Thursday, 8th April

Electric tennis racket which zaps unsuspecting mosquitoes. Quite fun actually.

Today I woke up, turned on the computer and was happy to read that Manchester United are out of the Champions League. I then jumped on my bike and rode the short distance to a nearby bakery/restaurant, Maison Vanille, where I picked up a baguette for breakfast; I know, very Vietnamese. I was still waking up so I forgot my helmet and out of instinct was a little nervous when I rode past a policeman. In reality there is no need to worry as the police don't seem to worry about foreigners.

I prepared some ham, cheese and tomatoes with the baguette and watched a film, Closer, with Celine. The baguette looked and felt like a real baguette but lacked or had no salt so was a little disappointing.

After the film we rode to Cat Linh, the street where Celine works and had a bowl of noodles at a street stand. Celine bought a bag of strawberries. We then went to a cafe, L'Amour, and studied French together. A Vietnamese couple on the top floor were kissing and apologised when I went up there. I laughed and went downstairs. You don't see much affection in public here. We had our usual; hot Vietnamese coffee for Celine and iced for me. There was too much condensed milk in Celine's so it was undrinkable. We played French bingo. I won.

I dropped Celine at work and rode home and prepared my lessons for tonight. On the way back a truck veered from his side and was coming straight for me. He cut back at what seemed the last second as my heart jumped out of my chest. It scared the shit out of me. Bloody trucks.

I have 3 hours of lessons tonight and after I will meet some chick at a cafe on Kim Ma street about some extra hours. I don't know who she is or how she got my number but she wanted to meet instead of sending the details over email. Her English was only average so I gave up trying to understand who she was and decided to meet her. Mysterious.

I just got a call from our Hmong guide from Sapa. She was at the Home stay we stayed at on our trek in Sapa, this time with another group. She just called to say Hi.


Gate and entrance to our house which leads to a staircase which leads to our kitchen and living room

Now, at close to four in the afternoon I will delve into the fridge for an afternoon snack; sustenance to keep me going until the end of my classes. At this time I will inevitably kill about a dozen mosquitoes as I prepare my snack and wonder why the hell there is no wall downstairs stopping the countless insects. Instead of a wall there is a floor to ceiling gate which when locked is very affective in stopping humans coming in but has little impact on intruding insects. I didn't think about this little problem when signing the lease.

And that my friends are the simple and possibly quite boring (sorry) points that have made up my day, in Hanoi.