Someday I’ll Learn

How easy it is in a foreign country for things to come crashing down.

‘Crashing’ because I’ve had a second bike accident. Very suddenly, the cock-a-hoop of the last post became a dead chook.

It means everything has suddenly become twice as difficult, because moving around is uncomfortable.

I landed on my left side, so have some scrapes, the worst on my hip.

After the Thailand accident & following infection, the second thing I did was get to a pharmacy and clean and patch the wounds.

The first thing was dealing with a swarm of yapping Vietnamese who rounded on the fresh meat ( me ) of the accident scene.

Only the taxi driver I collided with spoke a little English, but I didn’t need a translator to clarify that I wouldn’t win this argument.

He’d started a U-turn right in front of me. I came off the bike, which then slid into his car.

I made the mistake of trying to swerve and brake at the same time. The road was wet, and I was going a little too fast for the conditions.

As I slid, there was a marked flash-back to the Thailand accident, to that point where things there suddenly became a truckload more difficult.

The taxi driver demanded $3m VND ( ~= USD $138 ) for repairs, threatening to call the Police. As a foreigner, that was unlikely to go well for me, nevermind the sheer trouble of dealing with a gang of Authorities who spoke little English.

I negotiated him down to $2m VND ( small crack in his left rear side-panel ), and scarpered the scene after convincing him of my address and Serial Number.

It doesn’t end there. Today I’ll fork out $750k VND for what could be a patchwork fix, so at least the lights and indicators on the bike work.

The bigger picture is that recent anxiety about the stability of my situation here has shot up. Part of that is uncertainty about when my school re-opens.

For now, I’m doing what I can to batten down the hatches – optimising sleep, diet, and health generally. One step at a time…