Summer in Hanoi

As the weather warms up the cockroaches and rats have started to wander around more. It’s quite common to see a rat – often at restaurants if they have an outside area (and sometimes inside too …). I’m getting used to cockroaches though. I don’t consider any of them to be personal friends, but they worry me less than they used to.

As I was in the kitchen at work the other day, getting my sandwiches, I came across a Vietnamese colleague preparing her lunch – rice & maggots. She said they’re very tasty. I must try them one day in the (very distant) future. 

It gets very crowded in the kitchen around lunchtime as it’s rather small and the Vietnamese staff bring in their lunch in Tupperware boxes and stick them in the microwave. The expat staff usually order something from the local sandwich shops. I mix it up with a few of my own sandwiches (not so good), the local sandwich shops (much better) or the cafe at work.

I went for a meal at one of the local street cafes the other night - one of those places that physically drag the customers in (see last blog). I ordered fried chicken. It duly arrived and I started on a piece of unidentifiable chicken covered in batter (using my chopsticks rather expertly I think!!). I couldn't find any meat on it though and was biting for a while. It was only when the eyeball popped out that I realised what I was trying to eat ...

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I decided that, as I was living in Vietnam, it made sense to learn to dive so I nipped off to Nha Trang in April, one of the best sites, and did my ‘Open Water Diver’ qualification. I had a great time – one morning in the pool followed by two out at sea. The instructor set me a range of tricky tasks which included taking my mask off at 7m down and then putting it back on and clearing it. The worst one was the ascent to the surface without your air supply – easy, just make sure you keep breathing out all the way (which is not instinctive I can tell you). I only just made it to the surface without breathing. If I had breathed, I'd have had to do it again.

They start young these days.

We finished with a dive to 18m - the deepest you can go with this qualification. There wasn't much there at our location and all I could think of was that it was a long way to the surface if I needed to get there in a hurry. Well I didn't and now look forward to the next diving trip. Vietnam has a lot of rather nice locations...

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Vietnamese words are extremely short – the longest word that I have seen has seven letters but most have six letters or fewer. Many words are clipped at the end so some letters aren’t pronounced. So, when you say Hanoi you say the whole word but it is actually spelled Hà Nội. and the dot is an accent which tells the speaker to stop. You just don’t get to the end of the word. That’s fine but Vietnamese apply the same rule to English, which is a shame, because it just doesn’t work. The Xe Om drivers say ‘You wan motobye?’ as they have not pronounced some letters. This causes more than a few difficulties when teaching as the students have all sorts of trouble pronouncing words. Some English sounds just don’t exist in Vietnamese so they have never said them and they habitually drop sounds off the end of words, even if they can pronounce them. It makes for entertaining lessons...

In an effort to improve my speaking I have made friends with Duc, a retired Vietnamese chap who wants to brush up his English. He invited Luyen along (who is at my linguistic level) and we have a chat in a local cafe most weeks.

Being much better than the two of us, Duc leads the proceedings and tells us what he wants us to say: "Graham, ask Luyen what he had for breakfast." I then cobble together a few words and quickly get corrected (or sometimes get it right!). Luyen will then ask me something in English and so on ... If I can keep this up, I should see some improvement.

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I couldn’t stand it any longer – I had to walk up a mountain. It was easy enough to choose one – Fansipan (or Phan Xi Pang) is, at 3143m, the highest peak in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia) and it’s well set up for tourists. It requires an overnight journey on a train to get near however. Guess what? The beds aren’t long enough. I arrived at a nearby town at 5am and wasn’t at my best. I’d arranged to be picked up by a minibus though and finally got to a small hotel in Sa Pa, the hub of the tourism industry in the mountains northwest of Hanoi. 

After breakfast I met my guide, we packed our bags and then set off. The first thing Cuong, my guide did, was cut me a walking pole. He assured me I'd need it, especially as the conditions were really wet and muddy. I wasn't convinced but went along with it. Out came the machete and a bamboo walking pole was duly produced in minutes. It turned out he was right - it was really handy on the very steep muddy tracks.

Then it was time to set off. Well, I soon discovered that this was going to be tough. Sleep deprived, and being guided by a mountain goat (he's been up this mountain about 100 times), I had a spot of trouble keeping up. I used to do this sort of thing a lot but not recently so I've lost the edge I fear.

It took us (well, me) 5 hours to get to our luxury accommodation at 2,800m...

The route took us along mountain trails and through forests. The views weren't that great but I was happy enough. I've grown fond of clouds over the years.

Our hut seemed spacious until the next group arrived - about 30 rather chatty Vietnamese walkers + one Aussie. They were in bed by 7.30pm but woke up at 4.30am to start walking again. There was no chance of sleep so we were up soon after and on the track by 6.30am. Another two hours of up followed, often scrambling over rocks. I had now had two bad nights so it was getting tough. We reached the top by about 9am and were greeted by wonderful views (if you like mist).

 It was then a six hour walk back to the starting point. I'd had enough by the time we got there. I slept well on the train back home.

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There are lots of sights in Hanoi. I'm working my way through them one by one. This is the 'Hanoi Hilton'.

Not to be confused with the rather plush hotel of the same name, the 'Hanoi Hilton' was a prison, first for the Vietnamese when the country was occupied by the French, and then for American pilots in the 60s and 70s. Obviously, they were treated well enough to keep their sense of humour as they gave it its name. The Vietnamese prisoners had not been as lucky ...

One photo that interested me was this one, of John McCain, later to become Senator McCain and to run for the Presidency, being fished out of my local lake, having been shot down. Years later, he returned to Hanoi on much better terms.

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As you can imagine, The British Council, being the cultural arm of the government, is really pushing the Olympics.  There is a countdown to the start that involves posters with the number of days to go (designed by students) being displayed on the website (http://www.britishcouncil.org/vietnam.htm).

The boss wanted a suitably exciting photo for the last day. I had a think and came up with an abseil of course. Initially, I had just envisioned a simple abseil off of the 12th floor, holding a small banner. However, I then thought it would be nice if the staff could have a go. We ended up with what I think is probably the first corporate abseil in Vietnam. 23 staff abseiled about 50m down the wall and they had a great time.  

The marketing department decided to create a huge banner about 10m long, so that was hung from the balcony and a couple of posters were made for me to hold. I assume the photo will be on the website on Friday. 

A TV crew turned up to film us. You can watch the 3 minute feature at:
 http://media.vtv.vn/Media/Get/The-thao-sang---25072012-71eda497c3.html



The same gang that organised the abseil also had a climbing afternoon at someone's house last weekend. It made a change ...

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We're into the last week at school and so we have laid on special events for the students. They're taking place at our new satellite school on the outskirts of town. Our classes are in an existing school which has been designed around a central atrium that has a clear plastic roof. This roof acts a bit like a greenhouse. A greenhouse in Vietnam - can you imagine it? I think my body temperature hit 40C today. I'm back there for more tomorrow. 

If I survive, I'm flying home on Sunday and I'm really looking forward to getting home for a bit. I've now completed one year, feel like I've got the hang of Hanoi, and will be back for more in August ...

Bike photo of the month ...

The ice bike

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 ...