Beer, Boobs and a Bond Villain - our adventures from Hanoi to Halong Bay

The Vietnamese have a saying in English- "same same but different." Basically this is used to describe any two things that are similar in meaning but not entirely the same, for example strong and powerful are "same same" in that they have essentially the same meaning but different in that the word powerful as in "he is the most powerful man in his company..." or "Mercedes make a more powerful engine than Renault..." cannot be replaced by strong without changing the meaning of the sentence. Does this make sense?(I lecture business not English so perhaps Kate should have written this part).

Anyway after an early start and a two hour Air Mekong flight we landed in Hanoi and our initial impressions of the city were, same same but different. Hanoi is similar to Ho Chi Minh City in that both have tall but narrow, rocket style houses wedged tightly together, each house has a beautifully painted facade with an ornate balcony crowded with statues, shrines and pot plants or wooden window shutters and different coloured window frames. These narrow clusters of colour have all faded from the sun into soft pastel shades and older buildings are streaked black from thousands of heavy rains. The streets are alive with vendors and tourists and locals sitting on minute plastic chairs drinking coffee or enjoying a meal, each few steps has a new noise and a new smell- sometimes pleasant sometimes unpleasant- and all the time above you is the wacky crisscross of telephone lines, bunches of sagging cables journey from every direction and knot together on wooden poles in giant complicated vulture's nests that would be the thing of nightmares for any 'first world' health and safety rep. The people too are every bit as friendly and hospitable as those in the south and everyone we encountered was pleasant and polite (hawkers not included).

But where Hanoi and HCMC are different is that Hanoi somehow is more beautiful, it's hard to explain but you can feel a greater French influence in Hanoi, whereas HCMC feels more American/modern. For example the streets in HCMC, for the most part, are built in a grid formation whereas Hanoi has curving narrow roads , couple this with the fact that HCMC is very flat and Hanoi's terrain, like Durban's, tends to rise and fall and you can never really see where a road ends, this of course makes every street and alley far more exciting and alluring and makes exploring, provided you have a map, very entertaining. On a side note both cities are remarkably safe and unlike Durban you feel confident knowing that any alley or street you do enter you are guaranteed to walk out again.

Our hotel was excellent, the room was clean  and modern and it was positively palatial compared to the horrific Hotel Seri Nilai we stayed at in Malaysia (officially the second worst hotel I have ever stayed in, the first being Bershonof Bridge in Zimbabwe where I had to sleep with my 4 iron to fend off roaches and possible intruders). In a cruel twist of fate the builders who built the bathroom at Seri Nilai obviously built the bathroom for this hotel too because despite the large vanity, fluffy towels and fake marble fittings they also placed the shower head directly over the bog??? Having worked in hotels before I make a point of testing all the lights, air con and TV when entering a room to make sure they are working.

Duncan's travel tip # 142 finding a fault as soon as you enter a hotel room makes it much easier to fix the problem or for the hotel to move you to another room, coming back after dinner to discover your TV doesn't work when all the maintenance chaps are off duty and you will likely not be watching Desperate Housewives that evening. Also if there is a major problem eg. You come home after dinner to discover a rat and a cockroach playing scrabble on the bed spread, the hotel will be less inclined to give you a full refund as you have already 'partially' used the facilities, if this was discovered immediately and you haven't used the facilities at all they basically have to refund all your money.  

After inspecting the lights, the TV channels and under the bed for a scrabble board I flipped on the air con listened for a whirring noise and then deemed the room inhabitable for the next twelve hours so we headed out to explore the streets of Hanoi.

 

We left the hotel, map and guide book in hand, and were eager to explore our surroundings. Our first stop was Hoan Kiem lake, about a 10 minute stroll away. Well, it would have been a 10 minute stroll away if Duncan's inner Jack Russell had not emerged. Give Duncan a new city and a sophisticated camera and you can happily sit back and be entertained for half an hour watching him run back and forth taking pictures of everything from buildings to bowls of phỏ. So by the time we reached the lake we had actually walked the distance of it 3 times, this is part of Duncan's charm and one of the many reasons I adore him. Hoan Kiem lake is a pretty big lake in the centre of the old quarter and, according to Eye Witness travel, is what was left of the river that once ran through the city. We walked over a bridge to get to an island that boasted a beautiful old temple, and in the centre of the lake, off limits to people, stands a lone Pagoda now stained with black markings from the elements that stand out against the grey of the walls. It really was picture perfect.

After enjoying our walk around we snuck into a coffee shop to decide our next route. It was between the Temple of Literature or the B52 wreckage, Uncle Ho's Mausoleum and museum. Both the guide books that we have suggest giving yourself "at least half a day" at the Temple of Literature due to its size and attractions. Having plenty of time, we decided we would go there. Upon arrival we were impressed at the state of this 1000 year old university. We wandered about the 4 courtyards, examined the rocks (resembling tomb stones) that had the names of all the people awarded with doctorates engraved in ancient script and enjoyed seeing the shrines inside the temple. All of this took, at the most, 25 minutes. After conducting a thorough search to make sure we hadn't missed anything, we left. It was at this point that both of us decided to take what a guide book says and do the opposite. I don't know how these people keep their jobs but it's apparent to me that the man who wrote our particular book actually spent his entire HaNoi trip in Bia Hoi corner in the Old Quarter. As so little is written about this area, it is where we decided to go next.  

Like Saigon, the Hanoi old quarter is also divided into streets specialising in one specific type of item, there is a street selling only wedding dresses, a plastic street, a silk street, toy street and even a shoe street, luckily for me the Dog Whisperer was on discovery channel when we had flipped through the channels earlier  and I quickly employed Caesar Milan's technique for excitable pooches, every time Kate eyed a pair of pumps I would point to her and make a PSHHH noise to focus her attention, normally Kate might have been inclined to show me a finger of her own in these circumstances but fortunately we were headed for a street that was far more exciting than any stiletto could ever be, a bia hoi street. Bia hoi or 'local beer' streets involve sitting on tiny plastic chairs, drinking local beer at absurdly cheap prices (the balance of the price comes in the form of a headache) and watching the hustle and bustle of the busy street. A 750 ml beer cost 7 000 dong .. the equivalent of R1.80 (or 30 US cents for our American reader)  I have never been a great one for people watching but we were rewarded when we saw Goldfinger the bond villain, he hasn't aged at all since his cheating on the golf course days, and is as portly, red faced and piggish as ever, he even had the same blond hair style brill-creamed in a side parting and a tan safari suit, we were so convinced that is was Goldfinger that we suddenly had the feeling of panic that were being watched by his minion Oddjob, and had to remind ourselves that that he had been electrocuted to death and was not hiding around the corner getting ready to throw his hat at us. Unbeknown to us we were in fact being watched by a film crew who suddenly approached us for an interview, I am not sure if the interviewer was Oddjob on the Atkins diet or not but he did speak as little English and had the same sinister smile. After the brief but awkward interview the camera man started filming "candid" shots of us from different angles and by the time he got to his low angle shots by crouching in front of us we were both in agreement that people watching is only fun when you are the watcher and not the watchee. I am not sure if the footage was for the news or  TV show they might have CG'd our faces into a porno for all we know but I do hope that wasn't my fifteen minutes of fame, with six Bia Hanoi's in me I can only remember five of them.  

We decided to leave and get some dinner before the makeup artists, gaffers, and chief grip arrived. With no particular place in mind we opted to wander the fascinating streets in search of a nice restaurant for dinner, like an apocalypse of zombies the streets were now swamped with hawkers obviously looking to pick off the weakest and/or drunkest of the herd and, for some reason, these hawkers were all obsessed with super gluing my shoe back together. They would run up to me shrieking and arms flailing and then start grovelling around my ankles trying to super glue a scuff mark. This behaviour would seem bizarre if you were sober so after several malty beverages when the first 'zombie' came running towards me with a tube of adhesive I did that stupid steppy half jump thing you do when you think you see a snake and nearly kneed the chap in the teeth (after the seventeenth zombie attacked me I was trying to knee them in the teeth).  I soon grew weary of doing the cha-cha-cha and moon walking around the hands of these glue obsessed idiots so we ducked into the nearest bistro for a quick meal and of course another beer.  When we returned home I realised that in our eagerness to see the city I hadn't properly checked the air con and despite whirring away it was blowing air about as forcibly as a hamsters sneeze. Reception gave us an industrial fan that did a great job of keeping us cool but sounded like a Chinook taking off.

We had quite an early start the next day as the bus was picking us up at 8 am. On paper 8 am is actually a pretty decent time, however, I was faced with the mammoth task of waking up Duncan. This task is usually pretty hard but it becomes impossible when a fair amount of cheap beer has been consumed the night before. Knowing of Duncan's 45 minute morning bathroom hogging ritual, I had to get up much earlier to squeeze in a shower for myself, calm my nerves and try and awaken the sleeping beast. At first I tried nicely, which didn't work so I had to move to a more aggressive approach to make sure we didn't get left behind. Eventually out of frustration I ended up pulling off the blankets and yelling "Get up!!! The bus is downstairs!!" at 6:45. Duncan, now in an absolute panic, almost turned himself into a julienne vegetable when he shot out of bed and almost straight into the industrial fan. The next time he spoke to me was an hour into the bus ride. All was eventually forgiven when the excitement of getting on board our boat set in.

After enjoying a delicious seafood lunch on board we were taken onto one of the limestone islands that had a grotto and a cave. First up was the grotto which was very interesting and quite fun to walk around. Being Vietnam, the inside had been illuminated with different colours to make it more enchanting. The guide would point out the various animal shapes the rocks resembled – the most memorable one being the massive breast he pointed out. Unlike all of the other rocks inside, this one had a very smooth surface and the guide told us that it was because people would rub the giant breast as it ensured your first born would be a son. Interesting. Next up was the cave, which are notorious ganglands for bats. And for those that don't know, I have an irrational fear of bats (to a point where I once locked myself in my car for 20 minutes due to the bat outside of my window.) I was torn between seeing the inside of this massive cave and keeping out of danger outside. Eventually I did an echo test and deemed the cave bat-free. I am so happy I did go in, the cave was typically cold and dark and just so much fun to walk around in. Unlike the grotto, the cave had been left in a very natural state with only lighting to see where you were going as the pathway was very twisty and uneven. Usually this would be a bad place for me to be in but it was poor Duncan who had a hard time. For some reason his shoes had no grip inside and he was sliding about the place like a seal on an ice cap, a result of all the moon walking I had done the day before to avoid the super glue zombies. 

After surviving the grotto and the cave, we boarded the boat and were greeted with a glass of wine (balsamic vinegar) on the sun deck and a chance to relax and enjoy our surroundings while cruising about. We passed a small fishing village of people who live on Halong Bay. Our guide informed us that the only time these people leave the water is to get petrol or if there is a typhoon. These people survive by fishing and then rowing about the bay selling their fish to boats. The boat moved around for about 2 hours and every 5 minutes we were presented with a view more beautiful than the last. In the early evening the boat anchored and we were told that we could have a swim in the ocean on condition that we jumped off the 3^rd level of the boat! Duncan being feline like made it clear that he thought those of us that wanted to swim were absolutely deranged. Having previously gorge jumped and sky dived, leaping from the 3^rd story of a boat into water didn't sound at all scary. However, after stepping over the safety rails the 6.5 metre drop now looked more like a 30 metre fall to death. I wish I could say I smiled and jumped gracefully but it took 10 minutes to muster up all of my courage and convince myself that my previous blog about my bad luck was nonsense. At least I wasn't the only ninny on board, after seeing the drop all of us had doubts but eventually another lady and I decided to do the first jump together. Duncan was sent downstairs to take pictures and a man that had chickened out of the jump kindly offered to count us down. We were in position and the countdown started. "3...no no, wait, I think there's a jelly fish down there." Indeed there was, so we waited 2 minutes for the jelly traffic to move along and the countdown started again. "Jelly fish ... Clear! And 3 ... 2 ... WAAAIIIT!!!" As we were about to throw ourselves off a boat a local lady selling fresh produce came rowing around the corner directly under where we would have landed. This could have either been the most catastrophic event Halong Bay had ever seen or the funniest, either way I am glad I wasn't involved in it as death by dragon fruit isn't appealing to me after my last encounter with them and Duncan would now be writing this part of the blog with a smirk and an "I told you so" look. Third time being the charm and we finally got our full countdown. " Jelly fish ... clear. Local on a boat ... clear. 3 ... 2 ... 1." And so we could finally fling ourselves off and into the ocean. Feeling quite chuffed with myself I scurried out of the water to see Duncan giggling. I couldn't understand why until I saw the pictures, it turns out that every time I jump off something high my arms flap like I am trying to fly, there is obviously some deep psychological under-development that makes me believe if I try hard enough I can defy gravity. Anyway, I wanted a good picture so I did it all again and tried to look less like a pterodactyl and more like an Olympic diver.   

That evening we had to gather on the dinner deck and attend a 'cooking class' which involved making our own spring rolls, our instructor showed us how in 3 easy steps. Step 1 Pick up a piece of rice paper, which by the way is so thin it makes a Kleenex tissue look like war and peace. Step 2 spoon mixture onto rice paper. Step 3 roll tightly, fold in the edges and then finish rolling. Seemed easy enough in theory but in practice was quite difficult. My first spring roll went something like this, Step 1 pick up the Kate Moss Kleenex. Step 2 try get the mixture of pork, shrimp, squid and vegetables to fall off the spoon. Step 3 apologise to the people on either side of me for splattering them with squid meat when I did finally mange to shake the mixture off the spoon. Step 4 roll the paper so that all the filling leaks out the end. Step 5 reroll the paper, fold it and hand the baguette sized spring roll to the instructor. Step 6 instructor discovers that I had accidently picked up seven pieces of rice paper unravels it and hands it back to me. Step 7 repeat steps one thru five and hand the instructor a spring roll resembling a javelin. After another four attempts I finally nailed it and managed to make a rather neat looking little spring roll, basically solving a Rubik's cube is easier.

After dinner we went down to the front of the boat and were given bamboo fishing rods with line and a lure attached. Apparently squid aren't deserving of bait. We sat patiently for 20 minutes trying to coerce the squid to eat our big metal hooks but no luck. The captain then came to check on us, threw in a rod and put a red bucket over the spot light. It seems squids are huge fans of red light districts as they all flocked towards the red light and 2 minutes later we heard a squid squeak, saw ink in the water and a rather large squishy thing on the captain's hook. He threw the creature into the red bucket and disappeared, leaving us to try again. We tried to attract the squid with the red bucket trick again but all it really did was bake the few unfortunate squid that were inside it. After half an hour Duncan and I lost our patience with the elusive squid and Duncan resorted to trying to stun the animals by smashing them on the head with the lure. Needless to say, this didn't work. Duncan, now hell bent on catching anything, even tried to fowl hook an innocent Toby fish swimming by, but only managed to scare the poor thing. In the end, I managed to hook some seaweed and Duncan managed to scare away any aquatic animal in our immediate area. Of course the reel (ha ha reel get it) reason we didn't catch anything was not entirely due to our sub standard angling skills, a boat anchored not far from us had karaoke as their evening entertainment and the guy hogging the mike was horrific. He was so bad he made the Mekong delta lady, whom Kate described as 'sounding like  a cat having a turf war', sound like Enya and if fish had ears they would have been lining up to have their heads smashed in.

The meals on the boat were fantastic, the crew really outdid themselves and each meal had five or six dishes to get stuck into. Our lunch the next day consisted of fresh fish, prawns, mussels, rice, vegetables, pork, tofu and squid cakes. Of course we didn't touch the squid cakes because secretly we knew that they had been cooked under the red light of the bucket many hours before.

It was also on the boat that I noticed something peculiar - Kate, who is usually akin a grizzly after hibernation in the mornings, for some strange reason becomes an early riser whilst on holiday and develops this really annoying habit of waking the second the alarm clock starts blaring, Kate herself then starts blaring, at me, instructing me to get up NOW! Surely once my eyes are open I am technically awake and I don't understand why she continues. Perhaps she expects me to stand to attention, salute and shout 'Zieg Heil!' what I do know is that she is lucky I love her so much or else she may just have jumped from the boat again, only this time with a pair of concrete shoes on.

Tragically we had forgotten rule #142 again and despite checking the hot water, the bed side lamp and under the bed for scrabble pieces we forgot to check that the shower head was connected to water mains, so showering onboard involved squatting like a super glue zombie under the knee high tap, this was however the only fault on the entire trip and the cruise and its activities were very enjoyable.

When we were told that kayaking around some of the islands was included in our cruise I was so excited and had visions of Duncan and I leisurely paddling our way through little coves and admiring the exquisite views surrounding us while the sun shone on our backs. What my imagination had forgotten was the competitive streak that Glenwood boys instils in their students, so while we had the sun and beautiful views I also experienced a minor "boot camp" style intensive cardio workout. If I slacked off I was told to pick up the pace and the fear I now had of sergeant Carter-Brown meant our leisurely kayak turned into a race against ... no-one. Not even the guide could keep up with us so we kept having to stop and wait for directions so we didn't get lost among the hundreds of islands. In all honesty it was quite nice getting a bit of a workout after doing so much relaxing, it would have been better though if I wasn't constantly mocked for being a "skew kayaker." Duncan was convinced that the reason we kept drifting to one side was not because of the tide, no, it was because my left arm is SO much stronger than the right and I was the reason. I find this rather impressive seeing as though I am 70% right handed. Obviously eating and playing pool with my left hand has given it a major advantage over the right ... perhaps I should give this advice to Men's Health.   

The rest of the morning was spent at our leisure and we had time to admire the last of the views. Suddenly about 20 boats came into view and it appeared that the captains had lost their minds as they were ramming each other's boats in the same fashion that you drive a motorbike here. We asked the guide what was going on, and he informed us that we had approached "the two fighting chickens" -  this was one of the most popular sites in Halong Bay and everybody wanted a photo. I couldn't make out one chicken nevertheless two, and was quite happy that we didn't go into the game of bumper boats. We had our last (squid-free)  lunch on board before getting back on the bus and heading off to Hanoi.

We arrived back at the same hotel and immediately walked into a bit of a debacle with our room. After the faulty air con the room had obviously been placed out of order and they didn't have a place for us to stay. Luckily (for them) the problem was resolved very quickly and they decided to 'walk' us to anther hotel.  Walking a guest is an industry term for when you overbook the hotel and a guest who has booked a room doesn't get one, usually it involves checking them in to a nearby hotel, driving them to the new property, grovelling, apologising, compensating and then parting ways feeling a bit like a sheep carcass when the Balboas were having marital problems. In this instance walking involved quite literally walking across the street to a hotel meters away. This hotel was not as pretty as the first but was actually much better, it had a big bathroom with a separate shower loo combo, a turbo charged air conditioner, full satellite television with all the English channels we hadn't seen in a while and best of all a painting of Chun lee from Street Fighter bare breasted by a lotus pond. The artist had quite obviously spent about 5 minutes painting her face and about three hours painting her boobs and by the time he reached her hand just sort of rushed a birds foot thing. Either that or maybe she broke it punching Blanca (for those not familiar with the game Street Fighter this will entire paragraph will be meaningless, similarly anyone not familiar with the Rocky series please ignore my previous carcass comment).

Next day Mein Fuhrer woke me up early again, we packed, said goodbye to Chun lee, left our bags at reception and set out for a full days sightseeing before our flight at 19h00 that evening. Today we were going to get a full dose of culture and had lined up a few attractions that were a must see according to our map. First on the list was the flag tower, this is a spectacular citadel in the Old Quarter and beneath it is a fascinating military museum. The tower itself is impressive and above it flies an enormous Vietnamese flag. I could ramble on about the splendour of this place and its significance and get all artsy but to avoid readers chundering on their key boards and to avoid having to include page numbers and chapters I'll keep it short. Basically it is very interesting and I would highly recommend it to anyone travelling to Hanoi. The museum has photos, uniforms, weapons, medals and unlike the university of literature you could actually spend half a day here. In the courtyard are tanks, MIGs, a Huey, an old half track (Kate liked this one), missiles, bombs and loads of other hardware either used or captured in the war. We both thoroughly enjoyed the museum and it really showcased just how brave the Vietnamese troops were in taking on bigger nations. From the museum we walked through some exquisitely beautiful parts of the city to get to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, unfortunately the queue to get in was around the block so we didn't get to see inside but we did enjoy walking round the gardens, exploring the museum, which has some really strange exhibits and also seeing the famous one pillar pagoda. The one pillar pagoda is very beautiful but, like the temple of literature, didn't quite live up to the guide books hype. Something the guide books all seemed to leave out is the wreckage of a B52 in a lake in the city, after under hyping the military museum and over hyping the pagoda and temple we decided to find the wreckage and see for ourselves. A quick detour through the botanical gardens and after finding our bearings on the map we managed to locate the wreckage. It is quite simply a big chunk of twisted metal lying in a lake and there are two of the planes wheels semi submerged next to it, but the surrounding area is so scenic and peaceful that it's hard to imagine that it once was part of a big machine of war.

Despite my frequent teasing in this blog, Kate is actually the best person to travel with. Every sight seems more special and every day is guaranteed  to be packed with adventure and laughs so walking around the country's capital was made all the more special because of her company. We were so enjoying exploring together that we decided to walk back to the flag tower (which was by now freaking miles away) and then catch a taxi from there back to the hotel. A decision we would somewhat regret several hours later when we were both suffering from third degree chafe, but even this we were able to laugh at, eventually.

The decision to walk back, though not physically a good idea, was great for getting a real feel for the city. So often the books point you in the direction of everything touristy and you can be in a new city without ever really experiencing it. We stumbled upon another lake with a vast choice of restaurants along the water's edge. We enjoyed watching people paddle in their swan themed boats and the wharf cat eyeing out our lunch. We also found ourselves in the street that housed all the embassies and the presidential palace. It was in the last afternoon walk where we could truly see how different Hanoi was to HCMC. The streets lacked the constant rushed chaos, tree's sheltered the roads from the sun and you could actually walk on the pavements. It just seemed more liveable and we were quite sad to say our final goodbye's.    

 

Finally it was time to head for home and we caught the hotel courtesy car back to the airport. We left Hanoi feeling really amazed at how this city with a population of well under a quarter of HCMC's and the unique marvel of nature we had seen the day before had exceeded our every expectation. But Vietnam is a country that never ceases to amaze and on the trip to the airport we saw something that could only ever happen here. There are many hazards on the Vietnamese roads, people pushing barrows of fruit against the flow of traffic in the wrong lane, motor cyclists holding structural steel rods well five meters in length and flying down the roads at speeds that could only result in a giant human shish kebab, open man hole covers with a coke tin as a warning triangle,  motorbike passengers holding huge sheets of glass for others to drive into but, to top it all and just minutes outside the airport I might add, we saw a motorcyclist with one hand on the handlebars and the other holding an enormous king cobra by the head, the snake still very much alive was wrapped around his neck and didn't seem at all impressed, presumably because of the speed he was driving at, I'd take my chances with the wheelbarrow any day.

 

Touching wood before my toes touch the sand

After our return from Malaysia we went a bit travel nuts and have booked two get-aways for this month. Hanoi and Halong Bay in 2 weeks and Bangkok a week after that. I realise that our previous blog was quite lengthy and very exciting to read, and the future blogs will be too. However, in the interim I have written a little something to keep you going as the next 2 weeks will not be exciting at all and there will probably be nothing to report on.

 

We have all been known to throw the odd grain of salt over our shoulder from time to time without getting confused looks from observers. Superstitions are a part of every culture and have varying degrees of followers depending on where you are in the world. I have never considered myself to be much of a superstition believer. I know of them, but have never ran in fear from a black cat or really noticed whether a building has a 13^th floor or not. There are, however, two superstitions I have always been very aware of and have never tempted thanks to family. The first is from my father, who is probably the most "unsuperstitious" person around. Ladders, black cats and the number 13 don't do anything to him BUT tell him you will give him a million bux to cut his finger nails on a Friday and he'll refuse. I think this belief came from his mother, and now it's passed down to me. I don't even know if I really believe this is bad luck, but I don't want to chance it. The other is from my gran, who has always said that its bad luck to sew something while it is on a person. If you have to (for example, the hem on skirt is loose and you're in a rush to get to work) then you must prick the person with the sewing needle afterwards. I'm not too sure if this last part is actually superstition, or a way at getting back at me for being a messy child, but I have been pricked a couple of times (with love, of course.)

So in coming to VN, I came over fairly superstition-free. This has changed in the past months, as the Vietnamese are extremely superstitious and conscious of good and bad luck. As with all cultures, they have their superstitions which have been passed down through generations. Below are a couple of common ones I have come across;

·         If you look in the mirror at 12am a ghost will follow you.

·         Don't express lavish admiration for a new baby, because the devils might hear you and steal the child because of his desirability.

·         Mirrors are often placed on front doors. If a dragon tries to get in, he will see his reflection and think that there is already a dragon there and go away.

·         Single bowls of rice and chopsticks should not be served. Always place at least two on a table. One bowl is for the dead.

·         It is considered bad luck to give someone knives (or any sharp object) as a gift. If you do, then the recipient will usually give you a small sum of money so that it isn't technically a gift anymore.

These are just a few of them. And before you start thinking that these are weird, remember that in our culture it's apparently good luck if an avian friend drops a turd on us (definitely something I have never come to terms with.)

It's not just superstitions that are highly respected here, but also what is considered to be good and bad luck. For example, a friend of Donovan's had a minor bike accident last year and then her bike was stolen 2 months later. It was then believed that it was a bad year for her to own a motorbike, and she put off buying a new one for 8 months until the new year. What is amazing is how consistently this is followed. What is even more amazing is how quickly I have started to consider things to be good and bad luck.

This mindset all started a couple of months back, when a very observant student commented on my footwear and how every time I wear a certain pair of shoes it rains. Once something like this has been pointed out to you, you cannot ignore it. I started noticing that it always seemed to rain with a mere slip on of a certain pair of grey pumps. I actually started avoiding wearing these shoes, which has now become a problem as all of my other shoes are broken or have holes in them and I cannot find ladies footwear in my size here. Guess I am destined to walk around in the rain for the next 2 months or until the rain shoes break too and I walk into class looking like a vegan hippy.

The observation of the shoes got me thinking about more "bad luck" events in my lifetime and, as with anything, if you look hard enough you will find a connection. This common thread – the beach. While many people have fond memories of soaking up the sun under a palm tree and having a dip in the ocean to cool down, my beach themed memories are somewhat plagued with bad events. Lets run through them...

Age 3: Location - unknown. Mom takes toddler Kate for a fun filled day of sunscreen and ice cream. There I am, standing at the water's edge, running away from waves 2cm high when I notice something blue floating about. Not wanting a dolphin to choke on a plastic bag I brave the water to fetch it. It turns out to be a massive blue bottle which stings me from my chest down to my toes. I do believe this is my first memory.

Age 5: Location – Salt Rock. Dad takes us for a beach holiday. My older sister convinces me to stand at the edge of the rock pool with her, not wanting to be seen as a ninny I agree. I make it to the far end, stand up feeling like a champion and turn around to show my Dad how brave I am when a wave washes me over and I slide down razor sharp mussels on my backside. (To this day I am scarred mentally and physically)

Age 9: Location – The Wild Coast. There I am, sitting on the sand admiring the view when a monkey attacks me and steals my banana muffin.

Age 11: Location – Cape Town. A seagull flies into my head.

Age 14: Location – North Beach. I surf over my brother's head resulting in having to leave the beach with perfect swells to get my brother's cranium stitched back together. (This seems worse for my brother than for me – perhaps this beach bad luck is genetic)

Age 16: Location – Happy Wanderers. Another monkey attack, this time it steals our raw eggs. No breakfast.

Age 17: Location – Margate. I stand on a fishing hook. (Serves me right for being in Margate)

Age 20: Location – Ballito. I dislocate a toe after tripping over seaweed.

Age 23: Location – Mui Ne. Fall in a hole and tear the ligaments in my foot in the most disabled unfriendly location I have ever been to.

So you see, my new found fear of the ocean is justified. And before you blame my general lack of co-ords and clumsiness (something Duncan loves to blog about) for this, consider the fact that I have always lived near the ocean and this could possibly be the actual cause of my misfortunes.

My new knowledge of bad luck locations has started to affect our travel destinations. For example, the reason we will go to Bangkok and not the beautiful beach town of Phuket (that and the prices are cheaper) as well as deciding to give Nha Trang (one of the best beaches in VN) a miss and go to Da Lat instead. This seems a fair trade as Da Lat is known as the city of love and flowers. Apparently a common sight here is a tree with a chain around it and thousands of locks attached to the chain. Couples will "lock" their love together and throw the keys into the lake. Sounds much more romantic and Kate friendly than a beach, thank you. Lucky for me, Duncan is about as fond of swimming in the ocean as a cat, so there are no arguments on travel destinations. One terrifying thought though, is our Halong Bay trip coming up. This is one of the sights we just cannot miss and I am already having nightmares about what could happen in an ocean with over 1000 lime stone columns emerging from the water. Luckily for me, and thanks to VN, I am aware of my bad luck and will be extra cautious and hold my St Christopher tightly.

I am hoping to shake this new belief of luck and superstition before I come home, but should you see me saluting magpies, carrying around a severed rabbits foot to protect my own or turning in a circle 7 times just ignore me. It shall pass.

Champagne tastes better on beer money.

A collaborative tale of the adventures of little Katie and little Dunx

We officially decided to go to Malaysia a mere month before the race. After much number crunching and calculating we eventually worked out that it was actually possible to leave at such short notice but that it would require us to engage in a bizarre practice known as budgeting. Finance has never been one of my fortes, but compared to Kate I am basically Warren Buffet! The thought of a whole month without cafe Lattes and glasses of Bordeaux was a positively terrifying prospect, but watching  a formula one car live has been on both of our to-do lists for a very long time and the opportunity to go to a race was well worth a few quiet nights at home. To fully understand the significance of formula one you must cast your mind back many years, (many many years in my case) to a time when Kate and Duncan were little Katie and little Dunx.

A long time ago in a magical harbour city with red roofed houses and tree lined streets, a little girl joined her dad on the couch to see what he was watching on television. To her amazement she saw brightly coloured cars flying round a winding track at impossible speeds, the enthusiastic yells of Murray Walker spurring them on. Little Katie was instantly hooked. Whilst most girls were combing Barbie's hair, honing their nurturing instincts on creepy eyed self wetting dolls and collecting stickers little Katie was completely enthralled by the glamorous locations, the speed and the manic noise of formula 1. Sunday after Sunday was spent with her dad watching this wonderful newfound sporting passion and as she watched and understood she began to realise that one driver in particular was being selfish and not sharing first place with anyone. "This isn't fair" she thought and swore to herself that one day she would go to a race with the sole purpose of watching Herr Schumacher crash.

Unbeknown to her, at the same time, in the land half way between the harbour and the great dragon mountains a little boy was also sitting with his dad watching the wonderful cars go round. Little Dunx had always walked to his own beat and for some inexplicable reason had always preferred baddies over the good guys, perhaps it was their cool British accents and  stylish wardrobes that topped the wise cracking, vest wearing goodies or perhaps it was a deep psychological defect that would later manifest into desire to declare a jihad on bad service, anyway to little Dunx Star Wars was a tragic tale about the demise of a stylish hero called Lord Vader at the hands of the evil Puke Skywalker, Skeletor and his lovable band of brave warriors, the rightful rulers of Fantasia, were always being deceived by the cretin He-Man in his ghastly furry Speedo and, to little Dunx, Schummi with his win at all cost attitude and his humourless Prussian efficiency, was the best thing to come out of the early nineties (Culture Beats Mr. Vain a very close second). He vowed one day to watch the terrific Teuton in action. So whilst other little boys were pulling the heads off Barbies and were obsessed with sports cars, little dunx was, well doing the exact same! But he too made a vow, he swore to himself that one day he would go to a race with the sole purpose of watching Herr Schumacher win.

Years later the little girl now grown into an elegant (???) young lady and the little boy now a man (physically but not mentally) met for the first time, this mutual passion for the sport and contradictory views of a single driver brought them together. Had it not been for that first conversation about F1, all of the other "things in common" may never have emerged – a love of rock music, a respect for crocodiles and an unrelenting hatred of Julia Roberts movies. Two and a half years after the initial meeting and many, many adventures later, the two finally decided that it was time to see a race for real.

Thankfully March was  good month for television as there was really exciting six nations rugby to watch and for once, after decades of disappointment with the sharks, the team I was backing actually won! Then came the Australian grand prix and the strange realisation that in a few short days we would be at  race for real. With sound advice from a website written by a ground hornbill called Suze Orman the budget was well on track. It was at this point that Kate, obviously suffering from severe spending withdrawals, sudden declared that we needed new luggage for our trip. Through adorable persuasion and  with delicate tilting of her little nose Katie was able to persuade scrooge to purchase new luggage. Of course this was aided by the fact that in Nam you can buy a Louis Vuitton rip off for under five bucks.  The reasoning behind the new luggage was sensible, in my opinion, as the only bags we had were backpacks or massive bags that we managed to fit our entire lives into for the trip to 'Nam. Off we went to the luggage shop where a nifty overnight bag was purchased for about the same price as a 2 litre bottle of milk in SA. In the shop the urge to spend money overwhelmed me so much that I insisted on getting a new backpack too. The reason – our current backpacks were "too big and made us look like foreigners".

Once the luggage scenario was sorted, another idea sprung to my mind. Malaysia is 4 degrees north of the equator so we would be in sun for three full days and getting sunburnt on top of a sunburn is not a pleasant experience, especially when Shylock had rationed our sunscreen. Very intelligently, I decided that sunhats were in order, lucky for me VN is full of hat shops as the Vietnamese are positively vampire-ish in their fear of the sun. I walked into a shop, dragging Duncan behind me (who was doing the Jack Russel "I don't want to go to the vet" walk) and, having champagne tastes, instantly fell in love with the most expensive hat in the shop. Duncan gave me the head tilted "not this month" look also known as the "you must be freaking crazy" look and I scurried away, soon to return with something equally glamorous but well within the budget. The only problem was that it was made for a Vietnamese sized head, BUT, this being Vietnam and full of industrious people the shop attendant whisked the hat away and returned 4 minutes later with the hat size now suitable for my western head.

The hat Kate bought was the sort of garment the queen would wear to a polo match but she was so chuffed with it and looked so sweet in it that I was glad to go without truffles and saffron for the next few days. When we returned home and began packing it soon became apparent that Kate's hat was so large it would not fit into the newly acquired overnight bag, this bothered me immensely as I knew, being the man, I would have carry the damn thing and feared that everyone would assume that the hat was mine. Let it be noted here that I did ask Duncan if we could take his old larger backpack as well, he then began to ask why we purchased the new back pack in the first place and why I insisted on having a hat deliberately disproportional to the new bag ( I am not a fan of wrinkles was my answer) Duncan then somehow origami folded my lovely new hat into a giant samoosa and shoved it into the overnight bag.

Friday morning eventually arrived and we were up at the crack of dawn, something which we are not used to doing here. After checking in at the airport, Duncan was ever so chivalrous and offered to carry the new backpack for a while. This sounded great to me as I was keen to get the last ciggie in before boarding a plane (a smokers nightmare.) There we were standing outside, getting excited, laughing, chatting and admiring the gorgeous sunrise before us when a loud "SHNAAP" was heard. Both a little worried, ( I instantly checked that my hip was not broken, I am almost thirty now and this is a common occurrence of the elderly) we looked around to eventually discover that the plastic clip holding the strap of the backpack had burst when Duncan had, apparently, flexed his 'pecs' in an ever macho way. I am still convinced that this was a tactical move so that he wouldn't have to carry the bag again. (A tactic known as the "Richard Carter-Brown" after my brother– this move was invented by Richard, the youngest of the Carter-Brown Clan, who being the smallest was always asked to make the family coffee. Fed up with these high percolation expectations Rich decided one day to start making the shittiest cups of coffee ever to be endured by humans. Not wanting to offend the lad we kept our disproval to ourselves but Richards days of being the family coffee boy were over). Whilst slightly annoyed that the one-day old bag was now tied together in a hobo looking way, I was quite chuffed that for once it wasn't my clumsiness that had resulted in something being broken. This mild annoyance vanished when, for the first time in our relationship, I was able to give Duncan the "I told you so" look and casually brought up the fact that I had asked him to bring his backpack too.

Fast forward two hours of turbulence, plastic cutlery and "the exits are being pointed out to you now." And we were finally in Malaysia.

We experienced mild culture shock upon arrival in Malaysia. Everything was so clean, people spoke English and things seemed to be able to work without the constant chaos that we have come to expect. While everything was going smoothly we thought we should take full advantage and go straight to the circuit to collect our tickets. A 5 minute bus ride later and we were presented with a grass bank with the words "Sepang International F1 circuit" sprawled across it. Beautiful. We were expecting to have to queue for about an hour to collect our prized possessions and walked into the office preparing ourselves. However, there were 2 lines for collection. One had about 150 people waiting, and the other had no one in line but two very bored looking people behind the counter. We thought we'd take our chance with the no liner. The man greeted us in a very pompous tone and said that his line was only for people who had booked through F1.com, and that all the other (and I swear he said 'peasants' here) 'people' have to wait in that line, and continued to point with a disgusted face. Good thing we booked through old Liberace's company then. His tone changed, he cracked what appeared to be a smile and presented us with the tickets, lanyards and ear plugs. "Pah, we're not gonna need ear plugs" we thought, and continued on our way.

 

We caught  a bus back to our hotel and managed to see quite a bit of the countryside, we passed through areas that looked similar to Kloof, then an area resembling Port Louis and then just as we were passing through an uglier version of Stanger the bus stopped and were told that this was our destination. We caught a taxi from the bus stop to our hotel and after the wonderful chaos of HCMC we were amazed at how efficient everything was. Our taxi driver was very talkative and friendly and insisted on picking us up and taking us to the circuit the next day at 10am he even quoted us a really good price. The hotel as expected was quite basic, but our check-in was quick and friendly. This general theme of efficiency continued in our bedroom where in keeping with the theme the TV only had three channels (Asian pop, Asian soap opera and Asian home shopping network), the aircon only had one setting (Siberian breeze) and the bathroom was an all in one self cleaning unit (Could be mistaken for a mini bar in a western hotel, see below for description).

After admiring the wonderful view of the parking lot from our window and critiquing the completely mismatched oil painting of an English cottage we decided that a quite visit to the capital was in order and gathered our things to head out to KL. On our way out we noticed a sign on the back of the door with prices for all the items in the bedroom, apparently if we desired we could purchase the curtains, the TV remote and even the oil painting as souvenirs. Despite Kate's begging and pleading for the vanity chair I had to refuse, sadly we just didn't have the budget for it.

Everyone in Malaysia speaks English and Kuala Lumpur is very geared for tourist but despite this it's always easy to get lost in a strange city. Desperate not to miss the last train home we came up with a meeting point in the station if we separated, synchronised out watches and then walked out making a point to memorise the nearest land mark. We stepped out of the station and into the shadow of the Petronas towers. For those that don't know the current tallest twin towers in the world, each tower is higher than Empire State at well over 450 meters and they are visible from basically everywhere. As far as land marks go this one was pretty nifty. KL is wonderful, its clean the people are diverse and impossibly friendly it was completely different to what we have been used to. You can breathe without inhaling 2 stroke fumes for one thing and we were totally baffled by the four way stops, traffic obeying red lights and the lack of scooters on the pavements. Still in Vietnam mode we were jay walking into oncoming traffic, crossing the road without waiting for the lights and smiling when a bus drove past and gave us a lungful of familiar carbon monoxide, my we must have looked like tourists. After walking the city and seeing the sites we went to a pub where I had a giant beer in a frosted glass bigger than my head! On the train back to the hotel with a belly full of German ale and burger king I thought to myself that this day had been pretty special, little did I know how incredible the next day would be.

Saturday morning finally arrived and we were eager to get going. We walked outside expecting to see our new taxi driver friend waiting for us, but no. Eventually 10:20 came around and still no taxi driver so we asked reception to arrange one for us. No problem, the taxi will be outside in 10 minutes. 5 minutes later and who arrives, but our taxi driver from the previous night who had no recollection of ever meeting us before. The drive to the track was a strange one, for some reason the nut job that was transporting us was holding speed stick to the fan in the car. If it was actually speed stick it might have been bearable, but it smelt like bad toilet spray mixed with old lady perfume and I fought back the urge to stick my head out the window like a dog. Just as I thought I couldn't take it anymore, the driver pulled over on the highway, got out, changed his pair of shoes, then continued to drive while holding the vile smelling gel to the fan again. I was ecstatic to finally get out of the guys car and never ever get back into it, until he insisted on picking us up the next morning. We only agreed because we thought he would forget. Obviously he wasn't high enough for that yet.

We were delighted when we finally went to our seats, a grassy bank well over 600 meters long with views of well over half the race track. The top half of the area was covered so we could choose between sipping peach iced tea in the shade or basking with a beer in the sun.

Shortly after arriving the stadium erupted with the savage sound of internal combustion, we waited excitedly only to watch a pack of GP2 cars come flying round the track, the racing was exciting and the noise wonderful but it did make us wonder how much faster and louder the GP2 cars bigger angrier brothers would be. We didn't have to wait long to find out. After a really exciting GP2 race and a comparatively slow touring car race the F1 cars were unleashed for their final practice. Nothing quite prepares you for the noise of an F1 car and  for the first ten minutes we sat there stunned and just bathed in the savage beauty of the noise. In the same way that a cup of coffee has over a thousand different aromas there are many, many elements that make up the sound of an F1 car, they are as loud as an African storm and every bit as fierce, you can honestly shout directly into some ones ear and they will not be able to hear you, they are that loud. But there are other elements too, a raw animalistic note like the roar of a lion, a harmonious note like Pavarotti standing on a drawing pin and an annoying metallic sound like Bjork and an alley cat fighting to the death in a drain pipe. Add in a bit of angle grinder and a blue whale with deli belly and that's pretty much the recipe for the sound of an F1 car.

The air tingles as they fly past and the speed is incomprehensible, the whole experience was surreal and the hour drifted past in a wave of explosive sound and flashes of colour. It was only a few hours later during the qualifying that it actually began to sink in.  

Of course the highlight of the day was seeing Kate in her wonderful hat, which looked exactly like the roof of the grand stand at Sepang ( I am sure she planned that). She looked absolutely splendid and was easy to spot in a crowd, she looked as though she should be skipping instead of walking although with her track record she would probably twist an ankle, face plant into the mud and ruin her hat. As sweet as she looked her dark side came out later that evening when, after a long day, Kate severely reprimanded (Banele'd) the ticket lady at the train station and we bussed home again to ugly stanger. We got back to the hotel, for sale curtains and  Anne Hathaway's cottage and had an early night sleep.

We have heard from a few people that Malaysian cuisine is fantastic, and I would love to say that we agree with this statement but everything was going so smoothly that we didn't want to chance our good fortune with bad breyani. I am slightly ashamed to say that we stuck to eating the usual western junk, but it seemed a worthwhile sacrifice when you consider what the bathrooms are like in Asia. A common trend is to put the shower above the loo and the hand basin is always situated just short of a thigh length away from the toilet. Meaning you are ALWAYS squashed, and should you need to use the bathroom just after someone has showered it means your feet will be cleaned with the soapy water on the floor and a nice wet toilet seat will await you. Now, we have experienced Malaysian efficiency and this stems into the bathrooms as well. Quite surprisingly, they are smaller than the bathrooms found in VN. Perhaps they do everything at once, going to the loo, showering and washing your hands and washing their bath towels while sitting in one place may be a time saver but it's something foreigners never get used to. We just have a different idea as to what  bathroom should be like, I like to think it's more than a place to merely ablute, it is also a sacred chamber where you can admire your bag breaking 'pecs' in the mirror, pluck stray grey hairs from your side burns and sing like a Gregorian monk in the shower. Now I know why Duncan takes 4 times longer than me in the mornings.

An interesting side note and another reason why we didn't sample too much local cuisine.

 Apparently the only thing worse than a smoker is an ex-smoker, allegedly we swan around with a (smoke free) air of self righteousness, cast judgemental stares at those with lesser will power and basically act as though all smokers have leprosy, or so I've been told. Much to my delight cigarette packs in Malaysia have grotesque pictures on them, presumably in an attempt to dissuade potential smokers, and being slightly odd, these were a constant source of entertainment for me. After my 'pec' flexing incident I was forbidden to carry the bag and every time young Kate wanted a ciggy I had to rummage around in the rucksack to find them, of course when I did I would make a point of showing her the disgusting picture and explain that that's what's happening to her lungs every time she lit up. This would have been funnier if the pictures weren't so gag worthy. So bad were the images of blackened lips, oozing wounds and open throats that there must have been a mistake at the printers. Somewhere in Southeast Asia I picture a plantation worker feverishly paging through a reptile book after being bitten by a cobra and, ironically, is about to breathe a sigh of relief when he sees that the symptoms of a cobra bite are a wheezy laugh and yellow fingers, I am sure of it. Anyway we were sitting at the track, having breakfast- a nutritious chicken hot dog -when Kate took a bite from the processed Vienna and there wedged inside it was a hideous red blob of chicken something, possibly its lung, possibly that weird dangly red thing under its beak but definitely revolting (I ultimately had the last laugh as smoking is known to suppress your hunger so unlike Duncan, I was not torn for the rest of the day between my grumbling belly and the thought of another chicken Vienna). Somehow after that the cancerous smoker wounds just weren't that scary anymore and for the rest of the weekend I could not look at Schummi's shiny red crash helmet without mock charging.        

  

Sunday morning and the anticipation of the main event was almost too much to handle. We were quite surprised to walk outside and find the same taxi driver waiting for us, thankfully this time without weird smells. We got to the track pretty early, the crowds came in fairly quickly and the vibe on our hillstand was electric. We chilled out, watched GP2 races and the DTM series (all the cars I will own in the future)(Lamborghini's Ferrari's, Audi R8's, Corvettes, Lola's, TVR's, Lotus's we are going to have to read a lot more of the ground hornbills books to afford those)  and enjoyed watching people run about with their flags. While waiting for the race a 10 year old boy walked past with his hands in his backpack, looked around for security, whipped out Carlsberg beer and tried to sell it to us. He even started bargaining himself down when we declined. 2 minutes later I got up to take a picture of Duncan when a stereotypical looking Malaysian man sitting beside us leaned over and asked in Queens English if we would like him to take a picture of us. This is one of the reasons I enjoyed the country so much, it is as diverse as SA and similar in so many ways. True to South East Asian weather, the heat was almost intolerable the whole day until 5 minutes before the race when it started raining. At least the temperature cooled down. The race started and the noise of the cars was incredible, better than I had ever expected it to be. I tried to record this but nothing quite captures the noise of 22 2.8 litre V8 F1 cars revving at over 16000 rpm cruising around a fast corner. Duncan and I just sat and smiled. The rain got heavier and the race was red flagged. I started to get really anxious about the race not starting again but had faith that Malaysian rain was similar to that in VN where it rains so much in 40 minutes that it floods the streets, then disappears and blue skies present themselves. This can be quite awkward when you didn't know it had ever begun raining, and step outside thinking the Saigon river has burst its banks. Never the less, the race restarted and we sat watching for an hour and a half in complete contentment.   

The only blemish on the otherwise perfect weekend was an incompetent (drunk) taxi driver who got us lost going home and took us to three different hotels. Kate went Banele for the second time on the trip only this time with the ferocity of an F1 car and the guy left us sober, sorry and without charging us, and who said going Banele didn't work? A quick phone call from the wrong hotel and one sober taxi driver later and we were snuggling in bed chatting about the epic weekend we had just had.

We had an early start the next day and decided to get to the airport well before our flight, have a leisurely breakfast and explore the duty free shops. After all the lugubrious budgeting we actually had quite a bit of  money left over and instead of exchanging our Ringgit back to Dong I gave it to Kate for a bit of retail therapy. After weeks of thrifty living poor Kate went mad and scurried from shop to shop in search of something to buy, she ran into Harrods only to take a photo of a teddy bear, visited the body shop but left with only a lip balm, then duty free with nothing, then a clothes shop again with nothing, momentarily it appeared that Kate had forgotten how to spend, we even went to Starbucks to look at flasks and left without a latte. Naturally I was accused of conditioning her in a Pavlovian manner not to spend money until finally a chunky shiny bracelet caught the Magpie's eye and we were able to leave Malaysia with a nice souvenir.   

While the little girls hopes of seeing Michael Schumacher crash didn't come true, he did have an off. And while the boys dreams of seeing Michael Schumacher win a race wasn't fulfilled, he got to see his childhood champ qualify in 3^rd and show some moments of sheer brilliance during the incident filled race, in a race after he had come out of retirement. And both got to see six world champions drive in a race that had both wet and dry conditions in a new country while sitting next to each other. Neither could have asked for a more perfect ending to a perfect weekend. In fact, the weekend was such a great success that after receiving our pay checks today we are off to the travel agent tomorrow to plan our next adventure.

Shooting wine, tea bags and going Banele - A look at customer service

 

Being a hotelier by profession (and at times by trade) I naturally consider myself to be somewhat of a customer service guru. For those of you thinking that guru is a tad presumptuous, Sasha Martinengo calls himself an F1 guru and his knowledge of F1 involves reading the official website three minutes before his show starts. Credentials established, I think it's only fitting that I give you a taste of what service is like in Vietnam. 

Firstly, service here is never in shades of grey, it is either excellent or terrible and very often it's both.

In order to understand the first example I must back track to an incident that happened in South Africa not long before we left. Ah South Africa, the official gold standard of shitty service. I went to the bank to exchange Rands to Euros before an overseas trip, my mission to leave the bank with enough Euros for my trip and also some pounds to spend during the stopover at Heathrow. Now, I have never worked in a bank but I would assume that a basic knowledge of arithmetic is a requirement if you wanted to be a teller. Which leads me to Banele. Ninety three painstaking minutes of watching this lady calculate, then consult her supervisor, then recalculate, then scratch her head, then stare at the computer, then re-calculate and I was at a point where I if I didn't see a stack of beautiful crisp Euros in the next three seconds I was going to perform Harakiri with a plastic bank pen. I asked her what the problem was, somehow managing to suppress the sudden development of Turrets Syndrome, to which she replied that there was a problem with my address, on the system it said that I live in Mt Edgecombe but on my form I had written that I live in Morningside.

"WHAT! Turn the screen around!" I barked at the imbecile.

She complied and there staring back at me was my address (in Morningside) next to it was another address (in Mt Edgecombe) in bold print above the Mt Edgecombe box was written: Stop order- rent- recipient details . There may have been three inches of glass between me and her, that's enough to stop a bullet, but it could not stop the mother of all death stares that I gave her, and the string of verbal abuse in which I informed her and everyone else in the bank that she couldn't add, couldn't read and then inquired as to how the hell she became a teller? Muffled agreement and applause from the bystanders aside it was not my finest hour, neither was informing her supervisor that "you should call it a bloody inconvenience charge not a service charge!" when miraculously she presented me with my Euros, a smile and a statement that I scrutinized a la Banele searching for a fault.

Anyway, the incident lives on in its infamy and even today when as a result of bad service, my eyes narrow, the sky darkens and my teeth clench, Kate knows I'm about to go Banele on someone.        

Going Banele is not only extremely satisfying but it also solves service-related problems incredibly quickly. Kate and I have been going to the gym daily for about two months now, the other day we went in the evening and the sweet lady who works behind the desk informed us in broken English that our cards did not permit us to come to gym after 13h00. Usually in these circumstances one would explain that, our initial contract during the first month was the morning only contract but we had upgraded to anytime gold membership this month etc etc. Not necessary. Just go Banele. We both glared at her and simply said no. Not a "would you like another muffin?" "Um, no" no, a long drawn out, you're a freaking idiot no. "Noooo!" A couple clicks of the mouse and she smiles, apologises and wishes us a great day. Classic example of kak service, if the problem was so easy to fix, was it a problem at all? The same gym, same time two days later and as we were leaving the manager stopped me and told me that they had over charged us, the evening of the "no" incident we had extended our contracts again and it appears that there is a discount for every month you stay with the gym. The manager insisted on giving us the correct money back, how honest and wonderful is that? Good thing it wasn't Banele though, or I would probably still be there now waiting for her to count the correct change. 

I don't know what it is about bad service that makes me so angry, I am like the incredible hulk when it comes to service. I'm sweet and kind until someone screws up and then I start to turn a shade of green, bare my teeth and can only roar monosyllables Like, HULK! SMASH! ARRG! Perhaps it's because I always gave 100% to my customers and expect the same, (ooh mental note for future job interviews).

 Another way of showing disapproval is the dramatic exit, also known as the well I have never exit or the Edgars exit. Similar instance to the bank but it involved waiting in a queue, in Edgars, with a couple hundred bucks worth of toiletries in my shopping basket. The line had not moved in 10 minutes because the six tellers were all crowded together laughing and playing on the one chaps phone. I left my basket in the line and stormed out of the shop, clouds of steam billowing from my ears. The manager chased after me and told me that he could help me at another counter to which I replied/yelled "forget it Buddy, your service is terrible and you have lost a customer!" The perfect tee shot, the hand brake turn and the Edgars exit- every man should experience them at least once in their lifetime. Of course I went to red square (which is owned by Edgars) and bought everything again, the experience somewhat marred by the fact that Kate told me I walk like a Jack Russell when I'm angry, to this day I am still extremely self conscious when performing the Edgars exit.

Which leads me on to restaurants, on numerous occasions we have walked into a restaurant or coffee shop, received a menu and then sat for ages whist no one served us. I am usually serene and calm in these situations and it is Kate who starts growling and glaring until eventually she slaps the menu on the table stands up proclaims that she has never been thus treated and storms out and I am left scurrying after her trying desperately not to look like a Jack Russell.

The opposite end of the spectrum is over-attentive waitresses that plague the city, you are seated, handed menus-for some reason or custom I don't understand always given one menu less than the number of people at the table, and then the waitress stands to attention and waits for you to order. Flustered and pressurised you inevitably order the first thing you see and then hand the menu to the next person who always orders something better and then you know you can't change your order because it will only confuse her an sit wallowing in order envy as she repeats it back to you. Like herpes she keeps coming back, to top up your water or smile and ask if everything is ok and never once does she leave you alone to complain about your impulsive order blunder, or to toss a piece of unidentifiable food to an alley cat.  

One particular night of over attentiveness happened recently when Kate and I went out for dinner and a bottle or two of wine. We went to an excellent Thai restaurant with great service and well trained staff. Our waitress promoted the specials, pulled out our chairs and even gave us two menus. She had obviously had comprehensive training bar one small oversight. No one had shown her how much wine to pour into a wine glass. Sounds petty but she literally poured 30 ml of wine into our glasses, not quite two sips but not quite a gulp. Naturally we were pressurised by her lingering presence and glugged it all in one go, she then attentively refilled our glasses, again with not quite two sips and stood by to watch us glug again, this process repeated several times until the conversation started to flow and the rate of drinking increased and our sweet little waitress was forced to ignore her other table purely to keep up with our pace of drinking. It was somewhere during the second bottle that we realised that we were officially doing shots of wine. Those under thirty or anyone who still factors in money for getting wasted into their monthly budget take note, wine shots get you trashed! Thank goodness for slow internet speed because we came home and nearly joined Greenpeace in a wine fuelled crusade to stop the worlds wrongdoings like rhino poaching, seal clubbing and the sharks playing rugby.  Sometime during the night I was bitten by a puff adder again and woke with a terrible headache.

Another fault with the service here is that they can't seem to time brining the food out correctly. On more than one occasion one of us has had their appetiser placed in front of them just as the others are popping an after dinner mint into their mouths. Etiquette and the whole "please start" "oh no I'll wait for your food to arrive" goes right out the window and people pinching chips from your plate, a crime usually punishable by death by steak knife, is forgiven with a knowing nod, my time may soon come and when it does I pray someone orders the nachos.

 I must add that the service in this country is generally excellent, friendliness trumps efficiency any day and the Vietnamese provide friendly service by the bucket load.

 

At this point you are probably thinking that we are both just awful customers with short tempers who seek fault in everything. Right you may be, but we are not entirely to blame, the simple fact is that we have both inherited tempers akin to Mt Vesuvius from our fathers and all service related eruptions can blamed entirely on hereditary. Tibetan monks spend lifetimes getting in touch with their inner peace and the greatest have been rumoured to perform feats of levitation. I have seen my own father levitate before me without the need of chakra's, chi and positive energy, the key to levitation is far simpler it involves an incompetent lorry driver reversing into a thousand bags of export quality sugar. Kate's dad has been known to enter a berserker like state and has cleared entire house parties armed only with a Gray Nichols hockey stick. Vodacom and MTN still give offerings to the gods to protect them from Shaun and Donald respectively.

So you see our outbursts are thus justified, however there have been a few instances where we have actually been bad patrons.

The first happened at the Hard Rock Cafe (which by the way has incredible service.) I was battling to decide what to eat, torn between a full rack of ribs or to have a small burger with a starter. Kate proposed that I order a half rack of ribs (aka ladies portion) and a starter, to which I replied that ordering a ladies portion was gay! Unbeknownst to me our waiter was in fact, gay, and heard the entire conversation. Personally I don't understand how my comment could be interpreted as offensive, all the gay people I know are in great shape, wear tight jeans and look like the sort of guys who count calories but for some reason Kate was ashamed of my 'hate speech' and laid on so much guilt that I felt compelled to switch from beer to Daquirie's in a vain attempt to show that I was not a actually a boisterous jock. Later fuelled by regret or possibly by rum soaked strawberries I ended up tipping the chap significantly more than accepted 15%. Needless to say he was gay in other sense of the word when I handed him back the bulging bill folder.

As mentioned earlier Kate and I have been hitting the gym hard lately and words like BMI, deltoids and squats, once alien to us, are now part of our everyday lingo. Earlier this week Kate had read an online article relating to effective ways to burn calories and had decided that it would be best if we tried eating dinner before going to gym, thus giving us sustainable energy or something, and not do the usual routine of -work up an appetite and then go for dinner afterwards. We ordered food, ate and then feeling full and sluggish decided it was time to head off to the gym. We psyched ourselves up and headed downstairs, I mentioned that I had eaten too much and Kate replied that she also felt like she was carrying a "food baby", "good thing we're going to the gym though" I asserted trying to keep the positive pre workout gusto going. "Yeah, I'm keen to hit it hard and abort this little bastard." Kate declared proudly, patting her full belly as she rounded the corner for the final flight of stairs. There at the bottom of the stairs, much to our horror was an entire table of Westerners eating dinner. The lady who owns our guesthouse has a family of friends from France staying with her, who were now all staring open mouthed at us. There is not much else you can say after you have announced your apparent intentions to kill a foetus, the cheerful "Bonsoir" I mispronounced with a sheepish grin was never going to ease the tension.

At the end of the month Kate and I are going to put  huge tick on our to-do list, we are flying over to Malaysia to  watch the Malaysian Grand Prix and are both really looking forward to it. Kate being the strange girl that she is has another very peculiar item on the list that she was able to tick off recently. Perhaps from watching too much Tom and Jerry as a child or perhaps from growing up with two older siblings, Kate for some reason has a strange desire to slap someone across the face with something cold and wet, similar to the way British nobles would challenge each other to a duel by removing their glove and thwacking someone on the cheek with it. She has actually devised a list of suitable items, the idea being not to inflict pain merely insult, thus ruling out a mackerel that, though scoring high on the insult scale, could result in dislodging a contact lens or at very least three good washes with head and shoulders to remove the scales from your hair. Wet celery is ruled out too, though health and safety approved, it lacks a certain x factor that would make it offensive enough. To my knowledge the only items to had made the short list were, a wet sock, cold cooked linguini and raw checkers boerewors. The incident in question happened about a month ago, we were in the Western friendly part of town and stopped at a coffee shop for an iced tea. It was a beautiful day and Don, Kate and I decided to drink our teas outside on the terrace (by beautiful day I mean the two smokers I travelled with needed their nicotine fix). Donovan who is at best quite opinionated was on a rant about women being less capable than men, Kate who would usually start quoting state law and not stop until she won the argument was strangely quiet. I suddenly realised that she was gazing into her iced green tea with a twisted smile on her face. It instantly dawned on me that she had found the perfect item of insult, a wet tea bag! Slowly she grasped the tag and gently pulled the sodden bag from the icy glass, never again would an opportunity this perfect arise again, with a sharp, deft flick of her wrist she back handed the tea bag at Don's face, time stood still, I watched the sunlight sparkle off the droplets, arcing is a misty rainbow towards her adversary as the soggy tea bag scythed through the air, the moment perfect except for the apparent alarming lack of impact. In place of the thud that should have been came a shrill yelp from a table across the terrace, I glanced from the bewildered man with a splat of Japanese cherry tea on the back of his neck, to the wet limp string in Kate's fingers, to Dons tea free face, back to the wide eyed man with a trembling cappuccino in his hand. How he forgave us I will never know, perhaps he saw the funny side, his mates certainly did, perhaps he was so close to going into cardiac arrest that he daren't move but I do  know this, he will definitely think twice before dining al fresco again.

Perhaps the greatest example of service failure is also a lesson of what goes around comes around and that tea bags hurled will somehow come back to bite you. The three of us went out for breakfast and all ordered steak, egg and chips served on a hot cast iron plate. Firstly they only brought one, we waited for ages for the other two to arrive, Don had a class to go to so we let him take the first plate, after complaining they brought the other two portions only somehow they had managed to undercook Kate's minute steak (which is quite impressive when its name tells you how long to cook it for), the waiter took her steak back made sure the cow had stopped breathing properly this time, put it back on the fire and then brought it back correctly cooked, obviously flustered by his numerous blunders or possibly uneasy from the Banele stares he was getting the nervous waiter then proceeded to drop the scorching hot cast iron plate on Kate's leg. I swear even eating the woman is a potential fire hazard.

Kate ended her last update by saying that all great stories start with the words "let's go for a drink" the terrifying thing is that these are a collection of stories that we actually remember and there are undoubtedly numerous other instances of bad patronage and bad service that are lost somewhere in the beer fuelled blur of evenings lost under the Saigon sky and who knows how many other people are in therapy haunted by nightmares of flying teabags and people going Banele.