April 30, 1975.

Today is a national holiday in Vietnam: Liberation/Reunification Day celebrates the fall of Saigon and the end of the American War.

The image of this Soviet-built tank breaking through the gate

of the Presidential Palace in Saigon is iconic here.

Because the following day is May Day, also a national holiday,
the streets are decorated with banners. This is a major getaway weekend
for the locals. We didn't realize that we had a four-day weekend
until last week, at which point it was too late to book anything.

So this morning, we walked down to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum to
see what there was to see.

Not much going on, but there were a lot of people milling around,
including many be-medaled veterans.
We'll go back tomorrow the see if the May Day festivities are bigger.

P.

Random Snaps. The Strangeness of Street Life.

After living here as long as we have, we tend to take a lot of things for granted. But every once in a while it strikes us how strange things are here, so utterly unlike the world we came from.

There are the live animal vendors, selling very fresh meat from
their bicycles or shoulder baskets.

Mobile clothes vendors push their bulky garment racks up and down
the maze of alleys, chanting little songs about their wares.
There are always vendors hawking a variety of products.
Each has their own little sing-song spiel, which they repeat endlessly.

Women from the countryside set up pretty much anywhere
on the sidewalk to sell their small baskets of produce.

Attention to hygiene is not a priority. The vegetables for sale
get plopped down on the sidewalk wherever.

Even right next to one of the horrible smelling, hideously polluted
streams that flow through our neighborhood.

The women at our local fish soup restaurant do all their prep work al fresco.

Our favorite bun cha place is set up in a dingy alley.

While you eat, the shoeshine guy comes by, takes your shoes and gives
you a pair of flip-flops while he buffs your loafers.

Mobile trash bins await pickup. Stray dog revels in the many ripe smells.

We often hail a cab going in the opposite direction. They have
no compunction about making a U or even, in this case,
a Y-turn on an insanely busy street, bringing traffic to
a wildly honking halt.
And of course, they never look or signal before doing so.

Most of the small businesses, and even construction sites, have
little altars set up with offerings of food. The gods apparently like
not only fresh fruit, but chips and cookies.

Most alleys have a chalkboard for neighborhood messages.

My little buddy from Ete Cafe.

P.

Hanoi Delights: Off-Road Street Food.

This is a great concept for a restaurant. Quan An Ngon gathers every variety of Hanoi street food under one roof (well, tent).

Everyone eats at long wooden tables. The place is always packed
with tourists and locals alike.

Around the perimeter are a dozen food stalls, each preparing
their own specialty. This means they have at least
a dozen kitchens, so they can feed a lot of people very rapidly.

The food is a little more expensive that real street food,
but it's also prepared and served in much more
hygenic surroundings. And they haven't dumbed it down.
The flavors are pungent and delicious.

You can even feast on crispy sparrows.
You eat the whole bird, bones, beak, and all.

P.

Another Loll Cat.

What is it about cats and motorbikes in this town?

"First I haz nap, then make cheezburger run."

P.

Death of a Fawn.

We walk by this restaurant most days, and they usually have a goat or a chicken tethered outside. Lately it's been a fawn. Don't know if it's always the same one, or if they find a new one after the dinner hour. In any case, as a copywriter I have to say there's no clearer way to say "Fresh venison here."

P.

I've Lost My Driving Passion.

I grew up in Southern California, so cars have always been a huge part of my life. I learned to drive as soon as it was legally possible and have never been without a car since. In fact, a few years ago we had, as a two-person family, five vehicles. I loved fast cars and motorcycles and bought many of both.

It's now been about nine months since I've operated a motor vehicle, and I can't say I miss it much. For most errands, we walk. We walk far more than we ever did in CA, way more than most people do here. If we need to get somewhere too far to walk, if it's too hot to walk, or if we need to get somewhere quickly, there are always motorbike taxis lurking in the alley no more than 50 yards from our front door. Or if it's raining, we walk a little further to the main street and flag a cab.

We couldn't have a car here even if we wanted one. First, they are far more expensive than in the US. The government makes sure the cost is high in order to reduce the number of vehicles on the already too-crowded streets. Second, the alley that leads to our house is too narrow for a car to get through. A motorbike is the only option, but the traffic is too crazy. Of course we put our lives in to the hands of the xe om drivers every day, but it isn't the risk of bodily injury that worries mes the most. After all, the speed at which traffic moves here makes serious injury unlikely. The problem is liability. If you get into a traffic accident here, there's no such thing as insurance, so any damages come out of your own pocket. And as a foreigner you're automatically blamed and, since you're obviously rich, fined heavily.

So we rely on our feet and taxis. It works.

P.

Yes, We're Still Alive. Ho Chi Minh, Still Dead.

Okay. We realize it's been a while since we posted, but rest assured, we are still alive. O. continues to recover slowly. In fact, she has had enough energy to do a few things other than teach.

This weekend, for example, we went once more to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Once again we were balked in our quest to see Uncle Ho himself. The mausoleum itself is open very limited hours which aren't posted and seem to change depending on who you talk to. Anyway, we've never timed it right. Last time we did get to see the museum. This time we were able to tour the house that Ho built and see a few artifacts from his life.

This Friday and Saturday were a national holiday in Vietnam commemorating the reign of the Hung Kings, a dynasty that ruled Vietnam for over 2000 years, ending in about 250 BCE. This was apparently a golden age in Vietnamese history. The streets were heavily beflagged for the holiday and as part of the run-up to the bigger May Day festival next weekend. We will have Friday and Monday off then, which is lovely except for the part about not getting paid.

The mausoleum was decked with smart new hammer-and-sickle flags.

The house of Ho is a tranquil shrine with lake and mature trees.

And a closely-confined peacock.

Honest Ho's House of Used Cars.

Ho's study.

Maybe next time we'll figure out when the mausoleum itself is open.

P.

...I'm only sleeping

The lunch nap is not to be interferred with. (yes, it's ok to end a sentence with a preposition - see grammargirl.com).

I was supposed to arrive at a new corporate client this afternoon. Not knowing how long the taxi ride would take I, of course, left a few minutes early. Arrived at my destination 10 minutes ahead of time.

At first I thought maybe I had misunderstood the start date; all the lights were off and the place looked closed. As I was standing there contemplating my next move, I noticed two people sneak up to the front door and very carefully let themselves in...so I followed them.

The place was definitely dark and as my eyes adjusted I begin to make out shadowy shapes of people on the floor and on top of desks. Then it dawned on me: it was still nap time. So I waited in a darkened reception room until 1:30pm when all the lights came on, people stretched and yawned and got up to face the afternoon.

Business as usual.

O.

Talkin' Trash.

Here's how it works: precisely at 5:00 pm (well, within a few minutes, anyway) every day (Sat. and Sun. included) the trash bell rings (one of those old-fashion bell-and-clapper bells), and everyone in our alley bustles out carrying the day's garbage.

The bell is rung by one member of the two-person (men and women do this job) sanitation teams that roam the streets at all hours of the day and night. Clad in khaki work clothes, heavy gloves, surgical masks, and fluorescent lime safety vests, they push a three-wheel metal bin about four-feet deep around the maze of alleys until it's filled, then push it back to the main street for collection by a large garbage truck late that night. The bins have clearly been recognized as inadequate for the amount of trash produced, so they have been modified with jerry-rigged wooden extensions that increase the depth to about 7 feet.

Everyone lines up (about 15-20 from our alley) to hand their two or three plastic bags of garbage to the sanitation worker who perches atop the contraption and packs as much as possible into it. Once everyone has brought out their trash, the team moves to the next alley, and one of them again walks up and down ringing the bell to summon the inhabitants and their trash.

It works.

P.

Moving Money.

So one day I'm walking the streets of downtown Hanoi carrying 90 million in cash in a brown paper bag.

The odd thing is that there's nothing particularly odd about that here. This is truly a cash-based society. No such thing as a checking account. A few places (mainly stores, restaurants, and hotels that have a significant tourist or ex-pat clientele) take credit or debit cards, but mostly people use cash. Stacks and stacks of cash (at 19,100 dong per dollar the bills stack up fast).

We get paid in cash once a month: big fat envelopes of cash. The largest bill we've seen is 500,000, so it takes a lot of them. We regularly see people at the bank depositing briefcases full of money, like drug dealers in a movie. We once saw a guy withdraw a sack of money so large he had to sling it over his shoulder like Santa delivering a load of presents.

It works because there's so little street crime here. People (especially westerners) can walk around with wads of cash without fear, even late at night.

The hard part is moving money out of the country. We have to submit a letter from our employer stating that we work for them as well as a statement of earnings that proves we earned the money here. Each time the process takes well over 45 minutes, even though they know us at the bank by now. Our financial system may have problems, but Vietnam's is about 40 years behind time.

BTW, I was carrying all that money to pay for our health insurance for a year. Can't write a check. Odd.

P.

Breathing is not overrated

Apparently when I get a bad ass cold that's accompanied by a severe cough, my throat spasms and cuts off my air supply. This happened again a few days ago. And while this is not the first time this had happened to me; it is, however, the first time I have been utterly scared that I would not be able to recover my breath in time.

Fortunately for me I experienced an ugly episode just as I walked into the doctor's office. They were GREAT - immediately went into action, the doctor did not leave my side, kept speaking to me in soft reassuring tones telling me that it would all be ok ( kind of like the soothing and comforting sound of a calm airplane pilot during hard turbulence). In the US when I have been rushed to emergency due to labored breathing, the staff seemed perplexed and it usually takes them longer than I'd like for them to start any kind of treatment. Again, I was very lucky that his particular doctor, Dr. Brian, knew just what was happening to me and went into immediate action.

Once they got me breathing again, they suggested I go to a hospital to be examined by an ENT (ear, nose & throat) doctor and to be stabilized. I looked at Dr. Brian and asked him what other options did I have as I was terrified of going to a VN hospital (have heard way too many horror stories). He hesitated for a moment, before he told me he understood and said yes, you can stay here and we will have the ENT come after his shift. So the first thing was to xray my lungs to exclude pneumonia - once they knew my lungs were clear, they set me up in one of the emergency beds, started an IV ( apparently I was dehydrated too, although I don't know why, I drink lots of water), and gave me regular doses of codeine for the cough, intravenous antibiotics for the nasty infection causing my throat to inflame, a bit of valium to calm my throat muscles ( and me), and oxygen as the level in my blood was low.

Throughout the afternoon my episodes slowly lessened from 1 every 5 minutes to about 1 every 10 minutes then one every half hour and then blessedly to about 1 every hour. Around 5pm, the ENT arrived and gave me a through examination. He also concluded that the problem was throat centered and the treatment was to relax those muscles and to get rid of the infection. Dr. Brian and the ENT wanted me to stay the night so I could be monitored since I was far from episode free.

Even though I continued to improve with the episodes becoming less severe and less frequent, they were reluctant to allow me to come home until I was episode free so they kept me a second night.

Feeling much better. Still on a fair amount of meds, cannot talk for a few more days and feeling weak. Still, MUCH better.

Family Medical Practice is stellar. The staff was attentive, caring and professional...and they all speak English. Dr. Brian is from Canada...I'm a big fan now.

Peter has been more than wonderful: in addition to his own heavy workload, he taught my 15 hour class last week and taught 3 other classes from a new corporate client. Plus, he managed to visit me often and help me heal just by his presence. I am truly blessed with
such a wonderful man!

Hanoi Delights: BBQ Chicken Street and More.

In keeping with the Hanoi tradition of themed streets, when you want BBQ chicken you go to BBQ Chicken Street.

The street is lined with restaurants serving nothing but.

And a couple that are even more specialized.

Our favorite spot features sidewalk dining with plenty of
chicken bones under foot, so you know it's good.

The chicken parts (note that they are big pieces, not the usual
hacked up bits) are impaled on sugarcane skewers and perfectly grilled.
Also good: skewers of roasted potato chunks, sweet-and-sour cucumber slices,
and a sort of lightly fermented sweet-and-sour cole slaw.

Meat popsicles!

After lunch, we stroll toward the lake, pausing to take in the latest in cutting-edge fashion.

And visit our favorite coffee shop.

An eatery we're sorry we missed. (We'll definitely be back.)

And the lovely lakefront dining at this al fresco cantina specializing in frog hot pot.
(Those are the tables, not the seats.)

P.

Hanoi Delights: Fried Chicken with a View, Fermented Shrimp Sauce, Too.

In our perambulations around Swan Lake, we discovered a new restaurant and a new Hanoi Delight: chicken fried with salt and pepper. Very crispy and flavorful, not at all greasy. The best part is the crispy bits of garlic, ginger, lemongrass, chile, and scallion that come with it. Like all meat dishes here, the chicken is cut into seemingly random chunks, making every bite a potential hazard, with jagged bits of bone lurking to puncture the unwary palate.

The restaurant is built out over the very lake where John McCain was shot down, which adds a bit of piquancy to the meal. There are always fishermen out on the lake and lining its banks, though the water is pretty nasty looking and the surface sparkles with the silver carcasses of dead fish. We remarked that eating freshwater fish here is a rather unappealing idea.

And then the next night, I had lake fish for dinner. I'm teaching a small private class at a local tool import business, and the three women in the class wanted to take me out afterward to sample one of the local delicacies. We went to a little hole in the wall in the Old Quarter that was packed with tourists. Apparently, the restaurant serves only one dish and is mentioned in all the guidebooks. They set up a charcoal burner in the middle of the table, on it they put a skillet packed with chunks of white lake fish lightly coated with tumeric. As these sizzle fragrantly, the women add chopped dill and greens and green onions. Once this is cooked, it's ladled over bun (rice vermicelli) and topped with fresh chopped chiles, green onions, roasted peanuts, cilantro and other herbs, and capped with a dash of fish sauce or a grayish, lumpy, very pungent fermented shrimp sauce. My students told me that most foreigners can't eat mam tom (said shrimp sauce), so, of course, in spite of my trepidations, I had to try it. It was delicious, adding a tangy savor to the medley of flavors. This is what I like most about Vietnamese food--every bite has a multiplicity of flavors and textures, that may seem incongruous in the abstract, but blend marvelously in reality.

P.

Any excuse for flowers

A week or so ago on International Women's Day, my students brought me beautiful bouquets of flowers. Apparently Vietnamese students love any excuse to give flowers to their teachers; this is the fourth time I have been showered with flowers.

In my morning class, I received a bouquet from the boys and all the girls were given one long-stemmed red rose. Then each of the boys stood up and said one nice comment about each of the girls. Very sweet. I should add that there was no prompting - the boys did this all on their own.

In one of my other classes, the boys asked me if they could have a hour or so of class time...they also gave us flowers, then they played a game where the girls had to guess various animals based on clues. At the end of the game the boys gave each of the girls a stuffed animal to correspond to the animal they had correctly guessed. Again, no prompting, all on their own.

I was awarded a squirrel and a monkey.

O.

Swan Lake.

Last weekend, we walked to Tay Ho (West Lake), the largest lake in Hanoi. It's about a 25-minute walk from our house. We had a nice lunch by the lake, then walked about for a while.

Many of the lakes in Hanoi have swan paddle boats, but Tay Ho
has by far the largest fleet.

The day was gray and slightly cool. The far shore only partially visible in the mist.

On a small peninsula attached to the causeway across the lake stands
the oldest pagoda in Hanoi. It was built almost a thousand years ago.

The rules are a bit more recent. Luckily it was cool enough
that neither of us no wear the short.

It's still an active place of worship. Very tranquil, a lovely
respite from the honking, exhaust-fouled chaos of the surrounding city.

P.

Hanoi Delights: Claypot Basa Fish.

Ete Cafe is one of our favorites. It's within easy walking distance, has great food, funky/artsy atmosphere, and fairly reasonable pricing. It offers a combination of French and Vietnamese food, plus one of the better burgers in town (though it's made Aussie style with a fried egg on top. Actually very good once you get over the fact that it's not the good old Amurrican burger you've been craving.). Recently, they have also acquired a young tom cat who likes to sit on my lap while I eat. A definite plus in my book. It is often crowded at lunch with French expats, so you know they make great freedom fries. And they have a bottle of one of my favorite scotches--Caol Ila--which I am forced to sample from time to time.

But the main draw for us is the basa fish slow-cooked in a clay pot. Very simple in concept, very complex in flavor. Basa fish is a medium-sized freshwater white fish with a mild flavor somewhere between trout and catfish. They cut off a three-quarter inch steak and put it in the pot with lots of chopped lemongrass and ginger, slices of a root vegetable we have yet to identify, and most importantly, a big chunk of fatty pork belly. The dish is cooked for a long time over a slow fire, until the ingredients caramelize and the flavors deepen and meld into a rich, complex deliciousness.

The ginger and lemongrass are cooked so long that they are soft enough to chew,
yielding concentrated essenses of caramel and pork fat, as well as of course
ginger and lemongrass.

It comes with rice, a tasty vegetable broth, and our beloved
buttery greens stir-fried with lots of garlic. $3.50 each, and well worth it.

P.

And You May Ask Yourself...Well, How Did I Get Here?

It was one of those moments that life brings you sometimes. I'm sitting in a German beer hall in Hanoi with a group of visiting Japanese CEOs, eating fried chicken, potato salad, and fried corn kernels with chopsticks, washing it all down with lots of good Munich beer.

Well, how did I get there?

I was at VietSoftware, in the CEO's office, waiting for a conference call with our banking systems partner in Singapore, and the call got postponed for a couple hours. The CEO said that he had to have lunch with a delegation of CEOs from Japan, customers of VSII. He asked me to join them. There's a great beer hall (a branch of an actual Munich brewery) practically next door to VSII, and the Japanese, having sampled the delicious beer previously, wanted to go back. Needless to say, so did I.

Some of the Japanese spoke a little English, so we were able to communicate a bit. Mostly gulping beer and saying: "Good!" with exaggerated grins. They were impressed that I could pick up the corn kernels with the ohashi. None of us spoke Vietnamese, but our hosts spoke both Japanese and English. Several of the VSII people had been educated in various Russian technical institutes, so at the end of the meal, they ordered a plate of what looked like shoestring potatoes, but turned out to be a very smoky, salty Russian cheese. Very tasty.

On days like this I can only marvel at how my life has led to this, and I remember how glad I am that we're having this excellent, difficult, surreal adventure.

P.

Got Milk?

It hasn't always been easy buying milk and milk products in Hanoi. We have to go halfway across town to buy cheese. Half-and-half is unavailable. I make my own by mixing light cream (also very hard to find, but at least possible) with regular milk.

If only we'd known of this wonderful product.

P.

Back To Hanoi, And A New Hanoi Delight.

So the snacks here are a little different here that in the US. But they do like their chips. Usually the chips involve dried squid, but potato is also popular. I saw this new flavor yesterday and, as a huge fan of Peking Duck, I just had to try it.

It actually does taste like Peking Duck.

With potato thrown in.

P.

We've Seen Avatar In A Way None Of You Have.

All I can say is that until you've seen Avatar on a pirate DVD with Cambodian subtitles on a small TV monitor at the front of a bus from the back of said bus as it speeds from Phnom Penh to HCMC, you haven't experienced the true magnificence of this immersive, uh, experience.

Little did we know when we chose our seat that we would be in for such a treat.
On other legs of our bus trips, we've endured blaring Vietnamese and Cambodian
sit-coms, sappy pop music videos and murky transfers of old Jean Claude Van Damme
movies. Since I'd missed the first 20 minutes of the film when we saw it in Hanoi
(an omission since rectified), I didn't recognize what we were watching at first.
I just thought, "Pretty good FX for a cheesy old movie." After a couple minutes,
though, I recognized the landscape.

Waiting for the ferry across the Mekong, every vehicle is swarmed by
vendors selling snacks and drinks.

We'd hoped for a crunchy lunch of fried beetles, but they were
nowhere to be found. Instead we had to settle for more standard
fare. I visited the toilet after lunch and the bus almost left
without me. Apparently they don't count heads before pulling out.
O. was able to slow them long enough for me to leap aboard.

What sweet P. (get it? Sweet Pea.) fails to mention is that, I not only ran to the front of the bus asking the driver to stop as it was pulling out without P., but the driver repeatedly honked the horn at P. who was meandering around taking pictures and not realizing that we were leaving without him. True to his easy nonplussed manner, P. casually looked up, took one more picture and hopped on the bus!

P.