Hoi An -> Siagon

It was hard to place what was different, but after a few minutes it was apparent that this was no ordinary night. The big unexpected crowd was making a noise unheard of before on this part of restaurant alley, and they seem to be extremely demanding. Looking at the restaurant’s staff I knew that they were in trouble. I could feel my preplanned quiet night of just sitting down for drinks with Ly transforming into Ly’s worst nightmare. Her weak “Hey Phi-Li” has convinced me this calls for a rescue. So, super Phili, here I come to save the day…

“Good evening, I’ll be your waiter for tonight, what would you like to order?”. They stared at each other, then back at me, then bursted out laughing. “Are you really our waiter?” they asked again and again, and I’ve assured them that I’ve spent so long in that restaurant that I know the menu better than the cook does. Between some small talk “Oh, I’ve done business in Jerusalem!” and taking their order everything seemed to be going fairly okay. I had no idea what I was doing, but it seemed pretty straight forward – ask them what they want and write it down on a paper. How hard could it be to be a waiter?

Trouble started when I finished my side of the big table while Ly was still struggling with hers. I knew there was no way I could talk to the Vietnamese-only speaking cook, so I actually had to wait till Ly finished up for me to hand her my costumer’s wish list. At that moment is was clear that this restaurant has never seen a group this size. Standing at the kitchen, Ly was trying to translate our lists to the confused cook. One does not need to understand Vietnamese to know that things were a mess. The huge order together with small requests from the group like “please bring my Eggrolls together with the rice” has created a cooking nightmare as they were trying to figure out how this could be accomplished with only 2 gas lights. It took about 20-30 minutes just to agree on what was suppose to be cooked and the people outside became frustrated. I tried to go over and make conversation, I’ve brought them drinks again and again, told tales of magical HoiAn, but that wasn’t enough. There was no order, a complete chaos, and the kitchen was going mad.

People got the wrong orders since the cook misread the translated half-burned paper. Ly’s orders were prepared before my orders so half the table was finishing up dinner while the other didn’t get anything, and I knew that – though not my fault – I wasn’t a popular guy at that end. After hours of countless mistakes, endless complaints, and utter madness, there came the final display of inability with the check. They called upon me to calculate the impossible orders, and it took me around 5-10 minutes. After I’ve done the check and handed it to the group leader, he looked at the bill and screamed “You got to be kidding me…”, since – not to my knowledge – he requested separate checks for each person.

Now, there was no way in hell anyone could ever do such a miracle, aside from going from one person to another asking them what they had. I gave up, Ly struggled for a few minutes till the group leader went “Holy Maria! You sit down, I’ll do it!”. After all the hassle, Ly was exhausted and confused. The money we got didn’t match the bill that I wrote, which was correct since I checked twice. The differences were about 70,000 dong but for some reason Ly thought it was around 600000. Ly was shaking her head shouting “Not enough! Not enough!”, and I paused my interview of costumer satisfaction outside and rushed in to see what was happening. When Ly became too upset to think, I saw no way out so I said to the group leader – “It’s okay, have a good night – I’ll pay. Hope to see you again…” to which he sneered “Thank god, I don’t think so” and left in a hurry. Ly looked shocked then went completely insane screaming at her staff in Vietnamese then bursting into tears. “No! why should you pay? It’s a lot of money!”. It took me a long long time to calm her down and assure her that 25 shekels (and not 250, like she thought) was a small price to pay for her sanity and reputation and that this should be a lesson for them to learn from. I’ve actually told her all the conclusions I came to during the evening and what people told me on our conversations right after. Ly collapsed into her chair, taking a deep breath and then finally gave me the first smile of the evening. “I’m quitting this job. I can’t be the only English-Vietnamese speaking person in a big restaurant. I’ll find something else when I get back from Hanoi”. So much for my waiter skills…

This is the last extreme experience I had before going into the farewell ceremony. It was very hard picking out the goodbye gifts and writing the letters. I was never good at goodbyes and this was no exception. I’ve only known those people for a month and a half but some of them I’ve became very good friends with. In my last few days I was invited to so many coffees, loads of karaoke nights, and so many house visits that I had to turn down lots of offers. The only way I knew I could keep memory of my visit over there is with a camera, a concept that I unexplainably fear, so I bought a crappy one and head out for a camera pointing spree. Trying to pack my bag with all the presents I got (“Hangbag for your mother, T-shirts for your brother, HoiAn picture frame for your room” and it goes on and on) was a big effort and by some miracle I’ve managed to push it all in to the heaviest load I’ve ever carried. I have no idea what I’ll do with all this…

I’m going to stay here another month. Here, being Vietnam. It’s settled, I’ve applied to a VISA extension for another month, which in Hoi An is an impossible task, but it seems as though at Ho Chi Minh city it is the easiest thing in the world.

Everything is easy over here, yet so difficult. On my first day at Saigon yesterday I was feeling down. Even seeing the western “Star Wars 3” in English at Diamond Center, after not seeing movies for months, has done little to cheer me up. Things are so different from the little HoiAn, and even Hanoi. Hoping that I’m not judging too quickly - people are not very nice. It’s a western city - with girls dressed up in mini skirts flashing their bodies out, couples making out of the streets, big noisy bars and pubs, hectic impossible motorbike traffic. Some of it I like, some of it I hate, but the bad thing is that I’m a bit scared again, and that isn’t a pleasant feeling, especially for a guy traveling alone. No - I don’t want to sit down with the backpackers, no – I can’t seem to find quiet nice Vietnamese, yeah – it could be just a mood thing. I’ll give my self a few days here while I wait for my VISA to process, maybe head out to see the Mekong delta and then rethink things.