No helmet but the sun won't getcha.

This photo of my mate in Hanoi (who would kill me if she knew I had posted it), is another example of the joys of international exploration.

In Oztraylia, Noo Zulland et al, give or take the odd melanoma scare, we are all hell bent on getting tanned. In Vietnam, Japan et al however, quite the reverse is true. The whiter the better.

This is pretty common knowledge, as is the fact that the women here routinely wear elbow length gloves to stop from getting tanned, and that you can buy whitening deodorant (why you would want your armpits to be white is a little beyond me but anyway).

But this contraption, peculiar to Hanoi or so it seems, is a new one on me. It goes over the top of your normal shirt and the sleeves are designed to cover your hands when in 'bike riding position'. The top bit covers your face and the very top bit is a set of straps that conveniently help to keep the hat that you will of course be wearing, firmly strapped to your head while in transit.

How very clever.

Cultural cringe strikes again.

My flatmate has recently joined the 'International Ladies Of Vietnam' club in order to use their english language library (or so she claims).

I don't know much about this group of ex-pat ladies who lunch but got a pretty good impression today when my flatmate brought home a copy of their latest publication.

The English/Vietnamese cookbook with the impeccable title 'Maid Easy Meals' has an even more impressive introduction page which I have included below (please note my spectacular new photo-editing skills as well).

My flatmate assures me they are for real.

This goods is perfect for me!

Why yes, I do want to enjoy a simble and rational lives - and this rubbish bin in my bathroom is clearly the key.

If only I had realised it sooner.

Ex-pat fever strikes your correspondent.

This place (Vietnam) does funny things to you.

As most of you will know I am from Noo Zulland but live in Malbourne, Oxtraylia (which, funnily enough, is actually how the Vietnamese spell Australia!). By extension, I should be a one-eyed rugby fan. Sacrilegiously however, I had only watched one full game of rugby in my life (a live game in the 1990s when Noo Zulland got its arse kicked by the French which was quite funny – although the lone Frenchman in our stand with an airhorn shouting ‘vive le france’ was in danger of being lynched by the end)… until I came here that was.

Somehow, believe it or not, I have managed to find myself watching all 3 of the recent Lions vs. Noo Zulland tour. What’s more…and I hesitate to admit this…I found myself whooping along with the others who were watching as the All Blacks smooshed the Lions into the mud. The fact that Daniel Carter is damn hot in that little All Blacks outfit had nothing to do with it (well, maybe not ‘nothing’ but not ‘all’ of it) either. I always used to wonder what it was about being overseas that got people (especially Canadians for some reason but kiwis are a close second) sewing their flags on their backpacks and generally becoming scruffy ambassadors for their country of origin. I still don’t know what it is but I have obviously acquired a touch of it (living in Oztrailer didn’t seem to trigger it but Vietnam definitely has). The fact that I think rugby is a vile, violent sport played by meatheads seems to have been overtaken by some sort of chest-thumping chick-overseas-knee-jerk patriotism.

What’s more (and I REALLY hesitate to admit this one), I have now watched the first two episodes of desperate housewives (Vietnam is one year behind – the show has just started here)…even going along to our local bar to do so. Now the rugby watching was accidental – I saw the second test because I was hiding from the torrential rain in a café that was playing it (which is kind of weird in itself), but this is conscious desperate housewives watching!

I think I will need to go into some sort of ex-pat detox when I get back ‘home’ to Oztrailer, unless some of the people who know me well decide that this is completely out of character (which it is) and send a rescue squad my way to provide on the spot ‘get a grip girl!’ therapy before then – and if you do decide that, can you bring some plastic tikis, paua necklaces, pavalova, buzzy bee toys, a few bottles of L&P and some pohutakawa pictures with you? ;-)

The smoothie bar.

This is where I ended a number of my evenings while in Hanoi. Not being a huge drinker it was the perfect place to hang out with my beer drinking mates who were sitting on the equally silly little plastic chairs at the 'Bia Hoi' stall next to us.

The very nice smoothie lady would concoct something that tasted great, whizz it in the blender that you can see here (the lights on the whole street dimmed when she plugged it in!) and Voila! Yummy smoothie. Her kids were cute too.

Smoothie lady with her cute kid, blender and aircon unit.

Powerlines next to the smoothie bar

The powerlines directly above the smoothie bar.

Going postal.

So I went to the post office last night after work.

When I was in Hanoi (back in HCMC now) I got some cute stamps carved for my little sisters and I wanted to send them back to Noo Zulland. Until now I have only sent letters and postcards from Vietnam but that has been reasonably straight-forward: hand over lots of money and off it goes to meander its way to its destination, god willing.

Postal services, along with home internet, and nice breakfast cereal (e.g. not a bowl of meat and noodle soup) is one of the few things that is actually expensive in Vietnam – but not intolerably so, providing you don’t go on a posting frenzy.

So I go to my local post office and hand over the envelope with the 2 little stamps in it and cute piccys on the outside. This caused an instant problem. Male civil servant peers at the envelope, feels it, lifts it to the light and shakes it, then says ‘more detail’. To which I replied, with the assistance of sign language, that it was 2 stamps for children. This explanation was clearly not good enough because out came the scissors and the envelope was opened up. Sure enough, inside there were the 2 stamps and a letter for my little sisters. But this was still not enough. Male civil servant goes to consult with female civil servant and much conferring follows. He comes back and says ‘more detail’ again and hands me not one, not two but THREE forms (one of which required the information in duplicate!) to fill out. Cursing under my breath I fill out the forms and hand them back, at which point the official rubber stamp comes out (nothing gets approved, actioned or even considered in Vietnam without an official rubber stamp) and my three documents get stamped and filed nowhere in particular.

THEN, a cardboard box appears from nowhere and I am told to put the stamps and perfectly functional envelope into the box, which then gets mummified in official Vietnam-post-office-brand Sellotape. And then I get to write the address and name on the box…the box with the envelope containing the name and address on it might I add.

And then I forked out a small fortune to pay for this now substantial size box and off it went…I hope.

I came home and had a good whinge to my housemates who listened to my story and congratulated me on getting off lightly! Apparently 3 forms is the bare minimum and usually there are several more counters and people involved. My first mistake, it seems, was sealing the envelope before it had been peered in - but on the other count, getting it posted, I appear to have done unusually well because officially it seems, no foreigners are allowed to post parcels anywhere other than the central post office (the same place I waited in line half an hour for the other day to pick up a parcel). So, at least in a small way, I beat the system today.

But, for those family and friends out there who are reading – if you love me, please don’t send any parcels – the less I have to do with the postal system the better!


P.S. Can I recommend that people check out the latest offering from www.rathergood.com (the link is on the right) - 'looking for my leopard' is a keeper!

Jesus would be stoked.

A little piccy of some t-shirts I spotted while in Hanoi. Not sure who would be more flattered to be side to side.

A change of scene (warning: long and random rant follows).

Well, yesterday at the ungodly hour of 4.30am I raised myself from my bed (it doesn't rhyme with 'raised from the dead' for nothing!), staggered out to the alleyway outside my house just after 5am and was greeted by my xe om (motorbike taxi) guy (who I had communicated with the night before via a note written by my flatmate) and his wife who was keeping him company in her jimmy jams (this is the same woman who runs the drink stall outside our house and the same woman who tried to kill me the other morning when Mr Xe Om was late and she sat me down on her dinky plastic chairs which make you feel like Gulliver with your knees around your ears and gave me the strongest goddamn iced coffee in the world to drink before I could protest...until this point in my life I had drunk maybe half a cup of coffee in total - so I was a VERY energetic bunny at university that day!).

But I digress.

So, Mr Xe Om and I head across town to the airport in order to catch my 6.30am flight to Hanoi. I do not normally exist at 5am so it was a real eye-opener for me crossing town at this time of day. Saigon, which is normally a very pleasant shade of manic, was blissfully quiet and there were very few bikes on the roads. Now that's not to say that the Vietnamese - who are notoriously early risers - weren't up and about at that time of day, it's just that they weren't working yet. This is also a novelty for me - you hardly ever see a Vietnamese person who is not working in some way shape or form.

So what they were doing, in their masses, was exercising vigorously, often in pairs but also by themselves. Most of the ones I saw were walking purposefully in what seemed to be the standard Vietnamese exercise uniform - black for women and baggy white t-shirt or singlet and white shorts for guys...not sure if this is some sort of socialist throwback but it was remarkably consistent!

But again I digress.

So now I am in the capital - Ha Noi. I am always amazed at how quickly you click into the ex-pat circuit in Vietnam - when I arrived in Saigon I was on the town with flatmates within 4 hours of touching down - and it took less than a day here to be invited to a pool party (not really my style to be honest but hey what the hell) this Saturday. It also doesn't take long to realise just how small the ex-pat circuit is - you only need to go to a few events before you start bumping into the same people. I guess that's part of the problem with a small ex-pat population in a ridiculously hot and communist country - drinking and socialising in aircon comfort are the main entertainment options! I have also had the pleasure of catching up with a Vietnamese friend who has been taking me around and showing me the joys of Vietnamese street cuisine (it is nice not to be randomly pointing at Vietnamese words on a menu and hoping for the best!).

Yesterday was also the first time that I have gotten within spitting distance of an organisation that I have always aspired to work for/with/around - the UN system. I attended a UNDP meeting (some might say 'gatecrashed' but 'attended' sounds more legit ;-) I even have a now-empty bottle of UNDP-branded water as a souvenir!

It was an interesting experience to say the least. As boring as I expected in some places, pleasantly less so in others and my first encounter/minor run-in with career bureaucrats was a bit disconcerting even though it was not in the least surprising.

Went to another one today, sucker for punishment that I am which was also pretty cool but I am definitely leaning in the direction of working with/around rather than 'for' as a preferred option! Providing of course, that someone wants me to work for them one day!

And now, it is just gone midnight and I am using up the hotel's free internet connection like there's no tomorrow. It has also just occured to me that I don't think I have ever actually said why I am here in Vietnam (I guess I just assume that the only people who ever read this are immediate family and friends but the stat counter info suggests otherwise every now and then). I am here doing a project that is part of my Masters thesis - which focusses on online communication about sexual health with young Vietnamese). In response to the standard questions that follow, the answers are 'no, i don't speak Vietnamese but it is irrelevant in the context of this project', 'no there was no easily explainable reason why I chose Vietnam' and 'yes, I am ridiculously over-ambitious trying to pull this off in a communist country with spectacular censorship but I'm giving it a shot anyway'. More questions, comments and criticisms are always welcomed.

The working title of my thesis (minus the mindnumbingly boring bit that follows as all thesis titles must) is "Let's talk (discreetly) about sex".

Comments and hassling are warmly accepted.

So tomorrow, I get to go and talk to more people, while wearing business clothes in 38-odd degree heat and travelling on the back of a motorbike. Then on Saturday I am going to go and visit 'Uncle Ho' in his mausoleum where he has been 'sleeping' since 1968...and maybe go to a pool party...

Music crosses all national boundaries...

This last week I have had a number of 'cross-cultural experiences' that have all involved music of some description. Funnily enough, none of the music was Vietnamese.

On Monday, I was invited to attend a 4th July celebration at the international guest house where some researchers from an American university were staying. 4th July is not really my scene at all but the people there were useful contacts so I went along. In one of those surreal Vietnam moments earlier in the day I had gone past the 'Lucky 17 saloon' bar which had a huge banner outside inviting people to come and 'celebrate America's independence'...it is interesting that one of the few points of commonality for America and Vietnam is that they were both once colonised countries...amazing how short term memory loss causes so many problems in this world.

Anyway, went to the US 4th July celebration and found myself in cross-cultural hell. Country and western music was blaring and the students were teaching their Vietnamese room-mates how to line dance! I sensibly hid and cringed from afar. After that, the kitchen staff, who had been slaving away all day brought out home-made hamburgers.....'yum'.

So that was Monday then on Wednesday I was wandering towards my local net cafe when the sound of a brass band playing drew my attention. A few doors up one of the shops had been converted into a funeral parlour for a traditional Vietnamese funeral which involves everyone wearing white pyjamas and headbands for a few days and hanging out with the coffin (not a very PC description but am short on time) I guess in a similar way to a Maori tangi minus the pyjamas. Anyway, the music was coming from a naval-uniformed brass band, complete with saxaphone, that was playing very upbeat jazz tunes while standing around the coffin. After 2 songs they stopped and wandered off down the road - not quite sure how it works but it was interesting to watch anyway.

And then today I went to watch the fabulously named Yale Whiffenpoofs - apparently one of the oldest, most prestigious male a capella vocal groups from Yale University in the USA. They are at the halfway point of a 20 country world tour that the group does every year. Despite the name they were bloody marvellous and would have kicked the arse of any American idol contestant any day but it was more than a little strange to be watching them do-wop-ing in a hotel in the middle of Saigon.

And now, I am chilling out (well, sweating - but that's not unusual) in my local net cafe and bopping along to old Michael Jackson - every day is a little treat to guess what fab music will be playing!

Over and out :-)

The iceman saweth.

This photo, taken from my balcony yesterday morning, is of the guy who supplies to all the cafes/street stalls etc in our area.

He stores the ice on the road under a tarp about 50m from our house. At this stage the ice is in massive blocks (about the length of a motorbike for comparison's sake) which he loads on to his motorbike truck (pictured) and drives up to the ice-cutting table saw (I even just googled to figure out what it was - not a bandsaw like I thought - let it never be said that I don't do my research!).

He loads each massive block onto the saw and cuts it into progressively smaller blocks, until it looks like the little ones that are falling off the end into the ice bucket below the table saw (double click on the photo to enlarge it, then squint and you can see it!).

The aim of the game is to do this at 7am on a Sunday morning (ice waits for no man!) and wake me up with the sound of ice being put through a table saw - similar to 10 million fingernails being scratched down a blackboard.

Then he delivers it to the internet cafe that gives me iced tea...

What, only 4?!

Time for a few motorbike piccys to illustrate what I am talking about. These were taken in the space of 2 minutes standing on a street corner in District 1 so they're not unusual by any stretch. Will endeavour to get some of the more 'unique' ones over the next while.

Side saddle.

Wet toilet paper anyone?

Cruising in style. The low-tech equivalent of delivery trucks.

Snigger.

Not sure what's funnier. The name of this icecream shop or the fact that I then went in and had icecream there!

Scootin' in the rain.

The things you see being carried on motorbikes in Vietnam are worth a blog by themselves - at some point I will risk life and limb and camera to attempt to capture a few for you, my loyal readers ;-)

But today, I will just recount this evening's 'commute' back from uni. The trip takes about 30 minutes and is too much fun to be called a commute. Tonight it was pissing down as I walked out to my Xe Om man who lives next door to me and who picks me up at night. This was the first time I have hit the rain at commuting time but I wasn't fazed cos' I was armed with my trusty Vietnamese raincoat.

Vietnamese raincoats kick ass. Picture a wafer-thin opaque plastic sheet with a hood with a cardboard insert that gives you a dinky visor. There are popper buttons down the side which you can use to create arms and sides. The overall look, when in full regalia, is similar to the Abu-Ghirab-man-on-a-box electrocution look - but much more fun. The sides, however, are very rarely done up cos' the raincoat is hardly ever used by just one person. It mostly functions as a sort of wearable 2-3 person tent. We went past a school today on the way home and saw parents lined up on bikes at the school gate, waiting to usher their kids under the raincoat and head home. One dad had 3 little person-shaped lumps under his! Quite cool to see a elongated and lumpy person riding home and guess at how many people are under there.

Other tramspotting highlights today included the Mum and Dad who were heading home, with a 5-year-old-ish girl slumped asleep over the handlebars. I know some people can sleep anywhere but that's impressive.

The final example of Vietnamese ingenuity spotted tonight was the 2-person raincoat - the rainsheet with 2 head holes in which presumably is designed especially for bikes (or for 3-legged races in the rain). I assume they need to disengage before getting off the bike at their destination but you never know.

Can't even escape my geeky transport fetish on the other side of the world!