Domestic flights, especially short ones, make it easy on my traveling psyche, so I woke up at 5:30am feeling hopeful that things would be interesting yet not too taxing. Checked out of the Home Vu and waited 45 minutes on the curb for the #18 which took me to Cam Rahn Airport, checked in without waiting and hung out at Gate 8 for the 10:55am flight which left without delay and landed in Saigon 1 hour later. I jumped on the #152 bus (5000d) and caused a bit of laughter when the conductor saw me reading my travel notes and wanted to see them and he passed the sheet around the bus looking for a translation, a Swedish couple got a laugh out of that. I was able to find the correct drop off stop (Chua Ong) but had a bit of difficulty finding Le Loi Street but a local helped and soon I was walking down a narrow alley and at the end found the red gate with the lockbox which contained the house key, took me 5 minutes of constant finger maneuvers to open the box and was quite surprised to find that my tiny studio has a sliding metal grate door with an open top, so I am guessing the next 10 days I am going to be fighting the mosquitoes and other bugs which will invariably fly in looking for a warm blooded meal.
The studio is old, shabby, and the bathroom is roughing it, no shower area, just a hand held nozzle which will get everything soaked - toilet, sink door, floor - adventure comes in different forms, so my final days of the journey will be adjusting to austere living arrangements.
Saigon Studio
The studio is near The Rex Hotel, which is the venue of the HD Bank International Chess Tournament.
I went walking in search of food after getting settled in and had to stop at Starbucks so that I could look up the studio wifi password, spending 55,000d ($2.40) for a cup of tea, which was more expensive than the 25 mile bus ride into Cam Rahn. After retrieving the password I stopped at Circle K and bought packaged pasta and a couple of sushi rolls, which reminded me of my meals in Bangkok. After eating I went out walking in the dusk light and was subjected to the hard sell techniques of the shopkeepers, shoe cleaners, massage ladies, and hat sellers.
