Two Tales of Horror

I forgot to tell a couple of stories from the other day.  I guess I blocked them out of my memory from the fear and panic that they inspired.

 

After we went to the zoo, we were supposed to be back in our rooms and ready for them to call us to let us know when to be ready to pick up the kids' passports.  We and the other family went across to the Tax Market for lunch at Highlands Coffee.  Dani had a really good pad thai and I had a yummy gravlox sandwich on a PERFECT baguette.  Dani, Leia and Devon also had frosty coffee or fruit drinks, despite the warning of don't-drink-the-water-or-ice, etc.  But, it's been a few days now and they all seem to be fine (no parasites or the like).  I think we're going back there today, and I may brave something frosty and fruity.  We'll see.  It took quite a while for our food to come, so we didn't get out of there and back to our rooms until 1:20 or so, but there were no messages so all was well.

 

About 2:00 or so, Thuy called me and asked me to be in the lobby in ten minutes.  I took about ten minutes to get down there, and nobody was there.  After five minutes passed, I started to get worried.  I thought I had missed them and there was some kind of deadline and they had to go without me.  About five more minutes passed and another of the CHI team (I can't remember his name, I feel so bad about not knowing anyone's name but Hue and Thuy) pulled up in front of the hotel on his motorbike, saw me and motioned for me to come.

 

Oh @%$*

 

Now, realize, I have a little bit of a.....discomfort about motorcycles in general.  I wouldn't call it a fear, but....no, never mind, it's a fear.  So as I'm walking down the stairs toward him and his dual-wheeled chariot of doom I'm trying not to display any fear.  He smiles and hands me his extra helmet.  I handed him my bottle of Aquafina water dyed red with the Crystal Light Berry Blast stuff (I feel like such a stupid American at this point) and as he tries to find a place to put it I realize that the helmet doesn't fit on my big head (even by American standards).  He hands me his helmet, which was a bit bigger but still too small.  He loosened all the straps as much as they could be loosened and I put in on the back of my head.  It was basically an oversized yarmulke with a chin strap.  Tres chic.  As soon as I climbed onto the bike (which almost took two tries) my right hip started cramping.  Oh my god this is not going to be good.  I don't know what I'm supposed to do.  Do I follow my instincts and wrap both arms around him in a bear hug so I don't fall off?  Would this be considered weird?  Probably, I figure.  He must have sensed my ignorance and told me to just hang onto his waist.  He asked me if I was ready.  I lied and said I was and he rolled off the sidewalk and off we went.

 

The good news is, it was actually really, really fun.  It honestly is the best way to see the city.  After just a minute my overwhelming fear was gone, replaced by an occasional feeling that if we hit a largeish bump or hole I would just hop right off the back of that sucker.  The only negative was the cramp in my hip that kept alternating from one to the other.  I would stretch out my leg a little bit and then snap it back in, not wanting to have it chopped off by a passing car or motorbike (since they were no more than two feet from me at times). 

 

After a ten-minute ride we pulled up to the familiar government building where we had went the previous day to apply for the passport (or something--I never really know exactly what we're doing at this point).  He told me to wait on the sidewalk across the street.  I asked him if the others were already here and he just told me to wait there.  Ooooookay.  I get off and he goes through a little entranceway and there I am, standing by myself with everyone just looking at me.  And yes, they were looking at me--I wasn't just being paranoid, much.  After what seemed like a long time he comes back through the entranceway (apparently there's a lengthy check-in and parking process) and we cross the street and enter into the office.  I look around for the others and they're nowhere to be found.  It's at that point that I realize that there's no van in my future:  only more motorbike.  Oh well.  We sit for a while (I can never discern what they actual process is for waiting at any of these places.  There are no numbers, no lines, only crowds of people sitting around.  We sit, we sit, we sit, and then our person gets up motions for us to follow and we conduct whatever business needs to be conducted.  It seems like no matter how long we wait the people that are waiting when we get there are still waiting when we leave.), conduct our business and then I wait outside on the sidewalk again while he retrieves his bike and we head back to the hotel.  The only thing of incident was when we were in the midst of one of the many roundabouts when I heard the sirens of a fire engine.  I looked around and there it was, just to my right, coming RIGHT AT US!  Of course my guy just kept on going like nothing was happening.

 

I got back to the room and asked Dani if I had any bugs in my teeth or anything.  We had a laugh about it and moved on with our day.  Little did I know the trauma that lay before me.

 

We decided to give Norah a bath.  The one before had gone so well and she had been such a cutie that everything seemed a-ok.  In the bath, though, she was being a little grouchy (I had asked Dani to bathe her this time since my back--and both hips--were hurting a bit)

 

SIDENOTE - As I write this, there's an infomercial on the TV for the Magic Bullet that's the exact same one they show in the states only dubbed in Vietnamese.  Too funny. 

 

but we finished and she was just crying and being generally disagreeable.  We wrapped her up in her adorable hooded towel and brought her into the bedroom, putting her down on the bed.  Dani finished drying her off and opened up the towel and there it was....

 

Now, like the motorcycle incident, one should know that I have a general issue with the main antagonist of this story:  poop.  I understand its role in the world and its inevitability.  Heck, a person's day just isn't really complete without it.  And I knew, of course, that with a baby comes a lion's share (or elephant's share) of poop.  But when Dani opened that towel to reveal that neat little pool of poop, I didn't know what to do.  When I tear open a diaper and see it (though I've lucked out so far with Norah and had only wet diapers) I'm fine, because I expect  it to be there.  Dani picks up Norah, holds her out in front of her and heads back towards the tub.  The next minute or so is a bit of a blur but I know that it consisted of Dani yelling at me to DO SOMETHING and Norah is crying and pooping into the happy little inflatable ducky tub.  When it's all over I come to my senses, Norah's dry, in a diaper and I'm standing over the toilet with toilet paper trying to get as much of the poop off the towel with toilet paper so I can....shudder....wash it in the shower. 

 

But, I did my duty (hehe) as a father, got the towel nice and cleaned (huzzah for bringing the little bottles of laundry detergent and having some still left over from the underwear washing party earlier sitting right there on the sink), got the inflatable tub all cleaned and all was well.  And I did it all without throwing up! 

 

Good times.