London, 29th November 2019
London. A hulking mass of concrete and steel seeping out from the banks of the Thames. A living organism breathing in and out scores of people indifferently. The cold air cut deep into my lungs that bright day. It was the beginning of winter. It was colder than I had expected and I was forced to move at a brisk pace through the crowds as I navigated my way down the banks of the Thames towards Charing Cross.
The hustle and bustle of London never fails to excite me. So many opportunities, so many possibilities. A collection of so many interesting personalities, each with their own individual story. However, as I wove my way through crowds, across bridges, onto trains and busses and into shops and museums, I couldn’t help but feel distracted.
Londoners are forever determined to act as if they are completely oblivious to everything around them. They will make a point of not looking up at the wonderful architecture of St Paul’s Cathedral, or the towering figure of Nelson in Trafalgar Square. And for what end? Perhaps to ensure that any onlooker may be certain that they are a Londoner. We live here. These sights are not new or special, they are just part of everyday life. But this disinterestedness extends beyond the city itself, it extends to human connection. Sitting on a bench in Hyde park, I took the opportunity to watch carefully those who walked past me. Just like on the underground, there as no interaction between strangers. Further still, there is rarely a simple acknowledgement. People step out of each other’s paths without the slightest nod of the head or shadow of a smile. It is an interesting feeling, this disconnectedness, but as the day wore on and as I rattled once more along on the Victoria line, deep underground, I found myself withdrawing into my own world also.
The air of distraction I had been feeling all day long enveloped me now, it was not that the lights and sights of London had grown dull to me, it was simply that I had other things on my mind. A mix of nervous anticipation and eager excitedness had been simmering in my stomach all day, and as the evening drew in, I could barely take my mind off what faced me the following day.
Returning to my aunt’s house early in the aim of getting a full night’s sleep, I lay on my back in the dark, gazing up at the ceiling, unable to sleep. I had experienced a similar restlessness in the past. In fact, on nights before the start of a long journey, sleep had often proved to be as elusive as a familiar scent whisked away in the brisk winter breeze. I lay there, wondering what awaited me in Vietnam, with no concrete ideas of what to expect. After I had picked over the schedule for tomorrow countless times in my head, the tube journey, airport security, the twelve-hour flight, the layover in Singapore and the final leg of the journey to Hanoi, I finally sunk into a dreamless sleep.
I awoke to the sound of my alarm and the frantic thumping of my racing heart. In twenty minutes I had changed, collected all my belongings and was standing in front of the mirror gazing into my red-rimmed eyes. I was ready.
The Flight, 30th November-1st December
The cold air hit me like a punch to the stomach as I left my aunt’s house and headed down the road towards the tube station. It was barely above freezing temperature. As the sun began to slowly rise and my Piccadilly line train trundled along further and further from the city, through suburbs and residential areas, I could feel the butterflies surface in my stomach. Soon the train emptied of Saturday morning commuters and began to fill with travellers bound solely for Heathrow. I watched a Japanese family leaning against each other trying to sleep as the steady rocking of the carriage rattled their heads against the windows. An old couple joined the train looking flustered and stressed. The spoke in low voices with concerned expressions. A businessman tapped away at his laptop, fixated with a gaze which spoke to me of a thousand early morning train journeys.
Heathrow’s expansive layout with its miles of concrete runway and five separate terminals dominates this area west of London. I rode the tube to terminal 2, and decided it was impossible to comprehend the size of the complex as a mere passenger from within. It was around 08:00 on Saturday the 30th of November, and I was surprised at how few passengers there were milling around at bag-drop. This continued through security, as I had to wait less than three minutes in the queue. I entered the departure lounge with an hour to waste before my gate was announced, and found myself bursting with excitement.
Picking up some sushi for breakfast and some extra snacks for the plane, before I knew it I was winding my way down endless wide corridors until I reached my gate and proceeded straight through to the lower level of the Singapore Airlines Airbus A380-800. There sat seat 60D. Home for the next twelve hours.
Until now, I had never been on a flight outside of Europe, and the thought of spending an entire day in the air seemed to strange to comprehend. As it turned out, the reality was even stranger. From the moment we left England time began to dissolve around me. As playlist after playlist blared through my earphones and page after page of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road turned before my eyes, I found myself realising I had lost track of what time of day it was entirely. Dining at twelve on food which exceeded my expectations, I was soon even further confused as from a window in the far side of the cabin, I noticed the sun was setting. This must have been around 13:30GMT.
It is almost impossible to say how long I managed to sleep for, but I can say that the excitement still burning through my body made it very difficult indeed. I sat in the dark in that seat with my eyes closed for at least three hours, but I doubt I slept for more than two.
Completely unable to keep track of time passing and constantly comparing the time in Singapore to the time in London, I whiled away the rest of the flight with a couple of movies and some more reading until we touched down at Changi airport in the burning Singaporean sunshine on the 1st of December.
Wandering around the four terminals of Changi feeling somewhat detached from my body, I realised it was around 3am in London. The bright sun shone down on me, with temperatures reaching thirty degrees meaning any form of sleep was impossible. For a while I wandered tirelessly through the rows and rows of duty-free shops and eateries in search of access to the famous ‘Jewel’ of Singapore. A huge indoor garden featuring the world’s largest indoor waterfall. Too late, I decided to ask someone for help, only to be informed that to get there I had to exit through immigration, and I no longer had enough time to spare before my flight.
I was caught in two minds about managing to sleep on the last three hour flight to Hanoi, but found that a combination of interruptions from the flight staff and the heat of the cabin made it impossible. And so I touched down in Hanoi at 17:30 local time on the 1st of December, having slept for less than three of the past thirty hours. I got my first glimpse of Vietnamese bureaucracy and the endless queues for immigration, before finally exiting the arrivals lounge shortly before seven.
Waiting to meet me were the two friendly faces of my hosts, Há and Thai, together with a taxi driver. The bumpy ride out of Hanoi to the little town of Chu lasted around three hours. By this point I was too tired to face the effort of communication, and as Há was feeling carsick, the minutes ticked by to the sound of rapid Vietnamese chatter between Thai and the taxi driver and the dramatic Vietnamese singing on the radio in the background.
The dark roads of North Vietnam rattled past in an eerie lighting of small headlights from mopeds and bright beams from massive trucks and busses. The absolute chaos of the roads would have fascinated me had I not been utterly exhausted.
I was welcomed into the Sun School with a vegetarian meal cooked by Maika and Yasmin, two other volunteers. The mood in the kitchen was relaxed and welcoming, and I felt so lucky to have stumbled across this opportunity. In reality, I thought very little that evening because I was overwhelmed with the newness of it all and how tired I was. I could feel my eyelids drooping and so, before I could begin getting to know the family and the volunteers, I thanked them for their kindness and retired to bed and fell instantly into the deepest of sleeps.
Old Lady Jane – II