The Saigon Times…

It came out of no where – bang! … silence in the air, us two contemplating the option. Crazy thoughts running inside, trying to grasp the meaning and details of the proposal just made. Gradually, stares turn into smiles and small head-nodes suggest that it’s something doable. A great spontaneous idea, just the kind of ideas that make everything worth while.

“Today, in the hotel, I talked to my travel agent friend from Singapore. He makes reservations for his costumers and today he told me there are really cheap flights from Saigon to Singapore”. That sounded familiar, I’ve heard about this one. I thought back in time to Z’s Burger previous night where I went for my late night big-burger Jerusalem’s Ivo replacement, just browsing through the useless “Saigon Times”. I usually just flip through the communist blabla that’s in there, but for a split second my eye caught something worth investigating. A 25$ roundtrip flight to Singapore by Tiger Airways… 25$ (!!!) – now that’s something that could be exciting. “Say, Jessy, weren’t you planning to get time off work this weekend? Wouldn’t it be great if instead of just sleeping through your days off – like you usually do, and instead of me just been bored out of my mind – like I usually am, we’d go for your first exciting trip outside Vietnam to the mysterious Singapore?”.

I now know that it’s not going to happen this weekend, since tickets are out and the whole re-entry VISA to Vietnam is too much of a hassle. Yet, as Ho-Chi-Minh is my witness, the morning so far given me new powers and livened me up by the new target – buying the Singapore Lonely Planet, checking out for hotel reservations, visiting 4 travel agencies trying to understand how to make a re-entry VISA to Vietnam. That could have been great. Maybe next time…

We’ve been doing some neat stuff together. The thing I really like about Jess is that, unlike most hard-working Vietnamese, she’s not bothered by money details and just wants to have a good time. She wears fashionable cloths, takes me to fancy restaurants, great music shows and gorgeous ca-phe places (and, for you skeptics – yeah, she insists on paying…). After traveling for too long out of the big city, it’s great to enjoy all that Saigon has to offer – with the company of a free spirit lively gal.