I am writing this post on Saturday evening, 8 October, after a rather dreary (rainy, thanks to the typhoon that drifted south) and boring (writing reports) week.
But, a few things did crop to make the week tenable.
For starters, I have noticed that few local adult men are bald or even gray. But I am not smart enough to expound on the possible reasons.
Monday, four of us went to a backalley dive that serves duck for lunch. No other meal. No other base. Just duck. You can get it grilled or boiled, but it will still be duck. And, it was delicious and reasonably priced. Wonder what the dessert would have been if we have ordered it.
Sticking to the aquatic theme, Tuesday the same group (plus three from our client bank) grabbed a cab to an Old Quarter restaurant that serves fish. Only fish. And, only sautéed at your table. No menu needed. As usual, it was delicious. One can almost understand why locals have the rep of having two-hour lunches. And, to quote our local Bank liason in her follow-up email: “The fish we had at lunch today has the scientific name of Hemibagrus elongatus, which is a type of catfish.”
On Wednesday, 5 October, it was pretty much pouring all day as Nygene avoided us but pulled water in from the South China Sea. Could have been a lot worse. But, the local newspapers reported over 200 dead from flooding in the Mekong delta in Cambodia and Vietnam…fed from rains in VN and Laos from two tropical storms in 10 days. The rice crop has been wiped out, leading to a 30% increase in the price of the staple in a month. Fortunately, most of the region can produce 3 rice crops a year, but that doesn’t help in the short run. Many Viets blame the flooding on massive dam projects in Cambodia which are the subject of ongoing international negotiations. I am too dumb to understand the physics of the debate.
As a sidebar, I have noticed a propensity by local office workers to not use stairways. I am met with surprise when I actually use them to descend…or to walk up 1 or 2 flights. Americans are so strange…!
So, to this weekend’s activities.
The main theme this weekend is rain…interspersed with pouring. Seems to be accurate so far.
Howard, the HR advisor on this project, ended his stint yesterday. Very sorry to see him go…he is well traveled and a very likeable guy, so I learned a lot from him during my 3 weeks together.
Our main contacts at the Bank took the project team out to lunch at at Thai restaurant Friday in Howard’s honor. Interesting, since Howard is the only one who speaks Thai, so we had him order everything: mango salad, squid, veggie noodles, shrimp, grilled pork, and you name it. Finished with an interesting dessert of seaweed noodles and sweetened coconut milk…not something I would seek out, but it worked.
Then, in the evening, three of us went back to the local tourist trap named Delicious…me for the third time. We decided to sit in the outside area…then a monsoon hit…and we watched the rain being channeled from the tarps into 5 galloon buckets that were just dumped on site when they filled. No matter. We three ordered tilapia, with trimmings, and the fish came whole (gutted) to be sautéed at the table by our server. It is hard to imagine anyone could give better attention than he did, and we tipped him well for it by local standards…$2.50 on a $20 tab, on top of the standard 5% service charge.
Photos for various of this week’s activities can be viewed at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/ARainyAndInactiveWeek
Also bought a bunch of holiday gifts and souvenirs today…probably overpaid a bit, but bargained down from the posted price. Hopefully, we are all happy.
Including the departure dinners and gift buying, and taxis, I am still spending less than $30 a day here on average. Nice to be able to stay within a reasonable budget.
Final point of this post: Walking back from today’s travels, I decided that three weeks of gastrointestinal happiness qualified me to stop in one of Hanoi’s many famed reaches: a back-alley dive serving bai hoi. Bai hoi means, literally, “beer today”, and essentially means home brew that is rolled out in the morning and served until the keg is empty. No chilling, no pasteurization, and the mugs are washed with the same care as anything here in an alley restaurant. It tasted great and was dirt cheap…about 50 cents a pint. I shall reserve my full opinion until 24 hours have passed. Kudos to Hep A shots.
More to come as it warrants. Most of you are just starting your Saturdays…enjoy the crisp autumn weather.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Water Puppets and Away From the Tourists
Hey, everybody.
Another weekend of walking….about 17 miles…mainly alone, which can make things much easier.
The main event Saturday was a trip to see the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre, considered a national treasure. I am not sure why. The performance was…there…but not anything I would recommend. The worst part is that the theatre is old, and the seats are built for people averaging about 4 ft. 6. And in the seat next to me was a sumo-type from Thailand. But the show is only about 45 minutes, consisting of 11 vignettes:
In the evening I joined the usual crew to hit a local restaurant a block away – fixed price menu at $20, $22, or $25. We chose the midrange, which brought 11 courses to the table, including white asparagus & clam soup, fried squid, mango salad, poached fish, coconut ice cream, and green tea. A nice sampling of local dishes.
After dinner we wandered to a jazz club about another block away. Only stayed for one set…for some reason, the singers in bands here only do about 3 songs per set. So, that one was not worth going back to, as the players were rather wooden in their efforts.
Sunday dawned warm and brilliant, so it was time to avoid the damn tourists and explore a new section of Hanoi. I headed northwest from here, seeking and walking across the Cau Long Bien (Long Bridge) crossing the Red River. Those of you in my age bracket might remember that we millions trying to bomb this bridge out of existence in the 60s and early 70s, to no avail. Apparently, though, no maintenance has been done on it since.
The bridge is just over a mile long, and constructed primarily of rust with a few cobwebs to hold everything together. Crossing on foot is not for the faint-of-heart, especially since the guard railings were no higher than my knees in places. It has seven “lanes”…a train track down the middle, two asphalt lanes in each direction for bikes and scooters (cars and trucks must use a more modern bridge 1 km. to the north), and a metre-wide cement pedestrian path on each side. Scooter drivers were somewhat more polite on the bridge than on typical Hanoi streets, especially since many bike riders got off and pushed on the ascending sections.
But, crossing the bridge took me to the Song Hong district, a lower-income retail and residential district about 3 km. and 30 years from my hotel. Very serene, save for the construction site of a new building. It definitely gave me a look at a different aspect of Hanoi. From the time I set foot on the bridge until I returned to the same spot, about 3 hours later, I did not see another non-Viet person. I seemed to be quite a curiosity to the kiddies.
And that was it for this weekend. I shall head out to lunch/dinner shortly, but seek and expect nothing spectacular. More updates in a few days. And I am more than halfway through this trip…leaving early on the 14th.
Photos of the weekend, and a video of me crossing the street while holding the camera at my chest, can be found at: https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/October22011
Another weekend of walking….about 17 miles…mainly alone, which can make things much easier.
The main event Saturday was a trip to see the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre, considered a national treasure. I am not sure why. The performance was…there…but not anything I would recommend. The worst part is that the theatre is old, and the seats are built for people averaging about 4 ft. 6. And in the seat next to me was a sumo-type from Thailand. But the show is only about 45 minutes, consisting of 11 vignettes:
- festival drumming
- dragon dance
- prelude by the buffoon Teu
- buffalo fighting
- farm work
- village guardian god procession
- van singing
- horse race
- Quan ho singing
- Coconut picking
- Carp transformed into dragon
In the evening I joined the usual crew to hit a local restaurant a block away – fixed price menu at $20, $22, or $25. We chose the midrange, which brought 11 courses to the table, including white asparagus & clam soup, fried squid, mango salad, poached fish, coconut ice cream, and green tea. A nice sampling of local dishes.
After dinner we wandered to a jazz club about another block away. Only stayed for one set…for some reason, the singers in bands here only do about 3 songs per set. So, that one was not worth going back to, as the players were rather wooden in their efforts.
Sunday dawned warm and brilliant, so it was time to avoid the damn tourists and explore a new section of Hanoi. I headed northwest from here, seeking and walking across the Cau Long Bien (Long Bridge) crossing the Red River. Those of you in my age bracket might remember that we millions trying to bomb this bridge out of existence in the 60s and early 70s, to no avail. Apparently, though, no maintenance has been done on it since.
The bridge is just over a mile long, and constructed primarily of rust with a few cobwebs to hold everything together. Crossing on foot is not for the faint-of-heart, especially since the guard railings were no higher than my knees in places. It has seven “lanes”…a train track down the middle, two asphalt lanes in each direction for bikes and scooters (cars and trucks must use a more modern bridge 1 km. to the north), and a metre-wide cement pedestrian path on each side. Scooter drivers were somewhat more polite on the bridge than on typical Hanoi streets, especially since many bike riders got off and pushed on the ascending sections.
But, crossing the bridge took me to the Song Hong district, a lower-income retail and residential district about 3 km. and 30 years from my hotel. Very serene, save for the construction site of a new building. It definitely gave me a look at a different aspect of Hanoi. From the time I set foot on the bridge until I returned to the same spot, about 3 hours later, I did not see another non-Viet person. I seemed to be quite a curiosity to the kiddies.
And that was it for this weekend. I shall head out to lunch/dinner shortly, but seek and expect nothing spectacular. More updates in a few days. And I am more than halfway through this trip…leaving early on the 14th.
Photos of the weekend, and a video of me crossing the street while holding the camera at my chest, can be found at: https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/October22011
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