Last day in Nam and already looking forward to returning to Kong. I can never fully relax when traveling. My life has been highly structured. I long for returning to those daily routines like long walk up the hills, morning reading, afternoon drinks, and late night jazz.

Like Schopenhauer once said and I catastrophically came across at an impressionable age, life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom; my longing — or human longing — is constantly moving between adventure and security.

Yesterday, after a quite good trip to Ha Long Bay, I still came to conclusion that I tend to like travelling in more developed places (gasp!). As much as I love the beauty of Mother Nature, I am equally appalled by its philistine nature.

Was sitting at this lovely cafe “Green Leaf” sipping Pina Colada and surprisingly, they’ve got free WiFi! Facebook is also blocked in Nam, I discovered.

Ho Chi Minh City looks like a second-tier Chinese city at the level of Ningbo or Nanning. Thousands of maddening cyclos were roaming along every street, which looks dusty and rundown even in its most hustle and bustle district. The sense of anarchic madness kicked in when I was applying for the visa-on-arrival at the HCM airport — everyone was queuing the wrong queue and didn’t know what to expect. Finally it was my turn, this small, dark, emotionless Vietnamese guy was as terse as possible, to the point I was completely clueless whether I was in the right queue or not. I waited for about 20 minutes before he used his eyes to direct me to the sideways. And then came this Vietnamese cab driver who didn’t speak a word of English and somehow thought I was going to check into InterContinental, even though I repeatedly said my hotel is Hotel Continental Saigon (Which was the setting of Graham Green’s The Quiet American).

Got a lovely letter from Down Under. That, along with a glass of Pinot Grigio at the pavement table watching maddening traffic around me, made my day.

Wandering around a bit in the hotel area — it was totally mad with all sorts of piercing sounds clashing into each other. For many Vietnamese people, the favorite pastime seems to be sitting around on the stairs in front of an inhumanely gigantic shopping mall; and for many young people here, hugging (literally) brand name logos for a photo is THE thing to do.

It’s late now, but thanks for massive noises outside my window, I could only half-sleep.