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Her Mother’s. Come hell or high water

August 17, 2010
by Steve Jackson

A while ago, when my wife rang from work to suggest we spend Saturday night visiting her parents, I stupidly, didn’t concur.

“Awwwww,” I said. “Not Saturday night.  I haven’t been out in weeks and I was thinking about going out for a drink with friends.”

That was all I said.  When I heard the response it provoked I backtracked furiously but it was too late.

The fall-out lasted for days.

At that point we weren’t married and although my parents’ plane tickets were booked and deposits were paid on reception venues, everything was to be cancelled.

The wedding was off.

Later, once I had worked really hard to make it all okay again, I talked about it with a fellow Englishman. He is also married to a Vietnamese woman.

I remember a character in Friends being told there are certain questions which a woman asks where answers are not only set in stone, the immediacy of the response is also important.

“Does this make me look fat?”

“No.”

No look up and down, no consideration, no pause for thought.

My friend told me that when your Vietnamese wife says she wants to visit her family, you reply immediately:

“I’ll start the bike”

On Sunday we were due a visit. Literally as we set off it started to spit with rain.  Within two minutes it was wet enough for us to pull over and put on macs.

By the time we had crossed Westlake it was getting heavy.  I took my life, and marriage in my hands and suggested that perhaps crossing town to visit her Mother during such extreme weather wasn’t worth the risk.

By this time lightning was flashing. Her parents live at the top of a mud road that’s horrific after rain.

The suggestion, however, that I was being deterred by the elements did not go down well.  A roadside heated debated lead to her saying I should return, if I really wanted to, and she would soldier on alone.

That was obviously a non-starter, so I suggested we could wait it out in a coffee shop. Even that delay took some convincing.

In the end the rain slowed and we made it to her family.  Two thirds of the way there the sun came out and we dispensed with our motorbike mac for two.

Maybe marriage is about picking your battles. This is one area, which I now know to be non-negotiable.

The strength, hierarchy and duties that bind a Vietnamese family are as solid as they are fascinating.

Truth be told I am happy and very proud to be part of her Vietnamese family.

I’m new at this game but hopefully I’m learning fast.

An hour in Tan Ap: fruit, flags and flowers

August 16, 2010
by Steve Jackson

This must be the third or fourth occasion that I’ve had to kill time in Tan Ap.

Just around the corner is VIP Bikes and they had Miss Hoa in for a little light surgery again to cure her assorted rattles and splutters. On hearing it would take an hour I took myself off for a coffee.  For once in Hanoi, WIFI failed me, so I amused myself taking pics from the coffee shop.

There’s something very pretty about the neighbourhood.  Even where it’s old, rusty and crumbling it just seems like yet more layers of elegance and charisma. Hanoi’s magic at work.

In between, the colour is supplied by fruit, flags and flowers.

People talk a lot about how Hanoi is changing and yet here, just over the dike road from the town centre, is a community that simply couldn’t be anywhere else in the world.

My coffee was drunk half an hour before the bike was ready.  I started wandering at random down the many alleyways between the wider roads.  Beyond the occasional smile and half-hearted attempt to get me to take a motorbike taxi, no one seemed remotely bothered by me.

Places like these do my Vietnam-loving soul good.

I hope you like the pictures.  The full set is here.

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A curry at sunset

August 14, 2010
by Steve Jackson

Curry house glow

Foodshop 45 chicken madras

Truc Bach friends at sunset

Foodshop 45 chutneys

Loan at Foodshop 45

Taken at Foodshop 45 on Truc Bach lake.  Full pic set here.

Motorbike dreams and admissions

August 13, 2010
by Steve Jackson

First the truth: as much as I love driving my little SYM bike around Hanoi, the furthest I’ve ever driven is to the inlaws on the outkirts of town.

I’ve long wanted to do a long bike trip but, to date, assorted situations have conspired against me. While I was a VSO volunteer, although riding a bike wasn’t banned they really didn’t encourage it and expected, not unreasonably, that if you did ride then you had to ensure you were 100% legally registered. Not an easy state to achieve in bureaucratic Vietnam.

Later, on my return, I bought Miss Hoa. She’s an angel but she’s no long distance vehicle. Somewhere in between, it felt like friends who might have made long distance motorbike trips with me, had settled down and had families rather than bikes to spend their weekends with.

Soon I will join their ranks.

Next weekend we’re headed to the countryside and I’m a little excited. An in-law is getting married in the sticks and we’re making a weekend of it. The route is flat and gentle for Miss Hoa and Loan will ride pillion. We’ll stay in a hotel Saturday night, go to the wedding on Sunday and head back that night.

In the future? Well what about this?

Experience has shown that the concept of “getting something out of your system” doesn’t actually work.  I am now living permanently in Vietnam as a result of “getting travel out of my system” when I went backpacking eight years ago.  But it does seem epic enough to break my proper motorbike trip duck, see the best bits of Vietnam and then settle quietly into being a family man.

The Ho Chi Minh Trail, (not this appalling insult), Red Army bikes, jungles and mountains. Could it be more perfect?

The truth is I really want to do it and a large percentage of the fee also goes to the excellent Blue Dragon.

My mind is abuzz with ways of trying to raise that sizeable $5,000 entry fee.  Clients to shakedown, a Chip In donations button on the blog.  Could I sing for my supper?  I’d love to blog the trip and post live updates from the road. Could I help in promoting the event? Would that reduce the non-charitable part of the cost?

I’m intrigued and excited about the possibilities and it seems like if I did it, then I’d have to be looking at ways in which to justify it, not so much the money, as the time away from building my own business. This needs to be done in a way that will promote either my business or  a client’s.

All suggestions and encouragement welcome.

Drained

August 5, 2010
by Steve Jackson

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Full set, taken this lunchtime, here.  Why did they drain it?  It appears to be part of work to link up all the road around the banks of the lake which you can see starting to take shape above.

They also seem to be using the opportunity to get a bit of dredging in (dredging is never ending in lake-blessed Hanoi).  Perhaps even some drainage work and some kind of water management too.

Any one better informed than me?

To see the “before” picture click here.