The sound of leather on willow.....in Vietnam !

Hello to all,

you may know that I can track the page reads to my blogs (Google Blogspot provide all the stats). Since I started ( 19 editons ago !), the blog has had nearly 8000 page reads , and not just just from UK , but all over the world. Up to now the best read edition was 'Vietnam for Eurovision' , probably due to its title and people finding it by accident on searches for Eurovision. But my last post 'There'll be seagulls over the streets of Cambodia' had a massive viewing spike a couple of weeks ago........400 reads in one day and all from the same viewing source. How curious. Well this was NOT the Head Office of the Cambodian Birdwatchers Association. What it was , was another Brighton and Hove Albion fan stumbling across the Seagulls Bar in Phnom Penh and putting it on the club's Fan Forum ( NorthStandChat). Somebody else then found my posting, put a link up , and hey presto I had 400 page reads in 24 hours all from the same link. Isn't the internet amazing...... . I very much doubt that any of my fellow Brighton fans will ever look at my blog again though ( LOL).

Today is a pisser.....literally. I was just getting ready to take Sally out for her walk, and then looking forward to Saturday afternoon tennis, and suddenly down came the Big Rain. My advice to the UK Water Boards is just to move some of their resevoirs to Vietnam, we'll fill 'em up in no time, and we'll give you a good price.

So to my headline..........only a number of readers will realise that this is a Cricket analogy. So what's the story? Well in 2012 Hanoi won the bid to host the 2019 Asian Games. According to Vietweek ( an English language newspaper here),  South Korea spent 1.62Bn USD and Qatar 2.8Bn USD in hosting these games in the past. Vietnam have committed 300m, and the newspaper goes on to say that Dubai, Taipei,Kuala Lulpur, New Delhi and Hong Kong all withdrew from the race ( mainly for financial reasons). Vietnam are now considering a 'withdrawal plan' .......I am guessing because of the cost, which I further guess will be in excess of 300m USD. There are 36 sports competed, of which 28 are Olympic and 8 are popular Asian sports. Of the 28, facilities would have to be built/adapted/improved for such sports as American Football, Baseball and.........Cricket. Yes Cricket in Vietnam. I shall be glued to my TV in 2019 looking for the quizzical expressions in the crowd ( if there is one) when the Vietnamese try to understand Cricket. However there will be some interesting variants of 'How'zat'!!

Two photos to finish.......'Selfies' seem to be flavour of the month at present. So here's a kind of a 'selfie' of Sally who somehow wormed her way onto the bed yesterday. She looks very contented.

And finally, just to prove that I did not come to Hanoi for the weather, here's the view from my office yesterday. Hanoi is not the Riviera of SE Asia.



Cheers all ....till next time

Kevin

"They'll be Seagulls over the streets of Cambodia".................

Hello to all,

Since my last post we've been to Cambodia.... but more of that later.

Every now and then you find something that's slightly different to what you'd expect, caused by the local culture. The other day I paid my first visit to Landmark 72 in Hanoi , a new skyscraper which (unsurpringly) has 72 floors and is the tallest building in Hanoi, located several km away from the touristy parts of the city It was exactly as I would have expected......lots of offices , retail and cafe's on the ground floor and so on. And as most people would I asked the person I was seeing there if we could go to the top floor to see the view. It was a nice day  with a blue sky ( very rare here) so I was looking forward to seeing the Hanoi panorama. But I was told that rather than the top floor being a home for an expensive restaurant or bar/nightclub or maybe one of the top  firms in Hanoi, it was unlet. Seems there is no cachet in Vietnam to being at the top. Or maybe its my recurrent Health and Safety issue coming back into play.....who knows.

So to Cambodia. In Phnom Penh there we were coming out of a local restaurant one lunchtime, when my eyes did a huge'double take'. Right in front of me was a Tuk Tuk with a rather large Brighton and Hove Albion (my team !) sign on the back to advertise the Seagulls Bar just round the corner. Well ( much to Karen's amusement or maybe the word should be resignation) , that was our evening sorted. The owner, Rob, is a season ticket holder and hails from Lancing and we had a great chat about life as Seagulls fans.So here's to you Rob mate.....you're now on my list and I will pester you with my blog every few weeks or so.

One photo I have wanted to take, but have never had the nerve or sleight of hand is of the hand of any one of hundreds of taxi drivers here who have one very long ( and I mean seriously long) index finger nail. Why .......I don't know. What they use them for.........I won't mention.

Now to a more difficult subject. We also visited Bangkok to see a specialist for Karen's cough , which had gone on far too long. The plan was then to go to a beach resort for a few days. What we didn't plan though was the specialist saying that Karen needed to stay in hospital there for 2 weeks , due to a condition called Aspergillosis. ( Just Google it rather than letting me explain it). Its almost certainly caused by the humidity and pollution of the Hanoi climate, and we are VERY lucky that we went when we did. I'll leave it at that.

Well that's a slightly strange ending paragraph, but I never plan these newsletters in advance so I guess I'll end here.

Very best to all

Kevin

 

The photos below are Karen in a crowd from the top of a tower in Ankgor Wat,, the inside of the beautiful French Market building from the 1930's in Pnhom Penh, and finally me driving an OxCart, ( just before veering off the road and having to be rescued.)

All that glitters........well it's probably gold.

Hello to all,

and a belated happy New Year. Although it's actually not New Year here for a couple of weeks at a time known as Tet. Over the Tet holidays we are going to Cambodia for a week. I've just been out walking the dog and everything seemed strangely familiar. It's 12 degrees, leaden grey sky, gusty wind and pissing with rain. And the locals are not happy with this 'English' weather ha ha. I have a few dog walking routes here. Today, my route took me past a locals 'cock fight' pictured here (sorry I couldn't get too close 'cos of the dog.....obviously.), then through one of the local graveyards (pictured, and there are so many local customs here including digging the bones up to clean them after a few years) and finally pictured is 'Quat Tree City'. These are grown in abundance for Tet and every household gets one (including us !).

I had a fairly surreal trip in a taxi the other day. It is of course compulsary for taxi drivers here to be using their mobiles whilst driving. It's probably part of the driving test and I  reckon that if they passed a law here forbidding the use of mobiles whilst driving, then the phone companies would go bust. But this driver was engaged in two separate conversations on two different phones. I was thinking of offering to hold the steering wheel for him.

And so to gold. We have read that personal ownership of hoarded gold in Vietnam is the highest of any country in the world. And by a considerable margin. Combined with Vietnam's low Government Reserves, this has led to an initiative to try to persuade people to take and deposit their gold with the State Bank of Vietnam. A Certificate will be issued to prove ownership, and in turn the Government can use the increased gold reserves as collateral to raise money on the International Markets. Just a fascinating situation.

Yesterday we did a City Walk run by the Friends of Vietnam Heritage. Usually I avoid these as they take you from temple to pagoda to temple to pagoda. But this one concentrated on the traditional 36 streets of the Old Quarter and market areas showing all kinds of food being prepared, took us up 'ordinary' alleyways and pointed out some fascinating stuff about day to day life here. A couple of photos from yesterday show the only surviving gate to the city (from the original 16 gates), and then a war mural celebrating the struggle against the French in the late Forties and early Fifties. There are a number of these around the city.

My wife Karen is really struggling with the air quality here in Hanoi which gives her a constant cough. Most expats here monitor a website called www.aqicn.org . This shows air quality in cities around the world. Hanoi sticks stubbornly in the Red ( Unhealthy) or the Purple (Very Unhealthy)

 

 

No apologies for another Dog story. The only other Expat on our street was manipulated into paying 1000 USD to get her dog back the other day having 'lost' him. There seemed to be no concept of returning the dog as a favour to a neighbour, and 1000 USD goes a long way here. A salutory lesson.

And finally.........we watched in horror as a cement mixer truck failed to turn into a street going forwards (because of the wires across the street entrance) , and in a fit of local logic the driver then reckoned that he could successfully manage the manoevre by going backwards. Why is that going to work? But it seemed to amuse all the passers by.

Till next time everybody

Very best

Kevin

My Wife is a Page 3 Girl

Hello to all,

Well sometimes a headline just arrives, and this one I had to grab. But you are going to have to get to the end of the blog to see what it's about. And please don't feel let down when you get there......ho ho.

For anyone who is interested, the recent typhoon did arrive in Northern Vietnam , but by the time it got to Hanoi, it had pretty much run out of steam and just deposited a vast quantity of rain on the city. The evening before it was due here, we moved all of our garden furniture inside and we noticed that our gardener had secured our trees with cord attached to the garden walls. But you can see from the photo here (taken about 100 metres from our house) that other peoples' preparation was of a fairly 'Heath Robinson' nature. And since that day, the ladder has disappeared.



 Now the weather is just lovely. About 20-25 degrees, blue sky, cool in the morning and evening. But when I emerge to go to work at 7'ish in the morning (thinking "this is bloody lovely, why can't it be like this all year?"), I have to smile at the sight of the locals who are in puffa jackets, scarves, gloves, woolly hats and shuffle around braced against the 'Arctic' conditions.

It was Karen's birthday a week or so ago, and our treat was to stay for a night at the Metropole in Hanoi. This is THE hotel in Hanoi and it has an amazing history. Pictured here is the entrance to the Bomb Shelter under the hotel from the American War which incredibly was only 'rediscovered' about 2 years ago, and has now been designated a Unesco Heritage site. This was where Jane Fonda and Joan Baez (amongst others) gathered when American bombs were dropping on the city in the early seventies.

Last week saw the Hanoi International Women's Club Annual Charity Bazaar. This is not (as one of my colleagues 'kindly' suggested) a few ladies baking cakes, but is a highly organized event attracting about 10,000 visitors over a full day with about 100 participating organisations, including this year 43 different countries and communities (many of them Embassy backed) displaying food and craft from their area of the world. Karen was the Country Table Coordinator in 2012 (helping the Chinese and Taiwanese and also the Israeli and Palestinian tables to peacefully co-exist) but this year she ran the British Table. We persuaded one of the local hotels (the Marriot) to produce Fish and Chips and boy did they fly out the door! Everybody is hoping that last year's Bazaar total of 125k USD is going to be exceeded, with all proceeds going to Northern based Vietnamese charities. It is a simply astonishing event and I am proud to have Mazars as one of the key sponsors. Here is a picture of the UK table, and if you look very carefully you can see that one of the offerings was a "love it or hate it" Marmite Challenge..

And so to my Page 3 wife. Karen wrote an article about the K (cancer)  hospital in Hanoi which one of the local magazines was very pleased to tell her was going be published and innocently advised  "Miss Karen, we are going to publish you on Page 3". We had to smile.





And finally......you remember our houseguest Roland Rat a few months ago? Well here's our new houseguest. Anyone who has any clue what 'it' is......please let us know, as we want to give it' a name.
















Back to the UK for Xmas soon .

Very best to all

Kevin

THERE REALLY IS NOTHING ON TV TODAY.................

Hello to all,

it's only a month since my last newsletter, but actually quite a lot has happened over that short space of time. I have a little notebook , and whenever something happens that I  think is 'blog-worthy' ......in it goes.

Those of you that know me well, know that really I am a frustrated advertising executive or marketing guru. So when I was staying recently at my usual hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, I thought I would take a snap of a great bit of lateral marketing thinking. If you run a 3 or 4 Star hotel, that is really good, with a great repuation, but you want to 'catch the eye' and differentiate from the many competitors, then what do you do? Well maybe you could have 7 Stars on your logo? Whoever thought this up gets a pat on the back from me.

So today, there really is nothing on TV. Not that I watch much here, but even if I wanted to go to the cinema today or to a concert, I couldn't.. For the whole weekend , the country is paying tribute to General Vo Nguyen Giap, who died last week, aged 102. I have to say that I had never heard of him, but this is the guy who saw off the French in the 50's and and Americans in the 70's. He was a national hero, and my taxi journey to work every day this week took me past the astonishing queues of people waiting to visit his home to pay tribute. Many of them were carrying yellow flowers, and in the beautiful Hanoi sunshine it was sombre, calm and dignified, as young, middle aged, elderly and extremely elderly waited patiently in line in a queue that I reckon snaked about a mile.

Moving on......I know I have rambled on about retail and shopping here before. So here's just a short and simple illustration. Karen and I went to a big , 5 floor electrical store to buy a small computer part. The photo does not do it justice, but on this floor (which was pretty small) there were 37 shop assistants, 5 security guards, 3 customers, and could we get served? The lipstick was perfect, the nails were pristine, the ipad thoroughly watched, the smartphone studied, the mirror scrutinised but the customers were not noticed. If only I could be invisible when I really want to be.

Just to highlight the multicultural aspects of life here......how about this? Last week , in Hanoi , Karen and I went to the cinema with a couple from Bolivia, to watch a movie in Welsh and Spanish , at which the special guests were the Ambassador of Argentina and the star of the film (a 26 year old Argentinian actor who was in Hanoi shooting another movie)? The film is called Patagonia by the way. Look it out....an amazing true story about which I knew nothing. Welsh immigrants in Argentina in the 1900's.

And finally.........I have no idea whether this 'craze'  if that is the correct word) has reached outside Vietnam, but what do you make of these photos? In a 'normal' aquarium shop in Hanoi, crazy coloured  live frogs and painted (or tattooed?) fish. Who knows what is happening here. We asked.....they laughed......somebody mentioned China........we went away..........enough said.





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Till next time everyone,

very best

kevin


......and as I am sure you have realized, no blog of mine is complete without some 'death defying' Health and Safety photos........

ANOTHER WORLD COMPLETELY

Hello to all,

Well for the last 2 or 3 months the weather has been rain, rain, rain.   Heavy rain, light rain, torrential rain, 'standing under a lukewarm shower in the bathroom rain'.  And the rest of the time just sticky and grey. But today.......the sun is shining. Slowly here comes the good weather. October/November/December are the nicest months in Hanoi and we are going to use the garden and enjoy the outdoors. Life is great.


Our new house is in another world. On one side of our lane (well track to be precise) you find houses like ours, and on the other side are some small family dwellings with their own plots of  agricultural land. One picture here shows a dwelling where a family does actually live ( I took the picture just by our front gate).  The picture below shows, in the distance, the Fraser Suites where we stayed for the first 6 weeks after arriving here last year.  It's maybe 300 metres away but on the other side of the main road, which is 'expatville'. We are so close, yet so far from our old area in Hanoi, in a very Vietnamese area now, and when we tell other expats where we live they tend to say " Oh wow.....I've never ventured over the other side of the main road before. What's it like?".

One major issue here is the difficulty in getting taxis. We have an incomprehensible address, that even locals look at as they scratch their heads. They use numbering systems for the small lanes and alleys that adjoin the named roads, and our number has obviously been produced by Hanoi's 'random number' machine, 'cos it makes no sense at all. But we have our 'taxi lifesaver'.  This is Mr. Ninh (or his fiance Miss Phuong). He is our gardener/maintenance man (before you ask, yes we still have Ms Chi as our housekeeper). We now get Mr. Ninh to ring for a taxi , and each time we know that in Vietnamese he is saying "Go down Lane 200 Au Co; go past the market and turn left onto the track where there's a sign with a lane number that seems to have been borrowed from another district of Hanoi". And sure enough, the taxis come......although when it's raining we have a long wait, and sometimes a taxi might refuse to drive past the market, which in the morning is heaving with people, and so we have to walk 150 metres and hope that somebody else hasn't nabbed the taxi.

Changing the subject, blogging is getting quite interesting here. There is a real crackdown on bloggers. Not bloggers like me, who merely chat about nothing in particular, but rather bloggers who have a point to make......and the point is usually one which is frowned upon , no matter its relative merits. I make no judgement here, and perhaps enough is now said (and hopefully understood).

Changing the subject again I thought I would share 3 interesting photos with you.  The first two show the view from two of the Mazars offices I have visited recently - Hong Kong and then Liverpool - compared to the third which is the view from my office window. Where did I go wrong when we chose the Hanoi office?

I can't remember whether I have ever covered the fact that I am now a member of the Hanoi Whisky Club. What a fine institution it is. And how much have I learned and can now appreciate about Single Malt Whisky! There have only been around 80 members in 9 years (with a maximum of around 20 at any one time). It's a real privilege.

Ok everyone.....until next time,

very best to all, and to close, how about this? An Atlas moth in our back garden.

Kevin

SHALLOW EXPAT RAMBLINGS...............

Hello to everybody........

Well today there will be nothing particularly profound: no earthshattering observations, nothing deep or meaningful, but just a collection of selected, unconnected thoughts from the last few weeks. So let's set the tone right away:

Halibu....... ha ha. Nothing needs to be said here. Every time I see our bottle in the kitchen it makes me smile .

And now a message to the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the UK. Every time I come back to the UK I have to start dealing with COINS. In Vietnam it's just NOTES. Notes are way better in my view; easier to store, easier to handle, and they don't clank about in your pocket. But that isn't to say that the currency in Vietnam is perfect. There are so many 'noughts' that it makes you dizzy. Yesterday we finished work on a deal here where a company was sold and the figure was in the trillions of Dong. It was so long that it nearly went off the side of the page.

We've now moved house. We love our new house; Sally loves our new house. Here's a photo of something which our landlord left us in the garden. Clearly this is a Go Go Dancers cage from a defunct Hanoi nightclub.

As is the norm here, we asked for a safe to store cash and valuables . And boy did our new landlord deliver us a safe. There will be no sneaking out with this little beauty. It's a monster and we won't be accidentally taking this at the end of our lease as excess baggage.

So whilst I said there is nothing profound in this posting, here is a thought process that possibly has a little depth. 'Expat Possessions'. We are paying 71.08 GBP every month for storage in a warehouse in Leeds for the possessions that we didn't bring with us to Vietnam. Neither Karen nor I can remember what these possessions are. We have managed perfectly well without them for 18 months. So what are they? Possessions or emotional baggage? And how will we feel in a couple of years when we open the container and say....."Wow , I remember these"?

And moving this thought process on, when we moved into this house last week, we found 15 cases of possessions in the cellar. These didn't belong to the previous tenant , but to somebody else who left Vietnam 8 years ago but couldn't afford to take them at the time. The person apparently wanted them to be stored for her, didn't want to pay, and consistently wouldn't pay for them to be shipped. Well anyway they are now in the community recycling system in Hanoi and we have an empty cellar.

Moving swiftly along, I went to Hong Kong recently on business. When reading the local newspaper I read about a survey of men living there between the ages of 40 to 50. It claimed that over 50% of them would willingly trade living a shorter life with having a full head of hair. I read it twice to ensure I had not misread it. I had not misread it.

My final thought today. I have fallen in love again. It was a sudden realization of a love that I used to have which gradually faded until I had forgotten all about it. And now in Vietnam it has sprung back into my life with a youthful energy that makes my old heart leap (just a little). I will make my re-affirmation of this love right here and now in this blog. I LOVE the Radio (Digital of course) and in particular I LOVE BOB HARRIS. I listen to him every week on 'catch up radio'. What a voice he has; so soothing , so smooth, and so restful. Long live Bob Harris.

Cheers everyone,.......some more photos below.......

Kevin

A Mahjong set I bought for Karen,who plays with friends from the Asian Women's Group in Hanoi.

Our front garden.........