With all the wisdom of nearly 66 years on this planet, I am no match for these Vietnamese. Hundreds of centuries of surviving have honed these people into the incredible personalities we see daily. For example, today I bought a newspaper up at the rich end of town. It was The Australian for last weekend - about $6 - but I ended up spending nearly $30 on powdered infants' milk formula as well. Looking back, if only that kid who should have been at school had not been there, I would not have looked into those painfully sensitive eyes of his and I would not have bought one of his Saigon postcard packs. But, as quick as a flash, he thrust the money back at me and asked me to buy some milk instead. His mother was around the corner, he quickly explained, and she would take the money for herself so he could then not buy the milk he wanted. "I just want you to buy me some milk. Will you do that?"

It was starting to get a bit bizarre and that creeping feeling was emerging that said to just get out of this situation, but I could not let a slight Vietnamese kid with remarkably good English see he'd won so quickly. I smiled and said, "What now?" "Please sir, that is the supermarket over there on the third floor of that plaza. That is where I can buy the milk." We got past the guards, who apparently keep kids from the streets out of the Louis Vuitton and Rolex shops in the centre, and he guides me up to the third floor and to the tins of infant formulae.

"That is the one I need," he whispered. It was a large gold tin, looking very self-important on the shelf, and it was priced at 469,000 Dong. A little flustered by the speed of all this, I calculated the cost to be, oh, I don't know - maybe $10. But at 16,000 to the US dollar, I suddenly realised this was no cheap exercise. So I obviously said, "This is not cheap, you know." He looked at me quite puzzled. "Please sir, it is for my sister. She is only one year and one month." I paid at the register. He shook hands, literally jumped onto the escalator, and I stood there bewildered. But I learned something from all this: bizarre situations require the conservative traveller to flee the scene. This prevents anything interesting from happening and encourages healthy sleep and appetite, whereas forsaking our usual cautions often turns out to be colourful entertainment. In fact, not often but every time.

Distances from our hotel on the main small-hotel drag opposite the park, are measured in Approaches. If you go to the right, the best cafe is 7 approaches: that is, 3 selling sunglasses, 2 selling wallets, one selling wooden horses and something that looks like a lottery. Getting a good drink is 11 approaches, for it is half a block further. You have to add a few sellers of guide books, cigarettes and lighters, and feather dusters. If I bought anything, it would have been a feather duster.

To even sit in a cafe is to invite hawkers to come in. Merely sitting down somehow indicates I am ready to be purveyed shoeshines, amulets, more sunglasses, paperback novels, small bottles of something and packets of something else. The shopkeepers generally do not get them to leave - that is understandable - so the wise traveller finds truth in that ancient maxim: the higher you go the fewer you get. Eating at the second floor of a restaurant virtually ensures peace and quiet.

To the left of the hotel is rather sad. It's 3 approaches to the ATM. That is one gentleman missing his left leg followed by someone looking up from the pavement, then the old lady in yellow whom I presume is a nun, holding an ancient aluminium pot with rosary beads in it. They all get a dollar or two, so lunch can be quite expensive if you venture far from the hotel. On the way back, they do not hassle again. In fact, we are treated like lost friends, with big smiles. Most days now, I get to the front of the hotel and dash across the street, looking neither right or left. Yesterday, I ran straight into a mother holding a tin in one hand and a baby in the other. "Please sir...." I panicked. An old woman was sitting on her left and grinning at me, and to the right was a group of men holding a sign and staring. I made my choice, turned immediately around and dashed back to my hotel, buying only a packet of scented Kleenex on the way.