13.3.23

A last morning coffee in with Lauren.Fried eggs and crusty bread before planning to walk the opposite direction and see the views from the other end of the island.
Lots of gongs today, must be Sunday temple prayer day.

Thuy had prepared our total bill ready for check out.
We got credit cards out.. No cards. Cash only. She was so apologetic bless her.
No worries, we still had 2 hours so walked to town to the ATM.

Past the Husky that made us jump everytime, past Pluto who seems to be kept in behind bars now. I swear he’s not as barky, he’s just so scared. Gave him the last of the dog biscuits but he’s never going to be our friend.

Over the bridge and up to the cashpoints.

We got money, then popped into the market area to get a metal Vietnamese coffee filter and coffee for Adrian and John wanted a new baseball cap.

We more or less committed daylight robbery with what we paid a stallholder. Just showed what their starting point and mark up is as she was ok with the transaction, or maybe she was just in shock.
We decided to walk back via coffee the long way round instead of along by the river.
The coffee shops we were so sure we’d seen were non existant so we decided to go to the extremely slow lady at Thanh and then drink it on the go.
Today she was ultra ultra slow, but so smiley and pleasant. She’d emerged looking fabulous from a dingy back room with a bed in it.

We power walked and got back just before our midday pick up, paid the bills, tipped Thuy, who was over the moon, and finished packing all just before the car we booked on booking. com arrived.

It wasn’t the car for 4 and 4 bags that we paid for and no way our luggage would fit, so they sent a bigger one a few minutes later.

We got to Danang shortly before 1pm. The plans all went to pot as John thought Lauren had to be at the airport to fly at 3pm, so the driver dropped us at the airport, then we waited for a Grab to John & I’s homestay for our last night where we dropped our bags. There were 3 hairdresser chairs and some nail varnish by the reception desk. All very odd.

The area was pretty grim and being Sunday lots of closed places.

But then we spotted a Pho restaurant. Took our lives in our hands crossing the roads to get there. It was a furniture shop.

Final straw we gave up and got a Grab back to the airport. Poor Lauren had a heavy back pack full of china and didn’t like seeing her poor suitcase abused by Vietnamese pavements.
We ended up in what looked like the Bridge Cafe from the Apprentice and had as much atmosphere.

By this time the inevitable farewells were looming, none of us were feeling it and just wanted it over.
With the best will in the world after such a brilliant week today wasn’t going to compare.

The only options available from the huge menu were instant noodles or rice noodle chicken soup.
We opted for the soup.
It was ok. We didn’t even have the ooomph to question why it was 3 times the price written on the menu.

Time to check in, hugs, tears, promises that it’ll only be a few months til we’re together again and more tears.
Logically this was a very unplanned, unexpected week but it was no consolation at that stage.

John and I walked back to the homestay of doom. There was an old grandma sitting on the floor who did her best to ignore us.
We hadn’t seen our room earlier, only the woman with the stern face with eyes that pointed in opposite directions. She appeared and showed us the room.
The only communication earlier was her writing down 300,000 the price was 220,000 she thought Lauren was staying too.
Lucky for Lauren she wasn’t, she’d have had a pink fit.

Only 16 hours until we could leave.

Our hope had been a nice cosy room and a relaxing tv catch up.
What we had was a 2 inch mattress on a wooden slatted base and terrible internet.
We played around with the user name and password written on the door and different networks with passwords until I felt brave enough to approach the scary lady.
It was actually none of those networks or combinations.

John found an Indian restaurant but it was 4km away, no way I was walking around here, and I had a bad head, that horrible heavy feeling after crying.
So, he found a place which used Grab to deliver and it was with us by 7.30pm.

John loved his biryani, my paneer tikka masala wasn’t great, too many thick slices of unidentified vegetables and my cheese peshawari naan tasted like sour milk.

We watched Kathy Burkes programme about getting older, thankfully it was light hearted and not as miserable as this afternoon has been.

We’ve had such a fabulous month, it’s horrible accepting that it’s over.
Roll on tomorrow morning, just want to get on the flights now and go home to hug our furry babies.