Graham on the road: January 2014

Happy New Year. I hope you had a lovely Christmas. I spent new year in The Peak District and still think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Now I’m back in Hanoi and can tell you all about fishing. It seems to be a national pastime, but more for a source of food as much as for pleasure. I’ve observed several methods …

In Hanoi the main method seems to be what I call dragging. The fisherman has a line and a multi-hook. He casts it and then drags the line back. This can be a problem if you happen to be cycling by at the time. I’ve had to duck a few times. If the hooks get stuck in a fish, he’s caught something. Frankly, I think the fish are rather glad to get out of the lake, which is the most polluted I’ve seen anywhere.

I saw this in the countryside. The fisherman has a makeshift battery on his back and zaps the fish between the two electrodes. I’m told this is illegal as it kills too many fish but you don’t see many police out here.

Catching fish from boats is common too. Rowing with feet seems to be the norm and if you don’t have a boat, you can make one from polystyrene. (My thanks to my friend and roving reporter Amanda for this and a few other pics used in my blog.)

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In my last blog I mentioned that dogs aren’t looked after very well here. Well, I came across this in a side street. It’s a dog-walking machine – the dog is suspended in a cradle and walks on a treadmill. This one was really going for it. The owner was looking at me as if to say, ‘Why are taking photos of this?’ I thought he had quite an enlightened attitude for these parts and was pleased to see a dog getting some exercise.

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I have had real trouble buying clothes and, especially, shoes, in these parts. It seems I’m rather too tall. I sometimes wander into shoe shops and say ‘size 46?’ in my best Vietnamese. They laugh. So, I buy my shoes at home. This Christmas I bought some sandals as my last pair had fallen apart from overuse and I’ll need them as soon as it starts warming up. When I got them home, I looked at the box. It said, ‘Made in Vietnam’.

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I went for a meal on the street with a few Vietnamese friends a few weeks ago. We were eating our Pho Ga (a chicken broth dish) when one girl jumped up screaming as a cockroach had run across her bowl. Soon after, someone else jumped up because there was another one running under her stool. They were everywhere. I love street cafes.

I was at a street bar in a similar location with my cousin Brian who had popped in for a while.

We were having a beer when everybody suddenly jumped up and did their best to hide in the doorways. We didn't know what was going on. Then a police car drove past the end of the road and when it had passed, we all sat down again. This place continues to baffle me.

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As my flat is next to a lake there are flies everywhere at night. Where there are flies, there are bats and they can be seen flitting all over the place. Now, I like bats and love watching them but it became a bit much the other night when I was hit in the face by something reasonably heavy. I can only assume it was a deaf bat.

Before Christmas there was an added hazard was just a few doors down from my flat. There was a sign saying ’Beware of cow’. It’s gone now. Probably eaten.

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I continue to see silly things on bikes. Here are three more examples:

I think it’s fair to say that most small businesses in Hanoi would go out of business in no time if there were any laws about goods on bikes (maybe there are, but they aren’t enforced). One such biker nearly knocked me off my bike the other day when the (very large) bags the passenger was carrying hit my handlebars. Fortunately, I kept control and avoided the streetlamp.

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You get ideas about Vietnam’s political affiliations in several places around town. Here’s Lenin in a prime location and the hammer and sickle can be seen all over town as well as propaganda posters such as the one below:

Another way messages such as this are passed around are the early morning tannoy announcements. They start at about 6.30am and can be a pain if you live near one (I don’t any more).

There are statues of Vietnam’s ancient emperors too. This is Ly Thai To, the emperor from 1009 to 1028.

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I haven’t given up on learning Vietnamese and still meet up with friends to practise. We had a get-together before Christmas on the balcony of the café where I live.