2004 °   Hot day. Switch on the fan also no use.

Somehow the tea at home seemed tasteless. Must be the ca phe ('ka-fei') or the milk tea in Vietnam which is simply strong and good. There is an interesting mix of good food along Tong Duy Tan ('tong-zuee-tern'), the renowed food street of Hanoi. We had pho-ga ('fer-ga', chicken kway teow soup), banh-mi ('bang-mee', bread with chicken or beef), banh-cuon ('bang-koo-urn', chee cheong fan with meat filling), ga-tan ('ga-tern', stewed chicken in herbal soup with crispy bread), com binh dan ('kerm-been-zan', rice with alacarte dishes) and lau ('lou', steamboat). And the usual beverage che nong ('che-nom', vietnamese tea). There’s also che Lipton, and we were served Lipton apple tea which is my latest favourite for now.

I have a few weeks of freedom. Back at home aimlessly ignoring the list of items to clear before I go away again. There remains the lethargy of unpacking, both the travel baggage as well as the memories in the head. There's a need to write it down, somewhere, reorganise the facts, flip the albums etc so that I can revisit these facts someday and reorganise them again, flip the albums, distil and re-condense the memories like a jpeg undergoing repeated compressions and losing resolution. I think I would have loved the countryside. Because the large plots of ricefields and sights of bulls and carts remind me of Taiwan, when we were patrolling on the fields. There is nothing heard, only an occasional car, and most of the time, it’s the wind, and the grass. In downtown Hanoi the streets are busy, but the variety and multiplicity of sounds, smells and sights keep you awake. In Singapore the streets are busy but monotonous, or maybe I am too familiar. These few weeks can be spent just listening to anything.

It’s very quiet.

The more I wish to travel, the more I wish my parents to travel.

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