In Vietnam: Use your noodle!

Hoi An, Quang Nam, Vietnam  —  December 17, 2016

As a young Vietnamese boy, who was practicing his English, said to me last evening “Good morning!” He was so proud of himself that I responded in Vietnamese: “Good morning to you, young man” even though it was well past 8 pm.

My soy in Hoi An

I’m spending the winter on the coast in Central Vietnam at Hoi An, an ancient city of about 500,000 which, if it were in Dong (Vietnamese currency), would be about $22. It’s very nice here, even in rainy season, although the fields are flooded and getting to town for food requires irrigation boots and hungry perseverance.

This too will pass, or I’ll soon be swimming in the East Sea. I keep a fresh pair of swimming trunks near the door just in case, along with a bottle of French Champagne for some mystical voyage that may be in the wings.

This morning the river is over its banks. My pathway is flooded but I have beer, cheese, tomatoes, baguette, a can or two of unidentified fish and plenty of music. The silver lining is that my neighbor is bringing me chicken and rice because she is worried about me. I’ll have to fake complete helplessness so as to assure dinner as well.

The price of rowboats is up and business at the beach is down. The sun is expected to come out in January. Everyone here just smiles and goes along with the flow, but I hope not literally. Can we say sand bags?

I may look like an old fart but I’m a bona fide mountain old fart (alpinus crabiscus flatulentus) and capable of keen basic survival and remarkably clear thought when Mother Earth gets pissed off. Ja sure…You betcha.

Two of the finest chefs on Cua Dai Street.

In Colorado it is often too dry. Here in Quang Nam Province everything is too damn wet. Even the dust is wet. Even the dry goods are wet. If they had dry cleaning and static electricity they would be wet too.

My dentist, originally from the Bay Area, who served as a Special Forces medic in South East Asia, told me he was so wet for his tour that he swore he would move to the dry high desert. So, after the service, he moved to Cedaredge where the sun is high and the skin cream is in every cupboard.

Xin chao!

The Chinese took over Vietnam in 2000 BC, stopped to wash their dirty socks (see Chinese laundry) then had to wait until 900 AD for them to dry. In those 1000 years these new tenants had a major impact on the language. Then in the 1600s the new landlords, the French, Romanized the language which makes it easier to read and write for us Westerners.

Learning Vietnamese is like a shaky morning wino trying to work on a jigsaw puzzle from his cardboard bed on the street, only a little more unsettling.

I seem to be butchering Vietnamese quite nicely but learning some very useful Australian from my new mates here. Most of it isn’t appropriate for the parlor. Imagine that.

When I’m too tired to study I go for walks around town which are often delightful, although eyeballing the hens in my soy can result in a ferocious attack by a skinny junior rooster who fears no one.

Flooding downtown has chased all the tourists from town which leaves more noodles and beer for the rest of us. Although many of the local businesses are suffering, everyone takes the high water in stride. (Kenh14 VN Photo)

My favorite pastime is watching people wrapped up in plastic bags, driving motorbikes in water up to their knees from an elevated porch downtown with cheroot and ice-cold LaRue beer in hand.

In the ancient town of Hoi An capitalism rages. It would put Madison Avenue to shame. “You buy something? yells the lady in the shop across the narrow street. Yesterday troupes of go-getters were trying to sell me anything from a plastic rain suit to a thorough ear cleaning (and eyebrow trim) to plump little piglets in a burlap sack. I’m a sucker for a good salesman and I bought everything they had.

Ba Le Market is even more stimulating than downtown (in a fruits and vegetables kind of way) although I did manage to buy two chartruese bath towels with little yellow puppies on them. Prices are more fixed here than in the center where one never pays the first three or four prices chanted or scribbled down.

That’s very pedestrian of you

Like most emerging places in the world if you are on foot it is clear that you must not be able to afford other modes of transport. If, as Bob Marley said, “Me feet be me only chariot” you could find yourself in limbo. The street crossings are marked for decoration only. Go ahead. Try it if you don’t believe me.

Yesterday I almost collided with a toothless grandma carrying a ten-foot piece of rebar, wearing a faded Giants cap, on a chopped Yamaha. That’s all I can remeber about the incident. I’m not sure she even took note of it. At least she didn’t try to sell me anything. In the real New World Order she would be delivering a piza and listening to Bach too.

Annoying horns, better than wrecks, blast at every intersection rounding out the chaotic scenario. Schools of pedalling fish pass pagodas by on bicycles It is something to behold but not at all over the top. Life is celebrated all around me. A smile and a tear.

Jimmy, the local pot dealer wears a hat with an American flag on it but like most Americans has never read Thomas Jefferson. He looks like someone who needs to direct his intellect in other more creative ways but I doubt he will. Jimmy is a big Dodger fan and my love of baseball creates opportunities in the herbal market place.

He wants to move to California.

If the creek don’t rise…

Meanwhile the neighbors see me as a combination Damon Runyan/ Walter Cronkite. They think I’m writing an important story with international, even cosmic, implications when actually I am day dreaming or taking an afternoon nap.

I haven’t seen so much as one cop in three weeks. Probably some commie plot.

Excellent Eats

In Hoi An a baby’s first word is not always Mama or Papa but often Cao Lau (a pork- based noodle dish with crisp-fried onion, sliced pork and assorted greens.) It is traditionally eaten for breakfast.

Today I sit munching incredible chicken and noodles with chopsticks and tiny napkins perched on what looks to be plastic children’s furniture. Then there are spring rolls and grilled tofu along with ginger fish sauce  After just three weeks I have become pathetically addicted to the food.

Watch out for the little green peppers. They make jalapeños taste like tapioca pudding. The red ones are even hotter. The only known antidote is yellow snow that must be imported from the mountains in faraway China. The Central coast is known for spicy food which is often exported to the sets of Hanoi and Saigon (HCMC) dramas (soap operas) to induce tears.

Over 45% of Vietnamese words have origins in Chinese. 60% of these translate loosely as “Let’s stop and eat”

In the vegetarian restaurants on Li Thai Do when a tourist asks for
a fork they have to send one of the kids to the neighbors to borrow one.

Start with the Can Lau and you’ll discover what might be the healthiest cuisine on the planet. Just ask that strapping water buffalo in the rice paddy next door.

After a nice bowl of noodles I wander down my soy toward my house in Cam Chau neighborhood. Ah, here we are, at my steep, slippery wheel chair access ramp that whispers “please be careful in the rain or you may end up in a one.”

Here comes my Vietnamese teacher. I have to go in now.

– Kevin Haley

Next time:
“Crossing the International Date Line Single”

“Go upstairs.”  – response from Dung (pronounced Jzung), my Vietnamese neighbor when I asked what I should do if the flood water started coming into the house (meaning unplugging the appliances, securing the porch plants and turning off the electricity and protecting the furniture).