At
last – it’s over. I have now finished studying and normal life can resume.
Hanoi continues to baffle me in various ways and there’s a whole list of things
to mention. I’ll go back to new year which, as you may know, was on the 10th
February this year …
At
The British Council we always have a combined Christmas & Tet (new year)
party. Last year I was dressed as a tree. This year I got roped into the
traditional dance. We had a few rehearsals but I would say that I wasn’t
totally ready by the performance. Part of my routine was to wear a mask and run
around causing mischief during part of the dance. That bit came easily but I
had a lot of trouble seeing out of it so I just bumbled around. Nobody noticed
or cared. They loved it.
 |
Parties
here tend to consist of performances and games, with a bit of dancing thrown
in. Some of the Vietnamese staff performed the ‘Hat dance’. It was lovely.
|
Some
lions popped in to perform too.
The
teachers had to perform something of course. We sang ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’,
with audience participation. It went down well.
*****
I’ve
decided to measure the weather here by how many showers a day I need to feel
human. In the hot weather any trip out requires a shower when you get back in. Today
is a three-shower day I’d say; it’s been raining and is fairly cool. After heavy
rain we get a few two-shower days and then it creeps back up. If we hit six-shower
days I’ll be staying in and keeping the aircon on.
*****
One
thing I love about Hanoi is the multi-cultural nature of the place. Any event
is likely to have half a dozen or more nationalities. I’ve been to a few functions
where the common language has been French or Spanish. This caused me a few
problems. Having learned at school (a while back), I can have a crack at French
but made a bit of slip when I was chatting to a French girl and wanted to say ‘I
love French’ but it came out all wrong as I said ‘Je t’aime’, which means ‘I
love you’. I knew something was wrong as her face dropped rather sharply. I
recovered quickly though and managed to get the correct version out. Think I’ll
stick to Vietnamese.
Talking
of Vietnamese, the language continues to confound me. Just saying hello is
tricky. What you say depends on the age of the person you’re speaking to. ‘Xin
chau’ (sin chow) is a general greeting but it should be modified to chau em,
chau chi, chau anh, chau ba or chau ong, depending on the age and gender of the
person you’re talking to. Now, if I address a woman my age or a bit older than
me, I should use chau chi. However, if I use chau em, I’m suggesting she’s
younger than me. I tried it at the dry cleaners, where the lady is older than
me and got a smile. She was probably thinking ‘He just called me ‘em’! What a
nice young man.’
*****
This
is the local ‘wet market’ – the ‘wet’ refers to the state your feet are in
after a trip there.
You can buy all parts of an animal in here – no part is
spared. First thing in the morning the meat is as fresh as you could buy
anywhere, but as the day wears on and gets hotter I imagine eating the meat
would put me in hospital for a week.
I buy most of my fruit and veg in here though. I always go to the
same lady. She’s very nice and smiley and discards anything which looks too old.
I’m
pretty sure she charges me local prices too as they are ridiculously cheap
(bananas 3p each, tomatoes about the same). There is something known as the
‘Tay Tax’ here. ‘Tay’ means western or westerner and this unofficial ‘tax’ is
basically the markup that anyone who isn’t Vietnamese gets charged. How much
Tay Tax you pay depends on your haggling skills. I tend to pay what I’m asked
if I buy fruit on the street – some poor old lady has been carrying her baskets
around in the heat all day, but some shop owners might triple the price and I’m
wise to that now. Learning how to say numbers and ‘dat qua!’ (that’s expensive)
has served me well.
The
best time to visit the market is at about 11:30am I’ve found. That’s when the
market ladies do their daily exercises – they put pop music on (quite loud) and
start dancing around. I was a bit taken aback the first time but now just join
in. That amuses them quite a lot.
*****
Now
I’ve got the time I’m off to the climbing wall as often as I can manage and
cope with in the heat. There’s no aircon in the main wall area, just fans. As mentioned
above, there are climbers from all over the place at the wall – there are
probably a dozen nationalities there on a busy night. It’s a bouldering wall –
not my first choice but it’s the only wall in town. Bouldering is a form of
climbing which involves short, intensely hard climbs up to about 4m high. It
requires you to get into some rather improbable positions. There are no ropes
or harnesses, you just fall back onto the thick crash mats. It’s a young
person’s sport really so, having hit 49 recently, I have no idea why I’m there.
*****
In
April I went to Cuc Phuong National Park – a protected forested area about 3
hours south of Hanoi by bus. I took a guided night hike into the forest. We
were looking for wildlife but the larger mammals stayed well out of sight. However,
I got within a foot of a black and white striped snake. Well, I swung my torch
around and then saw it. ‘Don’t go near – it’s very poisonous!’ was my guide’s
advice. I took it. I came across this thingy too (see
pic below) - ‘Don’t
go near – it’s very poisonous!’ was the advice. I began to get a bit nervous. Still,
I survived the experience and got some decent photos.
They
do a lot to protect various species there. Here’s one happy camper.
*****
To end, a little street food. I’ll let you figure out what it is.
*****
Bike photo of the month.
7 years’ bad luck for this
chap if he makes a false move …
