Wildlife

It's hot here and sticky and there's lots to eat so it comes as no surprise that there's a lot of wildlife too. Phu My Hung isn't exactly the countryside, although that isn't far away but there's a lot creeping and crawling about. We are also surrounded by water, some flowing and some stagnant. There's a ditch alongside Sky Gardens which I can see from my living room window and on the the other side of that there's a patch of undrained and as yet unused ground which I refer to as 'the swamp'. Over by the university there's a couple of wide channels flowing with a mixture of organic debris and plastic bags. The water is milk chocolate brown with suspended mud and whatever effluent the city discharges into it. We are not far from the sea so there's the occasional tidal backwash to contend with too which adds a salty tang to the mix. Even in my little area, which is still being developed, there are overgrown vacant plots between some of the buildings covered in a low lying but dense hatch of undergrowth.

All this make for a great habitat for wildlife. Snakes are supposed to be common but timid so the only ones I've seen have been for sale alongside the road towards the university. The woman who sells them keeps them in mesh sacks next to a set of kitchen scales all set up on the kerbside. I can't imagine a snake coiling quietly on the scales whilst being weighed and have yet to see anyone buy one.

The vacant plots between the buildings are mainly home to rats which scurry about at night dodging between the buildings. When you get near one they shoot off into the weed patches unlike London rats which I swear give you a sullen look and almost say 'wot-evah' at you. The local cats look no match for them as they are too small and boney. In a fight between cat and rat my money would definitely be on rat. After a bit of rain, and that's most days, you might find a giant snail slowly making it's way long the road. Frogs are common too given the amount of water around. They're quiet most nights but from time to time they let rip with their froggy croaking and they often hop along the road next to the snails.

My apartment is also home to the odd creature or two. I have minute ants that come out from nowhere when I eat fruit. I bought sugar last week and they found that too, where I hid it from them, in one of my many kitchen cupboards. I think they found it quicker than I did. I have so many cupboards to search through I sometimes lose food. But today a saw a tiny gecko in the kitchen when I came home from the shops. I was pleased to see it and told it to set to work on the ants but I don't think it heard me as it shot off rather quickly underneath a cupboard. Hopefully it'll be out when I'm asleep and be tucking into an ant supper.

Weather

I've been reading the Guardian on the internet these days as usual and have been doggedly following the news from back home. Luckily I don't have to worry about the education cuts or Irish sovereign debt crisis that I've been reading about right now. Asian economies are apparently continuing to grow at a stupid rate, if you believe the government figures that is.

The thing that has attracted my attention, admittedly at a very superficial level, is the weather. I hear that it is really cold right now in England. Charlotte, my daughter and grass jelly recipient, emailed me today to say that she had to remove snow from the windscreen of her car. I've sneaked past the internet censors here and peeked at the BBC homepage and seen this  to confirm her report. I'm imagining Londoners having to stay in bed instead of trudging towards the tube in an inch of slush and motorways scattered with abandoned vehicles given up to the elements. 

Call me shallow but one of the reasons I've come to Vietnam is to escape the cold. I'm a hard core warmth lover, I don't even put the air conditioning on in the apartment so I don't ever feel cold. It's still in the 30's here, dropping to a cooling mid 20's at night sometimes. And it's still raining each day, usually in the late afternoon, but the mornings are often sunny and a good time to hit the pool. I can't unfortunately as I work, but there's always the weekend.

But I think the local bar owners have been watching the UK weather forecasts too as they have been bringing out lumps of cotton wool and draping them over the tropical plants surrounding their terraces. I think that they may have been doing this to make us feel more at home, thinking that perhaps that we have been missing the cold.

Then I realised, they are getting ready for Christmas. They are festooning their premises with fake snow and maybe tomorrow I'll see fake holly and fairy lights and maybe even the odd Santa or two. No matter where you go in the world you cannot escape Christmas. Maybe in North Korea or Saudi Arabia its been banned but here in Phu My Hung it looks like we are in for a white one.

Grass Jelly Goes Global

Since discovering grass jelly just after I arrived in Vietnam and blogging slightly about it its popularity has increased. I might be the cause of a global taste sensation as people all around the world begin to clamour for the stuff. I'll admit for now that this groundswell of culinary excitement is so far limited to just one of my children but hey, trends normally start small before going viral. Perhaps I should have tweeted about grass jelly. Blogging is so last year.

I have been asked to post my grass jelly back to Northampton so one of my daughters can try it but the only way to do that is to visit HCMC's central post office which I did on Sunday. It's a pleasure to take the bus into town and exchange Phu My Hung's quiet streets and familiar bars and restaurants with the big city life of motorbike mayhem. I added a visit to the city's art gallery to the post office trip and grabbed a drink in the back packer ghetto too.

The ladies at the post office asked me to fill in a form saying what was in my envelop which I had carefully folded and taped so the jelly would survive the journey. This was a bit embarrassing as I didn't want them to think I was some sort of idiot would post grass jelly back to England? They were very sweet and polite about it so I dutifully completed the paperwork and handed the packet and form across the counter. Not happy with my packing or maybe the description on the form they proceeded to open the envelop and tip the contents out over their counter. They looked at the jelly, then at me and started to giggle at one another. Stuck for anything sensible to say to explain myself I told them them that grass jelly was very hard to come by in England, at least for the time being, and people there really wanted to eat it. Once Northampton gets to know about it who knows where it might spread to next. ( Milton Keynes perhaps!! )

I do have a worry however as I had to complete another form which was stuck on the newly re-wrapped envelop. My parcel is now clearly labelled 'grass jelly' and shows my address and my daughter's. When the UK customs sees it there is no way they'll let such a dangerous substance into the country. The jelly will be confiscated and will sit in a warehouse somewhere near Heathrow for years, or be subjected to rigourous drugs tests or maybe destroyed in a controlled explosion as a suspected terrorist device.

If grass jelly is to become the new, must have foody delight, as I'm sure it will, I'll have to find a more efficient and simpler way of getting it out there so the world can enjoy this new taste sensation.

Clean

My lovely new apartment is so clean.  It had its first visit today from Tay, my new cleaner.  She's a tiny Vietnamese lady, somewhere in her thirties, dressed in the local style of ladies from the delta, floral pyjamas.  She arrived early, giving me time to head of to work after letting her in and showing her what to do.  This was more like me pointing at things and her nodding as we have no common language.

The place can get dirty quite quickly even if I impose a no shoes rule in the house.  There are always glasses and cups to deal with, floors to sweep and mop and shirts to iron.  I've asked her to come a, probably unnecessary, twice a week so domestic things don't get out of hand.  She brought a bag of cleaning products and paraphernalia ready to work her magic on my grubby home and I went off to work.

When I got home tonight everything was in perfect order.  Kitchen shiny, bed made, washing drying quietly on the balcony and floors immaculate.  It took a while for me find my flip flops which usually lurk next to the door in a heap with the other shoes.  Tay had neatly filled them all away in a cupboard.  She's has also placed little mats  outside the bathroom doors to stop my wet feet from treading dirt all around the place. I find these moments of order and domesticity quite touching.

Tay comes recommended by a teacher from work and I hope she's happy to stay and look after the place and me.  I don't pay her much but I think I pay her fairly and if the money helps her support her family I'll be happy and I won't have to do any housework.

Sport

I don't mind a bit of sport from time to time.  I have no favourite or claim to be any good at any of them but I'll have a go at most things with varying degrees of success or failure.  Sadly, my latest foray into the world of racquet and ball was definitely a failure.

The other day, in a rush of enthusiasm, I entered myself into the RMIT tennis tournament.  I've knocked a ball backwards and forwards on the broken down ( but free ) courts in Crouch End's Priory Park before. I even took lessons once many years ago where they taught me to do a cunningly concealed swerving serve.  It was all in the grip as I recall. Now, after all that time I've no idea what that grip was.

One of the teachers who was returning to his home country sold me his rather nice racquet at a very good price so, armed with that and my distant memories of hitting a tennis ball I got myself down to the courts on Friday afternoon.  The university has a brand spanking new sports complex with gym,  a large indoor space for 5-a-side football, badminton and basketball and a large field on the edge of which they have 3 courts.

The games started at 4pm with a doubles match, two teachers against two young, athletic and well trained students.  The teachers battled heroically for an hour against their opponents finally losing in a tie break.  My problem was that one of the young, athletic and well trained students was playing me next.

Some of these kids are rich.  They have iphones, designer clothes, an expensive foreign education and tennis lessons.  Needless to say I lost.  I did manage to get him to deuce in two out of seven games we played though.  I'm not going to give up, just pick my opponents a little more carefully in future.

Escape from Phu My Hung

I've not left the cosy confines of Phu My Hung for two whole weeks now. During that time I've been preoccupied with moving into my new apartment and buying stuff for it. I now have two plates and a bowl to add to the kettle, frying pan and pot that I bought previously. Today I thought it might be time to step outside this little world and venture into HCMC proper. Anyway, I had to go to the post office in town. I can't really believe that going to the central post office is the only way to post stuff back to England but I've been told that it is.

I shared the 1 o'clock shuttle bus with a collection of Korean housewives and their children into the centre of HCMC and set off on foot to the post office. It's a grand old building in the French Colonial style and is always full of tourists admiring the architecture. I was just there to post some letters.

After the post office I went to the Reunification Palace, another fine building, this one in 50's style, looking a bit like London's Festival Hall, lots of open staircases and wide marble floors with distinctive 50's shapes on door handles. The building looked Western but once inside the décor and furniture is pure Chinese, big pictures, lacquered wooden chairs and lots of red. Apparently it has been left untouched since the North Vietnamese army arrive in 1975. The best bit for me was the basement rooms, narrow corridors with lonely isolated cell like offices housing ancient communication equipment carefully laid out for the tourists.

I came back to Phu My Hung on the 4:30 bus and got wet again as the rain came down very heavily whilst I made my way back to the pickup point.

Reproduction paintings are popular here and there are plenty of shops in the upmarket foreigner area selling fakes. Van Gogh, Klimt and Cezanne are all popular with local painters specialising in a particular genre. Along with these there are other shops selling artist materials so I picked up a sketch pad and some pencils so I can do a bit of drawing. I can't spend all my free time in bars and restaurants can I?

Garden Centres

I'm going to a house warming party tonight hosted by two American ladies who started at the same time as me.  We call them 'The Ladies' and for some reason the name has stuck.  I've had my drinks party the other week and they are having theirs tonight.  Rather than just take booze ( although I probably will as well ) I went to one of the garden centres along the road from my building to buy a plant.  The Ladies have a fine roof terrace and they talked about filling it with plants.  There's a row of garden centres squeezed up against the main road that runs from Sky Gardens to the university and they are all busy with vans coming and going loading up with plants.

I picked out a pink lily but the woman made me put it back and pressed the one she selected on me.  They all looked the same to me. I like to play the discerning customer occasionally but thought it wise to defer to her expert knowledge.  I found a rounded, ochre coloured, ceramic pot for it and she gave everything to a boy to pot up and put stones around the rim, to help drainage I imagine.  I watched the boy doing a good job with the plant,  giving it a final spray and a wipe around the pot.

The whole thing came to 90,000 dong, about £3 for plant, pot and the service.  Quite a bargain, I hope the Ladies like it in their new home.

I've got the BBC!!

Finally I've got the internet at home.  My lovely estate agent arranged it and it's up and running but it's so slow.  Not only is it slow but a lot of sites, like BBC iplayer and Spotify, don't work if you are not in England so I've invested in a proxy.  BBC radio has been blocked by censors and quite rightly in my view.  There is nothing so subversive and a threat to social order as middle class outrage as expressed on Radio 4. But now I can go through the proxy and listen to their grumpy moaning as often as I like.

Now I'm more plugged in to UK media I found this video clip which  made me think of home.  This guy has been painting on chewing gum in and around Muswell Hill for a few years now.  Watch the clip as he talks about his work whilst lying on the pavement outside Muswell Hill library.  It made me feel quite homesick for a second or two.

Another Sunday

I woke up at 8am, not as hung over as I should have been after the Halloween party of the night before. I have no interest in Halloween which is a pointless American invention but the party was a opportunity to meet some of the other teachers at the school. It was held at a teacher's tall thin Vietnamese house in District 1 in the heart of the backpacker ghetto. On her roof terrace we had a fantastic 360 degree view of the night time city and although it was in the very centre of the city it was surprisingly quiet. I left around 1 am with an Australian couple and one of their friends and shared a taxi home.

After doing a bit of housework, a cursory mop of the floor and a quick whizz over a couple of shirts with an iron, I spent an hour in the Garden Cafe drinking iced coffee and using their WiFi before heading to one of the local Japanese restaurants to lunch on raw fish, tiny rolls of rice and vegetables and Sapporo beer. They serve salmon roe, big fat juice beads of fishy goodness that burst in your mouth when you bite down on them. I ate them with chopsticks one at a time to prolong the pleasure, one burst at a time.

Two of the teachers I started with, and have been spending time with, have just moved in to an impressive 5 story house so after lunch it was back to theirs, via the fancy deli to pick up wine, for drinks on their rooftop terrace. The deli has the biggest selection of Belgian beer I've seen outside of Brussels and a small sample of it is now in my fridge, next the bag of limes, cooling nicely and ready to drink another day.

The house was lovely, very tall with countless bedrooms and bathrooms. Minimalist white walls and cream tiles with gaps in the walls to allow the free flow of air.

At around 4:30 I made my way home for a rest but texted another teacher who was at that moment having drinks with her boyfriend in a hotel bar not far from the apartment. Rather than have a nap and watch a video as I had vaguely planned, I joined them. More beer followed the afternoon's wine and that was followed by a walk to a Singaporean restaurant where I ate steamed tofu with mushrooms and spring rolls. The slipperiness of the mushrooms and the softness of the tofu contrasted with the crunchy crispness of the rolls and made an interesting if unnecessary dinner. The restaurant offered frog porridge, which is either a humorous mistranslation from the Chinese or they've got a copy of Heston Blumenthal's latest cookbook. I imagined tiny green frogs sticking heads out of lumpy grey gruel and blinking. I don't like porridge so I passed on it this time.

I was home by 9:30 after my day of drinking, eating and chatting to sip iced vodka and lime juice before heading for bed.