Not What I Expected

Today ended up a little differently than I thought it would – I ended up playing darts with a Russian, a few Aussies, and some Americans at the American Club tonight.

But my day actually started with me waking up on my own around 6:15 am – I went to sleep really early, figuring that the morning announcements (6:30 on Saturday for whatever reason) would be less irritating if I woke up on my own, instead of being woken up by them. It’s a mostly accurate theory – but I still wish I knew what they were saying, because there’s no way I can’t hear them.

After a slow morning, during which I took a nap (if it helps, I remarked to myself about my pathetic laziness), I decided to set out for a nice, long walk around town, that would include lunch at the Italian place I went to last week. It’s still lovely, by the way. I walked past our office, which took me past the ancient citadel of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, the Presidential Palace, and some other landmark-y things. It was a nice, long walk, but I have to admit that my tolerance for being harangued by motorbike taxis is waning quickly. I couldn’t go more than ten minutes, usually five, without someone yelling, frantically waving his arms, and/or almost causing an accident, just to get my attention. And a simple “no” wasn’t enough – at least four of them said “where are you going?” to which I responded “I want to walk” with increasing frostiness. The first few times, I can deal with it with relatively good humor, but the number of times I was approached today easily made its way well into double digits, so it got old. Vietnamese people are never similarly pestered, it’s just people who look like me. I can even be out walking with Itsy Bitsy and Teeny Weeny, sometimes we’ve just gotten out of our car and someone will come up to me and say “motorbike, miss??” I know they have to earn a living, but I just want to walk down the street and be left alone sometimes.

In any event, I had a nice walk, covering a lot of the city. Took some pictures that will, I hope, turn out nicely. I stopped in a place that I’d heard about to get a drink, and sipped some fresh pineapple juice while reading my book. The place is called the Kangaroo Café, and it’s an Australian-owned and operated pub, which is notable for their tours of places like SaPa (the mountains in the north) and Halong Bay. So, note to self for my next trip here – I should book a tour with them, as they have a good reputation. I wandered for about another hour, and made my way over to The Spotted Cow, (another Aussie-run pub) for a beer. As I was sitting there, reading my book, I started chatting with two other guys sitting at the bar, an American guy named Eric and a Russian guy named Vladimir. After some more chit-chat, they mentioned that they were heading to the American Club next door, and would I like to come along and play some darts? I said sure, since I didn’t actually have anything planned for the rest of the evening. The Club itself was nothing special, which I remember being the case with the one in Karachi as well. Nonetheless, it was fun. I was about the only white women there; it was mostly expat guys and their Vietnamese wives. I was primarily chatting with Vlad and Eric, but everyone was really friendly – I think I also got invited to some formal Embassy thing at the Daewoo Hotel on Saturday…I don’t think I’ll be going, though. Even though I can get something made to wear, I don’t really have appropriate footwear, so I’ll give it a pass. As isn’t too surprising, I suppose, there were a lot of people there who were either from DC or who had lived there at some point. (It was mostly Embassy folks, a lot of State Department and/or military types.) There were a lot of Aussies there as well, and generally a nice, genial crowd, with freely flowing beer. And darts. What a combo…

No one was injured by an errant dart, however, so happy times all around. I actually made it to the second round of the tournament before Vlad took me out, but his insistence on never letting my beer mug stay empty for more than a few minutes meant that I was actually relieved to be out of the tournament, so that I could call it a night. I’m actually not too bad at darts, but I’m always amazed when I actually hit something I’m aiming for, since a little thing like “aim” has never really been my strong suit. The surprise is also pretty clearly written on my face.

In any event, it was a fun night, I packed it in around 10 pm and went down the street to get some food, since I hadn’t had much to eat since lunch, which had been getting increasingly further away as the clock kept ticking. Had to get something into my stomach to soak up all that Tiger Beer (a Singapore brew which is very popular in Vietnam – it’s kind of like…well, kind of like Bud, I think – but it’s what they had and it’s what was bought for me). After a suitably greasy dinner, I got into a cab and made my way back to the hotel. And got ripped off again. I have a very negative view of cabs in Hanoi thus far, I have to say.

One of my co-workers said that her daughter would like to meet me, so I am now spending tomorrow afternoon being shown around Hanoi by two 16-year-old girls, since she asked if she could bring a friend. I don’t know enough about the city to know what I’d like to see beyond what I have already seen, so when she called me and asked me what I’d like to see, I didn’t really have a good answer, as I’d already seen a lot of the big tourist-y things today. Honestly, I kind of wish I could get out of it, but I don’t see how I possibly could without hurting someone’s feelings, which I don’t want to do. So we’ll go, I’m sure it will be fun, and then I’ve got to spend tomorrow night packing for the upcoming trip this week to Ha Tinh province.

I keep seeing things on the news about the Kashmir earthquake – the amount of destruction there is just unbelievable. And of all the places – this is an area where people are so poor, they just have no capacity to recover from something like this. Apparently, international aid is lagging far behind what was promised, and winter is setting in, it’s going to get very, very bad there, and people will continue to die in huge numbers. Whatever my experiences were in Pakistan, I think that it’s just so tragic, and it honestly bothers me that aid has lagged so far behind what they need. If a natural disaster happens in a place that isn’t an international resort destination, do we just not care as much? I’d like to be less cynical than that, and I know that the logistics of getting aid to people in these remote areas are so incredibly difficult, but are we just on natural disaster overload, as some news commentators have said?

Okay – that’s enough of that for one day. I’d best be getting to bed, anyway.