The taxi ride to Dulles passes in a blur while migraine and medication go head-to-head. My head, in this case. It’s a blustery, sunny day which would probably be perfect to jog in, but as it is I put the hood of my jacket on against the wind from the open windows, my shades against the sun and try to zone out.
Air India would like to “see” my electronic ticket. What part of “electronic” don’t they understand? Even in Blantyre, Malawi (not a high-tech country) I was able to walk up to the counter with my passport and be issued a boarding pass (although admittedly, a Zimbabwean woman next to me on that particular plane told me it failed when she’d tried it a day earlier). In the end, just before my computer is sufficiently booted up to show them the *electronic* confirmation I have, they manage to issue a boarding pass. Only to Delhi, however, where I’m assured I will be issued the pass for the connecting flight to KL.
On the whole an inauspicious start. I’ve got a short hop ahead of me to JFK, a few hours there and then a 15.5-hour flight to Delhi, six hours of layover there and then a five and a half hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, where the workshop is at which I’m supposed to give two presentations (and chip in as overall “resource person”). Starting a day late (due to my own carelessness, I had my passport safely tucked away in the *other* black bag) means I’ll get there Monday morning of the workshop at 0700, after a 30 hour trip and with 12 hours of time differential in my baggage. Not a pleasant prospect even on a good day. Only I still have about 100 pages of Mutual Evaluation report with a lot tracked changes in it to review, with Sunday as the deadline, so even without the migraine it wouldn’t be a good day.
I take some more medication on the flight to JFK, drink a lot of water, kick the seat back the moment I’m allowed to and doze off. It’s not quite the advertised “Full Flat” seat (annoying that, like coming to a full stop at a stop sign it’s a simple yes or no question – either it goes down to horizontal or it doesn’t), but it allows me to snooze.
By the time I’m in the JFK business lounge, my head appears to be on straight again. I still have a bit of tunnel vision, but the pain is gone and so I dose up on caffeine and start working on the ME report. And I get lost in an odd zone where the tunnel vision actually seems to help, inspiring a sort of tunnel vision in my mind that allows me to concentrate on the work. Something to be said about (good) business lounges, too, I guess – comfortable seats, quiet, snacks and bathroom only a very short walk away.
I get back on the plane, let another passenger borrow my copy of the Economist and get back to work. The extended range 777 I’m on does feature power plugs in the business class. I spend most of the flight in a work binge, with brief interruptions for meals and coffee, spurred by the realization, about halfway through my assignment, that I might actually be able to finish the entire thing on this flight – and mail it to the OECD in Paris from Delhi, and before the deadline. I actually do manage it, and derive not a small measure of satisfaction from it.
Doing this in Delhi isn’t easy, however. Delhi airport advertises that it’s the “most improved airport in Asia” according to some poll or other, which might lead the casual observer to assume it started out as an improvised airfield. I am – along with some other transit passengers – being asked to wait here, then to come along to some other desk, then to wait there. Some people are indeed being issued boarding passes for their connecting flights. I am again asked for my electronic ticket.
I am sorely tempted to explain to them that an electronic ticket is issued electronically. That this is the whole point of it – no paper to carry around (and lose), just a record for the airline that I’m booked on the plane so I identify myself with the passport and can go. In other words, progress. The obvious necessity to suppress this desire doesn’t make it any easier to hide my annoyance as I start up my laptop and show them the confirmation I’d been emailed. Apparently they expected me to print this out. And I’m wondering – really? If I had a printout of an email that says I should be on your plane, you’ll let me get on it? No confirmation in your records anywhere? I actually doubt it. And if they have a record of me somewhere, what’s the point of having me carry around paper? Aren’t we killing enough trees already?
Well, I’m told they need Malaysia Airline to issue that boarding pass and I should wait. I am annoyed enough at this point to point out pointedly (ahem) that I’d rather wait in the business lounge. They reluctantly agree that I have a point (sorry) and assure me that I’ll get my boarding pass two hours before my flight.
There are three business lounges, none of which advertises serving Malaysia Airlines. The first sends me to the second, the second to the third and while the third reluctantly admits that yes, they serve Malaysia Airlines (among others), they’d really like to see either my business class boarding pass or an invitation card issued to me. I didn’t close down my laptop all the way, and between the swiftly produced screen image of a confirmation email and my barely suppressed anger, I am – with an air of reluctant magnanimity now familiar to me – granted access.
The lounge is cold (of course, it’s 30 C outside so they make it so cold inside that I put on my windbreaker over my T-shirt) and it’s got a number of televisions running, with the sound on, showing live coverage of cricket. Which is about as interesting as watching a car rust, but louder. It strikes me, for the umpteenth time, how strange it is that all these nations who’ve shed various amounts of blood to shed the yoke of colonial rule are still wedded to so many English things. The older people in the Solomon Islands still remember Independence Day, yet they pass their laws in the name of the Queen. I mean, really?
Internet access requires having their third party vendor sending login information to your cell phone via text message. And though my phone works, no such message is received. They do have one (!) computer in their “business center”, but it doesn’t allow you to upload anything. It takes a long time and the intervention of a kind employee who lets me borrow his cell phone for the purpose until I can finally get my report sent in. The connection is atrocious, and I wait with mounting tension for the ten minutes or so it takes to upload the (admittedly large) file. I manage to connect with home for a bit, as well, though this, too, is negatively impacted by the quality of the connection. The news from home aren’t good, either, so I head for my connecting flight cold, tired, tense and spent. Which at least allows me to get a couple of hours of sleep on the flight.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Viet Nam 2010: The Return
It’s been tiring. Not that I mind being the center of attention – but with no one else to tag team with, for days, I find that every evening I’m spent. I don’t feel like walking around, like hitting the gym – just a shower and then check email in bed, over which I tend to nod off (did I mention the connection is slow?). On the last day we’re back a little early, so I wonder whether I can still hit the gym this one time in the hotel before leaving for the airport.
Before asking (I’ve checked out already, after all) I take a look to make sure that I have exactly the right time for my flight’s departure. I do have the right time – but a cold dread takes hold of my gut and I reach for the phone as I realize that I have the wrong day. I know coordinating between Emile’s changing itinerary on the road and myself was a little rough, and our counterparty kept changing arrangements on us until the last minute, but … I don’t know how this happened. My fault, I’m sure – it was information that I had on my printout since the morning I left. Three quarters of an hour of internationally roaming phone calls literally to the other side of the planet results in the realization that tonight’s flight is fully booked, as is the one tomorrow and the one after that. Korean Air won’t get me home before *Sunday*. After the wonderfully helpful lady on the helpdesk and I have established that I want to go home, preferably *now*, no matter how or in what class, I get booked on an Air France flight via Paris, Economy class, which leaves really soon. I get the hotel concierge to order me an airport taxi while I’m waiting for the e-ticket confirmation and jump in the moment I have it (technically I could have gotten that while under way, but I’ve gotten cut off once already and won’t risk Hanoi’s somewhat chancy cell phone service again).
I’m off to the airport, still in my suit, and as I fire up my laptop while the taxi weaves through the cacophony of honking motorcycles, past odd architecture and the flower market, that I feel like I'm in my own movie - a long way from home.
Where I’m now going. It’ll be two looong flights in really cramped seats, but – all’s well that ends well. As, I believe, I've mentioned before.
Before asking (I’ve checked out already, after all) I take a look to make sure that I have exactly the right time for my flight’s departure. I do have the right time – but a cold dread takes hold of my gut and I reach for the phone as I realize that I have the wrong day. I know coordinating between Emile’s changing itinerary on the road and myself was a little rough, and our counterparty kept changing arrangements on us until the last minute, but … I don’t know how this happened. My fault, I’m sure – it was information that I had on my printout since the morning I left. Three quarters of an hour of internationally roaming phone calls literally to the other side of the planet results in the realization that tonight’s flight is fully booked, as is the one tomorrow and the one after that. Korean Air won’t get me home before *Sunday*. After the wonderfully helpful lady on the helpdesk and I have established that I want to go home, preferably *now*, no matter how or in what class, I get booked on an Air France flight via Paris, Economy class, which leaves really soon. I get the hotel concierge to order me an airport taxi while I’m waiting for the e-ticket confirmation and jump in the moment I have it (technically I could have gotten that while under way, but I’ve gotten cut off once already and won’t risk Hanoi’s somewhat chancy cell phone service again).
I’m off to the airport, still in my suit, and as I fire up my laptop while the taxi weaves through the cacophony of honking motorcycles, past odd architecture and the flower market, that I feel like I'm in my own movie - a long way from home.
Where I’m now going. It’ll be two looong flights in really cramped seats, but – all’s well that ends well. As, I believe, I've mentioned before.
Viet Nam 2010: Workshop impressions
The workshop is okay. I’ve done this before. Though not through translation (simultaneous interpretation, that is), and I find that hard. It’s not just having to speak less, though I admit that I find that hard as well. ;-) I have to keep my sentences short and simple, to reduce the amount of content which gets lost in translation. But it’s not just meaning which gets lost in translation; it also takes a heavy toll on esprit, on engagement with the audience.
Asking questions of the audience and getting them to respond is never easy at the beginning of a workshop. But usually it can be done – I ask a really simple, very nearly rhetorical question while looking at someone who seems to have been alertly following my last two sentences and start nodding with him or her the moment (s)he realizes I’m looking for confirmation. Do that once or twice, and members of the audience will at least openly nod or shake their heads in answer to questions. Next a question on “who’s ever been told to do something by a boss and been left head-scratching and wondering ‘sure, but how?’” which invites a show of hands by a few people without requiring them to really step out and, usually, this puts me into the sort of rapport with the audience where asking questions works. But with translation, even supposedly simultaneous interpretation, this doesn’t work. I ask a question, and then have to wait for the translation to finish. So no one is speaking out loud while everyone waits for the translation on the headsets, the interpreter often rephrasing what I just said to make sure (s)he ends with a proper question, and an expectant hush settles over the audience. Into which nobody wants to venture, of course. Supposedly funny remarks also fall flat, either because they’re not funny (I admit that happens), or because the humour does not survive translation or because the interpreter chooses not to translate it at all (he admits that happens, he thinks this is serious work).
So that part is frustrating. But the group exercises work, and of course it’s always good to get the audience engaged, so I make a few changes on the fly – in the end I make the audience discover many of the legal obligations in their new law for themselves, along with how to check for it. I’m quite happy with the result, because I actually think that these people could, if they were asked to perform an on-site inspection starting tomorrow, do a credible job of it. Which is more than I’d hoped, given the inauspicious start.
It’s not just translation which is weird, though. People walk in and out of the workshop at times. We start with the advertised twenty, then it goes down a bit. I don’t know to what degree this is culturally accepted behavior, so I don’t remark on it, but wonder if they think “hey, this is just a flake from the World Bank, we can probably get away with murder”. And then remind myself that our English teacher used to say “if you don’t want to be in my class, I’d much rather you don’t come”. I’ll just make my workshop as good as I can and hope that it’s good enough to keep people here on their own volition.
And then there are the downright weird things which happen because this is Vietnam. It starts with Monday being International Women’s Day. I knew this. But I didn’t know this was very close to an official holiday in Vietnam. The State Bank of Vietnam’s employees are about two-thirds female, and of course the socialist states were (and apparently the remaining ones are) big about recognizing women’s contribution to society. They work hard, and of course like in most societies, they are also still responsible for maintaining the household. At lunch one guy goes around toasting every individual woman (and making her have a shot of whatever this is we were given as well). I’m told this is a day for the men to show their appreciation of women, and see that this is also a day for certain men to get drunk out of their skulls at work (while the women go back to work after lunch).
There’s a ceremony in the conference room next to ours, which includes what I would have to call a Karaoke performance. I would have taken the singers to be professionals (I thought all of the music came off a CD before I glimpsed live singing through an open door), but am told they are part of the State Bank of Vietnam’s singing team. I’m also told the amount of time in which we can’t talk in our workshop would be limited to half an hour or so, so we have a long and early coffee break. Nothing wrong with that, really, they served up some decent pastry…
During the course of the days, sometimes there are sudden snatches of sound blasting out of the conference room speakers. Sometimes it’s music, another time I’m told it comes from a nearby school. Boy, that teacher must be really angry at someone, I think.
On the third day we start an hour early so people can go to a wedding party/reception apparently held at the State Bank of Vietnam for an employee in the lunch break which we extend accordingly. An interpreter and I take the opportunity to spend roughly three hours taking cabs from one bank to another in order to effect a cash advance on my credit card. This is clearly asking a LOT. We’re sent from one branch to another, one bank to another and finally arrive at a bank’s head office, which is currently on its lunch break. The doors are open, but inside, on two desks standing next to another, lie three women covered by a blanket, with another one next to them telling us no, we need to go somewhere else. A discussion ensues between the women supposedly napping on the desk, the one standing and my interpreter which is probably the most surreal experience I’ve had working for the Bank so far.
But we get the money in the end. All’s well that ends well.
Asking questions of the audience and getting them to respond is never easy at the beginning of a workshop. But usually it can be done – I ask a really simple, very nearly rhetorical question while looking at someone who seems to have been alertly following my last two sentences and start nodding with him or her the moment (s)he realizes I’m looking for confirmation. Do that once or twice, and members of the audience will at least openly nod or shake their heads in answer to questions. Next a question on “who’s ever been told to do something by a boss and been left head-scratching and wondering ‘sure, but how?’” which invites a show of hands by a few people without requiring them to really step out and, usually, this puts me into the sort of rapport with the audience where asking questions works. But with translation, even supposedly simultaneous interpretation, this doesn’t work. I ask a question, and then have to wait for the translation to finish. So no one is speaking out loud while everyone waits for the translation on the headsets, the interpreter often rephrasing what I just said to make sure (s)he ends with a proper question, and an expectant hush settles over the audience. Into which nobody wants to venture, of course. Supposedly funny remarks also fall flat, either because they’re not funny (I admit that happens), or because the humour does not survive translation or because the interpreter chooses not to translate it at all (he admits that happens, he thinks this is serious work).
So that part is frustrating. But the group exercises work, and of course it’s always good to get the audience engaged, so I make a few changes on the fly – in the end I make the audience discover many of the legal obligations in their new law for themselves, along with how to check for it. I’m quite happy with the result, because I actually think that these people could, if they were asked to perform an on-site inspection starting tomorrow, do a credible job of it. Which is more than I’d hoped, given the inauspicious start.
It’s not just translation which is weird, though. People walk in and out of the workshop at times. We start with the advertised twenty, then it goes down a bit. I don’t know to what degree this is culturally accepted behavior, so I don’t remark on it, but wonder if they think “hey, this is just a flake from the World Bank, we can probably get away with murder”. And then remind myself that our English teacher used to say “if you don’t want to be in my class, I’d much rather you don’t come”. I’ll just make my workshop as good as I can and hope that it’s good enough to keep people here on their own volition.
And then there are the downright weird things which happen because this is Vietnam. It starts with Monday being International Women’s Day. I knew this. But I didn’t know this was very close to an official holiday in Vietnam. The State Bank of Vietnam’s employees are about two-thirds female, and of course the socialist states were (and apparently the remaining ones are) big about recognizing women’s contribution to society. They work hard, and of course like in most societies, they are also still responsible for maintaining the household. At lunch one guy goes around toasting every individual woman (and making her have a shot of whatever this is we were given as well). I’m told this is a day for the men to show their appreciation of women, and see that this is also a day for certain men to get drunk out of their skulls at work (while the women go back to work after lunch).
There’s a ceremony in the conference room next to ours, which includes what I would have to call a Karaoke performance. I would have taken the singers to be professionals (I thought all of the music came off a CD before I glimpsed live singing through an open door), but am told they are part of the State Bank of Vietnam’s singing team. I’m also told the amount of time in which we can’t talk in our workshop would be limited to half an hour or so, so we have a long and early coffee break. Nothing wrong with that, really, they served up some decent pastry…
During the course of the days, sometimes there are sudden snatches of sound blasting out of the conference room speakers. Sometimes it’s music, another time I’m told it comes from a nearby school. Boy, that teacher must be really angry at someone, I think.
On the third day we start an hour early so people can go to a wedding party/reception apparently held at the State Bank of Vietnam for an employee in the lunch break which we extend accordingly. An interpreter and I take the opportunity to spend roughly three hours taking cabs from one bank to another in order to effect a cash advance on my credit card. This is clearly asking a LOT. We’re sent from one branch to another, one bank to another and finally arrive at a bank’s head office, which is currently on its lunch break. The doors are open, but inside, on two desks standing next to another, lie three women covered by a blanket, with another one next to them telling us no, we need to go somewhere else. A discussion ensues between the women supposedly napping on the desk, the one standing and my interpreter which is probably the most surreal experience I’ve had working for the Bank so far.
But we get the money in the end. All’s well that ends well.
Viet Nam 2010: Ha Long Bay
Ha Long Bay
The day is somewhat overcast, which makes being out on the top of the boat (it has cabins on the bottom deck, a restaurant-type deck on top of that and a sundeck one level higher) quite nice. For much of this day and the next, we have a vista of stunning hills, with the smell of salty seawater, mixed with a hint of diesel, in our noses. The slightly hypnotic subdued thrumming of the engine, combined with the slight swaying of the boat, combines for a very, very relaxed atmosphere. Just what I needed.
Getting to Ha Long Bay involves a three-and-a-half hour bus ride. 
It takes us along a very long road, the traffic on which is the usual: Mostly motorbikes, sometimes carrying entire families, sometimes with a refrigerator on the back. Between that we have cars, and a couple of buses. Overtaking is often done for long stretches in the face of oncoming traffic, with right of way sorted by honking.
It takes us along a very long road, the traffic on which is the usual: Mostly motorbikes, sometimes carrying entire families, sometimes with a refrigerator on the back. Between that we have cars, and a couple of buses. Overtaking is often done for long stretches in the face of oncoming traffic, with right of way sorted by honking.What I’m less used to is the scenery. Much of the road is on top of a dike, and we cross many bridges bridging what I assume are tributaries to the Red River flowing through Hanoi. The houses we pass are built tall, with their ground floor, often open to the street, clearly used as a basement of sorts, which I take for evidence of frequent flooding.
Alongside it all are the rice patches, divided in a checkerboard pattern by the raised paths providing access to them. The patches themselves are flooded, with the rice plants sticking out of the water. Driving by, we can see that these stand in orderly rows, mute testimony to the fact that they aren’t sown – every individual plant is planted, by hand. By people standing ankle- to knee-deep in water, bending down to place them. Millions of them. We see some of the farmers at work, often wearing the local conical hats, with bicycles parked on the raised paths, bent over in the fields. My back hurts from watching them. Or maybe it’s just from watching them for a few hours while cramped into a small bus with a bunch of other tourists.
In Ha Long Bay we get on a boat. It’s a Chinese junk type of boat, with “junk” describing the barge-like type of boat, rather than being a remark on the perceived quality of the vessel. There are at least a hundred of these at port, picking up their daily load of tourists. Getting there takes us past the usual hawkers, and onto a boat between which small rowing boats circulate, selling fruit, snacks and water – waterborne hawkers.
The junk, under power of its diesel engine puttering away behind us, takes us past and through the many limestone hills which rise out of the waters of Ha Long bay.
The day is somewhat overcast, which makes being out on the top of the boat (it has cabins on the bottom deck, a restaurant-type deck on top of that and a sundeck one level higher) quite nice. For much of this day and the next, we have a vista of stunning hills, with the smell of salty seawater, mixed with a hint of diesel, in our noses. The slightly hypnotic subdued thrumming of the engine, combined with the slight swaying of the boat, combines for a very, very relaxed atmosphere. Just what I needed. We are taken to the supposedly most magnificent cave in the many (somebody seems to have bothered to count them, the number was a little over and-and-a-half thousand) islands. Though the cave was officially opened for tourism only ten years ago, graffiti dating back to 1938 (that I can see) shows it’s been a spot to go to for much longer than that. As much as I dislike these early despoilers of the cave, I envy them the ability to explore it on their own. Enough light seems to fall into the cave that I feel certain I’d be able to find my way even around the back of the third (and largest) cave of this system. The caves are interconnected, and full of stalagmites and –tites. And floodlights in off colours. And, of course, tourists. Which follow a path laid out in stones (boring, but fair enough to preserve the cave) and not only touch the limestone at every opportunity, but are actually actively encouraged to do so by the guides. “Touch the turtle, it bring long life!” - not to the limestone formation they call “turtle”, which is visibly blackened with the acid of everybody’s skin.
Dinner aboard is mostly seafood, that’s okay. We talk about travelling for a while after dinner – everybody around the table is on a long trip of several months, except for myself and a Vietnamese gentleman who works in Yokohama. Beer bought aboard is 1.80 USD a can – cheap for US standards, particularly if you consider that it’s sold to a captive audience, but expensive by local standards. We don’t drink much. I eschew the cabin for my hammock. I may not get to hike Cat Ba island, but somehow the hammock feels right. Before retiring, I find that some people on the back deck near the waterline of the boat have found that waterborne hawkers are still peddling the waters of Ha Long Bay after dark in their broad, shallow-bottomed rowboats, and apparently sell beer much cheaper. They have too much of a head start, however, for me to want to join the party, so I go to hammock.
We’re brought back to Ha Long city. It’s cloudy on Sunday, though if one lies down in what little sun filters down to us, out of the wind, it’s still quite comfy. At least I feel that way. Given that there’s not a lot of us doing this, maybe having been in winter not too long ago has something to do with it. An American woman who’s been travelling Southeast Asia for two months now seems positively chilled.
In Ha Long city, we are brought to a restaurant which serves an uninspiring meal, one drink included. The whole place clearly has deals with all manner of tour operators, and exists to churn out meals on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to please customers, it won’t have return customers. It has to be just good enough so people won’t complain to the tour operators, so it’ll have return business. It manages this balance quite well.
Then it’s back to Hanoi.
Afterwards, we anchor at one of the many waterborne settlements. Many fishermen live in floating houses, there are supposedly some floating schools. The few houses right here also have some floating cages with fish in them to prove their credentials, but seem to specialize in tourism. They have a bunch of kayaks and pretty run-down paddles which are rented out. An hour’s worth of paddling comes with the trip, and I note how the junks coming from the cave take turns delivering a boat load of tourists to paddle, to be replaced by the next one as it leaves. Nevertheless it is fun to go kayaking. I get the only single kayak which seems to be present, as we constitute an odd number. This should make me slower than the others, but doesn’t. Or maybe they’re just still in relaxation mode, while I’m off to see where the kayak will take me. Certainly I can do a somewhat larger round than what the guide indicated would take an hour. But I’ve left my cell phone on the boat and so don’t have a watch with me to tell me exactly how long an hour is, so – by playing it safe – arrive back at the floating huts after only 40 minutes or so.
I spend the remaining time squatting on the floating deck, talking to other early returns and buying a coconut. 
This comes with the green skin and all the copra (white fibrous stuff between skin and nut) still attached which is usually already removed when buying these elsewhere. The seller hacks a little dent into one side through which once can insert a straw. It’s not bad. I later take the machete to hack it in two, but have only given it one exploratory whack when the lady in charge of the operation takes the machete away from me, ostensibly to do it for me. I sit back, prepared to both be slightly humiliated by her superior skill and to learn something by looking on. And sit and wait, with mounting annoyance, while she ineffectually whacks away at the thing until she’s gotten it open. I could have done that.
This comes with the green skin and all the copra (white fibrous stuff between skin and nut) still attached which is usually already removed when buying these elsewhere. The seller hacks a little dent into one side through which once can insert a straw. It’s not bad. I later take the machete to hack it in two, but have only given it one exploratory whack when the lady in charge of the operation takes the machete away from me, ostensibly to do it for me. I sit back, prepared to both be slightly humiliated by her superior skill and to learn something by looking on. And sit and wait, with mounting annoyance, while she ineffectually whacks away at the thing until she’s gotten it open. I could have done that. The boat moves on after bit, and anchors somewhere else – with fewer other boats around – to indicate that we can swim here if we like. The guide thinks I’m joking when I indicate I wish to jump off the top of the boat.
I’m not. ;-)
The water is pleasantly cool, and surprisingly salty. I realize(d) that this is seawater (apparently not everybody had), but the (few) other swimmers agree that it seems to have a higher salinity than ordinary seawater. I swim for quite a bit, and jump off the boat a few times for good measure. I attract a bit of a crowd (including a photographer :-) and a few fellow jumpers.
The water is pleasantly cool, and surprisingly salty. I realize(d) that this is seawater (apparently not everybody had), but the (few) other swimmers agree that it seems to have a higher salinity than ordinary seawater. I swim for quite a bit, and jump off the boat a few times for good measure. I attract a bit of a crowd (including a photographer :-) and a few fellow jumpers.
Dinner aboard is mostly seafood, that’s okay. We talk about travelling for a while after dinner – everybody around the table is on a long trip of several months, except for myself and a Vietnamese gentleman who works in Yokohama. Beer bought aboard is 1.80 USD a can – cheap for US standards, particularly if you consider that it’s sold to a captive audience, but expensive by local standards. We don’t drink much. I eschew the cabin for my hammock. I may not get to hike Cat Ba island, but somehow the hammock feels right. Before retiring, I find that some people on the back deck near the waterline of the boat have found that waterborne hawkers are still peddling the waters of Ha Long Bay after dark in their broad, shallow-bottomed rowboats, and apparently sell beer much cheaper. They have too much of a head start, however, for me to want to join the party, so I go to hammock.
We’re brought back to Ha Long city. It’s cloudy on Sunday, though if one lies down in what little sun filters down to us, out of the wind, it’s still quite comfy. At least I feel that way. Given that there’s not a lot of us doing this, maybe having been in winter not too long ago has something to do with it. An American woman who’s been travelling Southeast Asia for two months now seems positively chilled.
In Ha Long city, we are brought to a restaurant which serves an uninspiring meal, one drink included. The whole place clearly has deals with all manner of tour operators, and exists to churn out meals on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to please customers, it won’t have return customers. It has to be just good enough so people won’t complain to the tour operators, so it’ll have return business. It manages this balance quite well.
Then it’s back to Hanoi.
Viet Nam 2010: Ha Noi - Days 2 & 3
I meet Emile for breakfast and we go to the State Bank of Vietnam for our meetings. Which are confidential, of course. Suffice it to say that the first day wasn’t what we’d hoped. This is reflected by us having three hours with nothing particular to do in the early afternoon, before we go on to more productive meetings on the sidelines. We head, at my suggestion, to the Temple of Literature, which takes us past a fair trade crafts store and a Martial-Arts-specific sports store I’d noticed on my way back to the hotel the day before.
The Temple of Literature, I’m told, is a recent rebuild, although there has been a temple building in its spot since its founding (1070!). It has served as a university starting in 1076 until, I believe, some time in the 1700s. It’s picturesque, and the stone stelae commemorating outstanding deeds of its graduates at least are original, a fact mutely attested to by the severe weathering they’ve undergone.
On my way back, I try to buy a Gi – I’d like a tough, lightweight white one that I can take on business trips with me to use at whatever style I might encounter. It would be really, really cheap here – if they had one in my size. The only one they have has lots of black markings on it, which does not become a white belt. But they do have open-fingered gloves of the type I’d like to have to use on my boxing bag, and the one pair they have is even in my size. It’s not expensive at 10 USD, but I still reflexively attempt to haggle. And am told, to my astonishment, that no, he can’t go down on price with these – they’re imports, from China! Of course I am amazed to hear what good quality I am getting and hand over my 200,000 Dong. ;-) On our way back to the hotel (and our next work meeting), Emile and I are given to ruminate again how much perspectives change from place to place.
The meeting in the afternoon doesn’t seem to establish much we didn’t know. Emile suggests the gym thereafter, which seems the perfect place to work off some frustration. In the sauna thereafter we tell us that needing several hours to get precious few useful answers in personal meetings means we would never have gotten these answers through email, so – supposing we really wanted those answers – it really was necessary to come.
We’d asked for a meeting with a very senior person, admittedly at short notice. I had hoped this would be decided today – if we’re not meeting that person tomorrow, there seems little point in me going to the State Bank at all, and I might instead do the three-day tour of Ha Long Bay, with hiking included and everything. But the last email we get that day tells us it hasn’t been decided yet. While I consider this an indicator that a positive decision is very unlikely, I don’t want to take the chance of missing out on a meeting that could actually produce results. So I call off the three-day tour, incurring some charges for the late cancellation in the process, and resign myself to another day of possibly pointless meetings. What I’m getting paid for, after all.
It turns out that our Friday meeting goes much better than expected. We even manage to meet the very senior person in a very short meeting between two appointments and get things decided. We exchange high fives in the elevator afterwards – this has been a very good day. The afternoon informational session in the country office also provides a good bit of context for what I’ll be doing here, so I’m happy. We both are, as we say our goodbyes – Emile flies back to DC after nearly a month on the road, while I pack my backpack for the weekend.
The Temple of Literature, I’m told, is a recent rebuild, although there has been a temple building in its spot since its founding (1070!). It has served as a university starting in 1076 until, I believe, some time in the 1700s. It’s picturesque, and the stone stelae commemorating outstanding deeds of its graduates at least are original, a fact mutely attested to by the severe weathering they’ve undergone.
On my way back, I try to buy a Gi – I’d like a tough, lightweight white one that I can take on business trips with me to use at whatever style I might encounter. It would be really, really cheap here – if they had one in my size. The only one they have has lots of black markings on it, which does not become a white belt. But they do have open-fingered gloves of the type I’d like to have to use on my boxing bag, and the one pair they have is even in my size. It’s not expensive at 10 USD, but I still reflexively attempt to haggle. And am told, to my astonishment, that no, he can’t go down on price with these – they’re imports, from China! Of course I am amazed to hear what good quality I am getting and hand over my 200,000 Dong. ;-) On our way back to the hotel (and our next work meeting), Emile and I are given to ruminate again how much perspectives change from place to place.
The meeting in the afternoon doesn’t seem to establish much we didn’t know. Emile suggests the gym thereafter, which seems the perfect place to work off some frustration. In the sauna thereafter we tell us that needing several hours to get precious few useful answers in personal meetings means we would never have gotten these answers through email, so – supposing we really wanted those answers – it really was necessary to come.
We’d asked for a meeting with a very senior person, admittedly at short notice. I had hoped this would be decided today – if we’re not meeting that person tomorrow, there seems little point in me going to the State Bank at all, and I might instead do the three-day tour of Ha Long Bay, with hiking included and everything. But the last email we get that day tells us it hasn’t been decided yet. While I consider this an indicator that a positive decision is very unlikely, I don’t want to take the chance of missing out on a meeting that could actually produce results. So I call off the three-day tour, incurring some charges for the late cancellation in the process, and resign myself to another day of possibly pointless meetings. What I’m getting paid for, after all.
It turns out that our Friday meeting goes much better than expected. We even manage to meet the very senior person in a very short meeting between two appointments and get things decided. We exchange high fives in the elevator afterwards – this has been a very good day. The afternoon informational session in the country office also provides a good bit of context for what I’ll be doing here, so I’m happy. We both are, as we say our goodbyes – Emile flies back to DC after nearly a month on the road, while I pack my backpack for the weekend.
Abu Dhabi 2010: superficial descriptions and deep thoughts on conferencing
http://nebelwald.livejournal.com/13818.html
Brasilia 2009: Update from Brasilia (though the action is at home)
http://nebelwald.livejournal.com/10425.html
Singapore 2009: Weather Report (just one, it's always the same)
http://nebelwald.livejournal.com/9400.html
Rio 2008: Day Three - Impressions of the City and a glance at JiuJitsu
http://nebelwald.livejournal.com/6205.html
Rio 2008: Day Two - inside (Evaluation Review Group meeting)
http://nebelwald.livejournal.com/5967.html
Monday, March 29, 2010
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