another burst.  Nervous about over-using this section too regularly now, but heck...

anyone know how to indent paras without going in manually?

3. 10:14  05/10/05

Detained in my room yesterday evening due to a combination of fatigue, a defeated sense of isolation and subsequent fear / laziness.  To do nothing was safer than to chance something and risk getting fleeced and bitter again.
       I had ventured down to reception to confirm that yes, I would like to stay for one more night after tonight, as I had been told would be possible when I checked in.  Receiving prolonged blank stares from two young chaps at reception I hadn’t seen before, I figured this wouldn’t be so simple.  They understood the words I was saying but couldn’t fathom the complexity of the question.  Eventually, the more assertive younger one clicked, tapped a few keys on a keyboard and surprisingly said no.  They were all booked up for tomorrow.  Something in his nervous manner suggested to me that this was bollocks, that it was me: they wanted this lone, young westerner out of their plush hotel as soon as possible.  Frustrated, as I’d have to pack up again and fall back on my probably inferior contingency hotel I’d booked online, I asked if I could use the internet (for which there was a fee) to let family know I’d arrived safely.  I was allowed through to a small room of PCs only to find their internet connection was broken, so I conceded defeat to everything and retired to my room for a mini-bar dinner of nuts and beer, text-messaged home, then took an early night.

Woke this morning with a lazy sense of foreboding.  Should I have just gone inter-railing in America, where everybody seemed to love me the moment I opened my mouth and heard I was English?  Rather than come here where doing everything is such an effort; just being visible gives anyone permission to come and squeeze you for cash.  Alarmed to feel a lazy sense of homesickness.
          Took a buffet breakfast in the top-floor restaurant of the hotel on a table next to some Germans, or maybe Austrians.  I didn’t speak to them despite the urge to, out of a weird solidarity. 
          Planning to depart in a hopefully kosher taxi before midday, when I hope to relinquish this lazy, nervous fug and brave the street again.  Currently loafing on the bed, wasting as much as my remaining time here as possible, watching CNN International.  There’s a loud, irritatingly smug English reporter / presenter who I’m embarrassed of. 

4. 17:25    05/10/05

The taxi which took me down through the centre of Ho Chi Minh City towards the river halted on a medium sized road at the foot of a small flight of steps.  It led to the single doorway of my hotel. 
         Not hopeful, I was pleasantly surprised by my room: a presentable, functional en-suite, windowless but air-conditioned.  Also a winning hotel by virtue of a better, smiling reception service, complimentary baby bananas, free internet facilities and a legible map of the city.
         The map helped me locate the river which the city depends so much on and I took a walk along its not especially picturesque side.  Made to feel guilty by child beggars clutching their bellies and appealing, “dollar?” I then made for the Ton Duc Thang Museum. 
         Ton Duc Thang had been Ho Chi Minh’s right hand man and successor, and the museum paid exhaustive, eventually tedious tribute.  I kept taking wrong turns down corridors and having to be put right by staff who trailed me, unlocking doors and switching on lights.  At one point I blindly stumbled into a room where a family where watching a television, before being pointed and steered away.  Horribly embarrassing.  
         Returning back down the riverside, I stopped at a small kiosk bar, perched on a stool and ordered a half pint can of beer. 
        I’ve mentioned the danger of crossing the road here before, but as I sat there between the river and a terrifying central main road, I wondered at it again.  It really can’t be overrexaggerated.  You know that scene in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade where Indy sprinkles sand over a ravine to reveal a narrow path to the next cave impossibly hanging in mid-air?  That’s like a zebra crossing here. 
        Courage is a necessity, knowing when to walk is also key, as is knowing not to stutter or pause when crossing.  A change of pace can be lethal.  The task is actually more difficult than Indy’s in many ways.  Shared elements include the width of the path, the disbelief that it’s possible, although you’re not quite sure how, the psychological uncertainty, the entertaining of possible death, and the exhilaration at making it across to the other side alive.
       The traffic is incredible in its diversity as much as its volume too.  The people rather than their vehicles, which are all roughly similar spluttering, puttering, droning motorbikes.  From young boys wearing a scrap of material around their loins, to immaculately presented businesspeople, women wearing beautiful long dresses, or ancient looking men who look as if they’re brazenly defying nature by merely being alive, as well as riding their bikes and carrying ten tons of melon.
       Dipping in and out of my book - light, very western, immediately identifiable - while glugging at beer, my surroundings kept jarring me each time I looked from the page, occasionally to see locals looking at me like I was an interesting garden bird.  It took a second to readjust from my absorption and remember where I was.
      Harnessed by beer with greater courage to cross roads, I felt lighter, less oppressed than I had been made to feel by my experiences yesterday.  The heavy fear which had kept me indoors last night and this morning was relieved.  I may even venture outside after dark tonight.  There’s a place opposite my hotel called Annie’s Pizza, which sufficiently panders to my shameful western cowardice of trying much local food.
 
Walking back from the riverside I popped into a large, modern, westernised bookshop and selected a learning English language book.  “Robert, what a wonderful name!  May I call you Bob?” offered a chuckle.  And I was equally delighted to find copies of Topsy and Tim as I was intrigued to see Ba Bovary.

Paranoia or not?  I feel overly self conscious in a museum, checking in and out of hotels, browsing bookstores; generally being a young, single, white, western male.  Are those of my ilk usually a bad bunch only up for theft and prostitute abuse?  The many Hawkers who offer rides and tours on the street deliberately use the word massage, stretching out the syllables, then cackle horribly.  Arriving, leaving, and being alone in places, I often keenly feel eyes tracing my every motion, just in case. 
        Or I could just be being paranoid.

      

5. 16:50  06/10/05

Stepped out of the hotel last night for dinner, bashfully opting only as far as Annie’s Pizza.  A passable thin-crust pizza, but it seemed Annie doesn’t favour cooking the onion topping.  
          I’d seen an Irish bar marked on my new map so headed there afterwards, passing several bars bulging with squealing young girls not wearing very much who would try to entice me inside as I walked by.  “Hello, waan dreenk?!” they flaunted in my direction as I passed.  Despite a vague curiosity, I smiled weakly, shaking my head as I passed, amused by the attention and my exotic difference. 
        O’Brien’s was a typical Irish bar which could have been anywhere in the world.  I sat in a corner with my books and beer, eavesdropping on an ever growing group of Australian businesspeople who were attending a conference.  They said nothing interesting.
 
On my walk home I became a little lost, but the diversion was a pleasant one: picturesque central squares and monuments I hadn’t yet seen, populated by young, old, and families alike.  They sat there enjoying the communal spirit a warm evening generated - as opposed to the uncomfortable ‘yoof’ residence at monuments and war memorials in the UK.
 

A modest breakfast at another top floor hotel restaurant the next day before a brief stroll upwards through the centre.  Tired of constant pestering. 
         Man offers a ride on his bike or a tour, politely decline, he rides alongside anyway, begins conversation, politely converse for a while, he offers a ride again, decline again, he begs for money, mentioning his poor family, forced into silence, weak smiles and headshaking as he still rides alongside talking, begging, before he eventually gives up.   
        I’m looking forward to becoming the member of a tour group, a small part of a collective rather than a single isolated individual where I’m exclusively the focus of attention.  Starers continue to irk, their eyes bore into my back every second I’m in a museum or gallery until I feel like they’ve extracted my soul.
       Shipped off to my next hotel where I’m due to meet the group.  It’s a plush, fairly grand one near the central, insanely busy, bustling market.  The receptionist informed me I was sharing a room with someone called Heath Wellington-Jones.  I detected from the tags on his backpack that he was from Clapham Junction, London.  For some reason I suspect he’s a young guy with boyish good looks, mainly because Heath is a grand name.                
       Settled my gear in the room before heading out for another wander.  Had my soul extracted by two young girls in an gallery, (it’d be better if there were any meaning in the stares, but they’re just creepy: empty and deadening).  Found my way to the culturally significant Reunification Palace where a group of us received a brave, broken English speaking tour.  It was generally a little dull, observing well kept, grand rooms and a few basement suites from where war operations were masterminded.  The highlight was a traditional music room where a local chap demonstrated marvellous looking, inventive instruments.
       Now I’m the only customer in the upstairs patio section of a small restaurant which advertised western food.  I’d rather be a coward than chance becoming horribly ill.  At least at the moment, when nobody is here to witness it and mock me.  However, I did compromise with traditional tea and local fish, er, sandwich.  Shall be returning to the hotel shortly to meet my new room-mate and attend the introductory meeting which was advertised on the noticeboard at the hotel reception.  Hopefully there won’t be too many annoyingly loud Americans. 
      The teenage waitress who had been attending to me here, standing by, gamely trying not to stare too much, is now sitting, slumped over a balcony beam, sound asleep.