Today i can write more lucidly not being completely frazzled by travelling. Saw the fang merchant Dr Bihn at 11am. Spent 2 and a half hours in the chair while he carefully and fastidiously and tiresomely reamed out one tooth and did a root canal on it. Boring? Even his beautiful dental hygenist helpers were falling asleep as was I. Outside the window which was on the first floor was a square with a park, and in the middle of the park was a monstrous concrete tower which looked like it had been designed by a Russian architect with pretensions of Soviet splendour. I asked both the reception women and the dentist what is was and was met with puzzlement and incomprehension, almost as if they hadn't seen it before. Later I found out what it was.
By the way a root canal costs $150 US, good deal I say for 2 and a half hours work by 3 people .The bad news is that it will take 6 visits to do the rest which might be spread over a couple of weeks, so it looks like I'm going to get to know Saigon well.
When I left the dentist I urgently needed a coffee so i sat at Gloria Jeans just outside the building gazing at the concrete monstrosity opposite. Gloria Jeans coffee is just as insipid as it is elsewhere. After fending off 2 shoeshine boys and a sunglass salesman a beautiful Vietnamese girl sat down with me to have a cig. Hmmm I thought, her name was Nicole because her first name was Ni so she westernised it. She was studying Japanese language and culture with the aim of becoming a translator so being a bit of an amateur historian myself I asked her did she know the Japanese controlled Vietnam for quite a while. No, she wasn't interested in history in fact all her university friends avoided it if they could. So, moving on I asked her about said colossal tower opposite. Ah at last an answer. It was the Electric Horse, but it rusted and fell down! And heres a funny thing, I'm trying my best to get my tongue around a few simple phrases like Hello, Goodbye, yes no thankyou. My piece de resistance was "Wait a minute" Cho mot chut tu tu da, which was completeloy incomprehensible to Thanh the Concierge. Damn. Anyway this Nicole asked me what food I liked and I replied Cao Lau, simple one would think. She creased here forehead and looked dumbly at me. Cao Lau I repeated then wrote it down. Oh! Cao Lau you mean! Yes Cao Lau. But apparently she had an excuse as its a dish from Hoi An and not seen elsewhere. They have lots of Chinese food there she said.
  I had planned on going to Gia Lam palace but due to the lengthy time in the chair I made my way home. I was recommended the ABC bakery for Bahn Mi so I toddled down there and sat with an American vet who now lives here. He teaches English to women and the police. I mentioned that the police are very low key here and he said you should be here Saturday nights when the "boys in black" come out with their AK 47's, then you won't say they are low key. As we were talking 2 lovely women arrived on a bike and he was off. And talk about "don't mention the war"! I asked him if he was a vet and he was as well as being an excop. First thing he said was "don't mention the war". Being a big mouth I said Yeah the Vietnamese don't like to talk about it either. Maybe that's why he left so quickly.