Mango shake, anyone??: September 2009

Back in Hanoi, I am recuperating / re-orienting after a wonderful summer in a cool climate mixing family and travel (and work, of course). Wonderful, although it was a bit long; I decided this summer that my scheduled absence from Vietnam was somewhat longer than it should have been. I’ll have to keep that in mind the next time around so I don’t forget so much Vietnamese!

I arrived in Hanoi late. Wide awake and with my head still in airplaneland, I watched the rice paddies roll by from the taxi, and then the familiar noise and traffic and heat of Hanoi. Arrived at my hotel and had a surprisingly lucid conversation in Vietnamese, not because I particularly wanted to but rather because the staff remembered me from the last time I stayed there, and they couldn’t just let me go off to bed without first reestablishing my Vietnamese credentials.Anyway, I got to my room eventually and slept like a log, jetlag only gets in the way after a day or two.

After a few days of wandering around the Old Quarter I must have sweated off a few kg’s of my summer of excess, and also came down with the flu. This, my Vietnamese friends tell me, is from drinking too many cold drinks (mango shakes, lemonade, ice coffee, ice coconut…). Myself, I tend to think it had more to do with an overzealous approach to the a/c in my hotel room, where I didn’t have to pay the power bill, and perhaps a persistent taste for street food. Either way, coughing, being feverish, and following my [large foreign] runny nose around isn’t any fun, and it being 95 degrees and humid doesn’t make it any better. But, I’m better now, mostly, so enough about that.

I am also back in Vietnamese class J. One of the things I love about Vietnamese class is that it always always makes me feel stupid at least once every class. I think that must be a good thing, in a place where the ability to say “Hi, I’d like an ice coffee” with a good accent inevitably leads to someone saying Wow your Vietnamese is SO good… Anyway, I’m back in a class with the same teacher I had last spring, which is great. The class currently consists of two Korean students, a Japanese student, a Taiwanese student, and me. And since most of the class is discussion, I learn more about those places than I ever really expected to, in Vietnamese class! My teacher clearly has great faith in the value of rabbit trails, which I appreciate beyond words. (My appreciation is especially beyond Vietnamese words, which I couldn’t remember even if what I was trying to say wasn’t beyond them.)

While I very much like that hotel I was staying in, I have now found a place to rent, of the non-hotel variety. My hotel room was 4^th floor, natural light from windows on three sides, balcony overlooking an old pagoda with trees, all inside the Old Quarter, with cafes, bia hoi’s and longan fruit all within like a minute’s walk. My ‘house’ is on the first floor with two views, one of a yellow wall across the alley from me, and the other of Grandma’s kitchen/laundry room, which is the courtyard behind my house. One of the prime attributes of my house is that I can walk to class. I had forgotten how convenient that is, how nice it is not to have to drive to get where you are going. Another attribute is that it is dead quiet. Seriously, I think this is the only place I have ever lived in Hanoi where I lie in bed and don’t hear traffic noises all the time. Instead, I hear a small cat yowling with a surprising amount of vigour, for an animal so small. That, and not much else!

I came upon this house thanks to an agent, who, after I saw a couple typical one-room-full-of-amenities-for-foreign-teachers sort of places, found this place for me. More space, fewer amenities. Although I am not complaining about the amenities, after all, the landlady who lives up the alley brings me papaya all the time. I don’t know, do I look thin or sickly? I don’t think so!Anyway, I really like my house. Concrete painted yellow, wooden shutters on the windows, a ramp to roll my motorbike inside my kitchen, and, oh yeah, a kitchen!! Someday soon I will be motivated to buy a rice cooker and actually do something in that kitchen other than make tea and eat papaya.

In the meantime I am back in my place here. ‘My place’ here seems to be a place of constant flux, which I am largely accustomed to, actually. It is also a place with good bánh khúc, and ốc luộc, and sinh tố mãng cầu, and sushi, and mực xao tởi, and, well, you get the idea. Indeed, I think I should go find one of those things now!