the bedbug saga continues

I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky... it's been almost two months since we have had to deal with the pesky little parasites that have plagued my nightmares... as soon as we stopped searching every inch of each new room... as soon as we started sleeping soundly even on the first night in a hotel... as soon as I had almost forgotten the sight of the dead bugs and bloodstains in the corners of my washed sleep sheet... as soon as we had let our guard down...

bedbugs.

Well, to tell the truth this is not the first time we have seen one.  When we were on Gili T we found a lone bug crawling on our wall.  We tore the room apart and found no other signs, and luckily it never developed into anything more than a nerve racking wanderer.

So there we were in Vietnam at a beautiful place called Mui Ne: palm tress and beaches, the sound of the ocean at night, comfy restaurants with couches by the water.  We were soaking it up because we know this was the last beach side town we will be staying at during this trip.  We were so excited to have three full days laying in the sun on the breezy beach.  Even more excited because we had found a clean and comfortable room steps from the beach for only $18 a night.   Beer can be bought for less than $1, the food was great - new, interesting, and yummy... we had found paradise.

respectable hotel... right?

We were laying in our beds watching an episode of Damages (our guilty pleasure is to watch tv on the laptop some nights... it's nice to unwind and lose yourself in a show... life can be very chaotic when you are moving constantly...)  So after our episode, it was time for bed. 

I decided to use to mosquito net on my bed for the first time (I have as of yet not used one on our trip) as I seem to be a human buffet for all things that bite, and our window was open for a good portion of the day.  I didn't feel like dealing with a new slew of itchy bites.  Caitrin laughed when she saw me inside my little protective net... she asked if I had been bitten the night before (we were in the same hotel but a different room, we had moved to get a room with two beds) I admitted I did not, but said happily "I'll sleep well tonight knowing that I'm protected!"

cue the foreboding music

No sooner than those words had escaped my mouth did Caitrin see them.  Prompted by my use of the net she took a look at her own... and there it was... a bedbug... crawling down the net... she gasped... I instantly knew what was wrong.  I shot up in my bed and looked at my own net.  There they were.... half a dozen of them... crawling down the net to feast on my unknowing body... the smell of my warm blood had roused them from their daytime slumber and they were slowly inching their way toward their breakfast...

I shot out of bed and we inspected the situation... it appeared that they were nested in the wooden ring of the mosquito net near the ceiling.  If you looked closely you could see the tell tale dark stains of their feces. 

After assessing our situation, we decided that sleeping in that room was not an option.  We went out to the front desk to find out if perhaps there was still another room available, but all we found was a sleepy security guard with choppy English... all hotel staff were gone for the night.  After briefly considering breaking into a different room to sleep in, we decided we had to leave.  I didn't bother changing from my pj's... just grabbed my purse and put some shoes on.  After some deliberation we decided the bags and our belongings were safe, they only entered the room that day and the infestation didn't appear to be as bad as the last time... they weren't on the walls, in the bed, and in the pillows... just slowly making their way down the mosquito nets.  There would be no reason to suspect that they would travel around the room and into our bags.

We set off in search of a hotel that had staff working at this time.  First place... no one at the front desk but a security guard.  We walked on.  Next hotel, there was a man sitting behind the desk, halleluiah. No rooms. We walked on.  Hotel after hotel, either no one at the desk or completely booked up for the night.  We talked about the option of sleeping outside... we could wrap ourselves in our sheets and sleep on the hotels tanning chairs next to the ocean... as soon as we began to accept that our fate may be an outdoor sleeping adventure we stumbled upon a big ol swanky hotel... and thankfully, they had a room available (and at least it was only $50.... which is worth a good nights sleep)

swaaaaaaaaaaaanky

Early the next morning we made our way back to the bedbug inn, and kindly (and quietly) tried to inform the hotel staff of our discovery.  I had a picture of one on my iphone to avoid confusion (bugs don't seem to matter in these countries... I once had a conversation with a man who had giant ants crawling all over his body and he didn't seem to care...  but BEDbugs get the attention of people...)  The hotel owner firmly said "no."  (yep.  that's all he would say)  we assured him that we wouldn't have left the hotel in the middle of the night if we were sure of what we saw.  He again, simply said "no."  (like we decided to make the whole thing up or something). He finally came to the room and shook the bedding around, pulled at the curtains, and said "no"...  They left the room and Caitrin climbed up to the mosquito net rings and catch one, then she brought it back to the desk.  Still, they refused to admit that the room had bugs.  Later we did spot them cleaning the nets out of the room and killing the bugs individually.... but for some reason they refused to admit to us that there were bugs there.

Whatever.

We changed hotels, and chalked that day up to being a sucky one.  (by the time we got checked into our new room the sun was behind clouds, so we had missed out on a tanning day)  that's ok.  We all have bad days some times. At least we didn't get ravished by bedbugs. And we had the sound of the waves to calm our troubled minds.

all we did the next day