Not Fake News. Urban LegendsThe view from my Nha Trang apartment’s terrace floor, early afternoon.
What the hell am I doing lolling about there when there’s work to be done?
I’m trying to rebuild some muscle by stair-climbing in between jags tapping away at this keyboard.
I think it’s probably shrivelled a little after a long time without any jogging or weights. And Odin forbid one should get flabby and old.
The Vietnamese coffee is marvelous.
The above is from a cafe about 5 minutes’ walk away. It’s strong stuff – one is just right, two is too many.
It’s dripped through a sieve in the above contraption.
Many Vietnamese drink it iced, I like to add hot water, to prolong it as much as possible, and often butter ( real NZ stuff is about $5 NZ for 250g ).
Along the 5-minute route there are maybe three or four ‘Mum-and-Dad’ type cafes, where family and friends gather. All-comers are welcome, as far as I can tell.
With these smaller places, a little care has to be taken. They’ll often add sweetener, such as sugar, or sweetened condensed milk, unless you tell them otherwise.
Otherwise, it’s the perfect morning tonic, just enough to add a little boost, but not so much as to be bouncing off the walls.
It was a fine line I rode that day out of Thailand.
One slip on the trusty rented scooter, and it was all over bar the injuries. The following is how not to leave a country.
I’d made the dubious decision to ride the scooter from my base in Rayong, to return it in Pattaya the same morning I’d booked an afternoon flight from Bangkok to Da Nang.
It probably should have dawned on me during repeated suitcase weigh-ins that this was a risky venture. But no – I ploughed ahead even when it became obvious I would struggle to stay within the flight’s weight limit for the suitcase.?
The scales would show the bad news – 28.5 kgs, eep!? I’d attempt to trim the excess 3.5kgs, and out came the rice cooker, and re-weigh : 27.8kgs!?. Possibly the hotel scales were telling mincey pies.
Each trip meant hefting the suitcase down the hallway, on and off the lift, into the hotel restaurant, and onto the scales. Then reverse and repeat. It was an exhausting week.
After this regime, the start on the first leg of the trip boded ill.
The hotel staff had been watching this palaver the entire week, and so were watching with amused detachment as I strapped the 24.5kg suitcase
This is how not to travel out of a country.
Bike topples over.
Back goes out.
I made a decision, albeit helped along by a thunderstorm which delayed plans to fly back to Da Nang.
The return trip was only in aid of retrieving a suitcase full of clothes. But then I got an offer too good to turn down.
That was for an apartment in Nha Trang – “just move in, sit out the storm, and worry about the ( reduced ) rent later.”
So once I confirmed the suitcase was safe, I scootered through the beginnings of the storm, and parked up. Below.
The offer came from a very kind chap I befriended on Facebook, and whose parents owned said apartment.
So here I am for the next month, and happy about it.
Meeting the neighbour, an Aussie named Richard, looks to have confirmed it as a good choice . I chose Nha Trang for its climate, and beach, and the food, and Richard – off his own bat – had good things to say about all three.
Next, retrieve the suitcase, and get a damn job.
A Three Dog Night is one so cold that three dogs have to be called into service as radiators.
They’re also that awful 70s covers band, but that’s another dismaying saga, and here we are concerned with my own.
Because last night, I had a Five Dog Night. It wasn’t cold, but the fiends performed in concert to make my night miserable.
A mysterious siren of some kind pulsed out its high pitch, acting as the perfect conductor, and excuse, to loose the hounds. Or more particularly, their vocal chords.
The pack kept up the aural assault from around 9pm to midnight, when blessed unconsciousness took me over. As if to properly scramble the nerves, every so often they threw in a teaser – a few minutes of silence.
I’d taken a punt, and branched out to the Hinterlands a bit.
The idea was to test whether an apartment going for a relatively cheap 4.5 million VND/month was going to be liveable. What with the Hounds, and the Trains, and the flimsy blanket, the answer was NO.
And all that discovery cost me was one shabby night’s sleep, and a few brain cells probably retired permanently.
I shifted today over to North side of town.
I arrived in Nha Trang three days ago on a scouting mission.
I’m still here. I like it. Here’s why;
The scouting is for apartments and jobs. I think I may be getting quoted ‘foreigner prices’, but thus far it seems apartments are only a little cheaper than the much larger Da Nang. About 50% more expensive than Rayong, though.
So far no solid leads job-wise.
I plan to visit DaLat while I’m down here, staying one maybe two nights.
Whatever I finally decide city-wise, I left a packed suitcase at the Da Nang hotel, so I have to return there to collect it.
I made it to Vietnam.
The day of the trip – yesterday – is a long comic story, more of which later.
For now, here’s a view from the balcony of the Kaluga Hotel, Da Nang
First impressions –
The Thai Government is ‘liberal’ with its public holidays – 27 of them in 2019.
The last one I was there for was ( King ) Chulalongkorn Memorial Day. More than half of the public holidays are connected to royalty.
Thais – like many women, I hear, love men in uniform. This holiday, as with the others, is as good an excuse as any to button one on, and prance about.There’s also a noticeably strong police and army ( uniformed ) presence in Thailand.
Both the uniforms and the strong regard for royalty seem to me to be a sign of a deeply conformist society. It’s a collectivist – “what’s best for all of us?” – outlook. Thailand, and many other Eastern societies, typically follow this ethic.
As opposed to an individualist – “what’s best for me and mine?” – outlook. Think Western / United States, especially.
There are pluses and minuses to both. Following are some back-of-the-napkin ideas. For the first, I’m thinking mainly of Thailand. For the second, America.
Collectivism / conformity – suffocating bureaucracy, poor education standards ( because no-one is allowed to fail, and thus few stand out ), better social adjustment, fewer innovations, less people who are way more ‘dirt poor’ than the rest.
Individualism – the PC, the Velvet Underground and The Ramones, a Man on the Moon, the Internet, ( mass-affordable ) cars. More sick people ( more murders than anywhere else, more people on medication ), and more wealth concentrated in fewer hands.