Random acts of kindness

Sometimes it is the random acts of kindness that stay with you and really make your travels special. We have had some great examples of this on our trip so far such as a hotel receptionist coming to find us at the bus station at 10pm even though it was his night off, his colleague then going to buy us some food in town because the hotel kitchen was closed and he was worried we were hungry.

Another time we had our guesthouse lady go back out and buy more of the food she and her family had just been eating for us to try, simply because we asked what it was (turned out to be quite yummy called nom onsorn which is only prepared at times of celebrations).

And then yesterday we were travelling from Cambodia to Vietnam using a very local crossing. It was a great adventure that required us to take a two hour bus journey (which actually ended up over three hours as we stopped to take every man (woman and child) and their stuff to the market in Snuol). Then we took a motorbike taxi each (with our luggage) 20 minutes to the border.

Then from there we thought we needed to get another motorbike taxi to the nearest town (Loc Ninh) and then a four hour bus to Ho Chi Minh City. However the border control guard told us a bus coming was heading to Ho Chi Minh (it had come from Laos and through Cambodia) and he spoke to the driver to see if he could take us (Random act of kindness #1). A fee of $10 each was agreed and on we hopped to an air conditioned sleeper style bus – heaven!

Straight after the border the bus stopped and everyone got off for food. It was a set lunch and all the passengers shared so we were invited to join a table. There was much giggling as Pete and I tried to work out what the food was (rice, a broth, something with tongue meat?, some spicy meat, and some bitter tasting leaves that I was shown you dip in chilli to make almost taste ok). Once I asked could I take a photo of our dinner table the selfies were fast and furious with these two white people.

The guy in the green top could ask where we were from but that was all the English the table had. But they were extremely friendly.

Back on the bus and after a stop to wash the bus (with all the passengers sitting on board) we aaked the guy in the green shirt if he could tell us if the bus went close to Banh Thanh market as our accommodation was near there. The guy took our hotel address and said he was going near there. On his phone he went onto Grab (and taxi booking app) and seemed to book a taxi and told us to follow him. We got off the bus and waited with the guy, whose name sounded like Thuong, who gave us his business cards (he worked in gas in Vietnam and Cambodia) and a taxi turned up. He gesticulated for us to put our luggage in and get in. He got in the front and chatted to the driver. He suddenly passed his phone to Pete and on the other end was our hotel receptionist confirming that the man was bringing us to our hotel and not to worry. 20 minutes later the taxi pulled up right outside our hotel. We all got out and Thuong wouldn’t take any money. He just looked so happy that he had helped us. Random act of kindness #2. How sweet!!!!!