Art and Travel

While in Hanoi, I had a meeting at 11am which was postponed until 11:15am, so I stopped at little shops along the way. Now I started to run a bit late, so I headed across the super busy intersection filled with hundreds of speeding motorcycles and a couple of cars. An older white man in surprisingly good shape was trying also to cross that busy street, so I buddied up with him figuring no scooter would hit two people. I then turned to him and told him that I used him as a human shield. He laughed and we started to chat for a moment about the traffic and then he told me he was lost, and had been for nearly 5 hours. He was up early and being athletic he decided to go to the lake for a little run, and bit of badminton with the locals. He had no key, no money and more importantly he forgot to grab the business card of the hotel he was staying. He was sweeping the winding streets searching for his hotel. I could see he was getting panicky. Who wouldn't be? I told him of my few close calls and suggested he search the internet and contact his travel agent. He looked at me blankly and I immediately understood that this elderly gentleman, who turned out to be 71 and Australian, had no idea how to use the internet. So, I told him I would help him but first I needed to make it to my appointment with a Swedish artist. So, we walked to our meeting place at the Swede's hotel, and thankfully he was late. So, we sat down and started to search the internet. Very quickly we found his travel agent, a really huge company in Australia called Harvey's but I couldn't figure out how to call them on my Vietnamese cell phone. Internationally calling is really a bitch. I then had the hotel call for me but they wanted to know area codes, and country codes which he didn't know. I looked them up on the net but still the calls wouldn't go through. We also tried to call the Australian embassy but only got voicemail. So, I tried a new strategy, I emailed everybody on the Harvey's contact list. I received email back saying they couldn't locate his reservation and they needed to know which office it was booked. Jonas, the Swede showed up so we all went for coffee at a tiny little street café with miniature chairs. Alan turned out to be a bricklayer, which explained a 71 year old man with huge arm muscles. Jonas and I talked a bit about art which Alan seemed to enjoy. Then the three of us diverted into a conversation about global warming and the deforestation of the world. Alan was not just what he appeared. Jonas took his leave and Alan went to find yet one more internet café. I checked my email and found out that my emails had been forwarded to his booking agent but as of yet, no response. We tried the embassy a few more times, and left a few more messages. I took it upon myself to do a little bit more of the calling because as a person having lived in New York for ten years I feel capable of being a little pushy, especially since this was a real emergency. Well, that and the fact that I was fearful that Alan was on the verge of tears, as I certainly would've been. I tried to paint a picture of a desperate old man which certainly not the case but I wanted these people to get back to me ASAP. Now, I was hungry, it was 2pm and still no information. I insisted on lunch as much for me as for him, he was looking a bit peaked and I was afraid he might be a diabetic at his age. We ate and used a very filthy restroom at a tiny restaurant. The embassy tried to call but the call kept getting dropped and then the network was down all together. I hustled him out of there to find internet again, and hoping to also use the phone. Alan a good deal of the time was chatting, sort of that nervous chatter filling the air so as to not panic. I tried to smile and be attentive but quite frankly I was getting a bit frazzled myself and had to concentrate to find internet access and not be hit by a speeding motorcycle. Finally, we found one with working access, so I got online and told Alan to see if he could use the phone to call the embassy. He called, but again got only voicemail. I found no email in my main box and so sent another very desperate email. I decided to check another email box just in case. Thankfully there was an email. It had the name of the hotel and address, hurray! I think Alan and I both felt it wasn't over until he was safely in the arms of his tour group leader, or his girlfriend. We were only a few blocks away and off we went. Ten minutes later we were there. He would've walked right by it had I not seen the name. No wonder he didn't find it in his morning's wanderings. In we walked, I think we both expected the group to be sitting and waiting for him since it was now 3 pm and they left on a overnight train to Saigon at 6pm but the place was empty. So, we walked up to his room. It was locked and empty. At this point, I stayed with him partly out of curiosity to see the happy reunion but also to be certain that he was going to be reunited with the group. An older man with no money should not be left on his own in a foreign country. He was I am sure very capable in Australia but here he seemed to be a quite a loss to get himself out of this predicament. We then went back down to the desk to get the key so that he could see if the luggage was still there. When he asked for the key and pointed at his name on the list, the clerk said "you are lost." Not anymore. She alerted the tour leader in the other room who came out a happy man. Everyone was relieved but I was hoping for joy. He told us the police had been alerted - ah the police, it never occurred to me to call the police. My only regrets are that I didn't get a picture nor to get to see him reunited with his girlfriend who was at that moment at the lake searching for him.