Living with lizards

We’ve been pretty busy since I last posted an entry here. We did end up going to Can Tho for the weekend. We spent our time there eating, drinking and shopping. There was a certain restaurant in Can Tho that we always went to, a lovely old two-storey wooden building on a corner site overlooking the river and the busy street. We were really looking forward to going there again and having pizza and tuna and salad sandwiches. Unfortunately that place has been knocked down. So we went to a different place, also overlooking the river but without the street view. Hopefully our favourite restaurant will reopen again somewhere else, but we hold grave fears for what will be built in its stead...

This is a very-Vietnamese cafe in Can Tho. Bright neon lights and super-loud karaoke are very popular here. This cafe is just down the street from where our favourite restaurant was. Hopefully they don't replace the restaurant with something like this!

The other news is that we have moved into the new house. The location is good, being right near the centre of town, and it has a covered outdoor area out the front where we can sit and watch the passing traffic and storms go by. The rest of the house does need a bit of work though. We are planning to:

• Install a second-hand air-conditioner. We’ll probably only use this at night, at the moment the heat is making it hard to sleep.
• Install a door in the hallway leading from the kitchen and bathroom area to the bedroom and lounge room. This is so that the air-conditioner will only cool part of the house. It will also help block bad smells coming from behind the house.
• Cover up the back window with glass or clear plastic. The window at the back of the house only has metal grilles in it. It also is directly above a stinky cesspit (the source of the bad smells mentioned above).
• Install cable television. Dan is particularly looking forward to watching the World Cup.
• Install/build a kitchen sink. The kitchen is odd; it has two big cement tubs (one on the ground floor, one of the roof of the bathroom – but still inside the house) which have gutters and pipes leading into them to collect rainwater. We have already stopped the flow of rainwater into these tubs (which involved Dan climbing onto the roof of the bathroom and pushing the gutter so that it directed water outside), now we have to decide what to do with them. They are a bit of an eyesore and a potential breeding ground for mosquitoes.
• Paint. The whole house could do with a decent paint job, but we might just paint the lounge room and bedroom. The kitchen and bathroom would be too much work!
• Fix the plumbing. At the moment the toilet is not working, there are also pipes leading everywhere. Maybe these could be somehow used to install a kitchen sink.
  

We have also realised that we are sharing our house with a big lizard. He/she is about 30cm long, looks like a gecko, sounds like a gecko and clings to walls like a gecko but can geckos get that big? Maybe it’s a cross between a gecko and a crocodile. I’m paranoid that the gecko/crocodile/monster lizard will try and eat the flesh off our bones while we sleep. Although one of our Vietnamese friends told us that this type of lizard is edible, so maybe we will eat it before it eats us.

Our in-house gecko/crocodile/monster lizard

Doing what we do...

Our holidays are over and we’ve been back in Soc Trang and back at work for the past two weeks. Here’s a run-down of what we’ve been up to during this time...

Working: We had a 6-day work week last week, now we are back to our regular 5-day work week. Dan and I are busy editing reports on co-management to be published as part of the workshop proceedings. Lucky we both no English real good hey? (That was a joke! This explanation is especially directed at my parents who probably suffered simultaneous fits when they read that sentence.) We also went down to Au Tho B Village, the site of the co-management pilot project, for a meeting with the sub-group leaders. We took a tub of Vegemite, some margarine and 2 baguettes with us to share with the leaders (who are all fairly poor farmers). They seemed to like it, one said it tasted like shrimp paste, but didn’t small so bad, and another said that, if they had found the jar of Vegemite they would never have thought it was food, they would have thought it was some kind of fertiliser or poison!

Speaking English: Last weekend we were special guests at the bi-annual English Speaking Club at the Soc Trang Teachers Training College. The teachers-in-training gave a variety of performances, including speeches, presentations, songs, dances, games and fashion shows – all in English. I had to get up and talk about Australia then ask the students questions about Australia, the student who answered correctly got a small prize. One student even knew who the prime minister of Australia is! Dan had to play a game where 3 students had to guess personal information about him (age, job, marital status etc.) Then the floor was open for all the students to ask him questions. He got asked if he would sing a song about New Zealand (he wouldn’t!), if he has a girlfriend (he got a cheer when he said yes and pointed at me), what he likes about me (he said he likes me because I’m kind – ha!), if he could talk about the people and traditions in New Zealand and if he will get married in Vietnam. When the questions were over he had to choose the most interesting questions and whoever asked that question would get a prize, he chose the question about me, aw!

Eating: We continue to explore the variety of food and restaurants in Soc Trang. Since we returned from holidays we have tried 3 new dishes, the first is a type of prawn cake that you wrap up in lettuce with herbs to eat. It was pretty good. The second was minced pork and mushrooms wrapped in rice paper, served with fish sauce and some salad. This is a breakfast dish, we tried it at 2 different places, the 2nd was nicer than the 1st but we have since found out that they are both owned by the same person! The third dish was a rice porridge served with a salty duck egg and/or dried prawns. It was ok, not as nice as the other 2 dishes, but that may have been because we both added a tiny bit of chilli sauce which made it way too spicy!

We also tried a new restaurant, the food was really good. We had noodles with beef and veggies, deep-fried pumpkin flowers stuffed with “meat” (I’m pretty sure it was fish.) and chilli and salt squid. Yum! The best thing about the restaurant was that 3 of the male waiters were zooming around on roller-skates! How awesome is that!

Drinking: We bought duty-free vodka and Kahlua on our way back from Malaysia, we cracked these open last week. We also bought some semillion-sauv from Chile in HCMC which we opened last weekend. It was awful! Dan has reunited with his drinking buddies and went out to Bung Huu last night, I think he has gotten back into the swing of drinking warm beer in a glass full of ice.

House-hunting: We found a house we liked before we went away, this week we inspected it again and have started negotiating with the owner. So far it seems to be going well but experience has taught us not to be certain of anything until we have the keys and have moved in, even then things might not work out! The new house is in town (the place we are in now is about 2km out of town) and only 2 blocks away from work. It needs some improvements, which Dan and I are happy to do, such as installing a kitchen sink, covering up the windows which don’t have glass in them (they have metal bars instead which is good for security, but not so good for keeping out insects) and maybe giving some of the rooms a paint. If you think that sounds like a lot of effort, it is, but we are in Soc Trang – there’s not much else to do! Hopefully we will be able to move in next week, as long as everything works out with the negotiating.

That pretty much sums up the last two weeks for us. I’m not sure what we’ll be up to this weekend, we’re considering going to Can Tho but there isn’t anything in particular we want to do there. Keep posted and I’ll let you know....

This is the main shopping street of Soc Trang. It also leads to one of the 2 bridges over the river (both bridges are one-way) so it is always very busy. The pavements are used for motorbike parking so it isn't a street that you can walk down and go window-shopping!

Motorbike dodging

I've said before that the traffic in HCMC on Liberation Day was crazy-busy, but words alone cannot describe just how crazy-busy it really was! So I've posted a video below. This was taken at around 9.30pm, after the fireworks had finished and everyone was on their way home. There was an insane number of motorbikes, cars and taxis on the road. And did I mention that it was raining? And that Dan and I had to cross this road on our walk home? And that there don't seem to be any road rules in Vietnam? Except for the one rule: don't hit anybody!

HCMC pics

The traffic in central HCMC on Liberation Day was intense!

Bui Vien - the main backpacker street in HCMC - on
a very quiet day

Killing time at Bobby Brewers

Watching the footy at Le Pub

(I had only just figured out how to take black and white photos on my camera while we were in HCMC - hence all the b&w pics!)

Vung Tau pics

Looking towards the headland at Vung Tau

The more popular beach in Vung Tau - check out the number of umbrellas and deck chairs!
All available for the tourists...for a price!

The less popular beach - no waves and plenty of fishing boats

Sunset over the less popular beach

The sun is setting and all the fishing boats are returning to shore

These are boats! I heard a story that these type of round boats were invented when the French decided to tax fishing boats - crafty locals would go fishing in these boats but tell the tax collectors that they were big baskets!

Kuala Lumpur pics

The night food market in Chinatown

Chinatown markets - these got much bigger and busier at night time

Freedom Square (with cricket pitch!) The fancy building behind it is a government office. In the background is an Islamic style skyscraper

More Malacca

Temple in Chinatown - the oldest one in Malaysia

Dan with the beautifully decorated cyclos, used to transport tourists around town!

Orang-utan House in Chinatown: one of the many stores selling locally made
and decorated t-shirts

On the way out of the tea centre

Dan with some new friends...

...and with some old Datsuns

St Paul's Church, Malacca

Dan inside the ruins of St Paul's Church

The white posts through the window are the remains of a lighthouse the British built out the front of the church

Remains of the old Portuguese fort behind St Paul's Church (though the cannon is a replica!)

Tombstone inside St Paul's

Singapore photos

Dan in front of a new hotel/casino being built. I think it looks like there was a massive storm which caused a cruise ship to become stranded on top of three office blocks... The curved bit in the front is going to resemble a lotus leaf when it is finished, for now it just looks like a massive skate ramp.

A temple in Chinatown

Some of the colourful buildings in Little India

Break out

Take a deep breath because this is going to be one long blog entry! Since I last wrote, Dan and I have been off on holidays, tripping through Singapore, Malaysia and around Ho Chi Minh City. We had a great break away from work and visited some amazing places. Details about where we went and what we saw are below and, because food is such an important topic, I’ve included a paragraph on what we ate and what we drank at the end of each country’s section. I’ll post some more photos and videos later…we took nearly 200 photos in just under 2 weeks, I need some time to go through and delete all the terrible ones Dan took!

Singapore

We flew into Singapore right in the middle of the volcano-ash/closed airports debacle so the place was full of stranded people. The airport was eerily quiet and every hotel in town was booked out. Luckily we had booked a hotel room a few weeks before… unluckily we had booked it using a discount website… I think that, because we had paid less for our room than all the stranded tourists, the hotel decided to put us in their worst room, the room had a most unusual aroma of sweat, dirty feet and wet carpet, every noise made in the hotel seemed to channel directly into our room and the shower had a big, gaping hole in the floor enamel (which was covered with a shower mat, unfortunately the shower mat was clear so we could see the mouldy foam underneath the enamel).

All of that didn’t matter though, Singapore gave us a great opportunity to enjoy some of the small pleasures that we didn’t even realize we had missed in Soc Trang, things like watching the news on TV, reading a newspaper in a café, walking through an air-conditioned shopping mall and eating Western food. Plus I got to go shopping! Singapore is a massive maze of shopping malls, you enter one, take a few turns, go up and down a few stories, pass an entrance to the train system and, without even realizing it, you would have passed through about 3 different shopping malls. It is a very easy place to get lost in (I speak from experience!)

We also got to catch up with my sister and her family – the whole point of our visit. It was lovely to see them all again, especially my little niece who would stare in astonishment at Dan every time he spoke. It was also very handy to be in Singapore with my brother-in-law, he knows his way around the place and was able to take us to some good restaurants (more about the food later!) and guide us through the train stations and shopping areas.

It was actually pretty strange to be in Singapore which is very rich and uber-modern. It’s a whole world away from Soc Trang! I think that our time in Singapore, as well as in Malaysia, really highlighted the disparity in wealth and lifestyles between the different parts of Southeast Asia. Dan and I kept wondering if different cities in Vietnam will develop to the same standard as those in Singapore and Malaysia, but who knows? There are plenty of signs of development here (the cities in particular are booming) but that is bringing about problems (especially in terms of the environment, traffic and, apparently youth crime is surging) and the rural areas are often being left behind.

The food: We treated our holiday as a break away from Vietnamese food and gave pigged out on Western food. The first thing we did on arriving in Singapore was to get some money out of an ATM, the second thing we did was go to a Burger King for a cheeseburger (Dan’s choice! His excuse was that we needed to break a note so we could catch a train to where we were staying). My sister also brought us over a big bag of chocolates, tea and coffee which was fantastic, it didn’t take us long to break open the bag of Easter eggs! Apart from our Western food indulgences we also had a huge Indian meal at Little India (the palak paneer was my favourite, even my 7month old niece liked it!) and some awesome satays at a night food market. We also tried some sting ray there which was quite good, the sauce it came in was great and the sting ray had a slightly firmer texture than fish but not as firm as squid. All up the food was good and the drinks were…expensive. We are too used to Soc Trang prices (80c beer, $2.50 cocktails) so it was a bit of a rude shock to go somewhere that had more expensive drink prices than Australia!

Malaysia

We had planned on making our way up to the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia after our stay in Singapore but, because my sister was stranded in Singapore we decided to spend some extra time there (luckily – and strangely – enough we were able to book our hotel room for an extra night! How odd that the hotel hadn’t booked out our room already…). So we changed our plans and ended up catching a bus to Malacca (or Melaka)on the west coast of Malaysia. The bus was actually one of the most comfortable bus rides we have taken in Southeast Asia! Big, soft cushioned seats with heaps of leg room plus well maintained roads equaled a quick and comfy ride.

We spent two nights in Malacca, it was a great place to visit. The town had previously been taken over by the Portuguese, then by the Dutch, then by the British and then by the Japanese. So there is a lot of history there! There is also a lot of old European style buildings there, as well as some ruins of the old Portuguese church and fortresses. It was really interesting to walk around and see the sites, we even visited two museums to learn more about the town’s social and naval history.

We also spent a lot of time in Malacca’s Chinatown which is a historical conservation site. It was full of spectacular old buildings, temples and mosques. And lots of cheap but good-quality clothes shops. I got to go shopping, again. I haven’t found any nice clothes shops in Soc Trang so the shopping beast in me really broke through over my holiday!

Another comfy bus ride and we were in Kuala Lumpur. We only spent one night there so it was hard to get a good idea of the city but it seems a pretty strange place. There are cars and buses everywhere, creating huge, complicated traffic jams. There are also train lines and monorails built over and under roads and sidewalks that lead to nowhere. Bizarre. The centre of town wasn’t that interesting (shopping malls and cafes) but Chinatown was pretty good. They had a massive night market there selling every designer knock-off item imaginable. I must have been asked to look at about a million different ‘designer’ handbags and pairs of sunnies. I wasn’t really interested in any of that stuff but I did manage to buy myself a long black dress for $15, bargain! (So yes, I did go shopping, again!)

The food: Dan and I continued our Western food kick. The first thing we did in Malacca was get some money out of an ATM, the second thing we did was go to a McDonalds for a cheeseburger. However, we did eat some Malaysian food. We had a laksa, tried a few Nonya dishes (which, from memory, is a fusion of Malaysian and Chinese food), tried a few more satays and had a really good, spicy chicken curry with roti bread from a small Indian place in Chinatown in KL.

Beer was much cheaper in Malaysia than Singapore (though still not as cheap as Soc Trang). Dan was particularly impressed by an 8.8% Carlsberg beer he bought in KL for about $3. However, one of my highlights of our trip was a visit to a tea centre in Malacca. There we had a pot of Chinese Oolong tea, which was prepared in a tiny (and expensive) clay teapot then poured into tiny sipping cups. It was great! The woman preparing the tea told us all about the differences and benefits of tea and also told us a bit more about the history of Malacca. The tea centre was in a lovely old building which used to be a temple and is now partly a museum. It was such a great way to spend the afternoon…for me anyway, not too sure if Dan felt the same!

We left Malaysia thinking we had done well with our mixture of Asian and Western food, though there was time for one last visit to the McDonalds at the airport to have one last Maccas burger… who knows when the next one will be? (McDonalds isn’t in Vietnam, I’ve heard rumours that they tried to expand into Vietnam but the government wouldn’t let them.)

Vietnam

Back in HCMC and back to work! We attended a two-day conference on climate change and its impact on the Mekong River. A lot of the speakers were quite interesting (though, as is usual at these things, some weren’t!) and I did learnt a lot about climate change and the challenges faces the Mekong River system. It seems there are a lot of projects and government activities happening in the Mekong but no real co-ordination between them. Hopefully establishing that co-ordination will be one of the accomplishments of the conference because, if sea levels do rise, it could spell disaster for the Mekong River basin. Soc Trang in particular could be largely flooded or have its agricultural land rendered unusable by salinity.

Unfortunately I embarrassed myself at the conference by spilling a whole cup of tea all over myself, the desk and the floor of ballroom 2. Such a klutz! I’m convinced that the tea at the Intercontinental Hotel Saigon hates me – I tried 3 times to have a cup of tea, the first one (made by an attendant) was far too weak and milky and undrinkable, the second one I spilled and the third one I lost. I gave up after that. Luckily I have plenty of tea of my own now - the French Earl Grey my sister brought over, the English Breakfast I bought at a supermarket in Singapore and some Oolong tea I found in a tea store in KL - if only I'd had a thermos full of one of my own teas with me at the conference...

After the conference Dan and I decided to go to Vung Tau, on the east coast of Vietnam, a 90min hydrofoil ride away from HCMC and a very popular seaside destination for HCMC-ers. The side of town we stayed on (the less popular side) was quite nice, there were nicely maintained parks, big, wide open roads with not much traffic, the beach was clean and the water a nice temperature. We hired a motorbike and went around to the more popular beach, it wasn’t so nice. It would have been a nice, big, long stretch of beach but it was covered in shabby umbrellas (which were rented out to tourists) and rubbish. We didn’t spend much time there. So if we do go back to Vung Tau one day we’ll be staying on the less popular side of town again!

Then, back to HCMC for the last few days of our holiday. Last Friday (30^th April) was Liberation Day and the 35^th anniversary of the liberation of South Vietnam. So there were a lot of decorations and street concerts. On Friday night there was a massive fireworks display and I think the entire population of HCMC (about 8-9million) were out on their motorbikes. The traffic was absolutely crazy! Dan and I decided to walk into town, crossing the road was a huge challenge!

We also decided to visit the Vietnam Quilts store in HCMC, where another Australian volunteer is currently working. The quilts there are really impressive, all hand-sewn by poor women in the Mekong area. I think I will have to buy a nice new quilt as a souvenir from Vietnam before I leave! (If you are interested you can check out the Vietnam Quilts webpage at www.vietnam-quilts.org).

The rest of our time in HCMC was spent shopping (groceries, books and art supplies – all designed to make life in Soc Trang that little bit more enjoyable) and relaxing either by the poolside at the Grand Hotel (not where we were staying, but it was well worth paying the $4 each to go in and use the pool), at our favourite café, Bobby Brewers, or at Dan’s favourite watering hole, Le Pub. Then it was a 5hr bus ride back to Soc Trang, a new time record! The Japanese funded bridge over part of the Mekong near Can Tho opened last weekend, no more 2hr waits for the ferry! We’ve been waiting for that bridge to open ever since we got here, it makes the trip to and from HCMC about 2-3hrs quicker and so much more convenient! It is the Labour Day holiday today but Dan and I are back at work. We have a project review starting this week and a new intern coming in later this month. Interesting times in Soc Trang!

The food: We continued our Western kick in HCMC and Vung Tau. For some reason we seem to crave Italian food most of all, so we had plenty of pizzas, pasta and lasagna. We had the nicest Itlaian we have ever had in Vietnam in Vung Tau at a place called David’s. We also had an Aussie beef pie in Vung Tau – there are a lot of ex-pats working in the oil rigs off the coast of Vung Tau so there are a lot of Aussie pubs and Western restaurants there. We branched out a bit more in HCMC and had Thai and Indian, though, as previously mentioned, we mostly went to Bobby Brewers. Dan likes the coffee there and I always end up ordering the tuna, mayo, tomato and lettuce baguette. On Saturday we left HCMC after grabbing some breakfast from the bakery (croissants, pastries and a muffin – can’t get those in Soc Trang!), said goodbye to Western food and hot showers and made our way back to Soc Trang and back to eating Vietnamese food again. Not that that is a bad thing! Last night we had a huge vegetarian meal with grilled eggplant, yum, and the café lady was so happy to see us again that she has given us free coffees, fruit, biscuits and 7-up, isn’t it nice to be home!