My Expat Life

As I headed back towards my hotel after a day of roaming the Hanoi streets, I found myself stopping in at the few touristy shops that were open. One shop was a DVD, CD, books shop. There were two other girls in the shop and a girl manning the counter. As the two girls made their selection and went to pay, one of them said that she wanted a good deal because she was buying three. The girl at the counter said 110,000 dong. They countered with 50,000 d. Then a loud male voice came booming over a speaker. In very good English he said 100,000 dong.

It seems there was a camera set up in the corner, attached to a computer that was online, allowing the shop owner to bargain with the tourists from a different shop entirely. I wonder how many shops he watched at once.

The two girls really got into the bargaining with someone they couldn’t see, but could not get the man down below 90,000 dong.

After they left, I thought it might be fun just to see if I could get the same deal. So I took my three items to the counter. The girl said 105,000 dong. I looked up, smiled at the camera, and said they paid only 90,000. There was then some conversation in Vietnamese before the male voice said, “ok 90,000 dong”. He then asked if I was part of the same group, I replied no, but I’d overheard the negotiations. I then paid, smiled and waved goodbye.

I’m ready to go…

It’s been a really tough few weeks and I am ready for the break. Just one more day of work and then straight to the airport. I didn’t pay much attention to what I was putting in the bag. Hope I have what I need.

Just over 24 hours until Obama’s Inauguration.

AND……

Four days from now I’ll be flying up to Kuala Lumpur. I’m flying up Friday night after work so that I can sleep in a bit on Saturday morning before flying to Hanoi, Vietnam.

Sunday morning I’ll be picked up and transported to Halong Bay. I am on a three day, two night junk boat cruise. The excitement is overwhelming. When I first googled Halong Bay, all I had to do was look at a few pictures and I was sold.

After the cruise I am back in Hanoi for two more days. I will be there during Tet, the lunar new year celebration. It is supposed to be an interesting time to visit because everything slows down. Oh so very excited.

This trip will cap off my tour of the Indochina countries (depending on whether you count Myanmar, which I can’t go to anyway). Did I mention I am excited? Ok, sorry.

In 2007 I attended 3 weddings. Tonight I attended a wake. One more wedding and I’m a movie title. Singapore weddings are very different from western weddings. But the wake, other than some of the Buddhist traditions, really wasn’t all that different from what I am used to.

Four of us left work a little early to attend the wake for the father of one of our bosses. Upon arrival we paid our respects at the coffin by lighting an incense coil and adding it to a burner. There were two podium areas set up with Buddhas and offerings.

The rest of the wake was spent sitting at a table visiting with our boss and having his family trying to force food on us. “No we really don’t need anything” pleas were ignored and food was put in front of us anyway. The only time we got up was to give our “white gold” offering. In Singapore the traditional gift for both weddings and deaths is to give cash. And totally unlike in western tradition, the amount of money you give is recorded next to your name. Before arriving we checked with some colleagues that had attended the previous night and found that $50 seemed to be the appropriate amount to give.

Part way through the evening 3 buddhist priests/monks arrived. The family then gathered for prayer led by the monks. To the side of where everyone was gathered there was a metal trash bin with a fire burning. Part way through the prayers the family members got up from praying and took the numerous plates of food that were in front of the Buddha statue near the casket. The plates of food were put in the fire and the cups of milk poured onto the ground near the fire. I’d seen them prepare some of the plates earlier. There were at least 20+ plates that had been loaded with all kinds of different things. From my distance it appeared to be mostly sweets, but I’m sure there is some meaning behind everything that was on the plate. After the offerings the family went back to praying on the mats in front of the monks and other Buddha. At that point we decided it was a good time for us to leave.

A few weeks ago I read and was intrigued by an article about micro-giving. Much like micro-lending, the point is small sums of money adding up to do big things. With micro-giving, you ask people to give small donations, $1, $5, $10, etc. The key is getting a lot of people to give a little.

After a bit of research and in honour of my forthcoming birthday, I ask for your help in raising money to repair a water well. I’ve corresponded with a woman at Charity:Water and they will try to have my money go towards a well in Malawi. The picture on my giving page is a photo that I took in Mindanti, Malawi. A village that was having a water well built while I was visiting.

I was not sure that the page with Charity:Water would be ready in time so I started a giving page on my Facebook page. For those that gave money through Facebook, I’ve matched that donation in this project - doubling your effort.

http://www.charitywater.org/pages/lindaspage/ Small donations is all I ask

I wasn’t sure if my used $50 note would be acceptable to pay for the taxi fare, so I chose to use a $10 and $2 instead. Luckily I gave clear destination and made it safely to work.

A good friend of mine from Australia is on his way to Europe for a year. He has stopped in Singapore for 7 days to spend some time with me. I took this week off work to spend time with him. We’ve had a blast playing around Singapore.

After an early breakfast at the coffee shop next to our room, we found our tuk tuk driver and took off for Angkor Wat and the temples. It was my second time in 9 months to visit the temples, but they are just as spectacular the second time. There is so much refurbishment going on that there were new things to see and some former things that were blocked.

We did not have a tour guide, so we used the guide book and our own curiosity to explore. We covered 4 temples in about 5 hours. After ups and downs of all the stairs we were ready for a less active afternoon, so after lunch we took a walk around part of the city before heading back to have a snack at bar and a nap.

Just as we were ready to head out to the night market and dinner, a big thunderstorm started. After watching the storm from the balcony and realising it might not be smart to stand next to the power lines in an electrical storm, we settled back in the room to wait out the storm. We became totally enthralled in the absolutely horrible movie, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Man does that movie have incredibly bad dialogue and yet we could not stop watching. The movie did inspire an idea for a sequel. Let’s just say that the sequel involves the lax traffic laws and tuk tuks of Cambodia.

Tuesday morning was a later start. Well, it would have been if Debra wasn’t awake crazy early and ready to get up and go. I made myself awake and we went out to try to source some food. Instead of heading towards the cafe mentioned in the guide book we took off towards a busier street hoping we would have more options. Turns out Phnom Penh is not much of a morning town. We stopped at one place that had tables set up under a canopy and signed for a menu. There were some things listed in English, but were a bit nervous what “eggs” might be and no one seemed to speak much English. We decided that since we had several bus hours ahead of us, we wouldn’t risk it and moseyed on. We were then tempted by what looked like dough being fried in a vat of oil, but as it was also street side dining, we didn’t want to risk our digestive systems and continued to look, but were quickly running out of time. Not even finding a convenience store, we decided that the crisps and biscuits sold at the guest house would have to serve as breakfast.

At 8:30 we were aboard the bus and headed towards Siem Reap. There was no leg room, and not much butt room for two, normal sized, western girls. There was a TV playing a DVD of some of the worst music videos ever. There were subtitles so that we could see just how atrociously bad the lyrics were. We were doubled over laughing, or would have been if there was room. When the guy across the aisle started singing along, I thought we would not survive the hilarity.

The rest of the ride was pretty dull. There was a rich American kid sitting behind us that was having a sometimes interesting conversation with his German seat mate. The German girl was in Cambodia working, the guy was taking several months to backpack through Southeast Asia. Just as I thought I was going to lose my mind from the boredom and the discomfort of the seats, we stopped for lunch in Kampong Thom; just over half way. We were given 30-minutes to get food at one of the many restaurants near the stop. The staff was anxious to serve us in the alloted time, and even turned the menu pages for us if we appeared to be taking too much time trying to order. The staff also stood next to all our tables watching us eat; just in case we needed something. It was a bit too much attention, so we ate quickly and got out.

We arrived in Siem Reap early afternoon and negotiated with a tuk tuk driver to take us to our guest house. He stopped midway and tried to get us to book him for the rest of the day or the following day. We eventually got him to take no for an answer and continue the journey.
We were booked in at the Ivy, a restaurant/bar/guest house. The rooms were HUGE. We even had a balcony that we could step out on; as long as we were careful not to touch the power lines that ran in front of it.

Our first stop was the coffee shop next door for some much needed caffeine. After the pick me up, we chose the friendliest looking tuk tuk driver stationed outside and made arrangements for the following day to see the temples. He also suggested taking us that evening to see the sunset at Tonle Sap or at one of the temples. We opted for the temple and used a bit of free time to wander through the old market, Psar Chaa.

There were a lost of clouds so there wasn’t much of a sunset, but it is still a lot of fun to climb around the temple and explore. On the way home, he suggested dinner at an Apsara show and for $5 extra he agreed to pick us up as soon as the show was over.
A long, but another nice day.