Good Night, Vietnam!

The wind has gone for good in Mui Ne. The full moon shines on the mirror-smooth sea. Once the wind is gone, the mosquitoes come. I haven’t even used a bottle of mosquito repellent in a year of travelling the world. I put up with swarms in the jungle of Fiji without a murmur. But the last night in Mui Ne is madness.

I watch a film and try to ignore the five mosquitoes on my arm. After that, the bites become murderous. I go to the wax bar three more times in the hope that the mosquitoes will eventually go to sleep. Rest wrapped in a sheet in a hammock on the beach. Mosquitoes bite through. 187 bites later, I wake the boss at three and organise a mosquito net.

At seven in the morning, Toni and I take the open-top bus back to Saigon. I’m exhausted again. I work on a homepage and almost fall asleep. We say goodbye in Saigon, I find a cheap place to stay and buy a ticket for a two-day tour through the Mekong Delta and over to Cambodia.

Then I work all day. Coffee flows in copious quantities. I’m so tired, but urgent things are going on. Help a Dutch woman with the wireless. Run into Toni again, whose bus doesn’t leave for Phnom Penh until the next morning. We go out to eat.

I check out the Seventeen Bar. Until then, despite all the reports to the contrary, I really thought there was no prostitution in Vietnam. I have a beer in the bar and get a light from a girl. A second girl asks me something I don’t understand or don’t want to understand. I wonder about the packaging and contents. Pay three times as much for a beer and go home. Good night, Vietnam!

Everything ends quietly. Not just Vietnam, apparently the whole trip. Man, what a flat arc of suspense…