Happy New Year !!!

Speaking of tea, yesterday I was in a tea mood and remembered a Taiwanese teahouse I used to go to when I was a student here. Surprisingly I actually found it again.

The atmosphere was good. The tea was fine. The gruel-looking stuff next to my tea is a sort of rice based porridge, I don’t very often eat that but in this case it was really good. Very hot, which was good (it’s still winter here – I have to wear a jacket…), enough beef and beef liver in it to give it good body, and enough spice to obfuscate the fact that it’s really just liquefied rice…

Christmas Eve - yes I'm late, I KNOW that

Christmas tree smell, spiced hot cider, nieces and nephews jumping up and down on you, Grandma’s Christmas cookies, my neighbor’s bourgeois Christmas tree decorations and luxurious ‘tea’, Christmas song medleys on the random instrument collection, making breakfast crepes with my sister at lunchtime, family togetherness that is exceptional in a bizarrely mundane way…

Well, not so much this year. This year I just focused on the tea. Not the luxurious kind, the green kind. Not that green kind, well maybe, I don’t know, I mean the still growing kind.

Inspired by a friend of mine who sells Vietnamese tea (among 57 other primarily Chinese varieties, as I recall) in the states, I got up early the morning of Christmas Eve and rode off into the sunrise in search of chai perfecto. In the interest of full disclosure I must say, though, I had a cup of coffee with breakfast; my inner purist wasn’t awake yet… It was cold that early in the morning, my horn button thumb stopped cooperating after about eight minutes in the breeze. Thai Nguyen Province is about 80 km north of Hanoi. Remember Ho Soc Son, the lake with no Coke machines? Thai Nguyen is about an hour and a half beyond that.

On the two and a half hour motorbike ride, somewhere after the ‘cold and stiff’ mode was replaced by the ‘it can’t be far’ mode, I began to notice again things which I ought to have pictures of. A motorbike, a wide rack on the back, with a giant dead hog stretched out on it, hanging out three feet on either side. A bicycle outfitted with something like a hat rack, each hook holding a clear plastic bag of full of water and goldfish, creating a surprisingly sparkling effect. The bicycle saddled with a pair of vases, looking like a pair of larger-than-life six-shooters dominating their hero in a cartoon western. Vases like you might see in a Chinese restaurant, about 5 feet high with classic blue bamboo patterns all over them, presumably expensive and breakable but transported by bicycle anyway. Another bicycle bristling with synthetic dustbrooms, like a psychedelic porcupine, shimmering hot pink and neon yellow with every bump. And a procession of bicycles somehow dragging along an entire haystack each. When you pass the haystack you see a peasant hat on a 4’5” woman trudging along, dwarfed by her load, oblivious to blaring horns and swarms of vehicles of all sizes buzzing by. And Santa. I saw Santa on a motorbike (Rudolph dissed the customs guy and couldn’t get a visa), but he turned out to be a tourist.

Arriving in the town of Thai Nguyen, I got lunch in someplace with a bamboo floor. Ordering was easy – some kind of soup, some kind of beef, noodles, a mystery item for good measure and a Orangina – fake Fanta. The ‘soup’ looked like cranberry jello or something. The peanuts on top were good, the rest of it was bloody. I don’t really like blood pudding, actually the bloody part wasn’t that bad, but the gritty stuff in the bottom was a tad distracting. The beef was good. The mystery was pickled green things, and they weren’t cucumbers. Round, woody, and definitely adding a new tanginess to the pickled flavor. Turns out they were sycamore. Sycamore seeds, I guess, or nuts, or something I don’t know really. Didn’t know sycamore was something to eat.

From there on, I followed my instincts, carefully ignoring the bloody sycamore feeling in my stomach. It was nice to get off the main road, although by the time I got up the Thai Nguyen the main road wasn’t all that main anymore anyway.

Christmas Eve Photos

The Provincial Band of Brothers inspected and approved.

And, ooh la la, I actually found some tea!

It’s the dark green bushes on the hillsides.

A landscape defined by panorama.

Au Chemin!

NAFIQAVED

It's my acronym-of-the-day.

Go ahead, I'll give you three guesses on what it stands for. Any takers?

Click here.

Con Voi Vui Lam

Theoretically I am supposed to be ‘adding value’ here, saying something that could possibly be usefully or edifying for someone somewhere. However, there are times when things which could hardly be classified as ‘value’ simply need to be said. So you just say them.

Elephants destroy crops in Nghe An

A herd of elephants last week destroyed more than 2 ha of crops in Thanh Thuy Village... The elephants did not attack anyone (not even the reporter wandering the fields in a ganja haze dreaming up what kind of story to write next), but roamed the area, uprooting cassava and corn plants and then piling them up into several heaps. (So did they pile the corn and cassava in separate heaps? Which one did they eat first? Did they have ugali or boule on the menu?)

Local residents believed the elephants belonged to one family. (Let me guess, all four had the surname Nguyen and worked in the Elephantine Pedicure Boutique.) The elephants also entered the area late last year. (It’s officially a tradition now, next year they’ll invite the cousins.)

Thanh Chuong District authorities called on local people not to kill the elephants if they travel to the area again. Loud noises are sufficient to scare the elephants away. (I’d say try karaoke.)

And, finally, here’s what those elephants felt like, sitting around looking at their cassava stash!

I have a weakness for articles about elephants and pictures of nephews...

Photo credit to my sister, starring Joshua Nganga and Zachary Gicharu, and partial appendages of Moses...

Drumming Durians

Drumming

As a chronically understated person who is typically happier observing the world than actually taking part in the world, I am not particularly prone to undue excitement. One thing that does nudge my interest is music, specifically music resulting from unusual combinations of influences, either geographic or stylistic.

A thoroughly amateur musician, I have a thoroughly amateur collection of instruments (and ‘things’) which takes up some of my time - when I am at home, I should add - my instrument collection doesn't travel as well as my flag collection! In any case, I do sometimes miss random musical instruments lying about the house. Particularly my d’jembe drum, which is a great instrument for trance, thumb blisters, and creating general astonishment and mayhem in the neighborhood. Listening to West African music just makes me smile, not much more to it.

And I was reminded of my d’jembe this week by an article describing a young Japanese traditional drumming troupe’s visit to and performance in Senegal with a well-known Senegalese drummer. Traditional Japanese drumming is “all about holding the silence and creating a well-placed sound with in it.” Life is like that – don’t forget the silence because without it music is impossible.


Three Gorges

Just read about this film, Jia’s Still Life, which I have not seen but it really sounds interesting. About a town that is being emptied due to the 3 Gorges Dam project. I don’t know when this was filmed or exactly where the town is. Four years ago when I was in China I did a river cruise from Chongqing, down the Yangtze River to the dam. At that point they had just completed blocking the river, albeit symbolically, with most of the dam completed but a gap on one side of say, a half mile or so… Well, not quite that big. Truly, the scale of that project is astonishing. Hoover and Grand Coulee are really not even close to the same league. In any case, my memories of driving through a city which was swarming with workers and sledgehammers slowly demolishing everything to carry it up the hill and reuse for the new city, well you don’t see a city moving too often so I remember that. Right, so if you get a chance watch the film and tell me how it is!

Russ Feingold column on Chad
Pure self-interested political realism meets humanitarian idealism (well, at least in this article), and still nothing happens on the ground.

Kofi Annan speech
Kofi Annan gave a speech the other day. On the UN, on everybody being in the same world and hoping for essentially the same things. Attitudes on the UN here are almost universally positive. Attitudes in America on the UN, based primarily on anecdotal comments by truck drivers (…) are less positive. Leadership involves being in the front, and it’s hard to go forward, even from the front, if you can’t take your eyes off the folks behind you.

Quote of the day from a candidate for Governor of Aceh, from a BBC article.
“Being the governor is like being in prison, I will lose my freedom," he said.

Funny headline:
Govt Allocates Food to Seriously Durian-hit Province
I’m picturing Durians raining from the sky, the besieged wearing spike helmets to split them and gas masks to breathe…

Happy Birthday to me … :)

On the other hand

Rather, on another subject altogether I read something which caught my eye today. For anybody reading this who doesn't actually know me, outside of being a professional English teacher (6 mos experience) and a professional news editor (3 weeks experience), I am also a professional truck driver. Way too many years of experience - it's the only thing that I have ever made a respectable amount of money off of. Anyway, American truck drivers have some rules they are supposed to follow on how long you can drive or work in a day and how long you have to rest. SUPPOSED to follow. I, of course, always followed them. Anyway, reading an article on how those rules have been changed over the last few years I see the name of somebody from the last trucking company I worked for. The rules have been relaxed, you can drive more now, thus if common sense prevails you have to say that means more drivers driving sleepily and more sleepy drivers sleepily driving into innocent bystanders OR cell-phone-talking-road-hogging-SUV-drivers-who-don't-look-where-they-are-going and, in any case, causing more accidents. That's the first time ever on this blog I've even started a proper rant...

Before Mr. Bush entered the White House, he selected Duane W. Acklie, a leading political fund-raiser and chairman of the American Trucking Associations, and Walter B. McCormick Jr., the group’s president, to serve on the Bush-Cheney transition team on transportation matters.

In the months before and after the election, a leading industry figure in the campaign against tighter driving rules was Mr. Acklie, who became chairman of the American Trucking Associations in the fall of 2000. A longtime Bush family friend and Republican fund-raiser, he led one of nation’s largest trucking companies, Crete Carrier, based in Nebraska. Mr. Acklie, who stepped down from the post about a year after his appointment, did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

Nothing really to say about that, except that Acklie Corp. owned the company that owned the company that I worked for. It's a good company, for that sort of thing. Having driven a motorbike around Hanoi for all of six months now and still being alive I must have some kind of driving skills, although I have to say that the skills you learn driving 40 tons 65 feet long at 65 mph on cruise control endlessly on American interstate highways (how to stay awake without actually having to do anything except for steer for hours and hours and hours and hours) are not exactly the same skills that keep you alive on a motorbike in Hanoi (how to tilt your bike sideways while still going straight so as to get past small obstacles like public buses, ladies selling mangos, and APEC dignitaries). But I would argue that the ability to act with aplomb, good humour and common sense serves the same purpose everywhere, on and off the road, incidentally. In any case, for lots and lots of reasons, I'm glad I don't have to keep a log book anymore!

Mei you yisi

I'm afraid this is going to be a very random and unorganized post, nothing new about that I guess. How about Castro?! Two stories, about the same event, from somewhat amusingly opposite perspectives. The parade in Havana commemorating the beginning Castro's revolution was attended by Vietnamese officials. From Vietnam News, the story on celebration and mutual memories I think, Vietnamese toast Cuban President’s birthday, forces. And from the BBC, Ailing Castro misses Cuban parade.

I have never really had much fascination for studying or experiencing communism just for the sake of it. I guess I grew up at the very end of the Cold War in a very sheltered place and was just never that fascinated by it. However, I have been to three of the remaining five nominally communist countries (China, Laos and Vietnam - I expect Cuba and North Korea are somewhat less 'nominal' in their ideology) I get a lot more news here, on the opposite side of the world, about Cuba than I ever did in America, all of 90 miles of Gulf away. I wonder if you can buy Cuban cigars in Vietnam? I wonder if Fidel knows about the Che graffiti in Hanoi's old quarter?

It has actually been cold here. The paper said 16 C yesterday. I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit but I am voluntarily wearing long sleeves, and actually used my jacket today - for the first time I used my fleece that I carried from America. My fleece bought in Labrador, Atlantic Coast Canada, where in August it was probably colder than this. I do miss home sometimes. But photos like this help me get over that feeling! It might be cold enough here for me to shiver while riding my motorbike, but I don't miss the ice and snow. I can't afford to snowboard anymore anyway!


Today I went to my first ever Vietnamese wedding. I mean the first time I've ever been to a Vietnamese wedding, not 'my' first one. The idea of me ever having any kind of wedding is scary enough without calling it 'my first' one! Anyway, someone who is I think, an acquaintance of an acquaintance got married today. An early morning (for Saturday) van ride 50 k out of town to a village, a large tent with tables full of food, a lot of noisy people and noisy events, a few crystallized moments of comprehension separated by long periods of 'well I am here so I may as well eat and drink since I can't understand what's going on...' All in all, not a bad strategy, I think. Actually it was a good time to talk with the group of people I went with, even though I didn't really follow much of the ceremony, that was quite short anyway. The food, local rice wine and tea was worth the trip!

This is for anybody

who hasn't been to Vietnam lately. Who is wondering how exactly it works here, with a Communist Government in charge of a runaway 8-9% annual growth economy, fresh into WTO membership, entrepreneurial in-your-face marketing going on in every street, everybody wants to work hard and get rich... From the news, this little paragraph just made me smile.

The Vietnamese government is now trying its utmost to speed up
administrative reform. As of November this year, Dung’s cabinet has issued 72 out of 135 new relevant decrees in a bid to complete and streamline, or make transparent, legal framework to facilitate its market-oriented economy on the socialism track.

It's the facilitating that gets me, you have to facilitate it, whatever it is. If you put socialism, or most anything for that matter, at the end of a sentence like that, it can't really make all that much difference! That's how it works.

A good BBC article on Vietnam, in the present and the future, not the Apocolypse Now Vietnam.

AND a movie I saw last weekend, The Prairie Home Companion Movie, which, yes is a bit incestuous, being a movie about the making of a radio show ... ... but it was amusing anyway and I don't hear that many American accents that often here, so it was funny.

Notes from the news

In Vietnam News an article titled "Ceremony Held to Mark Teacher's Day in Hanoi" about exactly that. Except for the second paragraph: "Nhan (Minister of Education) went on to criticize a small group of teachers in the educational system who were not sufficiently devoted to their jobs." Now this has nothing to do with my school or with me, but you know, I thought it fit anyway! Having take the last three weeks off from teaching I am wide open to criticism of being insufficiently devoted. As a result of my sorely insufficient devotion, I'm in the process of getting another job (in addition to teaching, not replacing it entirely) editing the news. I usually read the news anyway, and am always amused at the gauche English that pops up here and there, so I thought it might be a good fit. We'll see about that.

In the classroom, indeed most places here, as far as I can tell, whenever you need to decide something of no real importance you play rock, paper scissors. The street kids in Saigon are great at winning change from you using this game. Apparently there are actual rules and contests for this thing, sport, game whatever, cause there is now a world champion. And, although I'm not sure I remember seeing it, apparently people in the states play this game too because the champion is British and he played somebody from the states... This is important, see, news should make you wrinkle your forehead. If you just nod and say "I expected that" it's not news, is it? So read the details here.


And in 'real' news, something quirky which made me look twice:

General Vo Nguyen Giap yesterday received the Chilean President at his home in
Ha Noi. Giap said though far apart, Viet Nam and Chile were united in striving for peace, protecting national independence and freedom.
Like Viet Nam, Chile was a heroic nation that experienced major struggles to build the prosperous country of today.
Bachelet expressed her happiness in meeting the general, who was instrumental in Viet Nam’s resounding victory in the fight against aggressors.
Giap also presented two books, "Unforgettable Days" in Spanish and "Ho Chi Minh Thought and the Viet Nam Revolution Path," to Bachelet. (link)

Now if my memory of history class serves me correctly, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap cut his teeth a long time ago, being credited with the strategy giving Vietnam victory in Dien Bien Phu against the French in 1954. Not to mention the rest of the war(s) in and of Vietnam since then. He is currently around 94 years old, I believe. When I'm 94, if I make it that far, I'll probably be happy to sit around smoking a pipe on my porch and giving books to my grandkids (if I make it that far...), entertaining foreign presidents must be tiring!

I know people who collect foreign stamps, foreign money (money in general for that matter,) foreign addresses, foreign hats etc. All good, whatever floats your boat. Notice the list of flags on the right sidebar of my blog - this is my collection. It's pretty much the only thing I collect because I don't have to carry them around, and I don't have to do anything to collect them, only watch them pile up. Latest additions are Turkey, the Russian Federation and the United Arab Emirates. Put your mouse on the flag and you should get a map of the place. Maps make me happy. I think my Dad did that to me. Maps also make me poor!

APEC

Today President Bush came to Hanoi. Maybe he got tired of Washington, for some reason. Or maybe he just wanted to hang out someplace relaxing like Hanoi :) The APEC summit is this weekend right here in Hanoi. There have been banners all over the city about this ever since I got here. About a month ago they put up a huge number of photo/billboard displays around Hoan Kiem lake in the center of Hanoi. It is a rather astonishing idea, that you can take countries as diverse as Peru, Chile, Mexico, USA, Canada, Russia, Brunei, Indonesia, Australia and obviously Vietnam and throw them all together into an organization on the basis of, what beaches facing each other? Over a some odd thousands of miles? Random facts - APEC makes up %60 of global GDP, one third of global population (obviously that does not include China). And having just joined the WTO last week, Vietnam is high on free trade. Figure that out. Anyway, I was at an exhibition this week on the event with cultural displays on Vietnam, and a photography exhibit from each member country which was truly fascinating. Chinese PM Hu Jin Tao is here. Vladimir Putin, PM Abe from Japan, etc etc. And me, I'm here too. Just thought I'd point that out. Only the hordes of policemen at every intersection carrying baseball bat-sized sticks don't jump into action and stop traffic when I blow my horn, they just ignore me. They do get pretty energetic about leaping in front of crowds of motorbikes when the rows of APEC sedans or buses goes by. That's about as close as I've gotten to the action. I see the people in suits inside their fancy cars. Vietnamese people are immensely proud of having APEC here, and more than a few people I know have glowingly informed me that my very own president is coming to HANOI. For a taste of the Vietnamese viewpoint on this, read this article. The BBC has a good article on Hanoi's preparations for the event. The NYT headline on the subject was about, of course, the war. The one in Vietnam, and the one in Iraq. An excerpt, click on the paragraph for the whole article:

If Mr. Bush is privately thinking about the war he missed, the White House is
not letting on. Asked aboard Air Force One about “the lessons of the war,”
Tony Snow, the president’s press secretary, said, “What’s interesting is
that the Vietnamese are not particularly interested in that.” He added:
“This is not going to be a look back at Vietnam. It really is going to be a
looking forward to areas of cooperation and shared concern.”

What's really interesting is that I actually agree with that! Anyway, that's about enough for today. APEC aside, it's a beautiful day with flowers and lakes and coffee and pho and so on.

Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay is about a halfday drive from Hanoi. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is approximately 49 billion islands (ha ha - don't expect me to verify that!) of limestone karst formations. They crop up all over SE Asia, you see them in southern China (and in traditional Chinese paintings) here and throughout northern Vietnam, as well as over to Thailand. These particular formations were formed by a couple of dragons. On my tour I went to see the cave where they used to live, those dragons. Most people were smart enough to leave the dragons alone, but one day, quite some time ago I am told, the intrepid Chinese army was pondering the plundering of this part of the world, and one resourceful Vietnamese fisherman took a boat to the island and woke the dragons just for kicks. Well the dragons were in a Monday-morning mood, and were annoyed by everything, specifically the Chinese navy messing about in their bay, so they flew around spitting fire until the intruders left. The fire they spit hit water and, viola eureka and habedashery, became the funny looking mountains you see in this photo.




Fortunately the dragons don't bother tourists, maybe they taste funny. In any case, there are a lot of tourists. Here you can see the floating house of the village elder on the left (with the VN flag on it) with a couple of tourist boats docked there for the tourists to hop on a small boat and go through a tunnel under one of those mountains.



Halong Bay is one of those places where you can't help taking a lot of photos, but looking at the photos is not really comparable to actually seeing it. I guess that's why there are so many tourists! Anyway, more photos:

More of Halong Bay

Cat Ba Island

Cat Ba is a relatively substantial island next to Ha Long Bay, just offshore from the major port city of Hai Phong. It is, naturally, primarily a fishing sort of place, most of the island itself is forest and mountains. And tourism, there is a lot of tourism there. The island is home to a National Park with a few trekking trails, and apparently some unique species of plants and animals such as the Golden-Headed Langur (monkey, that is, monkey), or in Vietnamese, Voọc. That’s a strange word even in Vietnamese – I think the only word I know of that uses a double “o”. Anyway, pictures of the countryside on Cat Ba.









“The banana forest at Dumgaze, the banana forest at Dumgaze! They’re there, they’re there! You cannot see them but they’re there!”

Cat Ba Town

Cat Ba Town is, I suppose, a fairly average little village with a picturesque fishing port. Then there is the garish line of hotels, bars, restaurants and shops that line the waterfront, with a wide boulevard bigger than most streets I drive on here in HaNoi and handling about one tenth of the traffic. Garish it is, but it’s also nice – if it were only an average fishing village I would not want to stay there. They have those funny fake fireworks everywhere, and a fountain and light display every night, and loads of cafés that get rolled out onto the street every night carrying everything from beer to sugar cane juice. The town also boasts one disco, which seems a bit odd. I don’t think anybody goes there for the disco, people go there for the peace and quiet and beauty of the place… Whatever.

The coast...

There are essentially two roads on the island, together perhaps 40 or 50 km. Naturally I rented a motorbike, partly just to remember what it might be like to drive a motorbike outside of Hanoi, and to see the coast which is truly beautiful.

Singing old soldier

Just off the road from Cat Ba town to the National Park entrance, there is a cave which used to be a military hospital during the war, and a truly amusing old soldier giving tours of the place with three granddaughters.

Singing Grandpa

This guy was the official tour guide of a cave (war-time hospital) and it seems he and his granddaughters pass the time between visitors by singing patriotic songs, the most common of which is creatively named "Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh"

Oh, and the BEACH :)

And then, last month...

Well October was a long month, obviously it's already 10 November and I'm only now getting to talking about it... Anyway, just a couple pictures from October, so that I can't technically be accused of missing a WHOLE MONTH on my blog...

This first photo is of my neighborhood for two weeks. You can see the Hanoi Towers in the background - incidentally they are built on the same block as what is left of "Hanoi Hilton" which is now a museum of sorts. That was a prison where some captured American pilots were kept during the war. Anyway, the view is from my 4th floor hotel room in the old quarter, which I moved into after suddenly leaving my apartment for various reasons the most pertinent of which is that the police caught up with my landlady who had not properly registered me as a foreign renter like she was supposed to do ... Anyway, that's a funny story but I'm tired of it. Nice view, eh? I liked that room, and the people who run the hotel are very nice, I would recommend the place to anybody who comes to visit me here, the room with a view.

This is Truc Bach Lake, in front of a strip of cafes and neon, in front of a luxury hotel. There's a reason I didn't move to THAT hotel when I left my flat - no one would speak Vietnamese to me there... Actually they probably would, only it would cost a lot more!

In honor of everybody who likes trees and tree pictures. Not newsworthy, but this isn't news it's only my silly blog.



Xem lai Ho Truc Bach, with a endless river of motorbikes pulsing back and forth on Duong Thanh Nien.

Thursday Ramblings

Friday of last week, the last day of the term at my school, all the students went to watch the film Baraka. I had heard of this film before but hadn’t seen it, and I was impressed. It is made somewhat in the mold of Koyaanisqatsi, if that’s familiar to anyone. I’m not sure what exactly to say about it, but if you like simple but remarkable photography, and mesmerizing music, check it out. Here is a link to the associated website. The students thought most of it was too boring. Sometimes I think that my students are sadly sheltered and maddeningly immature. Sometimes I think that I am old and peculiar and staid. I’m probably right on both counts.

The terms at my school are only five weeks long, so they go by pretty quickly. My new class this term has seventeen students, which is rather larger than usual. I had one class last term which was fourteen or so, but remembering their names was a challenge. There were two Ngas - Thu Nga and Thanh Nga, three Trangs - Thu Trang, Quyen Trang and Huyen Trang, two Hungs - Manh Hung and Trong Hung, then a Huong and a Phuong and a Phong... I knew most of their names by the end of the term but it took most of the term to get that far! Anyway, my new class is a lower level than I have taught before. So far it is going pretty well, I have to amuse them a little more than the upper level students, but on the other hand I don't have to explain subordinating conjunctions!

Having been back in Vietnam now for almost six months, I have finally realized that my Vietnamese is not going to improve much by osmosis. Sad. So I am back in language class, at the same university I studied in the first time I was in Hanoi. I enjoy it, although that class is quite noticeably above my level in terms of vocabulary. To offset that I am also taking a sporadic Vietnamese language class at the school I teach in, which is free for teachers, but is noticeably below my level since the other teachers taking that class haven't studied Vietnamese at all, or not until two weeks ago. So I come back from one class confused, exhausted and thoroughly convinced of my monumental inability to accomplish much, and from the other class slightly amused by my colleagues (language professionals, all of them) who can't remember, much less pronounce, the Vietnamese tones... Maybe with the combination of both classes I can move forward!

Tonight I found, behind a very small door on a rather large street in the middle of town, a German restaurant. The Kaiser Kaffee is appealing, if for no other reason, simply because it is called The Kaiser Kaffee and it is in Hanoi! It actually looks sort of German - old fashioned low ceiling with (fake but tasteful) exposed beams and straight-backed wooden chairs like any proper PA Dutch restaurant would have at home. The lady who seemed to be in charge of the place is, well, an unusually German-sized Vietnamese lady who kept on speaking German to me... I guess my Vietnamese was bad enough she couldn't tell what language it was! Anyway, BRATWURST, they have bratwurst. How cool is that! I had bratwurst and Vietnamese fresh spring rolls... The silliest things make me happy!

And speaking of the silliest things, here are my favorite news stories recently:

Man Bites Panda - cute and NOT cuddly
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5364058.stm

The Ancient 26-year-old Terracotta Warrior
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5355546.stm

Vendredi heureux a tout le monde :)

Ba Vi - Rhymes with La Vie - Rhymes with My Tea (in Mississippi)

Motorbikes are ridiculously efficient. My motorbike cost me roughly $600. The last time I bought a car for that much, I spent one solid day every week squirming around underneath the car, kicking and cussing and generally insulting it and myself in as many ways as possible. After that, and buying gas in America (…), I had transportation.

I’ve had my motorbike for about two months. I fill it up with gas maybe once a week, for about $2.50 or $3.00. I had a flat tire last week. It cost me almost $4 to have the tube patched by someone sitting on the sidewalk with a screwdriver and a bucket of water, about 30 meters from where it blew out. It was making a funny noise so I took it to a shop where they washed it, changed the oil, greased and adjusted the chain, and replaced something that was missing which made the chain noisy. That was almost $4 too. That means I’m up to like $30 in maintenance. I just thought I should say that for anybody out there on the other side of the world who is living on ramen noodles to preserve gas money…

Anyway, last weekend I went to Khu Du Lich Vuon Quoc Gia Ba Vi – Ba Vi National Park. Allegedly about 60-70 km west of Hanoi, I figured it shouldn’t take so long to get there. Well at the edge of Hanoi there is a road which, for about an hour, is a solid mass of parked trucks and cars flooded by beeping revving smoking sweating motorbikes. Motorbike traffic jams are truly annoying. You breathe smoke. You try not to burn your leg on your neighbor’s exhaust pipe – and you really can, that is how packed it gets. You constantly bump into folks next to you, although usually nobody cares. Well after that is smooth sailing for a few minutes, then you have a long stretch of road construction. That was mostly too dusty to see anything, bumpy and missing bridges and all that. Well. Whatever. According to my map this is a reasonably serious road, I guess I just picked the wrong day to try it!

Ba Vi, on the other hand, is really cool. Almost cold, in fact. It is green and lush and flowery and switchbacks are fun on a motorbike. Thanks to my freshly greased chain I got up the mountain with no real complaints from my motorbike. I hiked a bit more to the actual top. The day was slightly hazy, but the place was beautiful anyway. Living in Hanoi, I’d almost forgotten how much I enjoy solitude. It is so rare to have actual silence here. It was only a day trip, maybe too short to really enjoy the place, but good anyway. And on the way home I went a longer way which involved and very nice road, paved smooth straight flat almost empty, and two hours flat instead of three and a half … go figure.

So, here are some photos of the park, as well as a thrilling video of cycling down the mountain… Enjoy!

These are flower pictures for all the flower people out there!