Ho Chi Lightning Fish

Well its been the month of the lightning storm. No rain mind you, just vast blinding tears through the sky after a days build up of heat. A couple of weeks ago I witnessed the biggest lightning storm I have ever seen. It was right above us and was constant. Every now and then a cracking bolt would lance the earth and blind my eyes as it rolled across the sky. Is there anything more awe inspiring, more powerful or blinding than lightning. It really makes you feel truly meek and perishable.  We have just been through a little mini heat wave. It was undies off and lots of dips in the ocean as temperatures went into the forties. Poor Jules would walk into the house-after a day of school like a little molten lava rock. Air con on, fan on, douse her with water and a nice cold drink and she was ready to brave the elements again. I am looking forward to seeing how the kiwis handle the heat straight out of winter.

I love the heat. I love never having to wear a sweat shirt, or wondering if it is going to rain. I have realized its not the rain I'm scared of its the wet and cold. Here if it rains you get wet then you dry out in a few minutes. The Vietnamese are like human barometers. I am often driving and they are on the side of the road putting on their raincoats in perfect blue sky weather. Five minutes later its pouring down rats and dogs.

Played my weekly soccer game last night and have my weekly sore legs today. I have realized I am no spring chicken anymore. I can hold my own with the 26 year olds here during the match but its the next day that I feel old. I don't want to stop playing but I am slowly accumulating niggles, sprains and pains. Could be about time I play goalie.

So we found a large fish in our pond. I call him Ho Chi Fish. We have been living here for a year and I had never once seen him. There are concerns it is actually a government spy or that it was planted by the neighbours to eat all my small fish, fatten him and then collect for eating. But it seems that this is where he lives. The landlord did clear a whole lot of pond weed recently so he has no where to hide now. I don't want to tell any of the neighbours otherwise he may well end up in a Vietnamese frying pan. I am hoping he will bred with our local yard rat that is about the same size as a small dog. I would like to see a ratfish.

Its children's day tomorrow. Lots of kids will be going nuts through the streets. Our street is being closed off and presents distributed. This last week there has been school holidays and I often get a gaggle of kids coming in the house to observe the weird foreign dude with his gadgets. The kids here are wide eyed and cute. They find us so interesting and even the parents point at us and tell their kids to wave and say hello. The little girl across the way is starting to learn english and yells out Hello, Xin Chao, Dam Biet, Goodbye every time we go out our gate. She is like a 2 year old watchdog. Families here are very close. Everyone has kids here in their mid twenties. Jules and I are often scolded for being too old without kids. The lady in the market last week got asked if she was pregnant (never sits well) When she said no. the woman pointed at me and said " too old" The women here are really baby making machines. They don't drink, smoke or eat fast food. They are preened to breed from an early age and they follow strong ideals about when this should happen and how their bodies should be kept. I think there are big changes coming in the next ten years with access to the internet and foreign TV channels.

A friend and I are currently starting up a new online tourist guide to Hoi An. www.inhoian.com. It is going to take a while but we found there was no attractive great functioning websites for Hoi An and with 2.8 million visitors each year to a place no bigger than Huntly, we decided there was a great opportunity. To begin with we are concentrating on functionality, appearance and optimization but further down the track we would like to make some money once we start getting a lot of visitors. There are many opportunities here if you have the patience and time to live here, learn about Da Nang as it grows rapidly. They are moulding this place into a huge city and in ten years I dare say I will not recognize it. With the growth comes good and bad things. Better infrastructure, rubbish collections are great but beach sky scrapers and resorts are not. It is however progress in a country that has been at war and stifled for 100 years so I hope they power forward grow, help their people without  destroying the beautiful surroundings. If history has any influence then I fear for this place.

So its Friday and happy hour in 6 hours so I must prepare. Its amazing how a two for one special still draws in the punters when beers are only a dollar. Everyone loves free drinks I guess.

Over and Out

Shann and Jules

Dragon Bridge and a Big Cock

It has been a while since my last blog. This is mainly to do with my two month working holiday, wedding extravaganza. It was great to see everyone again but what does become very apparent is that two months is still a very short space of time to catch up with everyone.

I guess the underlying  highlight about the trip back home, the reason why everyone was so happy and why everyones teeth looked so white, was the weather. An official drought was in action, a far cry from the total washout the summer before provided. Farmers aside, it is truly remarkable, the pure joy that the sun brings out in people. Not just the added extra vitamin count but the share number of days where one can plan a picnic or outdoor gathering where you don't have to invite a pair of animals and that annoying weather doomsayer with the ark. It was evident that I had acclimatized to the South East Asian heat because I found myself putting on a sweat shirt when the kiwis looked like they were about to collapse in a sweaty mess. In NZ you can stand on the edge of a shadow in a pair of speedos, plastered in sun cream, sweating profusely. Take a sideways step into the shade and you practically need a puffer jacket to survive. The air has a freshness about it. You can almost taste the purity when you step out of the airport.

So I returned to Da Nang at the end of rainy season that never eventuated. It was about 30C, a nice time of year to be in Da Nang. I missed this place and I felt like it had missed me too.

Jules had decided to ignore the power bill while we were away. She deduced that there was no way the Vietnamese authorities would turn off the electricity to a house with very important western people living there. We found out this theory was wrong at 7am. Thirty four hours later and a short stint at a hotel we got our aircon back.

We have a new neighbour, he's a rooster called Ramsey. Basically he's a big cock. He is a cock that has no concept of time or space so he chooses to crow at all times to cover all bases. I have a hate hate relationship with Ramsey and made a hint to the landlord that Ramsey was possibly an undesirable character in our neighbourhood. My landlord told me that their three roosters were also a little noisy too!. So now Ramsey and the neighbours that he flats with are getting acquainted to bands such as the Cancer Bats, Faith No More and The Pixies on a daily basis at a volume that may make Ramsey think about his positioning on our back doorsteps. I have also discreetly made enquiries into purchasing some rohypnol laced bird seed in case more persuasive methods need to be introduced.

Da Nang opened a couple new bridges last week. One is a beautiful suspension bridge which looks amazing at night with all its neon glowing wires. The other bridge breathes fire! I kid you not. It is the longest Dragon Bridge in the world with a head that breathes fire. I am not sure how often it will perform this or if it was just an opening day stunt but it sure got the Vietnamese out on opening day. Da Nang is actually looking pretty damn cosmopolitan these days with several high rises sprouting up and the four very different illuminated bridges crossing to the beach.

This weekend Jules and I got on our motorbike and head into the hills. Our plan was to make our way up the Ho Chi Minh trail to Hue but got as far as a small town called Prao and was told that the 160 km ride across the mountains was a suicide mission without a spare tyre. This was highlighted when we turned around and made our way back over the mountains to Da Nang, only to get a flat tyre. Luckily we were only a few hundred metres away from a group of houses. Just when the sweat was starting to drip from my earlobes and the sun was at its highest, we found this amazing family that spoke no Vietnamese let alone English. They fixed our wheel while entertaining Julia and the whole time with the biggest smile on their faces. If I did not already think that the Vietnamese were the friendliest people in the world, this weekend highlighted it. We had a swim with some local kids in their self made swimming hole. We had kids running and waving at us down the streets. We stopped to eat freshly picked pineapple and cruised around the dusty heat soaked roads through beautiful mountain passes. It is amazing how little you need to enjoy life here.

So as Ramsey reminds me that it is 4: 48pm I will ease into my Sunday evening with a wine and thoughts of this coming week. We have old friends arriving back in Da Nang and new friends we want to get better acquainted with. Life is filling fast with new adventures.

Christmas Cruising, Night Visits and Wedding Balls

It was my first Asian Christmas and what a doozy. The December build up was like a tinsel nightmare from the seventies. The malls were playing jingle bells in Vietnamese, in the usual 10,000 decibels, little kids were going to school in mini santa getups and a couple of the resorts dragged out their choir act, summer mulled wine and a handful of Christmas spring rolls. For me a summer Christmas was the norm but you could see the Americans freaking out, not knowing whether to sunbathe or deck the halls.

We participated in the annual Santa Booze cruise. Three buses filled with scary westerners, thrusting their seasonal drunkenness on Vietnamese date night. The bewildered looks we got when we flash mobbed a local restaurant singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was priceless. I went as the Grinch in full face paint and met a bunch of new people who still have no idea what I look like.

Julia and I had some unexpected night time visitors just before Christmas. After a small soiree at our house we were rudely awakened in our bedroom at 2am by a man and his torch. I wanted to let it slide but Jules's hysteria kind of snapped me out of my drunken slumber only to find 5 more men in our lounge with large batons. We had accidentally left our motorbike outside and our door unlocked which we now know gets you a visit from the neighborhood watchmen. Julia said I was a little cold towards them, I think they were lucky not to get kneecapped, looking like menacing triads from an asian crime film.

We had three School Christmas functions to attend to in December. The Green Shoots Kindy Fair, the Green Shoots 'Lion King' Production, which I did the face painting for. And The SIS school charity fair which again I was the local ' I wanna be a princess' face painter.  I Did actually con one girl into letting me paint her as a Saprano.

On December 20th  we were off to Myanmar which I am going to have to write a whole Blog post about because it was truly a spectacular experience and one that a few lines will not do justice.

So now we are back in Da Nang and about to embark on a long journey home. I will miss Vietnam but when I return the weather should be heating up again. It is a weird sight watching thousands of people fanging around in snow gear while I am still in shorts and a tee shirt. It is a bone chilling 22C today so time to get out those thermals.

This year is the year of the wedding. I cannot wait until July when Jules and I tie the knot. By the time July rolls around it is going to be ball sweatingly hot.  Speaking of weddings and balls, I went to a lovely wedding last weekend and as I was leaving I popped into the loo to water the horse when the MC parked up next to me and started asking some incoherent Vietnamese questions while pointing at me todger. I quickly decided that my personal space was getting violated and made a move to the door when he decided to give me the old Christmas hold (A handful of nuts) Its amazing how quickly someone can become so inappropriate. I gave him the international sign for 'backup or I will break your face' repeated the word 'no' a few times until he was saying it back to me and then left MC Light loafers to ponder his mistake. I wonder if that's his usual weekend gig?

So 4 more days and I will be in NZ. Excited to see friends and family, weddings, festivals, birthdays and Kiwi summer magic, bring it on. OK must make a move. I have a pot of boiling water on the stove and a nest of fire ants to destroy.

Shann