Crash.

When it rains it pours, right? And that statement could not apply more than in Vietnam, and I'm not just talking about rainy season. New years eve I managed to not only drop my phone, but then have someone run over it. At first not having a phone was hard, but not as bad as I thought. I knew my way to work and back and that's really the only places I needed to go, so operating without maps was do-able. I was getting by just fine, until Tuesday that was. TET holiday is a huge holiday here in Vietam, we get a week off, however that time had to be made up somewhere, so we've been doing three hour classes (instead of the typical two hours) to make sure we are covering all the material. So let's start at the beginning... I wake up tuesday morning and I feel awful. I spend the morning chugging water, sweating from my eyes and facebooking my flatmate Ellie to bring me the strongest panadol she can find. 3pm rolls around and it's time to head into work, so I jump on my new ride (for xmas I brought a bike instead of renting) and zoomed off to work. The class goes as well as having fifteen six and seven year olds for three hours can go, and I am ready to leave. I havent eaten all day, I'm tired and I just want to be back in bed. It was only a short 40 minute drive home and it couldnt come sooner, pulling out of work my stomach still felt like it was full of cement and I felt really faint. I get about half way up the road and i reach the intersection. 4 seconds left of the green light and then orange for 4 seconds (the lights have timers here) and the guy in front of me speeds up. Not wanting to be on the road any longer than i have to be, i do too, besides I had to go collect my phone from the repair shop. Suddenly he stops. I don't have those reactions. I slam and swerve and that's when it happens... next thing I'm adjacent to the road, then I am sliding along it, by bike behind me. As soon as i stop moving i jump up. No time to realise what's happened, I'm just in damage control, the people next to me picked my bike up and another man collected my shoes that had gone in different directions. I look around at the man that stopped, he looked sympathetic but then he glanced forward. Four policemen are standing on the corner. That's why he stopped. See the thing with driving here, I'm not allowed to. Welp technically I can, if it's under 50cc. My bike is 110cc, so just a smidge over. The other thing about the police here, Is it is a very corrupt government agency. You get pulled over, you give them 200K ($12NZD) and you are on your way. Sometimes being western they ask for more, but a bribe will usually get you out of anything. But because of TET the cops are out in full force, they need money so they need to pull people over, but there has also been a new law introduced that is a zero tolerance drink driving, if caught it can lead to an 8,000,000 Dong fine. Anyway back to the crash. Four police are staring at me. My bike wont start so I wait for the green light and wheel my bike past them to the mall 200m away so i can gather my thoughts, I shoot them a sly "Xin Chao" and avoided eye contact. I need a game plan. I dont have a phone so I cant call anyone for help. The only thing I can think of is to take my bike back to work where I can safely leave it in the secure garage and use the work computers to message someone asking them to book me a taxi home. I'm about 1km away, and on the wrong side of a four lane highway, I cannot push my bike the full 1km up the wrong side of the road, that's asking for danger. So I walk back past the cops, another sly hello and I pop off down a side street aiming to go the backway. I get around 4 corners and realise I'm lost. That's when it sinks in. I dont have my phone, I cant use maps. What do I do?? Adrenaline pumping, I'm pushing my bike like a mad man, when an old vietnamese man pulls up beside me and starts talking a mile a minute, surprise surprise, in Vietnamese. He points at his dashboard and mine trying to indicate the petrol gauge. I show him the busted up front trying to explain to him that I have petrol, but I've crashed,he seems to nod, signs for me to get on and he gives me the classic Saigon assistance, driving his bike and pushing me with one foot. I dont know where he is taking me but at this point I'm just going with him. He stops not too far up the road and passes me his phone, I input the ila work address and he seems to understand that he is going to take me there. He can obviously sense my adrenaline wearing of and the pain of my crash start to set in and yells for my attention "Oi" I look back.. And with a simple shrugging motion says "Vietnam eh" - in that exact moment he had perfectly comforted me, without even a second thought. Further up the road, old mate is lost too so he pull over to ask directions. Unfortunately for us, the woman is none the wiser and she continues on, he tries to flag down another man but he doesn't stop. That's when two guys passing by stop. One guy, who spoke excellent English asks me what's going on. I explain the situation to him, tell him where I need to go and he translates to the man helping me. The guys said that they lived close to ila, they will lead the way and the man can push me. The older gentleman understands fully and we are all on our way, the saddest convoy you can imagine. 5 minutes later we are outside my work. The young guys head off after shaking my hand and wishing me, and I quote "A safe happy life" And the old man with the biggest grin on his face waves me off. I try to signal for him to stop so I could give him some money but he wouldnt have a bar of it. Safe and back at work I park my bike and head upstairs. Adrenaline gone, I can feel everything, my arm is incredibly grazed, my foot is in terrible pain and my leg is already bruised and swollen. 10 second ride to the top was my allocated crying time and then it was back to business. On the group chat, without any hesitation my friends had booked me a grab and I was on my way home. This is when I go down to by bike, to open the seat so I can get my bag. My bag that contains the cash I needed to pay for my phone. The bag that contains all my bank cards. The bag that's right there under my seat, the seat that wont open. This is a right cafuffle. I need to get my bike fixed so I can get my cash/cards that are under the seat. In order to do that I need to text my bike man.. but I need my phone to text him...which means I have to pay for my phone to be fixed before I can get my phone back, but to pay for my phone I need the money under my seat.. you with me? The only card that wasnt in my wallet was my ANZ card from home. Great. I have money in my savings account but not my every day account, I can transfer money over, but I need to do that on my... you guessed it... on my phone. To say it was stresful was an understatement. Thankfully my wonderful flatmate Ellie, lent me the money to pay for my phone to get the ball rolling. It was all sorted in a few days and thankfully there was no real damage. No knocks to the head, just a very raw arm and a sore leg as well as a rather bruised ego that is still recovering. To be honest it was needed, it is very easy to get over confident so a wee nudge here and there brings you back down to reality. I'll have a pretty gnarly scar and my bank took a hit bit I'm safe, gave me a good story and my kids were super nice to me for about a week, so as old mate said Vietnam eh