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    Your Man in the Orient - Part 1
    Your Man in the Orient - Part 1
    Your Man in the Orient - Part 1
    Ebook86 pages1 hour

    Your Man in the Orient - Part 1

    By Albert Jack

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    About this ebook

    An Englishman lives in Cape Town for ten-years and then, by accident, packs up and moves to Vietnam, having never even been there on holiday.

    What could possibly go wrong? 

    Extract - When I decided to escape the Hanoi heat for a few days I looked for flights to Sapa, a village in the northern mountains of Vietnam near the Chinese border, but I learned that the only real option was to take one of the overnight trains. There are several available. 

    The Orient Express, The Victoria Train, The Green Line and about six others, all ranging in price and therefore, I assumed, standard. I also noticed that they all left Hanoi Central Station at the same time, which was odd. 

    It conjured up images of a race but, being twelve, I quite liked that idea. I selected the one that offered a private cabin but, as usual, things were not as easy as they at first appear, or should be. 

    After more nodding, pointing and charades it became obvious to me that I couldn’t have a private cabin. ‘Why not?’ I turns out that the private cabins were for couples and I would have to share with someone. Now, obviously, this could turn out to be a Swedish backpacker in hiking boots and shorts who turned into a whiskey dispensing nymphet ten minutes out of Hanoi Station. 

    But I am too experienced for that these days. I know how my luck runs. I get the snoring middle-aged German. That’s how it runs and I was having none of that. ‘I am a couple, there are two of me,’ I argued. I sensed that she already thought that. 

    ‘Ok Mr Jack,’ she said with a sigh, ‘and the name and age of your traveling companion is?’ I had to think fast. ‘Jameson’ I said. ‘Ms. She is eighteen-years old and has been going everywhere with me for twenty-five years.’ After all, it's not entirely untrue. She gave up on me at that point, issued two tickets, charged me two prices, looked at me as if I were an idiot (also not entirely untrue) and off I went to the station. Hanoi Central is an amazing experience and would have been fun if it hadn't been about 1600 degrees. 

    I sat outside for a few minutes with a cold beer just to absorbed the scene. It was just like one of those Michael Palin documentaries, ‘Around the World’ or something like that. Teeming with people, excitement, anticipation, back packers, locals, the good, the bad and the ugly. And me watching the whole mad event with my traveling companion zipped up in a suitcase. 

    I fully expected to see the great man himself emerge from the crowd, remove his panama hat, wipe the sweat from his brow and ask for a slug of my eighteen-year old. I would have shared. Before too much longer my head began to melt and so I made my way through the departure hall and hurried passed the ticket inspectors. ‘And Ms Jameson?’ one of them called after me. ‘It’s alright, she is in my bag’ I shouted back, and left them wondering. ‘The Orient Express?’ 

    I asked someone on the platform. He pointed to the single train standing there which read, The Green Line. ‘Where is the Orient Express?’ I asked again and he pointed further down the platform. As I walked I noticed the names on the side of the carriages changed and it then dawned on me. 

    There is only one train, just different carriage classes with varying names. And they all left at the same time, obviously. So there was to be no race after all. I found our cabin, spent a few moments enjoying the air conditioning, put the second bedding on the floor as a carpet, made myself comfortable, turned lovingly to my eighteen-year old and drank myself to sleep.....

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlbert Jack Publishing
    Release dateMar 1, 2018
    ISBN9781386958963
    Your Man in the Orient - Part 1

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      Your Man in the Orient - Part 1 - Albert Jack

      About the Author

      Albert Jack, is a writer and historian. His first book, Red Herrings and White Elephants explored the origins of well-known idioms and phrases and became an international bestseller in 2004.

      It was serialised by the Sunday Times and remained in their bestseller list for sixteen straight months. He followed this up with a series of bestsellers including Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep, Pop Goes the Weasel and What Caesar did for My Salad.

      Fascinated by discovering the truth behind the world’s great stories, Albert has become an expert in explaining the unexplained, enriching millions of dinner table conversations and ending bar-room disputes the world over.

      He is now a veteran of hundreds of live television shows and thousands of radio programmes worldwide. Albert lives somewhere between Guildford in England and Bangkok.

      Closing in on Hanoi

      I made it all the way from Cape Town to Bangkok without any trouble at all and arrived at around 7pm, local time. As always, I had already set my watch to the time it would be wherever I was going. This helps a lot when it comes to jet lag.

      The connecting flight to Hanoi was at 7am the following morning so I even checked into the Novotel at the airport. Things were going smoothly enough; you won’t catch me sleeping on the floor by the check-in desks with the Australian backpackers.

      But, it was a decision that nearly ended in complete disaster, and I don’t mean finding out the hotel charges another $25 for internet access. Everybody has free internet access these days. Coffee houses, bars, even African shebeens on dusty and deserted roads seem to be able to connect up your iPad, for free.

      Not at the Novotel in Bangkok they don’t. That attitude will be one of the reasons I was almost the only person there. Still, who cared? I can manage one night without downloading.... er, listening to the online radio.

      The other person staying in the hotel was also leaving at 5am and I met him on the shuttle bus. American, in his seventies, fat, grey, mustache, golf shirt and cap. You know the guy. No wonder he was on his own.

      Just as the bus was pulling out I made a quick check of my briefcase and screamed ‘stoppppp.’ That woke him up. I had just remembered that I had hidden my travel file in the room and if I didn’t get back up there before the maids, who are usually straight there in airport hotels (even empty ones), then I might not recover my boarding pass, passport, hotel confirmation, visa acceptance letter and more thousands of US Dollars in cash than I dare to admit I was carrying.

      Actually, if I didn’t get to it right away then the hotel confirmation in Hanoi wouldn’t matter would it? Directions to the UK Embassy in Bangkok would be all I needed from then onward.

      I ran through the hotel foyer like Whatshisname Bolt, grabbed the card key from the porter who was still walking back to the desk, sprinted up three flights of stairs and found, to my relief, the door opened.

      File recovered I clutched my dollars with a sense of relief that I can hardly explain, except to say that it felt like somebody had just let go of the larger of my intestines.  So, I re-boarded the bus, apologized to the golfer, who grunted, and we set off in stony silence, which suited me at 5am.

      He was the first to crack; ‘where you heading?’ he asked. ‘Hanoi,’ was all I said. ‘Damn murdering commie bastards won’t get a penny of my money,’ was the best he could come up with. That cheered me up, ‘Ahh, of course, you’ve been there before haven’t you?’ I was goading him but he didn’t notice.

      Instead he started telling me about his golf tour of Scotland last year. He clearly imagined I am interested in hearing about Scotland at that time of the morning. I wasn’t. Nor at anytime of the morning, or afternoon.

      Now I think of it, at anytime at all. Thankfully, we were back at the airport by then. ‘Vietnam Airlines please’ I asked the driver. ‘Damn commie bastards,’ he repeated. ‘Still too soon is it?’ I asked as I got out. 

      I never saw him again. But I will, one day, or someone just like him. So will you. So stereotypical was he that I expected Woody Allen to jump out and shout ‘cut’ at any moment.

      At check in with Vietnam Airlines I was immediately ripped off as the bastards charged me fifty quid in excess baggage for my golf clubs. I have a good mind not to play golf now - that will show them. In reality though, I was just relieved in the end to find that all of my bags had actually made it this far.

      After all, they had been through Johannesburg at one point, where the only way to prevent them from being rifled is by having them shrink wrapped. The last time I failed to do that they had my Zippo lighter away, although I did laugh when I saw they had left a very expensive Mont Blanc pen in the same suitcase pocket. ‘What’s this....? What does it do? Who can I sell it to for R50? Nah, leave  it’

      On arrival things could not have been easier. I had already checked for the best way to obtain a visa for a communist country and that is to apply online with their embassy, provide flight details, length of stay, pay $29 and you receive a letter of acceptance (invitation, they call it) via email within two days.

      Armed with a printed version, passport sized photograph, forty-five US dollars in cash and you are in, with a three month stamp and no waiting in the visa application queue, with all the Australians who looked like they hadn’t had much sleep.

      Whilst waiting for my bags I looked around for all the murdering commie bastards, but there weren’t any. There were men and women in uniform but they were more helpful than blood thirsty. I asked one, as a precaution, how much, in dollars, a taxi should cost to take me to The Old Quarter.

      She showed me on her phone, the number fifteen. Apparently she understood what I had asked her but didn’t know how to say ‘fifteen dollars.’ This happens a lot in Hanoi.

      The first thing I did after passing through customs was the first thing I do every time I arrive in a country and that is head for the ATM. There is no harm in having some local currency in your pocket, especially when the currency

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