My Reunification Saturday

Today is a holiday here in Vietnam.  "Reunification Day" celebrates the day the South Vietnamese surrendered to the North, two years after the US withdrew from Saigon, reuniting the country for the first time since the mid 20th Century.  I understand that there will be fireworks this evening here in Hanoi, assuming one can see them through the haze.

Speaking of which, travelling to Ho Chi Minh City was like my own version of the Wizard of Oz.  I left gray and gloomy Hanoi (aka "Kansas") yesterday morning.  Landing in Saigon three hours later I felt like Dorothy stepping out into Munchkin Land for the first time!  Sun!  Blue Sky!  Color! 

Ironically, just when I had hoped to take in all the sun I could during my short stay in HCMC, I checked into my room downtown at the Bong Sen Hotel, flung open the curtains expecting to take in as much of the sunshine as I could, only to find this:

Seriously, could there be a more depressing hotel room view anywhere on the planet?!  I don't think even sunlight at high noon could find it's way to the bottom of the chasm outside my window.  Hopefully Air Mekong didn't pay a premium for my "Pipe and Bucket View" suite.

Anyway, I was greeted by a spectacular morning in Saigon as I headed back to the airport before flying back to Kans, er, Hanoi.  Fortunately, my friend Chi and I had made plans to have lunch together today, so that more than compensated for the ever-present haze which greeted me on arrival at Noi Bai Airport here.

Since "Bun Bo Nam Bo" appeared to be closing early for the holiday today, Chi and I stopped next door to "Mai Anh" for another Vietnamese eating adventure.  I've walked passed the Mai Anh many times enroute to other restaurants (and the Tree Man) down the street.  At streetside, there's always an employee or two grilling meat on a makeshift barbeque and it's always smelled pretty tempting, but the place looks pretty iffy. 

She's grilling pork between two flat screens on a Not-a-George Forman Grill

 A big crowd is always encouraging...even if they're all on foot high stools!

My exceptional hostest and star of my blog, Chi!

Chi reassured me that they served up great food, so we took our kiddie stools and sat down.

We sat there for a few minutes when I finally asked if someone was going to take our order and she said, "no, they only serve one thing."  So two orders of "Bun Cha", coming up!

"Bun Cha" is somewhat like pho in that it's essentially a broth of some kind with green papaya, along with rice noodles you add in as you go.  It contains two kinds of pork; one, something like a spiced pork ball, the other, tenderized pork belly strips.  You can also add mint, lettuce and bean sprouts.

And, yes, "Yum!"  Man, it's my new favorite Vietnamese dish.  It's really outstanding.  And Chi said there's an even better Bun Cha joint downtown.  So we'll be adding that to the list of eateries we'll be sampling over the next couple of months. 




The sky really is blue!

Just landed in Dalat en route to Saigon under beautiful blue skies.  I had forgotten what a cloudless sky looked like.  Amazing!

Travelling Day

'Raining here in Hanoi this morning and I'm off to Saigon.  I'll check back in tomorrow afternoon when I return.

Happy Reunification Holiday everyone!

Today at the Fivi-Mart: Update

It was another late night at the office today and was raining outside tonight, so I decided to get a pizza from ZPizza (anybody ever heard of that?  It's like CPK and I guess they're all over in California but I've never heard of it!  20 are coming to Vietnam though!).  Anyway, while I was waiting I ran upstairs to the Fivi-Mart, our neighborhood's local supermarket, to buy a tall cold beverage to accompany my pizza.

While I was wondering the aisles, I noticed all sorts of funky stuff that you wouldn't see at the local Safeway store. 

In the 'fridge section.  Next to eggs.  Anyone?

Also in the 'fridge section.  No clue.

 Nuts maybe?  Underneath the California raisins boxes.

My favorite!  Want Want Shelly Senbei!  Yum?

 Runny nose?  Cute tissue!

Not bait!  Fresh for dinner!

Obviously there's quite a bit of Japanese stuff.  Or maybe it's Chinese?  In any case, there's an inordinate number of products which are completely unfamiliar to me.  About the only aisle which feels remotely like an American supermarket is the bottled water aisle.  'Guess it's a good thing I can't cook.

The funniest part of the store comes at check out!  They have barcode scanners, just like home.  Your products ring up on a computer screen so you can see exactly what you've purchased along with the price, etc.  Since they don't take green stamps or credit cards, you pretty much have to pay cash, which is like paying with monopoly money and usually takes a good 3-4 minutes each time I buy as I sort through the funny bills in my wallet and try to figure out what each one is.

After annoying the line of customers tapping their toes behind me, I hand the checker my cash, she rings up the sale and open pops the cash drawer!

What you see is basically a wooden drawer with a couple of partitions for a few of the denominations, but they don't look very organized and they just kinda flop around in their sections.  (And, yes, taking this picture made for a very awkward moment or two!).  Funny, huh?

So that's my trip to the Fivi-Mart!  I need to head off to bed now, but not before I crack open my package of Want Want Shelly Senbei!

UPDATE:

While Chi and I were at lunch yesterday, we made a sidetrip to the Fivi-Mart and she explained what each of my mystery items are:

Further correction: These are "Pandan Mantou" and are Chinese (mantou means Chinese steamed buns).  Pandan adds flavor to these vegetarian buns.  Still, no cute kittie will convince me to try these.  

My friend Bill was right.  Kinda.  These are eggs, but just chicken eggs, not quail.  Had I looked more closely, I could have seen they were eggs.  But they're not in the refridgerated section, so that threw me off.

Japanese peanut snacks of some kind.

These are puffy round rice snack crackers...and not something I especially "Want Want".

Tissue. 

Fish.

Chi also gave me an update about the cash drawer.

If you look closely, in the bill section which would be just under the checkers hands (and second from the right), you can make out three candies.  The checkers give customers those lieu of change for small bill denominations the store no longer carries. 

So if your bill comes to 174,800 VND and you hand the checker 180,000, you'll get a 5,000 Dong note and a candy or two two make up for the fact that she doesn't have the 200 note (less than one cent) to give you full change.

Lesson Learned

The public has spoken!  I happened to check my blog statistics tonight and the posting with the single most pageviews was my post on the Vietnamese earwig. 

Apparently insects and brevity win!  Not one to disappoint, I'll defer to popular demand...

Actually, I think folks like this post most because of the hilarious comment posted by my SkyWest pilot buddy, Robert.  Hopefully he can come up with something equally witty about a Vietnamese mosquito?

Ok, truth be told, I'm bushed. 

The doubly sad thing is that for as long as I've been here, there've actually been these kinda cute little flying bugs around.  I had hoped to use a picture of one of them.  They're fuzzy, small and wide, and I have no idea what they are.  Of course tonight there's not one to be found.  Hopefully I can feature one in an upcoming post for which interest will be enormous if history is any indicator.

Garbage Day

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I live in the Tay Ho (West Lake) neighborhood of Hanoi.  It's one of the nicer parts of town and has a relatively high expat population.  The neighborhood itself sits on a little peninsula which juts out into West Lake.


I love maps!


My work and apartment complex is the little gray blob to the immediate right of "Quang An" and sits Xuan Dieu Street, shown in yellow and which is the main road into and out of Tay Ho.

From the looks of it, one might think the neighborhood had many "streets" crisscrossing the peninsula.  But aside from Xuan Dieu and most of the lakeside roads, most of the streets are actually just small alleys.  Some are literally just hallways.

As I was wondering around "the 'hood" last weekend, I stumbled on the street above and noticed a woman off in the distance.  As I got closer, I realized that she was one of several people who roam the streets of Tay Ho pushing their large green carts.

As I got closer, I realized that she's the garbage lady!  There's actually a whole team of workers who roam the streets of Tay Ho (and presumably Hanoi) pushing hand carts and collecting the garbage.  Obviously, with streets so small and narrow, no garbage truck could ever navigate such small spaces.

Amazingly, her cart is about the size of a typical American garbage bin, so she wouldn't get much past the driveway in Phoenix before her cart was full.  But that's also when I noticed the garbage she was picking up:

And this:

And this:

I guess when you have small trash, you only need small trash disposal!  I think the Vietnamese are especially thoughtful with their garbage.  Of course, they don't consume anywhere near what the average American might, but once they do, they recycyle everything they can because they must, not because they're particularly "green".  

I've actually seen several cartpushers and their carts congregating in various parts of the neighborhood.  What they do once their carts are full remains a mystery, but I'll see what I can do to find out and let you know.

Because I'm sure everyone is as incredibly fascinated by this as I am!  :o)

Euborellia annulipes

Vietnamese Earwig!

Who knew?

That's all.

Today's Update!

Two things:

First, thanks for all the comments and emails about "My Day of Beauty".  Everyone seemed especially curious about "Tree Man", the barber.  So, on my way to Ochao this afternoon, I attempted to get a closer look at his operation and take a couple more pics.

First, a few folks suggested yesterday that they couldn't see the mirror or price list, so...

Ok, the pic's pretty blurry (Yes, I was caught in the act of snapping the photo; hopefully Mr Customer doesn't have a divot snipped out of his hairdo), but you can see the mirror directly in front of the hair cutee (who's reclining) and the price list to the left of that.  Who knows what might have happened had the barber been giving the guy a shave when I caught his attention (and reason #1 why I won't be getting my beard trimmed there).

 Reason #2 is shown below:

It's tough to see, but the chord which plugs into whatever electrical devices our hairstylist needs for his customers runs up the trunk of the tree (see yellow chord?), is attached midway up, then runs in a straight line...

directly across the street and into the red building above (chord runs diagonally from upper right to low left and appears to run from the top of the building on the right to the lower building on the left).

Given evidence for Reasons #1 and #2, I feel no need to search out evidence of Reason #3, the "ear massage stick", and will likely continue to patronize the Ngoc Mai Beauty Salon down the street.

As for Update #2, I forgot to add one thing about last evening's night out. 

I've not shared with you yet my other, 'nother favorite thing about Vietnam and that's the yogurt here.  Craig and I were first introduced to SE Asian yogurt last year on our trip to Cambodia.  Each morning for breakfast, they'd serve homemade yogurt in tiny ceramic "cups" and it was awesome!

Imagine my elation then, when I tried the Vietnamese equivalent of "Yoplait" at the hotel's morning buffet and found it tasted just like the stuff we had in Cambodia.  I don't know how they make it or what they put in that makes it taste so good, but YUM!

Anyway, food somehow came up last night (could it have been the five different "meals" we ate?!), and I was telling Chi about my love for Vietnamese yogurt.  As she was escorting me back to the expressway for my drive home, she pulled over at what looked like yet another street vendor.  She hopped of her Scooter and two minutes later returned with a pink bag with five cups.  "Homemade yogurt!" she said.  "And better than the Vinamilk stuff I get at the buffet each morning".

I had forgotten about this until I needed an afternoon snack today.  And have I said "YUM!" yet!  Holy cow, this stuff is so creamy and good!  And good for you, I'm sure (I say after having two ca phe sua da's earlier today). 

Ok, yes, I'm off to the gym now.  If I keep this up, they'll have to clear a wide berth next time I'm coming through on my Scooter.

Happy Easter!

Night Market Revisted

Yesterday afternoon my friend Chi and I decided to head back downtown for dinner and another tour of the Night Market.  Chi is an exceptionally sweet co-worker in Air Mekong's Revenue Management Department and spent most of her childhood in Poland.  Not only does she speak perfect Vietnamese and perfect English, but also perfect Polish (and she's learning both Chinese and Korean - see commentary on Day 1 Post!). 

Because she spent ten years growing up in Poland and went to college in London, she also has a strong western sense and appreciates my (poor) sense of humor.  She's been invaluable to me at work, helping translate and, most importantly, helping me to understand exactly whats going on sometimes (not just a re-telling of events, but the "essence" of that event which is often lacking and just as often, most critical).

So I was happy to accept her invitation to hang out last night.  She originally offered to pick me up at the Syrena (the work and hotel complex I call home) and drive me into town.  I suggested instead that since I need to get more comfortable motoring around on my own that she come to the Syrena as planned and I would follow her on my own Scooter (Air Mekong's COO, Les, offered to let me borrow his).



My ride.  Post-detail.

As it turns out, Les' scooter was filthy, having been sitting in the parking garage unused for the last several weeks.  Chi was appalled, so insisted we get it cleaned up.  Of course, it wasn't like we could pull the scooter around to the front yard and hose it down, so I wasn't sure what she had in mind.

She told me to follow her and off we went!  Just a few miles down the road, we pulled into what would be my first Vietnamese Scooter Wash and Detailing Center!  Ten minutes later we both had shiny wheels and were ready for our night on the town!


Scooter Wash and Detail.  Cost: $1

 

They even check under the "hood"

  

We motored another 20 minutes into downtown Hanoi.  When we arrived at the Old Quarter, we were ensnared by one of the Scooter valets who work the streets furiously to roundup potential parkers, then walked down the street for a quick appetizer before walking around Hoan Kiem Lake. 

It was probably 6:15pm at this point and Chi pointed to a busy street corner where dozens of Hanoians were sitting on their ubiquitous foot stools eating.  Street vendors like this are everywhere in Hanoi and they literally cook on the street; pots, pans and all, right on the sidewalk (where there is one).  If you need reservations for dinner in town, it's for the street food, not at any of the fine restaurants you'll find here.

Given the circumstances, it's tough to know which ones are best and "safe".  Fortunately, Chi was about to treat me to Nom Bo Kho and this was her favorite spot for it.  Without her, it's not a place I'd have likely considered.  So we sat. Or squated. 

She ordered and a few minutes later, the waitress brought our meals, served up on little plastic plates. 

Nom Bo Kho tastes better than it looks!  Cost: $2.50

Nom Bo Kho is dried beef, green papaya, fish sauce, herb leaves of some kind (they looked like mint, but not sure what they were) and peanuts....and it was delicious.

After walking around the lake and eating at "Thai Express" (which was a good but unremarkable Thai restaurant), we made our way to the Night Market.  This time I made it the entire length of the market and am sad to report that all I saw was more underwear, sunglasses and belts for the most part.  We did stop at the candy store on the way and tried one of many dried fruit offerings they had available. 

The apricots we sampled had been salted before being dried, then covered in one of several different seasonings.  Ours were covered with "Chinese licorice" which gave them a kinda cayenne pepper taste.  Not bad!

As if we hadn't eaten enough at this point, we walked around the block to yet another street vendor for a dessert of hoa qua dam! 

Just add ice and stir!

Chi with our 75 cent desert!

Knowing my love of ca phe sua da, Chi thought I'd like this, since it consists of fresh fruit, ice and...sweetened condensed milk!  You know, for years I've seen cans of that stuff sitting in my mom's pantry and wondered what it was for.  Apparently, it's for every tasty Vietnamese dish known to man and Yum!

Afterward, we made our way to a popular square just west of Hoan Kiem Lake for some time at a Vietnamese variation of Starbacks, yet another street vendor, just off the square where St Joseph's Cathedral is located.  Of course, being Easter, the Square and Cathedral were both packed.  Fortunately we found a seat, squatted and enjoyed some sunflower seeds and delicious tra chanh, green tea with ice and lime, while we listened to the church service next door.

Tra Chanh and sunflower seeds.  30 cents and YUM!

View from my squatting spot while drinking Tra Chanh.

It was a perfect way to enjoy a nice, breezy night in Hanoi and is, to me, exactly what I had hoped to find and experience here in Vietnam.  It's such a privilege to travel the world and even moreso when you can befriend someone "local" and see the country as a resident instead of as an outsider.

I'm so fortunate to be here.  Thanks, Chi, for a great night!

A Day of Beauty

Two posts in one day!  But before I get to Post #2, I'll first share a quick story.

Apparently today was "Safety Drill" day the Hotel where I'm staying and, in a letter earlier this week, all tower and apartment residents were asked to participate.  Of course, since I'm on the ground floor of a three story building and my door opens right up to the outside, I didn't give the drill a second thought (but definitely made a mental note to remember to run out the door, to the outside just in case there's ever an emergency).

Having completely forgotten about the drill, I came home from work while the cleaning ladies were here to tidy up.  Just as they were about to leave, one of them turned to me, politely smiled and asked me something in English, the only portion of which I understood was "safety drill"  After several unsuccessful attempts, another worker happened to pass by and told me what she was saying: "Do you want to enjoy the safety drill with us today?"  I don't think I've ever "enjoyed" a safety drill before, but isn't that cute?!  :o)

Now on to Post #2: Having reassured her that I could find my way out my outside, I instead set my sights on a much more pressing matter...a shave!  It seems that on the way back to Vietnam from Phoenix in early March, the electrical plug on my beard trimmer broke.  No problem for the first month as my trimmer remained well charged  Big problem once the charge ran dry.  I guess I could always shave the old fashioned way, but even then, I had no way to trim my goatee and moustache.

After procrastinating, as usual, on a solution, I was forced to explain my unruly beard a few days later to one of the women I work with.  After explaining what happened, she was kind enough to offer to have the plug fixed and asked me to bring it in and she'd take care of it.  I was skeptical, but given my growing desperation, I brought the plug in that afternoon and two days later had it back in my hands, all fixed, good as new! 



That night, I plugged it in to re-charge during the night, cautiously optimistic that I'd finally get to trim my sad looking chin.  The next morning after my shower, I eagerly grabbed the trimmer, held it to my cheek and turned it on.  My immediate surprise that it fired right up and worked fine was quickly followed by despair as it no sooner died.  From that point on, it would work, but only for 3-4 seconds at a time, with plenty of time needed between "shaves" to recharge.  Fortunately, I left for Holland the next day and was able to get a shave the first day we arrived in Voorhout.

Since getting back from Europe a week and a half ago, I've been shaving 3-4 seconds at a time when I can, but it was clearly time to take care of what had become an unruly beard once again.  Fortunately I had two options.

The first was the local barbershop.  Several of our pilots and a couple of the Management guys gave him a definite thumbs up.  Problem is, there is no "shop" in barbershop. 

Notice the mirror and price list hung for your styling convenience!"

The local male hairstylist works under a tree across the street. I'm sure he does a great job and all, but frankly the thought of possibly "going under the blade" for every passerby to see didn't excite me.  Neither did rumor that he has a stick he pokes in each ear as some kind of massage!  A more pressing concern was the fear of electrocution should he happen to use some electrical device strung by extension cord over a branch!  Needless to say, "Tree Man", as he's fondly called by my expat friends, was out.  

Instead I tried the first salon I came to down the street.

Option #2

The "Ngoc Mai Beauty Salon" just happened to be open, so I stepped inside, gesticulated toward my chin and face and was told to have a seat and they'd be right with me (more or less).  I attempted to take as many pictures as I could while I was there, but didn't want to be to obvious.  Most didn't turn out, but here's a quick look at My Day of Beauty!

"Have a seat, sir.  We'll be right with you!"

My view from the shampoo bowl

I was real still right here (but still managed to get a picture!)

Fuzzy pic, but not something I needed (or that you'd see anywhere at home).

My shave also included a head, face, eyeball, ear, neck and shoulder massage.  At one point (at which I attempted a picture but failed), my stylist threw a washcloth over my face, turned on the hot water and ran the water over my head (my first thought was was this what waterboarding was like?!).  That was fine, but then she literally began pounding on my head while the water ran.  Inter-sting!!

All in all, I was in and out in a mere 45 mintes!  And my shave, goatee trim and message cost me all of about $5 bucks (and I paid $30 in the Netherlands and didn't even get my head pounded on!).

Tonight, another trip to the Night Market!  Underwear?  Fake designer sunglasses?  $1 Leather Belts?  Hurry and order now!