-^-for posterity-^-

debacles come in all shapes and sizes. you can have simple misunderstandings or instances that seriously impact.

this was a combination of small debacles.

first we couldn’t get tickets to chau doc. chau doc is a small town that is nestled along the cambodian boarder. it is home to the lady pagoda and some quaint mountain. we’ve been told that you can hire people to carry you up this mountain if you can’t make it up under your own strength. you sit in a hammock between them as they struggle along. this, i wanted to see.

the bus companies were making too much money running between long xuyen and ho chi minh city. they were in no mood to travel short distances. most prices are slightly inflated during the lunar new year and bus tickets are one of them. the price for a one-way ticket went from 40,000 to 80,000.

communication was a problem. they said that the bus would leave at noon, then one, then two. we sat, and sat and sat eventually giving up. that was the first debacle.

the second debacle happened when we tried to eat lunch. we ordered bun bo hue which is noodles, beef and broth all fashioned in the styling of hue city. it’s a bit spicy and not too filling. we asked for the bill and the waiter quoted an outrageous price. it was three times what would normally be paid, or so we thought. we were sitting with all of our bags and looked like tourists. we thought we were being had.

we told the waiter that we lived here and that we were teachers at the university. we said that we were volunteers and that we didn’t earn a salary. the small man looked on with no empathy. we made a bit of a stink about it and, it turned out, we were paying the normal price. i found out later from friends and felt terribly that we had made such a scene.

nothing terrible happened. i’m still able to breath, talk, laugh and sing. today was just a combination of frustrating events. waiting and waiting followed by poor communication, ignorance and fear on our part.