Nha_Trang_Panorama
Best viewed prior to getting all your shit stolen
There's nothing like that sinking, stinking, sick-to-the-pit-of-your stomach feeling knowing that you've been robbed. Some despicable felon had broken into my hotel room in Nha Trang and absconded with my trusty digital camera and my money belt (containing cash, credit cards, UK passport and numerous official documents). Gad, what a cad!
Naturally, the hotel would shoulder no reponsibility, so I guess it was my own stupid fault. A police report would be required. The hotel responded by sending me, completely inaccurate instructions in hand, on a wild goose chase into the wild, outer suburbs. It took three hours in the baking noon-day sun and numerous attempts in broken Vietnamese combined with an amusing combination of pictionary and charades to locate the station.
Long Son Pagoda, Nha Trang
stumbled in here while trying to find the police station
This bastion of law enforcement was no more than a hole in the wall, manned by about half a dozen officers, slumbering, scuffing about, smoking, bantering and generally ignoring the grumbling hordes seeking justice. After another hour, a surly officer claimed "No English" and asked "What Hotel You?". He called the hotel staff and informed them that I needed to hand draft my own police report -- in triplicate -- have a staff member translate it into Vietnamese -- in triplicate -- and then accompany me and the reports back to the station.
Whence ensued an excrutiatingly drawn out waiting game. No amount of asking, pleading, begging, nagging, cajouling, reasoning or demanding would expedite the relatively simple process of signing and stamping said documents. The response was basically the same: "Come back in three hours/at seven PM/ tomorrow morning/after lunch/ etc..."
Which I dutifully did. I was about to give up and resort to good, old-fashioned bribery, when on my seventh visit in three days, one flabby, slack-jawed officer finally lumbered out of the canteen, drew out a pen, scrawled a lazy signature, stamped it and handed my precious report.
There would be no investigation, no interviews or interrogations, no-one described on the evening news as Helping Police With Their Inquiries.
Just me, destitute, stateless and broke but with my god-given right to an insurance claim.
The blue fishing fleet, Nha Trang
With riverside shanties in the foreground
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