More Rain

There's a steady rain outside my window right now, flooding the streets and making it miserable to travel anywhere. Today was supposed to be the day that we go explore the old quarter of the city and check out the colonial architecture that abounds there. However, I am stuck inside the MCC office with nothing to do except write here and listen to the patter of water droplets outside the window... and the steady sounds of horns off in the distance.

On Tuesday I was issued my MCC bicycle (The official mode of transport for SALTers in Vietnam, at least until we learn how to ride a motorcycle) and have since rode it around, mostly to the office and back. Riding here is truly an experience unlike any other. It is firmly engrained in my mind that a bicycle is a sort of second class citizen on the road and is relegated to the right lane. Mentally, riding a bike involves watching out for cars and hoping that they aren't too busy grooving to music or talking on their bluetooth to notice you. Here in Hanoi, bikes are treated a little different. They are not very common (Though ostensibly they were incredibly populous a few years ago) but they are in many ways a true king of the road. With traffic that travels around 40 k/h a bicycle can keep up with much of the slow moving motorcycles and cars. Thus here one rides as if they were a motorcycle, swerving in and out of traffic. It's a little intimidating at first, but once you get a feel for the rhythm of the traffic it's actually quite fun. The best part is that while there are medians on all the major streets, one can simply just hop them and go the other direction rather than waiting until a traffic circle.

With all the rain that's happening there is quite a bit of standing water. Nathan and I went to go check out the school where we will be learning Vietnamese and were faced several times with situations where the water was a eight inches deep on the the street and no way to go around. Eventually one is forced to take off their shoes and just suck it up.

Bananas In Pyjamas

It seems like forever since I was accepted into SALT and assigned to Vietnam, almost as long as the flight over felt, but at long last I am here and sweating profusely. In fact, I arrived three days ago in the evening. Orientation wrapped up on Wednesday, to the joy of most everyone there, and Nathan (The other SALTer with whom I will be working with) and I began our travels the following morning. We drove to Harrisburg, and then flew to Chicago. We had a small wait and then we hopped on a plane to Seoul. I have done long flights before, most notably from Vancouver to Hong Kong, and it honestly didn't feel like that long a trip even though thirteen hours had passed. Seoul was an interesting airport not for the building itself, but what sort of shops were there. The food court had a wide variety of asian cuisine, but also had  KFC. There were smoking lounges (a sight that I had not seen for quite some time) and a restaurant that sold German beer and BBQ squid. Seoul also had free wifi, something that more airports should have.

My Balcony

After Seoul we flew to Ha Noi and breezed through customs. It was far more stressful and time consuming to get into the States than Vietnam. We were picked up by Derek Hostetler, the MCC rep for Vietnam and taken to his home. While it was dark and I was quite tired, I watched the passing cityscape pass by and was amazed by how upscale it was. My mental image of a city in a developing country is the one that I spent the most time in, namely Accra Ghana. Ha Noi is in many respects totally different, from the architecture and layout, to the attitude of the people towards foreigners, to the types of vehicles that grace the streets.

The following day was a day for dealing with jet lag, and thus nothing really happend.

The next day the Hostetler family took Nathan and I to their church. The Vietnamese government keeps a relatively tight leash on the Church and so there are few churches in the country. The reasoning behind this, as I have understood it, is not that Christianity in itself is bad, but rather that colonial powers frequently used different religions and denominations as a way to create infighting in the country. Thus there is a strict divide between the state and ALL religions. Derek mentioned at one point that there are few church buildings and that most churches are held in the homes of the congregation. The church that we went to was held in a conference room in a hotel and is composed of foreigners, mostly NGO workers.

 At last we come to today, the day when things actually start. We left in the morning for the MCC office to begin orientation and after meeting the staff we took off with two of them to visit the Temple of Literature. Founded in the eleventh century, it is Vietnam's first university and was devoted to the study of Confucius.

Scholarly Turtles

One of the Courtyards at the Temple

Prior to coming I had heard that the traffic in Hanoi was insane, what with motorcycles going all different directions simultainiously, and while I can't deny that, there is a sort of organized chaos here. While defensive driving is a completely foreign concept here, one instead utilizes their horn to the fullest, constantly reminding people that they are there and to watch out for them. In addition, the speeds that vehicles travel at here in the city are really slow, usually below 40 kph. I am looking forward to hitting the streets at some point.




If you are curious as to what the title was talking about, there is an overabundance of BIP dolls here, which makes no sense to me.