Return to Hanoi

The lounge in my new apartment in Hanoi

I got off the plane at East Midlands Airport in mid December and it was really cold, below freezing. A friend picked me up and we drove into Nottingham along roads which seemed to be really quiet and with little traffic despite it being the week before Christmas. As I settled into another friend’s house the streets seemed deserted, void of human life compared to the crazy bustle of Hanoi.

Eight weeks later when I got off the plane in Hanoi on Saturday 9th of February it felt just the same. It was the day after Tet, the Lunar New Year. Over 30% of the population of Hanoi go back to their home town for anything from a week to a month, all the shops and markets close and people stay in the house. It was also the coldest winter since the late 1960s with temperatures below 10C – and that feels really cold if you don’t have any heating.

I haggled at the taxi rank, even the normally reliable firms were asking for more than twice the usual fare for a trip from the airport into town. We settled on a figure which was only just over 10% higher than I normally pay and I thought I’d done well.

As we drove into town the streets were silent – not enough traffic to make it worth sounding your horn – and everyone I passed appeared to be wearing every item of clothing they owned.

The hotel too was quiet, a few foreign tourists who had mistimed their trip not realising Vietnam was closed and me. The surrounding building sites were deserted. I had lunch with some friends, collected my bike from the old house, slept off some of my jetlag and then went for a walk in the early evening. I found a few noodle soup sellers on the pavement by Lenin Park and ate a bowl for four times the usual price.

The Government of Vietnam has a real problem with inflation now. I’ve noticed prices creeping up at an increasing rate over the last twelve months. Now the papers have confirmed the worst. Overall inflation stands at 10% with food inflation at 25%. Property inflation is 14% and the consumer price index is going up by 2% month on month. GDP growth meanwhile continues at 8%. People are starting to feel it and as this is still largely a cash society increasing interest rates is not likely to have the same impact as it would in the West. I think there are some hard times coming.

On the Sunday morning I moved into my new apartment.

First I had to call at my office to collect the apartment keys. As I walked into the building entrance the head of security stood up to greet me and wished me a prosperous new year then insisted I sat and drank tea with him and his staff. My limited Vietnamese was more rusty than usual but he was happy to see me back and as we sat eating butter cookies and drinking the strong and bitter green tea I discovered the teenager who parks my bicycle each morning is actually 28 years old and has two young children. The head of security has children who are at university. There were many other parts to the conversation but I have no idea what they were.

I got the keys and walked back to the hotel and my boss arrived in a taxi to pick up my suitcase whilst I cycled down to number 10 Hoa Lu street where the 17 storey tower block I was about call home is located. It’s a nice apartment, two bedrooms an open plan lounge/dining area with a corridor kitchen a small bathroom and a balcony overlooking the street. It had almost everything I need; a bed, fridge, hob, sink, shower, mustard and black two piece leather suite and an amazing chandelier in the lounge. We walked round to where I used to live, only a block or so away and collected the rest of my worldly possessions – six bags of books, clothes, a few ornaments and a few toiletries – dumped them in the apartment and went for lunch.

In the afternoon I shopped in the big supermarket in Vincom Towers which was the only place open but which also had many empty shelves. I managed to procure enough to live for a few days. Once in the apartment I realised I had to go back to the supermarket and buy things which would enable me to open the cans and cook the food. The kitchen had a few basics but not that much.

Monday was my first day at work, but my Vietnamese colleagues did not start until Tuesday. In the office nothing was working, the internet was off and there is no heating. No one else came in. I stuck it for four hours then went home and continued to work there with the benefit of air conditioners which also heat.

Tuesday traffic levels were noticeably higher but many schools were still closed because of the cold. In the evening I went to the Bia Hoi and greeted the patrons. The owner sat me down and we proceeded to catch up on the events of the last eight weeks, fortunately a retired guy who speaks a bit of English was there as well and the landlord’s 16 year old daughter also came down to act as interpreter. It was strange sitting there with everyone in overcoats, woolly hats and in some cases drinking beer with gloves on. Not really like the tropics are supposed to be! As I sat there I got a text inviting me to dinner and I left them after a couple of glasses still huddled over the little green tables debating how expensive an apartment at number 10 Hoa Lu must be.

The whole transition of that first week felt similar to the way I felt when I arrived in England, like I was a spectator rather than a real participant. During my eight weeks in England that never really passed, now I’ve been back in Hanoi for a few weeks it does feel more like home again helped by the weather warming, the bustle returning and a whirl of social events which have left me only having to cook on my own on four occasions.

Work too is hectic, we have to move offices – the landlord will not renew our lease. We have four weeks to get out. I’m drawing office layouts for the new building and helping the office manager make the removals plan. The projects I was working on are all still there and on top of that the project is being audited which has created an extra raft of jobs. I’m not bored, but I am struggling to see how I can do everything I want to do when I have just 17 weeks to do it all in. It’s started me thinking if I should leave as planned or spend some more time here, long enough to try and get things as I think they should be.

As I sit here and write this I could be anywhere in the world, but there are a few things in my less than a year old flat to remind me this is Vietnam. In the bathroom there is an uphill gradient to the drain in the floor and the water leaking from the shower therefore accumulates in a puddle in front of the toilet. In each room there are bare electricity cables hanging out of the wall in case anyone wants to add more lights later. I have two cable TVs but the building has no cable. The telephone only works when the internet is off. The kitchen is designed for Vietnamese and has a pull out extract fan above the hob. Pull it out and the fan comes on along with a light. The trouble is when it is pulled out it is level with the middle of my chest and I can’t actually see the pans on the hob! At least the washing machine instructions are in English this time – the machine at the old house only had instructions in Chinese.

The quintessential Vietnamese feature is the chandelier; an arrangement of extravagant twisted metal stems each ending in a tulip shaped glass shade with a small but powerful bulb. It gives a nice light in the lounge but if you leave it on for more than an hour or so it just goes out. Half an hour later it comes back on again. One night as I sat there reading I realised something was not right. It took me a few seconds of hard staring to get what it was. It was as if I had not watered a vase of flowers. The tulips had drooped and several were now facing down. I can only assume that it got hot, threads came loose as metal expanded and gravity took control. The landlord insists it has always been like that. Maybe I’ll try and fix it one day.

Last week I invited a friend round for dinner and was just starting to cook when the electricity went off. I stood in the dark and listened. A building of this size and this new must have a generator. Sure enough a few seconds later I heard the deep cough of the diesel engine cutting in and I waited for the lights to come back. After a few minutes I realised the lights on the landing were on but nothing in the apartment. The generator runs the lifts and the stair lights but nothing else. I cooked by light coming in from the open door and my head torch. My friend arrived with candles and we settled down to eat by candlelight just in time for the power to come back. Last summer we had regular 12 hour power cuts – that’s something to look forward to again, I must add candles and a lighter to the shopping list. I feel at home again!