Hanoi - grey and colourful

Hanoi’s arrogance proved on the first day when I arrived late afternoon with four bags and a surfboard, and in this situation was offered a damp and cold windowless room for exaggerated 10 USD per night. The ridiculous price is not an exception in the new-middleclass contaminated old quarter. I had to move in fast, because I needed to rent a motorbike and buy warm clothes before I would start to work on the next morning. However, after a few days I found some nice landlords offering me a more fair rate. The room is quite small but a two-way aircon, morning sun and a friendly smile each day is included.
my workplace on a sleepy Monday morning …

…on the 7th floor, near Bach Khoa University, where I taught last year, …

...at the Ministry of Construction – the tree is not(!) standing in front of the wall


socialist atmosphere on another meeting in one of our target companies

The short domestic flight from South Vietnam to Hanoi was a step from hot tropical climate to a cold and uninviting - yet cozy - autumn. Although the weather is cold and grey, life here still takes place on the streets making every day life a bit more colourful. The young people in Hanoi do as well as those in Saigon prove that Vietnamese have the best feeling for style in Southeast Asia. Autumn fashion here looks quite handsome and pretty. In fact, the people who were before unavailing trying to convince me finally remained right - the girls in Hanoi are even more beautiful than the Saigon gals, they are just not so naked and less made up; more natural.

the streets and the traffic – again incredible – in many respects

The 36 alleys of the old quarter, north of the beautiful Hoan Kiem lake in the city centre constitute probably the most interesting area of the capital city. Its history is preserved until today, in its ancient look and the very much traditional way of life – despite of it being the area that individual travellers and more and more tourists on organized tours seek to stay at. Nevertheless, you feel like being transferred into a time past ago. The streets around the old quarter with their very own flavour, small coffee-shops, wooden windows, hidden temples, markets and saleswomen in triangular hats are really unique. The tranquil lanes and corners between the noisy crossroads could be seen as the epitome of a beautiful autumn within this UNESCO World Heritage site. If the “big apple” New York is said to be beautiful between the years then Hanoi might be a small apple, quaint, picturesque and charming.

Hàng Mã – the alley where festival decoration is sold

Only a minority of Vietnamese people celebrate Christmas. The shops at Hàng Mã street offer decoration, and larger shops are illuminated with strings of coloured lights and Christmas trees. The staff of the recently opened first KFC restaurant wishes “merry Christmas”. Due to the fact that our office was opened on 25th and 26th, I did not really celebrate. I went out for eat at a fancy Korean restaurant with Kim Ngoc, experimental-music artist and friend since last year. We had Korean style Lẩu with cabbage, Chinese noodle, pork and mushroom. The hotplates are set in the table and you have a small regulator on your table to control the heat. So you cook the dishes one by one on your own and season them with spicy herbs.

Lẩu at the Korean restaurant in Ba Dinh district

After dinner we had to bear almost one hour in endless traffic jams inhaling the exhaust fumes of thousands of motorbikes until we arrived at the Vincom Towers shopping mall. We went to the game center for some electronic play. There were hundreds of people using the dancing machines, riding plastic horses driving race-cars and operating other kinds of electronic pleasures. After a hot chocolate in a small coffee place I drove home and had a short video-chat session with my parents and some friends. So this year it was the first time I went without Christmas in the usual way. And I think it was a nice contrast to the always repeating three days lasting lunch, coffee and dinner sit-ins of the past years at home.

Christmas in Hanoi – overcrowded streets, parks and shopping centers

Good bye TP Hồ Chí Minh, Tạm Biệt Miss Saigon

Sunday, December 10th
Sometimes people say: “It felt as if I have never been away”. In this case it was different. After just 10 days away from Ho Chi Minh City it felt strange to come back. Thuy Hang is abroad, and without her something important is missing in this big city. The old room which we before had filled with live and chaos got now very unfamiliar and empty. At least the golden sunbeams were still lighting through the window to the roof terrace and noise from the street remembered me I am still alive within this emptiness. Jens and also the gay guys here had diverted me a bit from thinking too much and missing too much. On Saturday I visited Be and Thuy Hang’s Family. I had bought a remote controlled car for Be and his comment on it was simply: “Why is it so big?” I said I thought he would like it. In fact he did.


Hanoi will more majestic in terms of its look, but people and climate will both be colder. I will miss Ho Chi Minh City and its people really much – the special atmosphere of that place in the country which I love and sometimes hate at the same time. All the places that make Saigon so special, the faces that do smile, at least, whatever might be behind, the little things that make you understand that there is something universal that connects us all independent of which background we are from, the exception from the norm of many people who are just rude. In this city I feel a bit more warm-heartedness. In its moments, in the now remaining images.


I will remember days in coffee-shops, waiters and waitresses, the rivers, dust in the streets, good and bad smells, dishes of all kind and origin, the heat and the sweat, the best custard apple shake in town, motorbike rides with friends, the view over the roofs, my room, the nights out, Dam Sen park and the zoo, hours in the internet, some new acquaintances that are now being kept on my messenger contact list, Trang and Chris, Tam and many more, and of course my Thuy Hang who has a bigger heart than the size of this city can fill, and her smart little son Be.


It was not the first time that I am leaving Saigon with some tears, doing a last phone call to Singapore from my room on the roof. Now I am already sitting on seat 18K on flight VN220 to Hanoi. I will follow function again and start my work at the office tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock.

visitors

Jens from Bali was here for two days and we’ve spent evenings together out in the streets. It was a nice reunion talking virtually about anything from very philosophic things to making jokes on stuff around. Two evenings we enjoyed the full range of Vietnamese cuisine from simple street stalls to fabulous café’s. It was an interesting mixture. We also went much around and discovered many of what from our perspective seems to be Asia’s very odd things.


On the first evening, there was this alley near my hotel which I have never before walking through. But Jens made attempts to discover the area around and that emerged to be the right decision. Suddenly we stood in that alley between those two massive concrete apartment blocks that were lit by thousands of neon strips. The atmosphere in this alley was incredible and looking up gave you the feeling that a huge space ship with visitors from another planet is hovering above you. In fact, people staring at us signalized that we were the ones who were visitors.



On the second evening we have been to a street with innumerable shops selling kitsch, toys, many kinds of food, Christmas decoration, clothes and so on an so forth. One of the up-market traditional dress shops is used by the owner as a ca park as well. That is nothing uncommon here. But recently I saw a similar photo on the internet and realized that I have already lost sensitivity perceiving such images as something curious from a western perspective. So this time, I couldn’t let it to take the picture. Later we were passing a Christmas fair at the posh Diamond Plaza shopping mall. And this was really laden: they had millions of chains of light, a Vietnamese Santa Claus, snowmen, sledges, artificial snow and all you need for a merry Christmas at 32 degree Celsius. And again we couldn’t let it to join the masses admiring this festival.

Lateron Jens went back to his hotel and I met Tam, Phuc and some friends. We had a lush night out in the club and I went to bed in the early morning. It will be my last full day in Saigon and I will really miss it. Sometimes I think I should have lived here a bit more excessive and enjoyed it all more.

tracks

Following the tracks of another kind of travellers… Still it is hotel rooms to live in, but everyday life and tasks have changed. One has to adapt to the unknown world of adults, change the outfit and follow the unwritten rules such as joining all kinds of social gatherings, at least to a certain amount. Privacy reduces to the hotel room and a visit to a Khmer pagoda.


However, it seems the intern will be very promising. The workshop was on corporate development plans, strategies for the functional divisions of the target companies and action-plans aiming to implement those strategies. In general it is management consultancy, in specific it shall establish efficiently and sustainable operating public wastewater facilities. My colleagues are very nice and I feel good in the team.

informal discussions: “Is it all bullshit or a good job we are doing?”


My boss is also a very pleasant person, he seems to be critical, non-opportunistic and he is settling on Bali – that makes him sympathetic. Sunday was our day off and we were invited to a trip to the riverbanks in the delta area where the Mekong river meets the ocean. I don’t know how to define where the river ends and where the ocean starts, but what is said still to be river was at that place so broad that it seemed like an ocean. But waves were brown and muddy and the locality had nothing to offer but some monkeys and pythons in cages and again: seafood. So this is nothing for me. And once more I see no potential in Vietnam for international tourism of the kind that is offered by other destinations in the region.


The way there and back was the most pleasant part of the trip, despite the fact that offroad vehicles do only make fun if you are not sitting in the trunk. The dusty roads led through the countryside of South Vietnam. It is relatively poor here, people live from petty farming and their huts are made of palm leaf. Already back at noon I spent the rest of the day with exploring the city and a Buddhist pagoda. A long chat with a monk was gave me the confidenece that we still have the option to live the way a Buddhist monk does and that there is still something different from a corporate world.


The before mentioned social gatherings are the opposite of what monks do. The local community in the province uses to drink much and hospitality means invitations that can hardly be refused. On Saturday we drank schnapps from long-drink glasses – we virtually had to. On the final evening I have chosen another strategy and didn’t drink anything. You are in a bad position as one who does not drink out of fifty people who do. But I won’t sell my individualism for shouting “một, hai, ba, yo!” and getting drunk for the sake of “friendship”. I apologized to each man who came to me in order to drink with me and downed a glass of water as a substitute. It worked.


At noon I arrived in Saigon, booked a flight to Hanoi for Sunday noon and later I will meet Jens, whom I had met in Hanoi last year and whose family became friends during my stay on Bali.