The last month - Finger lickin good?

Four men in a boat - cyclists crossing the Red River by ferry

The last month (October, yes I’ve been here five and a half months now) has been different. I realise I’ve got into a work mentality and a lot of what was previously catching my imagination and curiosity has now become background noise.

The impact of this has been that I’ve not felt any compelling need to write any of it down, which is a shame since some of it is still fascinating (to me) and when I don’t record the little incidents they soon fade from memory.

I have settled into work and almost a routine – an eight(ish) till five(ish) day with a mix of meetings, writings and visits. Two weeks ago I had my first trip to Ho Chi Minh City. Curiously most of the locals I met call it Saigon and when I asked one up and coming young business man why that was he replied “its easier to say” no resounding political message there then.

The city is more brash than Hanoi, lifestyles appear more western. I saw fat Vietnamese people, something which is very rare in Hanoi and these were young and fat, definitely a lifestyle thing. One night as I sat in a large and noisy coffee bar having drinks with a group of young Vietnamese professionals I looked around. I was the oldest person in the place and apart from the obvious ethnicity of the people there, the behaviours could have been anywhere in the West. Vietnam is changing and contacts I’m having with young people suggest the country will be a very different place in a generation.

There’s also a lot of high rise building in Saigon, hotels and office blocks and wide boulevards which probably predate the buildings. From the backseat of a taxi it doesn’t look that much different from Hanoi, and in the time I was there most of my views were from the backseat of a taxi. One morning as we crawled along in the rush hour heading for a warehouse somewhere I was just gazing out of the window, not really present to the world, when I noticed a motorbike driving past with a box strapped on the back. Not unusual, but then I realised it was a wood frame like a rabbit hutch with chicken wire round the outside. I looked a bit closer, curious to see what was in it. The unblinking eyes of at least 20 snakes stared back, swaying in rhythm with the motorbike. All their heads raised up to cushion the bumps and presumably on their way to a restaurant somewhere.

There were many more moments like that but I forget them. I ate out in a variety of restaurants. The two which stand out were a crab restaurant where we had (small) crab salad followed by boiled (big) crab followed by fried soft shell crab – a large crab which has just shed its old shell and is caught and cooked before its new shell hardens. No messing with this critter you just eat it as it comes, shell and all. And the other memorable place was the local KFC. Yes Kentucky Fried Chicken has made it into Vietnam. The combo which comes with rice, mashed potato and onion gravy seems to be doing well… maybe they’ll introduce that in the UK? I finished up there as my minder, also from Hanoi was desperate to have a portion of KFC – a rare treat as there aren’t any in Hanoi. In Saigon they’re on every other street corner. We were met at the doors by two greeters – one for each door. Combos are the order of the day, no choice about large fries or any messing about like that. Every combo had two pieces and something plus a coke (they don’t do coffee). If you’re eating in it comes on a prison style compartmentalised plate with a real knife and fork. When you’ve finished girls come round and clear your table – Vietnamese men don’t do clearing up. In fact my minder was a bit put out by the whole concept of self service. Anyway he need not have been so desperate, by the time we got back to Hanoi two branches of the international chicken king had miraculously appeared there too. So next week I’ll be getting the treat again as the guys from work head off to try the latest western food fad to hit their town.

My hotel was actually pretty luxurious, for £24 a night I had a small suite, an office come lounge with three piece suite, desk and WiFi, and a bedroom with king-size bed and all the usual trimmings. I also had two bathrooms and four phones and so many light switches it took a while to get to bed. We inspected an alternative hotel whilst in the city spending half an hour walking from room to room with a girl with a bundle of keys so we could see what a premium deluxe looked like and then work our way down to a standard, which was a sort of windowless box filled by a bed. I’m pleased to say where we stayed was better value, its nice to get something right.

I also took the opportunity to visit Mr Thanh’s bike shop, supposedly the only place in Vietnam where you can buy a decent cycle. The taxi dropped me outside what looked like a closed up house and I found the bell and rang it. A small man with glasses answered the door and led me in past a woman who didn’t look like the happiest of people, but then not many women would like the idea of their house being filled with bikes and people wandering in and out of the bedroom to try them out. We climbed to the top of the five storey building past frames and wheels hanging off the walls and on the stairs into a large room lined with glass cabinets full of bike spares. The floor was covered in bikes and there were several in pieces. In the next room a mechanic surrounded by bits and grease was busy assembling a road racer.

Mr Thanh proudly showed me a road bike. I politely asked how much such a machine would cost, just over $1000 he replied (carbon fibre frame). I explained my budget. He shook his head and we worked our way down through the house trying different bikes until I was sitting on a very nice Italian hybrid, stylish, lightweight and with good running gear - $500. Still outside my price range especially when you added on the cost of transport to Hanoi. Sadly we parted company without a deal having been struck and I headed off to my next warehouse.

Apart from the bike buying episode the trip was a success but next time I’ll allow more time for the sights, such as the museum of war remnants which includes tanks, planes and other equipment from the conflicts with the French, Chinese and Americans. It used to be called the museum of American and Chinese War Crimes, but attitudes have mellowed these days. The population of Vietnam is so young that over half of them were not born even in the last conflict with China in the late 70’s.

Back in Hanoi I decided I could not put the bike purchase off any longer, the VSO bike I borrowed was reaching the point of needing major renovation, the remaining brake was taking longer and longer to stop me and the random gear changes were getting more frequent. I decided I had to brave the world of counterfeit brands and low quality originals. Someone from work agreed to go with me and we walked to the row of bike shops just round the corner from the office.

Now despite the fact that every one of these units had its own minder and more than one had the same bikes outside, it turned out to be one big concern. The whole lot was owned by one family. To my surprise I found a large selection of high quality mountain and road bikes. The only trouble was they were the same sort of price as those in Saigon. When I asked about hybrids they produced exactly the same brand of Italian bike I had sat on at the other end of the country!

We had a chat about budget. The guy looked stern and rubbed his chin.

Then, to remind me that you can’t get quality for nothing he produced a few awful machines, stiff brakes, gears that would not change and handlebars that felt like they were going to bend if you leaned on them. I said no yet again. By now he had the expression of a salesman who has found the customer from hell. But he persieved, or rather I spotted an almost mountain bike at the back of one of the shops. He smiled and pulled it out. It was a good price, he said, because he had bought it at the end of a trade fayre. It had front suspension, Shimano gears (18) and brakes and an aluminium frame. It was big enough for me and had a long saddle stem. Perfect. I reserved it and with the assistance of the office cleaner purchased it the next morning. 2,700,000VND or just under £90 to you AND I’ve got a 12 month written guarantee. It’s made in Taiwan, but there again so are all the Raleigh bikes you buy these days. Now I have brakes that stop me and working gears which means I can keep up with most of the motorbikes in the city.

Fate intervened that same afternoon, an email from the cycling group I’d contacted the previous month announced a ride at the weekend. Meet 6.30am Saturday morning Sofitel Plaza for a trip up the Dyke Road. Hmmm no excuses now, but I haven’t done a ride of any distance for over six months and these guys reputedly do 80-90km on a weekend trip. I took a deep breath and signed up.

Up at 5.30am on Saturday morning I had to cycle the three kilometres to the meeting point before the ride started. There were three guys at the start, all big and all German and all with the full gear, camelback waterpouches, racing helmets, lycra and, as they were all expatriates, bikes they had brought with them from Germany. They looked at my new bike with a mixture of interest and disbelief (how much?). We headed off up the dyke road weaving in and out of the traffic at a pace I could just about keep up with and collected a big Dutch guy a few miles further on. Then we ploughed on into the countryside. The dyke road soon became just that, a strip of tarmac on top a flood defence dyke. It passed through rural communities each one seeming to major in one task. One village had ponds and thousands of ducks everywhere, one was like a giant timber yard stretching for several miles and one had rice drying along the road side. I understand there’s even a noodle village where you will find house after house with sting noodles hanging, drying from the rooftops, a bit like the BBC’s spaghetti tree April fool of many years back, but not a joke here.

To make the ride into a loop it was decided to cross the Red River and some ten minutes was spent finding a ferry. Eventually we bounced down a muddy single track to the water’s edge where a sampan waited to take our dong. We ate bananas as the boat chugged across the still river and deposited us in fields on the other side. It was not yet 9am. We cycled along a wide dirt track weaving through a maze of buildings which looked like thatched barns but which were actually brick kilns. On every side bricks were stacked up, either finished and waiting for transport to Hanoi or in one of the stages of production. Everywhere women with baskets and bandanas were carrying bricks, to the kilns or from the kilns. We were subject to the Vietnamese equivalent of the building site wolf whistle more than a few times.

Eventually we found tarmac again and once again on a dyke we headed through the haze back towards the city. I’d never realised just how hazy this country is until I stood on the 17th floor of an office block in Saigon and realised I couldn’t see more than half a mile, and here at 10am on a sunny Saturday morning the view fade into a grey backdrop at about the same distance. We reached one of the big bridges crossing the river, got lost in a small village and finished up crossing some fields to reach its base and then cycle over the small “foot”bridge underneath back to the Hanoi side of the river - along with the usual collection of motorbikes, cyclos and any other vehicle which could fit through the entrance. The most exclusive housing development in Hanoi is just across the river and we were taking a short cut through it. I almost missed the turn as I was distracted by a small snake which was wriggling faster than a snake should be capable of in order to get across the road in one piece. I swerved to avoid it and then realised everyone else had gone - manhandling their bikes over the central reservation to do a quick trip the wrong way on the other side of the dual carriageway and into the complex. The entrance is like a cross between the Arc de Triumph in Paris and the arch at Hyde Park Corner and has an enormous bronze on top of a chariot pulled by a team of horses. We cycled underneath smiled at the security guard as if we lived there and pedalled into the estate along long wide boulevards void of traffic and through large areas where big houses are being built on a grid pattern at least three metres apart. This is a real departure for Vietnam!

Two more security check points later and we’re on the original route going back towards the city. We pulled into a side road and stopped at a small shop for a couple of glasses of the sugar cane drink with ice and lemon then we weaved through allotments, past the funfair and the waterpark to arrive on one of the backroads in West Lake. One by one my new friends peeled off and headed to their houses in the plush area of town until I was the only one left heading back into the city centre to do my extra kilometres to get home. Before I left the last guy he looked at his computer and told me we had ridden over 45km, my legs knew it. Pity they had all had other engagements he said, otherwise they had intended to do another 30km the other way down the river. Maybe next time. It was still morning – just – when I got home.

That was days ago and now I’ve finished writing I’m going to bed. My neighbours who provide so much of my entertainment have just added a rowing machine to the five young cats they acquired last month. The machine has displaced the cats who have been singing outside my bedroom window for the last couple of weeks. Tonight one of the men of the house is vigorously whooshing back and forth whilst one of the women sits nearby singing in time with the rowing. Its 11pm, I wonder if she does lullabies?