So 5, Ngach 378/47 Lề Đuẫn

It’s what we call home, for the time being—a lovely house tucked away near the end of a winding labyrinth of alleys that come off of the lake called Ba Mẫu, on Lề Đuẫn Street, just across from Lenin Park. It’s amazingly quiet, considering the proximity to Lề Đuẫn, which is one of the major one-way southbound thoroughfares in Hanoi. There’s very little noise, and our bedroom has shutters on it that allow us to shut out the light on the rare mornings when we can sleep in. We have an adequate kitchen with a two-burner gas range, exactly two pans, a small refrigerator, cold running water, a microwave (!) and a hodgepodge of mismatched cutlery. So far no roaches, except one half-dehydrated carcass I discovered in the back of one of the lower cabinets. But I take it it’s not yet prime roach season, so we’ll see how long that lasts. We have one little kitchen gecko who’s usually waiting on the edge of the counter or inside the dish cabinet to greet me in the mornings.

The house has three bedrooms. The lower one is occupied by our friend Dave (from Denver). The middle one—a relatively luxurious suite with bay windows but no private bathroom—is home to a young man from Slovakia named Marian. He manages a team of IT employees in a Vietnamese company where he is the only westerner, and seems to get along just fine. His English is accented but nearly perfect. We’ve enjoyed a few dinners and drinks with him, and feel lucky to have such a cool housemate who nearly always does his dishes.

So we live in the top bedroom, just one flight of stairs away from the house’s private deck, where Brady and I have loved watching the bats come out at dusk and getting a peaceful and amazingly green view of our alley’s dead-end and the eight or ten houses that it leads to. One more flight up from the private deck brings us to the larger deck that is shared with the neighbors, who are also the landlords. The two houses are connected by the upper deck, where we hang our laundry, and the courtyard at the bottom, where we say hello in the mornings and admire old Mr. Hoi’s beautiful garden that he waters every day.

Hoi and his wife Phục live in the house with both of their adult sons, Ha and Nam, both of their wives, and their children as well; from what I can tell, there are about four of them between the two brothers, but I haven’t figured out yet who belongs to whom. But they are a lovely family, and invited us in for tea, which turned into wine, when we arrived on the first of the month to pay the rent. Hoi and Phục did a lot of smiling and nodding, and Ha, who went to university in Germany and speaks German and English, translated for us. We were wished a happy new year at least three times, our glasses of wine refilled until the bottle was gone, and given a bag of sugared ginger, which Hoi had just bought in Hue, his hometown—apparently it’s a local specialty. We tried to argue against him giving it all to us, but it was pointless. We also ended up with a box of dried sweet-sour plums, which Ha said are usually a favorite of the ladies. I’m not sure why that would be, but it proved to be true, as I loved them and Brady and Dave each tried one and passed on any more. They are nearly identical in taste to the Hawaiian li hing mui (sp?), which gave me a delightful twinge of nostalgia as I ate them.

The shared living room is adorned with a single, conspicuous piece of art: a terribly cheesy velvety tapestry depicting two frolicking horses, placed above the television and vying at any given moment for attention. The kitchen has a similarly gaudy large-format framed photo of a lake surrounded with flowers. Our room has a few decorations in it as well: a classic conical hat on the wall, a straw bag, and a lovely little folk painting of a traditional Vietnamese village. We’ve paid through March, so we’ll be in the house at least until then, and then we’ll see. We’d like to get our own place after that, but we love this area, and hope we can find a small house in the same neighborhood. I can walk across the road to jog around Bảy Mẫu lake in Lenin Park, which I’ve done a few times in the last week. It’s beautiful at dawn and dusk, and there are lots and lots of locals out getting their daily exercise in the mornings and evenings—walking, a few jogging, and several women dancing and doing aerobics to pop and techno. You also see a few older folks here and there, silhouetted at the edges of the lake, doing tai chi and calisthenics, and a few even practicing karate and kung fu.

Not only is the park so accessible, but we’re also only a ten-minute drive from the school where we’re doing our training. Also, our friend Duong lives in the same cluster of alleys, so it takes exactly 1:45 for him to walk from his house to ours. It’s probably not home for as long as we’re in Hanoi, but for now it’s our little sanctuary within the city, and we love it for that.

I've posted a whole album of photos on the Kodak EasyShare website. I think this is the right URL: http://adobe.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?UAUTOLOGIN_ID=601795612107&collid=601795612107.460585086307.1234689209611&page=1

A Soft Landing

Hello all, and Chuc Mung Nam Moi! That's happy new year in Vietnamese. Technically the Tet holiday ended yesterday, but a lot of businesses are closed all week, and it's sort of considered the "holiday season" through the whole week. We've seen a different side of Hanoi, with so many businesses being closed for the holiday. It's an unusual sight to see so many gates closed and so little commercial activity, relatively speaking. But even so, we've managed to experience some of the incredible bustle of this city that we have grown to love.

So we're still here at Steve and Georgie's house, where they and we together are enjoying being on vacation - Steve has had two weeks' break from school, and Georgie has been off this whole week. So the timing of our arrival was perfect - we've been sleeping when we're tired, eating when we're hungry, and just generally doing a lot of lazing about at their beautiful home. We've been sleeping in the living room on a futon - a bit on the hard side, but not too bad. And they've got the most gorgeous garden outside, where we've had a few meals and enjoyed sitting and watching the bunnies hop around. They have their own pet rabbit, Shadow, and are also bunnysitting three others for the Tet holiday from the kindergarten where Georgie teaches. So it's bunny madness - they're all so cute and fun to watch. And of course Clarence is here, too. He's just as we remember him, and he seems to remember us too, because he warmed up to us (say S & G) much quicker than he usually does with total strangers. Anyway, they live sort of between West Lake and the Red River, in the Tay Ho district. It's an area we never spent a lot of time in before, so it's been really cool to explore the lake and some of the local restaurants. This area of Hanoi is particularly expat-concentrated, so we see a lot of western faces around the neighborhood, and there are quite a few cafes and food shops that cater mostly to English-speakers and foreigners. Still, though, there's plenty of local culture abounding here. We walked part-way around West Lake the other day and were right in the middle of a huge stream of people on their way to a temple to leave offerings in honor of the new year. People were carrying these flashy foil flowers in large red and gold bouquets, and there was a busy market where they were selling special new year's treats like rice cakes with shrimp, moon cakes, spirit money to be burned at the altars, and flowers. There were also lots of stalls where people were doing some kind of writing of fortunes using the ancient Chinese. Pretty cool.

We've got our first lodgings settled, and will be moving into a house with Denver friend Dave Shinn and a Frenchman named Marian tomorrow (Saturday). It's the weirdest coincidence - this house that Dave tracked down using the New Hanoian website just happens to be the exact same house where our friends Tom and Grant lived in 2005 when we were here. We hung out on the very same rooftop, and Brady practiced music with Tom in the very same kitchen. What a small world the foreign-rentals market is here, I guess. Anyway, it's not the plushest pad ever, but it will do nicely to get us on our feet. We'll have our own room and private bathroom, and there's a common living room, kitchen, and rooftop patio. Dave has even stocked the fridge for us and bought some good local fruits that are in season. We're being very well taken care of. But my favorite thing about the house is where it's situated. It's nearly at the end of a dead-end alley, in the middle of an incredible labyrinth of alleys near Ba Mau Lake. But the contrast to our former home here is stark - this place is so secluded and relatively quiet, and there are a lot of trees in this particular little cluster of courtyards. So when we look out of our own bedroom window, we see green and blooming branches from nearby houses. It's really lovely. And it's located really close to Lenin park, one of the bigger parks in Hanoi, where there's a beautiful big lake and a nice trail for me to run on. :) It's also a short trip from the school where we'll be taking our CELTA course. So it's ideal in many ways. We're paying up through March, and then we'll probably go ahead and look for our own place then.

There have been a lot of changes in Hanoi. For example, what used to be a simple alley connecting two thoroughfares has been turned into a major 4-lane street lined with new buildings. KFC has arrived in the city, and there are at least four locations that our friends have been able to name. Hanoi was very proud before not to have any western chains, but I guess times are a-changing. So far no McDonalds, though, or Starbucks, so that's good. The website that Brady helped build from the ground-up when he was here in 2005 (the aforementioned New Hanoian) has become a major deal here, with events hosted at local venues monthly and the largest on-line community of expats in the country. It's got a really sophisticated rating system that allows users to review restaurants and things, but then also to rate other users' reviews of places. Anyway, Elliott and Tom have certainly taken it to a new level since we left, but they are still more than happy to tout Brady as one of the grandfathers of the site. It's pretty gratifying for Brady, and I'm sure there's some possibility of him getting involved again, which (no promises) could be good because the site has actually started to turn a profit. You can check it out at www.newhanoian.com.

Well, we're off in a moment here to get breakfast with S & G at one of our favorite old haunts. Today the shops are open again, so we'll be procuring our own motorbike and cell phone. Moving on up!