So I was back at the traffic police as I was instructed yesterday. For a while it all looked good again. I only waited for about 15 minutes before somebody started attending to me. In a while they brought several forms, which, as far as I could tell, were exactly the same as the ones they filled in on the border police post. An officer filled the first of the forms and then the to me already familiar lengthy discussions started over the other forms. They were taking them away and bringing them back, making me happy every time I saw them thinking that it was all finished finally. But it never was. It was all just a big tease, however not intentional this time I believe. Another couple of hours passed before they came back with the forms for the last time and filled them all in, still discussing heavily over them.

When it was all finished they wanted me to pay for some photocopying, which I solved by giving them copies I already had. They still copied a few pages of my passport but dropped the demand for money. Then I was waiting again for what I thought would be the last stamp I needed and was all anxious to go back to the border with it. However, when they came back they announced that yes, everything was all right, but I had to wait for 7 working days for the result. “What!? 7 days!? I’m sure you can process it here and now. I have been without my bike for already a week…” was my reaction. I was trying to make them to help me immediately until I was told to wait for 15 minutes. I thought I achieved some result by urging them to immediate action so persistently. It was not so. In about 20 minutes a guy who could translate for me arrived and at the end I only learned clearly what I was already told – I had to wait for 7 days as they needed to send the documents to higher places in Ho Chi Minh City and the legal reply period for this is 7 days. I was showing them using my mimics how desperate situation they were getting me further into in reaction to which the interpreter offered that he would spend the week with me in Tay Ninh showing me the sights. “How much?” I asked the obvious question. “Ehm, I don’t know, about 5 dollars?” was the answer. “5 US dollars for 7 days of taking me around?” I wanted to confirm. “Yes.” was the simple answer. “OK”, that sounded very good. “At least some value from all of this struggle.” I thought to myself. His name was Nguyen - what a unique name! :) (it's not...).

So we hopped on Nguyen’s bike and he was going to take me to a guesthouse. I let him choose another cheap one for me this time. On the way he asked me if I was hungry and so we stopped at a place where we had rice, meat and veggies for 1500 Dong only! If I was alone I believe I would have paid at least 7 to 14 thousand. This guy really seemed to be going to save me some money. He actually had to pay for me as I didn’t have any money by that time. I told him that before but he replied that I didn’t have to worry that he still had his salary. This guy was turning out to be a really nice and genuine person.

During this time Nguyen explained that he was working in Ho Chi Minh City as a craft products maker and that he has holiday for 3 months every year since his family members are sick and disabled (his father lost his leg in Vietnam war) so he spends that time here with them. The police only called him since they know he can speak English better than any other person in the city.

Next he took me to the famous Cao Dai (N11.30965 E106.10553) temple where he wanted to show me a rare ceremony that was about to happen there at noon. We arrived there just before it started. Then we finally arrived to a guesthouse that was apparently closest to Nguyen’s home. A night there was for 50000 Dong but he helped me to negotiate it to 40000 as I was going to stay 7 nights.

I left my things in my new room and we went to pick some local fruits form a friend’s orchard and brought it to his home. The place where Nguyen's family lived couldn’t really be called a house as it was more of an open restaurant along a dirt road on the outskirts of Tay Ninh. We sat down and he asked his mother to prepare some lunch for us. In the meantime we were talking and eating the fruits of which name in English I’m not sure. We were throwing all the peeled skins from the fruit to a pond right next to us. This is another thing I noticed here: They don’t care at all where they throw rubbish and do it anywhere. There are no rubbish bins on the streets either. The fact that they were throwing fruit skins (and later even cigarette buts etc) into their own little pond where they catch fish still surprised me though as I would expect they would at least care about their very own little environment.

After lunch (rice, fish, meat and vegetables) Nguyen’s father appeared with a friend and not long after them another two arrived. They were all very interested in talking to me, but especially the father. He kept touching my arms and legs, visibly admiring the white skin and the bigger European body. Even the other friend could not get his eyes off me and he later said that I was very handsome. By the way this is a thing that has been happening to me quite often since I’ve been in Asia. I’m sure I’m going to miss this when I’m back as you are lucky if you hear such thing once a year normally. Here you hear it several times a week. ;-) No really, I think that most white people seem beautiful to Asians mainly for the simple fact that we are white and tall. Later this guy was telling me about a few of his beautiful girl friends that would definitely like to meet me but I never followed this line of conversation. We all had a beer to celebrate our new friendship and later that afternoon Nguyen took me to the bank to get some money. Even though they have Visa signs at several places at the bank they weren’t able to give me any money from my travel Visa card. So I double-checked that they would accept traveler’s cheques with which I had to come back there tomorrow.

On the way back to my guesthouse Nguyen stopped at an Internet café to give me the opportunity to let my close ones know what is happening with me. He was again more than happy to pay for me. With some effort I managed to refuse his kind offer with many thanks. I explained that it could wait till tomorrow when I have my own money after he would have taken me to the bank.

After a short stop in my guesthouse we went to a very nice open café where we had tea and talked about many things we had in common as well as totally different till after 8PM. By that time I started not feel a 100%.