Waving Anonymity

Tuesday 29th December 2009, 1pm, Dam Sen Water Park, Saigon - Vietnam

I have never seen so may Asian children in my entire life. In fact, scrap that, I have never seen so many children in my entire life. There must be a hundred thousand of them here, 100,000 little Vietnamese faces having the time of their life - school groups and birthday parties, family outings and coach trips full of children, plus 3 very noticeably White, Western, 20-something year olds spending an afternoon's leisure time at Dam Sen Water Park, just outside Ho Chi Minh City. I'm sat in the area marked with the sign 'Where Foreigners Can Sunbathe', so I'm doing as I'm told - a foreign sunbather looking after the bags of my two friends whilst they play in the wave machine. Don't fret though, I'm not being a killjoy, I'm just feeling a tad delicate today due to indulging last night in one of my life's great passions - tequila slammers. I told them to leave me with my notebook for 20 minutes and then I'll be bulldozing Asian children in all directions to get on the water drop zip-wire and the slide flumes.

I thought I would take this opportunity to write about something I have been meaning to for a while. Well, not something, rather someone; the enigmatic 'companion'. It was my intention when first starting this blog that I would not name anyone, it's my choice to write about people, but I thought it would be courteous to allow my blog 'characters' partial anonymity. However, this has proved impossible thus far as I haven't the imagination to create pseudonyms for everyone I meet, and she is understandably such a pivotal part of my life right now that if anyone deserves a name it is her. I have asked her permission to write about her and I think she is quite looking forward to seeing what I have to say. Her one condition was that I don't mention the evening where she returned home unknowingly stoned having drunk a 'Happy Shake' at a restaurant in Sihanoukville and then sat sprawled over the sofa, wide-eyed and grinning like a Cheshire Cat for a good hour whilst I tried to keep her talking just to see what funny things she would come out with when spaced out. So I definitely won't write about that.

Before we decided to spend 7 months of our lives travelling together we had only known each other for 10 weeks. A week after I had made the decision to book my ticket and embark upon this adventure alone, we were introduced by a mutual friend (the same boy who talked me in to coming away - man he has a lot to answer for!) at a pub quiz in The Florist Arms in Bethnal Green. I chatted away about my new life direction, we came 2nd in the quiz and won a pizza, I liked her cardigan and she liked my jewellery, and a week later she sent me a very sweet and nervous e-mail saying that she too wanted to travel, to the same places and at the same time as me, and how would I feel about tagging along together? Evidently I thought this was a brilliant idea. After a few wine-fuelled 'getting to know you' evenings in London we were set, and when we met each other at Koh Samui airport on the 29th November it felt like greeting an old friend; such a relief on that nerve-wracking first evening to have a familiar face in attendance.

We've been living side by side for over a month now, and I couldn't be happier that she had the courage to send the e-mail she did to a relative stranger. So what can I say about her other than that having her here has automatically doubled our wardrobes and halved our rooming costs?! She has buckets of style, her share and mine I think, but this figures as in her previous life she was working as a freelance fashion designer; she prefers 'Womenswear Designer' though because she says that 'Fashion Designer' sounds like one of those unattainable childhood dream job aspirations - but this is her career! Her hair makes me green with envy - down to her waist, golden blonde, naturally dead straight - life is full of injustices but at least she lets me play with it and plait it for her so this is some recompense for my jealousy. She has an unfathomable knowledge of obscure up-and-coming London bands and artists that I have never heard of - yes quelle surprise Grace I hear you say - I am always the last to know about the next big thing and still think that La Roux is the best thing to happen to pop music since Beyonce.

She sometimes forgets what country we're in and speaks Thai to Cambodians and Cambodian to Vietnamese. Personally I find this very endearing, especially when she looks at me, her forehead creased into a frown and says 'where are we?'. She refuses to give up Mojitos even though beer is a fifth of the price (relevant quote time... 'I need to ask the barman two questions. One is about the pitchers. I don't remember the other one.'). She thoughtfully points out babies and puppies that she knows I'll go 'clucky' over and she has the superhero ability to scope out blonde dread-locked Swedish surfer types within a mile radius - if I point out someone I think she will be attracted to she has always already clocked him 15 minutes ago. She is rarely silent because if she's not talking she makes adorable little humming/clicking/hiccupping noises and she has no idea she's doing it until I start mimicking her, she eats a banana pancake in almost every place we go to and then when finished takes on a quiet, contemplative face before giving me a rating and rationalised Pancake Judgement Breakdown, (I believe she is also keeping some kind of deadly serious recorded scoring system for this in her notebook), and if we are running low on toilet roll, instead of saying 'Grace we need to go to the Mini-Mart' she says 'Gee-Gee, we need to steal some more loo roll.'

Mostly though, what I love about her, why she has turned out to be a pretty perfect travelling companion for moi, is that she too craves Gallivanting and Goodness, she just gets it. She knows how to party and of course wants to have as much fun as we possibly can over the course of the next 6 months, but she also wants to know about the history and culture and traditions of the extraordinary countries we visit, to learn about other places and people in the hope that it might teach her something important about herself and her own place in the world.

She's running over now, huge smile plastered to her face, drenched from head to toe and wearing my t-shirt over her bikini because she was worried about 'being the most naked person at the water park'. No longer an enigma, but still the most considerate, adventurous, intelligent, exuberant, long-blonde haired companion I could have hoped for... Ella Cloud Pritchard. Her friends' and family's temporary loss is very much my gain.