Part 2 - Transmission from my satellite heart

It’s about time I write another update to my blog. I’ve certainly played the ‘suspense’ card to the extreme.
A lot has happened since my last update and on reading what I previously wrote, well; you could say I’m an unpredictable twat. I think that is definitely the title some people gave me as I spent weeks debating over what my next move would be. Eventually, I made up my mind and I went back to England for a while, not really knowing what my future plans would entail. Yet 5 weeks later I found myself back in Hanoi. Ha! I knew I’d be back…I just wasn’t sure when!

Being back in England was an experience to say the least. Overall, it was wonderful. I’d missed so many people and so many things when living in Hanoi. I certainly made the most of my time there and I’m really glad I went back when I did. I could have spent the money I got (tax rebate FTW!) on travelling to other countries but at that point I needed to just touch base and reconnect with people.  Whilst there I managed to gather up my thoughts, explore new feelings and deal with experiences I hadn’t come across before. Some of it was difficult but everything happens for a reason and if anything I now feel more solid being back in Hanoi. I do miss my friends and I do miss my family but I'm also aware that I miss a lot of memories and they're memories for a reason. A week before I came out to Hanoi in February my dad admitted to having an affair. The news, to say the least, was a slap in the face. I was already dealing with having to pack up and leave the UK. I was also in a relationship with a man I was in love with and we were coming to terms that we weren’t going to be together anymore. Being told my dad was leaving was the cherry on the cake but at the same time I knew that I had to hold it together and just carry on as I knew that my mum and sister would be devastated. So, my first few months in Hanoi were very up and down. I was discovering so much about myself, making new friends, discovering culture and having a lot of fun but at the time same I just couldn’t stop worrying about life back in London. Both my parents had breakdowns and were put on anti-depressants. My mum lost a load of weight, which really worried me as she has suffered from anorexia before. When speaking to my mum, who I had the most contact with; I was being made to feel like she was capable of doing the worst to herself. My younger sister would constantly reassure me that it was pointless going home but when you’re the oldest sibling, you can’t help but feel responsible for the others and I hated the thought that my brother and sister were having to deal with everything alone. So, I went back to the UK in September and stayed for 5 weeks. Like I said, I had some amazing times being home and I really don’t regret going back when I did. However, I had to deal with a lot of new feelings and a completely new situation. Life at home has changed and despite the situation with my family, being away from home has made me notice changes in life a lot more. When you stay in the same place you often fail to recognise life developing around you. Life is just a series of events happening from day to day but when you’re away and out of touch from something you once knew, you recognise how different things are when you do touch base again.
Wow, I only meant to add a few sentences about London life and I seem to have written an essay!

So, anyway, now I’m back in Hanoi I hope to see some people out here visiting me this time! Two of my closest friends are coming out to visit me in January. EPIC!! We’re currently planning our trip to paradise. My dreams of being on a white sand beach on my birthday are becoming all the more real! Joy of joys!

When I came back to Hanoi I took a slightly different approach as I had no job or home to walk in to this time so I had to set up shop as soon as I hit the ground. Fortunately I had friends wanting to move house so I grouped up with them and we have now found ourselves a lovely house with cats and hippies and all things wonderful. Freshly decked with fairy lights and splattered with happy. Yum! However, not everything comes in perfect doses and the location certainly has its flaws. For example, we’re currently living in a building site so as you step out our gate you’re greeted with huge drills, piles of rubble, dismantled pathways and the smell of piss from the builders living on site who have no toilet to use. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm what a treat! Welcome back to Asia!
In fairness, the builders are quite friendly. They’re not from Hanoi, but from the countryside, which explains why they all stay on site. Staying on site is a very common thing in Vietnam. There’s no bacon butties and cups of tea for breakfast here…knocking off early to get down the pub…these guys live, work and breathe crumpled concrete…and so do we at the moment. The biggest headache is the drilling…the CONSTANT drilling, which they love to start at 7am. Anyone who knows me well enough will know I’m not a pretty head when I wake up and I haven’t been sleeping well recently anyway so having an alarm clock of rattling walls and hammers….yes.

ANYWAY! RANT OVER!

I’ve currently got a little kitten sat at my feet. I’ve named her Bo and she is the last of 4 to go. What a rhyme. I’m so delicate with time. I’m doing a lot of those recently…perhaps with the outcome of starting a band in the near future but I’ll leave that set of words for a different day.

In terms of jobs, I have some! I’m  working a few part time jobs, all teaching of course but I’m now teaching drama for Helen O’Grady, which is ace! Teaching is great but it is all the more rewarding when you’re teaching something you love. However, it can be quite challenging. The level I’m teaching is young kids so far (in fact all my jobs are that age…) so I’m spending most of my time shouting out vocab on colours, stationary and the alphabet, whilst dancing around like a chimpanzee on a trampoline. It can be quite liberating but there are times when I’d rather be testing my brain. Due to teaching said age range, it seems that when I do finally socialize with adults I tend to waffle on about my ideas for creating an epic world of (realistic) delusion and adventure. Or, I’ll converse simply in rhyme.

I’ve been doing a lot of amazing things since being back in Hanoi but for now here are some photos of things to bring your eyes up to date with my heart.

Wide eyes

They say we’re living in the golden age of Hanoi and I think they’re right. To one side of me are tons of new buildings in progress, coming down and going up. This means that a large percentage of my morning soundtrack is of drills vibrating through my bedroom walls and into my brain. You can see the city developing at a quick pace and I know that in 10 years time Hanoi will be very different. However,  on the other side of me is the culture of street sellers, bartering, mental motorbikes, hot weather, ice tea, bia hois, and the ever  expanding secret corners of amazing little food stalls and tucked away bars. I love the variation this place offers me. I still have a lot to learn from living here.

I had a pretty rough week last week. I had a series of horrible symptoms and got pretty ill, which meant I had to go to the doctors and spend $80 on a check up and some pills. They fixed me and I feel a whole lot better, so I’m not complaining, but at the time all I wanted was the NHS! I decided that when my job contract finishes in August I’d go back to the UK and work for a couple of months to be able to afford a flight to Bangkok and then work there. However, I’m feeling much better now and if anything I am more in love with Hanoi than I have ever been. I’m waiting to hear back on a couple of jobs but I’ve been guaranteed one that will keep me here til next summer...so I’m at least staying until then.

The heat is crazily hot here at the moment. According to Google, today is the official start to summer. If I were back in the UK I’d be grinning like a monkey, prancing about in excitement at all the festivals I’d be going to in the following few months. No festivals here though, but that’s OK because there is so much more for me to do! As for the heat, I’m not looking forward to riding my motorbike whilst sweat drips down my face and off my eyebrows. I kid you not...this is happening already. I might start riding naked. Start a naturalistic revolution!

So I’m going to be sticking around here for a while. Come and visit. Send me things. Skype me. I’m across the oceans but I’m still thinking of you. Nuff love.

Better delayed than never delivered

Ok, so I really am a bit shit at updating this...but let’s not spend life walking around resenting ourselves. Here it is. An update!

I’ve been in Hanoi for almost 4 months now. WTF!? Yes, WTF! Time has gone pretty fast but I also feel like I’ve been here a long time. Not in a bitter way at all. I just feel pretty settled here now. A lot of this is down to the people I have met here. I really have made some great friends and had a lot of fun so far. My housemates are great but 3 of them are leaving in a few days so it’s all going to change here. I’m pretty sad they’re going as 2 of them are leaving Hanoi for good and I love them. They’re ace guys! However, change in an environment like this is inevitable and not always a bad thing. Who knows what’s to come! Replacing the current housemates are 2 guys, Tony and Rich, and my friend Kelly. It’ll be nice to have a girl in the house, especially a friend of mine.

I went to a day festival over the weekend, which was just AWESOME! Not only was it a festival but a festival in Hanoi! The festival was made up of various bands and DJs from all over the world – Japan, Australia, England, Thailand to name a few places – and the music was some of the best I’ve heard in a long time. Forget the fact I’m living in Hanoi and the music scene here isn’t as fast paced as London. The music was genuinely brilliant and I danced my way through the day and night. There are a lot of bars to drink in here but there aren’t that many places where you can dance to really good music. There are some but they generally consist of cheesy pop music or electro house. Every so often you’ll get a good bit of drum n bass thrown in but most of the time it’s when you’re sat in a bar.
I spent most of the festival dancing round with my housemates and after it ended we went to a couple of clubs till the sun came up. It got pretty crazy towards the end. I busted my foot open during the festival (didn’t stop me dancing though!) and had to get a tetanus jab the following morning as I wasn’t sure if that was something I had actually had before coming out. Checking out the results of what that shit does to you when you’re a little worse for wear is a bad move, so despite how awful I was feeling I had to go to the medical centre and get myself topped up.
At the final club, as the sun was coming up, we all decided to go down to the river and being foolish and fun and avoiding the advice from my housemates (who had made the same mistake before) me and a few others decided to get one of the shoddiest looking fisherman’s boat and take it out. It didn’t get very far until it sank...with me in it...wearing all my clothes. So I had to walk back through the club past all the staff dripping wet and avoiding eye contact. I haven’t been feeling on top form this week due to the weekend’s shenanigans. The Red River in Hanoi is a bit like the River Thames in London, not something you want to swim in!

Aside from the teaching and partying I’ve been trying to get more involved in other things here. I’m going to the filming of a Vietnamese quiz show later today...to be in it! They wanted English teachers to read out questions so I’m going to be on Vietnamese TV. It should be pretty fun but they’ve asked me to wear my Apollo t-shirt (which is thick cotton) and trousers. That’s fine but the filming is outside and it’s 33 degrees at the moment so unless they have mega professional sweat proof makeup (which I highly doubt they do) then I’m going to look like a melted mess on TV...yay!

A friend of mine, Vanessa, is manager of a club here. She has been here for 3 years and used to run music nights in Hanoi. We’ve been chatting and she wants to get involved with me and start something up again. She knows a big name drum n bass DJ coming from Australia to play in Hanoi in a month or so and the gig he is doing is pretty big but she reckons he will be up for doing a smaller show if we sort something out. We’re going to check out a venue on Sunday so watch this space!

I’m also getting involved in the Hanoi International Theatre group. They’re putting on a workshop on absurd theatre on Saturday, which is right up my street when it comes to performance. It’s going to develop into a production in June and I really want to get involved in that too. Very much looking forward to it!
I’ve also been looking into starting dance classes although I’m not sure what style. I found a group who do SWING DANCING!! AMAZING!!!! However, they only seem to have one session a week and that just happens to be right when I’m teaching! Gay. So I’m looking elsewhere. Maybe ballet, or capoeira or contemporary dance.

I love my life here. I'm earning enough money that I can buy most things I want, eat and drink what I like and go where I fancy. This does make the whole 'lose weight in Hanoi' rumour complete bollocks though but never the less it's all good. I am missing London and my friends though. I would love to go back for a visit and see everyone but I'm not quite sure what I'm doing in the future. I definitely plan on staying in Hanoi but in terms of holidays and home visits, at the moment I don't know much! My cousin might be coming out here, which would be ACE! He had plans to go to Singapore but those plans fell through and he doesn't want to stay in the UK. I hope he comes here. Hanoi is an amazing city.

 I just had a phone call from the TV company telling me there was an emergency and they have had to cancel filming this afternoon. Bawls. 

Well, til next time folks x

Zaak and Clay, 2 of the 3 house mates leaving Hanoi for good.

Kyle, 3rd house mate leaving but he will return to Hanoi in 3 months.

Vanessa

CAMA Festival

CAMA Festival crowd

CAMA Festival Bongo Man (not his real name)

CAMA Festival Trumpet Man (possibly his real name)

Hanoi Night Market

Fish nuggets with rice crispie batter NOMNOM

Cooking Pho Xao (flat rice noodles, veg and beef)

Bottoms up!

Well it seems my brother was right by saying that I’m not very good at updating my blog but I have had a lot going on so it has been hard to find the time.
I had my bag stolen recently, which wasn’t great fun. I was getting gas for my motorbike and I had the seat of the bike up, with my bag in the bike. I turned away for a split second and when I turned back my bag had gone. I was stupid to leave it in the bike and turn away but you never expect it do you? I lost my phone, keys, purse containing money and all my bank cards, camera, makeup and my notebook which had loads of important scribbles in it, including my house address. Aaaaaaaaaaall good fun! It seems the cunts have been using my phone too as a few people have phoned it and it has been ringing.
My bad luck seemed to continue when my house key snapped recently after the bag incident. I managed to pull the half key out the padlock but it meant I couldn’t go anywhere on my day off until someone came home! Thankfully I didn’t have work to go to...

They say things come in threes so I after my motorbike crash, my bag being stolen and my house key snapping I was expecting some good luck to come my way, which indeed it did.
I’m a member of a very swanky gym. It’s the most expensive gym in Hanoi and averages out at about £100 a month membership, which is more expensive than most London gyms! I joined when I had some of my savings left and I was given a good deal which meant that for 6 months I only paid £350. It is a really, really nice gym but when I went to them and told them I had lost my gym card with my bag they told me I’d have to pay 250,000 VND for a new card! That’s about £7 which doesn’t sound like a lot but when you’re charging so much for membership anyway a simple thing like that shouldn’t be another opportunity to swipe your client’s money! Bastards. Well, thankfully being forgetful and scatty at times, I’d forgotten to collect my card from them so they had my gym card all along!
My good luck seemed to continue when I went in to work last Monday to teach what I thought would be 2 2 hour lessons. It turned out that my second lesson had been cancelled and my first lesson was the last in the course for those students. It’s a bit of a tradition with Apollo (and most language schools) so take your students out for coffee during their last lesson. I’d done so with one class and paid for them, which was a bad move in itself and with my recent lack of bag situation I didn’t have the funds to buy coffee for 12 adults so I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do. When I got to class I handed all the students their tests and certificates. There was a high energy to the class already because everyone had done so well on their test, which I’m really happy about. Then when I asked them what they wanted to do they chanted ‘beer!’That settled that then. After a bit of chat about where to go we grabbed our things and went to a bia hoi nearby. Bia Hoi is Vietnam’s special brew of beer. Its light bodied, very refreshing, and very cheap with pints costing about 15p. Bia Hoi is seen as a working man’s’ drink but it’s as much of a social experience as it is a beer. You’ll find Bia Hois all over Hanoi mostly full of men. You won’t ever see a Vietnamese woman sat drinking beer alone. However, the same rules don’t apply for Western women! You tend to get a lot of good Vietnamese food at Bia Hois. We ordered a selection of dishes that we all shared and I tried a few new things too. I tried dog’s cock for the first time and it wasn’t bad to be honest! It looked like a small version of black pudding and although the students were a little reluctant to tell me what it was at first, I bite the bullet and tried it. By this point I’d already had quite a bit of beer. I’d made the ‘mistake’ of saying ‘tram phan tram’ when we were cheering our drinks, which basically means 100% = down your drink. From then off we were downing drinks every time they arrived at the table, which was regularly as the service was great. I felt like royalty that night. Myself and Chloe, which is the other teacher I share the class with, didn’t pay a pennie! Despite the students only being elementary level, we all had a lot of fun and there was a good level of conversation buzzing around.
After the food we went to a karaoke place. I’d never been before but the Vietnamese love their karaoke so I felt I should get involved in the culture even more and forget I can’t sing for shit. We arrived at this venue and we put in one of the booths. The room had a large tv playing various music videos, sofas all around the room, tables with crisps, lazers on the walls and we were soon presented with red wine, beer and fresh fruit! Again, I didn’t pay for anything so I have no idea how much it cost but it was a lot of fun and I hope I party with those students again.
I really enjoy partying with the Vietnamese as it’s so much fun watching them dance. They have different rules to it all here. You won’t often see men and woman dancing close together. Instead you’re more likely to see men and men dancing together. They get very emotional and excitable, jumping about and dancing together. It really is great fun to watch! I’m still grinning at how emotional the men get when singing slow, passionate love songs for karaoke!
The women are a lot more reserved but you’ll often see women walking down the street holding hands. There is a lot I’m yet to learn about the Vietnamese.

I met up with one of my students on Wednesday as he wanted to have lunch with me. I’d told him on Monday that my favourite food was sushi so he suggested we meet at a sushi restaurant. I was a little hesitant at first as I wasn’t sure what his motives were but the meal was really nice. We spoke about a lot and he has invited me to his house to have dinner with him and his wife. I thought the mention of a wife would be the safe alarm but according to my housemate...in most Western cultures you meet someone, fall in love and then get married. In Vietnam, you meet someone, get married and then either fall in love or don’t. Hmm.

Due to my bag being stolen and me losing my camera (not my SLR though, thankfully!) I don’t have any recent photos to upload but I’ll follow this with some soon. I promise. 

Smash

Apparently I’m not very good at updating this. My kind brother took liberty to inform me so here we go...another update! I think I’m still drunk from last night so my ramblings will be top notch quality. I’m sure being intoxicated by anything is the best time to write about life, the universe and motorbikes so it’s all good.
I took my motorbike out for the first time on Tuesday. I’d had it for 2 weeks and not touched it. Having a mix of fear and bad weather delayed me getting on it and whizzing round. It was getting ridiculous so I asked my housemate Zaak to give me a lesson and he agreed. At first I was terrible...seriously. I looked like a complete tit! I sat on it and didn’t know whether I was going left or right, whilst moving forward! In the space of 3 seconds I nearly hit a taxi and another motorbike. Due to my exquisite performance, Zaak thought it better to take me to Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, which isn’t too far from our house. There is a long road which is partly blocked at one end so there isn’t much traffic on the road. It was perfect for me to do a couple of laps on and within minutes I was a lot more comfortable driving round so Zaak jumped on the back and we drove round West Lake, which is the biggest lake in Hanoi and not far from where we live. We live in a great location. We’re round the corner from West Lake and the Botanical Gardens, I’m 10 minutes on a motorbike from work and 5 minutes walk to a local expat bar! Sorted. I haven’t dared the drive to work just yet. It’s pretty mental and very busy so I’m going to drive myself to the gym and get a bit more comfortable before I start ‘running’ so to speak.
Since my last update I’ve been out a few times. I had a really good night out on Saturday night, which is a rarity in my world because Saturday and Sunday and my busiest days. That’s the way it works in a language school as most of the students are at normal school during the week so don’t have the option to come then. The weekdays are more for teaching adults and then the weekends are for teaching kids. I’d booked the Sunday off weeks ago as it was my house mate’s birthday and had been told we were going to have a party. Whether I wanted to party or not, there was no way I’d have gotten any sleep and be able to teach for 6 hours on the Sunday. However, as time went on it was decided we weren’t going to have a party, but instead go to a place called Rock City, which is one of the few clubs in Hanoi. It’s a cool place and there was a night called Electric Hanoi on, which meant a load of fucked people dancing to hefty beats and spinning fire. It was a great vibe and I even got to have a dance to some drum n bass!  We all partied til the sun came up but at the end of the night we all went our separate ways. I came back to the house with some friends and one friend managed to go home with my phone. I was woken up the following morning by my 2 housemates knocking on my door asking if they could use my phone to ring for food. Of course, I didn’t have a phone they could use. They then told me the reason they had no phone and it was quite possibly the best story ever to wake up to. After they had left the club they went to another bar, and then down to the river where they found a fisherman’s boat. They decided to steal this boat and take it out on the water...where ‘said’ boat then decided to sink! I’m not quite sure why but the boys had decided to strip down to their pants before taking the boat out so they had to swim back with nothing but boxers to hide their dignity. They lost pretty much everything they had on them but on the up side they did come back with a great story to tell and certainly gave me a good laugh the following morning!

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A few days have passed since I wrote that and a lot seems to have happened since. I’m still getting used to how much can happen in a day in this country. I’ve been meeting more people and having more fun. I had a few days of serious homesickness but those feelings seem to have passed now and I’m loving every day in this country. I seem to have found the peace of mind I needed when I was in London. I want to learn Vietnamese so I can communicate properly here but at the same time I love the feeling of being in my own bubble. You get a lot of looks here but that is expected and I don’t worry about people judging me. Maybe I’m just growing up... I’m not sure. I don’t want to grow up too much though! I’m sure I’ll still have my fun, twattish qualities no matter how grey I get.

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Another new day...

I crashed my bike this morning. It’s a very common thing here and it wasn’t serious but I hurt myself and was left pretty shaken afterwards. I was on my way into work (it was the first time I’d taken my bike out during the day) and came to some traffic lights where the bike stalled. The lights turned green and I was trying to get my bike started again. As I was doing this a road washer came past and soaked me, as well as the road. I had no idea road washers existed but clearly they do! All of a sudden the bike revved up and took me with it. I skidded across the road, falling on my side with the bike landing on top of me. I haven’t broken anything but I’ve bruised my hip, leg and grazed down my left arm. If anything I was left shaken but I had to get up and out the road straight away as I was in the middle of oncoming traffic.  Nobody stopped to help me and that’s a common thing in Vietnam. I guess they’re just so used to seeing people crash their bikes. I need to practice more as I’m not confident on it but I just don’t have the desire to go out on it yet I’m paying $40 a month to rent it. Tit bags. I seem to have found myself in a situation where I have £30 in my bank to last me the week. I’m not quite sure how this has happened but I have been doing a lot recently and drinking has been a big part of that. Figures, I suppose! You can’t have fun without consequence.  Ying yang or something...

Hanoi seems to be the city of possibilities. I’ve met a few people who have been here for a short period of time and gone on to bigger, better things. I have had a few interesting opportunities approach me too. I’m not going to go into anything just yet as I’ve still only really just got here and I’m not sure what the next step is but watch this space. My contract with Apollo ends in September and I would like to go back to the UK for a visit then I’m pretty certain I’ll come back to Hanoi. This city is just on the cusp of becoming something big. A few people have said it’s like Thailand 20 years ago so now is a great time to throw some ideas out and stick your fingers in the pie...the pie of potential, if you like!

Well, there’s a selection of recent happenings spread out over a number of days. There will be more to follow but I thought it best to post this before you grow tired and forget I am here and I can write stuff.

Chào!

Smile Around The Face

I’m sat here munching chocolate biscuits for breakfast, a clear sign of the morning after the night before.

I haven’t updated this in 2 weeks and so much has happened! I can’t believe I have been here for a month now. It still feels like yesterday that I arrived.

Last night I went round to a friend’s new house for a big gathering of people eating and drinking. One of the girls had made spaghetti bolognaise which was lovely and that was accompanied by a load of fresh spring rolls, bread and various meats. The spring rolls aren’t typical of the type in the UK, which are pretty shit if I’m honest. The fried ones are amazing but you can get a load of different types. Last night we had fresh spring rolls, which are cold but really good. They’re called gỏi cuốn - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_roll - and very tasty! There were a lot of people out last night and I met a lot of new faces too. I have met some wonderful and interesting people here so far. I even, randomly enough, bumped into a guy I done my degree with when I was in a bar last night...and he is also teaching at Apollo! Crazy! There are a lot of French people in Hanoi. I think most of them were out last night! There’s definitely a good mix of cultures in this city.
I made some plans last night to go out tonight to a place called Snake Village, which is about 25 minutes out of Hanoi and consists of a load of restaurants all specializing in...well, snake! You can eat various dishes (I think they serve food other than snake although I’m not sure) and they present you with shots of snake’s blood and snake’s bile, mixed with rice wine. Apparently it is good for men’s fertility and can bring you good luck. I’m not sure of the influence it has on women but it’ll be an interesting experience if anything!

I’ve definitely felt myself change over the past week. I’ve just felt a lot more relaxed in my surroundings and more open minded to discover and learn new things. This state of mind was something I was yearning for when in London but I couldn’t find it. I didn’t feel like there was anything new to learn. Of course, London is an amazing city and it will always be a home to me but having lived there my whole life, it was all I really knew and when you’re kept inside your comfort zone for so long you forget you can find happiness in other things. I had to throw myself out there and find out what else there was and so far, the discovery has been amazing.  

On Tuesday I went with a couple of friends to a place called Perfume Pagoda, out of Hanoi. It’s a temple in the mountains and gets its name because as you go up the mountain there are a lot of aromatic flowers, although now there is more just a long trail of stalls all selling the same useless junk you don’t really want but think could be good to take home. I’m glad I’m living here and already see the unimportance of these things. I used to waste so much money on buying useless crap. I still love to shop, but I’m learning to buy what I only really need. Too many materials will just weigh me down, in my mind and in my bag! Anyway, back to telling you about Perfume Pagoda. We took a 2 hour bus ride out of Hanoi and then a boat ride for about an hour, which pulled into a port full of loads of Vietnamese people selling food. With most of the stalls here, they will kill their meat there before cooking it, so to keep it fresh but the site can be pretty brutal. There was one stall which had a cage with a deer in it, then a few feet away there was a freshly killed deer hanging by a hook, and then a few feet from that there was a deer’s carcass hanging from a hook. The evolution of a tasty Vietnamese meal... It is pretty intense to see but you have to remember that that is how people work here and I don’t want to come to a completely different country only to challenge the culture and refuse to accept it. I love animals, but I highly doubt there are many animal rights activists living in Vietnam.
There were a lot of people there due to a Buddhist festival happening. At the first pagoda, which went down into a huge cave, there were hundreds of people gathered, all praying. There were also a lot of monks walking round. It was a very spiritual place to visit.
The tour was good fun and I met some interesting people from all different places and of all different ages. Some people had great stories to tell. There was a lovely Vietnamese couple who became everyone’s friends. They brought fruit for us all on the bus during a quick stop off, and they were very fun to talk to. I met quite a few people who were also travelling alone, old and young, travelling around and seeing different parts of the world. It was really nice to see. Before I left London I was very excited but also very scared because I had no idea what I was getting myself into. A lot of people thought I was crazy coming here alone but you’re never really alone. When you’re travelling with yourself and nobody else, strangers become friends very quickly. You find yourself spending a long time with someone and you don’t even know their name.

I moved into my house last week. At the moment I am living with 2 guys and 2 girls but the girls are moving out in the next month and 2 guys moving in. Me and 4 men! Haha! But it’s all good. Everyone is really nice and we have a maid too who comes 4 times a week so the house is always pretty clean. She is very nice and speaks good English. Yesterday she took me to the pharmacy to help me buy medicine as I started feeling really ill. Today I’m feeling fine! She does everything, even my washing. Life here is like luxury! Although, I’m sure my mum will despair that I’m still not doing the washing up.
The house is very big (4 floors) and really well kept. We have a huge wooden staircase that goes up the middle of the house. On each floor there’s 2 bedrooms and a bathroom and on the top floor there’s 1 bedroom and a roof terrace, which is lovely to sit on and eat breakfast in the morning. We live down an alley which is nowhere near as loud as the main roads. People ride bikes down it all the time but you don’t get the constant beeping of horns you get on the main roads. There are women just outside my gate who sell vegetables and tofu in the morning and then as the day goes on they are replaced by different women selling motorbike masks and various other random bits. It is a nice alley to live on. People around have started to recognise me so I always get a smile from someone when I leave the house. I seem to spend my nights sleeping to the sound of dogs barking and crying but to be honest I’ve just become used to that now and I actually sleep very well. My mornings are greeted with the sound of roosters and the hustle and bustle of life outside, but it’s a pro rather than a con as it wakes me up naturally, rather than having my alarm jerk me out of sleep and drop me into an early morning start.

I joined a really fancy gym yesterday, which even compared to London gyms is ridiculously expensive, but as it was Woman’s Day on Tuesday I got a good discount. I’ve signed up for 6 months and I think it will do me good. It is very new and expensive, with great air con too so when it gets really hot and humid here I will be able to find solace on a treadmill.

I’ve also booked a man to come round later with a bike for me. Yep, that’s right. Today is the day I sign my life away. I’m kidding...I think! I’m going to rent a bike for $40 a month but that will give me complete freedom and means I won’t be spending money on a  xe om every time I want to go somewhere. I’ve become quite used to the xe om here and most of the time I don’t need to hold on to anything whilst being driven so I’m hoping I’ll be OK on a motorbike. Small steps though. I’m not going to tackle the big roads just yet!

For now I’ll leave you with some pictures of my journey to Perfume Pagoda. It was dry but actually a pretty cold day. As for the sky, there is never any sun here...the sky is always grey! That’s Vietnam, baby.

Zoom zoom!

I had the best xe om driver last night! I'd gone out for food with some friends in the Old Quarter to a place called Highway 4. It's a bit of a chain in Hanoi that sell pricey but good Vietnamese food. We got a selection of dishes and shared between the 5 of us. There was tofu with spring onions/ chicken with cashew nuts/ beef in black bean sauce/ papaya, peanut, beansprout and rice noodle salad/ and catfish spring rolls. Healthy and very filling! We also had a selection of Son Tinh which is traditional Vietnamese rice wine. It comes in a selection of flavours (we had the fruit flavours) but basically tastes like petrol with a hint of a particular flavour. Bloody strong stuff!

The Vietnamese like to drink and it's certainly noticable. I'd heard about these things called buckets when I was in London and I ended up in a bar last week that specialized in them. Pretty much what it says on the tin...a bucket of booze with straws supplied. Some bars give you a free t-shirt if you drink the whole bucket. I'm not sure why there's such an obsession with t-shirts here but there you go! So needless to say I'm feeling pretty rough today but I've got to go across Hanoi later and sign my contract later so I can't stay in and hide under my blanket.
So yeah, back to my xe om driver. Myself and 2 friends had just finished up at a reggae bar called Roots and were walking round the Old Quarter. This came can whizzing round the corner on his bike and asked if I wanted a lift so I asked if he had a 2nd helmet, which he didn't. The Vietnamese are pretty laid back about seatbelts in cars (it's pretty rare to find a taxi with seatbelts that work!) but you can get fined on a bike if you don't have a helmet. You can get you way round the police with most things if you have the money, but I don't and I don't want to spend a chunk of cash on a police man! The xe om driver was really enthusiastic and said "Wait here! Wait here!" as he drove off round the corner. In the 2 minutes he was gone I was approached by 2 other xe om drivers and one of them had a 2nd helmet. I was just about to get on his bike when Mr Xe Om Driver Number 1 came hurling back round the corner, waving a 2nd helmet and grinning like a child. I had to get on his bike now! Bless him, he misunderstood my destination and took me to a completely different part of Hanoi. I'd asked him to take me to Thai Ha and he took me to Thai Ho, but the journey was great fun! The roads were pretty much empty as it was gone midnight and most places have a curfew of 12 (although most bars stay open for hours after, they're just very subtle about it) and during the ride home he pointed out some famous landmarks as we passed them. He showed me West Lake (which is right near where I'll be living). It's HUGE! We also went past Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, which is somewhere I also want to go. Although we passed them I didn't see much as it was so dark. I'll definitely be exploring them soon.

There some crazy noises coming from another room in the hotel and I don't really want to sit here and listen to them..! This will be continued later.

------------------------------------ SOME TIME LATER ---------------------------------------

I don't know what was going on in the next room but the noises this woman was making were going on for ages! She did not sound like she was having fun. She sounded more like she was giving birth! Hahahaha!

So I'll continue...my latest bit of news is that I have found a house to live in! I was really lucky. It took me just one day to get the room. I'm going to be living in a big 5 floor house with various male and female teachers dotted round Hanoi. I only met one of the girls (who is actually moving out 2 days after I move in) but she was very positive about me getting on with all the housemates. She said one of the girls is a wacky hippy and a yoga teacher! I can't even find a yoga mat in Hanoi so I've really hit the jackpot there.

Each house in Hanoi has a shrine, either to the ancestors of the house or to the land. This particular house has a shrine to the land, which is a beautiful pond with 2 big rocks in that are meant to bring good luck and in the pond are fish...and turtles! I've also been told that during summer most houses get regular visits from geckos. I'm excited! I love geckos! The house also has a roof terrace that looks over Hanoi and it is very close to West Lake so I can have a proper explore of the location when I move in on 4th. However, 2 friends of mine are moving in to a house tomorrow and they have a spare room, which they said I can occupy for free until I move in to my place. I won't have to stay in the hotel much longer! It will also save me a lot of money too.

As nice as the hotel is (it's not the most plush of places but the people are very nice to me here) I want to get settled in my own room now. Then I can get a bike and feel like I've really found my feet.