Daily Challenges

So.  I won’t lie: Vietnam is pretty fun so far, and full of Daily Challenges to be overcome in order to win prizes, much like the Crystal Maze.  Yesterday’s challenge was the Move To An Entirely Different Country Challenge, which I passed with flying colours, to be rewarded with a beautiful apartment, air conditioning and new friends.  Great prizes, right?

Sadly, however, I failed one of today’s challenges, which was the Internet Challenge, but have been able to trade in tokens earned in the Make New Friends Challenge, and have been rewarded with wifi from New Friend Abi to bring you all this very latest blog update.  It is also very important to note that I cannot access Facebook here.  Repeat: cannot access Facebook.  So if you want to know what I’m doing, you have to read the blog, and if you want personalised messages, I need your email address.

Despite dropping down the league table with Internet setback, I did extremely well at the Supermarket Challenge, which was more complicated than it at first appeared as it involved gathering together many weapons in preparation for the task, such as the knowledge of where the supermarket was, a members card stolen from the Information Centre boss, Ms Hua Thi Hong Cam and a taxi booked by Ms Van.  Ms Van is set to become my absolute Vietnamese bezzie (we’ve already swapped phone numbers), as she is the source of all important information such as why internet man can’t install the internet, but when this problem will be amended, when the gas man can come, and how much a water filter will cost me.  She lives in the Information Centre and, as I am finding most petite Vietnamese women do, runs everywhere in an enthusiastic and over-excited way.

Our local Costco-style supermarket is called Metro and has everything in bulk.  Whilst wandering around in a slight daze adding up the millions of dong I was spending and dividing by thirty two, some inadvertent ‘speaking to myself’ slipped out around the milk:

            Crazy Emma: urgh, it’s all full fat.  Where’s the semi skimmed?

Friendly Stranger: there’s some here – Anchor.  It’s also one of the cheaper brands.

Friendly stranger is called Ceri and her husband works in oil and she is organising a Scottish dance (I’d like to refer to this as a kayliegh, but know this is not the right spelling and am embarrassed) in November.  Apparently BIS always take a table and they’re a lot of fun, so maybe she will see us there (Abi had joined me by this point).  We even got her number!  If making friends is this easy in Vietnam, I think I should reduce the points it is worth as a challenge.  So far it’s worth 20, which is quite a lot.  Internet is worth about 100 because of its value.  Acquiring gas: also 10.  Post-Supermarket Challenge, my kitchen now smells of French bread and onions, and I am drinking tea out of double handled mugs.

Now for some atmospheric description: inside my apartment it is a cool oasis of air conditioned calm.  The floors are either shiny white tiles or hardwood floorboards; the sheets (in both bedrooms) are white as snow; there is a walk in wardrobe where I can hide if anyone comes to get me; there is an en-suite bathroom with a shower that has two shower heads – a little one for everyday showers, and a huge one for battering traumatic thoughts out of your head via water.  I haven’t learnt how to use the Trauma Shower yet, as I have had no traumas.  Soon, I have no doubt, there will be reason for the Trauma Shower – maybe permanent inability to access the internet – and I shall blog about it via Abi’s wifi in great detail.  (It’s good to be realistic).  My door talks to me to tell me it is locked, but I translate the funny Vietnamese sounds as ‘Hello!’ and ‘Bye L’, and as such feel welcomed and missed every time I arrive or leave.  What a loving front door!  In the kitchen all the surfaces are shiny, and there is a washing machine and a tumble dryer placed delicately in the middle of everything, unplumbed because the roof for them on my little outside balcony is not yet built.  Hmm. 

It is at this point that The Curse of Unfinished Accommodation, by which I have been afflicted for two years now, kicks in.  The Imperia apartments are a new build, and as such are pretty much a construction site outside of my front door.  When they are finished (when will this be?) I will be living in a 5* hotel, but for now I must resist the temptation to pull off the masking tape along the corridors, or scrawl my name and mark my height on the unpainted walls.  Little workmen ring my doorbell with alarming regularity, walk in, speak Vietnamese to me, realise they can’t do whatever it was they came to do because the infrastructure is not yet ready, or that they are in the wrong apartment, or – on one occasion – fix my door, and then leave.  I can’t imagine how this would look to the neighbours, but so far I don’t think I have any, so it’s okay.

The lifts work, internally covered in blue plastic sheeting, and swimming pool in the courtyard is up and running, and is enormous and blissful so I went for a swim last night at around 10:30pm once the workmen – of which there are millions (communism, hey?) – had gone home.  I was then kindly looked after by an elderly security guard, who led me to the entirely wrong lobby, convinced that this was where I lived, despite my insistence that this was not my new home.  Ah, the hilarity of language barriers.

Today, the lift man taught me to say ‘four’, which is my floor number.  The taxi man tried to teach me to say ‘thank you’, but I keep getting the pronunciation wrong so people will just have to think me ungrateful for now.  The lift lady held my hand and a workman told me I was beautiful.  Either the Vietnamese are a very friendly peoples, or I should start being more vigilant about who I am letting into my apartment so freely…

Finished the day by walking out to our local neighbourhood to buy orchids so that I have someone else other than the front door, and the milk section of supermarkets to talk to when Abi isn’t around.  Photos of apartments etcetera shall follow.