Return of the German

Early December in the little Bia Hoi. The guy on the far right is a retired colonel from the Vietnamese Army

The weekend after New Year was relatively quiet and we decided to go see the new Bond movie at the pictures in Vincom Towers. Vincom’s a modern shopping mall with four floors of shops, a cinema complex and then two towers of offices rising to 21 floors. The lift system is something of a mystery. To get to the offices you enter via one side of the building where there are two sets of three lifts. One set is signed as being for the even floors and one set as being for the odd numbered floors.

I will mention at this stage (though it has nothing to do with this story) that the Vietnamese word for “odd” as in “odd numbers” is the same word for “extension” as in telephone extension. So the English versions of many Vietnamese business cards have the business telephone number and then the words “odd number” 108 or whatever. The first time I saw this I said “but 108 isn’t an odd number” “Yes it is” said my interpreter. There followed several minutes of confusion before yet another double meaning was understood by both sides.

Despite the signage on the lifts they all appear to go to all floors, but late in the afternoon when everyone is supposed to be going home they will not go up. I stood on the 14th floor wanting to go to the 21st floor but no upward going lift would stop. They went straight from ground to 21st and then worked their way down stopping to collect people wanting to go home. We tried every combination of buttons we could think of but in the end we had to walk the seven flights of stairs. Once again I arrived at the top to find none of my Vietnamese colleagues capable of speaking. They spend too much time on motorbikes.

The lifts in the shopping complex are straightforward and not excessively used since there are escalators, but reaching the cinema on the 6th floor is more of a challenge, if you don’t know how.

The cinema is signed off the street, at the opposite end of the building to the offices entrance there is a little doorway which looks like a fire exit with the cinema sign above it and which leads onto a staircase which is actually a fire escape. Climb these metal stairs for six floors and you arrive in the corner of the cinema suite, the opposite corner to where the ticket desks are. There are also a couple of lifts (which I have yet to find) which make this journey less exhausting for the Vietnamese. This does not seem like enough access for a multi-screen complex and the secret is back on the top floor of the shopping complex. Unsigned and hidden in the back corners of the fourth floor, near the toilets, there are two sets of lifts which just go between the fourth floor and the sixth floor. It’s as if they don’t want anyone to see the movies. Despite all this the cinema was well attended and we enjoyed Casino Royale, even though we were on the front row next to the sound system – must remember to buy tickets in advance next time.

By Wednesday I could hear again and it was time for our language lesson. This time Derek had come up with the idea we should have the class in a restaurant and learn more about food. Teacher was delighted, and promised us he would not have lunch to make sure he was really hungry. We had intended to go to the big Van Ho Bia Hoi, but then thought better of it as all the seating is outside and it is still relatively cold at the minute. After a little debate I suggested we went to the restaurant at the end of the road, otherwise known as the restaurant with no food. We went there once before when we accidentally found it just inside the exhibition centre near the local supermarket. On that occasion it was empty and the staff outnumbered us three to one.

We trouped back there, five students and one teacher. Outside the door he helped us to translate the signs. It’s called ‘Countryside’ and that is the type of cuisine it claims to offer. It also caters for parties, weddings and special events. We went in. It was empty. A girl greeted us and showed us to the same table we occupied last time. She chatted to our teacher and he translated. She remembered us from before and was glad we had come again. She then told him what we had to eat last time, which sort of confirmed my view that they don’t get many customers since our last visit was over three months ago.

The menu in this place is long and extensive and we spent half an hour just practicing pronunciation and translating – it’s important to understand all the words for intestines if you want a pleasant dining experience.

Then we started to order, and as before the majority of the menu was off. They didn’t have 95% of the salads listed and only one of the beef dishes, and so it went on. Whole pages of the menu were not available today. We couldn’t have prawns because they were too expensive – said the waitress. When one of the group insisted on having snails the waitress looked at the ceiling and sighed, after which she said she would have to give us a discount on the minimum quantity as they were so expensive. None of these goings on seemed unusual to our teacher who at one point commented that the crab and vegetable soup I had tried to order was only available at lunchtimes – everyone in Vietnam knows that (apparently). Eventually we found enough to constitute a meal which we all enjoyed. Afterwards we were asked if we would like dessert, even though they didn’t have any. They would send out for it. We had green bean ice cream and green tea.

By pre-arrangement one of the women paid for the whole meal, this was our attempt to disconcert our teacher who had once given us a definition of a real man as “smokes, drinks and pays for the food”. He didn’t look too disconcerted, but then he has given up smoking recently.

We walked back slowly, trying to explain all our different leaving dates in Vietnamese – it’s hard to believe that the first of the volunteers I came out with will leave Vietnam in just over two months. As we sauntered past the little Bia Hoi the owner leapt out and called us in. Teacher made his excuses and set off home whilst the rest of us tried to explain we could not come to the Bia Hoi party at Tet. We drank beer and discussed many things few of which were understood. A Western couple walked past and were also called in and greeted like lost family. We were all seated together and began a light conversation in which it transpired they were Germans and lived not far from our house. Derek thought he recognised the man’s voice and similar thoughts were going through my mind, but he said he had only been here three weeks, so our theory seemed disproved before it got started. We drank, toasted and passed the time of day.

After a few more glasses he began to tell me about his love of dogs and about how he got quite angry that when he walked his dog the locals criticised him for not having it muzzled. “They don’t muzzle their dogs and at least mine is trained to behave” he warmed to his theme about double standards and how they put his back up. Then he said “I try to stay calm, but when I was here on holiday in September I really lost it, there was a dog which barked all night long. I totally lost my cool and took an iron bar to their gate”. At this point we all looked at each other and I said “IT WAS YOU! You’re THE German!” (see “Why more people should eat dog”)

I explained about the blog and our memories of the night he impersonated the Rank Gong. He laughed and his wife looked somewhat like she wanted to disown that particular episode of life. I don’t know what he is called yet, but I’ll probably find out tonight as the Bia Hoi owner thought we were getting on so well he’s invited us all round for dinner. Better not miss this one!

On Thursday evening I flew down to Saigon (HCMC). The complexity of design of the Vincom lifts plus my experiences at the two airports made me think in general about how the Vietnamese design things.

At the airports there are no consistent security procedures, at Hanoi my bag was scanned once and my passport checked twice, at HCMC the bag was scanned twice my passport checked three times and my ticket four times – its different every trip. The airports look like they could be anywhere in the world, modern with curved metal and glass roofs, polished floors, security guards and opulent business class lounges but the processes are distinctly Vietnamese.

I sat in the only comfy seats available to economy class passengers in one of the domestic departure lounges at Hanoi (there are two domestic departure lounges at opposite ends of the airport building – check the gate number before you follow the signs). I read my book feeling I was being watched. I was, firstly by the catering staff who insisted I had to buy something to sit in a comfy chair and secondly by a medium sized rat sitting in a large Chinese vase containing an artificial plant and munching on a previous traveller’s leftovers.

Once through the gate and out onto the tarmac we could see the plane less than fifty yards away, but we got on a bus to do a kilometre circuit round it. As the bus stopped by the plane all the people with seats at the front ran up the back stairs and visa versa, with the inevitable but apparently unforeseen consequences. Then we sat on the tarmac with no announcements until the plane finally pushed back half an hour late. There are hourly flights between Hanoi and HCMC and it can get confusing since a majority are late – the five o’clock flight that day left at the same time as the six o’clock, delays of four hours on a two hour flight are not uncommon, so it is possible to take a later flight and arrive before the earlier flight.

In HCMC the airport has been carefully designed to make the locals feel at home with built in congestion. Careful scheduling is also used to aid the process. When we arrived ours was the only plane disembarking and there was only one plane loading – but we were both in the same place. The corridor system from the gate lounges to the tarmac is shared. Getting on a plane you go out of the first floor gate lounge, along the corridor, down the stairs and across the tarmac. Getting off you go up the tunnel to the (same) first floor corridor and then down the (same) stairs into baggage reclaim. So we stood at the end of the corridor with Vietnam Airlines staff forming a wall in front of us whilst the departing passengers filled the corridor and stairs. Fifteen minutes later we had use of the corridor and stairs. There’s a flight of stairs for every two gates, I could see at least two more (empty) from where we were waiting, but there’s no way past the embarking passengers to reach them. Having only hand luggage I headed out to my next challenge – the taxis.

I think my main issue with taxis is communication. I’m not aware of being ripped off by those who drive you round the city ten times before they finally head for your hotel, nor those who try to haggle a fare which will be more than the meter (at Hanoi Airport it is the other way round – the meter will cost you more than the fixed prices on offer). However I never really manage to make myself completely understood. My taxi to the airport had driven straight past the pick up point, phoned me twice and rabbitted on in Vietnamese despite my pleas that I didn’t understand. He also insisted on conversing with me all the way to the airport. Nice guy but I hardly understood any of it and he didn’t seem too impressed with my answers to his questions either. It was the same in HCMC. The guy wanted to talk and I had the added disadvantage of the southern dialect to cope with. My brain hurt by the time he pulled up outside the hotel, I tipped him (he was friendly after all) which prompted him to jump out of the taxi and lead me across the road like I was a pensioner (oops, that’s true), hug me like a long lost lover and then walk backwards across the road to his taxi waving to me. When I went back to the airport it was a slow and gentle journey in a Lada which didn’t give the impression it could do much more than five miles an hour and the driver was silent so opportunities for miscommunication were limited.

My experiences have made me more attuned and sympathetic to those who have to communicate in a second language with someone who is also using a second language. I had a good example on the plane back. There were a group of Russians opposite me, two of them looked like retired shot putters who had put on a bit of weight and they spilled out of their seats threatening to crush the tiny Vietnamese woman sitting by them. As soon as the plane was in the air the young woman shot into the galley and a slightly hysterical conversation could be heard. She returned with a look of relief and a big smile. Picking up her things she turned to the Russians and said “You need all three seats, I go now” and was lead off to a free seat by the stewardess. The Russians took no offence and duly put up the seat arms and spread out. A little later dinner arrived and the stewardess asked “do you want pork with rice or beef with noodles?” “I will have the fish” replied one of the Russians.

That was no better than my last taxi ride of the day, from Hanoi airport back home. I went to the firm which offers fixed rates and was put into a seven seater taxi with a fixed price of $10. This usually causes a problem because our house is at the far end of town. As soon as I explained where I lived (I don’t expect the drivers to know where the road is anymore) the driver began to rant about how far it was and $10 was not a fair fare. He phoned his office who told him to shut up and get on with it after which he continued to chunter under his breath and shake his head a lot. I have some sympathy for these guys as it is further than the hotel district on which the prices are based. So after a while I said to him, in my best Vietnamese, “Ok, I’ll pay you 180,000 dong”, which is heading for $12. He immediately went into a rant, banging on the dash board and shouting “No No No ten do-lar ten do-lar” I can only assume he thought I was trying to get the price down even further. I tried again with equal success so in despair I left it. He muttered under his breath for the next ten miles and then engaged me in a conversation about how long I’d been in Vietnam. When I got out I gave him the 180,000 and all of a sudden we were bosom buddies again. I hate to think what would happen if I ever had to converse with a Thai or Cambodian using Vietnamese as a common language. Its just lucky for me my first language is English.

Meetings - what meetings!

We arrive about 15 minutes late. The receptionist looks confused - she was not expecting us and then shows us to a small but functional conference room. The four of us sit down. A woman enters, nods a greeting and sits down. The receptionist returns with some bottles of water and glasses followed by another woman carrying the same. Both leave then the second woman returns with more glasses. She goes again. We sit in silence, the seated woman looks at her hands.

Ten minutes pass and a man arrives, he shakes hands with us all and takes a seat opposite. A few words are exchanged and he rises and leaves the room. A further ten minutes pass in silence and two more women arrive and sit at the end of the room with the first woman. The one wearing glasses immediately gets up again and leaves the room. Another ten minutes and the man returns, more words are exchanged then we wait in silence. It is now fifty minutes after the meeting start time.

The woman with glasses returns and a brief discussion takes place after which one of the other women leaves and returns five minutes later with a second man who sits opposite us. Another woman follows him in a few minutes later and sits away from the table, despite there being many seats.

A discussion has started, but the first man is not engaged, he is underlining sentences in a document. He finishes and leaves the room again, as he does so he tells the woman seated away from the table to come to the table, she does so and takes his seat.

Its now one hour after the meeting start time and we appear to be getting down to business when the woman with glasses leaves again, apparently to get something, and we sit in silence again. She returns with a ledger. Five minutes later the man returns and moves the other woman out of his seat, the woman with glasses leaves the room again and the man talks for five minutes after which another new woman enters the room and sits down, followed a few minutes later by the woman with glasses. The new woman is wearing a face mask and a blue hairnet, she looks like someone who does things and she appears to be the person who knows because she talks almost continuously, answering questions and emphasising points. The first man leaves the room again and the second man follows a few minutes later when his mobile starts ringing. Its now an hour and a quarter after the meeting start time and it feels like progress is starting to be made, though one woman appears to be asleep. The woman with the face mask is reading from the ledger using the glasses of the woman who was wearing glasses, she has her eyes screwed up also trying to read the ledger. The woman with the face mask begins to talk animatedly, the woman who was wearing glasses reclaims her glasses and the woman with the face mask, clearly emotional, gets out a tissue and begins to dab her eyes.

After an hour and a half the group has come alive and everyone is talking over one another. At one hour forty-five after the start time the first man returns to hear the outcomes of the discussion and the meeting closes.

That situation is not made up, it really happened and it is not untypical of meetings in Vietnam. In eight months I’ve only been to one or two which actually started on time, 15 minutes late is pretty good, many start half an hour late. Comings and goings are also normal as is answering your phone. More often than not people answer their mobiles at the table. At one meeting recently I counted - literally half the people in the room were on their phones at the same time. Some cover their mouth with their hand so they can talk louder, others bend over and shout under the table. The most amusing example though was the guy doing simultaneous translation at a big meeting. We were all sitting with our headphones listening to him translating a Vietnamese speaker when his phone rang. He answered it without turning his microphone off and treated the English speaking part of the audience to a Vietnamese telephone conversation whilst the speaker carried on oblivious. We’ll never know what we missed, or what we heard for that matter.

The fact is meeting culture is not the same here, big events are organised at very short notice so preparation is inevitably poor and late start plus overrunning is normal, partly due to the fact that any official meeting always has speeches to open it and close it, sometimes the speeches go on for a long time. There’s a general rule that the more important the meeting the longer the speeches and the more people who make speeches. Maybe that’s why so many people are late for meetings. It’s the vicious circle – the speeches can’t start because the people have not arrived and the people have not arrived because they don’t want to listen to the speeches.

At the other end of the day most people leave early, so it’s tough if you’re at the end of the agenda. That’s happened to me twice – in both cases groups of 25 to 30 people had shrunk to 10 or less before we got to the last items on the agenda. Shrinkage is exaggerated by the 2 to 3 hour lunch breaks which accompany full day meetings organised by the Vietnamese. This is to allow people to rest or go home and eat with the family. What actually happens is that most people stop for any lunch which might be on offer and then, faced with maybe two hours to fill, they decide it would be better to go back to work. On full day meetings afternoon sessions are always significantly less well attended than morning sessions.

I’m not sure I’ll get used to it, I still turn my phone off when I go into a meeting and I still try to be there for the official start time, but then I miss stuff when I get distracted by observing the antics of latecomers, people answering phones and people sneaking off.

Rules of the Road

There is nothing which cannot be carried on a motorbike

I thought it might be useful to others if I wrote down the traffic rules which actually apply in Vietnam, since no one else appears to have done so.
When I look for some kind of logic in this I can only think that it is based on a bastardised version of French road rules, handed down from generation to generation and complimented by a few ideas from places like New Zealand which have been completely misinterpreted in implementation.

Anyway, this is my understanding after seven months of experience.

Rule number one – never stop
If you stop, even in the middle of a junction, everyone will assume you have parked and treat you as such. You will never get started again. Hence everyone teeters along at standing pace rather than put their feet on the floor and give the impression of being stationary. Cars cannot always achieve this, there’s a limit to the space a car can crawl into and the use of brakes is justification to motorcyclists to drive round the car, block it in on every side and generally cause gridlock.

Rule number two – never give way
If you give way to anyone, even if it’s because you have no where to go and by not giving way you will cause gridlock, then you should still not give way. If you give way penalties outlined in rule number one will be applied.

Rule number three – if you see a space fill it
If you do not drive into an apparent space on the road then someone else will. Filling any available space also increases the chances you will comply with rules one and two. You should weave from space to space even if it means you are going away from your intended direction of travel. You will eventually cause gridlock, but that’s ok because everyone else will be in the same position by then.

Rule number four – sound your horn whenever possible
This ensures the roads in Vietnam are very noisy. It also creates a deaf culture where ambulances and fire engines are ignored by other road users. Some road users try to gain an advantage by fitting a horn from another vehicle to their vehicle. So a moped driver tries to fool everybody by fitting the horn from a bus (a vehicle feared by many motorcyclists). This is actually illegal, there is a prescribed horn for each size and type of vehicle (generally deeper and louder the bigger the vehicle) but it doesn’t stop people fitting sirens and all sorts to their motorbikes. However, everyone knows this, so the result is rule number five.

Rule number five – ignore anyone who sounds their horn
The only exceptions to this are the police who have a unique and distinctive siren which everyone respects and who habitually confiscate the motorbikes of people who ignore them.

Rule number six – never look behind or to the sides
If you do you will become mortally afraid, and in any case you have as much as your senses can cope with avoiding what is in front of you. If only some of THEM actually looked before THEY backed the motorbike out into the junction, or changed lane without signalling then you might have time to think about signalling or looking behind. But that will never happen.

Rule number seven – never use your indicators or lights
Using lights wears out the bulbs, in some cases the bulbs wore out long ago and replacement costs are to be avoided, save that money for important things like putting more air in your bald and permanently leaking tyres. And if you used your indicators people would know where you were going, and that would take the fun out of driving. Occasionally it is ok to put your indicators on providing you are a) not turning at all, or b) turning in the opposite direction to the indicator.

Rule number eight – always take the opposite lane to the direction in which you are turning
This could have arisen from somewhere like New Zealand, where one of the weird rules of the road is that you should pull onto the hard shoulder before making a turn across the traffic. The idea is that you don’t disrupt the flow by sitting in the middle of the road and you can successfully make your turn when the traffic in both directions has cleared. This sort of thing will never work in Vietnam where rules one to seven apply. The end result is that diligent motorists pull into the kerb then (without stopping) swing slowly out to cross both lanes of traffic at right angles and complete their turn. There are some junctions which are actually marked up with arrows which imply UK style rules apply, if you’re turning right get in the right hand lane, if left get in the left hand lane, if straight on the middle lane. This leads to rule number nine.

Rule number nine – ignore all lane markings, traffic signs and traffic signals
And I mean ALL lane markings and traffic signs. The only white line which motorists comply with in Vietnam is one foot wide, three feet high and made of concrete. This creates a number of rules for pedestrians as well, particularly about what you can expect in a one way street, but that’s for another time. After seven months there is no known traffic regulation in the universe which I have not seen violated in Hanoi. Wrong way down one way streets, round roundabouts, down dual carriageways – its all normal, partly facilitated by rule number ten.

Rule number ten – always take the shortest route from A to B
This extends to going round corners. There is a right angle bend in the road not far from where we live. All the traffic which should have to go round the long side of the corner simply cuts the corner whilst the traffic which should be on that side of the road has nowhere else to go but through the traffic coming towards them on the wrong side of the road. So at the apex of the bend there is a piece of unworn, unused tarmac whilst at the inside of the corner there are two streams of traffic, head to head fighting it out to see who will be the first to break rule number two. Whilst rule ten largely explains the origin of rule nine, rule eleven provides a complete justification.

Rule number eleven – always assume you have right of way
This is a big enabler of rules one, two, five, nine and ten. Part of this possibly comes from the old French road rule of priority to the right, which was responsible for Paris having the highest rate of rear end shunts in Europe. Certainly everyone coming out of a side road into a main road applies rules number six and eleven. Only today I passed a tee junction where three motorcyclists, each coming from a separate leg of the tee had religiously applied rule number eleven. The result was three mangled motorbikes sitting head to head in the middle of the junction. Other motorists were behaving as if these bikes had broken rule number one, this relieves the police of any need to cordon off accidents or set up diversions – which would be pointless anyway since rule number nine would apply if they did.

Rule number twelve – the policeman is always right
And if he stops you then you did something wrong, even if you didn’t (which is unlikely). When he stops you it will cost you. If there are two or more police you might get a ticket and an official fine. If its one policeman the chances are you will have the opportunity to contribute to his personal benevolent fund. Hence;

Rule number thirteen – avoid the police at all costs
This rule is followed in extremis. I’ve seen drivers go at half the official speed limit because they heard there was a speed trap in the area. I’ve seen drivers do suicidal U turns in the middle of busy junctions because they could see a police check point on the other side of the junction. I’ve seen taxi drivers drive an extra block rather than make a turn at a corner where a policeman was standing and I’ve seen the miserable near to tears expressions of those who have just had their motorbike confiscated – something which is done on the spot for tax or insurance violations, of which there are many.

The police are unpredictable. I’ve watched them ignore all violations as they lean on trees at street corners. I’ve seen checkpoints in the middle of roads which caused more congestion than anything else going on and I’ve seen a policeman running diagonally across the traffic, like a lioness singling out one zebra to catch in a stampede. He planted his baton on the front of one motorbike which swerved and skidded to a stop. I have no idea what that guy did which no one else had done – so may be I still have more rules to learn. In the meantime if you’re planning to drive in Hanoi – take a taxi.

Tyhoons from China and Tornado's from Nottingham

Fiona in her finest on xe om heading for a night out

I’m writing this three full weeks after Fiona went home. It doesn’t seem that long but that’s another example of just how time seems to fly by. Christmas has gone and tomorrow night is New Year’s Eve, then its 2007 – can you remember celebrating New Year’s Eve 1999?

Her visit was just like our trip in 2005– a blur of activity with little breathing space, lots of new places, tastes and smells (most of them pleasant) and plenty of exercise (you can see the photo’s on Flickr) and yes, she's the tornado.

She arrived on Saturday 25th of November and I took the bus to the Airport to meet her. This is a two bus journey and the number 7 which does the airport leg is a more expensive bus so the total journey costs a staggering 26 pence. It can take a long time – I was advised to allow one and three-quarter hours – but on this day everything went very smoothly. I walked through the village to the bus stop turned round and there was a bus. The first journey took exactly the time I was told it would and when I changed buses the number 7 was waiting behind the bus I got off. It was good advice to change before Kim Ma bus station for as the bus pulled in and the doors opened a flood of people ran on, pushing and shoving to get the remaining seats before the long journey out to NoiBai. As it left Kim Ma the bus was packed. Once again the journey was smooth and I found myself in the arrivals lounge just over an hour after leaving the house, and well before Fiona’s plane was due.

I sat in the coffee bar having a snack, watching everyone sitting smoking under the no smoking signs (and using the ashtrays provided) and glued to the tv where an Eddie Murphy movie was showing. The movie was in English but the voice soundtrack was faded almost to nothing. A single woman’s voice dubbed all the different actor’s lines into Vietnamese.

The plane was late I sat longer. The Bangkok flight arrived and people started to trickle out from the baggage hall. The Singapore flight was in and Fiona was one of the first off. The doors opened and the familiar vision complete with rucksack and enormous pink kit bag came striding out. It didn’t feel like we hadn’t seen each other for six months. A long kiss, a few words and a taxi back to the house pointing out the sights of Hanoi on the way.

I’d booked us into Hoa Sua, the street kids training restaurant on the special private balcony table for her first Vietnamese evening meal (the one in Bangkok doesn’t count) I got extra brownie points for the string quartet which I didn’t actually know were performing until we got there.

Sunday we wandered Hanoi and caught up with gossip. The temperature had climbed back to the high 20’s – thankfully – so it felt like a holiday. We tried the motorbike taxis which she took to immediately, looked for the turtle in the lake (we only saw the stuffed one) then did the two people on one bicycle thing from West Lake back to Van Ho stopping off at the Goethe Institute for a Germanic late lunch. In the evening we had a pizza!!

Monday the fun started. The itinerary looked like this;

Monday – Ha Long bay for two nights
Tuesday – Full day of Kayaking on the bay
Wednesday – Visit some caves on the bay then back to Hanoi to catch the night train to Sapa
Thursday – Three nights at the Eco-lodge 45 minutes drive from Sapa
Friday – Morning around the lodge. Afternoon a half day walk through local villages
Saturday – Do a day walk in half a day then get motorbike taxis back up the mountain
Sunday – Do a two day trek in one walking right back to Sapa for the night train to Hanoi
Monday – Arrive in Hanoi 4.30am, walk back to the house, change and catch the afternoon flight to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), have an evening in the city
Tuesday – Three day two night cycling trip in the Mekong, starting during Typhoon Durian.
Wednesday – cycling down to Can Tho where we saw the floating markets
Thursday – early start to cycle around Can Tho before we go back to HCMC for a tour of the War Remnants museum and the evening flight back to Hanoi
Friday – Visit my offices, bit of shopping, eat in with the other house guests
Saturday – Meet a Shaman, do another cycling trip with some Australians I know and then eat out with a load of people at an event put on by Catherine
Sunday – Pack and take her to the Airport

I went to bed early that Sunday night!

The most memorable part of the trip for me was the cycling. The first morning involved a two hour drive to our start point. We ate breakfast to the sound of torrential rain beating down on the restaurant roof and when we got outside the palms and bananas were bending in the wind. As we drove out of HCMC the weather was showing no signs of abating and our guide’s mobile was ringing every few minutes with changes to the itinerary brought on by the impact of the passing typhoon.

It’s not often typhoons hit the south of Vietnam. They normally strike the middle of the country. This is given as the reason the area was ill prepared and so much damage occurred. Over 100 people were killed, 34,000 houses destroyed and a further 200,000 damaged and over 800 fishing boats were lost in the space of 24 hours.

We cycled in the wind and the rain as the storm moved away passing power lines which were laid in flooded rice fields which should have been dry at this time of year. We saw houses which had lost all the walls and roof. Bamboo or concrete platforms with furniture and other belongings scattered about were the only evidence they had ever been houses. My saddle developed a mind of its own and was soon pointing at the sky, that’s a bit painful! I fixed it once myself but it moved again so we stopped at a village workshop and raised an oily mechanic from his hammock. He fixed the offending item with a few twists of an alan key and we were underway again. We could choose from 22km or 50km, no prizes for guessing which route we did.

Our afternoon trip on the river and overnight stay on an island was cancelled – the police had closed the river so we had to overnight at the place we had lunch, an old Japanese style house with restaurant, large orchard garden and a big veranda where we could sit, eat, drink and watch the rain in the evening. From here in the late afternoon we took a small boat along the canals stopping to talk to people stripping fruit to make candy – if you work fast you can earn £1.30 a day – and a woman who makes palm leaf tiles for the roof and walls of bamboo huts. She sells her tiles for a tenth of a penny each and makes enough to earn 60pence a day. Her business was booming in the aftermath of the storm. We also visited rice paper production and coconut candy makers, but they were not working as everyone had gone home to deal with the typhoon. As a concession the rice paper producer made a few sheets for her family’s tea, just so we could watch.

Our revised route that day had taken us through narrow muddy tracks for most of the journey so bikes and clothes needed cleaning, we washed and hung our stuff up to dry before yet another cookery lesson in the art of making Nem. These were made in a rice flour lattice rather than the usual thick rice paper. They looked different but tasted the same. The wife of the house owner took to Fiona and we received special attention for the whole of our stay. We ate our own cooking, had a couple more drinks and retired.

Breakfast was not one of my favourite meals. Everything was sweet, apart from the dry bread. Sticky rice is a triumph of design over common sense and I also take my hat off to the marketing department at Laughing Cow – their version of Dairy Lea cream cheese wedges is served everywhere in Vietnam by hotel owners who think that is what westerners eat for breakfast, but it’s not my idea of how to start the day. The awful instant coffee completed the picture. Oh for a bowl of Vietnamese rice porridge or Pho. They just can’t do a western breakfast, but they can’t believe we would eat a Vietnamese breakfast either. We cycled to meet the van and be transported to the day’s start point.

That day we tried Durian fruit, visited a brick works and a tile and ornament factory, drank Mia Dah – the sugar cane drink and gorged on all sorts of other fruits along our route. Durian has a peculiar smell which means it is actually banned from aeroplanes and many westerners can’t get past the smell to eat the fruit. The smell didn’t bother either of us and the fruit was delicious. As we ate the woman whose shop we had bought the fruit at asked all sorts of personal questions through the guide. He answered without asking us so now we’re married and left the kids at home for our holidays. I was surprised to find the brick kilns using rice husk as fuel. The stuff arriving in barge loads to be carried in baskets to the ovens. It must take a massive amount of the stuff to generate enough heat to keep the kilns to temperature.

That’s just one example of many interdependencies in the economy of this region. Another was the source of clay used in making the tiles, bricks and ornaments at these factories. It comes from rice paddies. Every so often the rice farmers have to lower the level of the rice fields to make sure the water levels stay right. To do this they move the top soil and dig out the clay below. The clay is then bought by the factories, compressed back into large blocks and cut with cheese wires to make anything from a brick to a Buddha.

Unusually Fiona was finding all this industry interesting. She was also finding the cycling hard as the temperatures started to climb in the wake of the typhoon. There were no requests for more demanding mileage. Hammering along the long straight roads in the strengthening sun was enough and even when the guide shortened the last leg of the day – concerned that we would not make it to Can Tho before rush hour congestion blocked the ferry – she did not complain. We arrived in the city and the hotel looked fine, it was only later we discovered our room was beneath the disco and it started to look like a long night.

Our guide had booked us a table on the upstairs terrace of the best restaurant in Can Tho, with views of the Statue of Uncle Ho and the fish market. The latter is not such a great view now that it’s enclosed. Fiona had had her fill of Vietnamese food by now so she ate pizza and I had a steak, the first for months. After dinner we wandered the streets and along the river front. Despite the fact that Fiona was tanning quite quickly her skin was still fair enough to attract admiring stares from local women who aspire to have white skin. If you have wealth, high status and don’t have to work in the fields then your skin will be pale, so even if you do work in the fields cover up and try to be as pale as possible so people will think you have wealth and high status. Fiona’s skin colour is highly desirable here.

Thursday morning we started the day with a boat trip to the floating markets. These are not tourist markets, they are places where villages bring their produce to sell to market traders who then sell it in the city. Whatever a particular boat has to sell is strapped to the mast so buyers can see which boats to head for. Some boats were the size of river barges and had many different fruits and vegetables strapped on the bamboo pole. If you see one of the palm leaf roof tiles strapped to the pole then it’s the boat itself which is for sale. Mobile bakeries, tea trolleys and snack stalls float amongst the bigger boats providing sustenance for vendors and buyers alike.

We passed yet more damaged houses and weaved through a network of canals to rendezvous with the van and start the day’s cycling. Once again Fiona was not fidgeting, she had enjoyed the markets and now we undertook a leisurely cycle ride through the countryside to the East of the city, but this was a short day. The ferry had to be negotiated again. There seemed to be fewer boats running and our river crossing took over half an hour. We made a quick stop at one of the many roadside restaurants, all personally approved by the tour company’s owner and arrived back in HCMC in time to spend an hour in the War Remnants Museum.

Previously called the Museum of American and Chinese war crimes, the re-badgeing coincided with the increase in American and Chinese tourists. But once inside the original name holds true as exhibit after exhibit shows the painful truth about war and what it does to people. Graphic colour photos and eye witness descriptions of massacres, the devastation of napalm and the long term effects of Agent Orange. Anyone seeing this would be moved. There were many Vietnamese students wandering round making notes and sketching some of the exhibits. In the yard we appreciated the size of some of the weapons used in the war. The last part of the museum showed how the French had suppressed nationalism during the late 1940s including one of the guillotines used to execute convicted “terrorists”. I do admire the way the Vietnamese appear to have put all these things behind them and focus on the future.

Fiona laughed at my antics attempting to say “airport” to the taxi driver but then became a bit more sympathetic when he eventually got what I was saying and repeated it back to me. To both of us his rendition sounded just like what I had been saying to him. If I can’t hear the difference, how can I ever get it right?? The day before our guide had apologetically taken me on one side and explained that I was not saying “hello” to the nice children along the road side who all know one English word (hello) and use it frequently. My attempts to respond in Vietnamese were failing miserably as usual. My pronunciation of hello was coming out as a request for rice porridge.

The rest of our trip was full of new experiences too, like being asked by one of the young staff at the Eco-lodge to help him learn to pronounce “Cathedral” I don’t know why he wanted to know but teaching the pronunciation was hard work! Or sitting in the house of a group of Red Dao, on a bare earth floor with everything – even the mosquito nets on the beds – blackened by soot from the pit fires throughout the house which had no chimneys, everything except the tv that is, which was kept covered when not in use. We walked the hills of Sapa with a female guide who had resigned herself to remaining a spinster after splitting with her boyfriend and so was heading for university in Hanoi intending to start her own business in a few years time. On Ha Long Bay Fiona became the only woman on board to jump off the top of the boat. We held hands, which was a big mistake since I travelled down faster than she did and we both hit the water at an angle making a loud noise and raising a few bruises. We also lead the way on the kayaking, since I’d been to the area before the guide allowed us to make a few detours and we had the enjoyment of being alone in one of the secret lagoons before the rest caught up – a few minutes of silent magic.

At the airport as Fiona checked in we saw a fellow traveller from the Ha Long Bay trip and three acquaintances from the previous night, all on their way to Singapore and on the same flight as Fiona. The first leg of her return journey turned into a party.

It felt very quiet after she left. On Saturday we were cycling along the dyke roads outside Hanoi with every smiling child we passed shouting “Hello” and by the following Tuesday we were both back at work in offices five thousand miles apart. Still, now we have the pleasure of planning the next one and the added connection which comes from Fiona having seen the people and places we talk about on Skype.

Happy New Year!

The Road, complete with stage, by Hoan Kiem Lake on New Year's Eve

Welcome to 2007. Communication is not great at the minute, the internet performance here has gone down the tubes in the last week. Our mutterings about the quality of service (a long term complaint) have been tempered a bit by the thought that the problem might be exacerbated by all the undersea cables damaged by the Taiwan earthquake last week. The news did say Asia had been particularly hit. Personally I’ve not been able to access my email since Wednesday and it’s possible to fall asleep waiting for a web page to load. Anyway enough of that, yesterday was New Year’s Eve and today is the first day of 2007. It’s the first time I’ve seen in the New Year outside the UK so I was keen to know what the Vietnamese do.

The Eve was a quiet day, even for a Sunday. I cycled to the bakery with noticeably less traffic than usual. Surprisingly, more shops than usual were closed including Western Canned Foods, but as most of their regular clientele are out of the country for two weeks it’s a good time to take a break. The day passed without event and come early evening I decided to walk up through town and see what was going on. I left just after 5.30 planning to meet the others for dinner at 7pm near the Cathedral.

Life seemed very normal walking across to the main one way system, people cooking their evening meal, the streetside barber’s busy as usual and with an audience for some reason I don’t understand. No shortage of motorbike taxis all trying to attract my custom. On the main road it seemed to me that there was less traffic than on Christmas Eve and that impression stayed with me for the rest of the evening.

Up at Hoan Kiem Lake two large stages had been set up. One near the lake pagoda where the road splits and an offshoot goes into the old quarter. The other was on the traffic island on lake view corner. Both were positioned so that the audience would have to stand in the road to get a clear view. As you might expect neither road was actually closed off. One stage was in late rehearsal, a heavy metal band were playing Auld Lang Syne whilst two screens showed dancers apparently dancing to some other music. A large crowd had gathered consisting of both pedestrians and motorcyclists who just stopped in the road to watch. The flow of traffic had slowed and buses and taxis were crawling through the audience with horns blaring.

I moved on round the lake to the second stage which was in darkness. People were already gathering on pavements and balconies of surrounding buildings in anticipation. All in all it was still a lot quieter than Christmas Eve. The ice cream vendors were doing a healthy trade and a strange smell was starting to permeate – burning charcoal and dead fish. Every few metres round the top of the lake vendors were setting up with baskets of dried squid. Behind them on the lake edge they had laid out bamboo mats or even rugs. Customers were sitting on the rugs and eating the dried fish which had been heated over a charcoal stove and was served with chilli sauce and sometimes beer. There were literally dozens of these squid vendors.

I headed for the restaurant where we were eating. Despite the occasion only one other table was taken when I arrived. The rest of the group arrived and we enjoyed a very nice meal, even if the recipes of various dishes seemed to have changed since last time we ate there. I still wonder how this place makes any money. Whilst we were there only three tables were occupied.

After the meal we walked back to the lake. The stage on the traffic island had now come to life with a series of acts from the local circus including trapeze and rollerblading on a tiny circular platform. By now the buses had stopped but the road was still open to traffic. Spectators completely filled the junction and cars and motorbikes honked and crawled through trying desperately to keep a channel open round each side of the stage. Not a policeman in sight.

The show finished abruptly, the lights went out and the audience quickly disappeared. It was not yet 10pm on New Year’s Eve and they were dismantling the stage! We followed the flow back round the lake towards the other stage where the sound of classical music could be heard. The smell of burning squid was becoming quite noxious now, the vendors were doing great business and several tried to attract us to sample their wares. Fortunately I was not in the least bit hungry. At the second stage a ballet was being performed to the Blue Danube and once again the road was blocked by the audience. Some kind of informal diversion was in place as there were very few motorbikes trying to get through, though we did nearly get run down a few times on the pavement by bikes taking an alternative route round the mob. Again squid was in evidence as were the balloon sellers, all desperate to make their fortune by overcharging a westerner.

We headed back into the old quarter and to a bar where we joined a few other colleagues for a few drinks as the clock moved on towards midnight. By majority decision we opted to go back to the lake for midnight so we passed by the first darkened and dismantled stage and back to the stage by the pagoda. The heavy metal band was now performing and the crowd filled the road and pavements, very little traffic was moving here now. Two guys came past carrying a motorbike over the low fences at the edge of the grass areas by the pagoda entrance. Tonight there was no sign of the attendant with the whistle who normally ensures the ‘keep off the grass’ signs are enforced. All the grass areas were taken over by squid vendors charging 10000dong to sit on their mats if you weren’t buying squid.

The music reached a crescendo and a loud cheer went up as the midnight hour was announced and the stage erupted in fireworks (I thought they were banned in Vietnam). The music continued until five past twelve, then there was a short announcement, the lights went out on the stage, silence fell and everyone went home. All of a sudden motorbikes appeared from nowhere driven across grass, pavements and through shrubberies and everyone was moving off.

My friends were heading back to another club, but I’d had enough and started my walk home. On the main streets traffic was still flowing busily and noisily but as I turned onto the side streets all was quiet and in darkness. A solitary rat eyed me up before deciding to sit under a car until I passed by. It was like any other evening here, a late night meal going on at the recycling centre at the top of the village with eight or nine people eating under a single lightbulb. A large family group in overcoats hunched round a small table in the middle of the pavement outside an ice cream parlour. They looked bizarre sitting on high bar stools shoulder to shoulder with their ice creams and nothing else around. The teenagers and 20 something’s were still playing computer games in the village internet café at quarter to one in the morning.

It felt a bit weird going to bed knowing my UK friends would not be starting their parties for another two or three hours, whilst ours was over and 2007 had arrived.