I heard the most wonderful phrase the other day. I was talking to Lee (apologies for spelling – it may be “Li”) who runs the nearby branch of Pepperonis. I’d popped in for my usual takeaway chicken burger, and she bought me a beer while I waited. I like this place. When I step in at lunchtime, they just get me a seat and go to sort my burger out. No need to order any more – they know what I want!

Lee and I got talking and conversation turned to the people who live in Hanoi, my wallet being stolen, how people rallied to help me until I had cash and so on. She told me:

“People who come to help you when you need help… they have good heart. They have red heart.”

Now I assume this is a literal translation of a common phrase in Vietnamese, but it’s a lovely use of words. In English we are always too happy to say that someone is “black hearted”, but I’ve never heard the opposite side of this verbal coin before. Words I will remember – and use.

In other news, my eyes (both of them – the infection spread last night) are settling down a bit but exertion, including bending down to pick things up, makes them feel like they’re ballooning out of my head. However, on the whole they only feel tired now although their chosen hue is still very much scarlet.

Still no sign of the ATM card. I would have expected it in the last two days so I guess I’m just playing a waiting game with the Vietnamese Post Office. Happy happy joy joy!

That’s “eye eye” not “aye-aye” which is a very cute nocturnal primate.

Today I decided that Hanoi traffic was getting a bit dull. There was no edge to crossing the road any more. No danger. No thrill.

Thankfully, then, I contracted a slight infection in my left eye. I woke up with an eye that looked angrier than a KKK member at a rap concert. It was a little weepy, fiery red and needed some attention. Stage one was removing my contact lense – I wear ones that I can sleep in and only change them once a month. Annoyingly, I’ve only had this pair in for a week or so and they’ve been so comfortable.

Out came the left lense and into the bin. I couldn’t re-use it if it’s been in an infected eye. Nasty cycles of pain go with that idea.

Next step – eye drops. I had to go to the Post Office (Bu’u Dien) and there’s a pharmacist round the corner from there. I decided to try it on one contact lens as I couldn’t be bothered putting my glasses on.

Anyone who’s tried this – or wearing glasses with a lens missing – will know the slightly disorientation one suffers when walking like this. It takes a while to adjust as one eye is utterly out of focus with the world while the other is pin sharp.

So off I headed. Boy, was this fun. With one eye working and one eye shot, depth perception becomes something you used to have. And when crossing a road populated by the entire motorcycle production of Japan, this makes the most extreme of motorsports that little… edgier.

I survived. I also survived the pharmacist taking one look at my eye and automatically going for the most expensive eyedrops they sold, which were – as far as I could tell – for one very specific condition. I went for some more general antibiotic ones (Ofloxacin), which were 30,000d less and headed back to the hostel.

Of course, despite the box being English (including basic dosage instructions), the leaflet inside – which the box had urged me to read – was in Vietnamese. I looked the drug up on the interwebnet and got another two conflicting sets of instructions. But I did determine that soft contact lenses should not be worn while using the drops. Ah well. The other lens came out and went in the bin as well.

So, after only 9 days with new lenses in I’m back to specs. As far as I can judge from reading various sites, I have bacterial conjunctivitis. I may be wrong, but it’s the closest I can find to the symptoms. It should be cleared up within 2-3 days which is at least better than the viral version which can take several weeks. In the meantime, my left eye looks like it wants to leap out an murder someone. Perhaps garotting them with all the extra blood vessels that have appeared around the edge.

I’ll try not to drip on the keyboard and pass it on.

I’ve not done a lot over the last day or so other than have a beer and dinner with Michael, Van, Trung and Eric of Blue Dragon. Mike’s heading off to America tomorrow with the arduous task of helping a close friend (and Blue Dragon co-founder) sail his yacht from San Francisco to Fiji via Hawaii. How awful for him!

In the meantime, I’ve uploaded all my pics to date on Fotopic. Please let me know if there are any problems, or if you’d like a larger-size copy of any of the pictures. I’d be happy to email them to you – just give me the filename.

Don’t forget to visit the 1000 Mile European Walk Site – it’s all for a good cause!

OK, not a whole heck of a lot’s happened the last couple of days. I’m really just chilling out and watching DVDs as the world goes by. I’ve met some nice people via the guys who run the hostel and some of the lovely folk at Blue Dragon, shared a lunch or two and showed the newbies around.

All as usual.

My parents received my new bank card a couple of days ago so I should have it early next week at which point I’ll look into travelling again. I’m not sure how much I’m looking forward to it as I’ve grown roots here! Time to head on, though, or I’ll never leave.

The Blue Dragon Website is now up and running on their own webspace. A huge public “thank you” to all of you who tore it apart, spotted the spelling mistakes and complained about the colours. Your help was very much appreciated and I hope the finished version is good enough for you!

I still have some tinkering to do (resizeable fonts, one or two pictures, colour scheme changes, shifting of menus into CSS files for easier editing later on) but, on the whole, it’s not going to change much.

Also a quick story related to me by an English girl and her friend who arrived a couple of days ago. They were in a train station further south from here, I think Hue, and one girl was shopping while the other was minding the bags. By “minding the bags” I mean they were sat beside her as she tried not to fall asleep while watching something in Vietnamese on an overhead TV.

By the time they get on the train, one of the bags had been opened and the girl who was shopping’s purse and passport had been stolen.

With the help of the staff here at the hostel, they reported the theft and informed the British Embassy nearby. In very short order they were told that her passport and card had been recovered.

Unbelievably, the man who had stolen them had walked into a bank and tried to withdraw some money using the card along with the passport for ID. Funnily enough, they thought it was a little shady that a man was trying to use a cashcard with “MISS … …” on it. And he didn’t look all that much like the photo in the passport, what with her being English and him being Vietnamese and all.

The police duly reported the recovered passport to the Embassy but refused to deliver it to them, or to the girl up here. Instead, the staff here had to get in touch with Mr Hoa, who runs the guesthouse they’d stayed at. He in turn went to the police station to get the passport and posted it up to the Embassy in Hanoi.

She didn’t get her cash back (it was less than I lost), but she has her passport and knows her cashcard didn’t take a beating.

In other news, I’ve watched Sin City and Four Brothers. Both heartily recommended. I’ve picked some good films recently. There are two more I think I’ll keep an eye out for having seen trailers and reviews: Gingerdead Man which sounds so bad it has to be good, and Mindhunters the trailer for which was on the Sin City DVD. I still can’t find House of 1000 Corpses despite the sequel being all over the shop.

Don’t forget to visit the 1000 Mile European Walk Site – it’s all for a good cause!