Construction...

There is one aspect of being in Hanoi (besides it being a really big city!), that has taken some getting used to. And that aspect is the constant buzz of construction. In our old apartment and now our new, it is typical to be woken up at around 5:30 or 6 because of the clanking and banging of the construction men hard at it already. Even when looking at apartments we were told that there is really no place in the whole city where you can get away from the construction. Hanoi is a city that is ever changing and ever growing to supply the demands of new business, expats living there and to support the wealthy Vietnamese living there.

This was nothing like the Vietnam I remember, although the parts of Vietnam I traveled to were the smaller towns and countryside. Hanoi is actually a fairly expensive city (contrary to what I had told Lance about Vietnam being so cheap!). You can still choose to eat cheap by eating at local food stalls or restaurants but it is also not hard to stop at the loads of non-Vietnamese restaurants and spend close to what you would back home for a meal.

It seems in so many part of the world that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer....and that seems to be the case here in Vietnam as well, from what we have observed and heard. I really don't know how some of the people survive here with how cheap it is to buy their goods off the street. And when you buy stuff off the street it is all about bartering....which you can't help but feel bad about because of the small price you are bartering over! Sometimes you feel angry because you know that they are trying to charge you double because you are a foreigner. In the end you know that it is not a significant amount and usually give in.

Tipping at restaurants is not a common thing. It is a very hard thing for me to not tip, being a former waitress! I had heard and read many different opinions on the topic. First, I have been told that it is considered rude to tip (maybe as though they feel they are being pitied by your tip). I've also heard that at nicer places you can tip a little if you want. We are still trying to figure out if for delivery we are supposed to tip. There is usually a delivery fee, but we feel that we should still give a little something. The times we have done that, we have found the delivery person to give us a huge smile when we give them a tip that is around $1.

Lance and I are still trying to get used to some of the "ways" of the people here. This mostly includes the driving! Since we have started renting motorbikes and driving more in the city, our anger and frustration has only got worse! Besides the fact that the traffic is just plain crazy here from the masses of cars, trucks and motorbikes, it is crazy because of how the people drive! There are lanes that are clearly marked, although I'm not sure why, because in a 2 lane you will see up to 4 vehicles side by side. People here just seem to be rude, uncaring and unknowing of what is going on around them. Even when walking people push to get in front of you and talk really loud and don’t seem to understand that they are being rude! When we walk to and from school we are constantly being honked at, flashed (by car lights!), almost driven into and yelled at for a taxi ride. This wouldn’t seem strange but these taxis are RIGHT IN PLAIN SITE IN FRONT OF US!  We don’t understand how THEY don’t understand that we SEE them and that if we actually needed a taxi, we would let them know because we can see them!

Back to the traffic. I don’t think that the word “yield” is in the Vietnamese vocabulary. When someone is turning onto a road you are on, there is no yielding or even looking to see if traffic is coming. I think it is expected that the people in that ongoing traffic will just move over and let you in. It’s a bit scary when you are driving a motorbike and people are coming at you! And you are supposed to move over but there are 15 motorbikes next to where you want to move over! There is a constant beeping and honking that we should maybe be used to by now because we were told that the do it mostly out of “hey I’m coming around the corner or hey I want to get around you” or something like that. BUT again, when you are actually driving in this madness it seems like a different story. For example….I’m driving with a car behind me and like 30 cars/motorbikes in front of me and around me….and this car behind me keeps beeping. I wanted to turn around and scream “I CAN’T GO ANYWHERE BUDDY, LAY OFF! EVEN IF I MOVE YOU AREN’T GOING ANYWHERE!!!”

Patience is a virtue right? Well, we are working on that!!!