Adventures into domesticity

Lets face it, I would make a terrible house wife. But this is the role I have fallen into in Tra Vinh.  Violet hasto go to work sometimes, and leaves me to pootle in her flat while she is gone. Then I feel bad, so I do things like tidy. Violet gets back from class at around 5 and I do not have supper on the table, but she puts  up with me anyway. I have become a kept woman.

In keeping with this domestic theme, yesterday it became clear from the lines of ants marching around the flat that something had to be done about the floor. So we broke out the scrubbing brush and dish cloth and got our cinderella on. Now the floor is pristine, the ants have been banished and life is shiney.

Other than the more domestic adventures I have been having real Experiences. For example the other day one of Violet's friends who is an ex-monk took us for lunch at the Pagoda where he used to live. It was kind of the most insane, most fantastic thing that has happened in Vietnam.

Talking of food, I have been massively upsetting my stomach by exposing it to all sorts of magical and mysterious food types, I must ask Violet to write down all the different things I have eaten, because I have trouble with the Vietnamese, but I've had crepes with shrimp in, soup with vaguely meaty things in, fish, rice, many many noodles, various things wrapped in rice paper and so on. However, the cherry on the odd foods cake came yesterday when Violet's students took us out for dinner. They ordered what looked like regular duck eggs, but turned out to be tiny perfectly formed ducks, and then watched as we tried to eat them, Violet is amazing and pretty much finished hers, I'm ashamed to say I failed spectacularly and did not eat any. But in my defence it had a beak.

Previous to the disasterous duck egg incident, we played games with Violet's students at the square pond with water in which I was told about with much gusto before I came. It's kind of hard to remember that the students are the same age as me, because they love to play duck duck goose and sing songs to eachother. It is kind of adorable.

I only went and made it!

I got all the way to Tra Vinh y'all. It's crazy. Everything is very very yellow. Everyone stares at me because I am white, and I do not have appropriate clothing so am very naked by Tra Vinh standards. I have been wearing my jens and a sweater. I am writing this on my favourite giant purple dell. Although it has a new battery so it's a little less exciting than during finals last semester.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

So before I came I decided I should ventue out into Saigon, in order to play it safe I decided to go to the Fine Art Museum. This turned out to be a Good Move. It's in a a really beautiful old 20th Century colonial style building, and it has some really interesting communist type arts in.

On my way back to my Guest House, I decided I would require a phrase book if I was going to make it in the bus.

Then I decided I should buy some gifts, since I have been well brought up like that. This proved difficult. What does one bring to a friend who is living in the middle of nowhere when one goes to stay with them for a week? I found a mini-mart style shop and tried to find some suitible gifts. I started with coffee, and added a filter just in case. I figured I might wat to cook dinner sometime, so I added two pot noodles to the pile. I thought wine, but it was kinda expensive, then I thought rice wine, but I remember last time I drank rice wine much too well, finally I settled on rice vodka. Also a tin of Spam.

I got the taped together Xe Om to the station, this wasn't really the plan, but he was lurking outsie the door, so I didn't have much choice. We made it to to the station fairly safely, from where I was hustled into a minivan which was to be my bus to Tra Vinh. I had to sit in the front because I didn't fit in the back. My neighbour chainsmoked all the way to Tra Vinh. He also had a little plastic bag so he could continue to spit despite the fact he was in the bus. He was very nice though, and kept trying to offer me his dog meat sandwich. I declined.

I used my new phrasebook to look up "is this the bus to Tra Vinh" which I used regularly, and also "I do not speak Vietnamese". This just prompted my companions in the bus to just yell at me louder.

Soon enough I made it to Tra Vinh, from he bus station I got another Xe Om to Violet's eye-ache inducingly yellow university. Since I have been here I have been taken to eat all kinds of exciting foods while seated on teeny tiny plastic chairs. Also, we have been on an adventure around the rice fields, and crossed the least stable bridge I have seen since Nepal. I have also met some of Violet's lovely Tra Vinh friends, and also sat in on an English class on Danger and Daring, or something along these lines, in any case we played Truth or Dare, and I got to learn dancing.

Other than watching Mr Bean, Eat, Pray, Love, Game of Thrones and way too much MTVAsia, screaming in Violet's face in the night, and zooming around Tra Vinh on the back of a scooter, this is all I have done since I last blogged. So I'm going to have a nap, and wait for Violet to get off work.

And thus the misadventures begin.

It all started well. I woke up late this morning, showered, ate a couple of teeny weeny bananas for breakfast, read some, and then I decided it was time to face the world and attempt to buy a bus ticket. And so I sallied forth, blithely unaware of the misadventures which would befall me.

I should have aborted my mission when I was informed that the guy who works in the hostel who speaks some form of English was away for the day and wouldn't be back until 5, but I was confident in my ability to get a bus ticket so I pressed on. The lady who had been left in charge did not speak English, so I tried my handy dandy piece of paper that my tour guide had given me, sadly she could either not read, or had trouble with the hand writing. But I was undeterred, I have not been playing charades every Christmas for nothing. Charades for "I need to go to the bus station so I can buy a ticket to get to Tra Vinh on Wednesday, and then I need to come back" is not the easiest one but I won out.

I should have given up when my potential Xe Om driver showed up dressed only in boxer shorts, but I waited for him to put on a shirt, then I saw his vehicle, it was held together with tape, I really should have given up at this point, but I was filled with blind optimism following my successful game of charades, and I had an unfounded good feeling about the day, so I set off regardless.

It was all going quite well until I got to the bus station, the Xe Om guy was singing to me, and the sun was shining, life was rosy. When I got to the station it all started to go drastically down hill. First of all it became patently obvious that no one spoke English, second of all everyone was shouting at me. It was a little a lot terrifying. So I decided to call Violet for a pep talk and advice. Unfortunately, despite the fact that I was carrying out the conversation entirely in English, my Xe Om driver decided that the person on the other end of the phone was clearly a Vietnamese individual who would be able to explain the crazy white girl who he had driven half way across town. So clearly the only thing to do was to take my phone and start talking to poor old Violet. Sadly, when she did not live up to his expectations he started shouting at her too.

After some more careful charades, I managed to ascertain that the bus to Tra Vinh on Wednesday leaves at 6am, and that I would not be able to buy a ticket until the day itself.

Thankful that the ordeal was over, I climbed back on the Xe Om ready to be taken home. The bike had other ideas, a large part fell off, and I fell of with it. Most of the bus station laughed at me. I got back up, and the driver picked up the portion that had fallen off and drove me to the repair shop. Thus my charades for "if you decide to take 150lbs of white girl on your motorbike and it breaks, this white girl is not going to pay for the damages" started. I'm not sure he really understood, but he got the picture.

I wound up paying 150,000 Vietnamese dong, which is about $7 or a fiver or so, for the whole horrible venture. The driver promised to take me to the station on Wednesday morning. I am going to try to figure out how to get a taxi.

All alone again...

And then there was one. Last night was the last with the whole group we went for dinner and then went out for some drinks, although we lost most of the group quite quickly. Today the mexicans left first thing in the morning and the rest of the girls at about 5 and I have been in my new hostel room since, and am about to set out in search of dinner and am considering an early night. It's very strange to be by myself having been around the others every waking hour, and most of the sleeping ones too, but not altogether unpleasant so far.

It's strange to think I'll be staying here until Wednesday; it's the longest I've been in one place since I left England. I have made my way from Hanoi to Saigon using every single mode of transport imaginable; car, bus, train, plane. I have been in a horse and cart, a dozen different kinds of boat, on a bike, a peddaled carriage, a motorbike. Literally everything. It has taken us 15 days, and I have seen and learnt so much. It has been amazing.

Honestly my plan for the next couple of days is to sleep, eat and write postcards. Although I do hope to make it to the women's museum eventually, and perhaps excursion to the botanical gardens if I have time and the weather is ok.

My only other mission is to go to the bus station to buy my ticket. Sadly the bus station seems to be on the other side of the known universe; it's not even on my map, the guy in my hostel has promised one of his friends with a motorbike will take me there, but I have a horrible feeling I'm about to get swindled, but there's nothing for it, since I do actually want to get to Tra Vinh eventually, and I guess the first trip will be a good fact finding mission for when I have to go back with my entire bag.

Mekong Delta - Take 1

I have just spent 24 hours in the Mekong Delta, a brief taster or the week I will spend in Tra Vinh with Violet, starting on Wednesday. On this short trip I believe I consumed every single incarnation of coconut under the sun. My mother would have been horrified (she hates coconut). We had coconut candy, fish in coconut sauce, coconut water, dried coconut, fresh coconut, coconut wine. The only thing missing was the Malibu. We also stayed in a coconut plantation, swung in hammocks in the shade of coconut palms, tried to shimmy up coconut trees, were rowed around in coconut wood boats, walked by piles and piles of coconuts, took pictures of growing coconuts, cycled around coconut farms, watched coconut shells float by us in the river and narrowly avoided getting hit on the head by falling coconuts. In short, my first impression of the area around Violet's new home is coconutty.

In other news, I am preparing to leave the safety of the group tour and make forages into solo tourism. I feel mighty intrepid and adventurous and independent. Also a teeny tiny bit petrified. I have already booked a hostel for me to stay in for the next couple of days before I start my trip down to Tra Vinh, although I have to admit that I chickened out of the slightly cheaper shared dorm in favour of my own room. It only made a couple of dollars difference per night and I'm a wimp. I will be in Saigon until Wednesday and then I'm catching a local bus to Tra Vinh, because I'm adventurous like that, and also because there is no tourist bus because, despite the Lonely Planet's enthusiasm, no one wants to go to Tra Vinh. My tour guide is going to help me buy the ticket, because my Vietnamese hasn't really progressed beyond, hello, thank you, cheers, I am very tired and counting to three. And in all honesty no one seems to understand me when I say these things. And that's all folks!

War Remnants Museum

The first thing we did the first day we arrived in Saigon was a trip to the War Remnants Museum. Well, actually, this isn't strictly true, the very first thing we did was check into the hotel, which, by the way, is the fanciest of fancy hotels and has a gold and cream colour scheme, and then we went for lunch at the same place Clinton lunched when he came to visit Saigon. But after these things the very first thing we did was to visit the War Remnants Museum.

I am going to stop being jokey now, because this was a fairly serious and sombre event, and prompted the deepest conversations the group has had since starting the trip, also the first group tears. Thus I invite you, blog reader, into the world of serious blogging, here I will make a brief sojourn.

The museum is right in the centre of Saigon, and we had to pay to enter, and it was honestly one of the most chilling museums I have ever been to, it was right up there with the Red Cross Museum in Geneva. It focused mainly on the anti-war movement around the world, the war crimes committed against Vietnam during the war, and the continuing effects of Agent Orange.

This last was the most upsetting as there were pictures of young children and unborn babies with various birth defects becaus of the chemicals used by the American Army. It struck me that although I had learnt about the effects of Agent Orange during GCSE History, and I had seen many of the photographs before, I was more shocked by them than I had been in the past. I'm not sure whether it was due to being actually in the country where it had occured, or being older, or a combination of the two, but the horror of the Vietnam War hadn't really affected me in the same way before. What I also hadn't considered seriously before was the lingering effects of war on the Vietnamese people.

Over dinner the girls and I discussed how perhaps the reason why the Vietnam war didn't seem so real to us before was because in our own way, less seriously, less dramatically, less painfully, less physically, but still in a real way to us, we were ourselves the third generation affected by our own war. We discussed to what extent the war was talked about at home, and in what ways it had impacted the lives of our grand-parents, parents and by association us. It was really interesting to hear everyone's stories and to think about the potential links between us, and the third generation affected by Agent Orange. It makes me think though, to what extent will my children be affected by the ghosts of war, and how many generations will it take Vietnam to recover from the atrocities committed within its borders.

Toes

I'm going to give you fair warning right now, this is going to be a post all about my feet. If you are uninterested in my feet, or share my dislike for feet in general, please feel free to disregard this post entirely.

And so onward to the post itself. My feet have been more than a little bit gross since my horrific frisbee accident this winter, however, just over a week in flip flops in Asia really hasn't helped the situation at all. In short I have 9 nails, two of which are pretty broken, the remaining nail I have nicknamed Mr Stumpy, because he is very very stumpy, although he is working very hard on growing and being healthy.

Today I decided enough was enough, and I sallied forth into Hoi An and got myself a pedicure. Now I am not normally in the habit of getting pedicures, in fact, I am not normally in the habit of letting people touch my feet with a barge pole, but today I made an exception.

To give the girl credit she did take my gross gross feet with exceptional grace, and she has fixed them up a treat. She has hidden Mr Stumpy away behind a fake nail, she has hidden the other nails away behind a generous coat of silver nail varnish, and she has generally cleaned my whole toe area. It's fantastic, from a distance it looks almost as though I have 10 healthy toe nails. This might be an experiment worth repeating.