It was yet another club sandwich for breakfast at the café Lebanhmi. The friendly waiter from yesterday welcomed me in and showed me to an upstairs room where I had the place to myself. He also gave me a discount. As if I needed more reason to come back for another club sandwich tomorrow. The waiter told me his name was Tuan. (Pronounced “Tung”).
Once I’d sufficiently breakfasted, I made my way to Tiberius’ hostel and together we boarded a coach to the Cu Chi Tunnels.
While the tour guide was a bit annoying and ended up having an immature break down over a bit of impoliteness from a few tired members of the tour, it was fascinating to take a look at some Vietcong booby traps.
We walked through a lightly wooded forest with the kerblamming of bullets committing atrocities on our ears. Nearby you could pay to fire weapons used in the war at targets on the trees. The sound made me wish I was deaf.
We eventually got to go inside some of actual tunnels. They were uncomfortable and claustrophobic as hell.
It was late when we finally got back into the city of Saigon. (I prefer Saigon to Ho Chi Minh.) Tiberius suggested a rooftop bar for dinner and I was all onboard.
We sat high in the sky, overlooking the green and purple dazzle of Saigon’s Skyscrapers. My burger, which oozed truffle sauce, and the portion of fries which must be the biggest I have ever seen, cost only the equivalent of 4 pounds. Ho Chi Minh is easily the most expensive place in Vietnam, and with our rooftop view this was a steal indeed. We ate our food and licked our fingers. I couldn’t decide which was tastier, the food or the view. But while we’d both filled ourselves with food and sightseeing, nothing could possibly fill the crater of uncertainty that hung over my head.
We’d both been hoping Caligula would come south again. His sudden leap back to Hanoi came completely out of the blue, Tiberius told me. But today our hopes were quietly put to bed. Caligula is going to a distant land called the United Kingdom. It was very unexpected to hear, because as far as I was aware, none of us had the United Kingdom on our itineraries – at least not anytime soon. But it is no lie to say that our feelings and circumstances have been constantly and radically changing… so I don’t know why this news rattled me so much. Perhaps it is because while the group has been split asunder for a good 3 weeks now, to learn that 4 travellers has now become 2 is extremely disconcerting. This must have contributed to the weird feeling that was in the air.
As we paid the bill and descended to the street below, I could not help but think that out of all of us, Tiberius has mastered travelling the best. Always being the one who planned ahead and organised, needing the least rest days and being able to travel alone or in accompany just as easily. His style of travel is very different to mine. And now we have reached a crossroads…
