one but that one seemed full, or at least too noisy so we went to one that was cute and quiet. The counter was in one room, then there were two small rooms to each side, and straightforward a backyard with lanterns and parasols.
The seats inside didn't look comfortable enough, or at least I think that's the reason, so we ended up sitting outside. First sat down under a parasol. It was still grey and wet in the air (though not as terribly much as it had when I had arrived from Laos) but as we sat down, it started raining more so we moved to under the plastic roof; the four of us all sat in one line along the wall. They had got their notebooks and computers out and I had got the folder with the copies of my birth certificate, like I had been asked to bring, when it suddenly started pouring down. We were dry alright, but the noise as the raindrops hit the plastic roof was a disturbance. So we decided, once more, to move, this time inside.
They told me that they had "competency" to ask for information from the hospital and potentially some other actors like needed. I don't know if I wrote it specifically or if you remember, but some of the places I had visited on the first day of my search had said that they did not have the authority to provide us with the information we were requesting without it coming from a "competent" authority/request. So basically they were saying they may be able to get information that my interpreter and I had been denied.
They also explained the agenda; they would like to conduct like a proper interview with a couple of questions and then take a few photos of me.
The interview was thorough and detailed with some questions I had not been asked in the other interviews yet. When they were satisfied, they asked me to do a photoshoot. It had stopped raining so we could go outside for better lighting.
'You look beautiful!' one of them called to me as I was trying to fix my hair and another journalist was setting up the camera they had brought with them. I wasn't wearing a single dot of makeup, but at least I had been smart enough to put one of my new dressed on, the one wthat makes me look and feel very Vietnamese.
They also did a short interview while filming my answers. Lastly, they wanted a short clip where I spoke in Vietnamese that they would teach me saying "hello mother. Your daughter is in Vietnam". They thought that clip could really help move people.
During all of this, the English journalist occasionally updated me that the medical reporter had managed to get through to the hospital. She said that the hospital had said they had records that they would check to go through.
What? When I had gone, they had they deleted everything that was older than 15 years. I was starting to see what they meant by them having competency… They also managed to Google and find the woman who had signed my birth certificate, the at that time general manager of the hospital. She was currently managing her own hospital.
It was around noon when we finished. They asked if I had had lunch and I told them I hadn't. So they offered me to come with them for some dish I said I hadn't tried yet.
We went on the scooters again, a short distance to the restaurant, passing their office on the way (the journalist I rode with pointed their office out to me). The restaurant was on several floors, not fancy at all but they had proper sized outdoor plastic furniture. We found a table on the second floor; it was full of people and children. The windows were wet from the humidity from the previous rain.
We had a dish, the name og which I can't remember. It was rice with some pork and a sour soup. There was a small piece of "egg pudding" with it; it seemed like a thick slice of an omelette that had lots of glass noodles in it. The told me the soup wasn't for everyone; the English speaking journalist didn't really like it for example.
They had me switch seats because I was left handed, so me and the journalist wouldn't constantly bump our arms together while eating. People here have all been incredibly quick at noticing that I'm left handed. Usually they instantly notice when I pick up a pen or the chopsticks. I guess it's not as obvious at home since you don't write with pens very often and eating with forks and knives is mostly the same for everyone. Both my friend and interpreter were really surprised, and I think it was my friend who kept giggling while I was writing (I think maybe when she was teaching me the alphabet) because she thought it was so weird and funny that I used my left hand.
I got to ride with the same journalist who drove me to my place after lunch. I was amazed that she managed to find the way without looking at the map. Maybe she knew the area?
I decided to take a walk in the neighbourhood to explore the area a bit; it was so far away from any other place I had stayed and so I wanted to see what was around.
After having wandered around for a bit, I headed back to my room to relax and write a bit. I messaged with a girl who was a mutual friend of a girl I know from Ho Chi Minh City. My friend had said that she didn't know much about, and thus probably couldn't help me much with things in Hanoi but she knew people in Hanoi that she would be happy to put me in contact with who could help. I didn't need much help yet but had said that it'd be nice to meet up if she had the time. So later that day, when she had finished work, I took a grab to a cafe where she was sitting with her boyfriend and two dogs.
I didn't speak much to the boyfriend but she and I had a lot to talk about and her English was really good.
At some point, her boyfriend went to get fried rice balls, the ones I had tried with my interpreter at some point when coming out from our favourite cafe, so I only had one even though he came back with two paper bags of three different kinds. After we had already talked for another half an hour or so, my new acquaintance reached for a ball herself. Then told me try that type; it had meat in it.
'Oh? I thought it was a dessert,' I said confused.
She said it usually was but these ones were savoury. She said she had also only tried the sweet ones, like the one I had just had, and that she didn't even know either that they also came in a savoury version.
I tried it and it was really good. I actually think I prefer them to the sweet ones.
I was planning on trying to go for a massage afterwards; I still had four (!) times left on my card to spend within the next one and a half weeks… She tried calling the place for me to ask if they had any available slots but they didn't pick up. So I took a chance and got a Grab to the massage place. I was able to get a massage straightaway. I tried asking the woman to focus on my feet via Google Translate and though she still have me a full body massage, I think this was the best of the massages I had there.
It was late by the time I got back to my neighbourhood and I couldn't find anything simple to eat. I ended up finding a supermarket where I bought some instant noodles and a small package of sausages; it was the only thing they had that didn't come in a too big pack. Then I went back to my place which had a single induction cooktop, a fridge and a kettle, which was all I needed for this. My first "home cooked" meal since I had left home!
The first article can be found here: Biết đâu mẹ sẽ nhìn thấy tôi trên báo tiếng Việt
The article based on the interview can be found here: Cô gái gốc Việt tìm mẹ: 'Nếu thấy tôi thân quen, hãy liên lạc với tôi nhé'
I didn't do much on Sunday.
I had slept with my earplugs despite not having an awful lot of faith in my earplugs so I was surprised when I woke up by myself and not the rooster next door.
I stayed in my room for quite some time, doing some writing and work trying to prepare for my meeting with my interpreter the next morning.
My friend and I had also decided to go to Cao Bang in the mountains in the north together on Monday night. We'd take the sleeper bus, rent a scooter to go to Ban Gioc waterfalls, stay the night in Cao Bang, do some cave and other sightseeing on the Wednesday, back to Hanoi Wednesday night by sleeper bus so I'd be back in town Thursday morning in time for my next appointment with my interpreter. I had asked her to reserve as much time as possible during the week for me, but she had already been booked for Tuesday and Wednesday. Hence this was great timing for me to head out of town with my friend.
When I felt I had been sitting for too long, I headed out. Walked all the way to the famous Train Street that goes through Hanoi. It's basically rails that go right through the small streets of the Old Quarter - and Hanoi. People live on that street but it's closed with a roadblock and some officer as people have died there when the train does go through. Not that it moves quickly at all, as far as I understand, but I guess it's still not smart to have people in such a narrow street where there's not even a platform when I train comes by.
I had some very overpriced bun cha (but I'll also admit that I've never got such a huge portion!) and then met with my friend for a drink to go over our travel plans. I had suggested she could check and fix the transport and I'd look into and could book accommodation. She pretty much ended up doing everything. She wanted to plan the trip before deciding where (in which town) to stay. When she had found out, I sent her some suggestions on Airbnb. We had decided to go for the cheaper sleeper bus on the way and that if it wasn't comfortable, we'd take the more expensive one on the way back. So we had also found a "homestay" with different size rooms: one with a double bed. One with two double beds. Since we had decided on the cheaper bus, we decided we could spoil ourselves with the bigger room.
I was about to book it when she texted me to tell me she had called the place and bargained getting the bigger room for the price of the cheaper one. I laughed so much. Told her I wouldn't even have had the imagination to bargain on accommodation. She said she thought they wouldn't be busy since we'd travel during the week and most tourists were probably Vietnamese so they'd only maybe fully booked during weekends.
I had a 'grilled milk tea' (I thought how many types of ice tea are there?! I thought I had tried most of them by now!) though I'll be honest that I didn't really taste a huge difference between other milk teas. What was 'grilled' about it anyway? How do you grill milk?
My friend drove me to my place after the drink and that was it.
I met with my interpreter early in the morning, since she had an appointment at noon. I invited her to my apartment since our main task for today was to try and call the women on the lists we had received from the woman at the Red Cross and in the e-mail from some person who had read one of the articles about me. That way, it would be quiet when we made the phone calls.
She had been amazed when I had sent her the address as it was just a 2-minute scooter drive (6 minute walk) from her place. She would usually do her grocery shopping at market near me.
I had e-mailed the adoption authorities in Sweden asking for advice on how to approach these women who could potentially be my biological mother; what do you say or ask?
Hats off for really wanting to help and sending a long answer, but the woman replying admitted she didn't know whether or how useful the advice would be and…let's just say I don't know either. She said that one way would be to ask whether the person was in a safe space where she could talk freely. Then we were to tell the person we had some very sensitive information and thus we needed to verify her identity by asking her name and birth year. Then we'd tell my story and ask how she felt hearing it. Then there were some advice on what or how to do depending on her reactions.
I told my interpreter about this, but she had received other advice from the author who had found the 'mystery' woman on Facebook. Apparently, the author had called the woman, told her the real reason my interpreter and I had gone to see her the week before, and asked whether it was her. She had hung up. My interpreter had been really mad at the writer when she told her about it and was asking why she had done that. She hadn't blocked the writer, but as far as I understand, she stopped talking (replying) to her. I think, because of that, the writer felt bad and had given this advice to my interpreter to make up for her negligent mistake.
Additionally, she had managed to find the son's Facebook account and we had found out that there was a lot of things that the woman had told us when we had visited her that didn't seem to be correct; for one, her son was born in 1996. Secondly, there was a discrepancy in the university he had gone to (according to his own profile) and the university she had told us he had gone to. Her age also didn't match anymore as one of the son's posts was about her birthday and photos of the family with a birthday cake and the age and time of posting (earlier this year) didn't fit. We also found like at least three more of her Facebook accounts and one of them, or somewhere or somehow, she also had a different name. Similar to the name we were looking for, but not quite the same.
So now were even more lost on what her real name was - and also why she would have lied about her son's age and education to complete strangers asking for a bit of psychological support. So I thought it wasn't worth pursuing it anymore; at least you would think you could rely on the son's post about his mother's birthday and even just that was enough to not make her relevant for our search anymore.
We made an excel over all the women we were going to call, and numbered them. How else do you distinguish between people who all have the exact same name and even (almost) the same birth year?
We went over the script of questions; my interpreter was going to pretend to do a population survey for her dissertation. Thus we'd need to ask about birth year, family members and their year of birth, when she got married…things like that.
I think we were both nervous when we dialled the first number. I had opened Google Translate speech so that I'd maybe be able to translate what was said without disturbing my interpreter.
The first person we tried calling didn't pick up. Another one was busy, another one in a hurry but said we could call back in the evening (this is when my interpreter realized it was Monday morning…) One said she was someone else but she had bought the number from a woman with the name we were searching for. One hung up some time in the middle of the conversation. Another person claimed to have a different name. So after that, we decided to first search the numbers on Zalo (an app they use for like everything here in Vietnam) to see if the phone numbers we had would correspond to the name. A surprising amount didn't. In the end, we only managed to tell one woman the purpose of our call (using the advice of the adoption authorities, as we ended up switching between that and the fake survey story) and she said it wasn't her but we were free to check out her personal details and photos on Zalo. Why would we care about that if she openly said it wasn't her anyway?
At one point, some unknown number called my interpreter. It could only have been one of the people who hadn't picked up, but which one? You couldn't ask her name because they all had the same name! We tried to find the phone number that was calling in our excel but it didn't seem to match any number. We had to pick up.
The woman on the other end said she was kinda in a hurry but that we could call back in the evening. So basically our calls led to nowhere. And there were quite a few women on our list to which we didn't even have the number.
The writer had also suggested checking on all the high schools in Gia Lam and Long Bien, as 18 is exactly the age where you would finish high school and start university so she could have been at either.
I asked my interpreter to remind me which places we had gone and if we had any essential places left. We had gone to the council and the police in Long Bien but not the communal police in Long Bien. It was a long shot considering our limited success with the other places, but we decided to go anyway. My interpreter ended up cancelling her afternoon appointments so that we could go to the educational authorities in Gia Lam after visiting the police, to ask if they could provide information on old student records from the district's high schools. It'd be easier than going to all of them or sending out the request, like we did to the universities by mail (!)
Before heading on our next adventure, I returned the key to my room and we left my bags at my Interpreter's place, as I was going on the sleeper bus with my language friend in the evening. She also lived in a narrow street but without any shops and other crazy things. The neighbours were singing karaoke though, even though it was only around 11 o'clock in the morning… Then we went to the communal police in Long Bien. It was slightly tricky to find because, unlike everywhere else I had been, including the neighbourhood I was currently staying in with all the tiny streets, Google maps didn't seem to br accurate and the street on the map didn't exist where we were. There seemed to be some construction work possibly distorting the area as well so we had to ask for directions and drove up on a dust road which only reminded me too much of my adventures in Laos. It was just on the corner though so we didn't have to stay long in the dust.
We went into a room with two officers behind a big table. One of them was talking to a woman, the other one was available. In the corner of the room was a cell with five young teenagers in it, probably no older than 16 ish, two girls and three boys. Most of them were wearing masks. They didn't seem particularly distressed nor dangerous, mostly just bored.
My interpreter explained our errand to the available police officer. Despite wearing a mask, you could tell that he was young, maybe around my age, and handsome as heck. Though I couldn't see or even sense that he was smiling, he was apparently really friendly because he wanted to help. After having talked to my interpreter for some time, she explained to me that he was going to check the ID registers in all of Hanoi for the name and birth years we were searching for. We could take a seat next to the table while we waited and the officer left the room for a while. The woman and the other officer had also gone so it was only my interpreter and me and the cell with the teenagers.
'You speak English?' one of the young guys asked through the metal bars. He was very skinny, wearing baggy three quarters trousers and a white t-shirt that also seemed too big. He had slightly long hair but his face was covered by the mask.
'Yes,' I replied.
'We overheard. Is it true that you are looking for your mother?' he asked.
'Yes,' I replied again.
'Wow, okay. I hope you find her. Good luck.'
The other teenagers who were sitting huddled up together on something that looked like what we used to stand on in a choir to make the back rows stand reach up behind the front rows. They seemed to be smiling or even giggling from behind their masks at what their friend was doing.
He said something more but then the other police officer returned.
'Hey, hey, hey,' the officer said, and the teenager immediately backed and turned away from the bars, all of. We all giggled; my interpreter and I, all the teenagers and even the police officer, who seemed to know that the light conversation had been harmless.
'I wonder what they've done. They seem so young!' my interpreter whispered to me. I said I bet it was something really harmless.
The woman who had been there before also came back, and a man with her. They sat down by the table and began filling out some papers. I asked my interpreter if she knew what it was for, but she hadn't heard what it was for. I, without really knowing how or why, suspected it had to do with releasing the teenagers.
After some time, the handsome officer also returned. He said he wasn't allowed to send the information to us but that we could copy it. So he got out his phone which had a beautiful screensaver of him and his wife in wedding clothes. We got to borrow it as he had taken pictures of the computer screen showing the list of names, addresses, birthdays and sometimes also a phone number. He had said that some of the entries overlapped. My interpreter got her computer out and we started copying all the names; five pictures in total with lists of women with that name born in the years 1973-1975. It took us quite some time. I would reach the numbers and addresses (and occasionally my interpreter would giggle at my pronunciation and ask 'whaaat?') and she typed. There were very few people who appeared twice on the list and sometimes one entry would not contain the phone number but then the next one did.
We returned his phone and thanked him very much for his kindness. He gave his number to my interpreter and said that we could contact him in case we'd need any more help. Then apparently he made some joke that my interpreter giggled at.
Just around the same time that we were leaving, the man and the woman who had been filling out the papers finished, and consequently the teenagers were released from the cell. Outside the police house, the guy in the white t-shirt reiterated his wish that I would find what I was looking for. I thanked him for that and my interpreter and I got ready to get back onto the scooter.
She said the officer had been the first of the ones we had met with a sense of humour. And he had been really friendly.
'And handsome,' I added jokingly, quietly. We both suspected he probably understood or even spoke some English and the scooter was parked right outside the window to where he was sitting.
'Yes. Too bad he's married,' she whispered and we giggled a bit more. 'That's like the first thing you notice; whether or not he has a ring!' she said.
Though I'll admit in this case, it was rather the screensaver that gave him away.
We were going to find some lunch and had found a place with great reviews on Google Maps. It seemed to be located in one of the streets that didn't exist in real life so we couldn't be bothered to look for it and ended up in a French cafe instead. They had croissants, pain de chocolat, macrons, quiche…even some French cheeses and charcuterie - and "Scandinavian rye bread"! It seemed to be some kind of French area because we had also driven past a French school, a French restaurant and a white man who came in with his son both spike French.
I ordered some chicken curry with mushrooms in a butter dough pastry kind of thing, while my interpreter got a pain de chocolat. We asked to lower the music a bit as we intended to call back some of the people who hadn't replied in the morning, and the additional people we had now received from the police's ID records. At 1.30, we'd head to the education authorities in Gia Lam, when they had reopened after lunch.
The calls didn't do much of a difference; not many picked up and the few ones that did said they were busy or didn't have any information about what we were asking. My interpreter explained that it was quite common for people, even at our age, to take a nap around this time. Kinda like the siesta, except I don't think it's heat related.
The journalist who had interviewed me during the weekend advised us not to go to the education authorities, as they still hadn't been able to get a confirmation from the hospital about whether the name we were searching for was actually the name of my biological mother. She suggested instead that we try to meet with the woman who had signed my adoption papers and birth certificate, the at-the-time general manager of Phu San hospital.
So when we had finished in the cafe, we headed to the hospital where the woman was currently working. On the way, my interpreter thought we should try calling to make sure she was there. She stopped on the side of a busy street when we were only done three blocks away to try and call. She got through but the conversation was short; the doctor had hung up on us. She told me that the doctor had said that she didn't remember my case and that there'd be no point in meeting up since she wouldn't be able to tell us anything new. So we decided to stop at a cafe to do some work on the computer instead.
When we had just sat down and started sipping on our drinls, the doctor messaged my interpreter saying we could meet her at 3.30 PM but that she was only available until 4. Why say she doesn't want to meet and hang up on us just to message back and say that we can meet her? And then only give us such a tiny time interval that was almost impossible to manage because the problem was that 3.30 was in fifteen minutes! And the location she had sent was far away. We would only make it at 3.45 even if he hurried. I finished my drink while my interpreter wrote back asking if it was okay that we come at 3.45 instead and off we went.
I kept my interpreter's phone to give her directions and to keep an eye out for a reply from the doctor. We sped through the streets including what was clearly the pet and plant street; they had lots of both big and small plants, flowers, orchids. You'd see people with bicycles or scooters loaded with flowers. There were also aquariums with fish, birds, dogs and cats in cages.
From there, er continued to an area that I hadn't been to before, the roads were wide, and there were big roundabouts at a regular interval. Tall buildings that looked like company and investment buildings peeked up from behind big fences with advertising banners. I felt like I recognized this type of neighbourhood, as if I had a slight deja vu, but I couldn't remember where I had driven or seen a similar area.
We arrived at a wide but mostly empty street with construction on one side and and tall, modern building on the other. We parked the scooter and went into a big, Western style cafe. It was 3.45.
In the corner of the big space was an older woman with a face mask. She was sitting at a coffee table in low arm chair. She stood up to greet us.
We sat down. She said she had ordered tea and apparently she really wanted to get us some drinks. My interpreter was so full, she didn't even get water to sip on, and I just ordered some tea, normal. The doctor paid and we went back to our seats.
I didn't understand the phone call earlier and having hung up on us and saying she was only available until 4 PM because we ended up staying with her for almost an hour and a half and at that time we almost had to shake her off because she could have continued talking all night.
She told us that she had recognized herself in the photo that I have of my mum, herself, the adoption contact person and me, when my parents returned to Vietnam in 1993. I'm not entirely sure where she had seen the photo though. She also said that she remembered that we came to visit the hospital but that she didn't remember my case or birth in 1992. She had so many babies and so many adoptions. The only ones she could remember were the ones where there had been complications around the birth; a lot of bleeding, I'll health of the babies or the mothers. I had been healthy so she couldn't remember me.
She confirmed that I had been born in Phu San Hanoi, the first hospital I had gone to with my interpreter on the first day of the search, in the big modern hospital I didn't recognize at all, not in Phu San Central. She confirmed that the photo had also been taken there.
She said something about the hospital records that yet again conflicted with both the information we had received at the hospital as well as what the journalists had been told when contacting the hospital.
She explained that there were two types of adoptions: 1) where mothers abandon the hospital after birth. In those cases, the hospital needs to "advertise" the baby, calling for the mother/parents to come forward. Only if nobody came forward could they initiate the adoption procedures. 2) Where mothers decide prior to birth that they want to give their babies up for adoption. In these cases, there was no need to advertise.
She asked about my parents' health and I got to take a photo with the two of us that I could send to them. Then she continued talking about some other additive cases, births, all kinds of things. My interpreter only interpreted the general gist as most of it was turning into general chitchat.
We left around 5.30. At that time, she the doctor had wished me the best of luck and said on at least three occasions that I should find a job in Hanoi.
'It was the thing we saw the woman make when we stopped for bun cha in Gia Lam, that you filmed,' she reminded me.
'Oh that! No I haven't tried it!'
Basically, they have like a big round silver surface. They use a wide wooden thing similar to the thing the French use to spread the batter when making crêpes, to spread the rice batter. Then they leave it for a while. Then use some other stick to roll it off the surface because the pancake is so thin. Put a bit of minced meat in it and then make small rolls of it. There wasn't much meat inside to be honest but, like with everything else, it still tasted super yummy. As long as you have the sauce of course. We ordered one with an egg inside too.
I was going to treat my interpreter, but I wasn't allowed to pay; she said this was her neighbourhood so she'd pay. I could pay in other neighbourhoods she told me laughing.
People are so generous here. If my friend wants to pay, I've stopped trying to argue. My language friend is the "worst". I even had my money out and only needed to hand it over, yet she swoops in and say she'll pay by card. They have this system here where you can scan a QR code to pay by card (or transfer?) so many places who may not accept cards will still accept this digital method. Though I figure it's only for Vietnamese bank accounts though. Anyway, and I insisted I was going to pay, and that I needed the change because I only had big bills. She still paid and then took my money and asked the staff to exchange it to smaller bills. If I argue enough, I can sometimes convince them that I'll at least pay my share or that the drink or dessert will be on my instead but that still doesn't feel very fair…
We drove back to my interpreter's place to get my backpacks. I was leaving the biggest one with her though until I got back to town; I'd only need the two smaller ones for two days. She drove me to a park where she said she thought they had zumba every day at 7 but nobody was there when we got there at 6.45. I didn't really want to wait in the park for unknown time, for something I didn't even know would take place or not. Then I'd rather sit in the bus terminal and chill for a bit. So she drove me to a corner on the way to the station and to where she was headed so I could take a Grab from there; the bus terminal was like a 20-minute scooter drive away.
I got off her scooter and we said we'd stay in touch about Thursday. It only took me a few seconds after she had driven away to realize that I was still wearing her helmet. I immediately wrote to her. Checked when my driver would arrive; he did almost immediately. He must have thought I looked weird or that it was funny that I was already wearing a helmet. I tried to stall him for a short moment while checking my phone for reactions from my interpreter or any signs of her turning back.
She hadn't seen my messages and I felt weird trying to explain to the driver. In the rush of the moment, I hadn't even thought of the possibility of using Google translate. So I ended up getting onto the scooter and we headed off.
A short while later, she replied, saying she had driven back when she had realized but I had already been out of sight. I said I'd give it back when we'd see each other again and that was absolutely fine. I thought to myself that maybe it was a good thing to have her helmet since we'd be going by scooter a lot in the north and this was a good fit unlike most other helmets that were too big or loose.
I got to the bus terminal sometime around 7.30. It'd be over an hour until the bus departed. Lots of people approached me as I got off the scooter but I didn't understand what they were trying to offer. Usually people would try to sell you scooter drives when you arrive by bus but I had just arrived by scooter…so why would I need another scooter elsewhere?
I got into the bus terminal which had some white metal waiting chairs. Tickets booths on the other side. A small corner shop with water and a few snacks. Two monitors on each side of the hall, showing the departures but only for like the next hour. Our bus wasn't even on it.
I sat down by a square pillar because I realized that way I could charge my phone. I did some writing for the next hour or so until my friend arrived. I thought we were leaving at 8.30 and she had said she'd arrive like half an hour before. So I was getting really worried when she still hadn't turned up at 8.15. Then she messaged saying the bus wasn't until at 9. I think I must have confused that she said we should get there at 8.30…
She arrived just past 8.30 and we went through some ticket gates that were open and went outside on the other side of the building. The bus was almost right by the door. A guy offered to take the bigger of my backpacks to put it in the luggage space. My friend asked me if i had anything important in there but I had the valuables in the small one. So they took the bag and my helmet.
We had the lower beds, one in the middle and one by the window. My friend asked me which one I wanted. I said I'd like to see out, if she didn't mind.
The bed, or seat, was much better than I had expected. The sleeper busses in South America were nice but I these were even better. There were curtains both to close the window and towards the aisle. There was a screen though I'm not entirely sure whether and what you could watch on it. There was WiFi, a bottle of water in a bottle holder, a small shelf that was perfect for the phone, and a small compartment for the feet. They provided a thick fleece blanket and a pillow though the headrest also had an adjustable "pillow". The seat was really well leaned back but you could adjust it in case you wanted to sit more upright. I was happy and comfortable but also knew that a taller or bigger person would probably not feel quite as well. I could easily do 12 hours here!
'And bathrooms?' I asked my friend.
'There's none,' she replied.
'Oh, so maybe I should go now?' I asked.
She nodded.
I got my shoes and put them back on at the front, then hurried back into the building where I had seen the toilets.
'Wait! You've got money?' my friend asked. My turn to nod. I paid 3000 VND (which I thought was expensive, usually it's 2000) and received some napkins in return. They were playing the famous tune I had also heard the first time at the massage place and at the first temple I had gone to when searching for the mystery woman. I didn't need all the paper I had been given but decided to keep the rest in my pocket in case I needed it later.
The bus left a few minutes early. I cuddled up, realizing I was even able to lie on my side with slightly bent knees despite the bed being a bit bent at the place where you'd typically have the knees and hip. They turned the lights off so people could sleep. It was only 9 so I intended to do some writing to go to sleep at a more normal time but the movements made me sleepy after only half an hour or so. So I left my phone to charge and went to sleep. The blanket had been way too warm but now that we had departed and I was tired, it was nice to have it.
Next up: Nocturnal bus adventures, Chinese border and Ban Gioc Waterfalls.