Walking

Walking in Ho Chi Minh City is an absolute nightmare. The streets, pavements and outdoor markets are covered by motorbikes and are not geared towards pedestrian traffic. The pavements are broken or non-existant...in a state of constant construction (or is it destruction?)...newly laid for five yards before work has ceased leaving unlaid slabs at irregular intervals to trip up on. Or - on finding yourself with an apparently clear stretch of 20 yards - you walk confidently forward only to pratically garrot yourself on a low strung telephone cable.  And any traffic jam turns the pavements themselves into roads – suddenly without warning you'll find scores of motorcyclists riding towards you!  However walking along the edge of the road is easy enough - any motorbikes behind you will generally beep at you to let you know they're there!


The traffic police occupy themselves with random roadside checks and do not bother the motorcyclists that are running red lights or driving on the pavements.  Recently I heard that the police have announced a crackdown on pedestrians! Apparently this means that the pedestrian is likely to be held responsible if involved in an accident with a vehicle!

I have to admit to liking the anarchy of it all...

On xe buyts

The Great British Bus Conductor. Wise-cracking, jack-the-lad, loveable rogues or arrogant bullying tinpot dictators – you decide. I've come across both archetype s in my time. But, alas! Now they're defunct, extinct, as dead as a parrot. Replaced by grouchy bus drivers whose sociapathic tendencies were always recognised and contained by placing them in that little sealed compartment at the front of the bus. it was a cold day in hell when they let them out to serve us! But this blog is about Vietnam, so enough of them.


Generally speaking I am enjoying my bus journey to and from work. The buses are single deck and (usually) air-conditioned. And what do you know - the Viet bus conductors are the characters that their British counterparts used to be. They're constantly hauling people on and off the bus (it never actually halts at a stop just comes to a 'rolling stop') turfing people from seats if a pregnant lady or olderly person – even a foreigner! - gets on (although to be fair the young people often volunteer their seats...there's a respect for the elderly here) and often jump out of the bus to direct traffic when there's a jam ahead or the bus wants to turn across a busy road.

And, I'm pleased to say, there's one who's the dead spit of Reg Varney in 'On the Buses'! "I 'ate you Butler".

Great fun to watch them in action.

On the road

We've moved to District 1! It's great and I'll tell you all about it in another post, but it commits me to a gruelling 1.5 hour each way bus trip to work each day. And boy do I mean gruelling (though I suppose to a Londoner its an average commute). I certain enjoy the action outside the bus and - let's face it – 'xe buyt' has to be one of the safest vehicles to be on.

I cannot easily describe how busy the roads are, how calamitous every manouvre appears. In Vietnam, two 'lanes' of traffic will have four 'lanes' in it with an additional 'lane' on each side coming from the opposite directions. One of my favourites junctions is called 'Fiveways' – where, yup, that's right five main arterials routes converge. No roundabout. You just pick your exit, and somehow get there. The funny thing is, most of the time it works. Logically, there should be an almighty pile up – in the United Kingdom there WOULD be. Here, the principle of 'fluid dynamics' seems to be in operation. And why not if it can be used to predict weather patterns or model behaviour of nebulae in Interstellar space? Or maybe its the 'chaos theory' that's working here? Someone needs to do an academic study...

But it's the particular that stays in the mind. Imagine a narrow street, hundreds of cycles, motor-bikes, occasional cars and lorries. Then you notice a pillion passenger on one of the motor-bikes is carrying a 8 ft high sheet of plate glass. Its a disaster movie waiting to be filmed! Hollywood execs would kill for the pitch! Unbelievable. I mean, even I find it unbelievable!

Jane finds work

Jane has found a job.  It goes under the rather grand title of Head of Nursing Department, at local Polyclinic (actually the one that VSO uses).  She's very nervous about it, but then she was very nervous before she started the job in Bristol and that turned out fine.  Nearly everyone is nervous before starting a new job aren't they?  It does mean changes for us.  The first is that, realistically, we have to move from our somewhat basic accommodation in District 12 (the third sequel to 'District 9'?) into somewhere closer to the centre. Or, actually, being us, The Centre itself.  Pham Ngu Lao Street, or the 'backpacker strip'.  There are lots of small bars and restuarants in the streets around.  I'll tell you about it another time...

The job carries a respectable salary – yes, she'll actually earn money for the work she does – and enables us to get somewhere modest but nice. Where there are other 'white people'.  This isn't a huge problem for us at the moment – the Vietnamese are very friendly, and whilst mildly curious, don't stop and STARE like a few other ethnic groups I could mention (but won't!). For Jane part of the fear is the reality of working 5.5 days a week – ouch! But if she can stick it for, say, a year it would do wonders for our finances.  And that's one of the reasons we're here after all.

A Sunday afternoon at the Bia Hoi

Let me tell you about Bia Hoi (pronounced 'beer hoy' and usually translated "fresh beer"). A wonderful discovery!  Bia hơi is a type of draft beer popular in Vietnam (particularly - and unfortunately from my perpective - available throughout Northern Vietnam, especially in and around the capital Hanoi).  It is mostly to be found in small bars and on street corners. The beer is brewed daily and each bar gets a fresh batch delivered every day in metal kegs.. It is a very light – maybe 2.5% to 3% ABV – refreshing lager at a fraction of the cost of draft or bottled beer in the Western-style bars. Think 20 pence for a half pint!  Bia hơi production is informal and not monitored by any health agency.

Of course, being such a 'weak' beer one can drink vast quantities of the stuff. The serving girls at these places are quick to replace your drink – no sooner have you finished a glass another full one is brought to your table. No need to order! The bia hoi is a wonderful revelation – I'd love to open venue like this in the UK (yeah, right – I can think of 101 reasons why it wouldn't work!).

On Sunday after returning from our works outing to Bin Duong Mr RTZ decided to take us all (about 25 people) to a bia hoi. The first we've been to in HCMC.  A fun feature of Vietnamese drinking society (or is it just the outfit I work for?) is that everyone raises their glasses and shouts 'Mot Hai Bai Yo!' at the top of their voices.  It translates as 'One two three cheers!'.  Its totally raucous.  Worse however is the cry 'Trăm phần trăm!' meaning 'one hundred percent' and requires you to drink the beer down in one.  Being big and stupid I can't resist this one, but neither can several of my vietnamese colleagues who tend to come of worse.  All in all quite an experience.

A Good Night Out

We went in out into the centre of HCMC yesterday night. The pretext was meeting current VSO volunteers at a monthly NGO 'Happy Hour'. But the big bonus was that Alan Tooke, the Ipswich 'booy' who I met on SKWID was visiting town, prior to taking up his appointment with VSO in Cambodia. In conversation it only turns out that Alan is cousin to Neville, married to Mum's good friend Connie (does this mean that we're related in some weirdly Suffolk fashion?).  Mum will be delighted at the coincidence! It was a good evening although I wasn't overwhelmed by the chosen venue 'Oz Bar & Grill'.  A tad soulless for moi, and as for the high-stools a clear problem of style over function! Better when we moved on to Bui Vien near our hotel and just 'hung out' watching the street activity. Jane nearly freaked at half a dozen rats frolicking just feet from us. I felt like the Pied Piper of Hamelin!

Food (again)

Last Friday evening, after a long and intense meeting with the company's sales department my boss, Mr RTZ, took us all out for a meal.  "We eat beefsteak" he said.  Hmm, that sounds great I thought.  I'm dying for a decent bit of meat.  So we all climbed aboard the motor-bikes, me riding pillion with the friendly Mr Han and negotiated a maze of back-streets before ending up at a BBQ.  Well, actually it was a BQ but who cares about a missing consonant, huh?  The neon 'Laughing Cow' sign was also a nice touch.  And it started promisingly when the crate of beers arrived.  Then the beef ribs...ah, a bit of meat on the bone would be nice.  Never mind, here is a stew of steak and vegetables...Uh-oh, make that gristle and veg.  Ah, finally something we can eat - bread-crumbed deep-fried strips, couldn't place the texture...somewhere between cheese and fish?  Finally, the penny dropped - or rather it was dropped for me - when my neighbour, the delightful Annie, whose English is QUITE good, leant towards me and said the immortal words "I think you call this brain clot?".  Ah, cow brain.  Maybe that cow wasn't laughing after all - maybe it was a MAD COW!  Never mind, the company was fun and the beers kept flowing...and I washed it all down.

In Country Orientation

As I write we're still in Hanoi on In Country Orientation (ICO). That's a process that VSO employs to prepare us for our placement. Its a intensive period of language lessons and lectures on VSO Vietnam's HIV/AIDS and Disability programmes (often given by people living with HIV/AIDS and Disability). There are cultural visits to museums and on Saturday we spent the day with a Vietnamese family to experience typical everyday family life. It's very different from the start of my contract in Saudi Arabia when I was taken on a quick tour of Riyadh, given a file and told to go out and do the job! Its been great and the Vietnamese programme office staff kindness itself. We couldn't have envisaged a better start to our time here. Tomorrow we will leave Hanoi for Ho Chi Minh City and my next post will be after I have started the placement!

Hanoi

Hanoi is a fascinating city. It has served as the political centre of independent Vietnam since 1010 AD (yes, that means next year is the city's millenium). It is located on the right bank of the Red River. At this stage in its development its a beguiling mixture of 19th century French colonial architecture (tree-lined boulevards such as Phan Dinh Phung Street) cheek by jowl with (my favorite) crumbling neo-communist 'brutalist' concrete apartment blocks and modern high-rise towers and shopping centres. Unfortunately for the romantic the future lays with the latter architectural form. Eventually it will look like everywhere else in the world. How sad. But the hustle and bustle of the streets is bound to remain – its quite impossible to describe how 'busy' the place is. Sitting at the streetside cafes, eating 'pho' drinking beer at the bia hoi (a local form of weak 'fresh' beer). At all times of the day and night going somewhere, doing something, moving around. Huge loads are carried on the backs of bikes and motorcycles – oh look someone's fallen off – oh dear he had a thousand eggs on the back which have smashed across the road. Its exhausting being in the middle of it but – for me at least – wonderfully exciting. And they tell us that Ho Chi Minh City is busier than Hanoi!

Food

The food we've encountered is a bit of a Curate's Egg (no pun intended). When its good (which is most of the time) its very very good; simply cooked meat and vegetables stir-fried with lots (!!) of garlic and chili. But, being VSO volunteers – and therefore (relatively speaking) lowly paid – we tend to eat out in the local street kitchens which the Vietnamese people also frequent. It can result in being served cuts of meat that can be quite, er, challenging. Sometimes the amount of fat or, er, rind (polite word for the animal's hide?) left on makes it, well, uneatable. So we don't and just put it down to experience – when one is paying no more than a £1 or £2 for a dish it really isn't worth getting worked up about it – and the waiter wouldn't understand us anyway! But generally speaking, as I say, its fantastic and healthy too – I expect to be a Slim Jim after a few months out here (probably on account of both aspects of the cuisine!). Among the more unusual dishes I've eaten – and these all fall into the delicious category (you'll have to trust me on this!) roast pigeon, 'small bird' (sparrow I suspect – they were very small indeed without the feathers) and frog. Also, snake 'elixir' proved pleasant enough – a whole snake pickled in a kilner jar of alcohol, of which one buys a 'shot'. Like a strong pale sherry. Apparently snake is a delicacy served in the Mekong Delta in the south of the country – and yes, believe it or not, it apparently tastes like chicken!

HERE

Now the Vietnam blog can properly begin. We're here. After a long, tiring – bumpy! - flight to Hanoi via Bankok we arrived at 9.30am (3.30am UK). Hanoi airport is very usable for an International airport. Stands in marked contrast to Bankok where the concourses seemed to go on for miles – especially to a man with blistered heels (don't ask). We were met at Hanoi by the VSO Programme Office staff and what lovely people they are! The volunteers have been arriving in dribs and drabs from all corners of the globe – but by this morning we were all here. I think there's 10 of us and for the next three weeks of In Country Orientation we'll get to know each other nuch better. But already the drinking contingent is making itself known (needless to say Jane and myself are founder members!). After a superb meal at a local restaurant hosted by the VSO Country Director, a few of us adjoined to a local beer hall and sank a few of the local ales. Excellent!
A couple of observations – the VSO Vietnamese programme staff are all lovely and helpful – the hotel we're staying in, goes by the name of the 'Au Co', is great, simple clean and airy (plus A/Cs!) - and our intial impressions of Hanoi fantastic! Colourful, anarchic, hot and sweaty, friendly – I'll add other adjectives when I've time. Got to go now and prepare for another group meal – oh did I tell you the food is GREAT. Feeling very optimistic...

OMG!

Friday 4th 8.ooam. Woke up this morning...and didn't go back to bed! We're feeling PROPERLY nervous now. In fact its just a question of how many nervous breakdowns we have today (Jane 'lost' her bag for 3 panic stricken minutes just now). Just thought I should record this to show that we're not always beautiful swans paddling serenely along the surface.

Getting there

There are now two weeks to go before our departure. The flight is confirmed - Thai Airlines to Hanoi via Bankok leaving 12.30 Heathrow on Sunday 6th September. The CRB check has been received and I've been security cleared by VSO. The only remaining task is to get our papers legalised in Milton Keynes. I'll do that on Wednesday. So everything is looking good. I feel a certain tension - low level stress - anticipation! The game's afoot. We both just want to get there now, it seems ages since I first heard about the placement - the 5th July I think.

Quick mention of the SKWID course I went on at Harborne Hall a couple of weeks ago. Very intense but the learning will be highly useful I think in the job. Caroline at DRD reckons she uses it all the time. The crowd were pretty mixed - not as uniformly fun as the Supervols we met at P2V. But big shout to Alan and John who are going to Cambodia, Anja who will on our flight to Hanoi and Victoria out to the Phillipines. I hope to see them all again, either in HCMC or visiting them in their placements.

PS England doing well at the cricket!

The journey begins

Hi everyone!

The first post of our new blog! Monday 27th July. Our scheduled departure date in 7th September - that means there's only 41 days to go. Lots to do before then - training & self-briefing, getting our documentation organised. We'll keep you informed on our progress...