Clarinet Lessons

Often on Ahoy Hanoi I mention some of the unbelievable deals you can get in Vietnam. Well, the other day I heard perhaps the best deal yet:

My friend Sean -- a teacher/musician in Hanoi -- has been taking clarinet lessons for fifteen dollars a lesson.

Okay, that doesn't seem like an amazing deal since I'm sure you could get a half decent, starving musician teacher in America for around that. However, Sean's teacher is pretty qualified -- she's the first chair in the Hanoi Symphony Orchestra. That's right, he's getting taught by the best clarinet player in Vietnam for $15 a lesson. Hey, Mom, maybe it's time to dust off your old flute and come visit me again!

Ballet

(PICTURE: Huyen and I at the opera house.)

Because my friend Veronica was visiting during Valentine's Day, this past weekend I took Huyen out for a belated V-day. We went out to dinner for one of her favorite foods: chicken hot pot with lots of fresh shrimp (okay, it's one of my favorite foods too). After dinner we got some fresh ice cream and then headed to the Hanoi Opera House.

For around $30 I had bought Huyen and I seventh row, center seats. The seats were great, although I'm pretty sure no seats are bad at the opera house. The first half of the performance was the Hanoi orchestra playing a series of Beethoven songs. Accompanying the musicians were five opera singers and a Russian pianist. The music was amazing and Huyen was smiling from ear to ear anytime the opera singers belted out some lines.

After the intermission, the ballet began. The ballet was....well, 75% pretty bad. During the intermission they opened the stage pit and I assumed the orchestra would sit down below and play from there during the ballet. However, they didn't and the pit just remained open. This meant two things:

1. There was no live music. They pumped in the tunes for the dancers.

2. The dancers had to dance on the back half of the stage.

It was a pretty bizzare set up. The dancers were obviously talented but they weren't exactly in synch with one another. That said, the fourth and final dance was spectacular. All of the dancers came out with Chinese lanterns and put on a beautiful performance.

One of my favorite parts of the night was when a fellow foreigner behind me grumbled out loud, "This is a rip off" and got up and left during the middle of a dance. The lady had paid no more than $15 for her seats and had just seen a phenomenal orchestra which alone was worth the money. Huyen turned to me as they left and said, "I think they wanted live music during the ballet."

Reality TV

I heard this great story the other day that my reality TV friends can appreciate. My friend Marc's wife was called by her friend to shoot an episode for a reality TV show. Her friend is a hairdresser in Hanoi and the TV show wanted to do an episode about her as an up-and-coming hairdresser. My friend's wife was going to be the client who the hairdresser styled that day.

On the day of the shooting my friend's wife went to the salon and met the film crew. It was a small crew but enough to get the job done. At the end of the shooting the producer said to the hairdresser that if he wanted the episode aired he would have to slip him some money. The producer wanted 5,000,000 dong (almost $300).

To us non Vietnamese this sounds absurd and an obvious case of bribery. However, in Vietnam many transactions like this take place. You get pulled over for running a red? Slip the cop 100,000. Want to keep your bar open past the midnight curfew? Hand the police a couple bills.

In the end the hairdresser coughed up the money and was given a phone number to call if she had any questions about the episode. That night the hairdresser called the phone number. It wasn't a real number. The whole thing had been a set-up.

Going Against The Guide Book

(PICTURE: Fresh seafood.)

As I wrote yesterday, Huyen, Veronica and I organized our Halong Bay trip ourselves. Every Vietnam guide book you read will tell you NOT to do this. It says explicitly that this will cost you more money. Well, turns out they're right...only because we got suckered!

Our timing that day had been perfect. We arrived at the bus station a minute before our bus took off. We then took a taxi from the bus station to the port and got on our shared boat a minute before the boat was ready to leave. The only problem with such luck is that we were starving and didn't have a chance to fart around for a half an hour and grab food. We asked the ship captain if we could buy food on the boat and he said we'd stop somewhere in the bay for lunch.

We ended up stopping at a floating fish market where we choose our own fish. This was great except that the fish farm had a monopoly on lunch spots in the bay. All of the fish were exponentially more expensive than any other fish I've ever eaten in Vietnam. We finally decided on the smallest, cheapest fish which weighed 1.8 kg and cost us a whopping 500,000 Dong ($30). There was a really funny moment -- and I'm kicking myself for not getting it on video -- when the market worker asked us if we wanted the fish he had scooped up in a net. We said yes and to confirm he said, "Die?". We nodded and he yelled, "DIE!!!" and clobbered the fish with a stick.

(PICTURE: Huyen on the floating fish market.)

While we were getting back on the boat the captain bought some vegetables from a woman on a row boat and fifteen minutes later we had a huge delicious meal. Fifteen minutes after that the ship captain gave us the bill for the veggies, "service" and rice: 190,000. Yeah, it was my most expensive meal in 'Nam.

The other problem with not booking through a travel agent was that we had to organize our own ride home. This wouldn't have been a problem if we didn't miss the last bus back to Hanoi by five minutes. So much for the great timing we had had all day! We then spent an hour on the side of the road until a van came along. The van was headed to Hanoi and had enough seats for two of us. Veronica and Huyen got seats...and I sat on a stool on the floor of aisle. I was pretty sure I was going to die if the van driver hit the brakes hard. Luckily he didn't know what braking was and drove like a madman. Eventually a seat opened up and I took it. My legs were cramped by the seat in front of me but somehow I managed to fall asleep. Twenty minutes later I was awoken by Huyen who had just had a bout with car sickness. Long story short, it was a long ride home and next time I'm going through a travel agent.

Halong Bay Revisted

Last May -- about a week or so after I first arrived in Hanoi -- I went to Halong Bay with a bunch of friends. I remember saying to my friend Devin that I'd bet I'd end up going to Halong Bay at least six times in the next year with other visitors. Well, I'm glad I didn't make that bet because I never went back until last week.

My long time friend Veronica is traveling around the world for a couple of months and just stopped in Hanoi. Veronica was planning on going to Halong Bay, and since Huyen had never been, we decided to join her. We made this decision at midnight the day Veronica arrived and thus didn't book a tour ahead of time. The next morning Huyen called a travel agency and they said all the tours were booked up. Despite that, we decided to get to Halong Bay ourselves. We took a bus out to Halong City and then paid to share a private boat with a local family who were spending the day together touring the natural wonder.

Here's some pictures from our day trip:

Toothpaste

87% of all the amenities you can find in the United States you can find in Hanoi. One thing that I've had a hard time finding though is proper toothpaste. All the toothpaste here -- from the few words I can understand on the box -- doesn't have the key words I like to see on my toothpaste: Flouride, tartar control, baking soda, something that fights gum disease, etc.

The only thing that nearly every toothpaste has is whitening elements. This is the one thing I've always stayed away from in toothpastes in America. I have this irrational fear that my teeth will become blindingly white after using whitening toothpaste.

Twice I've had visitors bring me toothpaste when they've come to town. However, I've officially run out of Ben-acceptable toothpaste and had to go buy new toothpaste yesterday. I bought this box which I guessed seemed good:

Turns out the toothpaste is green tea flavored. Let me just say it doesn't exactly leave you feeling like you have fresh breath.

My First Street Shave

When I traveled with Hannah I didn't pack a razor. I shaved the day I left Hanoi and figured I'd just let my face run wild for a month. By "run wild" I of course mean, grow a little incomplete beard. I just really started growing significant facial hair a few years ago and generally only shave once ever three weeks or so. In fact, last year I basically shaved only for weddings. I had thirteen weddings so there was generally never more than a month I went without shaving. I'd usually show up at the rehearsal dinner with a thick five o'clock shadow and then go with the baby face look the next day at the wedding.

Anyway, after not shaving on my trip I decided it was a good time to try my first street shave. Huyen asked the barber if he changed his razors after each shave and indeed he did. In fact, he needed TWO razors to shave my face. He told Huyen he had never used two razors on anyone before. Apparently I have the thickest beard in Vietnam.

We showed up around dusk and the shave ended up taking about twenty minutes. There was still light when we started but by the end the barber was wearing a head light.

I can honestly say this was the best shave I've ever had. It was so good that I went back three weeks later and had him give me another shave AND a haircut.