Saigon III – Four Days in the Life

I'd never been overtaken by a kitchen before I came to Vietnam.

 Alicia and I had planned to spend three or four months in Saigon teaching and earning as much cash as we could. We stayed nearly nine months. After a week, I couldn’t decide whether I liked it or not. I still feel the same.

An Idiot confused

I’m sitting in traffic, tropical rain finding holes in my poncho, my leather shoes drenched in inky canal water which flows up the sewers and over the roads every time it rains. In the Wet season it rains a lot. Young guys on modified two-stroke scooters fly past and spray the putrid water over everyone. I’m trying to turn left but in this weather no one lets you in. Buses charge through intersections, horns blaring. I get to school and rinse my shoes and socks in the bathroom sink. Barefoot I teach three bored teenagers. I’m struggling, exhausted from teaching morning and night classes six days a week. The wage is about fifteen bucks an hour. Prep time is unpaid and I have to buy my books. The DVD player that I’d planned to use is broken. I’ll have to wing it. What am I doing here?

A flooded lane on my way to work.

 The next day the rain has stopped and it’s not too hot. My morning class loves the new game I’ve come up with. One of the students gives me a traditional moon-cake to celebrate the weekend’s festival. The shy girl in the back finally joins in an activity. After class I zip through light traffic to my favourite café for spring rolls and spicy noodles. One of my fellow teachers is there and we decide to have a couple of cheeky between-class beers. As I cruise through the sunshine to my afternoon class, Alicia calls to say we’re invited to a birthday BBQ. Goat and beef fried at a table-for-twenty on a charcoal fire and eaten with rice, lettuce and fresh herbs, all washed down with 70-cent iced beers. After dinner, we ride back through now-empty streets in a convoy of 10 scooters all riding two-up and swerving slightly to Thi’s Cafe to drink beer and watch a couple of Filipino guys play acoustic covers.
At home, the maid has cleaned our skinny two-story house and done the laundry. On the rooftop I lean against the stainless steel water tank and watch Saigon twinkle, thinking how lucky I am to be living in such an exotic, chaotic city surrounded by friends.

A little cross-cultural vodka bonding.

            At 6am I jerk awake from some strange dream feeling that something is not right. The door from the bedroom to the balcony is open and my school bag is near the door, papers scattered everywhere. My head is unaccountably foggy –  I didn’t drink that much, did I? Lurching out of bed I reach down for my pants but they’re halfway to the door. When I can’t find the computer, it dawns on me. Shit. Robbed.

            “Alicia. Where’s your iPod?”

            “Hmm?”

            “Your iPod. I think we’ve been robbed.”

That wakes her up.

            Grand total – one computer, two iPods, 30 or 40 bucks cash. No insurance.

Two days before I’d gotten my first full month’s pay. A huge wad of 30 million dong. Luckily that was in a locked draw with the passports and credit cards. 30 million dong is about $1500. After rent, living expenses and replacing the nicked gear, I wouldn’t quite break even this month. A month of hard work and stress down the toilet – so much for saving money. I go to school and have the worst class of my life. I’m grumpy, tired and I can’t think properly. I stutter like crazy. I feel like an idiot.

            Alicia gets a motorbike taxi to the police station to make a report. They say that we had probably been followed home from the pub. They had either drugged us at the bar or piped gas into our room. My wallet and iPod had been in my pants about a foot from my head as I slept. Alicia’s had been on her bedside table. She feels sick.

            That night the landlords arrive. A wealthy couple in their 60s, they own several houses. He stores his Harley Davidson and Yamaha cruising bikes on our bottom floor. He has a deep, slow voice and not much English. He’s covered in faded tats and by Vietnamese standards he’s a giant. He fought in the war on the losing side. He smiles a lot. She is quiet and friendly. When she hears what happened she pats Alicia on the arm and asks the maid to make some ice soda and lime. She gives us a heavy duty padlock for the balcony door and waives the electricity bill.

            When they leave a friend comes over and we sit in the courtyard drinking 333 beer. I call in sick for my evening class.

Saigon traffic

 A month later and I’ve been paid again, a little more because of a few extra classes. It’s independence day so, for the first time in months, I have two consecutive days off. Over the last few weeks the rains have eased off and it feels like the Wet is winding down. The sun is pale and the spectacular thunder storms have stopped. In the morning I lie in bed listening to the rattle and cry of rubbish collectors and fruit sellers in the street below. I wander to the end of our road for breakfast. Fresh baguette with omelette, salad, herbs, soy and chili sauce. All washed down with ca phe sua da – strong coffee strained over ice with sweet condensed milk. Most days I have two. The lady at the stall recognises me and has stopped laughing at my painfully bad Vietnamese.

            Because of the holiday, the traffic is light and I decide to walk into central park. Usually the scooters choking both the road and the footpath make walking in this part of town dangerous and unpleasant. My house is on an alley off Dien Bien Phu, the main road north out of town that becomes highway one and snakes 1000 miles to Ha Noi. Hunched old ladies sell lottery tickets to drivers stopped at traffic lights and groups of men drinking beer at plastic tables. In a country with no pension or healthcare it’s their only income. I walk past a group of men drinking in the shade of a lone tree growing out of the broken footpath. I smile and they beckon me over in the Vietnamese way, fingers pointing down. I tell them I’m an English teacher from Australia. They laugh, drunk at 10am. One man hands me a Saigon beer, a glass full of ice and a grape, addressing me as thay, a pronoun meaning teacher. He puts the grape in the glass and fills it with warm beer. I raise the glass.

            “Mot, Hai, Ba, Yo!” We chant the Vietnamese for 1, 2, 3, cheers and I down the beer, and the grape, eliciting cheers. I thank them and leave.

On hot days the stink is unreal

            After half an hour skipping over broken concrete and dodging scooters racing up the wrong side of the road I cross a bridge over a black canal to district one. In a city of stinking, sewage-choked waterways this one is the worst. I try to hold my breath as I hurry across. Barges loaded with dredged sediment sit low in the water. Workmen building a retaining wall stand waist deep in filth pouring concrete. Inexplicably a couple of guys are fishing, silently jiggling their rods and flicking cigarettes off the bridge.

Josh singing up a storm in central park.

I walk past a strip of shops selling  plastic motorbike helmets with pictures of butterflies, racing stripes or – occasionally – Nazi swastikas. Then more tables of drinking, chatting men until I reach the cathedral and central park. The cathedral is beautiful amongst the shopping malls and glass office blocks but I prefer the park opposite. Today it is packed. Red flags are everywhere, hung from trees and lamp posts.

            My teacher friend Josh is playing guitar in the park. He speaks fluent Vietnamese and has learned a few local pop songs. A crowd of balloon sellers, motorbike-taxi drivers and teenage girls are gathered around. They are all obviously amazed to hear this young American singing their songs. People walking past do classic double-takes and stop to listen, smiling. I play a few tunes. We start a game to see who can get the most people to stop and listen, the winner gets a free coffee. Josh wins and we grab some lunch. It’s good.

Playing Daddy at an orphanage for kids with HIV.