Fili’s world

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It was the weather that made the first big jump. Dalat’s weather with the cold and rain was taking all possible positive thinking out of me. Being stuck inside the puff bed freezing while it is raining endlessly outside can not be good for you. Now that I’m back in Saigon, to my dear humidity and warmth, walking around in kafkafim and shorts, seeing the clear skies and the sun, hearing the birds and the watching all the hectic city life I feel like I’m back into a familiar place that makes sense to me. It’s weird, only a week or so ago I wasn’t liking Saigon too much, but the day I had since my arrival here has made a complete turnover from a lost soul to a hopeful enthusiastic self. Unbelievable.

The decision to go to Saigon was a momentary reflex that had nothing to do with the weather. I panicked. After a sleepless night I went over to the Dalat Hospital and it was horrible. No body spoke any English and the faces the new doctors made when they replaced my bandages made me want to see what was going on. When I took a look – I was horrified, it didn’t look very good. All the questions I still wasn’t sure about from the previous fuzzy day about what medication I should take - when, how and how many was only responded by fucked up sentences like “where you from?” “Oh! Tall tall, you very very big”. Being soaking wet from the ride bike to the hospital, I was trying to find an English speaking nurse or doctor without any luck. Finally, I turned my self over to them and 4 doctors started pulling my chin from all sides. It felt like I was being butchered.

After that shock treatment I decided – no more! I need some western doctor that would speak to me in clear plain English, so when I came back to the hotel I sat on the internet to find the closest best western doctor my VISA card could buy. It was funny, yet reassuring, that the best medical clinic in Vietnam is run by Israelis at Hanoi, Danag and Saigon and after calling the Hanoi branch an Israeli doctor has calmed me down on the phone in Hebrew and suggested that I’d go back to Saigon to be on the safe side. That’s all the encouragement I needed. Trying my last effort to find my lost passport around Vietnam, the phone calls costing me more than the whole process did, I was told it would be in Saigon the following day and that this time they would mail me the passport through the Post Office. “No! !#$$%&* ! I’ll come pick it up myself! you just make sure you have it in your hands at Saigon tomorrow!”.

Saigon it is then… I booked the next available bus leaving from Dalat at 23:00 and waited. After hearing what happened to me - sweet Australian Selene came over with some flowers and took me out for soup lunch and spring-rolls dinner in an attempt to cheer me up. I wasn’t much of a company, but seeing a friendly familiar English speaking face meant a great deal to me. The family that runs that hotel have been kind and charming through the whole thing. We talked, played Chinese Chess, drank tea and waited the late bus together. I took some pain killers and it did wonders – it was the smoothest bus ride I’ve had, and in some bizarre miracle the 8 hours bus journey from Saigon to Dalat took only 5.5 hours on the way back. Go figure.

4:30 in the morning, the weather felt like heaven. I was still clothed with shoes, jeans and 3 layers of long sleeves and I welcomed the sweat with sheer joy. I went back to my fancy hotel in tourist area at district 1, and when I woke up 2 hour later to go to the western Israeli hospital the beautiful girl at the reception, seeing that I’m back for the first time, cried – “Oh, you’re back! I missed you!” and gave me a hug. Trust me, we never spoke more than a few sentences on my previous stay so I was a bit surprised, but god knows that felt good.

Yeah, it was a good hospital and hearing my good diagnosis in Hebrew from the 3 Israeli doctors gave me comfort. They replaced my huge Band-Aid with a small neat one, took some X-rays and finally priced me with the overwhelming sum of a 100$. Never in my life was I so glad to pay a 100$ for what seemed like absolutely nothing but psychological support.

Finishing up with a movie and with my first Vietnamese physical exercise since I could remember – I feel so much better.

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