Vietnam Visa UK

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Every morning in my quiet neigbourhood, in an alley with no through traffic and low population density, where birds can be heard singing; I am awoken by a horn. Even here, the curse of Hanoi’s streets cannot be escaped. My neigbour, a 60ish woman who visits the market at 6.15 each morning, blasts her tinny, off- tone horn continuously as she exits our alley. At 6.35, shopping done, she returns for an encore performance…just to make sure I’m awake. There is no traffic. There are no pedestrians.

Like many Hanoians, I don’t think she realizes she’s doing it.

Whatever the form of transport, drivers in Hanoi use their horns just as other people bite their fingernails. It is a bad habit, hard to break. Motorcyclists drive with their thumbs permanently poised over the horn, pressing it constantly to alert other road users of their presence. “I’m behind you” or “I’m going to overtake you” or “The traffic light is red but it will be green in three seconds!” are all valid reasons for using one’s horn. If a young man is riding extremely fast and dangerously, weaving in and out of the traffic, he will have his thumb permanently on the horn. In these circumstances, the horn means “I am young, stupid and invincible so get the hell out of my way.” Such a young man usually has an air horn so if he doesn’t run you off the road, the sudden piercing noise will jolt you off your motorbike.

Car drivers, a growing minority taking up an increasing majority of the roads in the capital, are seemingly licensed to beep. In fact, the first rule of driving instruction in Hanoi is not stay on one’s side of the road but instead ‘Use one’s horn as much as possible… Blast the horn because your vehicle is bigger than a motorbike…blast the horn because if the motorbike gets close, it will scratch your car.’ Taxi drivers and small delivery van drivers are championship horn users. Their horns are usually ‘musical’ but worse than a bad pop-song stuck in your head. I have been known to swear particularly well and gesture threateningly when this ‘music’ is played too close to my ears!

Bigger vehicles, like trucks and buses, have the loudest horns of all. When a Hanoi bus is bearing down on you in the traffic with its horn blaring, it’s best to move aside. Their horns mean “If you don’t move, you’re going to be road kill!”

For a simple boy from the countryside who learned to ride a motorbike on the sedate streets of Nha Trang, I still can’t bring myself to use the horn. However, when I saw a group of young teenagers with horns on their bicycles recently, I have vowed to add to the noise pollution.

If you can’t beat ‘em (and you won’t), join ‘em!

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The streets of Hanoi are full of interesting characters, people not known to me personally but people I notice time and time again.

I have been intrigued by this boy for a few years but the other morning was the first time I was able to talk to him. He normally doesn’t want to talk to outsiders about himself, his predicament or his family. He is a disabled boy who can’t walk at all. He sits on a tricycle, using his hands to pedal and control the bike. He started selling newspapers from his bike about 8 years ago when he was 10. He really is one of Hanoi’s child entrepreneurs and even today he barely looks 18 with his baby face and contented smile.

He starts his day at 6am and sometimes ends up at about 10pm, though most days he has sold his papers before then. In the old quarter of Hanoi, that represents a really hard day’s work. The traffic chaos, the dust and pollution, the motorbikes parked every which way and the general hectic activity that he encounters there would seem like a pretty stressful way to make a living. He says he has a loyal group of customers along his regular morning route, mostly those having their morning noodles or coffee. A day’s pedaling – with his hands – brings in the rather meagre sum of 50,000VND. His custom-designed tricycle might require the occasional repair to a puncture or some grease on the chain so his operating expenses are low, thankfully. Even so, the profits of such hard labour wouldn’t leave much for the average 18 year-olds entertainment expenses.

Then, again, this boy is not the average 18 year old. I see lots of boys and girls the same age, who hang around, do nothing, constantly putting their hands out to their parents for money. This young man is the opposite. In fact, part of his earnings probably gets contributed to the family kitty to buy food and pay the bills.
Local identities like him exist throughout this city but few are as inspirational.

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It’s hard to find a seat at Tra Chanh at noon on hot days, especially just after lunch. I’m not sure how it got to be so famous and well-patronised. Not that long ago, it was a standard kind of cafe. I finally got the chance to try this place recently.

Most people who come here are young office workers and students. They come here during their lunch breaks for a drink and something sweet before heading back to work. Many conversations take place, ranging from lottery results to political scandals. I was sitting there for an hour listening to the customers’ stories, which made me laugh, particularly the ones between girls about their boyfriends. Many of the young male tea drinkers were telling thier bad luck stories about missing lottery numbers from the draw the night before. It really gives a sense of what is going on in the minds of young Hanoians.

Tra Chanh serves one of the most popular street drinks in the old quarter of Hanoi. There are few options to choose from iced tea, served with slices of lemon, to coffee to sweet comsomme of banana.

Tra Chanh - 31 Dao Duy Tu - Hanoi

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Five weeks is definitely not enough time to discover all of Greece, a country with hundreds of beautiful islands surrounded by amazing beaches. I have so many fond memories of my time in Greece and really feel as if I’ve broadened my horizons. It was my first time in Europe and I really got a feeling for ancient history and the different lifestyle and culture there.

Apart from discovering new places in Greece, here are the things I’d go back for:

1. I’d love to go back to Santorini again to have a glass of local wine and see the sunset and the light against the Cycladic architecture.

2. Corfu’s Old Town is definitely worth another wander around, having a pita gyros and looking around the beautiful shops.

3. I would love to return to Ithaki’s clear waters and stony beaches to have a nap in the sun after eating a Greek salad and drinking a carafe of the local wine.

4. The view of Athens from the Acropolis.

5. Crete’s old capital, Hania, with its restaurants and beautiful artisans shops.

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Now that summer is over, Hanoi’s unofficial wedding season is noticeably underway and most wedding photographers are busily snapping pictures at their favourite locations around town.

The wedding season in Hanoi encompasses autumn through to spring. While weddings are occasionally observed in the summer, the heat makes them pretty uncomfortable for all concerned. Lucky wedding days recommended by fortune-tellers are determined by complicated equations involving the lunar calendar birth dates of the couple and other family factors. In addition, certain days are simply considered bad luck. The result is that, throughout the season, there will be days when no-one gets married and days when it seems every one is. Cars covered in fresh flowers, unusually shaped pink and white balloons, busy hotel function rooms, woman dressed in ao dai (long dress) and rented blue tents adjoining houses are the symbols of these days.

In Vietnam, unlike in the west, the wedding photographs are taken in advance of the wedding, not on the actual day of the ceremony. Young couples approach a ‘one-stop-shop’ wedding parlour where gowns and suits can be rented and photographs taken. There are studios with romantic back-drops or the couple may choose to go on a shoot to one of several popular locations. On the steps of Hanoi’s Opera House is perhaps the prime location. Sometimes there are several couples posing in the vicinity at the same time. Hanoi’s crumbling French colonial buildings provide also provide an aura of rustic charm. Other popular spots for wedding photographs include gardens, parks and lakesides.

In my area just near the Intercontinental Hotel at West Lake, the wedding traffic is congested from as early as 7am. There are frequently three or four couples around and once I counted eight. This does become annoying for the local residents, especially considering that each couple is accompanied by four or five staff from the photography studio. Props and costume changes also clutter up the narrow laneways. The photographers’ assistants often have the bride-to-be’s dress spread across the alley. I often wander if the dresses have ever been ridden over! I was embarrassed recently while, when taking my dog for a walk, he lifted his leg on the train of one of the gowns!

These shoots often involve costume changes where the woman goes from western style white to red, pink or purple to traditional Vietnamese ao dai (long dress). The fashion for the men is often very flamboyant, with white suits seemingly very popular this year. I saw one groom posing with a white violin the other day. Sitting astride a classic motorbike is another appealing prop. Interestingly, the costume changes occur just inside the gate of the pagoda nearby! There doesn’t seem to be any opposition from the monks or nuns but to me it seems a bit inappropriate.

By the end of the day on these shoots, it’s interesting observing the general appearance and demeanour of the couples. No-one’s smiling, the hems of the dresses are grubby and the flowers in the brides’ hair are wilting.

I’m sure the photographs are stunning but I often wander how their marriages will turn out!

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Craft and cottage industries receive quite a lot of attention in the media in Vietnam. Documentary programs and newspaper articles on the various artisans’ communities and villages around Hanoi are common. Artists who paint images of unisex beings suffering mental and physical torture do not get much press. For many years I had no idea that one of the guys I had been playing tennis with is an accomplished artist.

Born in 1960, Mai Hoang Minh, originally from Hue but currently living in Nha Trang, has produced over 500 paintings in the past 7 years. Minh is a self-taught painter who has not only studied his craft but also the theory and history of art. For 20 years, art has been his passion. A few years ago when I saw his paintings, I thought they were quite difficult to understand and confronting but life is complicated and as I get older I know that people experience all kinds of difficulties in their lives. I suppose Minh’s paintings could represent that.

I met him again in Nha Trang recently.

How well-known are you in Vietnam?

My paintings are not as popular in Viet Nam but western people seem to enjoy collecting them. This is probably because I paint very abstractly and Vietnamese generally prefer realism in their art. In Vietnam, art is not emphasized in the education system unfortunately, and visiting art galleries here is mostly a pastime for foreigners.

What media do you work in?

Mostly oil on canvas.

When did you start to take a different direction with your work?

I started painting more abstractly in 2000 to set myself apart from other artists. I wanted to break away from the norm, to make my work stand out. I wasn’t sure how well it would be received as I know my abstract work can be confronting. When I first started painting this way, I knew it would take a while for people to take it seriously. Some people say it is depressing.

Some of the images are quite dark and disturbing. Do you set out to shock people?

No, not at all. I think it is more about awakening. The language of art makes people feel and perhaps face things from their pasts, to maybe realize what is missing. It is true that some people may be shocked and may look for a message or some meaning. I don’t paint with a message or cause in mind – that is more the realm of the people viewing the paintings. Their reactions are individual reactions, not collective ones.

You talked about art as a subject in Vietnam’s education system. What are your views on how art is taught here?

I think the teachers are very much holding onto old methodology and ideas. In art classes here, the teachers force students to follow old rules, to paint old concepts of beauty, like rural scenes and street scenes. But art and the world are things that are constantly evolving and changing. We all view the world in a different way, experience beauty in different things. Creativity needs to be encouraged and rewarded, regardless of traditional concepts of beauty.

What advice would you give to young students currently studying art?

My advice would be to embrace and learn all of the technical knowledge and skills that they can from school art classes but be bold enough to break the rules to follow their individual creative paths. It may take longer to succeed but persistence is necessary, particularly in the arts.

You mentioned that your work receives attention from foreign art lovers. Can you talk about that?

Well, I’ve been lucky enough to exhibit outside Vietnam on several occasions. I’ve had individual shows in California and Colorado. In France, too, in a town called Valenciennes in the north. At the moment I have several paintings in a show at the Fresno Discovery Museum in California.

Minh’s work can be viewed at his studio in Nha Trang (4 Nguyen Thien Thuat St).
Minh’s website: www.typainter.com

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It’s nice to be 30+ but from now on, I think I will get older and older quicker than I thought. When I was a little boy, thinking about turning 30 years old, it seemed a really long way to go. Looking back from yesterday, Oh my, I’m a few years over it now and it is starting to get scary! Que sera sera is one of my favorite old songs and I suppose there’s not much I can do about it.

Anyway, I made a nice beef hotpot with some different mushrooms at home with my close friends for lunch. My friends seemed to enjoy my cooking and we took a few photos at home. I appreciated their coming and some gifts which I told them not to bother about. It was very nice of my friends Sam, Cong and Khai.

In the evening, Viola, another friend who lives near me in Hanoi invited me and some friends over her house to have home made Canadian food for my birthday. It was really nice and quite a surprise for me. I received some gifts and Viola brought a very nice birthday cake and sang birthday songs in different languages. I got a happy shock as I didn’t expect that much of a big deal. Thank you very much for making my birthday even more memorable with great food, excellent company with funny stories. I had a great evening.

I was spoiled a little bit but I love that!!!

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Nha Trang has long been a popular destination for both local and international tourists. Its long sandy beach lined with coconut palms is the stand out attraction of this large coastal city located on Vietnam’s south central coast. Entire days can quite easily be whiled away relaxing in the sun, chasing a tan, recovering from a hangover or simply de-stressing. In fact, a beach city like Nha Trang can be a very therapeutic place.

It is tourist friendly. In Hanoi, the tourist patch is the Old Quarter. In Saigon, it is district 1 and the strip along Pham Ngu Lao. In these areas, many of the local folk can speak English reasonably well. This makes information about tourist services, onward journeys and local places of interest easy to obtain. Nha Trang also has it’s traveler’s zone, where boat trips can be booked, motorbikes can be rented, flights and onward bus and train journeys arranged and all manner of western and international cuisine ordered and enjoyed. Located along and parallel to a few blocks of beachfront, the place to stay in Nha Trang is in the small district known as Biet Thu. Mini-hotels and guesthouses abound in this area and the beach is never more than a five minute walk away. More up-market accommodation in high rise hotels is available further up the beach road if you don’t mind a long walk or a taxi ride at the end of the night.

A night spent in one or more of Nha Trang’s great bars! The jewels in the crown of the bar scene here are the Nha Trang Sailing Club and the Louisiane Brew house, two long established watering holes right on the beach. The former is a stunning complex of restaurants, bar and nightclub, where drinks after a hard day on the beach can be followed by a meal and some jiving on the dance floor. For many, it is the last stop of the night. The latter is a beer lover’s paradise, open all day but not so late into the night. Four different beers are brewed on the premises and can be enjoyed on the brew house’s waterfront beach lounges or by the pool. Away from the beach, Crazy Kim’s, Guava, Shorty’s and the Why Not Bar all have their own unique atmospheres.

Eating options in Nha Trang are various. Indian, Italian, Japanese and other international cuisines are pretty well represented here. But, by the seaside, the choice is obvious. Prawns, squid, lobster and fish are on display outside restaurants throughout the tourist area. Customers can select exactly the creature they want to dine on and watch it flipped onto the barbeque. However, better seafood experiences can be had where the locals eat. One such place is Bien Tien Hai San, a restaurant about three kilometers along the main beach road north of town. In fact, there are many seafood eateries out this way which are worth a visit. Other local specialties, available away from the tourist strip in the streets around the main market, include fried rice-flour pancakes (banh xeo), fish noodle soup (bun ca) and fresh roll-your-own spring rolls (nem nuong). Going hungry in Nha Trang is not even remotely possible.

Apart from the above-mentioned sedentary activities of sunbathing, drinking and eating, Nha Trang does have a few more active pursuits on offer. Diving is big here, with a few operators competing for underwater business. All day boat trips to the surrounding islands, with frequent stops for swimming and snorkeling are also popular with the young backpacker crowd. The Cham Towers across the river are also worth a visit if history and architecture are of any interest.

Despite all of the possibilities, whenever I go back to Nha Trang I find myself gravitating toward the beach by day, the street food and seafood at meal times and the bars by night.

It’s a routine I thoroughly recommend!

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In the last few months, the local authorities have abruptly knocked down or closed quite a few of Hanoi’s wet markets. Prior to this, the movement to modernize the city’s markets had always seemed rather long term, something that might eventually happen. But now they are serious. The Old Quarter market in Hang Be Street has been halved in size, the large Hang Da market has been closed pending re-development and the famous 19/12 Hell Market was demolished overnight a couple of months ago. Western style shopping malls and supermarkets will start cropping up all over town in the next few years. So it looks like it’s goodbye to yet another part of traditional Vietnamese culture.

As the city market scene changes shape, most of the stallholders have been relocated to temporary sheds along while construction takes place. Hundreds of tiny green sheds have further narrowed the streets or pavements of the old quarter, most noticeably along Phung Hung Street parallel to the train line. Many of the stalls actually have no frontage onto the street which makes merchandising their goods quite difficult. For many, I’m sure this situation has resulted in large reductions in their revenue. Most of the vendors are not happy and remain pessimistic about their capacity to afford the rent when the new premises re-open. The move has also affected consumers, many of whom are no longer within walking distance of their regular vendors. The 19/12 Hell Market stalls are now several kilometers away from their original location. No doubt one of the government’s objectives with these plans is to improve the hygiene and sanitation of Hanoi’s markets. Health scares raised in the media are often blamed on the conditions in wet markets. Presenting an image of modernization appears to be another reason for the redevelopment. Tall residential buildings and modern commercial buildings with glass facades are springing up all over town and I suppose the theory is that the rickety, temporary appearance of Hanoi’s wet markets is not in keeping with the vision for the city. This thinking is partly flawed. A modern market or supermarket does not automatically eradicate health fears. Shiny surfaces and lots of glass create an image of new and clean but the reality is that harmful bacteria can exist anywhere. Education about improved food handling practices and systematic cleaning is still required. Refrigeration is useful only if the food is stored correctly and the fridge is actually turned on.

Finding some kind of compromise between the old and the new does not seem to be on the agenda. Would it be possible to modernize Hanoi’s markets without completely stripping them of their original character and atmosphere? Should going to the market be an experience where customers simply pick up what they want and pay for it with very little interaction? Do we want Hanoi to be transformed into another Singapore or Bangkok, where only pockets of traditional culture are visible amongst the concrete and glass? Is there a risk that Hanoi’s modernization will alienate tourists looking for diversity and difference?

I don’t have the answers but I know what I think!

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On the way back from Greece, we stopped in Bangkok for a couple of days. After the long flight, I felt exhausted and took a nap in the hotel before having a bowl of Thai noodle soup from a lady on the street near the hotel. In my jet-lagged condition, I remember saying it was one of the best noodle soups I’d had.

We started our new day in Bangkok by booking a floating market tour for the next day and going for a spot of shopping at the big plazas. We took the Skytrain and I immediately noticed how Thai people generally obey the rules for queuing and on the roads much better than we do in Vietnam.

When we reached the Siam shopping centre food court, a funny coincidence occurred. There I was, standing at the Thai food stand, which was next to the Vietnamese one on one side and the Greek one on the other. Pretty strange considering we were in Thailand after a trip to Greece but on the way to Hanoi, Vietnam!

Bangkok is a big city, noisy, polluted and full of eye-opening sights, especially around the PatPong area! Of course, there are lots of things to see and do in Bangkok but it’s just like any other big capital city in the world. What makes it unique is the sweet local people. An example of this is the kind old gentleman who acted as our tour guide to the floating market and the Royal Palace.

All in all, our two day stopover in Bangkok was a nice way to get used to the timezone.