things that didn't make sense and now do

OK so there's lots of things. But here's a couple....

1) Completely un-padded chairs and beds.

My soft, white, sofa-pampered British ass took an unexpected beating when I first arrived in Vietnam. 
'WHY would anyone not have cushions on seats?' I thought.

'WHY would anyone choose to sleep on a solid surface if they don't have to?' I thought.

Especially when most Vietnamese have very little padding of their own.....

Well I totally understand now. 

It's so hot and sweaty that it would just be horrible and sticky to be cushioned into anything. Clothes have to be tolerated, but otherwise it's a case of minimising skin contact with anything. It's all about air flow. 
As to sleeping on solid beds/floors? Well I'm working on the padding (as if I needed an excuse to eat more Vietnamese food!), and luckily take after my father in never having much of a problem sleeping, well, anywhere! Naps ahoy....

 (As an aside, I'm sure that as well as being cool, the no-mattress thing is a pretty effective contraceptive in this two-baby country... )


2) Bottled drinking water.

Wow, I thought when I arrived. How very un-environmentally friendly. Everyone drinking bottled water. What a lot of plastic. What a lot of waste!

But on thinking it through.... what is more wasteful? Cleaning to drinking quality only the water you drink, or cleaning to drinking quality the water you drink, plus the water you wash your car with, wash your dog with, water your garden with, shower in, flush your loo with....


And although making lots of plastic bottles isn't ideal in any way, the system isn't as wasteful as it first seems. Sure some people buy lots of small bottles and throw them away, but that's generally tourists. In every Vietnamese house, shop, office, pagoda, every building in Vietnam, you'll find large blue 21-litre bottles of drinking water. Fresh bottles are delivered by nearby shops, who take the empty ones for re-filling. Each large refill costs around 30-40p (the same as a 1 litre bottle). So it really makes a lot of sense. And of course, drinking this water gives you POWER!!!....

These things makes me wonder what else I consider normal or sensible which is actually ridiculous?
And what am I seeing and living that is actually ridiculous but that's becoming normal in my mind?!>
Hmmmmm.....

buses. oi choi oi.....(oh my god!)

After a particularly traumatic bus journey yesterday I thought I'd put my experiences of Vietnamese buses out here for you all! Enjoy....

Now obviously I'm not talking about the Korean or Japanese tourist buses that whisk people north-south or vice versa. These air-conditioned, reclining-seated, well curtained, shock-absorbing, speed-monitored ghosts slip up and down the country as if the parts of Vietnam outside Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang and Saigon don't exist. If I try to flag one down it's as if I'm invisible.

So if I want to go anywhere that I can't get to on my feet or my bike, it's the local buses. Now these are all privately owned and operated, and it's a ferocious world. There are no overt bus wars (as you find with taxis in other parts of the world) because this is Vietnam and everyone is lovely to everyone, but there is a lot of competition. This is worth knowing when they try to charge you 5 times the normal price... 

Buses on my stretch of the highway are 16 seater minibuses. The vehicles themselves are pretty modern, which is a small relief. They'll have a driver and a sharp-elbowed... conductor? (I guess that's the best word) in the back.

There are no timetables, and the way to catch one is to stand at the side of the road and wait. Soon enough one will scream up with mister or mrs sharp-elbows yelling the destination. They'll go past you, notice you waving, slam on the brakes, and reverse back into into the oncoming traffic for you. This scooping people up from the side of the road means that, as a driver, you have to perfect the last minute overtake-and-squealing-brakes manouvure to ensure that you get to passengers before the bus dude in front of you.

And then two minutes later he does the same to you.

And then you do it again.

And so on.

I'm developing a grudging respect for the drivers. It's quite common for us to hurtle along at well over 130kpm, around and between motorbikes and lorries, with only a loud and insistant horn to clear the way. How they pull out from behind a line of 3 lorries and buses, into an outside bend, up a hill, with a doubly loaded minibus, see a truck coming the other way, and still overtake, is beyond me. The driver doesn't even pause in his conversation, and might change the track on the radio at the same time. Every time I think we're going to get creamed, and every time we seem to make it. No-one else even notices. I still sit there shaking a little. I guess I have fairly good reason to be worried - within two months of being here I'd seen 3 fatalities on this small stretch of highway, and there are two buses in my village with their fronts smashed in.

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A few things I've learnt about taking buses....

1) Never get on an almost empty bus. Whilst you can luxuriate in a seat to yourself, your luxuriating will be done whilst you go back and forth through your town for as long as it takes for the bus to be full enough to move on. The other morning I was still outside my guesthouse an hour after I got on.

2) Never get on a completely full bus. When I mean completely full, I don't just mean that all the seats are full, I mean that every available square cm of space from the floor to the ceiling is full. You'll feel the full quality of the elbows as they squash you into a ball and ram you into a top-left corner like something they're trying to hide in a wardrobe.

3) Never sit with women. Rural Vietnamese women very rarely travel in cars. They are unused to being in a moving box. They vomit. Frequently. They're quite organised about it - packing small plastic bags and tissues, but when they've deposited their lunch into the bag they tie the top and throw it past the other passengers and out of the window. (Extra note to self.... watch out for flying bags when cycling on the highway....)

4) Never expect a seat to yourself. In fact, never expect a seat. When they happily squeeze 35 people into a 16 seater, you do well just to be inside. I've been on buses where they've had to bang the walls and ceiling to get the driver to stop because someone's passed out in the crush. The following picture is at the beginning of a journey. I haven't yet been able to take one during a journey for two reasons - a) I can't move my arms enough to get at my camera, and b) the conductor and driver get mad and throw you off. I guess they do have some regulations then....

5) Think carefully about accepting a seat in the front. Whilst you might get marginally more space (5 is the most I've seen in the front), you also get a view of the road. Which is terrifying. My mental health suffers less crammed in the back.

6) Never sit next to the cute child. They will be on your lap and throwing up before you know it.

7) Never sit next to the very red-faced man. He will be drunk, on your lap and throwing up before you know it

8) Never try and take your bike on the bus. It causes chaos.

9) Never get separated from your stuff. Not because it would be stolen (things are very safe here), but because getting off means throwing yourself off whilst the bus is moving, and the chances of gathering everything together are slim

10) Always look for an older driver. If they've survived that long....

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In some countries I'd recommend travelling on local buses as an experience. Here it's just very uncomfortable, and really quite dangerous. I'd recommend the train, if you can. Or a big ghost bus with a fridge, cool drinks and a loo.

good mornin!

Arriving in Nui Thanh and checking out the view from my room, I asked about the building and grounds next door. On being told that it's the regional marine training base, my celibate self got to imagining lots of handsome young men running around and doing pressups with their shirts off underneath my window.....

Unfortunately not.

The only male I ever see there is the gardener, who looks at least 100 years old, and sleeps under the bushes. There apparently are lots of men staying there, but the establishment keeps them very effectively hidden (and presumably sedated) by putting them through their 4-times weekly physical training session at 4am.
This long training session involves a lady with a very piercing voice and a loudspeaker......

"MOT, HAI, BA, BON..... " (1,2,3,4....)

Not so pleased about the neighbours now!!!

the rice cycle

Vietnam is variously described as the 2nd and 3rd biggest rice exporting country in the world. Either way, they grow a lot of rice. The combination of lots of sunshine, massive amounts of tropical rain, and huge expanses of flat land, makes Vietnam (like much of South East Asia) very fertile and perfect for rice farming. The Southern and Central areas manage to coax three harvests a year out of the land. The North manages two. Obviously there are some large areas of Vietnam where rice is grown commercially (particularly in the South), but certainly here it's small scale. The majority of families around here rent small patches of land from the local officials, and their harvest is used only to feed the family that grows it, not for selling on. Growing rice is a labour intensive, endless cycle, and I was shocked to discover that around here, most people who farm rice earn in a year the same as our "moderate" VSO monthly allowance.

So, living and working with people who grow rice, I've learnt quite a bit about the process, and I thought I'd share it with you, dear reader....

Being a "cycle", there isn't a beginning to start at, but it seems right to begin when the ground is empty....

Before they plough, people soften the empty ground by flooding it with water, using irrigation channels and small generator-driven pumps. For small scale farming like this, with minimal income generation, it's not economically viable to buy machinery to lighten the physical load. Some people have tried forming co-operatives to purchase ploughs etc, but the obvious difficulty with this is that everyone is at the same point in the cycle at the same time. i.e. they need the machines at the same time. So... it's generally all done by hand. A lot of people keep buffalo to pull simple ploughs (they also provide manure for growing vegetables at home), and at ploughing time you'll see lean bodies out in the fields from morning till night hacking at the land with long sticks with a blade perpendular at the end.

Once the ground is prepared, the ground is flooded again, or the rain arrives. Either way, the water sinks in and gets the ground soft and ready.

Grains of rice from the last harvest are then scattered across the land, and left to grow. A bit of a rest..... When the young plants reach around 10-15cm, they are pulled up (very easily, in flooded paddy fields) and transplanted evenly in rows.

I've been trying to attach a movie is of me hindering the transplanting process - I was soooooooo slow. But I am not enough of a technological geekoid to figure out how to get a .wlmp onto blogspot. If anyone is... please drop me a line?! Until I figure it out, you'll have to make do with a photo...

Then it's a case of letting the sun shine, avoiding the raining rain, and watching the countryside get greener and greener. Many people spray fertilisers and insecticides during the rice's main period of growth.

After around 1-2 months growth, when the rice is tall and starts to turn yellow gold in colour, it's all hands on deck as the plants are cut with sythes....

.....laid out to dry, threshed (by hand) to remove the rice kernels from the stalks (around 60-70 kernels per plant), and the kernels laid out in the sun to dry (often along the sides of the roads).

The stalks are collected up and stored to provide fuel for fires and food and bedding for buffalos

Any stalks remaining in the land are burned, and the ground is ready for the next cycle....

Once the rice kernels have dried, they're taken in large bags on the back of motorbikes to the village to be put through a machine which shakes off the husks. The husks are collected to feed the pigs, and the rice is then ready to be stored in the home....

and...... EATEN!

(Or turned into fat noodles, thin noodles, round noodles, dried noodles, rice crackers, rice flour, rice cakes, rice pancakes.....)

I'm finding it incredible how the changing landscape affects my mood. I think it must have some effect on everyone here (although obviously the signs and signals of an impending or completed harvest hold more positive meaning for those who depend on it for their daily.. er, rice - just like endless rain is tiresome for me but a celebrated necessity for those farming).

When the fields are damp and green and vibrant, I feel joyful, and positive, and full of life. As the world turns brown and dry, I've noticed I more easily feel tired, and frustrated. And for the short period when the harvest is gathered and the fields are burning and blackened, I feel awful. This is probably not just a psychological response to the aesthetic, but also physiological - the constant smoke in the air makes your eyes sting and your chest hurt. This deep, palpable connection with the land is something I've come to realise I've been too removed from at home, and I think is missing in a lot of our urban 'Western' lives. I'm thinking about a few months WWOOFing when I finish here.....

the interrogation

Being the only foreigner in the area, its totally understandable that people are curious about me. I also understand that people are often very keen to practice their English (all 3 or 4 sentances of it). It's always nice to meet new people, and I'm more than happy to talk. It's just slightly frustrating that people seem to wait until you're about to start eating a meal before pulling up stools and starting with the questions. Especially at breakfast. Breakfast's a pretty personal meal. I'm often not fully awake, and trying to get my head together for the day at work. Negotiating a conversation in Vietnamese (or, even more challenging, very broken English) whilst handling chopsticks, balancing on a teenytiny plastic stool, keeping flies out of your face and fending off stray dogs, in 35 degree heat, is quite a stressful experience. Unfortunately quite a lot of the people around here have a rather brusque manner - questions are literally fired at you. If you don't understand, they're shouted louder, but no slower. And drunk people are a nightmare.... but it's all part of the fun and games.

As to the course of the conversations, they're very predictable;

1) "What person are you?" Easy

2) "How old are you?" Easy

3) "What do you do?" Tricky - hard enough to explain in England. I just say I work with children. Not a doctor, not a teacher, something in between.

4) "Are you married yet?" (it's always asked with a 'yet'. The idea of someone not getting married is utterly inconvievable)

5) "Do you want a Vietnamese husband?" Well what do you say to that?
a) Yes please, do you know anyone suitable?
b) Yes please, can I have yours?
c) No, Vietnamese men generally have a very fixed idea of gender roles and they don't match mine
d) No thanks, I have no intention of settling here

I generally try to joke around and say I love Vietnam, and the people here, but I don't speak much Vietnamese, am too tall, etc. and change the subject....

6) "How much do you earn each month?" I really dread this one. I never know what to say. Our VSO allowance is just over 7 million Vietnamese Dong per month (roughly £200). Which for me out here in the country, with a very simple life, is more than enough. I'm managing to save a lot of it to pay my house and van bills when I get back to the UK (or maybe for travelling....) For volunteers in the cities however, it disappears quickly, and certainly isn't enough to live a luxurious lifestyle. But 7 million is still more than double what my interpreter earns. It's more than double a teachers salary. It is probably 10 times the earnings of a rice farmer. And our accomodation is paid for. So compared to the majority of people around me, I am receiving a huge amount. For volunteering. So.....

- I can't say 'I don't get paid' because, although linguistically it's a 'living allowance', I receive money.
- I could say 'not much compared to what I can earn at home', but i'm not at home. And you can't compare.
- I could say exactly how much I get, but I feel it would change the dynamic between me and my community. I'm not flashy. The staff and families I work with see me in old practical clothes, on a rusty second hand bike, eating street food, and they feel comfortable with me. I feel it's important that I live on a level with them, for people to trust me, to speak openly about their problems and discuss things.
- I could lie, but I'm not comfortable with that.

I tend to try to say 'I have enough to eat and drink and get about' (as well as I can in Vietnamese), and again change the subject. At work, where they know I have a camera and a laptop, I try to take fruit and snacks for the children regularly, and I always contribute when we have a party or meal. But when people are particularly persistent in wanting figures then I sometimes pretend not to understand. Is that cowardly? Advice and suggestions on how to handle this would be welcomed.....

Now I'm done writing this, I'm going to go out for something to eat. And no doubt an interrogation or two....!

a very big sky

After the gloominess of my last posting, I'm going to show you one of my favourite things about living here....

The sky.

The UK sky can be beautiful, but has a tendancy to sulk in a grumpy grey way for days on end, and at night is far too often dulled by city lights. The sky in southern Africa is breath-taking in its expanse and blueness and the colour of the sunsets and the brightness of desert stars. But what I love here, that I haven't particularly noticed about the sky anywhere before, is it's dramatic, expressive, manic personality. I think of it like a very passionate opera, with huge reaches of emotion.

Often, it's blue. Blue blue blue, true blue, as far as you can see. A massive sheet of blue. So blue it's hard to believe.

And on clear days, when the suns sets (never much before, or after 6pm) the darkness is deeply dark, and the blanket of stars seems so close and dense that you could reach one of the little sparklers down. I love riding on the back of a motorbike with the air rushing past, my head tipped back to watch the stars overhead.

Other days we'll have clouds. The most beautiful, awesome clouds I've ever seen. So many times I've just stopped on my bike, found a big rock to climb on, and watched them, sometimes for hours. I've gone over into ditches because I'm so distracted. There'll often be all types of clouds, layered up and through each other. Sometimes they seem so solid that I want to climb up there in them and jump around a bit.

One of my favourite time for the clouds is as the sun goes down. The clouds light up with red, purple, pink, yellow. It's even more dramatic on the days when it's overcast, when the light bursts through little gaps to make streaks across the colours between the sky and the earth.

This sky doesn't play games. It doesn't sulk, or hide it's feelings or avoid things. If it's happy - it's bright happy blue. If it's tense, or angry, or has something it wants to say, it makes it very clear, very quickly. It'll turn very dark, brooding, like night has come early.... before unleashing furious rain and house-rumbling thunder. It's fabulously dramatic.

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Maybe I love the sky so much here because I have time to study it. Maybe because its a distraction from the dust and the dirt and the mangy dogs and the rubbish. Maybe it's because I'm spending so much time thinking and evaluating my place in the world. Whatever the reason, it's incredibly beautiful and I'm very grateful for it.....

Núi Thành

People have been asking where I'm living now (placement 2 of 3), so welcome to Núi Thành....

(Can you describe something as 'nondescript'? Is that a contradiction in terms?) 

Anyway.... Núi Thành, where I'm now living, is a nondescript couple of kilometres of dusty truckstops and old Soviet-style buildings along an industrial part of the highway. There's about as much to do as is shown on google maps. Even when you've zoomed right in.

Tourist buses pass through in the middle of the night like big white air-conditioned ghosts. Trucks bellow through all day and all night. They're filthy noisy beasts, clearing the road with their ridiculously loud and very insistant horns. Buses speed through suicidally, playing chicken with the trucks. (They don't always win; there are two just up the road smashed to bits this week.) Motorbikes dodge either side, between, and all-too-frequently underneath the trucks and the buses. It's a bit of a sad place, where people on long journeys up and down the country stop for a new tyre, cigarettes, a bowl of noodles, or a shit.

It's pretty soul-less.

I'm painting a very unattractive picture, I know. You know me, I always try to see the best in everything, but despite trying as hard as I can to find beauty or optimism or hope here, I just can't. Sorry.

It's a lethargic town. People seem to do a lot of not a lot. There is a high school here, but no colleges, so the young people with sufficient ability, means and ambition move away. Guys play football or pool, watch TV, or drink coffee and beer. Girls tend to stay home, cook, clean, wash clothes and watch TV. I've joined in a couple of football games, but honestly, I'm pretty useless, and it's a bit awkward. Guys and girls don't seem to interact much around here (until they get hitched, move into one of their parent's houses, and make a start on procreation. After they get married, the guys continue drinking coffee and beer. The girls have babies and continue cooking, cleaning and watching TV.)

In my last place there were a lot of young people about, and people generally seemed welcoming. By the end of the first week there I was busy most evenings, and every weekend doing things with Vietnamese friends.

In four weeks here, despite walking around in the evenings, going out to drink coffee, wandering around the market, and smiling at everyone I meet, I haven't yet made a friend. The warmest smile and most extensive conversation I get here is from the lady that I visit for a hairwash once a week (can you hear the violins....!?)

I'm pretty sure it's not me. I always check I don't have veg in my teeth, and I'm showering plenty.

It just seems to be the general atmosphere around here.

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I can understand some of the reasons why this area is depressed;

- it was an area which suffered very heavily during the war (I have to keep remembering it only ended 35 years ago)
-- it's a very very poor area, with most families farming rice (I just found out that the average rice farmer's yearly income is roughly the same as my monthly living allowance, which is a pretty shocking thought) or working in the factories and mines close by
- it's very very hot, which induces lethargy in even the most motivated worker
- it's an area that is hit regularly, and hard by flooding and tropical storms

To summarise, I'm not finding this an easy place to live, and I've got to admit I've been feeling pretty low. Hence the lack of posts. But as my good friend Sylvia said in a recent email -

"You can at least count your blessings because you dont have to live and work there forever, for some there is simply no or a very restricted choice."

Which is a very valid point, and I think about it several times a day. Three months is nothing in the big scheme of things. I think about the Pulp song 'Common People' - I can pack up whenever I like and get out. I've got choice. Options. I'm lucky.

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And there are some Good Things....

Yesterday I was sitting having a refreshing drink in a little roadside bamboo shack when an elderly man pulled up in his arm-propelled bicycle and walked on his prosthetic limb using a crutch, to sit in the shade for a drink. A few minutes later a blind man who lives in the area walked past, tapping his stick in front of him. The owner called out to him to warn him about a hole in the road and went to him for a chat and to offer him a drink. There are some kind people here.

The family who run the guesthouse I'm staying with are very sweet and caring, and look out for me. My room is lovely and clean, with a good fan.

The cloud formations and sunsets are incredible (they deserve a post all to themselves...)

I can get to the beach in half an hour on my bike.

There are some beautiful mountains not too far away, and I often explore the foothills on my bike (I have, however been warned not to venture too far, the only reason people will give me is that 'people there aren't nice' - I'm not sure I believe it?)

I've found a place that does the most delicious 'sinh to'  I've had in Vietnam (and I've had a lot). It's a glass full of chunky bits of fruit (banana, avocado, dragon fruit, passionfruit, jackfruit, pawpaw, lychee etc), a good dollop of condensed milk, and lots of crushed ice, with dried sweetened coconut sprinkled on top. Shows how simple my life is when a glass of fruit is the highlight of a day!

Now if only I can make some progress with my work, then things'll be better....