Much like the lazy brown waters of Hau Giang river on which the town straddles, Chau Doc moves about with a slow pace. Traffic is almost non-existent with hardly anyone rushing. Sellers conduct business at the market and shops almost lethargically. In the evenings, people sit or stroll along the riverside promenade whilst youngsters practise martial arts. It feels as if Time decided to stop somewhere along its tracks and kept rewinding and replaying itself. It's the perfect place to unwind, relax and recuperate.
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Traveling on your own, you get to meet all sorts of people like Dung (pronounced 'yum') with hair up to her knees. She speaks Malay, Mandarin, English and Vietnamese and I find it such an honour to be able to converse with her. For three hours, we spoke about many things: about herself, her dreams, her thoughts, her three years spent working in Malaysia, myself, my hopes, my thoughts on the Vietnamese. I told her of my confusion over the Vietnamese and she explained to me that the Vietnamese "simply have big hearts": it's why they're so resilient. It's a real pleasure - meeting people like her along the way who lighten up the path that I've decided to take.
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The air is humid - very humid. So humid that the sweat doesn't evaporate from my skin but forms a thin glistening layer. The little bugs that only come out when it's about to pour swarm about the white fluorescent light next to me. They reflect the light like a million fireflies. They fall around me like snowflakes but I carry on eating. If they drop into my bowl of noodles, I push them out. If I miss them, they get eaten. They're hardly poisonous I don't think. I think most people would freak out but I carry on eating. It starts to drizzle. I finish my meal and pay the vendor. An early night tonight.
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