The Pavement Food Culture of Vietnam.

‘Vietnam is not like China,’ the young bartender assures me.  I guess he must be somewhere in his mid-twenties…  I have taken refuge in a bar, to savour a cool beer and escape the crushing afternoon heat of Hanoi in August.  Inevitably our chit-chat turns to my recent past as we linger on my reasons for being in Vietnam and my less than favourable feelings about China.  ‘Unlike China, we know what goes on in the world, and can freely browse the internet, ’ he continues. ‘Not that long ago, there was yet another war between China and Vietnam.  Maybe it was not reported to the outside world, but it definitely happened…’  Uncle Ho may well have courted China in his bid to win the Vietnam War, but the love has long since been extinguished and replaced by unwavering distrust and suspicion, if not enmity.

The young man speaks surprisingly good English, although he admits that topics unrelated to food leave him rather lost for words, English ones that is.  Whilst he has lived in Vietnam all his life, he has a younger sister (or maybe half-sister, I did not probe too deeply), born and raised in Germany.  As she does not speak Vietnamese and the bartender has never felt the need to learn this European language, their Skype conversations depend on the one language they have in common:  English, and the one passion they share: food.  His rather limited vocabulary suits me, I love food too and have been told by Vietnamese friends in China that street food in Vietnam is the way to go, it is absolutely the best…  Did I detect some bias here??  And what about hygiene??  Best to avoid the empty looking restaurants  and stands and head for busy, well-attended eateries ignoring the mouth-watering waft from tender and tasty pork morsels, chicken pieces, flavoursome mince cigars using betel leaves…  ‘These days, you eat street food at your own peril,’ my Vietnamese friends advise.

True to my friends’ and the bartender’s words though, food is everywhere in Hanoi.  On the pavements street vendors and shopkeepers flaunt their wares, a cornucopia of bright colours fresh from the field (I hope) and exotic, tantalising fruits to tempt passers-by.

Fish, painfully heaving to catch their final breath, vie for attention with large slabs of pork, pink and succulent.

Others peddle their goods from baskets suspended on their bicycles, moving on and attracting customers along the way, or visiting their regular clientele.   And who can miss the hard-working sellers eking out a meagre living carrying quang ganh (two baskets on either end of a long bamboo stick) on their shoulders, weighted with an abundance of  household goods or produce.  For many, life in Vietnam is still tough; progress and development has far from reached all echelons of society here.

In the meantime,  the bartender, eager to practise his English, proves an excellent source of information.   He is local and directs me to a rather unusual restaurant where they cook poussin (baby chicken) in empty drinks cans.  Talking about taking recycling another step further…  My curiosity piqued and Google-Map enabled, I set out to find out the street.  ‘Mind you get there before six or seven in the evening,’ the bartender calls out as I am ready to leave. ‘Vietnamese people eat early, and they may have sold out if you get there too late.’   I make it to the shop before the rush, plenty of hapless chicks still on display.

I cannot say that looking at those pitiable blackened feet and wretched heads works wonders for my appetite as I watch the cook prise one ready-to-eat bird from its container.  To the contrary, I have tried chicken feet in China and, no thank you, I am not quite ready to suck the brains out from a baby chicken’s head… I go in search of more familiar, and to me, palatable restaurant dinner options:  fish baked in banana leaf sounds more like it… and some Vietnamese spring rolls.  Delectable.

Exploring the world, Google-Map-wise.

I was never an ace at reading maps, my children can vouch for that.  Scales on a map eluded me and translating the logic and sense of a carefully drawn, colourful map to the real world was mostly beyond the realm of my capabilities…  Needless to say that some of our most memorable holiday anecdotes chronicle my shortcomings as the family’s navigator on our trips abroad.   Nevertheless, had it not been for my gross underestimating of the distance between California’s Interstate 5 and the Sequoia National Park, we may never have set eyes on the famed General Sherman Tree,  the largest known living single stem tree on Earth.  The fact that it added an extra five hours to an already overlong drive from Yosemite to Los Angeles whilst  running low on go-go juice on a stretch of road that had not yet been discovered by McDonalds, was by the by…  It isn’t called the ‘scenic route’ for nothing.

But with the advent of smart phones, readily enabled with Google Maps and generously fed with data, even an ignoramus like me has been given wings to fly and explore towns and countryside safely in the knowledge I will arrive at the expected destination, at some time…  I only recently joined the army of technology savvies, for a long time firmly clinging to the belief that a phone’s purpose in life was to facilitate spoken language.  You punched in some numbers, which prompted some bleeping, tinkling or musical interlude at the receiving end and, all being well, a human voice would reply and a conversation ensue.  China changed this forever!  In China, life without a smart phone was just unimaginable, so much so that, last year, on the occasion of my brand new phone malfunctioning and refusing to share any information with me, I was at my wit’s end.  A catch-22 situation, if ever there was one… I needed to get my phone fixed, but to locate a nearby repair shop I needed my phone as only with the help of Google Maps (using a VPN, of course) or MapsMe would I be able to find my way around town…  Lo and behold, I had to rely on an old fashioned printed map.  Since China, I have grown very fond of Google Maps.  It has guided me across Hangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, Tokyo and Kyoto, Penang, Langkawi and Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi and, as cars these days come equipped with phone charging points rather than cigarette lighters, even the UK.  In other words, an absolute  must for the modern globetrotter.   My phone lavishly loaded with data, I feel ready to conquer the world and venture into the unknown…

I chose my current job on account of its location, just a pinprick removed from the beach.  The fact that in reality, I am still about 16 km away from the sea did not seem a big hurdle at the time.  What is 16 km??  But Vietnam isn’t India, and the taxis here are definitely not as cheap as India’s rickshaw drivers.  Neither is public transport as convenient and ubiquitous as in China…  In Vietnam an early morning trip to dip a toe in the salty water starts at 6.15 am when the bus trundles past my road; actually this would be considered rather late for the Vietnamese locals, who rise early and make it to the beach by 5 am. But a later bus would mean not leaving until almost mid-morning when the heat makes a trip to the coast almost unbearable.  However, most people weave across town on motorbikes: a sign of progress and a step up from the humble bicycle.  With my e-bike ventures in China still fresh in my mind, and a healthy dose of scepticism about Vietnamese traffic rules, I have opted to stick to a bicycle.  Maybe slower and more effort involved, but I do get exercise, plenty of it…

So far I have managed to make it to the coast by bike four times…  Not that much, you think, but Vietnam is still in its rainy season and the weather is at best unpredictable, if not on occasions hostile to the cyclist.  Heady winds surge in from an overcast sea, often accompanied by prolonged spells of dull drizzle or sharp bursts  of heavy rain.  Although I took a few trips to the beach by bus in September,  I first biked there before the Vietnamese winter properly took hold.  We left indecently early to be ahead of the blaring sun and were back well before lunchtime… On this occasion, I did not need to call on the advice of Google Maps as we were accompanied by one of the old gang, the ones who cycled to the beach quite regularly and clearly knew the way.  It seemed child’s play.  Just keep  on going straight…

The next time, I ventured out all on my own, armed with a phone buzzing with data and Google Maps.  What could go wrong?  A flat tyre just as I had crossed the bridge…!  I had meticulously followed all instructions and kept on going straight, dismissing vague memories of a right turn as a mere figment of my imagination.  Luckily, I had only cycled a few kilometres and a helpful motorbike-taxi rider pointed me in the direction of a bicycle pump owner..  With my tyre just solid enough to make it back to town, I had no option but to find a bicycle repair shop.  Not too difficult here since they set up shop on the pavement in full view…   And once the mechanic had quite literally crossed the road on his motorbike to purchase a new inner tube, he gave my bike the once over.  With brakes tightened, chain freshly oiled and a fully inflated tyre, I set off again on my way to the beach, this time taking heed of Google Maps.  I knew it wasn’t going to be a case of ‘keep on going straight’, as I was leaving from a different part of town…

Feeling I had mastered bicycle trips to the beach, I went again the next week…  Overhead, clouds were threatening, but it didn’t look too bad.  At least Vietnamese rain is usually warm rain!  I did not consult Google Maps, I was confident that I was fully capable of ‘going straight’.  I passed the bridge, I passed the paddy fields, I passed more paddy fields with  water buffaloes lazily grazing the rice stubble… but where was the hill with the pagoda and where was the little village I was meant to pass through…?

Time to have a look at Google Maps, I decided.  I was indeed ‘going straight ahead’ in the wrong direction!  Rather than closing in on the beach, my journey took me further away than ever…  This right turn I had been imagining?  Definitely not a figment of my imagination.  But, of course, Google Maps had a shorter route for me in mind to get me back on the right track.  Having added on already a fair few extra kilometres to my trip, I wanted to save time and … my legs…  I obediently accepted Google Map’s advice and followed the suggested direction… straight into the muddiest road I have ever cycled through… In the end, I dismounted!  Better to ruin my white canvas shoes than falling face down in the mud and ruining all my clothes as well…

I still made it to the beach!!  Muddy and thoroughly soaked by a sudden downpour, I thought the only way to brighten up the day was to plough on regardless …

And as for Google Maps…   Maybe better taken with a large pinch of salt and liberally sprinkled with old fashioned common sense…

 

 

Living the Life of a Millionaire in Vietnam.

Becoming a millionaire happened instantly, or almost.  No effort involved.  Not even the buying of a lottery ticket.  How we all have mused about how we would spend these millions if we ever were to win the big draw… How our family and friends would bask in our generosity, charities of our choice would prosper,  just keeping enough for ourselves to see us through the rest of our days in reasonable comfort and luxury… Working would just be a pastime to stave off the boredom, no longer a necessity of life.

I was finally elevated to the Millionaire Club at an airport, Hanoi airport to be precise.  Having slipped out of China like a thief in the night, pockets and bags stuffed with the proceeds of several  months of relatively hard graft, Chinese renminbe (RMB for short ) would not get me very far on these new shores.  It was a neat little stash, admittedly rather decimated by my summer travel exploits, but when stacked up in one pile, it looked quite impressive…  It certainly helped that the highest denomination of a Chinese banknote is merely 100 RMB, roughly the equivalent of a tenner in the UK, so it takes a fair few notes to make a decent amount.

As Chinese middle class citizens have taken to tourism and travel like oxygen-starved fish to water,  and Vietnam is literally just across the border, I assumed that a money transfer at the airport would not pose any difficulties.  After the first ‘money exchanger’ shook his head and sighed, ‘No, we don’t deal in RMB,’ I quietly began to rue my rash decision of clearing out my bank accounts in China…  Using my Chinese bankcards to withdraw cash had worked flawlessly in Japan and Malaysia…  Maybe I would have been better off using ATMs in Vietnam to extricate my Chinese money, readily dispensed in local Vietnamese Dong.  Luckily, not all money exchange facilities at the airport were reluctant to take the Chinese banknotes.

With an exchange rate of roughly 3500 VND to 1 RMB, my eyes boggled at the numbers…   (£1  roughly equates to 30,000 VND).  Although I thought it prudent not to exchange all my money – airports are notorious for their unfavourable exchange rates – I lost count of all the noughts on the screen…  Millions, loads of them…  Did I have enough room in my bags and pockets to hide all the notes and keep my cash safe??  But when paper money comes in denominations of half a million, it only takes two notes to make a million.  The stack put in front of me was rather underwhelming.  Was this what millions looked like??  It was in Vietnam….!!

And then it began to disappear, like water cascading through my fingers.   A taxi ride into town set me back 400,000 VND; a local SIM – one of life’s essentials these days – cost another  few hundred thousand (I can’t remember the exact amount)…  Even before leaving the airport, I had already parted with my first million..  A simple Vietnamese coffee cost 30,000 VND in Hanoi and maybe a bit more for the famed Hanoi Egg Coffee (to die for.. ).  Lunches and dinners, sumptuous Vietnamese cuisine, set me back  another few ten- or hundred-thousands each.  I was fleeced by a fruit stall holder and paid 20,000 VND for 4 rambutan; not that I would have been any the wiser about paying an exorbitant price if it were not for the raised eyebrows of another Vietnamese customer.  Still, with no quick conversion to real and equivalent prices in the UK or China, I just handed out the notes like candy…   After all, this was Hanoi and I was still enjoying my last few days of holiday freedom.

These days I try to get by on a million a week…  I know, it still sounds extravagant, but I live modestly.  Eating out is limited to just a few times each week, but some days the long teaching hours take their toll and sap all our energy and it’s even too much effort to pour boiling water over the ubiquitous instant noodles.   Late night pangs of hunger are often sated with strawberry or mango smoothies in the few establishments in the neighbourhood that remain open after 9.00 pm, when we finally finish work.  And on the warmer evenings, we might just make it to the corner café and indulge in a beer, deliciously cooled and diluted as it is poured over large slabs of ice dunked in our glasses..

What really makes our spending rocket is extravagant Western food tastes and preferences: colourful vegetables and sumptuous exotic fruits such as apples, potatoes, courgettes and peppers; and cheese and bacon and sausages (of some sort) and yoghurt…  I’m not complaining; it’s worth every penny and at least it’s available…  I could of course venture to the wet market and try my luck haggling over the price of garlic, ginger and even cauliflower, and maybe I will… soon… but for now, I stick with the sterility of the local supermarket.  At least here I know that the prices are the same for all the customers, regardless of the colour of their skin…

But even millionaires can be penny pinchers.  So it was that on a trip to Da Nang several weeks ago I got totally incensed when the hotel staff overcharged me for my room.  ‘What? That is 5000 VND more than when I made the booking!!’ I argued.  Totally befuddled by too many noughts, it seemed a gross injustice.  It was only when I worked out that 5000 VND amounted to no more than around 16 p (UK £), I felt my cheeks flush…  Did I really make a fuss about 16 p?  In the grand scheme of things, would I even notice 16 p less in my purse???

Someone recently suggested that Vietnam should just simply chop off the last three zeros of its currency.   Not a devaluation, but  1,000,000 VDN would just become 1,000 VND with the same spending power…  No more notes of half a million, just notes of five thousand…  It would definitely reduce the number of millionaires amongst us, but at least our piles of cash would no longer feel like a mountain of Monopoly money…