A snake for good luck

The past two days have been pretty relaxed, spent doing boring jobs such as working on my university application for next September, and slowly inching my way through the economics book I am obliged to read for Jessica's book club meeting on Saturday. But my time has been primarily filled with the exciting news that my boyfriend Chris has booked his flights to Ho Chi Minh City for early December, so I can now start looking forward to his visit. My mum, dad and sister will be arriving a few days before Christmas, the same day as some of Jessica's former classmates also arrive, and we will all be going on a trip to Angkor Wat between Boxing Day and New Year. As I have mentioned before, I am hoping to take Chris on a trip up North by rail to Hanoi and have been doing some research about this journey. The so-called 'Reunification Express' runs mostly along the coastline along a 1,726km stretch between Hanoi and Saigon. It was completed in 1936 by the French in order to connect north and south. In 1954 the country was separated at the 17th parallel by the signing of the Geneva Accords and the railway line was split accordingly, until national reunification in 1975 led to the line being repaired and restored. It is now considered an exciting, comfortable and cheap way for travellers to get about and to experience the country. I am certainly very keen to take this journey, which takes roughly three days and two nights from end to end.

Saigon-Hanoi (green line), internationalrail.com

The only news from yesterday was the horrifying experience of seeing a snake perhaps two feet away from me when out running in the evening. Thin, black and about a metre long, it slithered out of a drain and disappeared into the grass on the roadside. On seeing this, I dived in the opposite direction, clasped my heart and danced around on the spot for a while, swearing out loud. When I got home, Jessica was equally horrified and was surprised that I'd seen a snake in this area, but told me that according to Chinese superstition, a snake is a soldier from the king of the underworld, sent to welcome you if you have arrived in a new place! More good luck for me then, as she has also informed me that several unlucky-seeming things that have happened to me while I've been here (seeing a funeral procession on my first day, dreaming about a family member dying (I won't mention which one!)), are all symbols of good fortune according to traditional Chinese beliefs. I wonder when all this good luck will take hold?

Today I had to travel into the city to have my phone looked at as it has been playing up, and to buy a top-up card. Miraculously, this job was completed successfully, so I then went to Ben Thanh Market to do a little shopping. I was interested in buying a silk kimono-style dressing gown, the type of which can be found everywhere in this city, and of course after expressing a hint of interest at the sight of some I was cornered by the shop owner. At first she tried to offer me a relatively extortionate 600,000 ('my manager says 860,000, but for you...'etc), but I would not accept, trying my best to leave the shop, now blocked at both sides by three other eager saleswomen, until she accepted my best price, half of what she'd asked for. This made me think of two things. Firstly, if this woman was happy to sell the item at this price, how much was it really worth? And secondly, are tourists often convinced to part with as much money as her first offer was?

Really, that has been the extent of the past two days. I've been feeling lazy and unmotivated, but this has just convinced me further of the need to organise myself better as I don't like wasting the day as I did yesterday. I'm looking forward to tomorrow a lot- it's my birthday and Jessica has very kindly given me two spa treatments as a present! She is also taking me out for dinner, after which we will be meeting some friends for drinks downtown. A note of interest here- Jessica asked me if I was prepared to buy drinks for everyone I'd invited out with us. I said yes, of course, but surely they'll all be buying me the drinks if it's my birthday? No, that's not how we do it here (Asia, I assume, as most of the group will be Taiwanese), Jessica told me. You are the birthday girl, so you invite your friends and buy them all drinks! Lucky I don't have that many friends yet!