Rice is Nice

In Pham Ngu Lao, eating my last meal, an Aussie girl asked to sit with me while I ate. She was nice enough, and was planning on doing some work in a women's health clinic of some sort, before progressing north. The shocking thing is that she was only nineteen and thought she could make it all the way to Hanoi on about $300. I told her it was possible, but that would literally mean just going, eating rice, and sleeping a bit, but mainly on buses and trains. There would be no guides to take her to rural Vietnam, no splurges on indulgent dinners, no snake wine. I hope she made it there. But so many travelers, especially those on "gap year", choose Vietnam because they can jet from one end to the other cheaply. But there's a lot to see in the middle, and off the path that hugs the coastline. Most don't stop between Hue and Hoi An, or between Hoi An and Nha Trang. I'm glad that this it took me a week to get from Hoi An to Nha Trang. I could have taken longer, but my visa ran out, and that's how I scheduled my return ticket.

On my way to the airport, I texted Bi, and told her that I hoped she'd gotten better. She responded right away. She said that even though I had a girlfriend (which I didn't), she'd wait for me. I think she'll change her mind, and hopefully not for another tourist passing through American Beach.

In killing 10 hours at Narita Airport, I used the observation deck a lot