The House That Thong Built.

It turns out that our landlord, Thong (It's pronounced Tong. No Lewinsky jokes, please!) is a very pleasent and interesting fellow. Once we came to terms on the rent and how it would be paid, all has gone exceedingly smoothly. He helped us get our internet hooked up and has done many kind and helpful things to make sure that we are comfortable in the house.

He was a member of Vietnam's delegation to the UN in the late 80s and early 90s, lived in New York for years, and is quite cosmopolitan in his view of the world. We talked briefly about "the American War." As a university student, he was evacuated from Hanoi during the bombings. He seems to hold no grudge, which he attributes to having been taught that the American government was the enemy, not the American people. He said that most people in Vietnam are eager for closer ties with the US.

He told me that I must be about he same age as Clinton, and when I allowed that I shared a birthday with the Billster, he laughed and said, "But I think you are much kinder than Clinton!" That has now become his running line. Whenever we talk, he always manages to make some joke about how I am much kinder than Clinton. I'm not sure what that means, but I'm taking it as a compliment.

So here are the promised pictures of our house. I think you'll see why we like it.

Here is our lovely courtyard. Now without dog. O. will tell you the full story

of the little dog that could have been ours.

Here's our living room on the bottom floor. I couldn't get a
wide enough angle to show the matching rattan sofa and second chair.

The kitchen is also on this level.

And so is the dining room.

This beautiful wooden staircase was a key selling feature.
It looks narrow, but it's very wide by Vietnamese standards.

Our bedroom.

The French doors from our bedroom to the balcony.

The guest room where you will stay when you come to visit us.

The master bath. There are bathrooms on all three levels.

Our office is on the third floor. The landlord will provide another desk.
On the right wall is the family's ancestral shrine. This is always located
on the highest floor. Thong and his mother will come to pray here once a month.

Our vine-shaded deck is also on the third floor.
We are looking forward to enjoying it when the weather finally cools off.

Ba Dinh, the district where we live, used to be a famous flower-growing village just outside of Hanoi. Now, of course, it has been absorbed by the fast-growing metropolis, (it's almost exactly in the center of greater Hanoi) but back in the maze of alleys where we live, it still retains much of its village flavor, with twisting, narrow lanes and old, tree-shaded houses.

All the flower-growing plots are long gone. Housing space is at a premium in Hanoi, so everything is built vertically. At only three stories, our house is a rarity. Most houses are fifteen to twenty feet wide and seven stories tall, which looks quite odd from street level. They are fairly deep, which is why they are often called tube houses. This trend is being continued in the new urban areas that are frantically building to the west of the city. Everything there is high-rise--twenty-plus stories and very little in the way of landscaping. Not at all what we were looking for.

P.