.. -.. .. --- -

Driving in Hanoi.

If I had to use one word to summarize the attitude of almost all drivers in Hanoi, it would be "opportunistic." If there is an opportunity for them to get ahead by one centimeter, they will force their way into it. It's sad, because I think it points to a deeper social problem that goes far beyond just driving. Even pulling into the gas station provides an object lesson of this issue. The moment someone pulls out from having their tank filled everyone will try to push into the gap left behind. There is no concept of queueing or respecting that the person there before you has been waiting longer. There is an opportunity so you have to try and take it. This is not limited to young men who are often aggressive in any culture, almost everyone does this. If they don't, they'll never get any fuel!

There is an intersection near where I live that I must pass through on a daily basis. Invariably, if the traffic light is not on (since they seem to be turned off randomly for no apparent reason) there will be a horrible snarl of traffic congested in the center of the intersection. It will be a combination of cars, trucks, construction vehicles, buses, and of course, motorbikes. Since no one is willing to yield unless a police officer is in evidence ordering them to do so, they will just sit there honking at one another and inching forward bit by bit until they've all managed to squeak their way through. Driving your bike through it is not a good way to start your day with a positive attitude.

In regards to the honking, that is another amazing phenomenon in Vietnam. Westerners tend to view honking as something out of the ordinary, a warning of danger or something unexpected. Here it is a constant barrage. Sometimes it is legitimate, particularly when you're passing someone and you want them to know you are coming up behind them. Since there is no concept of "lanes" (even though they are painted on the road), everyone feels the need to warn when they are coming up behind anyone, even from the other side of the road. If the road is too congested, drivers will just pull up onto the sidewalk. However, after several months of experience and observation it has become clear that the three main reasons for honking are as follows: 1) Watch out, I'm about to do something really stupid! 2) Get out of my way, I'm doing something stupid! and 3) Look out, I'm stupid! (The third group scare me the most, stay far away from them!)

I think the most dangerous would have to the be construction vehicles traveling at the fastest speed they can manage on the Hanoi streets blasting their deafening air horns that should never be used outside of a construction site. When one of them pulls up behind you and blasts its horn you had better hope you don't jump out of your seat. You will die. It has happened. That is another type of vehicle that I stay as far away from as possible. Of course, buses in Hanoi aren't much better. The drivers are always rushing to stay on schedule and whip the giant buses around like they're Mini Coopers. I've watched them blast their horn at someone in their way and actually nudge the bus forward until they bump the person's bike (or the person!) I once heard someone describe the buses as the killer whales of Hanoi, I think they're right.

In conclusion, I believe that I will begin honking my own horn in a morse code pattern of
".. -.. .. --- -". Anyone that knows me very well already knows what that will translate into.

;-)

At the Zoo

While in Saigon my friend Khai and I decided to check out the zoo. After about 20 minutes of walking around it began to rain. We hid out at a little snack shop under a big umbrella and drank some tea and coffee. "It should only last about 30 minutes", said Khai.
After about an hour, the water started getting high enough and coming down hard enough that we were getting really wet even under the umbrella. So we made a dash for the snack shop and spent the next hour or two waiting... and waiting... and waiting. Finally we gave up and had to make a run for the exit. Khai had a raincoat in his bike, I had to buy one off a lady on the street.
The sad thing is I brought two raincoats with me on the trip and didn't have either one with me at the time. Sigh. What good is being prepared if you're not prepared?
Then Khai and I went back to his place and had dinner with his wife Jackie. Then we hung out around his place for a little while and talked. I didn't see much of the zoo, but it's nice to spend time with friends.

At least we got to see it...

...before it was eaten to extinction.

New species of lizard "discovered" on Vietnamese menu.

"You could call it the surprise du jour: A popular food on Vietnamese menus has turned out to be a lizard previously unknown to science, scientists say."

Bob Esponja

Hola SpongeBob!

From Saturn Studio

Cambodia

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted anything. I guess things have settled into a bit of a routine. One good piece of news is that I finished my TEFL certificate, so now I can qualify for a work visa through the English Language Center I work for and not have to worry about my legal status or getting my visa renewed every 3 months.

However, since I just got the certificate and my visa expires in a couple days, I'm taking a trip out to Cambodia to renew it one more time. I'm going to fly from Hanoi down to Saigon and then take a bus over into Phnom Penh. The price of a flight from Hanoi to Cambodia was surprisingly expensive! While there I'll be able to catch up with my old friend Jason, which will be great. My new visa will be a six month work visa, so my hope is that I will be able to get my driver's license transferred over now without so much difficulty.

Driving in Vietnam... now that's a good subject for a blog post. Of course, it would be more of a rant. Haha!

Tower of Babble

I've been teaching English at a language center in Hà Đông for about a month now. The director of the school likes me, so once I have my TESL certificate and can get a business visa it should be a pretty reliable job. Most of my classes are for young children between 7 and 10. I have a few classes with teenagers that are more advanced. Starting this week I will be traveling outside of Hanoi about 30km to an area called Hưng Yên to teach four English classes every Saturday.

The kids are always shocked to find out I can speak Vietnamese. None of the other foreign instructors are able to do so. Actually, the Vietnamese teachers I work with are usually pretty surprised as well. It's been a lot of fun. We do vocabulary drills, play games, sing songs and much more. Each class is two hours long, but I only teach for 1.5 hours. The Vietnamese instructor teaches the other half hour.

The school I work for does quite well, they have over 800 students signed up. There are two buildings down the street from one another, one for teaching children and one for the older students. Some of the classes get a little too crowded, but they try to keep it under 18 students for the most part. The rooms aren't particularly large, so that's important. Also, Vietnamese architecture isn't conducive to a quiet environment. The concrete walls and high ceilings tend to create echo chambers that result in a cacophonous roar. That's right, I just used cacophonous in a sentence, what are you going to do about it? Haha!

English Class

Flood

We had a bit of rain this morning. I woke up to the sound of a thunderstorm and it continued on for several hours. When I went downstairs I found that the first floor had been flooded and was still being cleaned up. I went out to the front entrance and took a few photos. Unfortunately, water drainage is not very good here, and when it rains, it pours. Hopefully it will go down a bit more before I go to the meeting tonight!

Flood

Museum of Ethnology

This past Wednesday I went to the Museum of Ethnology with Thế-Anh, Nam, and a friend visiting from Saigon named Toàn.  It was very hot, just like most of this week has been.  As a matter of fact, right now it is 99 with a heat index of 117.  The hardest part is when the power goes out.  Many of the friends live in outlying areas that lose power frequently for long durations.  It's hard to sleep at night when it's this hot and you don't at least have a fan blowing on you.

Anyway, about the museum.  I actually went on my first visit to Hanoi with my mom and took a ton of pictures.  You're supposed to pay an extra 50,000đ to take photographs.  When I pointed to that on the sign Thế-Anh and Nam laughed and said Vietnamese people never do that.  If they want to take pictures they take pictures.  Then they thought about it and admitted that it was a lack of respect for others that caused that kind of thinking.

Only Toàn took pictures, so we paid the extra and went in with a clear conscience, LOL.  I still have a ton of pictures from last time, and nothing has changed at all.  Toàn took so many pictures that his battery died, so I let him borrow my camera to finish up.  There was a very pretty tree near the Bahnar communal house that ended up on my camera, so I'll post it up here.

While the guys were up in the Bahnar house checking it out I hung out in the shade under the building.  There were a number of students down there and they were so surprised to hear me speak Vietnamese that they all took out their cell phones and started taking pictures of me.  Then the kids started coming up and getting their pictures taken with me, LOL.  I got a picture with two sisters and their cousin who were there.  Thủy asked me how old I was, and when I told her she said "you're as old as my mom!"

Museum of Ethnology

The Indoctrination Begins

My friend Vựng came over the the other day and I was helping him with his computer. He saw the big going away congregation photo with the SpongeBob stickers on it and wondered what they were. So I explained how my taste in humor has earned me the eternal ridicule of all my friends (except the ones with taste that also enjoy the occasional SpongeBob adventure. LOL). I showed him one of my favorite episodes, "Rock Bottom". He thought it was hilarious, even though he couldn't understand it all, and he asked me to put some episodes on a few discs for his kids.

The next time I saw him he told me that the kids are begging to watch them and laugh like crazy, even when they can't understand what anyone is saying. So to all you haters out there...

Giant Box

I was trying to find a box with a lock that could be mounted on the back of my bike for carrying things a bit more securely, so I went to a friend who has a motorbike repair shop. We went over to Phố Huế where all manner of bike accessories can be found and looked. Unfortunately, we could only find two sizes: tiny and huge. Tiny was pointless, since I at least wanted to be able to put my helmet in and lock it up when necessary ( I already had one stolen, if something's not locked down say goodbye to it before you leave ).

So we got the big one and took it back to his shop. They didn't provide a key. When we called and asked about it they said they never do and we have to take the lock to a locksmith and have keys made. Huh? Anyway, we get the keys done and put everything together. Since it's made for a bigger bike, it won't mount with the clips that make it possible to easily lock it on the bike or take it off when you don't need it. We ended up having to drill a couple holes in the metal bracket and securing it with bolts.

On the plus side, I can now carry stuff. Lots of stuff. On the negative side I'm now carrying a giant box on the back of my little bike all the time, which is pretty hilarious looking. Oh well, when I'm able to resolve the license situation and get a bigger bike, I can use the box like it was designed, so it's not a loss. And I'm certainly used to being laughed at, just look at the comments on this blog. Sigh. ;-)

Badminton

I left my tennis rackets behind when I left for Vietnam. As a matter of fact, I think Jerry got my tennis bag. :-) There are some tennis courts here, but they're not public courts and it can be expensive to play. So today I went and bought a badminton racket and went down to Linh Đàm park with Nam and Thế Anh to play.

Since so many people like to play, what happens is you just find a net and wait. When a team loses you can rotate in with your partner. Thế Anh and I were partners and won 3 games in a row. :-) He's a quick little guy, and I picked up the game pretty quickly. Of course, next time we'll play against people that know what they're doing and get slaughtered, haha!

Badminton is so popular here, you can find people playing it everywhere. It's a common sport used to exercise in the morning as well. You'll find many people out playing at 6 AM, especially older ones. I didn't realize how competitive it was until I saw a match on television last year. It's a big deal! Badminton is the fastest racket sport in the world, with shuttles reaching speeds up to 206 mph (332 km/h). Now I'm wishing I'd asked chị Hồng for some lessons!

My New Place

A little visual introduction to my new place. If things go well, I'll probably be here for quite a while.

My New Place

"Have You Ever Heard the Rain?"

So I have moved into my new place. I am renting the 3rd floor in a 4 story building. A Korean couple rents the lower two floors, and the 4th floor is basically storage and where we go to hang clothes to dry. I have a bedroom with A/C, a bathroom, and an extra room that has lots of windows and is set up as a kitchen of sorts.

I went out today to buy some essentials that I didn't need while I was staying as a guest at David's house for the last few weeks. There are definitely some changes I'd like to make in some furnishings if I'm going to be staying here for a while, hopefully that won't be an issue.

Last night was my first night here, and I was in for a surprise. We had a very hard thunderstorm around 3 AM, and I was woken up by a muffled roaring sound. I opened up my bedroom door and the entire stairwell area was filled with the awesome sound of a powerful rain beating down on a metal roof. I went up to fourth floor and the noise was almost deafening. Wow. Anyway, despite what everyone in Oregon thinks, I love rain. I love watching it, listening to it, and most of all, sitting by a window reading while the rain is coming down outside. Now going out and trying to get things done in it... well, that's just not right!

So I was able to fall asleep after getting accustomed to the new sound, and today was a cooler day for last night's storm. Tomorrow I will have to go grocery shopping and do some laundry. Life goes on...

Laundry Day

It's been a quiet week, so I thought I'd do a quick blog post on some of the sundry details.  This morning I got up and did some exercise, then went down to the kitchen and cooked up an omelet and made some coffee.  David smelled the aromas and come down to fix himself up a bite to eat as well.  So we talked for a bit about the day's activities and then went to work.

After a quick shower I decided to start with the laundry.  Since David has a washing machine, I don't have to wash everything by hand, but any real stains have to be worked out by hand before throwing an item in the washer, since it's not very powerful.  After the machine has run its course, I'll clip the clothing to hangers and use a pronged pole to hang them up on the wires running above the balcony.  Things dry pretty quickly in this heat!

Honestly though, today's not so bad.  It's only 30° with a heat index of 37°, 86° to 98°F to you westerners.  I don't even have the air conditioner running, just the windows open and the ceiling fan whirling.  I'll need to adjust eventually, and this is as cool as it's going to get for a while.

Laundry Day

On another note, I just got word that I can move into my new place this Saturday!

Obligatory

The greatest motorbike of all time

Believe it or not, that's not hyperbole!  Check out this clip from the Discovery Channel on the program "The Greatest Ever".

So my friend Quý has a brother-in-law who works for a Honda dealership down in the city of Thái Bình.  He came across a Honda Super Cub 50, which is a 49cc motorbike that meets my requirements of not needing a license to drive.  Now Thái Bình is a good 2.5 hour drive away from Hanoi, so it had better be a sure thing before making the trip, but he said the bike was ngon, "delicious", so we went for it.

It turned out to be in exceptionally good condition for a bike manufactured back in the 80's.  It was previously owned and used by someone in the military, so it was actually well taken care of.  Most motorbikes of this type that are still running in Vietnam have been repaired with all manner of spare parts from China, but this one is 100% original Honda parts.  We got the price down to about $290 and signed on the dotted line.

After clearing it with the local police, I was able to spend the night at Quy's home.  The neighbors were fascinated by a Westerner staying at someone's house, so they all came over to see what was going on.  I had a lot of fun helping some of the kids practice their English.  Quy's parents are really nice, very hospitable, so it was a nice trip.  Since Thái Bình isn't industrialized, there is very little pollution.  It's the first time I've seen blue sky and the stars at night after coming to Hanoi.

There was a little trouble getting my new bike started the next day, but it was just a very minor adjustment that had gotten out of tune.  While getting it checked out I went ahead and had the oil changed just in case.  I then drove the bike all the way from Thái Bình back to Hanoi.  Since we ended up leaving a little later than expected, most of the trip was at night, but everything went well and I found that I really enjoyed driving a motorbike.  The only problem I had (other than all the crazy people driving on the roads over here! ) was that the seat is a little low, making it a bit difficult to down-shift.  That shouldn't be too hard to adjust, so it looks like I found my new bike!

It actually might not have to even be all that temporary, since it really does quite well on the streets here in Hanoi.  The only reason I can think of to upgrade to a more powerful bike would be if I had to carry a passenger, and I wouldn't mind not having to bear that responsibility for a while.  So for now, it's me and my cub prowling the streets of Hanoi.

Here are a few photos from the trip to Thái Bình.

The alternative

Well, getting a driver's license over here is becoming one giant pain in the posterior region. After compiling what I thought was everything necessary, I find out that the translation of my Oregon driver's license was done with the improper terminology so is unacceptable, the local police didn't authorize my license application correctly, and there are things required that are only posted on the wall at the office, they are not listed on the actual application as being necessary to bring in. Also, they require duplicates of every item, which also was not specified. Talk about fit to be tied. Sigh.

I think another one of the reasons I'm finding difficulty is because I am here on a tourist visa. Apparently many of the others that come over managed to work out an arrangement where they had a business visa, which makes it much easier to get the license. I'm going to continue trying to find work over here, hopefully I can find something part-time that will give me some legitimacy. If so, then I can apply for the business visa and go from there.

In the meantime, I discovered that any motorbike under 50cc does not require a license to drive. So I think the best alternative for me in the short term is just to get one of the smaller bikes and use that to get around. A friend's friend has one that he's going to borrow tomorrow so I can try it out and make sure it will do what I need. Since I just need basic transportation to find work and get to meetings, it should be sufficient. I should be able to buy a used bike quite inexpensively and sell it later when I'm able to upgrade. Anything to avoid having to go back to that application office!

The Honda Cub is a fairly common 49cc bike over here, though most everyone drives the larger 100-150cc bikes nowadays. It looks something like this:

Getting a license, part 2

Well, the letter I waited for the embassy to prepare was useless. It wasn't even in Vietnamese. At least they didn't ask me to pay anything for it. Afterwards I went to the Office of Traffic & Public Works to try and apply anyway, since it was close. No go, I need the license itself translated and notarized. So they send me off to the Hall of Justice to get it translated.

Of course, they told me that they don't do any translation there, and sent me to an office that was fortunately only a five minute walk away. While I was there I had them translate the letter of recommendation from my employer in the US so I can prove I have more than five years of experience in my field when searching for a job. Of course, that shall be another tale for another day.

So I should be able to return tomorrow afternoon to get the translated documents. Hopefully I will be able to get the documents turned in Friday morning before leaving with my friend for the weekend, since it will probably take a week to process the application after I have submitted it.

Here comes the bride

Evidently two of the friends in the congregation began dating shortly after my last visit ended, and just announced their intention to get married last week. The wedding will be this Thursday. So some of the brothers went over to meet with the groom last night to help plan everything. This morning was spent practicing songs that we will sing after the wedding.

There will be five songs, the first is a translated version of song 36 in the new songbook. We're singing it like the choral arrangement that can be downloaded at jw.org, where the men and women sing separately and then join together on the chorus. Then the sisters will sing two songs together, followed by a song sung in Korean by a group of Korean sisters. Finally we all go back up to sing a translated version of song 92 from the new songbook.

The next day I will go down with a friend to his hometown and spend the night, since he lives near the bride's family. Then Saturday a group of us will go and visit the family. All in all, it's turning out to be a busy week. The friends here are very excited. Since there have been so few weddings in the congregation, it's a very special experience for them all.

On another note, I received a call from the embassy today letting me know my letter for the driver's license is ready. So things are actually moving forward in that regard as well.

The quest for air conditioning

Today was a good test of my ability to withstand the summer heat. It was 95° with 94% humidity and a heat index of 110°. Despite the heat, it was a busy day. I left the house at 8 AM and got home at 6:30 PM, with no A/C in between. Drank lots of water though! The rest of this week should go back down to the mid 80's with some scattered rain. Hopefully I will hear back from the embassy tomorrow and can get started on part 2 of getting a license.

"Who's that strange white man?"

Most of the foreigners in Hanoi tend to congregate around the Old Quarter near Hoàn Kiếm lake, so my walking around in the other districts tends to draw attention.  While walking around in the Thanh Xuân district today, there were lots of stares, some smiles, some waves, and some whispers of "người Tây!"  But the funniest experience was when the taxi drove into the giant pile of garbage because the driver was craning his neck to watch the Westerner walking around.

Getting a license, part 1

So the first task I've assigned myself is to obtain a Vietnamese driver's license so I can legally commit suicide on the roads of Vietnam.  (Just kidding Mom... no really, I'll be careful)  I called the US Embassy to see if they had any advice for me and they said I could come down and get a letter prepared in Vietnamese that I can use at the Department of Transportation to prove I have a motorcycle endorsement.  Hopefully that means I will only have to pay a small fee and get a new license, no tests required.

Since the embassy is in the same district I'm currently living in, I decided to just walk down.  It was a leisurely half hour walk, and on the way back I picked up some bún chả for lunch and had a quick iced coffee break at a café, since it was starting to warm up a bit.  Every 60 feet there was a xe ôm driver trying to get me on his bike.  I guess that will be one advantage to getting my own.

Now I just have to wait for the embassy to call me back and let me know the letter is ready to be picked up.  Then will come part 2: dealing with the Vietnamese equivalent of the DMV.