3 weeks in.......

Greetings from Hanoi

Hello everyone,

Well we arrived into Hanoi very early on Saturday 3^rd March; grey and raining and so feeling very much like Manchester , but there any similarity with the North West of England ended.

Our first day and night was spent at the Sofitel  Metropole Hotel which we had read to be one of the top hotels in SE Asia. So it was a bit of a treat after a long flight. And what a beautiful hotel it is.  The  recurring thought though is that every single member of staff is an ambassador for the hotel; polite, friendly ,bright  but never unctuous. The hotel is expensive but not offputting. A good experience.

Another learning experience or realization for me has been about Branding. As with anywhere in the world we say ‘Manchester’ and someone says ‘Manchester United’. But I then say ‘ah but I support Brighton and Hove Albion; they play in the Championship’ , and the person says ‘ oh you mean the Coca Cola Championship’.  And one person said ‘ I support the Emirates’. Didn’t mention Arsenal. I guess  that’s the power of Branding.

You wouldn’t  guess that this is a Socialist country. Yes I go past the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and a statue of Lenin on my way to work, but the spirit of enterprise here , at least on the surface, overrides  everything.. There are a lot of well off people here, I’m sure that as a percentage of the total population it’s a tiny proportion , but here in Hanoi it’s a clearly visible element. And if the Government make tax revenues from this , then that must help the country.

There are controls here; both State and Local, and I fell foul of one early on. The office have arranged a Taxi  Account for me and as I speak no proper Vietnamese yet , the receptionist here telephones the taxi firm to pick me up from the office to take me home. And you can imagine what rush hour is like here, particularly where the Mazars office is ( in the middle of what I would call the Vietnamese business area). Anyway, on my second day I thought ‘I don’t need for them to call me a taxi, I’ll just walk out of the office and hail one, as there are always loads around’. So 45 minutes later, completely lost, not able to use the phone because of the noise and even if I could use the phone it would be pointless as I had no idea where I was. So the ‘Control’ is that the Taxi firms have been told that they are not allowed to be in specific areas at certain times of the day. And that’s why I couldn’t find a taxi. Karen was just about to call the British Embassy (joke) , when I eventually stumbled into the apartment.

Househunting is  both interesting and tiring. Finding an agent is no problem and they are as keen as mustard to help. If a westerner wants to live in the area most westerners live, then it seems that the privilege has to be paid for ( unless you are well connected I guess). The houses are on the big side of huge and usually at the expense of any garden. So with our dog needing a bit of outside space to mooch around, we don’t want a 5 bedroom/5 bathroom  viila which basically opens out right onto the street ( there are lots of these).

The office staff  are absolutely lovely and have helped me so much. To reciprocate I am regularly being asked for advice on writing little bits of English better, which is a pleasure. The language is going to be a challenge; I knew this already. To illustrate this point , we live on Xuan Dieu Street and this is pronounced ‘soon zioww’ ( the soon is a bit like  a northerner in the UK would say ‘sun’ and the ‘zioww’ rhymes with  the noise a cat makes).

I’ve attatched 3 photos; the office, my son Joe pushing our dog through customs in her crate, and 3 audit managers (Anh, Minh, and Son Ha  and Joe) out last Friday after work which proved to be a late one.

Until next time, when I will definitely be discussing the traffic and how it works…..