Starving in Saigon

I put on my glasses and looked down at my watch. It was 2:18 am.

We had a flight to catch next day, and I’d gone to bed later than I should have. There was the usual list of excuses: Skyping to do, e-mails to send, and a book too good to put down.

I tried to sleep, without success. And now I was hungry. Not just hungry, ravenous.

Usually, I travel with food. Or I stay at a hotel with a mini-bar stocked with Pringles. Or they have room service. Or there’s a late-night restaurant nearby. You get the idea.

It was the middle of the night in Saigon, and I was famished. And there was no food to be had.

I tried to ignore it, at first. Mind over matter. Don’t think about food. Think about something else, anything else. That strategy lasted for about 6 minutes. By the time I gave up, I was even hungrier than before.

My mind went over the list of items we brought on our trip, trying to determine if any of them were edible. Did I still have the gum I was given in lieu of change in Egypt? No, we’d thrown that out. Beloved’s chapstick, which was made of beeswax and honey? No, she only has one of them and, when she inevitably asked where it went, would not take kindly to the excuse “I ate it.”

I’m not too proud to admit that I raided our First Aid kit and ate some of our Tums. At first, they seemed to hit the spot. Then, the bicarbonate in the Tums mixed with my stomach acid to create my own 5th Grade Science Fair project in my digestive tract. I spent the next 12 minutes burping. Beloved was not impressed.

I went downstairs to see if the hotel had any food. The bellhops were asleep on their couches, but woke when they heard me shuffling around the lobby, looking for stray peanuts. I mimed holding a plate and shovelling food in my mouth with imaginary utensils, the universal gesture for food. They pointed at their watches and held up seven fingers. Not until 7 am.

I went outside, hoping there was at least one restaurant open at this hour. There was nothing. Not even the roadside cafes or the convenience stores were open at this hour. I shuffled back to the elevator, wondering how much Vietnamese toilet paper I could eat before I got sick.

Inspiration struck before I got back to the room. I went to the top floor, where they serve breakfast in the morning. To my amazement, the door was open. Through the near-total darkness, I could make out that they had set out some of it in advance. I was in raptures when I found the jam. Then I saw the cereal.

I had peeled back the cellophane and was searching for a plate when I heard the noise.

“Snuh… uh…”

To my absolute horror, I realized that the breakfast staff was sleeping in the room, less than 10 feet from where I stood. And I had my hand in the proverbial cookie jar. Delicious, delicious cookies…

I froze like a deer in the headlights. Then, abandoning what little dignity I had left, I quickly shuffled out of the room, closing the door behind me.

But then I paused. Could I really go back to Vietnamese toilet paper when there was cereal to be had?

With the utmost stealth, I reopened the door and tiptoed my way back to the buffet table. The crunch of the spoon dipping into the serving bowl sounded like a car crash, the tinkling of the cereal onto the plate like a thousand glasses shattering. I counted my scoops, pausing between each to ensure that I hadn’t been discovered. After 10 scoops, I could bear the tension no longer. I slowly made my way back to the elevator, closing the door gently behind me.

It was the best cereal I’ve ever had in my life, and I feel asleep moments later. I just wonder what the staff thought the next day, when they noticed that the cellphone had been peeled off the cereal bowl.