A bit of this and that

Su Su in trouble

There is a tradition here that amazes me. I think in the west we would have nothing of it, but here in Vietnam it seems normal. I will explain.

When a woman gives birth, she is required to spend a month in bed. All of her needs are seen to. She cannot even take a shower. She will be sponge bathed by an attendant for the first month and then remain basically bed ridden for four months, with her being able to wash herself and perhaps do some simple tasks. When I heard this I thought somebody was pulling my leg. I asked my niece about it as she has had a child not too long ago, and she confirmed that had been her experience also…. Sheesh….

It has been a national holiday the past few days. It is Independence Day, but

Yang Bay

 I do not know from what. The beaches were filled with fun loving Vietnamese people enjoying their time off. It is a bit eerie…. There re almost no foreigners in the city, but mostly holidaying Vietnamese. I have talked with people in the tourist area and some of the budget hotels only have one or two guests. We have been fortunate in that at the moment, we are at 80% capacity. We have both Foreign and Vietnamese guests and all of them are extremely nice people. One of them is a tall, young, good-looking guy from Israel that is an actor. He has not landed any big rolls yet, but maybe one day.

A beautiful drive

It is time!! I need another motorcycle. There is many times where I need to pick up something or rush somewhere and both are rented. I was going to buy a Honda but I have discovered a disturbing thing. I have been using the internet to decide on the bike I want and it came down to a Honda Sh150, a Honda PCX, and a Kymco Solaris (people200). I looked at many more and discovered that the prices on bikes from most manufacturers are the same whether you buy the bike from the US or Vietnam. Yamaha, Sym, Kymco, and Vespa  are the same. If it costs 2000 dollars out of the country, It will cost the equivalent in Vietnamese currency… Except for Honda!! The SH150

By the falls

 I was looking at sells for about 85 million Vietnamese dong in almost all of the rest of the world, but in Vietnam the cost is 122 million….. What??  I checked other models and compared the world price t the local price….. Honda seems to be taking advantage of the Vietnamese because of their tendency to have blind faith in brand recognition. It gets even worse because the dealers charge much higher than the suggested retail price of the machine. Buying a Honda in Vietnam is 50% more expensive than in the US, Europe, or even Thailand. Learning this has dirtied my feelings about owning a Honda Product of any kind.

A very cool plant that plays dead if touched... here is before

I took my grand niece to Yang bay for a visit yesterday. Going places together is vastly improving her English and I am amazed at how quickly she is picking it up. She has gon from only understanding individual words last month, to communicating with me if full sentences already. I wish I had near the capacity. Here are some photos of Yang bay

And here it is playing dead

Rides in the country

Mantis vs. Roach. The Mantis won!!

It seems all of the paper work is done and from what I understand, here is the result of all the action. The police had a meeting with our receptionist and the owner of the motorcycle. It seems that the bike owner has a criminal record and was told by the police that it was entirely his fault and not the fault of the hotel. He should have verified the renter himself and not assume we had his information. After the fact, the police also mentioned that The bike owner may have been in on the theft. It is possible I guess, but it looks like everything worked out OK in the end. This episode has convinced me that camera security is needed, and I will be installing them soon.

My grand niece Su Su has been spending time with me in order to learn English. Not being an experienced teacher, I was struggling to come up with lessons to help her improve. I decided one day to take her for a ride with me into the country and it was fun! We practiced English together, and it forces her to try to get ideas across to me as there is nobody with us that can translate for her. The following pictures have been taken from our road trips.

From the frying pan into the fire

Supposed to ba a happy day

Tonight we are dealing with a crisis .  We had a man check in and book a room for 5 days. Nothing unusual… He did not want the semi automatic bikes we had for rent and had us phone a company to supply him with an automatic motorcycle. The motorcycle was delivered and the fellow after having a shower headed out for a day around town.

We had reason to enter his room in the late afternoon for reasons of maintenance, and discovered that there was no clothing, or any other evidence that the man planned on spending the night. Our day receptionist expressed a concern that it was odd but we thought that perhaps he was going to deliver his luggage later as he had claimed that he was until now staying at friends but needed to get away to his own room. (I thought different)

He left is Id with and we registered the Id with the police at 9 pm which is normal procedure. About 11 pm we began to grow suspicious that he had not returned and had a closer look at his Id. Oh my god!!! It is fake!!  Vietnam still has a long way to go for tamper

To many more years

 proof ID and this was a classic case of a cut and past photo on somebody else’s ID. It is a bit hard to tell, but after close examination, a person can see the signs. The photo has slight imperfections around the edges and it looks newly laminated. I pointed this out earlier in the day to my receptionist always being on guard for some of the low lives that try to prey on others, but she thought I was being paranoid and that everything would be OK. NOT!! I know the type and seem to be able to read them much better than they can. I have been accused about being too quick to jump to conclusions in the past, but I have been proven correct. I think those around me are now beginning to understand. This time the nail has been driven home. 10 hours ago I expressed my concern about his ID looking to new…. Now we might be in a world of hurt.

An English lesson in the country

All it cost me so far for this situation is a free shower and a cup of coffee. But what about the motorcycle? Will the hotel be responsible for arranging the rental? Is this perhaps a planned retaliation of what happened in my last post by some petty assHo*es to get even in some way? I will not lose any sleep over it; however, I am sure my staff will not sleep. It may be their jobs on the line if this ends up the responsibility of the hotel. I have always limited myself to how much I was willing to invest and have always been prepared to walk away. I have never forgotten where I am and what can happen, and the episode today has just re-enforced that thinking. As a matter of fact, there could be a silver lining in that all of the rules and procedures I have been trying to drill into my staff for so long will finally not be ignored.

So what will tomorrow bring? Was I set up by the people that I confronted in

Su Su in the country

 the past few days and has this become a contest of whose penis is bigger? Or was it a random event and we are the unfortunate victims of a professional thief?

HaHa…. This is what I love about Vietnam…. I am ALIVE!! For better or worse, tomorrow will come and I will survive. There are powers that really want us to succeed and bring tourist dollars into this area. They are behind me, and part of my new stronger backbone. I cannot imagine that they would be willing to take the risk of losing the friendly and curious foreigners that I bring to this area….. as a matter of fact, I think they are thrilled and want more. Tourists in this area are loved and protected by the locals. It is only the Vietnamese it seems (me being one of them in their mind) that can be exploited.

Today is our wedding  Anniversery ……… What a unusual gift. Yea I know the spelling is wrong on the cake.

Ahhhhh I feel alive!