Jousting

I call this jousting – people carrying long things on their bikes. It’s usually building materials or ladders and you just have to keep your eyes open for fear of having your head taken off.

I came close to losing a leg when someone carrying about 20 steel bars on a ‘motorised trolley’ pulled out of a side alley, right into my path, just missing me. The chap below is doing something similar but on a much lighter scale. I didn't hang around to watch how he negotiates corners ...

You need never fear running out of fuel or getting a flat tyre in Hanoi. There is someone ready to jump out and help you on every street corner it seems. They advertise themselves with a bottle of fuel or a pump by the side of the road. I’ve never bought the fuel – no idea what is actually in the bottle – but had my tyres pumped up for about 30p the other day.

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I was invited to the wedding of my colleague Nhung and her husband, Minh. Here they are, pictured with someone’s little girl, who felt she should be in every photo.

It was lovely but there were several notable differences from a wedding in the UK. It’s complicated, to say the least.

A Vietnamese wedding includes 3 important days. The first day is when the boy’s parents come to the girl’s house and ask for the two to become a couple. They are not allowed to date before this.

The second day is like an engagement; the boy’s parents go to the girl’s house to ask if her parents agree to the marriage or not. They also have to take some gifts with them - based on requirements set down by the bride’s parents. Normally, they are tea, lotus seed, cake, fruit, wine and cigarettes. I suppose saying ‘a Ferrari’ just isn’t allowed.

The last ceremony is the wedding itself. During this event, the bride and groom don’t make vows but the parents make an announcement on their behalf that roughly translates as “these two are husband and wife now. Thanks to you all for your attendance and good wishes”.

In Vietnam (in fact, most of Asia), you are expected to get married by the time you are 30 and enormous pressure is put on young people to conform. This is reflected in the language: The common way to ask if someone if they are married translates as ‘Are you married yet?’ Nobody asks ‘Are you married?’ This is fine as long as the couple really do want to marry each other. Luckily, Nhung and Minh did. 

Everyone has a 'hometown' - this is where you were born and brought up and, for most young people, it is where their family still live. It’s common to ask ‘Where is your hometown?’ or ‘Are you going to your hometown for the holidays?’. Now, Minh’s hometown is Thanh Hoa city and Nhung is from Hanoi so they had two wedding parties (receptions). These took place several months after the actual wedding. I went to Nhung’s reception in Hanoi.  There were about 400 people present. You’re expected to invite all your friends, colleagues, parents’ friends and colleagues, relatives and assorted other folk from the neighbourhood. The room was beautifully laid out. A few words were said by the MC and the couple and someone sang a song or two, then we all ate lots of rather nice food. There’s no boogeying in Vietnamese weddings, they tend to last a couple of hours and then people begin to drift away. 

The reception in Thanh Hoa was a little bigger. I asked how many people came. It was 1,500. 1,500?!!!  As Minh’s mother has a high position, deputy director at the Ministry of Labour in Thanh Hoa city, she knows a LOT of people. It was spread over three days but still …    I tried to imagine how I would get that many to my wedding - walk out onto the street and say, ‘Excuse me, you don’t me but I’m getting married today; would you like to come?’ Being introduced to them all must be tricky for the bride and groom: ‘This is the man who sat next my mum at work 30 years ago.’, etc etc …  

Well, they’re happily married now and settled in to their new home.

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I was asked by the Customer Service team to be the voice of the British Council. ie. the voice that speaks to you when you phone. You know, “We’re sorry there is no one to take your call – please hold for 3 hours.” My apologies to everyone who phones and goes mad choosing which number they need. I did my best to speak clearly at least.

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We had an ‘Equality, Diversity and Inclusion’ week at work a while ago.  There were several events. One I took part in was a ‘Diversity lunch’ – people brought traditional dishes from various parts of the world to share. I decided to do Bangers and Mash. It was the first time I’ve seen people eating mash with chopsticks and I expect it’ll be the last.

Here are couple of happy colleagues actually about to eat my dish (sorry it’s out of focus).

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Wildlife abounds in Vietnam and I’ve seen a few unusual sights recently – 2 lizards basking on our tennis court in the morning sun and lots of frogs hopping onto the court in the early evening. The best though was the snake falling out of a tree next to where I was climbing. It hit the ground and crawled into the grass. It was only the thickness of my finger but I still wouldn’t want one landing on my head.

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I’ve heard it said that there are more coffee shops in Hanoi than any other city per head. This might be true – they’re everywhere. Anyone can open a café it seems – just open your front door and start serving. There are several different ways of serving it too. Some make no sense to me. Here’s one way – make the coffee and then put it in a bowl of warm water. The best you can hope for is tepid coffee this way. 

However, not all places do this and many provide a jolly good cup. One thing to be aware of though, is that if you ask for milk, you can expect it to be condensed milk. This surprised me the first time but I’ve grown used to it and drink rather too much at work.

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I haven’t seen any recycling bins around Hanoi. This is because there is a whole recycling industry operating around the city in the form of people collecting anything suitable and ekeing out a living from it. At home, I collect anything that I consider to be recyclable and put it into a bag outside my block of flats. It’s gone when I next look. This means that not only do I not have to sort and store my recycling, I don’t have 5 plastic bins covering half my back garden.

Recycling on an industrial scale – a one-man recycling machine   

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The walk to the climbing wall and tennis courts 

never ceases to interest me. In Manchester I’d jump in the car and jump out at Stockport. Here, I walk along my road and around the corner …

across the street …

along an alley …

 


across the main road (caution needed here) …

through the street market …

around the corner …

and I’m there.

It’s interesting every time.

 If I walk on a bit further, I reach an island on the edge of the Red River which appears to be an enormous banana plantation. The homes there look as basic as they get so I was surprised to see solar panels on top.

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It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago but not a significant one so I just had a small gathering on the balcony at my place. This is not the place for birthdays for anyone who is  rather touchy about their age – you have to add one here. So, if you think you’re 39, you’re 40. Basically, everyone starts life age 1 in Vietnam.

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Temple festivals are quite common. Here’s a procession I met just around the corner from home one day.

It’s hard to assess the nature of religion in Vietnam. It’s officially atheist but there are Buddhist shrines everywhere and a lot of Catholic churches. Ancestor worship is common too. Figures vary widely but these three appear to account for at least 80% of the country. I haven’t asked the others yet.  

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I had a brief trip to visit friends in Kuala Lumpur & Singapore a few months ago.  

Wandering the streets, I came across this group of happy graduates and thought it made a lovely photo.

The climate is similar to Hanoi’s but I displayed enormous resilience to the heat.

Singapore has some pretty amazing architecture and thunderstorms to be proud of every day. 

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OK, that’s all for now but I’ll be back soon with news of my next posting. I’m on the move …

A brief trip to Borneo

A few weeks ago I went to Borneo. My friends Andy and Kasia had left Hanoi to work there a few months before so it was a good opportunity to visit them, see the wildlife and walk up Mt. Kinabalu.

They were great hosts, not least because they were good enough to share their salt n vinegar crisps with me. That might not sound like much to you but it is when the nearest packet is 4 hours’ drive away …

Andy & Kasia have an interesting job. They also work for the British Council but their job is different to mine – they mentor Malaysian English teachers at local schools. These jobs are available all over Malaysia, some in cities and some in the middle of nowhere. Andy & Kasia live in the middle of nowhere. At first I thought they lived in Telupid. The address of Telupid is simple: Telupid, The Back of Beyond, Borneo. However, when we got there, they told me that they didn’t actually live in Telupid, that was just the nearest town. No, they lived in a village called Linayukan, about 15 minutes’ drive away. The address is Linayukan, Beyond the Back of Beyond, Borneo.

The job comes with a company car. This is because they have to travel to each school, often quite a way. Once a week, Andy has the best commute in the world – he has a 16km off-road drive to a village school in the jungle. I was itching to have a go at the drive – you pay a load for 4x4 driving experiences in the UK - so he drove me to the start of the track and in I jumped. It reminded me of whitewater kayaking – keep right here, mind that rock there, go around the big hole etc etc … You can’t take your eye off the road (well, bumpy track) for a moment and the few times I made the mistake of thinking I could move up to 3^rd gear I very quickly realised my mistake and it was back to 2^nd. On a good day, it takes over an hour. On a bad day, the road is impassable and he can’t go to work.

The local children are very curious of course. They often come up to the house to see what's going on. They were very good at saying 'Good morning’ and said it over and over, despite the fact that it was afternoon. After a short while ‘chatting’ I went for a walk with them around the village. Well, not exactly walk; we hopped, ran, jumped and skipped until I was too hot to continue. 

 The most noticeable thing about this area, and in fact everywhere I went, is that everyone smiles.

  

Over a few days we visited the orangutan centre,

the sun bear centre (the smallest bears in the world)

 and the probiscus monkeys centre.

You can only see these in the wild in Borneo so it was a real treat. They were everywhere – about 30 in all – and a few of the males got very excited when the food arrived (that often happens to me too), thumping across the wooden walkway and causing a huge commotion. It was best to just get out of their way.

Pitcher plants and other exotic flowers were common too.

 

At the end of my stay with them, Andy & Kasia dropped me at a hotel next to Mt. Kinabalu, the highest mountain in this part of Asia. I’d been itching to walk up it since I had hatched the plan to visit Borneo. I had also heard of the ‘Low’s Peak Circuit’ – billed as the highest via ferrata in the world. I had to have a go at that.

The walk up on day 1 was a steep 5 hour trek to a hut, where we stayed the night.

From the hut we could see a white line snaking across the face of the mountain.

This was the line of the via ferrata we would follow the next day.

The next morning started at 2am. We were out by 2.30am, trying to get to the top for the sunrise. Parts of the sections were roped. You just followed the line, which was all you could see in the torchlight. 

To get down, I followed the via ferrata. Basically, a via ferrata is a series of metal steps in the side of the mountain with a steel cable running beside them. All you have to do is use the steps and clip yourself to the cable. It’s a lot safer than rock climbing and a whole lot of fun.

 

   

Back at the hut, we had a ‘second breakfast’ and then a walk back down to the bottom. All in, a 15 hour day for me. To say I was a bit tired is a wee understatement.

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I had a few days back in the main city, Kota Kinabalu, before flying home. I came across some interesting signs.

the smelliest fruit in the world

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A few months ago I went to Hue, the old capital. I went there to run a teacher training course for REACH, my favourite Vietnamese charity. You can find details of their work here: www.reach.org.vn     Basically, REACH trains young (typically 20-somethings) disadvantaged people who have little chance of a job. Over 5-6 months they give them a skill to equip them to get a job. At the end of the course many of them find work in local hotels, shops, hairdressing salons and so on. As many of them may well come into contact with foreign customers, most of the courses also have English lessons. That’s where I come in – I have helped them over the last few years, first mentoring their teachers and then helping to develop each English curriculum.

The training course was the second 3-day training that I had run. The first had been a few months before and had focused on the teachers’ teaching skills. This one was partly about helping the teachers to reflect on their own teaching practice but most of the time was spent on curriculum design. They had a new course in mind: Body care and make-up.   The students on this course would be looking to get jobs in beauty salons and spas, possibly in some of the best hotels in Hanoi. I looked at this course title: Body care and make-up?!!!  How can I help with that – what I know about this can be written on the back of a postage stamp. I tried to write a list of useful vocabulary … lipstick … mascara … err … eyeliner … OK, that had exhausted everything I wear on a Saturday night (joke). I was running out of ideas.

Luckily, the teachers who had proposed the course had done a lot of thinking. They had plenty of language in mind. Our course had to give the students enough basic and specific language to deal with simple exchanges in this context. My job was to guide the teachers to finding the most relevant language and which order to teach it in. By the end of the course, we had a curriculum we were pleased with.

I know, I know, me and a group of women. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it.

When the course was over I had a couple of days spare to have a look around Hue and the surrounding area …

lunch

 

the teenagers have a lot of fun here

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I continue to have experiences in Vietnam that I’ve never had before. The other day it happened again. I was waiting to catch the lift at work – our offices are on the 12^th floor (the top) of a hotel but the classrooms are on the ground floor. Three of us waited a while for a lift – there was obviously a big group in the hotel that day. When it did arrive it was full – full of Vietnamese folk who I guessed were from the provinces. They had probably never been in a lift before and were either enjoying the ride or quite simply didn’t know when to get out. We couldn’t get in so we let them go down again. The other lift didn’t arrive so we waited for the same one to come back. It finally did – full of the same people. I don’t know who was most surprised – us or them. We all just looked at each other. I decided that maybe I could guide them to their destination so I jumped in. The ‘Overload’ light immediately lit up so I had to jump out again and left them to their fate. The other lift arrived and we jumped in.

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It's finally happened - I need glasses. I went to Specsavers of course (the advert persuaded me) and got a prescription for reading glasses but decided to wait until I got back to Hanoi to buy them. The opticians here look like any you might find in the UK and they have a huge range of frames. I found a pair I liked: 'They look like a nice Japan design' I thought. I was right - it says so on the frame!

I had a nervous moment when I thought the lady might be reading the prescription incorrectly - it said 2½ but I was sure she was saying just 2. The half must count for something, surely? Anyway, with the glasses they gave me I can read much better so I suppose all is well ...

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Every year we have the staff Tet/Christmas party. At previous events the teachers sang Christmas Carols so this year I hit on the idea of us doing a panto. I suspected that it would be one of the first pantomimes ever to have been performed in Hanoi, or maybe even Vietnam. I wrote a script for Jack & The Beanstalk and then went looking for some mugs volunteers to perform in it. Rehearsals were hard to arrange as we all work at different times but we managed a few and things slowly came together. Far more creative folk than me came up with ideas for costumes and props. News got around the office that we were preparing a pantomime. The Vietnamese staff had never heard of this. ‘Is it like a mime?’ one asked. ‘Actually, the complete opposite.’ was the best answer I could think of. Another colleague described it as a ‘rather inappropriate play’. Well, we didn’t include the inappropriate innuendo but had to have the usual: panto cow, ‘oh yes he did/oh no he didn’t’ bits of course.

If you really have nothing better to do you could have a bit of a laugh for 15 mins by watching it here:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDMKoC35PlI

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Bike photos of the month

lending a helping foot

excuse the finger - this one had to be taken on the move - didn't want to miss it!

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Although I’m going to continue writing it, I’m going to make this the last blog that I email out. I hope you’d like to continue reading it. If you do, please either become a ‘follower’ or paste the link  gratravel.blogspot.com into your browser from time to time. And don’t forget to write back – I love hearing from friends and family!