Leaving Vietnam Soon

What with some dodgy internet and being exhausted at the end of the day I didn’t post anything but then I hadn’t really planned to.

 We are currently in DaNang  but will be home at the end of the week. I’ll post a few dot points.

 *** The Travel Marvel boat cruise from Siem Reap to Ho Chi Minh city was a lot of fun. We certainly heard about a lot of history and made some friends. The history is so tragic and the guides who took us through it were victims of the Killing Fields during Pol Pot’s reign through the death of their parents. They really wanted all of us to understand what the Cambodians and Vietnamese went through during the war years over several decades and it was quite confronting at times.

 All was balanced out though by a sense of camaraderie with fellow travellers, some lovely people gathered together around some delicious food. It was a good balance.

 The ship had about 60 people on it, almost all couples, so about thirty couples and a few travelling independently that were all invited as part of the family. The ship was divided into the “blue family” and the “yellow family” for ease of transport for various excursions. This made for smaller groups.

 We are now in DaNang at a large hotel for 7 days and ready to finish up and get home.

The kennel that Ollie is in rang us and told us he wasn’t feeling all that good but they jumped right on it and took him to his vet, Dr Jane, who he loves and all “his girls.” He gets so excited to see “his girls” he usually has a little wee.

He had a good check up. He stayed over night and given some TLC and sent back to the kennel the next day. We are told he and Peanut (Peanny) are doing well. It was good to have someone taking care of them that were so quick to notice that something wasn’t quite right.

 I finished an interesting book while lounging by our pool here. There isn’t much to do here except lounge by the infinity pool that is right on the ocean’s edge and eat some amazing food.  I am actually looking forward to getting home and shedding a couple of kilos.

 In the meantime we hear Hobart has gale force winds and is still quite cold so we aren’t missing a lot.

 The book I finished is called 600 Hours of Edward by Craig Lancaster. There are three books in the series but I will stop at this first one. The sequels don’t appeal. Edward is a 39 yr old man with Asperger’s syndrome (neuro divergent by today’s terminology) His father is a big shot councillor and developer/investor. Very right winged Republican. They all live in Billings Montana. His father can’t cope with Edward at all as his only son is not really the son he expected. He bought a house for Edward to get him out of the family home and only deals with him through his lawyer. Though he loves his son he doesn’t have the emotional strength to ever let him know.

 On the other hand Edward records the weather every morning. He looks at the forecast then verifies it the next day to see if it was correct or not. He doesn’t deal in assumptions, he only deals in facts. He goes to psychologist, Dr Buckley every week at 10 am on Tuesday morning . While he waits he sorts the waiting room magazines chronologically each week. He doesn’t like mess.

 At 10 pm every night he watches the 40 yr old tv program Dragnet. He loves Jack Webb as he only deals in facts and he enjoys the stories and the moral compass the two police officers bring to the show. I watched a little of Dragnet back in the 70s 😀.

 Through his psychologist, he has learned not to “go off” at people. He had a habit of sending vitriolic letters to people he thought wronged him. Now he writes one letter of complaint each night to anyone who has annoyed him during the day , but he files it away in his organised file cabinet. (I quite liked this idea as I can certainly relate to this).

 He has other issues to deal with. He tries internet dating. He also makes friends with the neighbour woman who is a single mother of a 9 yr old boy.

He talks about the words he likes. Agog, ostentatious, flummoxed, voluminous.

I loved this book. I really liked Edward and I loved the way he learned to deal with living life on his own. I thought the portrayal of him was quite realistic and I could relate to him a lot, having my own compulsions in life I’m dealing with.

 I am starting the new Elizabeth Strout book today- Tell Me Everything. Old Olive Kitteridge is 90 ! in this story. I love her so much. So stay tuned. I think I’ll like it though I’ve not read the Lucy Barton book I am assured it isn’t necessary.

 When I looked up the books that follow Edward there was too much information and I’m sure they would be pretty much the same format and I don’t think I would enjoy them. Think the Rosie Project and it’s sequel.

 Well I see this is very long and I do want to put a couple of photos into this and also see if DaNang’s internet can cope with sending it out.

 Until later….bye for now