How Did I Miss This Yesterday??

I was awoken early this morning, because apparently they do that public broadcast thing in Hanoi, too. I am not kidding, and I was ready to kill someone when it started at around 6:30 this morning. The construction noise and incessant honking of horns, I can deal with. But this is something I can’t sleep through. It’s not like I even sleep all that late, but I’d like to be able to make it past 6:30 am on a Saturday. Grr… I got to bed early enough so that I think I got a decent amount of sleep, but this is SO not cool, and I can’t see any earthly reason for it. Of course, that’s at least partially because I can’t understand what they’re saying. But unless it’s a public address about how the city is under nuclear attack, I can’t really see what could be so important.

I went to pick up my stuff at the tailor last night, and they had messed up every single piece. There was nothing that was wearable, so I left it all there. I could have asked them to reimburse me for the fabric they wasted, I suppose, but communication was difficult enough as it was. I was not happy, to say the least – they couldn’t even fix what they’d messed up because it was so far off the mark, and it didn’t even look as though they’d used the measurements they took of me. I got back to the hotel and decided that room service wasn’t going to cut it, so I went out for dinner to a nice place down the street, then came back to watch a movie and chill out. After “recharging” my cell phone so that I could use it again, I managed to use up all of the money on it with one fairly short phone call to my dad, so I suppose that Teeny Weeny’s estimate of what would be a good amount of money on my phone for the remainder of my time here was just a smidge off. Oh well – I’ll just get more.

I decided that I’d had a little too much togetherness with the rest of the project team these past weeks, so when Itsy Bitsy said that she and TW would be glad to show me around Hanoi this weekend, I politely declined and said that I’d like to do it next weekend. I just need a little time not be so scheduled, and making plans with people usually involves agreeing on times and places and all those kinds of things. I got up this morning and eventually decided to go for a walk. It’s been looking like rain was coming all morning, but so far there’s been nothing more than a sprinkle or two. I had my umbrella with me just in case, but figured that I could wait around all day and it was possible that rain would never come, so I should just go. I went to a couple other tailors this morning to get a few things made and see what kind of work they do. I have a great deal more confidence in the places I went to today, so I think they’ll be good. Fortunately, I didn’t bring any of the fabric that I brought with me from home to the first tailor – so they didn’t mess up anything I can’t replace.

I walked all around the lake (well, there are several large ones in the city – I’m nearest to Hoan Kiem Lake), and ducked into some back streets to see what was there. Mostly I just wanted to be out and about and getting some fresh air. I figured that if the rain started, I could hop in a cab and come back to the hotel, but until then, I’d walk until I didn’t feel like it any more. I looked into some art galleries, some more shops, and things like that. They call Hanoi the Green City, which is an appropriate nickname, as there are tons of old trees lining almost every street and sidewalk. It’s a really beautiful place in a lot of ways, and as I’ve mentioned before, you definitely get the feeling that it’s an old city, with all the narrow street and big trees.

After a few hours, I decided that I should head back, but since I’d gotten completely ripped off by the cab driver this morning, and it still wasn’t raining, I decided to walk. It’s really not that far a walk from my old hotel, but I really miss my old hotel in some ways. As I was walking down Hai Ba Trung Street, some guy clipped me with his motorbike. I’m fine, he didn’t run over anything, nothing’s broken or really even bruised, but it did cause me to curse someone out in public for the first time ever (swearing at other drivers in my car doesn’t count, FYI). I don’t think he heard it because he kept driving, and even if he had, I doubt he’d have understood it. Or cared, really. It wasn’t like I was screaming in the middle of the street or anything, but when someone smacks into me with their motorbike as I’m walking on the sidewalk and then doesn’t have the courtesy to even look over at me, much less apologize, it does cause a few expletives to slip out.

I’ve retreated to my hotel room, and I may go out again later this afternoon, but for now I’m all about crashing for a bit. Besides, it’s that kind of gray day that makes you want to curl up in bed with a movie or a good book – and I’ve got plenty of both to choose from, fortunately. The food and room service at this hotel are okay, but not great, so I may go out again for dinner. There’s supposed to be a great Italian place not too far from here, which sounds yummy to me, so I’ll try that. I’m also going to bring a book this time, which I didn’t last night. The place I went to, which was quite nice and is across the street from my hotel, wasn’t too full and my table didn’t have a good view of the street, so I couldn’t even people-watch to pass the time. A book is essential!

As a brief tangent, my dad tells me that the Chicago White Sox won the World Series. As a die-hard, life-long White Sox fan, he’s very, very happy, so hurrah for Dad! If it couldn’t be the Red Sox again, then I’m glad my dad’s team won. (But come on, Red Sox. What happened??)

There was some talk last week of switching our schedule around and spending next week in the field, instead of the following week. Now that I’m actually back in Hanoi, I’m really glad to have the week in between, even though that means I have to pack and unpack a few more times. At first I was thinking that, since I was in “on the road” mode (ooh! I rhymed!), it would be good to just keep going. In a sense, maybe it would have been, but I feel pretty much mentally exhausted so the break is good. There’s something about being in the field that’s just different. The days are a lot longer and less predictable, but at the same time, just about every second is scheduled. I’m usually quite the planner and scheduler myself, but it’s a different thing if it’s someone else’s schedule, I suppose.

As a post-script, the Italian place was delicious, and for $22 and change, I got a lovely 3-course meal which started with fresh-baked foccacia and ended with a delicious, delicate, and not-too-sweet apple tart, plus two glasses of wine. And that includes a nice tip. It was probably quite expensive by Vietnamese standards, but I’ve easily spent twice that, if not more, during a night out in DC. Now I’m back in my hotel room, deciding whether to watch an unspeakably bad movie on HBO or go for something from my own collection. Or continue reading the very good book I started at dinner. Decisions, decisions.

A Buncha Blog Posts

So, since my internet connection in Phu Yen was somewhat lacking, to say the least, I just posted about 3 or 4 posts from this past week. If you want to catch up, just keep scrolling down!

Back in the City

We had kind of a long day yesterday, starting with a 6:30 breakfast, followed by a 7:30 meeting, and a two hour drive back to Nha Trang. Then we found out that our flight was delayed by a few hours for no particular reason. In the end, it’s all fine because we made it back here, and it’s not like I had anything else to do anyway, but *wow* are the airport seats in Nha Trang uncomfortable. It actually used to be a US military base during the war (it’s in Cam Ranh Bay, south of Nha Trang), then it was a Vietnamese military base, and was finally converted to a public airport a few years ago. In fact, I think one of my co-workers was based there when he was in the Army during the war, and I think I drove on some of the roads he built – I was told that one road we were driving on was built by the US military during the war, and that these roads were still some of the best in the country. So, well done, Colonel.

But to give you an idea of how much time we had to do not a lot of anything, I made it through a 300-page book yesterday, no pictures, and no big print (in case some of you were wondering…Matt.)

I was awoken at 5 am by the ol’ public broadcast once again, but then we had another power outage – and the hidden benefit of that is that there’s nothing to power the speakers airing said broadcast out into the open, so I got an extra 30 minutes of sleep. Yay! I also don’t think that I shared the room with any roaches of any description, and the ants seemed to be going away (although, I had to rinse some dead ones out of some of my toiletries last night. That’s a whole other level of nastiness, let me tell you.) We packed everything up, I lugged my ridiculously huge-mongous suitcase down the stairs, and we went to meet some people for breakfast. It was nice, but WOW was this the slowest place I’d ever been to in my life. Even slower than Thyme Square in Bethesda, and that’s really saying something. Millie was in full “mother in law” mode after we’d been waiting for our food for over 40 minutes, which was actually kind of funny. She’s great, but I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side!

The meeting went quickly and I think it went well. I’m never sure if people listening to me speak at these things are thinking “how can one woman be so dumb and still remember to breathe?” or “hey – that’s a good point!” But since several people said something about “I think Amanda made a good point”, I think it was okay. Although, I only knew for sure that they were saying my name, Itsy Bitsy could have been making the rest up, for all I know.

In any event, we got on the road a little ahead of schedule, which was good because I’d rather have too much time at the airport than not enough. We had hired a van with two drivers to take us there, and it was funny to watch the two guys interact. I couldn’t tell if they were actually friendly with each other, and if not, that’s a long time to be in a car with someone, considering the four hour round trip. Half of the time, they were chatting or driving along in amiable silence. But once in a while, the guy driving would say something, or would swerve around a car on the highway, and the guy in the passenger seat would look at him with a withering glance that was a mixture of disdain and profound irritation. At this point, I would just turn back to my book and chuckle quietly to myself.

We found out en route that our flight was delayed by about three hours for no particular reason that we were aware of. Unfortunately, though, the guys driving the van had to pick up another guy and haul him back to Phu Yen, so they couldn’t stick around to let us do some things in Nha Trang before going to the airport. We got to the airport, and there was a small café where we decided to get some lunch and chill out until we could check in. Now, this is a small airport. It makes the airports in Madison, WI or Burlington, VT (both lovely little airports) look like O’Hare or JFK. So there wasn’t exactly an abundance of activities or venues to explore. The café was it. We ordered lunch, which wasn’t bad, and got comfy in our chairs. PM decided to go take a nap in a little side room, and we read and chatted occasionally to pass the time. I went into the terminal to use the ladies’ room and saw that we could check in for our flight, an hour sooner than we’d originally been told we could. I came back in and told the group that we could check in, so we gathered our things, and IB went to go wake up PM. She came out a few minutes later and said that he told her to check in for him. Millie didn’t really like this approach – she said “well, who does he think will carry his bags??”, a fair question, as he’d bought some coconuts and other food that were now wrapped in a large and unwieldy Styrofoam box. She said something that didn’t sound very nice in Vietnamese, and when I looked at her, she said “we should feed him to the sharks!” I totally love Millie. So IB went in and told PM that he had to check himself in, and we all made our way up to the counter.

To say that security procedures in this airport are a little more casual than elsewhere is quite the understatement. Our boarding passes were hand-written, with a stamp for our destination, and our names completely absent from the document. When I went through the metal detector and beeped, the security guy touched a metal detector to my waist and apparently that was sufficient inspection. They have a large TV monitor in the gate (there’s only one), and it was playing a video loop that included some music videos, most in Vietnamese, and a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Unfortunately, the loop lasted for about 30 – 40 minutes, and we were there for three hours. It’s good thing that I like Tom and Jerry – and it was one of the good ones, before Hannah-Barbera decided that they should talk.

As we were sitting there, PM asked me about my new hotel, and IB and I were telling him. He then starts to talk about how the hotel is in a terrible location, it’s not near anything, and why would they put me there? Well, all of this is really irrelevant, because it’s where I’m staying and I don’t have much choice. But he just won’t shut up, and finally I say “Why are you telling me this? You’re just making me feel worse?” and he said “I just give you advice” and got huffy and turned around. IB then went to call Teeny Weeny, unbeknownst to me, and came back and said that if I didn’t like the hotel, they could put me somewhere else. I said that I was sure the hotel would be fine, not to worry about it.

We got to Hanoi uneventfully after boarding the plane 3 ½ hours after our scheduled departure time. The driver was waiting there, and had apparently been waiting since 2 pm, since no one told him that the flight was delayed. Whoops. We went to the Zephyr Hotel so I could collect the bag I’d left with them, then went to my new hotel. Interestingly, it’s called the Saigon Hotel, though it’s in the middle of Hanoi. It is farther out than my old place, but not prohibitively so, and in the end, it’s probably okay that I have to walk farther to get to my favorite ice cream place. It doesn’t have a gym, so I’ll have to improvise something, but it’s nice, they have laundry service (thank goodness), and it’s not in the boonies, it’s just outside the district I was staying in. Although it’s right across the street from a building that’s under construction, and apparently the construction is going on around the clock. I actually slept fine, but it would be nice if my room was a little quieter, as it’s also on the first level above the lobby, so there’s a lot of traffic noise. Well, I figure that if I’m desperate, it’s nothing a little Benadryl won’t cure. But like I said, I slept just fine last night.

So, I’ve got a week back here, then out for a few more days next week, and then my last week here. Then off to Paris! I can’t believe how quickly things have gone already. Crazy!

Last One

We visited our last commune for this trip today, and let me tell you – this trip in general, but today’s journey in particular, is the only time in my life that I’ve been in an SUV and really needed to be in one. The last 30 minutes of our trip were spent driving over flooded roads, up steep, unpaved mountain roads that were nothing but a rocky, rutted dirt track, made even more treacherous by the recent heavy rains. Although the driver is, in many ways, a very typical Vietnamese driver (and what’s not fun about passing a large truck that’s passing an even larger truck on a two lane road as you rapidly approach the top of a hill?), but he sure has some skills in navigating this kind of road, and I have to admit that I was impressed. I also think that my spine has been compressed by a few inches from all that bouncing around. Yeeowch.

The commune was interesting, and it’s funny because Itsy Bitsy has gotten good at answering the typical questions I get, to the point where she doesn’t even translate them for me, she’ll just tell people how old I am, and that I’m not married. Heh. I suppose these are typical Vietnamese getting-to-know-you questions, and it really doesn’t bother me, but it’s just funny how everyone asks me this.

So, you know what I realized I don’t really care for? Rabbit. Ick. We had some today at lunch, and it just did nothing for me. The sauce was really strong, so I can’t really object to the flavor since I don’t really know what it is (the sauce was delicious, though), but it was just all bones and fat – neither of which I’m keen on eating. But hey – I’ve tried it now, I guess. Not that it was on my list of things to do before I die, as it would certainly rank much lower than, say, “win the Grammy for Best New Artist”. You don’t get to make an acceptance speech for eating rabbit, after all, nor are you required to wear a fancy dress and some fabulous jewelry. Heck – it doesn’t even outrank “hike at least part of the Appalachian Trail” or “see Graceland”.

Either it’s being broadcast publicly, or one of our neighbors is listening to the radio REALLY LOUDLY. This starts at 5 am, and has woken me up the past few mornings, and is likely to do so again tomorrow. Like I said, really looking forward to my quiet room in Hanoi. Lack of sleep doesn’t do good things to my capacity for rational thought. Oy. I have a feeling that I’m going to be reading and/or napping on the plane ride back up to Hanoi. Our driver is meeting me at the airport, which is really nice.

I just realized something – I leave for Paris three weeks from tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Eeeeeee!!!! I am so stinkin’ excited about it. As anyone who has read this blog at all probably knows. It’s just so…it’s going to be great, I know it. I still entertain thoughts of moving to France for a few years; if I can get my French up to snuff, I could work in our Paris office. There are a lot of other things that would have to happen first, a lot of things that would have to stay the same, and I don’t know if it would really even be possible, but I do still think about it. I know that moving to a foreign country alone is a difficult haul, I don’t want to underestimate that, I mean – I thought Long Island was tough. But I know a couple people in the country already which might help to ease the transition a little, and I’ve got family just over the English Channel in London – a great excuse to visit them more anyway, no? (Anice – please don’t get a complex!! Besides, this wouldn’t happen for a few years, you could be sick of me by then anyway…) In any case, that’s a long way off, but I have a feeling that it’ll be on my mind for a while after I get back. So I hereby apologize in advance if I am preoccupied when I get back, and whine about the lack of good croissants in the DC area. I will do my best to keep those thoughts entirely to myself.

To wrap up on a positive note – although I spotted something that looked suspiciously like rat droppings in this new room (the dripping from the ceiling recommenced, so we moved), I haven’t seen any ants, and the ones in my suitcase may be starting to drop off, so that’s very good news. I’m still rinsing out my suitcase with the nearest available power washer when I get to Hanoi, but it appears that fumigation may no longer be necessary. And I didn’t wake up with any new bug bites this morning, so that’s also happy times.

You've Got to be Kidding...

So, I just found out that the person (Teeny Weeny) who made my hotel reservations a month ago forgot to tell me one teeny, tiny thing. The hotel wouldn’t be able to accommodate me after the first week. So I’m due to arrive back in Hanoi and I have nowhere to stay. I’m sure she’ll find something, and once again I feel like a spoiled brat, but for the past week and change, every time I’ve woken up to things crawling on me (I think I shared my bed with an exceptionally large roach that I saw skitter away last night, and I woke up with some new insect bites), every time I’ve opened my suitcase to see ants scatter into dark little corners, every time I’ve been woken up because of paper thin walls, or Itsy Bitsy’s message tone on her cell phone going off last night (all night), and every time my freaking room has flooded (and something in this current place is dripping from the ceiling onto my bed, so we’ll have to change rooms), I have thought fondly of my nice, quiet, clean, non-insect infested hotel in Hanoi, where I can get my laundry done, get room service, get a good night’s sleep, which hasn’t happened since I left Hanoi, and generally relax. And now that’s gone. I just can’t believe that she didn’t tell me this a month ago, when I could have made alternate arrangements. To say that I’m not happy about this would be the understatement of the century. I know that I can be a control freak, which is not a trait I’m particularly proud of, and while I’ve been trying to be more go-with-the-flow in life, this is not a situation to which I react well. When things just don’t work the way they’re supposed to, I get really frustrated.

Well, the dripping from the ceiling has stopped (for now?), and TW called and said she found a room for me somewhere else. But honestly, it’s things like this that are exactly why I usually make my own arrangements. That way, if there’s some kind of screw up, at least I know who to blame. Not that I don’t know who to blame in this situation, but I’d feel bad being bitchy about it. In any event, she said that the new place is 2 km away from the old one, but that it’s still in the downtown area. Hanoi is a fairly big city, so I’m sure she’s right, but I really liked my “old neighborhood”, if I can even call it that, since I only spent 10 days or so there. But 2 km is an easy walk, so I can’t imagine that I’ll be prohibitively far from anything.

The women on the team went out to dinner tonight, and I really like them. We’ve spent a *lot* of time together over the past week and a half, so I suppose it’s good. One of the women (let’s call her Millie) is a very motherly type, and she usually orders for us when we go out to eat. It’s funny because when she gets on the bossier side (which really only relates to things like how the food should be served, what kind of wine we should get, if we ever get wine [PM wanted to get Vietnamese wine one night and she looked as though he’d just spit on her, it was hilarious], and things like that), PM will call her “mother in law” which is now a joke among the whole team. Apparently the term “mother in law” (the literal translation is “my husband’s mother”) is not exactly a compliment, and it basically means someone who is bossy and officious. They’ve actually taught me to say “thank you mother in law” in Vietnamese. But sometimes she’ll do something and look at me and say “mother in law!” and start laughing. She ordered some braised pork ribs last night (among other things), which were delicious, and were kinda really spicy. I commented that they were spicy and she said “you drink more beer, feel better!” and refilled my glass. It was great.

One more day to go, and we’ll be heading back to Hanoi on Thursday. Now that I know I have a place to stay, that’s good news. Hurrah! I don’t know if the new place will be as nice as my Zephyr Hotel, but I’m sure it will be fine. It wasn’t quite The Plaza, but it sure was nice. However, this new place better have laundry service, since the first thing I’m doing when I get there is dumping the contents of my suitcase into a laundry bag. It may not *all* be dirty, but it’s all going in. I feel really, really weird about letting other people wash my underwear (shut up, it’s a hang up of mine – I never said I wasn’t weird. Quite the contrary, I freely admit that I’m a freak) but at this point, I don’t have much choice, everything’s got to be washed.

The Main Attraction

That’s what I feel like right now – the main attraction at a freak-pointing event, that is. We’re in Phu Yen Province, and I’m guessing they don’t get many tourists, because as I was walking out of the restaurant where we ate dinner tonight, people were prodding their neighbors and pointing at me, and one guy was completely turned around in his seat to stare at me as I ate. Okay – so maybe I’m not always okay with the staring thing. But as with many things, the fact that I’m tired is not helping. It was really cute, though – we went to a commune today and looked at a school that had been built under our project. As I walked up the driveway, little kids started running toward me, asking Itsy Bitsy if I was American. I got a picture of them, they were following me around like I was the Pied Piper or something. I suppose I don’t fully understand the mystique that a foreigner generates in any more than a theoretical sense, because I don’t think that I’m quite that fascinating, but when we were talking to one family in their home, about seven kids from the neighborhood came in to check me out. That kind of staring is what really never bothers me, I suppose. The other stuff…well, *sometimes* it bothers me.

There are two questions virtually every person I’ve met here has asked me – well, one is a question, the other is really more of an observation. Every single person asks me if I’m married, which by now totally makes me laugh because it’s so consistent, and everyone comments on the fact that I’m left handed. Usually when we’re eating, and someone notices that I’m holding my chopsticks in my left hand, using my own peculiar technique that I sort of made up as a kid, but which succeeds in getting the food from the bowl to my mouth. I’ve actually been told that I use chopsticks pretty well for a white girl, so that’s nice. Of course, as soon as someone says that, my spectacular lack of coordination comes out to play, and I am then incapable of picking up anything using chopsticks. Or probably my bare hands, if I were to try. Someone, oddly enough, suggested that I try using my right hand. I said that I can barely use a spoon with my right hand, so I didn’t think chopsticks were going to fly.

We had a really early start this morning, and I was up late working, so that has made me one sleepy girl today. I’ve still got more work to do, and tomorrow is going to be a really long day, so I’m going to see how much I can get done tonight. IB and I are sharing a room here, which is fine with me. What’s funny is that the price at this hotel if you’re a foreigner is twice what it is if you’re Vietnamese. The other team members complained that it was unfair, so I think they bumped me down to the Vietnamese rate. I kind of have mixed feelings about that whole thing, because it’s very common – the price for foreigners versus the price for Vietnamese people. On one side, I know that I am likely to be making more money than a lot of the people who live here. Of course, I have to pay a lot more to support myself, but still, I probably have more disposable income (which is funny to think of, because it usually doesn’t feel like I have any – but I know that in comparison, I do). But on the other side of it – I don’t expect any kind of special treatment, but I would really like to be treated the same as everyone else. However, I feel like a spoiled brat saying that. It’s kind of the reason why I’m bad at bargaining when I go to the market. I know that the first price a Vietnamese person hears is half of what I’m hearing. And I know they probably end up paying about 70% less for any given item than I will, even after I bargain. But I feel stupid arguing with someone who wants to charge me $3 for a meter of fabric, just because I know it should be $1. I mean…I know it should be $1, but arguing over $2 with someone who has to sit in a booth surrounded by bolts of fabric for 29 days out of every month to earn a pathetically low amount of money just seems selfish.

But as I was saying…after a few hours in the car, we arrived in Phu Yen. We pulled up to a surprisingly luxurious looking hotel, and I thought “is this really where we’re staying?” Well…not quite. That hotel isn’t finished, and we’re staying in the hotel behind it that is some kind of communist bunker. They’re actually attached, and to drive around the façade of the new hotel and see it turn into the old one is a hilarious and abrupt transition. But the room is clean and comfortable, although there’s no shower, just a shower head in a bathroom tiled from floor to ceiling, with a drain in the middle of the floor. So, really – it’s just a really big shower. But it’s perfectly fine, and there doesn’t seem to be an ant infestation in this one, so here’s hoping I don’t start one with the ants that, undoubtedly, stowed in my suitcase on the drive from Nha Trang. I swear I’m going to have to fumigate that thing when I get home.

We’re trying to wrap things up early here so we can head back to Nha Trang, where the weather is now sunny and lovely – perfect for a boat tour of the islands. Ah well. I don’t think I’ll be able to fit one into the schedule as it currently stands. I want to get back to Hanoi anyway, so although IB said she might stay longer in Nha Trang, I think I’m going to head back on Friday as scheduled, if not earlier. Actually…Thursday would be even better if we *can’t* get that whole boat trip thing pulled together. But that depends on too many things.

The guy from the Yemen project said he wanted to call me and chat about it. I said that I couldn’t commit to 3 – 4 months, which is what they needed, but if I could make a relatively short trip and do the rest of the work from the US, then I might be able to do it. I really don’t think he’ll take me up on it. Although, how many people who aren’t imitating Chandler Bing really get to say “I’m going to Yemen!?!?!” Maybe I’ll get to wear those salwar kameez again after all. (Is that what women even wear in Yemen? Goodness gracious, I have no idea.) But in case any of you were wondering…even though it’s not on my “HELL NO!!!!” list, which is basically limited to Iraq and many parts of Afghanistan, I kinda really don’t want to go to Yemen. We’ll have to see what happens.

The internet connection here is pretty awful, so I may have to wait until I get back to Hanoi and post these all at once or something. I dunno. I’m honestly surprised that I can connect at all, so I suppose I really shouldn’t complain. It’s frustrating, however, to know that I have e-mail, to be able to see that I have e-mail, and not be able to get into it.

I Guess Not

Well, it turns out that we are not taking a tour today – although for the first time in days, it has stopped raining for the last few hours. Who knows how long this will really last, but regardless, it appears that we have some extra time on our hands. My hair is doing that corkscrew curls thing again because of all the humidity, which is interesting. But it’s good – low maintenance. Honestly, when I’m out here, I don’t do much primping, and barely use any makeup. I feel kind of stupid, knowing how much the makeup I like costs, and knowing how little the people I’m talking to have – it makes the differences seem all that much more extreme.

The rain seems to have decided to let up today, as we haven’t had a drop since morning. I kind of wish I was doing something more productive with my day, but I’m actually feeling a little under the weather. I’ve got lots of work I want to get done, so much as I would like to go out (I think there are a few things the group might want to check out), I know we’ve got a long week ahead so another day of down-time is probably going to be a good idea. The sun finally came out for a bit this afternoon, so I went for a short walk along the beach to take some pictures, soak up some of the scenery. A guy followed me down to the beach to tell me that he was selling paintings. I told him that I wasn’t interested, and he said “how do you know if you don’t look at what I have?” At that point, I just kept walking and I would imagine that he gave up and went elsewhere, since he was no longer following me. It was nice, though, I got my feet wet and sandy, took in a little ocean air, hopefully got some purty pictures. I saw a few people running on the beach, which was tempting, but, as I said, I’m feeling slightly under the weather so I gave it a pass.

Dinner was nice, but we’d been to the same restaurant five times, and I was kind of hoping for something different. At dinner, PM was talking about American politics, which I kind of found exhausting after a while, and then started to tell me about how he’d cheated on his wife a few years ago after he brought up the whole Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky saga. Then he said something about how it was so confusing for him to flirt with foreign women. The first thing that sprang to my mind was that if he was married, then perhaps he shouldn’t worry about flirting with foreign women, but I didn’t feel like getting into it. I figured it would just make things more uncomfortable, and I really just wanted to change the subject entirely.

I’ve got some more work to do, which I really want to get done tonight, otherwise it will pile up next week. I got a major project out of the way last week, and now I want to enter all my notes for my trip report so far, because I’ve got about 20 or so pages of hand written notes. It’s not that it’s going to take me so terribly long, it’s that if I let it sit, it’s going to double by the end of next week – and that might actually take a while. Since I’ve only got one week in Hanoi before we head out again, I don’t want to get stuck. I know I’m a natural procrastinator, but I do learn eventually.