It is visa renewal time, that came around quick. I decided to get a month visa when we were in the UK, it is more expensive to get them in the UK, about £40 quid for one month, compared with $10 in Vietnam, so I thought I’d get a six month one when we got here. As usual I have cocked up, not much runs smoothly when a different country is involved. It is not such a big cock up. I can renew my visa as many times as we wish, because I am living in Vietnam at a residential address, but only for a month at a time, as I have a month visa, that is all I can get. If I had a 6 month visa then I could have had a 6 month visa renewal. There must be some logic there, but it escapes me. There is thousands of kilometres of red tape in Vietnamese government, local and national and woe betide anyone who tries to circumvent the rules, unless of course some palms are greased, at least that is my impression for all those lawyers reading this blog ready to sue me. The form for the visa is obtained from Tan An, formerly Long An before the Viet Cong takeover and more recently, formerly in my blog, I wouldn’t mind betting. Tan An is about 40 kilometres away, it is an adventure getting there, picking out the sporadic pieces of flat road amongst all the potholes. It’s not that bad, but you have to keep your eyes firmly fixed on the road, as the potholes appear out of the blue, quite often for no reason, although I have twigged that if there is a factory by the road, the main road outside the gates and a few metres either side are not in good shape. The frequent bridges are a lottery too, a flat run onto the bridge can quite often lull you into a false sense of ease and then throw an Evil Knevil drop at the exit from the bridge, or a few metres after the easy way off the bridge a few tarmac moguls are thrown in, extra points are awarded by the customers at nearby cafes for any somersaults or wiggles as you soar. Anyway, when you get to Tan An for the form, it can’t be filled in and handed in for a visa extension stamp, it has to be taken to your town of residence to get the local council to stamp it and our local town is Duc Hoa, 40 Km away and it is an adventure getting there, picking out .......... Oops I’ve done that bit. We were lucky this time, Auntie Thuong was coming for a visit last week and guess where she lives near to? 10/10/ Tan An, so she brought us a form. We can pick another up each time the visa is renewed, so no sweat. We forgot to take the form to be stamped on Friday, but Dung reckons the Council office is open until 11.30 on Saturdays, so we went along at about 11.10 and there were 2 blokes in, one was a kid with his head down on the desk, he was waiting to be taken to the police offices, a bad boy. The other was a council officer who was not best pleased to see us, he is supposed to close at 11.00, but it isn’t our fault he is still there, it’s the giang ho lad who is having a kip, but we took the scowls and the stamp he gave us on the form, no palm greasing required, which may be why he scowled. With our stamped document we set off early for Tan An on the Tuesday, we had a long day on the Sunday, so had a lie in on Monday, but more of that another blogging. It was about 7.30 when we set off and not too hot, but the heat was steadily rising as we went along, the heat may have been coming from Dung seething on the pillion spot, because she hasn’t eaten yet. If you ever catch her in a bad mood, just give her some food, that will bring her back down. There are usually 2 people in the Tan An office, but when we got there one lad was handling the shop by himself from what I could gather he was an amiable bloke and started our request when it was our turn and in our turn too, the Vietnamese rank up there with the Germans for love of queuing. Alas his number 2 turned up before he was finished, the number 2 told Dung I couldn’t just keep renewing my visa. Dung had thoughts of me leaving soon, but she said, he read something on the computer and it is as I said earlier, as many as I like, at least until the next time we go and somebody else is on the desk, then who knows, but it keeps us on our toes. Things nearly always work out well, it is just a struggle getting there sometimes. All that done, it is time to feed Dung, before she looks for some GBH on GPB. We took a circuitous route, as usual when Dung has an idea,” there was bound to be some good eateries around the market” and there probably are, but we couldn’t find them, so I craftily weaved my way back to a place we had been before. “Oh look Gil, here’s the Pho Bo place we went to last time”. Not as daft as I look, sometimes. Very nice it was too, the soup was a bit sweet, but there was loads of beef and good fresh vegetables and a free tra da, iced tea and it is cheaper than in Duc Hoa. Dung was very impressed.
Fed and watered, we set off to Di Thuong’s, stopping to pick up some apples and custard apples at a stall at the bottom of her road. The custard apples do taste a bit of custard, or perhaps the name plays psychologically on your taste buds, they are nice anyway, very refreshing, lots of juice that looks nothing like custard. The road to Di Thuongs has potholes that make the ones on the way from Duc Hoa look like dimples, but it not tarmaced, so fair enough. Some of the high points between cavernous potholes is very narrow and Dung is not the best pillion, so by the time we reach Di Thuong’s my ribs have been crushed. Di Thuong was at a wedding, so her mother-in-law let us in, a very lovely, very Vietnamese lady, she was tending her vegetable patch in the swelter that is nearly midday. Di Thuong used to live in a lean to, but her in-laws gave her and Cuong some of their land to build a house and very nice it is too, a damn site better than her lean to. They are still saving for the tiles on the floor, but no rush, this is Vietnam.
Di Thuong and Di Thuy turn up whilst Dung and myself are crashed in the hammock indoors, with that standalone fan blasting us, this is a very hot house. They have Nam in tow, Di Thuy’s son and little bugger. Thuy is very relaxed with him and lets him roam and run riot, but doesn’t object to others disciplining him. Di Thuong does a bit, but she is too soft with him, but Dung???? Well that is a different kettle of discipline, she gives the lad grief and he shrugs it off easily. I put up with it for a while, but then bad old uncle Gil appeared on the scene. He knew when I meant know, but pushed as far and as often as he could until the penny dropped. He disappeared a few times shouting “Me, Anh Gil dang nua” Mam, Gil has hit me again, only to be met with laughs. Another tale was born to tell his Dad, later on. The Vietnamese never use 10 words when they can use a hundred or more.
Cuong’s parent have given him and Thoung the land to build and it has banana plants, papaya, chillies, all bloody sorts of stuff growing on it. There house is next door, feet away and is very big, but made from wood and lashed together, it has loads of character and is smashing inside. Not lavish, just very old fashioned Vietnamese, before bricks and mortar became fashionable. Cuong says it is ugly, but I think I would prefer to live in this one, over his. Not that it matters, I’ll not live in either, but Cuong is very keen to get us to stay, but we duck out, saying we’ll stop when we pick up the visa next week. To pass a bit of time, as the evening began to cool, the ladies decided to collect some fruit. First off was bananas, so I was commandeered as chief hacker and trusted with a very sharp machete. I thought we cut the bunch of the plant, but I am a stupid Brit. No, Di Thuy said, hack the plant down, at least she motioned for that, so I did. It is very soft with a lot of liquid, so a couple of hacks and it was ready to topple, with the ladies holding onto the plant to stop the bananas bouncing. Di Thuy thought I was a bit of a whimp with the machete and so took over the role and with one clean swipe the bunch was off the plant. The bunch is blooming huge and I now learn it is for me and Dung to take home later. That should be fun on the moto. This plant has big bananas, we moved now to one with smaller bananas. I prefer the big ones, but in general the Vietnamese prefer the small ones. They are not so sweet, a bit unbanana like for me. Anyway, these are for Di Thuy to take home. I got the machete back for plant felling duties and Thuy took over for samurai hacking and was getting a bit excited with her samurai billing and nearly too my leg off, but I was too quick for her, well actually she missed me. Di Thuong felled a young banana plant earlier, no fruit on it yet and began peeling the trunk and then slicing it into a bowl. It goes into soup and is very nice too. The plants grow very easily here and Cuong’s Mam tells me they grow to give fruit in 6 months. The ladies have had their fun for now, so sit on the front steps chatting, then Di Thuy spots some different fruit on a tree in Di Thuong’s in-laws garden, so it’s off we go. All this time Nam is left to kip in the hammock, no doubt we’ll hear him if he gets up. There’s a bit of a snag with the new food adventure, the fruit bearing tree is hanging over a pond, so Di Thuong goes and fetches a bamboo pole about 4 metres long, some string and a short stick. All this is too much for Dung, so she’s off up the tree, a big splash may soon follow. The in-laws supplied the bamboo, stick and string, which is pretty good, since we are scrumping their tree. Dung has some success and hoys the fruit down she can reach, but Di Thuong’s contraption is needed. She just tied the stick to the end to make a small cross and this is used to yank the fruit from the tree, firstly it is pulled towards Dung, so she can grab it, but the rest are on branches too far away or too thick, so she just yanks on them, or twists on the twigs until they drop. This is where we got the splash, but only from wayward fruit that never made it to terra firma. Dung scrambled down the tree and started to do a war dance because Thuy told her that there was a caterpillar on her back. For someone who hacks live fish to pieces and all sorts of other deeds that some women would baulk at, she makes a big song and dance about a caterpillar, that turned out not to be there. Back to Thuong’s now to check out this fruit. I have never seen it before and guess what, I have never eaten it before either. It is eaten with muoi ot, a mix of salt and chillies, the fruit is dipped into it and eaten, it is to take the sour taste away and it works, but I’m not sure the fruit was worth the effort, although it was a good laugh getting it. They look like big green dates, but the tree was definitely not a palm tree. The sun is going down now, hence the heightened activity. It is shower time then chau vit for tea, duck rice porridge, sort of with veg and herbs not to mention the sliced, banana trunk. Not my favourite, but definitely high on the like list here.
Time to pack up for the journey home along the dark, potholed roads, Dung is a bad passenger, but we get there usually. I hope it doesn’t rain, as the bananas have been strapped to the back of the bike and there is no way we can get the seat up now to get the cape. Binh makes the journey easier as far as Ben Luc, as he leads the way. We were going along nicely and Binh’s moto developed a very bad sound, but he says he knows what it is and will get a million knocked of the price of the moto to take it. He only borrowed it to see how it went and if he liked it, he’d buy it. It turned out a good idea. We were going along and Dung gave me the order to pull up alongside Binh, so being obedient, I did and there I stayed for a few kilometres whilst Dung and Thuy had a nice chat to break up the journey. Nam was perched between Binh and Thuy on the moto seat, sometimes standing sometimes sitting and very often chatting. If the Brits saw this, some would have a fit, but this isn’t the UK. We parted company at a wild set of traffic lights in Ben Luc with some very well disguised potholes that I didn’t miss and it gave Dung something to gasp about, but no problem. We navigated through Ben Luc and hit the bumpy road home. A few kilometres out of Ben Luc, Dung was cursing her enthusiasm at taking the bananas, they were making her ride home even more uncomfortable, but she will forget all that when she gets stuck into them and sees her Mam’s smile when she sees them. It was certainly a long drag home in the dark, but we got there in good nick and hit the show
er, considering the rain that is put down in this country, it is very, very dusty, hence the shower after shower, the sweating also contributes.
Brewed up and with a piece of cake moved to the veranda for a chill before bedtime.
No comments:
Post a Comment