That Other Stuart Diver

For the past week there has been a lot of construction next door - including yesterday's noisy extravaganza of digging and earth moving. Dirt mountains are popping up everywhere. There is more equipment than people; quite unusual for a building site in Vietnam.

I woke up at 3am to the sound of an avalanche. I didn't know I could identify the sound of sliding dirt at thirty yardsbut there you go. Dirt was sliding in large quantities, right next to the house, and I knew it.

I started to wonder whether my apartment building would be joining it and - I'm ashamed to admit - wondered whether I could get in a quick nap before escaping. Srsly.

I was very, very tired. And really, really didn't want to get up. But it kept going and going and going. I started to imagine being winched out of the rubble by emergency workers ... wizened men operating on no sleep, rubbing their stubbled chin and looking worried ... coffee being drunk in the background ... spotlights and ropes ... fluoro yellow jackets. Then I realised where I was.

It wasn't fear that made me get up ... it was the realisation that Vietnam has no emergency services and I would have to do all the saving for myself. There was a parallel realisation that no matter how many people in this country seem happy to wear their pyjamas during the daytime, I was not one of them.

I eventually got up - all pre-Thredbo like - and popped my head out of the bedroom window. I could see an earth digger thingo shifting piles of dirt off the street. It seemed to be doing a poor job - pushing dirt along and missing key piles. It was more like rubbing than lifting.

Then I saw him.

The older security guard from downstairs - the one who has to wake up to open the door when I come home late - seemed to be in control of the digger. He was perched behind the wheel in a dangerously proactive show of confidence. It was so odd. The family from downstairs was also wandering up and down the street and around the digger, aimlessly supervising the event. They were quite unconcerned, like hey were watching TV.

Even the old lady was out there on the wander. She wasn't in pyjamas so I figured she had been rostered on. She seemed to think she was in charge though. Old person charge ... much like an old man at a car lot. I almost expected her to kick the tyre of the digger. She noticed me staring out of the window and smiled politely, like we had run into each other at the shops.

Her grandson (20 yo security guard) was also there, wandering around the front of the machine smoking cigaretts, artfully avoiding the arm of the digger as it swung towards him. The little kids weren't there but I spotted a teen - possibly a bored neighbour or a spruiker from one of the brothels up the road.

Then the Canadian guy who lives above me started shouting:

"What the fuck are you doing? This is fucking stupid! You're fucking stupid! How can you be so fucking stupid?!" and so on and so forth.

When he first started yelling everyone stopped for a moment and stared at him.

They were more curious than alarmed, like distracted kittens. The silence lasted about 10 seconds. The minute the Canadian stopped to draw breath, they started it all up again.

I couldn't work out what was happening so I went back to bed. The Canadian guy was still screaming and the digger was going but I was tired. I already had an insurance policy - the little kids were asleep in the house and I figured that if there was any real danger, they wouldn't have been left there. And I actually love my pyjamas ... more than I care to admit.