A long post about maids and water and how sometimes making progress doesn't feel any different from walking backwards in the dark.

 In case you missed the horrible headline, I had to move apartments last month. It was a sudden move. We were actually evicted - though it's almost impossible to say that to someone without having them look at you askance.  You can see them wondering how obnoxious you really are.
Our last apartment was serviced. We weren't specifically looking for a serviced apartment at the time when we moved in - it was just a lucky bonus.  Actually, serviced apartments near the city centre are not much differently priced than unserviced furnished apartments, and this time we ended up looking at quite a few serviced apartments too- though ultimately the one we chose is unserviced.
The difference between serviced and unserviced is maids (and bed linen, though that's a different post). Our last place ran pretty much like a hotel. You put a sign on the door at night that says either "please clean room" or "do not disturb" and in the morning either the maids come in and clean your flat, or they just leave you alone until the next day.
I know.
It was pretty sweet. They would come come in and clean the bathrooms and the floor, wash any dishes, and make the beds, including change the sheets twice a week. They brought fresh towels and clean bed linen. One of the girls used to do my laundry until I made her stop (she washing-machined my silk dress! With Martin's jeans!)
I know. Believe me, you don't have to tell me.
There is a whole other facet to serviced apartment living too.  The apartment staff take of all the bills and the stuff.  Men would come and clean the air conditioners. Electricity and Internet and mains water and gas are all taken care of. And when I wanted drinking water I would just have to say to the receptionist - can you please order me two more bottles of La Vie and later that day the La Vie would arrive.
In my new apartment I have no staff.  There are security guards in the lobby, and there are maids whose job it is to clean the corridors and lifts and disappear the rubbish, but there's nobody whose job it is to look after me, in particular. In theory, this should be ok because I only work 2-3 days per week and I actually know how to make my own damn bed. But unfortunately, there are still lots of things that I don't actually know how to do. Like, order water from La Vie on the phone. And pay the electricity bill. And other things that I don't really want to do - like sweep and mop 150 sq meters of floor and iron half a dozen men's shirts.
So when my landlady recommended a particular maid to come in a couple of times a week I said yes please!
She's been twice now, and when she comes in on Friday, I intend to fire her.  It's not her fault, really. She's a nice person, but it takes her 4 hours to sweep and mop the floor and clean 2 (not very dirty) bathrooms. She seems to require supervision.  I went out for a couple of hours the other day while she was here, and when I got back, she was still here, and had only done the floor, nothing else. And she doesn't speak English. I asked her to order the water for me, but while I was out I got no less than 5 phone calls from La Vie - what's your address, and how many bottles do you want and your maid isn't answering the phone. So I had to go home to meet the La Vie guy and supervise the maid (sit on the couch) while she finished up.
There's not much in the world that makes me feel more like a horrible person than sitting on my tuffet while someone else cleans my toilets.  I know this lady needs the work, but I just can't bear having her around while I'm at home, and can't trust her to do the job well when I'm not at home.
I know.  Can you even believe that I'm complaining about this situation!  I'm sure you would all love to have a maid to complain about.
I said to Martin this morning that I will just have to clean the floors myself and he can give me $100 a month.   Do you know what he said to that? "After nine months you'll be able to afford a Lego death star!"

 Just what I've always wanted.

It's still taking me a while to settle into the new place, and it's not just about the water and the maid, though it is partly about the water and the maid.  The real issue has been that I feel now almost exactly the same as I did a year ago, when I first moved into Sweethome. Back then, I had a whole lot of stuff to learn. I still didnt really know anything much about how to live in Saigon.  I wasn't confident to use xe oms, I didn't know where anything was, or how the big dirty city worked.
And even though I have learned a lot now - I know my way around, I can mostly cope with the heat and I can ride a motorcycle, I keep getting stuck in ways that I wouldn't have had to get stuck if I hadn't had to move. There was a power bill posted through my front door the other day.  I had to use my translator app to figure out that it even was a power bill.  I took it to the post office to pay, and the lady gave me the Vietnamese 'no' hand signal.


 So I showed it to a work colleague, and he said - "Most Vietnamese people pay this at the ATM".  We dont have a Vietnamese bank account, so that wasn't an option. So I asked the landlady, and she told me to take it to a Vietnamese bank, which finally worked.
Moving house meant losing our pack of friendly xe oms. There are xe oms around our new building too, of course, but I don't know these guys. It's a very intimate experience riding a xe om - and especially as a woman. I'm not the kind of girl who readily wants to feel a sweaty stranger between her knees, you know? And our last guys knew all the places I wanted to go. We had already negotiated prices and I could trust them to do things like take my shopping home for me, or wait for an hour and hold onto my helmet.  I had felt like I was all the way back at transportation square one.  And forget trying to pronounce the new street name - its no better than the last one so far as taxi drivers go...
I say had felt, because yesterday Martin managed to get a Vietnamese friend to talk to my Mr Duong on the phone, and so he will be there (hopefully) to pick me up and take me to work tomorrow.  I'm sure the price is going to go up - but it's worth it to have someone I know.  for 30 minutes in the morning Mr Duong will be in charge of my life in Vietnam, and I can just relax.

The price of neighbourhood contentment? 20,000 dong.

This week I have become the epicenter of a tragic little feud at the end of my street. I started a new job which is all the way over in District 5 by the canal, and any Saigon-dweller would understand that this means a decent trudge of a commute from my perch at the top end of District 1.

The xe om drivers at the bottom of my street have become my neighbours and companions over the last few months, and there are two in particular that are favourites. They share responsibility for me and Mr Martin when we want to go out, with the other guys only offering us rides when neither of those two are there.  There is an understanding amongst them all that Mr Martin and I belong to Mr Talky and Mr Moley.

I know the names are ungracious. Mr Talky is exactly as described. He yaps away all through the journey, and regularly inspects my shopping and tells me off if I use a taxi. When I come back from my frequent trips to the market he likes to ask me how much I paid for whatever it is I've bought.  He's like my personal appraiser.

Mr Moley is more of a silent type. He offers no conversation - only shy, kind smiles at pick up and drop off.  Mr Moley has a magnificent hairy brown mole near the corner of his mouth. Like all grotesqueries, at first it was alarming, and now I almost never notice it.  The collars of Mr Moley's shirts are worn to rags, but they are always clean and pressed.

A couple of times, Mr Talky in his exuberance has taken me far off course from my intended destination. Each time, it has been because he has mis-heard me, or perhaps just mis-understood the Vietnamese words after they have been been mashed up in my mouth. One time, instead of the Big C on Hoang Van Thu, we went to Le Van Sy in Binh Dinh. Another time we ended up going to Benh Thanh Market instead of Vo Van Tan.  In any case, Mr Talky is usually off on some other business - he runs errands for one of the big houses across the road and I think because he is so outgoing he gets a little more customers than the other guys.

So on most days it has been Mr Moley who has taken me to do my shopping, or dropped me off outside a cafe somewhere. He takes Mr Martin to work a lot, too. He's really been my most regular guy.  For that reason, on my first day of work after being dropped off Mr Martin used some flamboyant sign language to explain to Mr Moley that his wife was going on a big trip today and so he should go and be ready for her. And so he was. And that is how on the first day Mr Moley made a whopping 100,000 dong for taking me one way. The taxi on the way home cost me 110,000 dong.

The next morning, feeling better prepared, I went to explain to the drivers.  This was the deal I was offering: 100,000 dong each day, or 50,000 each way, to take me to work and pick me up again when I finished.  Mr Moley took the job that morning, much to the indignation of Mr Talky who flounced off in a huff and hasn't spoken to me since. Very naively, I thought that the two of them would share the work between them. But instead, I had employed Mr Moley on a retainer and somewhat damaged my relationship with Mr Talky in the process.

For the first few days, Mr Talky glowered at me as Mr Moley and I drove past.  And then, Mr Moley started talking suddenly, and I came to understand that he wanted an extra 20,000 dong per day.  But somehow, the next day, Mr Talky waved at me again. And I think perhaps magically things have been resolved between us all. 

I am not sure if I am a loser in this scenario or not. My colleague who lives in district 2 - which for those of you not from round these parts is a considerably longer distance from work than where live - tell me that she pays her motorbike man 60,000 dong per trip - 120,000 per day. But I am conflict averse, and my husband's shirts are not frayed at the collars, and I don't really miss the bit of extra money.  So tell me, Internet - am I being had for a complete fool - or is this simply part of the complex way we must go about our lives as hopeless dependent expats. Because the reality is that on those terrible two days I really missed the extra security (perhaps imagined!) that I feel when the drivers smile at me on the street.

Xe Om, Pho

These are the two Vietnamese words I know.

Xe Om - Motorbike taxi. Literally - Motorbike hug. The idea is that you jump on the back of a motorbike, hug the driver, and get him to take you and your live chicken to wherever you need to go.

But doesn't this fellow look like he needs a cuddle?



Pho - Vietnamese noodle soup. Using a kiwi accent, it's pronounced something like a cross between 'fa' as in 'father' and 'fu' as in 'fur'.

Yes, we are going for the food...