Starting the Day Early

I was awake at 5.30am. I had one of those “fail” dreams. I was supposed to be following a couple of people to an AGM. The boss put his jacket on inside out, so I pointed out the mistake for him. Then he and somebody else walked away. They kept disappearing around street corners and I was in danger of losing them. I had a feeling of missing the AGM once again because I couldn’t work out where they were going. I just managed to see what building they disappeared into, as I struggled to get all of my stuff together to follow them. I made it, but only just, seemingly. In the end, we were all in some kind of old pale green fibro building, where everybody had gathered. People were collecting documents together and I had the sense that I didn’t know what they were doing. 

Shrug. I lay in bed for a while to try an decipher the dream. What the? Stupid dreams.

I looked at my watch and it said 5.55 something. Bugger! This was especially bad as we are catching the 23.00 train out of Hanoi tonight to Hoi An. At that point I wished we were catching a plane. Stupid me, the train was my idea. I always think that train travel is good because you get to see all those things that you miss when you fly. I wished we were flying.

The sun hadn’t risen when I went to the bathroom to piss. Out the window, Hanoi was bathed in milky light, that soft focus of early morning. I sat on the balcony and smoked a cigarette. I got my laptop and a bottle of water and here I am.

The sun slowly rose slowly and the heat increased dramatically, as the sunshine hit me.

I retreated inside at 6.30.

I feel a bit depressed today, not a good way to start the day, hey? I don’t know if I am tired? Worn down by being sick for the first week? What it was? I think it was the feeling of being a failed tourist? You know, you never feel that you see everything. It always seems like everybody else is better organised and are getting to see more than you do. Well, maybe it is just me who feels that way? I prefer being amongst the people, more so than ticking every museum and historical site off the list.

I headed down to Buon Dua Le Cafe at 6.55am, to drink coffee and eat sausage and fish and potato portions. I drank coffee and fruit juice. I ate fruit, the poppy seed type with red skin and watermelon. And more coffee.

A cute German boy shared the balcony with me. He finished his breakfast and headed off up Hang Hanh Street just after 7am. I wondered where he was going? I wondered what site seeing he had marked out in his brain. I wondered if most tourists were so organised to be up and off out around the city at such an early hour.

Sam came down for breakfast at 7.45am.

Then we went shopping, for most of the day. The sun shone down brightly. We found the restaurant we ate in the other night. Sam with his girlie sense of direction found it.  Then we shopped some more.