Hanoi - July 2013
I came to Vietnam more than 4 months ago, anxious and excited to experience eastern countries and their respective cultures for the first time. I never really had that strong of a desire to live in South East Asia, but when the choice came up of either kayak guiding on Lake Superior in Canada, or rock climbing and kayaking guiding on an island in Vietnam, the rareness of the latter made the decision for me.
I flew to Japan, then Hanoi. I found the quietest, cheapest place to stay, settling for a 2-dorm room hostel near St. Joseph Cathedral. I rented a semi-automatic motorbike and learned how to ride it in some fairly hectic streets - however, I found Hanoi drivers to be clearly better at their craft than those from western cultures are at home - maybe it has something to do with the lack of rules there. If you don't have the expectation that everybody will follow traffic rules and all you have to do is stay between the lines, you have to be more observant and alert, always. So even though you would be faced with crossing a 7-way intersection at rush hour with no listened-to traffic lights and a lack of speed limits, it was easy to cross - all you had to do was pay attention, and not hesitate.
Roaming around on my bike, I covered most of the city, and found a number of nice spots. A cafe on a roof over St Joseph Square was my base, and I quickly grew to be on friendly terms with several of the waiters there - My new friend Trung showed me his university and brought me for a delicious Vietnamese meal with snails, fertilized quail eggs and vodka. It was here where I discovered the pleasure of vodka with a meal - the Russians have it right. I organized daily Vietnamese language lessons with a teacher from one of the local schools, Tranh, and learned the essentials fairly quickly - how to show respect, and how to order food and beer.
Small things are the things you learn when getting thrown in a new culture. Parking your bike on the street is not kosher - you need to put it up on the sidewalk, lined as closely up with the other bikes in front of the business or area you are going to. Often the bikes are touching, and it takes some skill to extricate yours from the mess without creating a domino effect down the entire street. Sometimes the sidewalk seems too high to get your bike on top of it - so look for the portable iron or concrete ramp somewhere near.
You also don't usually pay at the table - they won't come with a bill unless you ask for it, and they expect you to approach the desk when you want to leave.
It is very hot out, but some locals may find it offensive to not wear a shirt, and shoot disapproving stares at your pale, sun-starved skin.
I find it interesting to think how oblivious foreigners must look when they don't yet know simple things like this. But I guess that must be true across the globe. And it would take more than a lifetime than to ever truly fit in here.
Cat Ba - August 2013
After a month of relaxing in Hanoi, enjoying it's heat and reflecting on the surprising similarities and differences between Vietnam and countries in Latin America, I took a bus, a taxi, a ferry and another bus to arrive on Cat Ba. The walkway from the ferry landing platform and the shore was broken, so I hoisted my bags, long-board and violin above me, and waded across. It is nice to know that my year of training with MTS gave me the skills necessary to overcome this risky challenge with ease.
After a bus ride through the first limestone karsts I had the pleasure of seeing, I got off the bus on an empty palm-tree lined boulevard in Cat Ba Town, a population of 10 thousand people spread out along the harbour front, with only the name of a company and a friend hiding somewhere in the prolonged cluster of stacked, skinny hotels, cafes and shops.
Cat Ba - November 2013
It's been a little more than 3 months since I arrived in Cat Ba. Do I like it? I love this place. Will I stay for a long time? Hell no.
I wanted to have a steady job more or less for 2 reasons; to help fund my lifestyle, and to see if I would want or could even handle living in the same place for longer than a month or two at a time. Since I'd left my hometown back in 2010, I hadn't really spent more than 1 month in a single place. Before I came to Vietnam, I had been entertaining fancies of finding a longer term job and settling down, finding an actual place to call my own, and having the unparalleled luxury of a kitchen all to myself.
Result; no I cannot, at least not yet, and it's got nothing to do with the quality of a Vietnamese kitchen. Getting the wandering thoughts again, craving a dusty highway with just my board and violin, hitching to the next stop, wherever that may be. I have 2 and a half more months to work here, after which I'm headed to Saigon on my bike Ol' Faithful to catch a flight to Auckland just in time to enter before my year-long working visa expires. After Auckland, I have no plans or commitments, and I can get back to doing what I left to do in the very beginning.
*Expect much more regular stories, pictures and information starting next year.