The Typhoon That Wasn't

Good afternoon, all.

Early Friday afternoon.  Howard, Hang, and I all decided to work out of our hotel rooms/homes today because of the tropical store forecast.  So far, it has been a bust….winds under 30 and probably less than 2 inches of rain.  The strongest part is supposed to pass over us about 4:00, and the remnants continue to wet us through tomorrow, but it is nothing more than a heavy rainstorm.    I had one meeting outside this morning, and am leaving in a few minutes to visit with a Bank customer a few kilometers away.  That is all on my firm schedule until Monday.

But, retreating to earlier this week, Howard led us to a “genuine” Italian restaurant a couple of blocks away for lunch Tuesday.  These pizzas were actually good, although a shade expensive by local standards.  Definitely worth a re-visit when I tire of pho.

BTW, there is no coinage here…all money is currency.  The smallest bill is 1,000 VND (Vietnamese dong), about a nickel; and the largest is 500,000 dong, just short of $25 USD.  I have yet to see anything being sold for as little as 5,000 dong.  “Good” restaurants, however, do make a practice of automatically giving each diner a branded wet nap for handwashing before dining.  That courtesy winds up on the bill at either 10,000 or 15,000 dong.

On the way back to the office we passed an “authentic” western steakhouse, The Seventeen Cowboys.  We had Hai interrogate the employees lounging on the steps, and they insisted that there are 17 cowboys there during the dinner period.  I’m not sure if we should try it out but, being only 3 blocks away, curiosity may overcome me.

On Tuesday I also hit a boredom threshold…after a week packed with meetings, there was nothing scheduled for me these two days so I spent the time in the office catching up on digesting data and starting to write my recommendations.  The rest of this week is filled with meetings, generating data to yet lengthen my report.  Wonder if anybody ever truly reads the crap I generate?

But, the boredom left me edgy, so in the evening I wandered down to Tonkin Coffee, a locals hangout on this block.  I probably will not return.  Cheap Viet coffee is made with robusto beans which have an inherent sweetness to them in this climate.  Plus, the norm here is to drink coffee with a lot of sugar and cream (evaporated milk), and over ice.  I was finally able to convince them to bring no ice, no sugar, and no cream.  But I had left my phrasebook in the room, and couldn’t convey the message “and bring it hot!” (room temp is the default if ice is not desired).  At least the price didn’t hurt…about 47 cents a cup.

Slow forward to Wednesday.

Four associates from the Bank took us to lunch Wednesday…well, they picked the restaurant, and the three of us split the tab.  It was a five-level restaurant (we were on the top floor, of course, with no lift), and the servers communicated with walkie-talkies and a dumbwaiter (notice my restraint).  The choice menu items selected by the bankers were roast pigeon (greasy, and tasting like a tractor tire), frog legs (like chicken legs), spiced beef, and banana flower salad.  The latter may well replace my passion for mango salad.  If you want bad photos of a fun meal:
https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/FoodPhotosMainly

Wednesday’s heat index was 101 just before noon, and peaked at 104 around 3:30.  The approaching storm will bring a most welcome 10 C drop in temps for the weekend.

Thursday

I spent the morning speaking with, and touring a factory of, a medium customer of the bank who has carved a niche manufacturing disposable food containers – carry out trays, plastic cups.  In most locals restaurants, drinks are served in glasses and rinsed in water that I try not to contemplate (glad I got my Hep A shots).  It was quite interesting to see his machines stamp the containers out of rolls of raw plastic film.  The contrast was also watching a half dozen female employees, all of whom looked 12 so they were probably in their mid-20s, manually pick newly-stamped cups from a large sheet of plastic on the floor, and stack them into plastic bags for delivery.  Must be a very exciting job.  All of the machines in the factory were Chinese, which one could easily tell by the shoddy housings compared to German engineering.  Anyway, the trip to that industrial zone about 30 km. from the city center was quite interesting.  A very few photos, and a couple of short traffic videos, can be found at:
https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/September292011#5657804969928107410

One of the constant complaints I hear from businesspeople is the differential between interest rates:  VND rates run 14% on deposits (capped by the feds), and 22% on a typical business loan.  USD rates here, when available, run about 2% on deposits and 5% on loans.  Everybody, of course, wants USD loans but there is a lack of foreign currency so that the dong doesn’t collapse.

The economy is also rift with low productivity.  It is not uncommon for a loan officer at the bank to have 2 customers (albeit large ones by his standards), and I have only been in one bank branch that was arguably busy.  About 24 people in one department are kept employed analyzing an average of two loans requests each month.

Enough bitching.  I wimped out and ate in the hotel Thursday night, sampling a local delicacy called Bun Cha…grilled pork in a “special” sauce over vermicelli.  Quite good, although the sauce was (as expected) a shade too sweet for my tastes.

Friday it was pouring with the first wave of the tropical storm (downgraded from a typhoon), so Howard and I decided to work out of our hotel rooms after telling Hang to work out of her house.

Meeting with a marketing research company in the morning…a light rain on the 2-block walk.

Meeting at a customer site in the afternoon – totally soaked, despite using a taxi and company car on separate legs.  While the forecast was overblown, the day did turn out to be wet, and the winds were sufficiently high (maybe peaked at 40 MPH) to make umbrellas worthless.  The next storm due thru here, Nalgae, looks like it might be much nastier when it hits late Monday or so.  Again, no matter – my meetings are substantially done, so I can always hole up in the hotel.

When I got back to the hotel (soaked) about 3:30, the Hanoi fire dept. was conducting pre-scheduled drills here.  That was all well and good…the guests had been notified…but we didn’t expect them to be transporting staff from the 7th floor, on the fire ladders, as part of the test.  Nor did I expect the elevators to be shut down.  So, I climbed seven stories of stairs to my room, changed in gym clothes, descended 6 stories to the gym, worked out, and climbed six stories back to my room. 

But, I will not fear fire in this hotel – they are prepared.

A final observation on this society…the notion of “average” seems unknown.  It started with banks that only report period-ending balances, and stare blankly when you talk about average for the month.  It ends with this hotel, where the room rate includes two free pieces of clothing laundered each day.  But, unless you argue and agree, that is only each day – use it or lose it.  Fortunately, our team leader argued and won, so I have 54 pieces of laundry I can get done at any time (of my choosing!!!) during my 54 nights here.

Enough blathering.  Howard and Ed await me at a restaurant in the Old Quarter.

Weekend Tours of Hanoi

Hey, folks. It’s Monday evening now…time to recap the weekend.

Saturday, Sept. 24, was a day of solo wandering, putting in over 10 miles. I hit Hoam Kien Lake again, circling the lake and watching a number of older ladies doing their Tai Chi in the morning mist. There were probably another dozen newlyweds getting their pics taken even before noon.

I tried to get tickets to the water puppet show, but waited too long and the afternoon show sold out. Next weekend, perhaps. Their performances are considered a national treasure, and a must-see for any tourist. You now know as much as I do.

Lunch was a fabulous plate of local fruit, accented with strong coffee. The best local fruit, the name of which escapes me, resembles a large grapefruit than is eminently peelable and eaten in sections. It grows wild in several areas in the city. The fresh mangos are also delicious; the fresh apples acceptable. Interestingly, the fruit came with a saucer of spiced salt, a local requirement that must be an acquired taste.

I spent the afternoon again trying to learn the maze of streets in the Old Quarter. The street layouts finally made sense after getting lost on the Silversmith Street, Fabric Street, etc. I could have walked the Spice Street for hours. Found a silversmith to repair a pendant at an OK price.

Walked back to the hotel with lines of salt stains on my black polo shirt…while the heat was only in the mid-80s, so was the humidity. Plus, the traffic creates enough exhaust to make breathing laborious if there is no breeze blowing.

Finished the day with dinner at a nearby touristy VN restaurant with Howard, Matt, and Matt’s wife and daughter. It was the first time I had met Juliana (Matt’s wife, a native of Moldova), but I had met their daughter Victoria back in Baku. Sorry that my cell phone memory filled and crashed so you will miss pics of our mango salad, 6-inch shrimp (peeled at the table by the server), fresh spring rolls, steamed beef rolls, and several other dishes I can’t remember. Total tab for the five of us was under $30. Ya gotta love this cuisine!

Here is the link for the Saturday pictures:

https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/September24201103

And, for those curious, here are the TV stations available in the hotel, although I haven’t had time to really explore them. I do, however, love the subtitles in Vietnamese.

1. In-house
2. ABC – Australia
3. CNN
4. BBC World
5. TV5 – French
6. France 24
7. National Geographic
8. Star Movie – English
9. HBO Asia – Movie – English
10. Star World (Entertainment crap)
11. China Entertainment TV
12. ESPN – English (soccer and rugby, mainly)
13. Star Sport – English
14. MTV
15. Channel V (close to VH-1)
16. Kids Go
17. DW – German
18. RAI – Italian
19. TVE – Spanish
20. Russia Today
21. New Asia Channel
22. 22-25: Viet channels, closely controlled by the gov’t.

Now on to Sunday, another 10-mile walking day.

Hai, one of our interpreters and project liasons, picked Howard and me up at the hotel at 9:00. The first stop was at Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, in a beautiful setting less than 2 km. from the hotel. The actual mausoleum was closed that day for refurbishing, disappointing literally thousands of tourists. But, the grounds were lovely, and we were able to stroll around and take in his house-on-stilts, as well as view buildings from the French colonial era. Normally, the mausoleum is only open from about 9 – 11:30 a.m. for visitors to view “uncle Ho’s” body, and tickets run out by 10:00. Cell phones and cameras are forbidden. Creepily, the body is returned to Moscow for two months every January for…er…refurbishing.

Near HCM’s grounds was also a tourist stop called the single tower pagoda. I have no idea why it is renowned.

Next, a stop in a back alley café to slake our collective thirsts with made-on-the-spot fresh mango drinks.

Now, on to the museum of fine art, in a semi-decrepit building again from the French era. There was relatively little from anytime pre-1800s, but quite a bit from the past two centuries. There were many depictions of various aspects of Buddhism, as you would expect; and quite an extensive collection of art from the war of independence in the ‘50s and ‘60s. The painting styles were so-so, but there were excellent wood and stone sculptures throughout.

A very worthwhile morning.

Since Hai had to leave at noon for family obligations, Howard and I headed again to the Old Quarter so I could show him the way around. Well, that didn’t work well at all. I got us lost at least five times, and we stopped in a large mall trying to find something cold to drink. Took us ten minutes to find the restaurant in the basement…we found it only because Howard had the bright idea of following a food delivery person carrying empty dishes. After lunch, we wandered to several shops in the Quarter, where Howard bargained the prices down on some souvenirs and I followed suit on some gifts. It appeared that even light bargaining would get prices down about 30%. It also helps a shade if you bargain using U.S. dollars but pay in Vietnamese dong. Most merchants use an exchange rate of 20,000 dong for ease of calculation, instead of the official rate of just over 20,800. And, that ends today’s lesson in international finance.

Howard had departed for the hotel by now, so I went to the jeweler to pick up my repaired pendant and bargained a neighboring t-shirt merchant below $3.00 for one for me. Then back to the hotel, which took 2 ½ hours because I got lost five times. It sucks when the street names are pretty similar, and none of them are straight. Anyway, help from a French tourist and German photographer finally got me back here just after 5:00….conveniently for the start of happy hour.

One interesting thing I found out that day. I had seen a number of female scooterists who were fully clothed, including gloves and mouth masks, and assumed they were Muslim covering up in modesty. Turns out that they are Vietnamese trying to avoid the sun, in the regional belief that the fairer one’s skin is the prettier she is. So, Jaye, if you visit me here in February, you will be a goddess. Just bring your friggin’ sun screen…you will need it.

Well, it is closing in on 11:00 and World Cup Rugby is on, so time to close. Much more to come soon.

Here is a link to the pictures from Sunday:
https://picasaweb.google.com/110414898143254307072/September252011