Best thing on the back of a motorbike on my way to work this morning: three sacks o' bees.

Horses and fat aunts

The last post was a bit of a diversion, but should not be taken to mean that I am getting bored of noodles/children/motorbikes, only writing about them. Now I will go back to writing about Hanoi.

I just had the most awesome run through some of the countryside on the outskirts of Hanoi. I've been running with this group called the Red River Runners, and so they know some of the more picturesque routes and I can follow them all over (even though they're all faster than me).

We start from a big ugly expat community called Ciputra (bleh), and then go along the motorway for a bit (bleh), but after that we go through some little windy back streets with children playing and getting very excited when we run past. You have to jump over big piles of bricks and occasionally the aforementioned children.

a bit like this

Then we go past some farms, where there are actually green things and fresh air and no motorbike horns. Then today, four of us went down to a 'beach' on the banks of the river. It was starting to get dusky at this point, so imagine big pink skies and orange water. It actually felt a bit like Witterings, except usually at Witterings there are not ladies in wedding dresses having their photos taken. (N.B. wedding photos here are definitely a bigger deal than actual weddings.) We were going to go back the way we came, but ended up exploring across the sand dunes to find a different route - there were randomly little ponies tied up in the middle of nowhere. Maybe you can ride them, that would be cool. There were also some cows; don't know if you can ride them, I would like to try though.

this is the picture that came up on Google Images when I tried to find a picture of the Red River...it is the right river I think.

Still going along the banks of the river, we went through this pottery village. Basically there are just loads of pots. It's more exciting than B+Q though because this ramshackle little village has grown up on the banks of the river to sell the pots, so more windy unmade streets and dogs and women barbecuing bun cha outside their house.

this is pork being barbecued for bun cha, a kind of grilled pork noodle soup thing

Shortly after the pottery village is the graveyard. On one side are a few big tombs. This is where bodies are buried right after they die; they're here for about three years, before being exhumed. The bones are cleaned, and then re-buried in the graveyard on the other side. Some important religious person has to arrange the bones in the right way, according to the alignment of the stars and planets at that time. Adele, who I was running with, was telling me her cook had to go to the exhumation ceremony thing of her aunt, except her aunt had had to be buried in the primary graveyard for five years instead of three, because she was so fat and took longer to rot.

secondary graveyard is a bit like this

After the graveyard is the flower market, and then a main road, along the banks of West Lake, and back into Ciputra where we go for beer, or in my case about 20 pints of water. I felt like Elsa when she gets back from a run, and slurps all the water from her bowl like a maniac. In total today I ran about 17.5km, which my legs will now attest is a pretty long way, although it didn't feel like it at the time because we were exploring all over and there was so much to see. Whether or not I will still be able to walk when I get up from this computer is yet to be seen.


I hope this has been an adequately Hanoi-centred post, as requested. Now I have to go and retrieve my motorbike from the other end of the city...damn....

Rude boy for life

My blogging has lost momentum somewhat - a combination of no photos, more routine days, and a lack of free time mean that it rarely appeals. I have a laptop now, an old Mac my landlord found me - definitely better than nothing but pretty crap anyway. He told me the password was brucelee, and it's not that at all, which seems a really strange thing to make up.

Instead of blogging about Hanoi - motorbikes, children, beer, noodles - I now wish to write about SONISPHERE and more specifically SKINDRED and more specifically still HOW GOOD THEY ARE. Maybe this doesn't interest everyone but whatever, it interests me and you don't have to be here.

When else has Welsh reggae-metal made Josh and me run from one end of a huge festival to the other? In fact, when else has Josh run anywhere? This feat of athleticism is a testament to the awesomeness of Skindred.

It is probably best to let Skindred themselves show how good they are:







Ok this laptop doesn't have Flash so I'm not entirely sure which videos I've just posted and whether they actually work. But hopefully at least one will...enjoy.

Snow day

It is obviously not an actual snow day as it currently 28 degrees in Hanoi. But I turned up at the school I was supposed to be teaching at this afternoon and there were no screaming children in the playground - SCHOOL IS CANCELLED. Now I can play instead of work. No sledding unfortunately but I might do some yoga - is that equivalent? I also plan on a nap and maybe to go bowling this evening: clearly living large.

I went for a wander up my street and took lots of photos to put on my blog, but when I got home I realised that my camera cable was in my laptop case, and my laptop case got stolen from my bedroom, along with my laptop, so no photos for a while. Instead I will add variety using this:



Work is still going well, even though sometimes I get very frustrated when I can't get 25 7-year-olds to be quiet. Literally, they do not shut up for longer than 10 seconds, whatever I do. I thought I liked children but now I'm not so sure. My classes with older kids are more enjoyable because I can actually teach them some English. I had a really good new class last night, there was only 5 of them and they were really clever, we had good chats. On Sunday morning I have to give a presentation to a bunch of people about a new course my company's starting. I am a bit nervous but my friend at work said no one will be listening to me anyway, only the Vietnamese translation of what I say.

New house is also ok. The street is cool, I have fairy lights in my room, and I like being able to cook. Housemates are occasionally annoyingly anal and mature. (Actually I don't know if any of them read this... if you are then I'm only talking about the other ones...) I want to buy a kitten but they won't let me, and I've been told off for other trivial stuff too....I didn't move here to be told what to do and it's pissing me off, people's shitty irrelevant adult concerns which are rarely justified. Ok enough ranting on the blog. But it makes me miss 97 Girton Road aka Manrock Cottage with the booze fridge and the Guitar Hero and the broken shisha pipe and writing anti-Greek propaganda on Will's door.

Now I have to go because I am training for a half marathon and so must do whatever Hal Higdon says.

The wheels on the bus go round and round!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I apologise to anyone who came across the extremely grumpy post I wrote earlier. No one is in the best mood at 8am on Monday morning, I shouldn't have broadcast my rubbish mood over the internet.

The grumpiness it contained related to things either inconsequential or now solved (ish), so I deleted it.

Here are some good things:
I saw a goat sitting on the intersection of a really busy road in the middle of Hanoi.
At dinner we got DIY spring rolls - I shall henceforth be awarding a prize for the most creative thing wrapped into rice paper. No prizes for wraping up poo; that's immature.
My housemate Dave appears to be some sort of negotiation god. More details if and when the negotiations actually pay off.
I did a 5k time trial at the weekend and ran 25:49, maybe that doesn't mean much to some people, but it's fast for me and I was happy.
I ran a long way this evening and now I have jelly legs and endorphins in my blood.
I live in Hanoi.

Not dead

Just to let all my worried readers (i.e. my parents) know that I'm not dead, but have moved house and we don't have internet there yet. Loi says will we have it by this evening, but Loi says a lot of things.

I'm currently on a blender-buying mission in a fish-head and stolen-electronics sort of market (soon all the dragon fruit smoothies shall be ours), and I got a text from my boss saying I had to check my email urgently. So I found this internet cafe full of teenage boys playing World Of Warcraft - it's just like being at home - and the 'urgent' email was a re-forward of something I got last Friday. Thanks for that.

As well as a mint green blender, I've bought a bedside lamp shaped like a pig, and fairy lights. New houses are fun. I almost bought a kitten this morning from someone next to me on the motorway, but I couldn't work out how to carry it home on my bike.

Edit: just noticed that the two girls next to me are literally searching "Emo Boys" on Google Images.

Tôi yêu Hà Nội, Hà Nội yêu tôi

I've quit my old job, woohoo. Apparently this is a justification for people who I thought were my friends to be angry with me now - because they weren't my first priority when I made a career choice? I don't know. But whatever, I'm obviously better off without the old job and without the 'friend'. Two girls from my new job, who cutely refer to themselves as 'double-Linh', took me out for sweetie-yoghurt-tapioca-fruit-drink-things and I decided that my initial negative vibes about this new job have done a U-turn. It's all good. Maybe it's just because sweetie-yoghurt-things would make me feel positive about anything.

akin to this

Other good things have happened. I got in yesterday evening in a strop (a failed run and the Hanoian excessive use of horns) and settled in to watch The Hangover and avoid all things Vietnam. Then I got a text from Thoa inviting me into town with her friends, so I reluctantly got out of my pajamas and went out.

It was such a fun night because everybody was out celebrating the 1000th birthday of Hanoi, which is officially tomorrow. We wandered around for a bit, and then sat on a step eating ice cream and watching everything go by. Everyone was in high spirits and running around doing conga lines, and there was shitty patriotic Vietnamese music blaring out, and about every other person was wearing an "I Heart Hanoi" t-shirt.

the girl in the middle is Thoa's best friend who is now going to stay in Hanoi and not move to Saigon; this makes me happy because it makes Thoa happy

So yeah, three cheers for rubbish nights that turn into awesome nights.

modelling the ubiquitous I Heart Hanoi t-shirts - i totally bought one

Today I massively enjoyed my day off - watched a film (third time lucky at watching The Hangover without falling asleep/going out), went for a long sweaty run, sat by a lake planning some lessons, mooched, wandered, ate some dinner at my favourite macrobiotic vegetarian restaurant, currently mooching a bit more, maybe go to a party later. Free time is awesome, but always better when there's not much of it.

All change

I tried to write this when I got in last night but fell asleep in the process. My laptop was left on the floor next to the bed, still turned on, and apparently during the night an army of ants believed they had found a warm new city, and moved in. So I have spent the last 15 minutes playing a deadly kind of Whack-A-Mole, each time one pops up from between the keys. Now there seems to be less of them, but I'm sure if that's because they heard reports of the mass genocide taking place above, and they're all hiding out below, quaking.

Now back to my story. Lots of things have changed in the last couple of days, so this post might be long. I will try to intersperse it with photos for those of my friends who prefer their books to have pictures.


I started the new job and it's going really well. All the kids seem cool and a class of 26 isn't as hard to manage as I thought would be. Or at least they were well-behaved in the first lesson. Yesterday morning 3 girls made me cards. They asked me what my favourite animal is and I said "pigs" (as I'm not sure whether 7 year olds know "squid" yet). So the cards have smiley pigs on and say things like "Love Laura".

i swear i didn't set this as an activity

A class on Wednesday afternoon was totally weird. Basically for my new job I am teaching a syllabus and exams set by Cambridge, and so my company is creaming themselves over the fact that I went to Cambridge. I think perhaps they think I did these exams myself, or that I was trained to teach them or something, when in fact the only transferable skills I learned at Cambridge was how to lock myself in a room and not interact with anyone for hours on end. At this school on Wednesday afternoon, I got to have green tea with the principal and some other important people. The principal told me he didn't speak much English but he spoke French. I lied to look clever and told him I spoke "un petit peu de francais". After that he was chatting away to me in French and I didn't understand anything. Then we went to this ceremony before the class started, where people made speeches and there were tablecloths and flowers, and I could hear them saying "Laura....Cambridge...nuoc Anh (England)....Cambridge....(lots of applause)", and I had to hand out welcome letters to all the students starting the course, and there was more applause. I felt like yelling "No! You've got it all wrong! I am a completely inexperienced and sometimes lazy or hungover teacher! Don't be happy that I am here!" But whatever, if it makes them happy to believe it then they can carry on.

I still totally don't know what to do about the fact that I already have a job. This week I have been doing both, and it has been OK and manageable, but at the same time I've been doing 14-hour days and haven't had a day off in 2 weeks, and I just can't really be bothered. So do I try to negotiate something, and carry on working a few hours at both? I am so clueless about the way these things work. Or do I just quit my old job, after I get paid tomorrow, and never come back? The prospect of getting this weekend off seems appealing, but that would make it really hard for my boss to find cover, and plus I would never be able to go back to Apollo. I would miss the 5 year old who used to growl whenever I asked him a question but now is my friend, and was so so so happy with the crown he made yesterday.

some kind of celebration for 1000 years of Hanoi - pretty much as good as live music gets in Hanoi

Other changes: I moved out of my old house yesterday, which is a sad thing. I don't move into my new one until Monday, so I'm staying in my friend's room at the moment, while he's away in Saigon. It's nice having a mattress and a kitchen.

The reasons why I had to move are complicated - firstly the landlady at the old place was starting to breathe down Thoa's neck, because I wasn't registered to live there and it was only supposed to be Vietnamese. Thoa had been telling her that I was just a friend staying for a few days, not paying rent, but the police are getting more stringent because of the big 1000 years' celebration in Hanoi at the moment, and I don't think she was happy lying. Secondly, Thoa found out that her old roommate/best friend, who has been visiting Saigon for the last month, is not coming back to Hanoi to live with her again. So Thoa's moving out, which means I have to as well. I actually just wrote a load more stuff about the second reason but deleted it because it's not really public blog material.

Anyway, here are some soon-to-be-nostalgic photos of my old house:

my old house

my old street - this was mid-afternoon so minus all the happy noodle-eaters that line the wall in the evening

Last night I went out for dinner with two Japanese businessmen. It was really fun but pretty much as weird as it sounds. We talked about food and binge-drinking culture and old age and mountain biking. I learned to say (although not spell) 'Oishi' which means good. I also learned how to say 'Sake' properly.

there kept being more and more courses, it was amazing

did you know that this is an American thing, no one eats food like this in Japan

this is one of the guys' private bottle of alcohol - they store it for him and get it out each time he comes back, which means he doesn't have to drink a whole bottle each time, which makes a lot of sense

i totally partook in the 'eco-wash', it gave me the giggles

I think I have gone on for long enough now. For some reason my laptop doesn't let me reply to comments so Goob - Hanoi is cloudy probably 70% of the time, but it's more smog than mist. When you visit we can adventure to the mountains and frolic in the fresh air. And Daddy - congratulations on your pun, you must be very proud.


I had to edit this to include a link to the European Beard and Moustache Championships. Absolutely epic.

Consisting of police raids, nerves and tentacles

Today was a really surreal day, in part due to the deep-fried tentacles that topped my afternoon noodle soup and made me feel like I was in Pirates of the Caribbean. They taste a bit like pork scratchings; quite nice.

I'm not sure of the real reason why today didn't feel like other days, because it ostensibly it was the same as most - teaching, running, eating noodle soup (for all 3 meals - a new personal best), getting lost on my motorbike. It passed in a bit of a sleepy daze and I never felt like I was really there.

Maybe it's because tomorrow I start this new job, and the old comfortable phase is coming to an end, and a scary new phase is beginning. I'm so nervous about it, because this time I think I really might not be up to the challenge. Teaching GCSEs to a class of 26 state schools kids based on no real resources is going to be different to inventing superheroes with a few posh kids at a Saturday school.

I have been constantly to-ing and fro-ing in my mind ever since I got the job about whether I actually want to take it or not. They've dumped me with a load of classes this week even though I haven't left my last job yet, which I plan to turn to my advantage by being characteristically non-committal and disrespectful of contractual obligation - I've told myself that I just have to teach the classes this week, and if I'm as rubbish at it as I think I'm going to be, I don't have to stay, but if I like it, I will stay. I will report back tomorrow as to how it went.

Thoa is currently telling me that the police might come into our house in the night and make me leave because I'm living here illegally. I hope they don't do that, it's raining outside.

In which dead dogs and peas are mentioned

black cat loves (???)piglet(???)

10th October is the 1000th anniversary of Hanoi, and the celebrations started last night. As far as I can tell, they consist in some light shows, some kids banging drums, and insane amounts of traffic and crowds. We drove into the Old Quarter (busy central part) last night. I didn't take a photo, but it's not an exaggeration to say that the traffic was considerably worse than this:

Tensions were high, and there was a punch-up in the middle of the road. I didn't like it at all. Soon after I had some beer and some rice cake and felt much better.

I didn't take this photo either. Taking photos makes me feel like a tourist.

The new prize for best thing carried on the back of a motorbike goes to the person carrying about 100 pink balloons, driving through heavy (heavy) traffic in the middle of Hanoi. They definitely couldn't see where they were going.

The prize for worst thing on the back of a motorbike, in fact perhaps the worst thing ever, is the 8 dead dogs I saw at about 7am this morning. They had no hair, their throats cut and judging by the size of their arseholes (sorry Mummy), their guts had also been removed via this exit. But they still had teeth and little doggy faces that bounced around when the bike went over bumps. I think it's illogical that it should be so much worse to see than a dead pig or a dead chicken, but it totally is. It's really, really horrible. It made me want a reassuring hug with Elsa.

Less morbidly, I have been planning what pet I will acquire when we move into our new house, next Monday. I wanted a rat but my housemates did not seem keen on this idea; apparently they think the rats in the staffroom at work are pests rather than cheerful companions. Now I want to either adopt the straggly little kitten tied to the tree outside work, or one of the rabbits stuffed into a cage in the Old Quarter, gnawing on the pigeons in the cage with them. I think they were going to be dinner. There are probably more respectable petshops, and I know that supposedly if you buy from the nasty places it's supporting the industry so you shouldn't do it, but I was thinking: me not buying from the less reputable places is hardly going to collapse the industry or actually make any difference whatsoever, whereas if I do buy a rabbit from there, I am making one rabbit's life much happier.
(The 1A Ethics course has finally come in useful.)

probably not going to be my pet

Other news:
'Curly hair' has officially been renamed 'noodle hair'.
I ate at a vegetarian macrobiotic restaurant with no menu and it was amazing.
I like driving my motorbike.
I might move jobs but I probably won't.
Mattresses are overrated.
I found a bar that plays System Of A Down.
You can make popcorn from peas.
Everybody should work with people who are reduced to hysterical laughter and screaming at the prospect of singing Wheels On The Bus; I think the world would be a happier place.

I didn't take this either, but I think it feels a lot like Hanoi.