Tali shows up in the morning. Is she stalking us? She's nice to talk to though, but a chain-smoker. Horrible. As soon as she finishes one, the next cigarette lights up. Instantly. Only when she's busy do the puffs stop, so I ask her to accompany me for the second fitting of my suit on Tuesday morning. It's always good to have someone else's opinion. It also never hurts to be told how absolutely stunning you look all dressed up, especially by a lady! The suit looks really good, but what I love the most are my shirts. They are brilliant. And perfectly fitting. And gorgeous. True to a woman, Tali convinces me to buy two more. Heh, women. That afternoon, the final fit is good and I depart a happy - and poorer - customer.

So now that I have a suit, I have to travel in style. Been thinking about it for a while, my dad even suggested it and the idea just grew on me. Send home all my stuff including the backpack, and buy a suitcase. A suit doesn't fit in there anyways. Without my new dress I'm already at about 20kg's, stuffed to the brim and I still want to buy some clothes. I rent a bicycle, go down to the post office to get a postal box. I ask for one, and the woman just points to a Marlboro cigarette-pack box. No, no, I want a proper one! She doesn't understand me, and after about five minutes - probably tired from my questions - she lets me in, shows me to the back to take my pick. Amazed, frozen, all I see are cigarette boxes, shampoo boxes, milk boxes. No proper mail boxes. Nothing. Apparently it doesn't work like this here. Hmm, ok. I bike back to Minh Quang - our hotel - grab all my stuff and head down.

The really nice girl at the reception after asking what I'm doing shows me next door where they do a postal service. That saves me a ride, so I agree with her. I think she's taken quite a liking to me. I can hardly walk by the reception without chatting with her for minutes. She's very nice. Always grabbing her little notebook to write down things she wants to say if I don't understand her, or the other way around. We even had a small English lesson together. R&M started calling her my girlfriend. Heh. But back to business.

I go next door, the people there whip out some 'Dutch Lady' milk boxes, some scissors and cut them together so that my backpack fits in there. Crazy. I'm putting everything here, the only stuff that remains are all the souvenirs, two shorts, a long pant and two shirts. I just hope it arrives. All in all, it is over 17kg's out of 20. Figured something like that. I should cost about $36. But as the shop starts adding up the various parts of the bill, they finish at over $50. It turns out there is a customs charge of $10 and their service fee for the box, the delivery, everything adds up to $8. I don't really trust this, especially the $10 for customs, so under the pretence of needing to get cash I leave for the post office to ask for the precise prices. Customs is only 50.000 dong - $2. b******s! I hate it when people are trying to rip me off! I go back, tell them this and there is some mumbling about insurance, bla, bla and yes, we can do the fifty-thousand customs for you. Yeah right! I'm not trusting you anymore! All smiles - it is Asia - I tell them I will not use their services but post it myself. I do pay them 50.000 dong for all the work they put in to packing my stuff, but I do leave them there. The huge box on the back of the bike I slowly make my way to the post office amongst heavy honking, and holding up all the traffic. The adventure is just starting though.

I think I've been there for over an hour, first opening the box, showing all the stuff I have inside, then writing down what I'm posting, filling out a zillion forms, having them cut up the box again, making it smaller, totally engulfing it in tape and waiting for them to fill out their own forms. Efficiency isn't really known here :)

We stroll down the streets in the early afternoon, looking around when suddenly Remko starts to pull at my shirt agitatedly and points at a shop in the street. It takes me a few moments to gasp the image, but inside a beauty salon there are six or seven well-dressed ladies on the stairs all lined up, all smiling. A photographer inside. I stop. Look at the prices. As soon as we are spotted, seeing us looking at them, the girls burst out giggling, and the shop owner turns around. We are busted.

We are ushered into the store, offered seats and tea. Photos of good-looking western customers looking interested at the services offered by a beauty salon always boosts the value of an Asian establishment. I cannot escape the haircut offered to me - although I don't really try, needed one anyways. Only the most determined mindset helped me not to take any of the massages offered by them - and of course the lack of money, but nobody has to know that. Remko is f***ed though. Not yet sure whether he wanted one, he never is about anything, he is readily convinced by the pretty ladies. I'm not sure. Can't decide yet if he looks better like this or not. Would probably say not. He's been a p**** about only doing a shirt trim, not the real shave, so it looks pretty half-done.

In search of a restaurant we first happen upon Randy's Book Exchange Shop. You can give him any book, he'll buy it according to some intricate magical system and with that discount sells you any of his books in store. Lots and lots of fake guide books, rubbish romances, but also the odd literary piece: Shakespeare, Fahrenheit 541, etc. He walks us through his place, and oddly we feel ourselves transported to somewhere totally different than Asia. Only as he starts to complain that it's near impossible to import any normal serious literature because of Vietnamese censorship do we realise where we are. Further down the street we photograph the paper lanterns floating in the water - honouring a Japanese-Vietnam Friendship Anniversary festival, and two Vietnamese couples start talking to us. Conversation-wise we get as far as establishing their age, where we are from, but everything else is Bia Hơi. Fresh Vietnamese beer. I think the three of us (me, Lee, Tali) drank through their whole supply of beer within the hour. Hehe. And we didn't even want to.

In the evening I ask the "girlfriend" to help me buy a suitcase. Fixed prices don't exist in Vietnam. Just as anywhere else, they look at you, judge your wealth and quote a price on that. I've had enough of this s***. I leave the hotel first, Ngoc follows me a few minutes later. She isn't allowed to leave her place with a customer. We enter a shop and I buy a real "genuine" Marco Polo for less than $15. I've asked around, and it would've been at least $25 on my own. Huge difference. I am now packed. Trailing a suitcase, in a suit, I've moved from a poor shabby backpacker to a fancy executive! Yaay!