in moments of stress...

A recent two and a half days in HCMC was enough to do thoroughly bad things to my stress levels. Apart from the incessant traffic and motorbikes, the driving seems to have become worse, if that's at all possible, and the locals are just as obstructive as ever. To tip me over the edge, sales assistants dogged my every footstep despite the very firm instruction of: "Do not follow!" I had to leave a number of shops due to zealous stalking. Oh, for the blithe indifference of the average Cambodian shop girl, who is really just like the average New Zealand shop girl.

With stress mounting and shopping still to be done, a small oasis of relief presented itself at the Lotte Mart massage device section.

Terrina and I both displayed the rapid neck swivel typical of the shopper who has eyed something potentially worthy of our dong. The quick witted shop girl picked up the display box for the item (solid alien thing on the left) and announced, "Buy one, get one," that odd Vietnamese epithet that means get two for the price of one."How much," we enquire? "Two hundred thousand." Rapid mental currency conversion took place (five bucks each) followed by product testing. "Yes, we will take one, get one." T then walks around the display case and starts displaying overt signs of shopper excitement caused by something that looks like an alien tuning fork that she's been looking for for months. "It's a head massager!" I never would have known. More product testing took place resulting in goosebumps & rapid transportation to scalp ecstasy so more purchasing (100,000)

As soon as was seemly, I busted out the new toys and proceeded to massage away the stressed bits on my head (spikey alien thing) and my lower back (solid alien thing). Highly recommended, value for money products to include in your anti-stress arsenal.