Life in a damp country

I gather that most of you were living in a freezer this winter. Well, I don’t like to gloat, but I haven’t. It hasn’t been that great here though. We’ve had a lot of what I would call mizzle. (That’s mist and drizzle)

You may think that the sun always shines in Hanoi. Well, let me assure you – it doesn’t. It’s true that while you were all shivering away through the winter the worst we got was about 10C (and a lot of people, locals and expats alike, said they were cold!). Spring was mostly overcast but it’s the damp that really gets you, especially indoors. Leaving wardrobe doors closed is a mistake, you’re almost certain to get mouldy clothes etc so I have to constantly check clothes and wipe surfaces down.

However, now it’s payback time … yesterday it hit a truly horrendous 38C. Now, I know some of you pay good money to experience that sort of temperature, but I most certainly wouldn’t. And to make matters worse, it isn’t due to cool down until September. That’ll teach me to do my homework before I accept a job.

Surviving in these inhospitable climes is fairly straightforward though:

Rule 1 Drink lots

Rule 2 Have some more to drink

Rule 3 Have another drink

Rule 4 Don't run anywhere (or even walk quickly) but if you do - have a drink

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I moved flats about a month ago and have settled into an area that I will probably stay in for my time in Hanoi. It's called Truc Bach and is a mix of Vietnamese and western. It’s quite central and has the added advantage of being quick and easy for work.  

 That's it - number 91 - in the middle ...
 

 The local streets ... 

 





 



This is my 'commute' to work - by the lake ...

It's also good for the local Indian restaurant (as good as any I found in Manchester). It has the unusual name of 'Foodshop45', which could be the number of times I get a takeaway from there a month (joke).That said, I have tried a range of local foods too. I went to another town for work the other day and was ‘treated’ to lunch by the people I’d been working with. I don’t go much for seafood but guess what? It was seafood. Now, I recognised the mussels and managed to get through a couple of those (mainly because my hosts were saying ‘have another, have another’) but I had no idea what one plate contained. It was full of intricately-shaped stringy things that had the consistency of rubber but I don’t think it was octopus. To be honest, I don’t know if it was a plant or an animal. You couldn’t bite bits off – it was too tough - the trick was to pop it into your mouth whole and chew, and chew and … you get the idea.

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Since I got here I have regularly come across sights that perplex me – ‘Why do they do that?’  goes through my mind a lot of the time.

The most recent thing that baffles me is the line of guys standing in the street outside the restaurants near my flat. As bikes and cars drive by they jump out and try to stop them, even standing in the way at times. The idea is that the driver will think ‘Ah yes, this restaurant must be good’ and go in. 

 Now, I don’t know about you, but I have never eaten at a restaurant because I was dragged in there by the owner. I have never seen them succeed either – bikes just beep their horns (as they do everywhere) and drive past. Cars do the same. Passersby have to try a bit harder. I think I made a mistake by waiting outside one of these restaurants as a group of us had agreed to eat at one of them and I got there first. A friend arrived by bike and it was immediately grabbed by one of the ‘customer grabbers’. He wasn’t letting go either, so we stood and waited until the others had arrived by which time I felt duty bound to eat at his restaurant. I’m sure he got some brownie points from his boss as there were seven of us.

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Speaking Vietnamese

There’s a simple rule of thumb to pronouncing Vietnamese: if it’s a little bit wrong, it’s completely wrong. The only difference might be an accent but that is enough to leave a lot of Vietnamese folk quite unable to understand what you say.

In Polish ‘szcz’ looks scary but if you can say ‘ch’ you’re close and everyone will understand you. Not so in Vietnamese. Take ‘ng’ for instance. It looks harmless enough and you could be forgiven for thinking that you just say ‘ing’. Oh no no no – that would be far too simple. ‘ng’ is probably the hardest sound in the world to say correctly. The English ‘ing’ is produced somewhere in the centre/middle of your mouth. Easy. However, ‘ng’ is produced in the nether regions at the back of your mouth and requires you to compress your throat in a way that might induce asphixiation. I sometimes get close in my Vietnamese lessons but then forget how I did it leaving my teacher in fits of laughter. My students Ngọc and Nga cannot be impressed.

In class I imagine my students’ thought processes go something like this:  

‘Hmmm… Graham just said somebody’s name. It wasn’t my name and it certainly didn’t sound like anybody else’s name either but he’s looking at me so maybe he’s talking to me. I'd better say something.’

You have to be very careful – my colleague was mortified when she discovered she had been saying some very rude words while trying to take the register. That explained why the class kept laughing.

Talking of classes - I have a broad spread of ages this term - adults, teenagers and two classes of cheeky monkeys (the eight year olds). They're a lot of fun.

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I’ve been out and about a bit over the last few months. One trip was to Mai Chau – about 3 hours by bus. Well, the bus was a small coach (and I mean ‘small’ – this was the leg room - it made Ryanair look spacious)

 

and I could tell I was in Vietnam as the conductor hung out the door and shouted to anyone who was standing by the road looking like they might want a lift. As I understand it, if he shouts a suitable destination and they want to go there it’s a match and they jump on board.

Mai Chau is lovely. It’s populated by the several ethnic minority tribes who have worked out that they are close enough to Hanoi to turn their homes into a business so every home has rooms for let. The attraction is the location and the homes. The wooden houses are all on stilts and they lay out a mat and mosquito net for you. The village is surrounded by hills and paddy fields. We struck lucky as our home was delightful and the owners were very friendly. They cooked fresh, local produce and it was the best food I’ve had since I arrived in Vietnam.

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Another recent trip was back to Cat Ba island, where I got to go paddling (oh, I’ve missed it). The island is surrounded by limestone islands (‘karsts’) and there are several caves to explore. 

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I’ve been playing a bit of tennis and badminton since I got here. Badminton is popular and there are several indoor courts around town. I play at one of them every Saturday. However, there are also lots of courts marked out on the streets and this is a typically Vietnamese thing to do... so a few of us have started playing there too. Our first location wasn’t too wonderful though – the shuttlecock either went into the gutter or over the wall. Loads of tourists wandered under the net too. We’ve since found a much better location. 

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Bike photo of the month

The basket bike – if you look closely you’ll see the owner asleep next to the bike. This was lunchtime, which starts at about 11am (breakfast is often before 6am) and can last two hours. You’ll find people asleep all over the place.

 

Well, that's it for now. I've just been on holiday in Nha Trang (down the coast a bit) learning to scuba dive so I'll tell you how that went soon.

Until then, take care and don't forget to write!

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I took these last night and thought I should add them. 

Sunset over the Hanoi lakes ... 

Laos

Laos is a feast for the eyes and a rest for the ears. Certainly, having spent the last few months in busy Hanoi, Laos is a breath of fresh air, both literally and metaphorically. There is very little traffic and what traffic there is abides by the rules of the road without tooting horns once.

Laos is such a quiet place that some people haven’t heard of it at all and many could not name its capital city. Well, it’s Vientiane and it’s a rather picturesque place with beautiful buildings everywhere.

Laos was occupied by the French in the 19^th Century and that continued until 1953. The French influence continues – road signs (and many others) are in French as well as Lao in the capital and you can get Pain au Chocolat as good as any I’ve had in France.

It was mixed up in the Vietnam War (they call it The American War in these parts) too and, as a result, Laos has the dubious distinction of being the most bombed country, per head of population (about 6 million), in the world. This is because the Vietnamese used the jungles of Laos as a ‘secret’ passageway during the war. Not so secret it seems as the Americans dropped one planeload of bombs every eight minutes, day and night, for nine years. Many of them did not go off and so the country is absolutely littered with unexploded bombs, which makes farming a very dodgy enterprise. There are organisations devoted to clearing these bombs but it will take many more years.

It’s possible to see the main features of Vientiane in a day. There are beautifully-decorated temples everywhere as well as other buildings.

This one was modelled on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Its lamps use low-energy light bulbs. Laos is moving with the times ...

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I then caught a bus to Luang Prabang, about 150 miles north of the capital. It might not be far, but it takes ages to get a bus up all the hills in between.

The Buddhist influence is strong and orange-robed monks are everywhere.

There's a hill in the middle of town and it's well worth the walk up it for the views.

I went to a demonstration of traditional dance. It was fun to watch, but I didn't have a clue what was going on.

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I wanted to see a bit of the countryside so I booked on a three-day trek. It was the best thing I could have done – several of my favourite activities squeezed into one trip. OK, so we didn’t eat chocolate spread sandwiches or go climbing, but there were the other things I enjoy.

We started by mountain biking along dirt roads for a few hours. We had to cross a river at one point so the local bike ferry was deployed.

We finished at an Elephant Village, a project devoted to protecting elephants, which are under threat in Laos. Here we had an elephant ride and were given our green lunch box – a banana leaf as a wrapper that contained rice with chicken and veg. Very nice too.

A brief dip at a waterfall followed ...

and then a walk to a village, which was home for the night. We weren’t too far from town but this was a step back in time for us all – there was a generator, which allowed for some houses to have a bit of light and access to Thai TV (a debatable pleasure!) in the evenings, but few trappings of modern life as we know it. Livestock was running everywhere, kids were rolling in the dirt having fun …

Bed was a mat, a thin duvet and a mosquito net in a bamboo hut.

The village rules are displayed for all visitors to see. Judging by some of them (e.g. point 6) they must have had a few unsavoury characters in the past. I wondered how I could leave my prostate outside my room …

Next day we walked over the hills, passing through a couple of villages. If they don’t have access to a road, the villages are really poor. Larger villages have a school but smaller ones certainly don’t, so the children either walk there or don’t go at all.

We stopped for buffalo noodle soup for lunch (rather tasty) and viewed snake & scorpion whiskey. I gave that a miss.

The next day we went kayaking. They use large, unsinkable (and rather cumbersome) plastic kayaks that will bounce down any rapids. It was a lovely paddle through beautiful scenery.

And that was my trip over. Now I’m back in Hanoi and back to work.

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There is no bike photo of the month as I didn’t see anything unusual on a bike in Laos.

Happy new year! I hope you had a good Christmas. I was at home and it was definitely worth the money to see all the family. I also got to the Peak District for a spot of walking in quite a few spots of rain...


















Walking in the rain is quite a niche activity that only seems to please a few people (in fact, I may be the only one) but being near my favourite climbing location, whatever the weather, made for a great holiday.





























We stayed in a really cosy cottage with rather low ceiling beams.

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Now, I'm not just your average expat - oh no, I'm a resident of Vietnam and now have a (temporary) Residency Permit to prove it. I had a nervous few moments at Heathrow airport however as the check-in guy hadn't seen one before. He looked at it for some time then passed it to his colleague, who looked at it for some time. They then both took it to a 3rd colleague, who looked at it for some time. My check-in guy eventually came back and said, 'OK' and I could breathe again.

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An ever-present feature of life on the streets are the xeoms. Literally 'hug bikes', these are motorbike taxis that are everywhere in Hanoi and, I suspect, other parts of Vietnam. They're a very handy way to get around town if you want them, and rather annoying if you don't. They find you before you find them. In town, you will constantly hear 'motobye?' (this is literally how it sounds) - their way of touting for business. If you want a lift you 1. Check they have a spare helmet (which might not fit); 2. Agree a price (vital) or pay way too much at your destination; 3. Get on and hold on tight - either the driver or, as I prefer, the back of the bike.

The only time you can't find one is outside work at 10pm, which is when I sometimes finish. This was one deciding factor that led to me buying a bike.

I don't know for sure, but I reckon that if you put all the xeom drivers end-to-end they would reach the moon. Well, some of them certainly try to reach speeds capable of getting you there. It's wise to hang on tight.

I can now proudly say 'I'm walking' to xeom drivers who want to give a lift. I usually point at my feet though - just to make sure they understand.

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The bread roll fiasco.

I bought a bread roll a few weeks ago. This may sound like an ordinary occurence but what followed was not. I bought it from a street vendor who was passing my front door; she charged me 5000 dong (about 15p) and I was happy with that. Well, a passing old lady was not. She saw what had happened and went ballistic - at the street vendor, not me thankfully. I stood there, bread roll in hand and jaw open while these two old ladies tore into each other (believe me, it was scary). Eventually, my champion grabbed 2000 dong from the vendor and thrust them into my hands. I'd been overcharged and she was in incensed. It turned out that she is related to my landlady and was looking after me.

She saved me 6p.

The bread roll was nice.

It happened here ...




















You'll note the metal shutters in the picture - along with bored security guards, they are everywhere in Hanoi. Surely no-one would dare shoplift as they'd have a load of security guards, desperate for action, all over them before they could escape on their getaway xeom.

I try to chat to our security guards at work at times. However, being able to say, 'My name is Graham. I'm from England. What's your name?' does not make me a particularly good conversationalist. If they go off the script and say something that I'm not expecting, I'm stumped. I look forward to the day when I can hold a simple conversation worth having (don't hold your breath).

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It's almost Tet - the Vietnamese new year - and so we had a British Council New Year Party. They have a strange custom at these parties - if you don't move fast enough, they dress you up as a tree...















I didn't win the 'tree lookalike' competition - Steve on my right got that, but was thought to be the most amusing. Can't think why...

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Bike photo of the month.
These Tet trees are everywhere at the moment; the equivalent of Christmas trees I think.

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As it's Tet I have another holiday and I'm off to Laos. I'll have a few things to write about in my next blog I'm sure.