11-1 (Wednesday)

After breakfast we headed out to book a flight to Bali for the next day. First we stopped at the corner where Ha (the young street girl Dinki and I met last year) usually works. I talked to a woman I had talked to the night before about Ha. She went around the corner and found Ha’s mother. We met her little brother about 5 or 6 years old and her father who wanted to give us a motorcycle ride. They told us that Ha now works at the Gen Thanh Market during the day and goes to school at night. The mother called her on her cell phone and Ha said she would come to our hotel at 6:00 that evening to meet us.

We went to several travel agencies interviewing them to see which one we liked best to get our Bali tickets. We decided on one. When we went back to book the flight the man who worked there said, “She’s retired!” We thought that was quick but what he meant was that she was at lunch. We went back later and got the ticket.

Tonight we waited for Ha to show up at the hotel but she never did. I don’t know what happened. Maybe she couldn’t find it because it is rather new and she didn’t seem to know when I talked to her.

We went to dinner where I treated Joyce for her birthday – it was closed! We looked through the window and it was totally empty! We saw a sign on the door that said they would reopen in Dec. after they did renovations. We ended up eating at a fabulous French Restaurant.

We had money we had to get rid of so we bought a couple of books then went to a department store. Joyce bought a couple of blouses but I couldn’t find anything to spend my money on.