Can Tho Hotels
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Flys
Entry 20 of 29 | show all | print this entry |
Well, my first night in the Mekong Delta was spent in a small hotel in Can Tho--the largest city actually in the delta. A rather tedious day of travel--possibly because I had to jump aboard a tour to get through the delta region and I can't go at my own pace.
Pulled into Can Tho quite early, actually, and the hotel wasn't the most comfortable place in the world--so I headed out and walked down to the waterfront to get some dinner. After dinner, seeing as how it seemed like it was going to be hard to fall asleep in my hotel room, I decided to take a walk and look for a pharmacy because evidently you can buy valium over the counter here and this would have helped out on my hellish busride from Hanoi to Hue. I figured I'd have another one of those eventually.
The one pharmacy my guide book had ended up being quite a hike, and when I got there it had closed. In the interrum, it had also gotten dark. As I walked back to my hotel, I looked up to see that the all of the neon signs appeared blurry. I rubbed my eyes--still blurry. This, I thought, must be a side effect of the anti-malarials. Then I looked a little closer--actually this blurriness was the result of the millions of tiny black flys flying chaotically around the neon lights. And, as I realized this, I walked into the swarm. You could feel them slamming into your skin, probably no less than twenty flys with every step. They flew up my nose, into my eyes, down my throat, into my ears, and committed suicide against my glasses.
I hurried back to the hotel, but it was still at least a mile walk, wondering the whole time how these people were able to put up with this. Finally made it back to the hotel room and immediately jumped in the shower. When I was finished, and had put my glasses back on, I couldn't believe how many dead flys were in the water--must've been 35.
I'm not sure how the hotel managed it, but the bedroom was relatively fly free. Nevertheless this morning I awoke to the sound of the Korean guy I was sharing a room with making a kind of surprised and disgusted sound. He was reacting to the thousands of dead black flys spreading out from under the hotel room door--they were trying to get in but evidently something was killing them as they made the journey under the door. I opened the door to discover that this black-fly Jonestown continued down the hall, and down the stairs.
Enough. Can Tho is a lovely little city, especially near the river, by day. Try to get behind closed doors before the sun goes down though. I am now awaiting a transfer to Chau Doc, the closest Vietnamese town to the Cambodian border, and typing this in one of the "Internet gaming centers" that are scattered across cities in Vietnam, surrounded by asian gamers (the most obsessive gamers, evidently) and the rhythmic tapping of kids playing Dance! Dance! Revolution! on a PC keyboard.
On an unrelated note. I am now taking Malarone, evidently the Cadillac of the anti-malarials because it has few side effects except being really bad for your liver. I haven't noticed any problems yet, although I've heard a number of terrible stories about the other varieties of anti-malarials. The worst from a girl from the US who had no health insurance and, as a result, decided to take the cheapest anti-malarial (Larium). First she began having nightmares that the walls and ceilings of the room were made out of cockroaches (depending on the quality of hotel--this might well have been the case actually). Finally, she laid off the Larium when she realized that the conversations she had been having with the "little girl who lived on the second floor of her hostel" were actually conversations with a complete figment of her imagination. "Come play with us Danny, forever, and ever, and ever, and ever. . ."
I'd prefer malaria to that.
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