Everyday life in Hanoi...

So today, I came home, walked into my lounge room and see Malcolm being measured by his tailor... yes, that's right... his tailor does house calls.

I've had a pretty full couple of weeks and am just now taking a breather. I'm teaching but also busily preparing prac places for the upcoming Teach International course. The last few days have been oppressively humid, there hasn't been a sniff of a breeze. The city is sluggish and the pressure is building, we're all hoping for some rain.

Life goes on, and in saying that, it's generally been a happy blend of socialising, shopping, sneezing, drinking, massage, housesitting, dog whispering, nurturing good friends, creativity and general enjoyment... and shopping!

Being in a country that creates and has a reputation for manufacture, it's no wonder people can get exactly what they want (copied, made, designed and created). For example, a friend has a unique pair of Italian heels she nabbed in an op shop in San Fransisco, what luck! One of a kind you say!

Well, maybe in any other country than Vietnam...

.... even as I type, a hardworking Vietnamese cobbler is replicating the shoes and producing an identical pair for me for $9, mind you, finding his shop, the explanation, pattern picking and bargaining process took almost 2 hours and we'll see what happens when I pick up the shoes. So yes, you get what you want, however you need patience, NO expectations and a sense of humour in equal measures.

The Old Quarter is where most people spend their time shopping. There's a street for almost everything you need or want. Forget one stop shopping, for better or worse Hanoi makes the average shopper travel to each part of the city to find what they want! There's Silk Street, Bamboo Furniture Street, Shoe Street, Metal Pots and Pans Street, Ribbon Alley, Cushion Street... possibly read the Lonely Planet for a more correct description. Regardless, most of these places are situated in the Old Quarter.

From my house the Old Quarter is about a 15 min ride. It's a short motorbike ride through our laneway., down the packed popular shopping street of Doi Can, zoom past my favourite street in Hanoi... Chicken Street...

...On a delicious, totally off topic side note, it's now my personal belief that while Colonel Sanders served in the army... bear with me... he visited Hanoi and sampled barbeque chicken on Ly Van Phuc went back to America and made a poor reproduction in his Kentucky restaurant, haha. Each little restaurant that lines the street has their own closely guarded family recipe and spices, and it's chicken unequaled by anything I have eaten so far (being a fried chicken lover I can say this with certainty).

Imagine an entire street of small open area restaurants totally dedicated to cooking, making and selling chicken... you sit on the side of the road on small plastic chairs and are served enormous succulent glistening pieces of fresh chicken. The legs, wings (or feet depending on your fancy) are skewered on a stick, glistening hot and saucy, steaming fresh off the barbeque... complemented with hot spiced potato pieces and honey bread on sticks and washed down with bubbling Hanoian beer... it's heaven on a stick, a rare creation worthy of a chicken sacrifice.... or two, three, four...

Ah... give me a minute to wipe the saliva from my mouth...

... so zipping and zooming in and out of traffic after Chicken Street (with a full belly) you pass the pale high walls of the Temple of Literature and straight into the bustling, greedy heart of the Old Quarter.

I get the distinct feeling many travellers come to Hanoi and after spending a lot of time in the Old Quarter quickly become tired of the constant flow of people, street vendors, shops and other tourists.

On some faces you see a tic appear every time a street vendor calls out.. "You want a _______.' [insert cyclo/xe om/banh mi/leather wallet/Uncle Ho lighter/street map/ book/ fruit etc] It's fair enough... the flow of the Old Quarter is constant and busy, it's hot and compact and when you are living in it can be a little overwhelming.

Compared to most people I've come into the quiet and relative stability of an already established household outside of the compact Old Quarter and had a very positive introduction so far. Plus, living so close to Chicken Street, I can't really go wrong. I'm off tomorrow to find a standing hammock so I can relax and swing in the breeze (but since there's none of that) just to swing and relax and read a book on my rooftop... and sweat!

Oh and I've been a bit slack recently with blog updates, I think because I've 'misplaced' my camera (probably permanently) so sadly until I buy another there'll be no pics for a while...

Viet Cobbler
119 Ly Thai To

Chicken Street
Ly Van Phuc

Teacher Tab

Finally, after only a month I've given up my official position as Cat Nanny... a great job, if you have large wads of cash to live off. I have started teaching English (which is what I came here to do in the first place)!

I have to say, so far teaching is great. I've ended up getting a job in a business college of all places. I looked around at a few schools and was going to apply at one down the road, but I have to say the idea of teaching adults really appeals to me.

So anyway!

I'm teaching managers and sales and marketing staff at Yamaha motorbike company and getting paid a sweet penny to do it. Classes are held in the glitzy company offices above the main motorbike showroom. The building itself stunning, the bikes expensive and shiny and the students enthusiastic and simply stoked to have a teacher who plays games and activities.

My first class was a winner and I'm looking forward to my next group. I'm teaching different levels and it's interesting to meet all kinds of professionals and looking into getting a staff discount on a motorbike, haha.

Oh, and this is the scrappy lad Houdini... aw, will you look at that face!!!!

Home Sweet Sweet Home!!

Finally!

An update on our Hanoi hacienda...
Mal, Simone, Houdini (the magic kitten) and I are now fully installed in our beautiful house...

Yes, it’s true for a weekend while we were here it was still a fully functioning school with 100’s of small children running up and down the stairs yelling and screaming. Yes, it’s true, the building was dirty, the walls had been drawn on, there was no furniture, no gas...

...and yes, the idea of moving into a school although bold and exciting, was probably not the most well thought out plan, but looking and living in this incredible living space now, I am glad we did.

It took a while but the house is fully equipped, sign taken down, oven included (which is rare here), beautiful bamboo furniture, walls freshly painted, floors scrubbed clean. It’s tall and thin like most Vietnamese houses, 5 stories in all.

My bedroom and bathroom are on the 4th floor. This means there are 54 stairs from the ground floor to my bedroom... I’ve counted. (But considering I'm in a perpetual state of butter-chicken-bliss here in Vietnam, I view these stairs in a positive light.)

So starting from the top...

Yoga/ exercise room on the 5th floor (again who can complain about stairs when you are working out), a roof terrace which houses a gigantic Vietnamese altar and our laundry. My room is on the 4th floor with the band room directly opposite (lucky me). Mal and Sim’s room is on the 3rd complete with ensuite and opposite them is a guest room for friends and family.

(deep breath, there's more)

...the 2nd floor holds the office and three desks and what will be a movie/lounge room. On the ground floor we have a lovely kitchen and a chill out space. There are a good 15 living spaces in this house, 7 rooms, three bathrooms, two lounges… and a fish pond (still to come).

Beeeeeeaaaaaaaaauuuuuuutiful!

For those of you viewing this on a click through from the house advertisment, click for bigger pics or visit www.flickr.com/tabithatravels for MORE!!!

Museum of Ethnology - Hanoi

The Museum of Ethnology provides a deeper look into the life and culture of the Vietnamese hill tribes as colourful and varied as they are.

I caught a xe om to the museum for a little more than 10, 000VND and had a bit of fun poking around the various clothing, jewellery, religious and birthing exhibits. My xe om driver insisted on being my tour guide, but with his terrible English it seemed better simply to read the tiny plaques.

The wander through the museum is nice! I love the difference between traditional clothing of the men and women of the tribes..the men's costumes are rough with bits of twine and bark quickly sewn together in jagged lines, covering only important parts. The women's costumes are lined with colors and intricate patterning and tiny detailed work..hahaha, typical!

Outside the main building there is a large space where they have built gorgeous traditional houses and huts as well as burial tombs. It's the first time I've seen a set up like this, and a walk inside the creaking bamboo of the houses is really something special!

There's a water puppet theatre with the backdrop of a wonderful traditional house. In fact there are many traditional houses spread over a large area in the back of the museum.






This photo is of decorations on a traditional tomb was by far my highlight, hehehe, even my guide had a giggle at that.











Nguyen Van Huyen Road
Cau Giay District
Hanoi, Vietnam

Spectacular Sapa

Hooray! We are now staying in our house, like many things in Vietnam the move was confusing and complicated, but enormously satisfying. The school is slowly transforming into a home.. a full update on our palatial palace is coming soon!!

In amongst moving and packing, I've taken a trip to Sapa (this trip was a 'gift' from the bro, thanks Josh). It’s a town located high in north-western Vietnam (I looked it up). It takes 8 hours from Hanoi on a bumbling, rumbling overnight train which lands you at Lao Cai station about 5 minutes from the Chinese border.. I was so tempted to take a peek.

Just 40 minutes climbing the winding roads you arrive at Sapa on the easternmost point of the Himalayan ranges. Mountains dominate the skyline and bright green terraced rice paddies carpet the hills. Traditional ethnic groups live here in villages, about 6 minorities in all, the biggest being the Hmong. It's so beautiful and quiet, lush and green.

Sapa Sapa Sapa...
It's like that memory game, I'm going to grandma's house and I bought a hand-embroidered blanket.. I'm going to grandma’s house and I bought a hand-embroidered blanket, and a beautiful belt.. I'm going to grandma’s house and I brought a hand-embroidered blanket, a beautiful belt, and a load of silver jewellery.. gorgeous cushions, traditional instruments, more jewellery etc etc

Needless to say there are a lot of beautiful handcrafted things to buy, but it’s not the shopping, or the cool quiet mornings or the lush hillsides, or the French pattisserie 'Baugette and Chocolat' with a citron tart to DIE for - no, it’s the amazing, smiling, friendly people. The ladies and girls in traditional dress, their impeccable English and their heart warming smiles! Although, the gaggle of little girls that approach you the moment you step off the bus is slightly overwhelming.

About 30 small children in traditional Hmong tribe dress assailed us the second we got off the bus. They hit us with questions, 'what is your name, where are you from, how long are you here’ in little suffocating clusters… and then, surprisingly, they stepped back and allowed us to check into the hotel. I was only slightly suspicious...

My Sapa adventure included trekking, a lot of it! Mostly down the mountain in the rain to visit small villages, playing pool and drinking beers with my guide, waterfalls, local food, and panoramic views always being followed by the same chatty, smiling groups of girls and ladies.

It was at the end of the 5 1/2 hour trek I found out why they are so relaxed at the beginning. Right at the end when me and a French lady were worn, muddy and weary and just slogging it up the last 10 mts to our hotel the four small girls decided this was the moment we were going to buy from them. Powerless you watch as you hand over large amounts of dong for whistles and bracelets feeling slightly obligated to buy from these bright souls, but they really have sales down pat here!

The thing that is the best about living in a country is the thought that yes, you can come back. There have been so many times in my travels that I truly believed I would go back to a particular place and haven't as yet (buying property in Nepal was one of those times). But being here 6 months means that I can definitely can and will visit Sapa again.

Dinh - guide (she speaks excellent English and plays a mean game of pool)
Mob: 01699850187

Halong Happiness

Well, happy birthday to me! In Vietnam instead of cake I get five-star food and instead of a wrapped gift I get a boat cruise, eh voila, merci mon ange.

3 hours east..which way is east..um, slightly down and right of Hanoi is Halong Bay and literally hundreds of limestone karts scattered across the horizon. I can't think of anything better than being on great big junk chugging past ancient monolithic islands!

Days were spent sprawling on a deckchair on the top deck feeling like a movie star on a cruise somewhere exotic (ahem, like Vietnam), eating seafood, swimming in the shimmering green ocean, kayaking through schools of enormous white jellyfish and mooring for the night surrounded by dark island silhouettes and watching a storm roll into the bay...beautiful...

However, in the middle of the night, around the time the roof above my bed sprung a small geyser and I heard shouts and running on the deck the thought crossed my mind that maybe I should have paid more for this tour. Now I know I'd unwittingly booked one of those 'Surprise Tours' you get in Asia, the kind where your guide says Surprise! ...all the time.

It went something along the lines of 'Surprise! Now you must pay extra to see the caves', or 'Surprise! Now we're taking a two and a half hour trek up a slippery rock face and it'll be dangerous' or I really liked this one two poor New Zealander's got, Surprise! You're changing boats mid-stream because...

...well, just because.

Apart from having to guess what was coming next which is something we all began to laugh at, I had a great time and even enjoyed a few seconds of satisfaction at the top of the scary mountain.

Now back in Hanoi I am preparing for an adventure of another kind...getting settled in a school, literally, we are living in a working school. 'Surprise! There are small Vietnamese students coming for classes over the weekend' (that one was our landlord)...

More on the new place soon...

Art, literature and temples

I realise I have been talking a lot about food, so I am NOT going to begin this post mentioning the absolutely amazing butter chicken I ate last night or the melt in your mouth coconut squid at Little Hanoi...

Just a short walk through green trees, a wander along a busy street and a few totally hair-raising intersections later (haha..gulp..) you come into the luscious green gardens of the Temple of Literature.

It’s lovely, a little touristy but reminiscent of moss covered Angkor temples scattered around Cambodia (minus all that cool old Cambodian temple energy).

Anyway, I see now I should have hired a guide because the whole time I didn’t get what was so literary about the place. It looks like the sort of place skinny monks wander reading fat spiritual texts in perfect solitude surrounded by lotus ponds filled with golden carp. Of course, Simone later told me it’s not a spiritual place but actually the first Confucian university – bloody cool place to study if you ask me.

Only another short walk down the street is the Museum of Fine Arts, after wandering up and down the same street four or five times I was a little embarrassed at having missed this enormous building. Truly Vietnam has some amazing art (and a great café culture to show it all off)! The museum had extraordinary contemporary art, cultural art so beautiful it made me want to cry, Stone Age exhibits and ceramics and finally some very weird boob focused art I stumbled upon in a temporary exhibition...

As you can probably see immediately from my entries I still haven’t found gainful employment (or read through the Lonely Planet guide properly), but after this week I’ve realised I’m not actually looking. I’ve given myself an official two weeks grace. For someone who flew across the world to work, I’ve slowly realised there should be more ‘holiday’ to this ‘working holiday’.

So for the moment, my job is Cat Nanny and Official Tourist. And oh boy, is it a fun job. If this became a proper job I would be the happiest traveller on the face of the planet.

Temple of Literature
Tuesday to Sunday from 8:30 to 11:30 and 13:30 to 16:30
Quoc Tu Giam St

108

108. A number used in Islam to refer to God or higher truth. The exact number of prayer beads found on a Buddhist mala (and the suspiciously identical amount on a Catholic rosary). A perfect three digit multiple of three, or the number nine when added together (which is also three threes).

Why am I spouting numerology?

Well since there is so much hoo-ha about the divinity of the number 108 it seems entirely auspicious that I have landed in Vietnam in house 108.

And actually this is what I am doing at the moment, seeking God in Vietnam. Not in some typically religious way. I'm simply taking the time to meditate on that Something for a while, (true unemployment leaves plenty of time for that). I'm sure the search for peace is something people here have done for a long time during the long wars and trials that rocked the country, and not just the American War!

Although Vietnam is a communist country, amazingly the constitution allows religious freedom. The major religions are the big three in Asia, Taoism, Mahayana Buddhism and Confucianism. The Vietnamese have perfected a special blend of these religions and even managed to mix in their own brand of ancestor and national hero worship to perfection.

While I realise an ashram in India is probably a better place to have a spiritual reawakening, you have to consider that I have found a happy balance between great food, amazing friends, bountiful jobs and warm weather, more and more I am finding that Vietnam is a perfect place to simply BE.

English is a Funny Language

I found this poem during my TESOL course. And will never again wonder why people say English is a hard language to learn. This little work of art made me understand the uphill battle ESL learners have to go through to achieve their goal of becoming fluent in this bizarre language!

Enjoy :)

English is a Funny Language

English is a funny language, there is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple... English muffins were not invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, two geese. So, one moose, two meese? One index, two indices? Is cheese the plural of choose?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play, and play at a recital? Ship by truck, and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another? When a house burns up, it burns down. You fill in a form by filling it out, and an alarm clock goes off by going on. When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it?