Tag: cafe nhi

Life in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

Have had two lunchtime outing’s from Huy’s office, with the team.  First was for International Women’s Day, when we went around the corner and virtually took over a dim sum place.  Meal ended with frog congee, which may not be too everyone’s taste, but at least it cheered up the congee, which is exceedingly bland, like eating baby food.  The girls were much dressed up and one guy and one girl stood up and sang during the meal.  She does not have a future there, but the young guy had the sweetest voice. 

And the second to celebrate a staff member leaving, whom I shall miss, as she has been there as long as I have known Huy, called Jennifer (they all have Western names) and she is very kind and quiet and speaks good English.  I can wink at her and she might just wink back, which is fairly advanced for around here.  We piled in to cabs (extremely cheap here) and went to a crab restaurant.  If I had known that, I might have not gone, as I think crabs are the biggest effort for the least amount of food ever invented.  We had crabs in tamarind (sweet) and crabs in salt.  They are all still wielding chopsticks (and fingers) whereas I just resort to the latter and it’s still way too much effort for near zero nutrition.  They practically dissect them and suck every bone dry.  At the end of the meal, the table- top burners come out and the soup is kind of made there and then, with addition of coconut water right from the coconut itself, with a crab base and then many other bits thrown in and we clean out the bowls.   They all take taxis back, but as I have a vague idea of where I am, I said I would walk, which practically causes heart attacks.  We just don’t walk here.

And you can walk across the street, once you know what you are doing….

And I have been no less than twice to the Opera House.   A relic of colonial France and one of the most photographed buildings in town.  Went to the HCMC Symphony Orchestra, with Huy, who loves western classical music.  We went last year and it was a bit of an ordeal, so I was ready to tune out, but they have improved amazingly and for what they lack in professionalism, they make up in enthusiasm !  They kind of ran out of steam towards the end, as it was a full program.  On the way out, standing on the steps in the warm night air, one of the musicians came past and I congratulated him on the  performance.  He was a bassoonist, which is a difficult enough instrument to play anywhere, so he was happy to be praised.  They are now performing every month.

A few night later, I was back for something called the “A O Show” which might be described as VN Cirque de Soleil –  well, if you screw yr eyes up a bit.  It was cute.  Revoltingly healthy mainly young men, with a few girls, doing all sorts of balancing acts using huge versions of their baskets and ropes and running and jumping and twisting and never running out of steam either.  Audience, mainly round eyes, lapped it up. 

Have seen two Chinese funerals, from the vantage point of my balcony and both at 7am on Saturday morning !  Oddest thing was the similarity with the traditional New Orleans jazz band funeral tradition .. uniformed band was the same both times and playing trad. ragtime stuff.  If you had closed yr eyes (and made yourself cool) you would never have thought of being in VN. They come complete with professional/wailing mourners and literally wearing sackcloth and ashes.

There is even a coffin shop around the corner –  I kid thee not.  Wonderfully ornate some of them are and the same man stretched out on his camp bed just inside the door… perhaps a living ad for how comfortable they are for the dearly departed.  Mainly huge they are, but also has smaller sized child ones.  I keep an eye on his stock and nothing has been sold in weeks.

Perhaps you can try once for size.

At the rice shop, there are no less than 30 different types of rice in sacks … everything from USD.70 a kilo to nearly $3.   If you have them all side by side like that, you can see the difference. And you can have it as flour too. 

Just along the street, is the Platinum Dental Group office, which is all pristine white and gold.  You leave your shoes at the door here (as you do with any family home and we do at my airbandb place).  It all looks v swish.  I may have to have a word with Dr Michael Kleinman in NY about upgrading his image.  VN’s would be shocked that we tramp around in his office in our outside shoes.  And the price there, of course, will be a fraction of chez Kleiny.

On the way back here from Oz, the side handle on my million-miler suitcase finally gave way … and of course VN is THE place to have the impossible-in-most-places-in-the-western-world-to-fix done.  My landlady took control and said “I will take it to the one-legged man…” which she did (on the back of her bike of course, you were expecting a taxi already ?) and not only did he repair it to the degree that you could hang it from a hook, weighing 25kgs, and it would not give way, but he also added one on the other side for good measure.  Cost: a shade under USD5.   Ah me  !

A man on a scooter just went past … his pillion rider had a 20 ft long set of bamboo poles under one arm. Everyone on the road will see it (no silly flags on the ends !) and they will cause no harm.  Girls in short skirts riding pillion do it sidesaddle, with legs demurely crossed and often not even hanging on to anything.. I suppose if you have been on a bike from in utero days, then bike balance is inborn !   I saw two lovely looking TALL girls (it does happen) and often v thin too, which adds to the height.  Both in very very tight and clingy little black dresses and permanently tugging them down over their pert bums .. a sisterhood around the world is doing that ! 

Can you hear me now …???? 

Café Nhi does motorbike service .. just yell from the kerb and your order is brought right to you in the obligatory tiny plastic bag and then hung from one of the many small hooks all VN bikes have just for this reason.  I am quite expecting to see a small child hanging from one.   And no wonder the coffee tastes so good, they were just using a wonderful old red grinder to convert beans to ground and the places smells, temporarily, wonderful.   The ice-man just cameth to check on supplies and has returned with the sack over his shoulder.  Who needs computerized inventory controls when the iceman will show up regardless ?   He wears an ancient baseball cap and his crash helmet on top.

I’m on the menu …

Just walking back home after a couple of hours chez Nhi, is fraught with obstacles, as all the small restaux have expanded out on to the sidewalk, where they have met the parked bikes, which many times appear to have been abandoned, rather than parked.   Where there is the ‘security’ man, then often the route is you just charge on to the kerb, take off all your wrappings (which if female can be many as the last thing we want here is a tan) and then walk away and the man in the blue shirt then lines them all up.  You can just be just innocently walking along and suddenly, wham, a bike arrives and you can practically go flying over it.  That’s normal.

Many years ago, Huy asked me what would happen to the signet ring that has been on my left hand pinkie for ever.  He apparently, had always liked it and in that direct VN way put in a bid for it upon my demise.  So I said of course, but never quite worked out how to achieve that.   Well, as many of you know, when I had my operation last November, the ring had to be cut off.   Looking at it afterwards, I knew in a second that this was the time to pass it along.  It’s been there 51 years and so has served its time and I rather liked the idea that it could move with me being alive and also depart for a new part of the world.  So I brought it with me and presented it to him, in its broken state and within two days, he had it all fixed and now has promised that he will do the same.

Huy grinning as he always does, plus his right hand girl Tracy, who is lovely.

Huy looking serious…

So I shall be setting off home soon now … it’s been fun being really immersed in VN, yet at the same time, you are still the stranger.  At least their English communications skills have improved beyond anything I could have imagined 20 years ago, when I first came here.  In fact the whole place has changed hugely too.  Far more ‘westernized’ than it was then, so now we have supermarkets and not just street vending.

I won’t miss all those hard seats, which is the norm for all of the orient.  There is something about the wooden seats here that seem to make them extremely hard, after just a few minutes.   I won’t miss the fumes from all those bikes but I shall miss not using my special VN skills to cross the road in a sea of bikes.  At rush hour downtown, this is really Olympic Gold level and is perhaps better to buddy up with a local and glue yourself to them all the way across.   I won’t miss the sound of the language, as it is about as far from ‘romance’ as you can get.

Again, this is already way too long and you have probably given up by now.

No more anon…if there is a flight report, it will go to the aviation/travel buffs, as it must be very boring for anyone else !

Love,

Tim.

Ps  Mass staff hysteria now at Café Nhi, as I am trying to pronounce their names.  All one syllable, but that is still tough.  Miss Thom (but Tom) is my mate and Miss Tay and Miss Vung are the other two, EXCEPT they all fall about when I repeat exactly what I hear.  Don’t forget, we have 6 tones here and the minutest, teeniest change will mean something completely different.  Just had my pic taken yet again, with the hair standing on end, as under a fan… whatever will their mothers be thinking !!

The view to the street from the back of Cafe Nhi.

And don’t forget…

Vietnam #2 Immigration and food and then more food.

So the arrival in Saigon goes without a hitch.  I present my copy of the pre-approved visa info to immigration (and of course fill in another form) and sit and wait patiently until my name is yelled.  Fortunately the girl used the full name, as the only bit that I understood was “Valentine”.  I am reunited with my bag and go to the taxi transfer desk and pay my 22,000 Vietnamese Dong and am sent out in to the humid air to rendezvous with the driver. There only seem to be about 500 people awaiting the arrival of loved ones.  It is not as busy as later when many flights arrive and the crowd will be at least 1000.

Saigon is just coming back to life after the Tet holiday.  Today is Friday and everyone will be returning from visiting the rellies and by Monday all will be in full swing.  I return to my airbandb accommodation and Mamasan and Papasan are there to let me in.  Quite like coming home. I lug my bag up four flights of stairs.  Enough exercise for one day.

First stop is the supermarket, to stock up on the necessities of life.  Always great to push a cart around a  place like this and see what is happening.  Masses of staff, of course, many standing around just gossiping and some not even managing to do that… they just stand.   Foreigners have ceased to be a novelty, so they ignore you.   At checkout, the international “I’ve only got one thing, can I go ahead of you  ..”? look from a sweet looking grandma with a small girl, so I do and the child is prompted to say thank you and I wish her a Happy New Year and she is overcome.  Prolly her first interaction with a foreign devil. The nice lady rings it all up and I hand over the cc with the right hand and have the left limply holding the top of my right wrist.  That is VN polite.  She does the same when she returns it to me. 

Fridge stocked, I even manage to unpack as plenty of places and hangers.  I am here for 6 weeks, so I really do move in.  Good not to be living out of the proverbial suitcase.  

On the Saturday, Huy turns up for breakfast.  “Is it too early for a g and t”? he says. I say most definitely.  I jump on the back of his motorbike and we cruise the thin Saturday morning traffic and go off to a noodle shop.  First plan is to sit outside on one of those dolls house plastic stools.  These are the lowest size, literally 8 inches off the ground and having already fallen off one on a previous visit, I nix that and we go inside where there is larger more human sized furniture.  We catch up.  He has just had his final interview at the US consulate and will be departing for LA with wife and daughters, probably in March.  He is almost an American already, as his mother and sister have lived there for years and he has visited often.  But it will still be a shock to arrive on a one way ticket.   I asked about the final interview, knowing all the dramas that have been going on lately.  He said they waited 2 hours after the sked time and then a woman looked through the papers and asked who his sponsor was (his sister-duhrrr) and how long had she been there and having correctly answered she said “Welcome to America” and it was over.  Somehow I cannot think it would that easy in Cairo or Islamabad. 

Then to his fancy new offices.  It’s normal in VN for them to work on Saturday mornings. The lease ran out in the old place, which was in one of those long tall buildings the VN love so they were perpetually running up and down stairs, whereas now all one big open plan offices and no one has a fixed desk either.  They all work off laptops and many 4-6 seater tables and all wired for everything. It looks like a mini-Silicon Valley start up to me.  Some of the old staff are still there and all happy to see Uncle Tim.  I am happy to see them too.  A few of them have been there since I first started doing business with his company which was I think in 1997, so we go back !

Before I know it, I am being given many sheets of paper, relating to tourists they have coming in and do some proof reading and editing.   And I am awarded several more to work on.  Huy says it will be good to do when I cannot sleep, as it will def. make me sleepy.   Then we have to go for lunch – (remember I am in the country of ‘we need food every two-three hours’) so we repair to a vegetarian restaurant. Turns out his has gone veggie and is also all into doing yoga etc and he wants to take me off to a retreat he has been helping set up, near Dalat, so who know what I might be transformed in to.  Don’t hold your breath (though I know you do a lot of that in yoga !)

It has been raining, which is ALL WRONG.  Just more evidence of global warming and we have a short but strong storm that night.  Does not stop the folks on their motorbikes of course and they produce brightly colored ponchos and splash along.

On Sunday I am invited to Huy’s house which is about 30 mins outside the city proper, so that I can see the wife and two teen daughters.  Mr Hai (pronounced hi) is of course sitting outside my residence at the appointed time and we stop to pick up Huy (who keeps a small pied a terre in town) … he has Beethoven blasting out, so no doubt as to which is apt is his.  Over the years he has developed a passion for western classical music, without really knowing too much about it.  I brought him some CD’s to add to the collection.   I should think the neighbors will be happy when he goes.

So we go home and the girls are happy and even happier when I produce some nice and tarty bright red lipsticks and nail polish.  Mimi, his wife, receives a calmer lipstick.  I have always noticed here that when they receive a present, there is not a great gushing forth of thanks.  They take it politely and say thank you and then put it down or away and that it is.  I usually bring stuff for the girls in his office too and no one jumps up and down or gets excited.  So if you are expecting a VN to get effusive with thanks, it is not going to happen.

I am back in my SGN street café, the Café Nhi and one of the girls is still there from last year.  The effusive (by VN standards) Ms Tan.  Her English has improved and no doubt I shall soon be doing impromptu conversational English lessons.  My tall glass of Café So Dah is produced and of course the obligatory ditto glass of jasmine tea, which comes whether you want it or not.  You are never going to dehydrate around here.  New furniture too, with folding canvas chairs for the pavement part and miracle of miracle, padded benches inside, so my poor skinny bum may survive.  

All human life is passing by outside.  It is a three way intersection so much in the way of crossing each other’s paths and somehow, without the help of lights or people waving batons, they all get to the other side unscathed.  It’s amazing just to watch.  Majority of the traffic is motorbikes, with anything from 1-5 occupants.  One beautifully arranged family formed a perfect wedge as the height decreased from front to back.  Then it is taxis and buses and even folks on good old sit-up-and-beg pushbikes – the real old iron monster things and always with a basket on the front.  It’s normal for a bike driver to be arched forward over the handlebars, due to the load on the back, just HUGE cartons and boxes that no one in the west would ever think could be carried on a motorbike.   A bike was seen with the passenger separated from the driver by an approx. 8 feet mirror, so the passenger had no idea where they were going and it may have caused center of gravity problems for the driver going round bends.

OK… enough for now.   Next time, if you are wearing flip flops and want to sit down on the sidewalk and don’t want to get your bum or your feet dirty, what do you do ?

Pictures may be forthcoming.  So far, I haven’t taken any.

Tim

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