More about hospitals

The hospital mẹ is in has a design common to buildings in Vietnam. It has many vertical vents from the lowest floor to the sky to allow ventilation and help keep the interior comfortable, at least for Vietnamese.

In the case of the hospital two of the vents, one at each end, are actually large courtyards on the ground floor. The floors above are open to the sky and so have hallways that oversee the perimeter of the courtyards. Attractive open configuration actually.

The less savory features are in the details. Hương and I entered the hospital through the first floor, not the ground floor. To exit it seemed if we used the ground floor we might get more directly back to the motorbike. So down to the ground floor we went.

Walking towards the direction the bike was parked brought us through one of these large courtyards. In it I saw two cats. Cute, I like cats, but they didn't appear to be pets and besides what are cats doing in a hospital? Then I saw a rat. A big one. Big enough I thought the smaller of the two cats might actually be at risk if it tried to predate the rat. And of course I didn't think "cute" when I saw the rat. I thought "what's it doing in the hospital?"

We continued walking and came across several exit doors. All were locked from the inside with a padlock that went through flanges that had been attached to the doors after the fact. They weren't integrated into the doors, they were bolted on. I thought "fire safety hazard" and "how do people get out in an emergency?"

At this point we had to retrace our steps and go out the way we went in. Our alternate path out of the hospital was blocked.