The Buck starts here…

Well. The first thing you could do is try & go back to sleep. You might find that counting buffalo (there aint too many round these parts no more..) helps in this situation. You might find that it dont. The second thing that aspiring bronchitis sufferers could do is feel sorry for themself by emptying the contents of the hotel minibar. I however am giving my liver a special holiday season reprieve. I talked to it at length about joining my lungs on the Bucky organ dodgy list and it just didn’t seem too keen..

Which brings me to the third thing that jetlagged brits in Colorado could do to pass the time. Namely: this.

So..I’ve been in the USA for about 36 hours now and have had time to make a few cliched and trite observations. I will share them with you. America is BIG. We drove for 9 hours yesterday and most of that was spent just crossing Kansas. The roads are big, the cars are big, the Prairie is dotted with little houses… It’s all hunky-dory. Its nice to be able to drink tap water again, to see snow, to feel anonymous.

And of course it’s absolutely brilliant to be spending the holidays with my girlfriend Jane & her family. Later this morning we hit the open road once more – through the Rocky mountains and then on to Utah where her grandparents live. There’s talk of snowboarding, and maybe of seeing Vegas or the Grand Canyon. Grand.

So before I slope off back to bed, I’d just like to wish everybody a Happy Hannukah, a Merry Christmas, & a top-notch-all-the-trimmings-bucketsful-of-joy Happy New Year. Hope you get your kicks in 2006…

I seem to be forever writing to-do lists. Little nuggets of motivational pleasure that bring joy to the heart as pen crosses page in a ticking motion. I once included the instruction: “talk to frank” on one of my lists. My friend found that rather amusing. Frank was a hamster.

My to-do list before my departure later today to the U.S included such mundanities as getting my hair cut & purchasing some socks. But it also included such profundities as buying a toothbrush and making some gnocchi.

Buying a toothbrush can be a confusing experience for the amateur dental sweeper. First you have all the different shapes to contend with. What is the optimum angle for a productive brushing motion? Does the existence of different length bristles on the same brush aid or hinder gargling? Then you come to colour, and design. At 22, am I too old to own a Winnie the Pooh toothbrush? Is it a statement of immaturity, or one of profound aesthetic retro taste?

I stood for several minutes in the toothbrush aisle. It would not do to make a poor decision here. Another customer seemed to be having similar difficulties making a decision. Our mutually raised eyebrows said it all: issues such as this truly do cross the language barrier. I spotted one brush with a small button protruding. It said TRY ME in big bold letters. I pushed the button. Nothing happened. Probably a good thing. Candy, brandy & toys I can share. Toothbrushes seem better suited to solo use. I took 3 steps to the side. In another era, in another shop this would have taken me out of the dental hygeine section & perhaps into baked goods, or suppositories. Nope. Still bang in the middle of the toothbrush zone. And I seemed to be shifting to the luxury range too. One toothbrush was priced at $82,000. At that price, I’d be expecting my toothbrush to do a whole lot more than simply clean my molars. Maybe it was a Ferrari-toothbrush hybrid crossover. Maybe it was a typo.

My brush bought, I ventured onto the street to consult my list. What remained to be done before the inevitable dirge of packing my bag and hopping on the bus? Ah, yes. For my farewell dinner, my housmate Federica and I were going to make Italian cuisines most hazy billowing contribution to this world. The little clouds of goodness that go by the name: Gnocchi

Making Gnocchi is a serious business. Luckily, its also pretty easy. We boiled some spuds in a big pot, Cleaned the table, and then mashed our potty pals with salt & flour. They needed a good kneading, and that’s what they got. Then roll into tubes and cut with a knife. The best part was yet to come however. We plonked our little clouds back into their pot & waited. The gnocchi then rise to the surface one-by-one when they want to be taken out of their bath. And of course we obliged. A few wanted a bit of a longer soak, and that was fine too. Gnocchi are an autonomous foodstuff. They decide when they’re ready to be eaten. Not the chef.

So now all that remains is to return my bike, pack my bag and wave farewell to Hanoi. Big clouds in the sky, little clouds in my tummy, turbulence clouds avoiding the 4 flights I have to take in the next 36 hours. Hopefully…

In a few days I’ll pack me bags, tie me laces, give the clouds a sneaky wink, and leave Hanoi for the United States of America.

Before I do that however, I’m afraid I have to deliver a bit of a rant. If you’re not in the mood for a rant, please scroll downwards. I have plenty of non-ranty pieces below. Some of them even involve cute animals.

My rant is about drivers in Hanoi. Hanoian drivers. Hanoian motorcycle drivers.

Hanoian motorcycle drivers dont appear to follow any set of rules. They are individual determinists. They are free spirits. Now, as a general rule I think free-spiritedness is great. An attribute to be admired, even. But not when it could well end up with me lying on a cold slab in a darkened Vietnamese morgue.

Here is a brief list of what Hanoian motorcycle drivers get up to:

– Weaving manically between other bikes.
– Driving at night with no lights.
– Driving at night with lights on full beam, thereby practically blinding oncoming veichles.
– Going the wrong way down 1-way streets.
– Ignoring red lights at will.
– Pulling out into traffic without so much as a glance to see if they might hit anyone.
– Incessant horn blowing. Before a traffic light even turns green, people are honking behind you.

There’s all this, plus the fact that practically nobody wears a helmet, and mirrors are considered “unfashionable”. Seriously. Many people who do have mirrors on their bikes – have them flipped down and unused. Then you have the convoy phenomenon, where people drive several bikes abreast so as to be able to chat to their friends whilst driving. To be fair, this applies more to bicycles, where it is not uncommon to see 4 or 5 in a convoy, thus blocking the road to everybody else.

I saw a girl get knocked off her bike yesterday. The perpetrator seemingly did a hit-and-run. Just a few seconds earlier, some boy racer had clipped my back wheel in his urgent need to arrive at his destination 2 minutes earlier. Luckily, I managed to keep control of my bike. Two weeks ago, some kid pushed a bicycle straight into my path on a major road without even looking. I had no time to avoid it, and the bicycle was knocked to the ground. Thankfully, the kid was not. I’ve seen flesh and blood on the streets. I’ve been hit several times, had my trousers ripped and my foot cut. I once had to stop a motorbike with my hand because the driver was looking one way and driving another.

Frankly, I’m glad to be out of it. I can feel myself getting pissed off with the utter carelessness and thoughtlessness of other drivers (of course it’s not everyone – plenty of people here drive just fine, one bloke apologising profusely when he accidentally drove over my foot – but it’s enough people to be a concern).

So roll on America. Rant over. Happy days.

I just got emailed this magnificent picture of some hardcore Italian Karaoke rendition at the Ambassador’s reception! Taken by Mr Italy himself…

Singing their hearty little Italian/Wannabe-Italian kishkes out are (l-r) Federica, Daniele, Breda, and a slightly sozzled Englishman called Bucky. Bellisimo!!

(If you click on the photo it grows miraculously. Try it! You’ll be impressed!!)

I’d been looking forward to it all week. My nicest shirt was clean (if a bit crumpled) and ready to go. A tie which was given to me as a gift on “teacher’s day” a few weeks ago sat aside it in its unopened box. It was time for the Ambassador’s Reception…

My housemate Federica works as an intern at the Italian Embassy. And last night was the annual Christmas Party at the Ambassadors house. Free food, free drink, Karaoke in Italian, & Santa Claus. Even two elves. The stuff parties are made of…

I had no idea just how many Italian people live in Hanoi. There were loads of them there. Northern Italian, Southern Italian, Sicilian. It was like gatecrashing a wedding of the Corleone family. One guy, Claudio, an Accordionist from the bit of Italy in between the toe and the heel, had an accent that really sounded the business. I almost asked him to say: I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse , but was distracted by the arrival of Santa, wearing shades and a hat with flashing lights. Oh Nicky, how far you have come.

Being an ambassador seems to have plenty of perks. Like an absolutely enormous house with two staircases. I’ve always wondered about houses with 2 staircases. Do you arrive by 1 staircase and leave by t’other. Is one reserved for the servants? I remember some building work being done at my school a few years ago, and 1 staircase was designated “up” and the other “down”. Amazingly, people actually stuck to that rule.

The food was laid out on a huge table inside. Italians dont do things by halves: There was pizza, bread, salami, little tomatoes stuffed with some unidentifiable yet delicious cream, cakes, shortbreads, veggies and quiche. And a whole pig – head & all, being slowly carved by a bald dude in a cardigan. I wondered how they cooked our swiney pal. You’d need an absolutely enormous oven.

We chomped merrily on our food, and sipped the imported Vino. I have a fairly dark complexion, so people would just start talking to me in Italian. On these occasions, I would simply repeat the last word they said, and chuckle heartily. Works a treat. Another option when faced by (3) questions in a language you dont understand, is to answer: Yes, Yes & No. Guaranteed success.

The Karaoke began. A projector had been unfurled in the conservatory, and various rousing Italian ditty’s were shone upon it. We sang heartily, if completely uncomprehendingly.(for me at any rate). Hours of fun. Finally, someone requested that ‘Ol Blue Eyes be brought forth. Confusion always reigns with Frank. If I sing “My Way” his way, then am I really singing it my way? And if he did it his way, and you did it your way, but my way was more like their way, then am I singing “My Way” her way, or Richard Clayderman’s way? And if Richard Clayderman sang “My Way” his way, then would life really be worth living any more anyway? Something to ponder.

I left the party drunk, contented & full of song. But without any Ferrero Roche. You cant have it all I suppose..

Get your motor runnin’
Head out on the highway
Lookin’ for adventure
And whatever comes our way

Its difficult not to have this song in your head at least part of a long distance motorbike trip. I hummed it from time to time, whistled it on occasion, and burst into full vocal glory a good few times. Always while stationary at traffic lights.

We were heading south to Tam Coc. It was the first time I had left Hanoi since I arrived here some 6 weeks ago. The air smelt fresh. The ground felt firm. People actually wore helmets whilst riding. All was bisto.

We were five. Federica, Daniele, and Cristina – a trio of Italian ladies; Breda – a teacher from County Kerry; And me – a sausage fan from GB. We paid our entrance fee, and found ourselves in a strange Disney-esque natural wonder. Small boats ferried tourists along the winding river that bisected the massive limestone cliffs, and though caves so low that you could feel the roof with your fingers. And then while they had you captive in the little boat, they tried to flog you t-shirts and various embroidered stuff. So of course I bought a tablecloth. Unfortunately I had no camera with me, but below is a picture that somebody else took. Thankyou somebody else, and Google Image search. Together, you have brought satisfaction & contentment to this blogger.

We spent the night in Tam Coc, seemingly the only tourists in town. Teenagers gathered to watch us play pool. We played abysmally. Hitting the 8-ball in a goldfish bowl is no picnic I can tell you. The following morning we awoke early, eager to drive through some back roads and villages before the Highway could whisk us back to metropolis. Following a road between 2 rice paddies, we came across a pagoda at the top of a giant freestanding limestone cliff. A staircase had been cut into the rock. We climbed. The view was sensational.

Moving on, we passed through several villages before we came to Hoa Lu, a former capital of Vietnam. Now it comprises a strange combination of seemingly empty government buildings, and ancient pagodas and monuments. Oh, and a giant hammer & sickle etched high in a limestone cliff. We entered one temple/cave combo and were shown around by an old wise man dressed in pyjamas and a fur coat. He spoke some French and looked about 100. Or cent I suppose.

The time had come to head back to Hanoi. After a quick lunch of rice and lemonade, we mounted our bikes and revved with reverence. North. It was numbingly cold. Absolutely-drop-dead-Siberian-winter-freeze-your-knackers-off-chilly. So we bought gloves. And then a while later we stopped for a cuppa. Which is where we came face to face with a practical joke. And the twats who pulled it.

We had pulled in by a cafe at the side of the highway. We asked if they sold hot drinks. They did not. They pointed us to the place next door. We left our bikes outside the first joint, and huddled in the second. I had some tea. It was warm & delicious. After 10 minutes or so we decided to get moving again. We returned to find a few youths sitting near our bikes. Nothing unusual there – we have white skin and are thus fair game to be stared/laughed/gestured at. We headed off. We had gone maybe a minute or so before 3 of us started having trouble. My bike wouldn’t accelerate, and indeed was slowing. I pulled over to the side, and noticed Daniele doing similarly 20 feet or so behind me. I checked the bike over, and found that the juveniles back outside the cafe had turned a switch which controls the fuel injection. Something like that anyway. Twats. If any of us had been overtaking someobody when our bikes started faltering, their little joke could have turned into a little accident. With a little light bleeding perhaps. Anyway, it turns out that this is a fairly common practical joke to play in this part of the world, made all the easier by the fact that so many people drive motorbikes.

But I did sing about how I was looking for whatever comes our way… Maybe next time I’ll stick to Motorhead’s Ace of Spades.

Love can be a messy affair. But I’ve never seen it get quite as messy as it did today…

I was teaching one of my 2 classes of 6 year olds in a school on the edge of Hanoi this afternoon. The lesson was about healthy foods. I taught them how to say healthy and unhealthy, and then we went through different foods and decided whether they were healthy or unhealthy. Apples are healthy. Rice is healthy. Chocolate is unhealthy. Being definitive is great.

I noticed that one of the boys, Hoa, wasn’t really doing his work, just sprawled out with his head on the table. He usually works quite hard so I asked if he was OK, and tried to encourage him to do some colouring, but he really didn’t seem in the mood…

Trung, one of the girls, started chasing another boy around the classroom. We sent her to sit back down. A few minutes later, she started chasing him again. This time she managed to catch him, and she ripped up a piece of paper that this boy was holding, and threw it on the floor. I picked up the paper & pieced it together. Somebody had written “Trung ♥ Hoa and drawn a picture of 2 people holding hands. How sweeeeeeeeet!!

Hoa obviously didn’t think so. He proceeded to stand up, walk to the front of the class, and vomit all over the floor.

Lovesick. Lovesix.

Charlie nearly died today.

To be honest, I thought she was dead. But then somebody resuscitated her.

Me and Charlie have been together for about 3 weeks. There have been others before her, but none have lasted this long. She’s great. I’m not ashamed to admit that I paid for her either. Maybe in the past I would have been, but not anymore. She feels sooooo good between my thighs. And when I get her hot, she makes such an incredible noise.

We go everywhere together – Me & Charlie. She comes with me to work, and to the shops. Everywhere apart from the pub that is. She doesn’t like to be around me when I’m drinking. And I guess I dont like to be around her during those times either. Outsiders might think it strange, but I’m actually a lot less susceptible to temptation when she stays at home.

She’s quite dirty. One day we were out together and she got some mud splattered on her left side. I offered to wash it off for her, but she declined. She said being filthy was ok.

She can be a bitch. Especially in the mornings. I want to go places in the mornings. I try and turn her on. At first I wasn’t sure which buttons to push. But you learn. Experience. Its all about experience, & timing, & touch.

So. Today. We were on Hai Ba Trung. Quite near the British Embassy. She coughed. We stopped so she could get some air. We tried to start moving again. We couldn’t.

I thought she was dead. I left her by the side of the road. Alone. Not coz I’m callous or nothing. But I had to get to work. Death cannot be undone.

I returned later. The person with me was able to resuscitate poor Charlie. It seemed he knew how to flick her switches better than I. Experience, apparently, is in the eye of the beholder.

But fuck her. Tomorrow I’m going to trade her in for a younger model.

Maybe a Honda Dream.

I have a cold.

I’ve taken some cold pills (which rarely, if ever, have any noticeable impact). Mostly though, I just need to blow my nose rather a lot. Such is the nature of a cold. Therefore, I need rather a lot of tissues. Not a problem, you may think. Oh, but it is.

I have an issue with the paper tissue. Firstly there’s the size thing. Tissue packets generally inform the discerning tissue-buying consumer of what “ply” their blowable sheet is. In the U.K, one gets regular 3-ply tissues, and “man-sized” 4-ply tissues. This has always puzzled me. Do men blow their noses harder? Is the fact that they are, on average, bigger than women mean that they can better carry the additional weight that a pack of 4-ply tissues must bring in comparison with a pack of 3-ply. The mind boggles.

Here in Vietnam, they’ve come up with the space-saving solution of 2-ply tissues. These have a slightly thicker density than air, and implode when breathed on with anything more than a whisper. They’re also called Pulppy. Which is what they become after being blow into. How endearingly cute. So I’ve had to survive with dear Pulppy until today, when I found some proper 4-ply, man-sized, all-singing, all-dancing tissues called Tempo.

Tempo. Not Jambo. One might get confused though. Jambo have ripped off the Tempo label, graphics and packaging. Then they’ve stuffed tissues which feel like they’re made of sandpaper inside. Blowing ones nose with a Jambo tissue is not a pleasant experience. I know. I’ve done it. The wholesale rip-off of a succesful products identity is not limited to the nasal arena in Vietnam. Several years ago a tour company called Sinh Cafe opened in Hanoi. They did well. So a whole bunch of other – & completelely unaffiliated – Sinh Cafe’s soon followed. The original now has a sign outside attesting that it is the original. The unoriginal “original” signs across the city are surely only weeks away now…

Which brings me to chickens. Not an easy leap to make one might think. Tissues and chickens? What could the connection be? Tissues for a cold. Cold is similar to the flu. Vietnam is chicken flu central.

Since November 1st, chicken has been illegal here. You can’t buy it, sell it, eat it, drink it or shag it. Life without chicken has been ok so far. There’s always dog or snake if you get really desperate. But the problem with having no chickens, is that nobody’s laying eggs. Its easy to forget that eggs dont grow on the supermarket shelves. And that’s where I was earlier this afternoon. By the supermarket shelves. I had a grand idea of making a chocolate biscuit cake. I needed chocolate. I found some Belgian style chocolate. Anything style has got to be better than the real thing. Especially when the real (imported) thing is sitting next to it and costs 6 times the price.

But no eggs = no cake = bowl of noodle soup for dinner.

And I still have a cold.

It was dinnertime. Tummy’s were a-rumbling. Concentration was a-tumbling. The lake looked a-pretty and the view was a-humbling. So my housemate Federica and I walked round it to find some grub. We came to a nice little Bia Hoi joint across the road from the water. The menu was in Vietnamese. As one might have predicted. Luckily I had a small phrasebook in my pocket. And I’ve memorised Thit Cho (Fried Dog) so that I never inadvertantly order it. I still have to drive past a dead dog market every day though. The poor fuckers always have a look of surprise on their crispy roasted faces. As though some trusted human was feeding them Pedigree Chum right before a metal stave was stuck through their little doggy heart.

So we ordered a few non-canine dishes and settled back to drink a few beers, wipe away a few tears, say cheers. The food came. Damn delicious stuff. I used to hate spinach. I always reckoned it tasted like ink. I’m not sure exactly how I came to this conclusion – having never sucked on a fountain pen or done shots of Bic’s finest, but I reckoned it anyway. But fly me halfway across the planet, fry me some green stuff with a little garlic, and try renaming it to Morning Glory, and you’ve got yourself a healthy(ish) dish that the Buck is happy to call his friend. Morning Glory. It’s such a nice name for a vegetable. I bet Popeye used to wake up with Olive some days with a bit of Morning Glory.

We ate the delicious food and talked about Italy. Federica is Italian. Italy sounds cool. And the people there are clearly very serious about their food. Which is cool. If a nation is going to be really serious about something then I think food should be that something. Better than being really serious about bombs or toothpicks or something equally prosaic.

As we cleared up the last of the Morning Glory, and wiped the noodle remnants from the corner of our mouths, the highlight of the evening occurred. It may yet turn out to be the highlight of the week, but given that it’s only Wednesday today, I dont think I’m yet qualified to make that kind of assertion. To my left a tank of fish had been swimming merrily all evening. I suppose its possible that the owners of the joint kept some Halibut as household pets, but I’m guessing that these boys were destined for the Wok. One of the fish was called Fred. Fred the Fish. Fred was a smart fish. He knew what was going down. He had seen his friends Barney & Betty leave the tank a few days previously. He suspected they weren’t coming back. Fred could smell the putrid loveliness of Dong Da lake, just across the road. If he could bounce there, perhaps he’d meet his childhood sweetheart – Wilma. They could have fish babies, and live a life of serenity.

So Fred made his bid for freedom. He took a swimming jump (the aquatic equivalent of a running one) and leapt clear of Tony & Gordon, two mackerel acquaintances. Fred hit the ground flapping. Just..a..few…more…feet…or…maybe…a…few…more…. hundred. A game of draughts (or chequers, depending on ones linguistic heritage) was hastily interrupted. A young man blocked Fred’s path while the crowd looked on. I was silently rooting for my finned friend to escape the clutches of his jailer. Just like I rooted for Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. But Fred didn’t have a motorbike to get away on. Perhaps more importantly, he was having a wee bit of trouble getting enough oxygen to help him breathe. The young draughtsman won the day. Fred was tossed unceremoniously back into his cell. And by now, he may well be no more. Goodbye Fred.