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In all the excitement of trying to recount my tales from this foreign land, I realised I have not yet described the house I have been staying in and the real vibrancy of the place around me. Usually between five and six am I am woken to the sound of sellers shouting pre-recorded messages from loudspeakers on their bikes encouraging you to buy whatever goodies they may happen to be offering. To me this sounds like 'Pad Thai! Pad Thai!' But of course it is not. This is entwined with the noise of the scooters beeping their horns as they pass through the alleyways where we are living that sit behind the shops on the main street. As the city wakes also, more traffic can be heard from the main street as well as the builders that are working a few houses away banging and clanging their tools, getting their work done while it is still cool outside. This harmony of noise is finished off with the hum of the fans and the tinkle of Ha's mum's sewing machine stirring as she begins her tailoring work for the day. With all this I normally lie and listen to these sounds wafting up from below the balcony room I share with Ha. I enjoy the contrast of the quiet slumber I have had and this new day in Vietnam that is about to begin.
Yesterday was just the same, but as it was Sunday we had to get up and get going as Church began at 8am. Ha's mum bought a takeaway breakfast for us which constituted of sweet corn, two flavours of sticky rice, sugar, coconut, black beans and peanuts all mixed up together. And as weird as that sounds it is actually pretty yummy; I couldn't have eaten too much more than I had though, as it is a very sweet dish and rather filling.
Church was interesting as it was all in Vietnamese, well what else could be expected when you are in Vietnam! We went to Ha's local church where she and Ash will get married and took our seats on the 'mixed sex' section of the church. It was quite long and difficult to concentrate on when you don't understand the language but very interesting following the hymn words on the screen in front as everyone sings, it's a great way to learn the pronunciation of many words.
Church finished at around 9:30 and we walked home only to head back out again to meet the same friend we had hung out with the day before. We tried a new café with low sofas and tables but made sure it had fans. I ordered a lemon honey juice, which was refreshing, but the honey did not do much to cut the edge off the lemon. We didn't hang around for too long and came back home for lunch. This time we had a mixture of gluten and tapioca noodles which are both quite thick but gave a really interesting flavour to the dish. We finished off with mango and mangosteen, a purple fruit that, inside the hard outer skin, holds a segmented white flesh covered in little black seeds. It is apparently very good for your health as it is rich in vitamins and anti-oxidants.
Then, to give Ash and Ha some time to themselves without me third wheeling the whole time, I went off with their friend, Dan, to hang out for the afternoon. Thankfully back at his place he had air con! As the weather was so nice and he lives right next to the beach, we went out to a bar virtually on the sand and relaxed with a cold drink soaking up the view. It is a bar mostly associated with foreigners as it is a little more expensive that most places. It gave you this feeling of sitting in a resort with palm trees and sun beds and was very different the real side of Vietnam I have been living and experiencing.
We took a stroll along the shore to cool off and bumped in to a bunch of scouts with no regard for the bottoms of their half-rolled trousers and the amount of sea they were soaking up. Then we found a group selling fish that had just been brought to shore and were still wriggling in the baskets. It was a hustle of people trying to sell and buy the best ones while the fisherman sorted and pulled in their nets to head back out to the sea for more. The beach seemed to be slowly coming alive as the heat cooled down and the afternoon wore on; soon the place was teeming with people in their bathing suits ready to go for a swim.
We got back to Dan's flat only to wash our feet and grab my stuff. We had made plans to go round to another friends to play games and eat food. So on the way we stopped at a street café to get some takeaway chicken wings; I wasn't expecting to see the tin fire pits with a group of young boys sat turning the chicken on skewers over and over to give them a nice even cook, very different to Sainsburys rotating roast chicken you can pick up in England. We had a great evening eating the chicken, dripping in sauce, and munching on cool cucumber as well as playing a card game called Skip-Bo and chilling out with music. The friends we were with were both American and lived in a complex. With finishing the evening with a cup of tea, the first earl grey I had had in ages, I couldn't believe how far away it all seemed from the bustling street I have been staying on with my sister-in laws family. There are so many sides to this city and its so amazing that I get to experience all of them.
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