Dear Transit buddy,
I saw your passport before I saw you. It was the same as mine. We were going through customs at Ho Chi Minh city. I had 12 hours to explore before the second leg of my journey home. I hadn’t thought I’d been able to take the trip as had missed my plane by a month after staying longer than expected in North Africa. But to my astonishment, the lady at Vietnam airlines in London had without fuss transferred the date of the ticket and exclaimed that she was going to give me a day in her home city, since I had never been to Vietnam.
You saw my Lonely Planet guide before me. You had been travelling and were spending a few days in Ho Cha Ming before going home.
Are you catching the plane tonight? I asked
No. Do you mind if I look in your Lonely Planet? you replied.
In the next 20 minutes we’d done everything the guide had told us not to do- not insisted on the metre in the taxi and allowed the driver to drop us at the hotel of his choice, for which he would have received a commission. But we didn’t care. We had decided to go and explore the city together and we keen to get amongst it.
After dropping our bags at the hotel, we decided we needed Pho as soon as possible so followed the guide to a restaurant where Bill Clinton had apparently eaten. As we slurped the salty beef noodle soups, we chatted about travel and took in the typical busy canteen-like restaurant full of locals and foreigners hard at work throwing down the delicious local broth. You were chatty and relaxed, I was happy to have a quick travel buddy.
At the markets we ran around between the feathers, I bought a wig that you tried on and we stocked up on shiny souvenirs. I felt like I had been travelling with you for months not minutes and as we braved it across the crazy traffic of motorcycles we almost collapsed from laughing at the amount of things transported on the bag of the bikes- from whole families to toilets.
The weather was balmy and as we changed clothes at your hotel, the staff were suspicious as you had booked for one, but we convinced them that we were merely hot and took off again. We strolled the colourful, hectic streets in our new hats and wondered aloud about living here, buying scooters and running Pho tours. It wasn’t a capital R Romantic scene but a lower case, which seemed better. Our musings had a complicity and as we wove pedestrians, bikes and food stands, I felt beautifully in the present. Sometimes this was the best part of travelling- not seeing major sites or undertaking courageous acts of adventure, but merely feeling present and somehow connected to a place, just by being in it. You were on the ground with me and we were together at the centre of this presence.
How about we get massages? one of us, I can’t remember which, suggested. Post long haul flight and still a few hours left to my transit, it seemed like a good idea. An hour later we reconvened. You were funny in your description of your massage that nearly finished in your paying ‘then I thought I’m not paying for extras no way!’ and I tell him that mine was almost similar and we laugh.
The massages and the walking has built our appetites and we decide to stop at a street side café for snacks and a beer. You take a long sip of local beer and discuss the food options with the waiter. We decide on Bánh cuốn (steamed rice cakes) and Gỏi cuốn (Spring Rolls). We refreshingly don’t talk about ourselves- what we do, where we’ve been, where we’re going, but instead observe our surroundings- the make shift but comfortable terrace eatery we’re in, the kid who stops to play hide and seek with a tied up dog, the funny- and fun- English of the waiter who tries to crack a joke that we don’t quite understand but make us laugh anyway, and our vietnamese hats. And again we’ve landed in the present tense. No nostalgia. No hopeful outcome. Just a pleasant moment of nowness in the late afternoon humidity. The rice cakes and the spring rolls arrive and I don’t know if they’re the best I’ve ever tasted thanks to the chef and the produce, or because I’m really tasting them, each ingredient and each mouthful. The coolness of the beer ads another dimension with a hit of jet lag and you lean back and smile. Sharing this simple satisfaction marks a moment.
Suddenly the sun starts to disappear behind the buildings and the clock has slipped forward in time. It has somehow become six o’clock and I have an hour to be at the airport. We walk briskly back to your hotel to grab my suitcase (I can’t remember why it wasn’t checked through) and you give me a quick hug. I feel like I’ve been with you for much longer than 8 hours. You ask to borrow my Lonely Planet and I write my address in it so you can send it to me and keep in touch.
In the taxi through the busy city streets I still have this smoothness, this delicious flow of a feeling. I arrive in perfect timing to get my flight without stressing and take off towards home, ready for a nap.
You never sent the book or got in contact but I never minded. The 12 hours were a great amount of time to have spent with you, whoever you are.
