Well it's been yet another eventful seven days in Hoi An, and to top everything off my parents are arriving here tomorrow, so it's all go this week! This past week has been full of fun events with the return of my weekly tennis match (yet another defeat), a night time trip to Da Nang, a house mate's leaving party, more trips to see local life in action including a trip to a university student's hall of residence!, and the start of 'rainy season'!
I'll start with the change in weather, because that has been the biggest change here in Hoi An this week. This also accounts for the fact that I now spend most of my day looking like a human condom... and that's because the local raincoats, are cheap and cover you from almost head to toe, but should you be like me and ride a bicycle, then the rain coat rides up over your knees and this requires you to look life a grandad and roll any pants (trousers) up over your knees! Not a sexy look I can tell you!!! See picture below!
During the week I took a trip with my friend Dung (see picture) to the city of Da Nang, where we were able to enjoy the 'city lights' and escape from the usual Hoi An scenery. Driving to Da Nang at night has it's risks, especially as it means you end up having a free meal consisting solely of insects that seem to fly towards your mouth the moment you open it! Still once in Da Nang, the city lights by the river give the place a nice feel and with a cinema, bowling alley , and nice coffee shops/bars it offers a change from the tourist trade in Hoi An!
The weekend offered the real adventure as on Saturday I returned to Da Nang to visit two friends. Firstly I met 'Vicky' who is someone I met through visitors to Hoi An (Florence & Valerie). Vicky ( real name Thao) was quick to invite me into her home in Da Nang, where I was invited to have lunch with her family, that consisted of her mum, dad, auntie, sister, uncle.... the family were very welcoming, and the food was plentiful and tasty! Vicky then took me to a nice new local coffee shop, which had a stage for live music (at night) and upstairs was a raised floor, that required you to take your shoes off to enter the room, and sit on the raised floor. It was very different from any place I'd been to before, and a place I hope to return to one evening!
After waiting for the serious rain to stop I went on to meet my neighbor Yen, who is at university in Da Nang, studying tourism. She invited me to visit her halls of residence, so after a 20 minute motorbike ride, we finally pulled up to a huge tower block, of 6-7 floors, with up to 20 rooms on each floor, and 8 bunk-beds in a fairly small room! Yep no single rooms here, each metal frame bed, had a small fold down table for the students to work on, and all beds had the typical wooden beaded matting, you might use to lie on at the beach) no mattress on the bed people here just don't sleep on mattresses. This entire block was full with just females, as the male block next door was much smaller and housed only a few boys by comparison. The boys appeared to be outside playing football and volleyball, whilst the girls seemed to stay in their rooms during my visit. As time passed more girls appeared to wander past where I was stood with Yen, to obviously have a look at this strange foreigner, and at the point that I actually left, and was saying goodbye to Yen, I looked up from the ground floor, to see at least 20 girls on each floor looking down to see what was happening.... it was a particular funny moment, one that I'd have loved to have photographed, as it looked like a scene from a movie.... and I'm sure Yen spent the rest of the day answering questions from the onlookers!!! No I know some of you may not be surprised to hear that I managed to find my way into an all female student hall of residence, but I have to say it was purely for research purposes!!! honestly!
The drive home was all the more entertaining because this was where I tried to 'race the rain cloud' home, and of course I lost drastically as not more than 20 minutes into the 50 minute ride home, the rain caught up with me forcing me to stop and wear my 'human condom' raincoat, and drive as slowly as is humanly possible on a motorbike, in several inches of rain. That evening we had a farewell dinner for Naomi my most recent housemate who had been volunteering at the Orphanage, the only problem was that she chose to have this dinner at the exact same time as Liverpool were playing Everton in the Mersey-side derby game, luckily the restaurant has a bar downstairs and the waitress was giving me updates on the game! she got a tip!!! especially as the news was good.. Liverpool won 2-0!
Sunday proved to be an even more interesting day, as I travelled to the 'My Son' region with my neighbou
r - Tuyet - who works at the restaurant next door. he asked me if I'd teach her English, and invited me to spend the day at her parents house in the countryside. After a 45 minute motorcycle ride, at 0700, we arrived at her family home, to be greeted by her mother, and eventually her father and younger sister joined us, for breakfast/lunch. It was duck, in a curry, very nice, but with many parts of an animal that I would not normally including, liver, and attached arteries, and I have to admit I struggled to eat it all, just because of the floating internal organs! Nothing is wasted here! The beer at 1030 in the morning was clearly contributing to my tiredness, (the beer they had sent their youngest daughter (12) to the shop in the pouring rain, and for the second week in a row I found myself being invited to sleep (after lunch) in the house of a family I had only met just hours earlier! This time I was less uncomfortable at the idea of sleeping in the middle of the day, in the middle of this family's house, this time on a bed made up on the floor. I awoke to everyone else having disappeared, and the feeling that I'd slept for hours.... I came around to see the Tuyet's father grinning at me, and speaking in Vietnamese After fully waking up, I was shown the four very cute pigs in the back yard, that were being fed up to be eaten at a later date! More neighbours arrived to have a look at me, and after some more English lessons with both Tuyet and her younger sister, we ate again, more soup/curry, before leaving for home. We unfortunately got a flat tyre on the way home, but were fortunate to have been passing by the only 'repair' shop for 10 miles at the time it happened! I even got charged the local price! just 5000 dong (15pence) to get it repaired! Bargain. We did stop at Tuyet's grandparents house on the way home to deliver some of the mother's home made duck curry/soup, and her grandparents welcomed us in to the home, and offered Tuyet to me as a potential wife! It was a kind offer, and one that I don't often receive the first time I meet a person's family! The view from the grandparent's home was pretty spectacular, looking out towards the rice fields with the mountains of 'My Son' as a back drop!
r - Tuyet - who works at the restaurant next door. he asked me if I'd teach her English, and invited me to spend the day at her parents house in the countryside. After a 45 minute motorcycle ride, at 0700, we arrived at her family home, to be greeted by her mother, and eventually her father and younger sister joined us, for breakfast/lunch. It was duck, in a curry, very nice, but with many parts of an animal that I would not normally including, liver, and attached arteries, and I have to admit I struggled to eat it all, just because of the floating internal organs! Nothing is wasted here! The beer at 1030 in the morning was clearly contributing to my tiredness, (the beer they had sent their youngest daughter (12) to the shop in the pouring rain, and for the second week in a row I found myself being invited to sleep (after lunch) in the house of a family I had only met just hours earlier! This time I was less uncomfortable at the idea of sleeping in the middle of the day, in the middle of this family's house, this time on a bed made up on the floor. I awoke to everyone else having disappeared, and the feeling that I'd slept for hours.... I came around to see the Tuyet's father grinning at me, and speaking in Vietnamese After fully waking up, I was shown the four very cute pigs in the back yard, that were being fed up to be eaten at a later date! More neighbours arrived to have a look at me, and after some more English lessons with both Tuyet and her younger sister, we ate again, more soup/curry, before leaving for home. We unfortunately got a flat tyre on the way home, but were fortunate to have been passing by the only 'repair' shop for 10 miles at the time it happened! I even got charged the local price! just 5000 dong (15pence) to get it repaired! Bargain. We did stop at Tuyet's grandparents house on the way home to deliver some of the mother's home made duck curry/soup, and her grandparents welcomed us in to the home, and offered Tuyet to me as a potential wife! It was a kind offer, and one that I don't often receive the first time I meet a person's family! The view from the grandparent's home was pretty spectacular, looking out towards the rice fields with the mountains of 'My Son' as a back drop! 
This weekend will be one that lives long in my memory, because it was a weekend full of real life experiences, and mostly spent in places that belong solely to 'real life' Vietnam. There has been no greater privilege than to be welcomed into people's homes the way I was this weekend, (and to have the single daughters offered as potential wives)!Regards from Vietnam
Dan
2 comments:
Hi Dan, I'm so pleased things are going well and you're still loving every minute. Now that I'm back online, I'll be able to catch up with your blog properly and chat more!
Lots of Love,
Sal x
PS: I've added a link from my blog to yours! x
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