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My beautiful bicycle...


has spoke protectors...


and chain protectors...


with that classic vietnamese shape!


Yes, it's true:

Varmints and Homesickness

I feel like crap.

We have rats, mice, cockroaches, ants and geckos in our kitchen. This morning I had ants crawling in my ceral box. I ate it anyway.

I was a sucky nanny today as I lost my keys (found em again), forgot the tennis rackets (but it rained anyway), forgot the id badge I need to pick up the kids (because Max broke it yesterday and I was going to tape it), and to make up for it I took the kids to parent/teacher night at school which lasted until 8pm and was not actually intended for kids or nannies.

My Uncle just found out he has cancer. My grandma is turning 90 and I'm not there. My brother is moving home again because (duh) his job doesn't pay enough for him to live on his own which means my Mom and Step-Dad have another mouth to feed, and I'm not there to help make any of that more complicated than it already is.

I miss the fall, I miss the mountains, I haven't been told I'm doing a good job yet and tomorrow is day 12.

And my neck hurts. And my roomate smokes inside. And this is all so much more difficult when you're so obviously an outsider.

Ouch.

This morning I woke up early, about 5:30 am. It's only 30 minutes earlier than when my alarm goes off, so I decided to just go ahead and get up, maybe enjoy a nice cold bath (which is actually lovely first thing in the morning). I was laying on my left side, and when I began to lift myself up I felt a sudden twang in my neck, which shot pain all through my left shoulder area. It felt like a tendon got yanked, or something slipped out of place, and it's been pinching me pretty badly for a few hours now. Taking a bath was so difficult, 'cause it's so hard to hold the weight of my head up by itself, and I can't turn very far to either side. I lay in bed for a few minutes just whimpering. Dammit. This has happened before, and it will go away over the next few days, but still it feels kinda pathetic. I wanted to go to yoga tonight, and go buy a bike and then ride it back to my house, but without being able to turn my head, I don't think either of those things are a good idea.

I took ibuprofen and rubbed arnica gel on my neck, but I'm still in a lot of pain.

Poo.

Mekong video

You down with OPB?

There is a sorta-famous blog about living in Vietnam called Noodlepie. I heard about it somehow, somewhere, before I moved to Saigon and today I was spending part of an excitingly stormy afternoon leafing (clicking, rather) through it, when I found a link to my new yoga teacher's blog.

It is so weird that I was born in this era, with such a fascination with reading other people's thoughts, added to the public online posting of our ramblings and adventures. I discovered great things about Saigon while reading her blog, like where the street is that has all the Vespa dealers, just in case I really want to buy my own motorbike once Kenny gets here. But I also ran across this horror story about a friend who got into a motorbike accident, which totally shook me, since it's the first one I've really heard about in detail (I haven't really been ready to start thinking about the whole concept that these fun, zippy little rides could rip my body apart).

She hit a guy on a bike who was driving the wrong way down the highway. Standard stuff here in Vietnam. As she was lying on the road, broken, bleeding, unable to move, a crowd of gawkers gathered and one of them reached into her bag and stole her MP3 player from in front of her. The police put her in a taxi (with the man who had crashed into her) and they drove her away from the hospital, down a few side alleys, and proceeded to try and get her out of the taxi in the middle of nowhere. One can only speculate on their intentions. I don't want to go there.

This is not the first time I have heard first hand stories of people being robbed as they lie broken and bleeding on the highway. There is a man in FV hospital right now with a 20 % chance of living because as he lay on the highway he passed his phone to someone to call for help and they ran off with it. He was then left lying on the floor of the police station for 6 hours while his brain swelled. I don't know what will happen to him, but it doesn't sound good.

Come on Vietnam. Your reputation is being spoiled by a small minority of ASSHOLES. No-one can escape their own karma. Your actions always catch up with you eventually. You may be poor, but that is no reason to steal off people lying dying and hurting on the roads. I hope I don't here any more stories like this ever again. It is destroying my faith in human nature.

Ugh, ugh, I need a helmet, ugh. I am a helpless human being. I don't have an ID card in Vietnamese, so no one could possibly know my name if I got into an accident. My travel insurance info is written on a scrap piece of paper (in English) in a zipper pocket of my bag. My cell phone has no emergency numbers in it, because I've been too distracted to find out if there is such a thing. Well, there's only one thing for it: I need to get these things done. I need to learn where the hospitals are. I need to go by the American Embassy and "just let them know I'm here" (or so says Mom and Kenny).

Oh god, is it possible to go from such exaltation to such fear about a place in such short time?

Also: today I went for a long walk for exercise, which in my mind couldn't have been more obvious: running shoes, headphones in my ear, scuzzy workout clothes, no purse at all. So WHY did so many people think I wanted a motorbike ride?? It didn't bother me to give 'em the brush off at first, but because I was out for more than an hour I got really freaking tired of men waving for my attention and pointing at their seats (of their bikes, not their behinds). Grrr. How do you say, "idiot, can you not see I'm walking for fun? I know people do this here!" in Vietnamese?

Feelin' Scroogey

As in Mr. Scrooge.

The totals are in: in my first 10 days, I spent 1,828,000d or $114.17. This averages out to about $11/day. I am not pleased with this. I know that I can do better. Plus, after encouraging talks with new friends, I feel like I can pick up an English lesson here and there during my free mornings and charge between $15-20/hour, which would help things greatly.

It feels good to eat cheaply and I know my spending has not been at all excessive. Why do i feel like my paycheck is slipping down the drain?

One plan: I'm buying a bicycle this week. A used one should cost about $50, a new one about $70, and I can put it on my Visa card. Because let's see... (totalling it up)...I spent 464,000d on motorbike and taxi rides this week. That's $29, holy freaking crap! This must stop. I'm buying a bicycle.

Mekong Delta, Youkong Delta

On a whim, I signed up for a one-day trip to the Mekong Delta, specifically the towns of My Tho and Ben Tre. We leave tomorrow morning at 7:45, and we should be back in Saigon by 6pm.

Not sure about the company's reputation, because there are so many companies/cafes that offer tours like this one, but for $7 for the whole day, I figured, why not? It'll give me something to write about other than markets, my neighborhood, and the language barrier. Here's what the flier says about the trip, typos included:

"You'll take a short scenic bus trip to MyTho city where boats will bring you to some islands on the Mekong River to see scenery villages. Seeing the fish port, coco handicraft shops. Enjoying tropical fruits. Southerners' traditional music, and coconut candies. Taking rowing-boats in a jungle. Cruising in anothe small canal to see the bee-keeping family and enjoy natural honey tea, honey wine... you have enough time to see the daily life of the local people. Returning to MyTho and stopping at the small beautiful garden for relaxing. Arriving Ho Chi Minh City at 6:00 PM."

now my MST3000 version:

"You'll take a short scenic bus trip [ah yes, the scenic freeway] to MyTho city where boats will bring you to some islands on the Mekong River to see scenery villages. [Ooh, scenery villages! Is that like in Hollywood where they build the sets?] Seeing the fish port [well, I've heard of snake wine but that is ridiculous], coco handicraft shops. Enjoying tropical fruits. [Does that mean the shops are enjoying fruits and we get to watch?] Southerners' traditional music [Freebird!], and coconut candies. Taking rowing-boats in a jungle. Cruising in anothe small canal to see the bee-keeping family and enjoy natural honey tea, honey wine... you have enough time to see the daily life of the local people. [Cause I'm sure a bus full of tourists doesn't disturb their flow at all.] Returning to MyTho and stopping at the small beautiful garden for relaxing. Arriving Ho Chi Minh City at 6:00 PM."

Today I made it to the backpacker's neighborhood, which from my first impression was... well, like any of the other tourist spots but a little funkier, with more head shops and less brand name clothing. Actually I wanted to stay longer, but I got into a walking conversation with Jimmy, an African guy who was trying hard to get himself invited to my house, and I walked a little too far and got lost. But at least I got rid of Jimmy. I loved the vagueness of my answers, which he totally was not picking up on:

Jimmy: So, where do you live?
Me: Oh... [gesturing towards the setting sun].. that way.
Jimmy: Can I call you?
Me: No. I don't have a phone.

So then I was lost, and had to pay 20,000d to get back home, cause it turns out I had wandered quite far away. Hopefully tonight I'll meet up with Jane for dinner and then I'm coming home to go to bed early. Two bar nights in a row is too much for me right now. Plus it's National Day, and judging from the traffic, it seems like everyone remembered to take their crazy pills.

Love,
Jessica

National Day

September 2nd is Vietnam's National Day. All over town, scarlet banners with golden words proclaim words, dates, pictures of Uncle Ho, big bright stars. Because of the holiday, no one has to work and many shops are closed. As if the skies were aware, the rains ceased and this is the first afternoon that the showers didn't begin at 1:00 precisely. In fact, I think this calls for some suntanning on the roof!

This morning I slept in as late as I could and then hit the streets: my goal, the neighborhood market. The purpose? To see if I could locate, purchase and prepare ingredients for my favorite Vietnamese lunch: fresh spring rolls. Thanks to watching the kids' mom, I knew which direction to head once in the market and I quickly found the tall piles of fresh noodles, sprigs of mint, tiny little limes, and crunchy bean sprouts. Using my few words, I bought all the ingredients and gave my thanks to the sellers. You know, going to the big market is really stupid. My little neighborhood market has everything I could need and they don't hassle me like the Ben Thanh merchants do. Plus, here I don't have to do my shopping under fluorescent lights or hear "Madam! what you buy? what you buy?" It was really peaceful. I spent a total of 45,000d ($2.90) and got: incense, a glass bottle of fish sauce which came with a glass bowl to mix it in, a plastic jar of jelly beans (couldn't help myself), sweet bean cakes, and all the produce mentioned above. Oh yeah, plus a plastic comb (mine disappeared somewhere between Princeton and Hong Kong) which is red. I asked for it by color, feeling really pleased to have remembered mau do. It has fishes on it. Soon I want to buy a nice wooden one, but this will do wonderfully for now. Across from the comb seller's stand, there was a dad and son who were chatty and shy, respectively. The Dad kept pulling his young son over to us and trying to get him to talk to me. Using pantomime and sign language we confirmed that the son was indeed 10 years old and that no, I did not want to sit next to him (the son looked really relieved). The dad read my mind and asked me (i think) if I was looking for lunch, which I was- but it turns out pho bo is so much of a breakfast food that no one in the market was selling it at 12:30pm. I really liked the dad and son. Their mannerisms were familiar, and I think his teasing was meant in a sweet way, to help his son learn how not to blush so easily. When I got lost on my way out, I found myself in front of them again, and we shook hands all around.

One thing I learned from buying things in the market is that I need to cement my numbers in my mind. I confused 6, 7 and 8 many times today. "Sau, bay, tam. Sau, bay, tam." I keep saying this over and over in my head. I'll get it.

I walked the incredibly short distance home and new things kept popping up in front of me: how had I never seen that there are TWO beauty salons right there? Why did I spend 20,000d on a motorbike ride to the center of the city the other day? Jeez, Jessica. Oh holy crap, there's a post office? There?? This is awesome! I am so in love with my neighborhood. Yesterday's walk was so fascinating. There are 5 hotels on the block behind my house. 5! Everyone, you need to come and visit me. Yes, the plane tickets are expensive, but my neighborhood will make it worth it!

Upon arriving home I discovered a few things. First of all, the sauce that I thought I was buying turned out to be entirely different sauce. It's not bad, but definitely not what I hoped I was buying. Hmm. That's one to ask about. Also, I might have bought the wrong kind of rice paper wrappers because I'm having a really hard time wrapping my spring rolls without them tearing. It was so easy back home in Charlotte at Pho98! What happened to my skills? I did the double-wrap today, which is when the first once rips apart just wrap the whole mess up in another one, a technique I learned in high school, rolling something a little less readily available and definitely not as tasty. Speaking of tasty, buying shrimp and them tossing them into boiling water has never before yielded me such sweet little pink bites before. Yay, seafood in Vietnam! Here's my meal, after the market and in the process:





The only bad thing is that when buying things by the kilo and half kilo, you end up with much more food than one person can eat. Looks like it's going to be a weekend full of spring rolls! Twist my rubber arm. Still, wish I had some Shimizus to help me finish up...

Oh dear me...

Oh, dear me... this is the latest I've been up since the night I arrived and my body felt like it was still on US time. And now, my jet lag having disappeared entirely, I am fully ready for bed at what used to be lunch time. [come to think of it, not much has changed, eh?]

Going out tonight was far beyond "worth it." The bar I was headed to was only a few blocks from my place, so I got away with a round trip motorbike ride for 15,000d (.93 cents). I more than made up for that with the cheapest liquor drink they had: a rum & coke at 45,000d ($2.80! sheesh). It was a total tourist bar, complete with cover band featuring hard rock from the late '90s (alas, no Hootie). But it was fun! Finding other people who have travelled here from the Western world and who are happy and thriving is like finding a good support group that firmly believes it's all gonna be ok. They all think I seem surprisingly well adjusted and chipper, considering my short time here. Pictured below are Kim and Eric, teachers; and Jane, Mel, and I.




It's fun being the new kid. All the people I spoke with tonight were abundantly clear on one point: it is definitely ok to move here with a traveler's visa and then keep on extending it for years, and on and on into the future. I met a drama teacher (!) two English teachers, a girl who sells real estate, and someone who works with some kind of company (fuzzy on details) and they all have temporary-then-extended visas. Yay! This is good news, since that's what Kenny will be doing, and he's a bit worried that he'll be caught and made to pay some horrid fine and he'll be caned and have his hands chopped off and worse yet, the government will be mad at him. But I think-- no, I know-- it is all going to be wonderful.

So not having drank much alcohol this summer equaled me being tipsy after a rum & coke and my first Tiger beer (the national brand- it's much better than PBR!). Riding home felt like sliding along on glass: so smooth, the wind so nice, the roads so quiet. Mmm. In a way, I want to get a motorbike of my own, but that would take all the pleasure out of hopping rides (plentiful and cheap) and not worrying about a thing. Well, you know, except that you might be going in the wrong direction. But I'll figure that out in time.

Tonight was an exceptionally busy night, but loads of fun: Vietnam National Day is tomorrow, so the kids have a long weekend. To celebrate we went out to dinner tonight and then shopping at the big mall so that they could play in the arcade. Whew, chasing after those two simultaneously was a challenge! They're so little and quick! I would find one and then the other would slip from my grasp. But all was fine in the end, tokens were spent and fortunes were made and lost. And then there was ice cream.

So my loose plan for the weekend:
-go to Chinatown
-buy incense
-go out to dinner tomorrow night with Jane and her friends
-wander aimlessly around my neighborhood market with the goal being to smile at lots of vendors so that they begin to recognize me as a neighbor
-hopefully, buy some noodles so that I can make my own spring rolls
-find the backpacker's neighborhood, but some used books
-and whatever else the universe has in store for me!

As always, faithful readers, I thank you for being my constant audience. I have no idea who is reading this, which is nice- I can send the thoughts out there and let them circulate. If you ever have a question or comment, hit the comment button below. Yeah, you know what to do!

Roxbury

I'm going out clubbing. I'm a little apprehensive about this, but who knows- maybe I'll like it! I get to sleep in tomorrow so what's the harm?

Time to go get glittered up.