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Published: September 12th 2009
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Today I saw three bikes do a 360 turn at 60 kmh in the street..one was a guy avoiding the cops, the other was two cops chasing said perp…I just tried not to hit their bikes or the large black truncheons being bandied about by the rather paramilitary looking police that seem to rove the streets of Hanoi by night…The good news is our hero escaped with his lady up a side street (that’s not me, I was alone except for a bag of knocked off dvds and some oranges)…
A couple of days later I went to Karaoke, my first since arriving in Hanoi. Like with a few other things in Hanoi (curfew, lack of streetlights after 11pm, grumpy locals) I can’t say I was impressed by their system of Karaoke. The choice is limited, but when you have a repertoire like mine you can usually find something to sing ( I kicked off this particular evening with ‘Jolene’ by Dolly Parton, barrels were being scraped), but the crap thing is you have to write down the songs you want then give it to a guy outside the room who then programs the machine for you….i don’t like
it…it takes too long and smells like some kind of fun censorship to me…Which is perhaps not suprising as the Hanoi fun police did come and kick everyone out of the karaoke place just after midnight…I’ve said it before but the people in Vietnam (even the frosty Hanoians who are actually quite warm and lovely underneath it all) are really cool and laid back and I think deserve slightly more transparent and above board coppers…all too often it’s still about pay off’s…although I guess those strange light peach coloured uniforms don’t come cheap.
This weeks (September 2nd) Vietnam celebrated it’s independence and as I had three consecutives days off work I went to Quan Lanh island, a quiet place just north of Halong Bay. I went with Zach (a rather studious and wholesome guy from Oklahoma) and CJ (don’t know what it stands for, a woman from New York), both of whom live in the same house as me. In fact I now share with four Americans, Zach, CJ, Kristi (from Vermont) and Jake (from California, whose sister is married to a transsexual). They are a nice enough bunch, but I don’t really have much in common with them.
Sleepy Hanoi
ahh, South East Asia, where sleeping in the street is raised to an artform... It’s just really five strangers living in a house, which isn’t my thing really. I don’t mind the house sharing but I do like to actually want to spend time with the people I share with. I don’t really plan on staying here for too long though.
Anyway, Quan Lanh island is pretty quiet…in fact it’s very quiet. I don’t think they see many foreigners either. I was literally assaulted by the locals as they clamoured to look at my tattoos and get closer to my rippling western physique. When I return to Quan Lanh I will be setting myself up as a colonel Kurtz type …get fat and bloated in a cave and quote TS Eliot at people whilst leading the childlike natives in bizarre pagan rituals. On the island I didn’t really do much. I went on a 40km bike ride about the place, guzzled some beer with the locals and read my book. I really enjoyed the bike ride there and back to Hanoi, kind of why I went really, I just wanted a road trip. The first leg was through some beautiful coastal scenery on the way to Halong City, whilst the return trip took us through Haiphong and grubby industrialized Vietnam, so an interesting contrast as I zoomed along.
The following Sunday I went to a place called The Matador, with some folks from work. It’s one of the few places with regular live music in Hanoi and I really liked it. It’s pretty tacky, some of the singers are dreadful but the band are good. The crowd are a bit quiet and you kind of sit around the stage watching the singers and people clap politely (or don’t clap at all). The main act this evening was a couple of Philippine chicks (think the Cheeky Girls) belting out Bon Jovi and AC/DC…
That about wraps it up for this time. Next week I start teaching a voluntary class for doctors and nurses who work for a charity that reconstructs kid’s faces so that should be interesting…I’m also trying to interest my adult class in a lesson on bad language some of them seem a little horrified by this idea, which is a shame…I’ve already planned the introduction to the less ‘Hello, how the fuck is everybody this evening? Today’s fucking class is about learning to walk into a bar and befoul the air in the manner of Paul Ross…
Now, I’m off for bed having just watched England secure their place for South Africa next year…come on England…
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