live from Hanoi...

Hello everyone,
you'll never believe what I just saw, just about 2 minutes ago!!!
To set the scene: it's 9.25 am, I'm home (on holiday!!), in my room, checking my emails, and sipping coffee.

Friggin' dogs downstairs in the neighbour's courtyard are barking as per usual...until the barking becomes a strange noise, too hard to describe. Which is why I looked out of my window and a man was pushing the fluffy dog - ok looked scabby and scary, especially when it charges towards you when all you want to do is open your gate - in a small cage at the back of his motorbike.

Then the man proceeded in taking his wallet out and pay our Man Bac An 70.000VND and go away.

Now ok, the four of us in the house have not been very generous towards these dogs, more than once we wished that someone would buy them to put them on a grill. But did it really have to happen?

Then again, annoying bastards never failed to scare the shit out of us...so....

MOVING swiftly on, seen that I'm at it, I might as well tell you that I'm on holiday because my friend Kate is coming all the way from the UK to see me!!! I'm deliriously happy, it's the first real friend who comes to visit - had others but before they arrived they were friends' friends, and then also became my friends, but you see how special this is, right?

So, I'm incredibly happy. But that's only one side of the story, because I am also incredibly sad - I thought that the super highs and super lows that one gets in Vietnam would occurr separately, in fact mine now it's an emotional rollercoaster because it's now my turn to see people leaving.

I remember, and I always refer to it, when I first talked to Our Man in Hanoi www.ourmaninhanoi.com (sorry, can't be bothered doing the linking bit in a swish way!) probably at a difficult time for him, when some of his closest friends were leaving, when he said how tiresome it was to get close to someone, and then see them go, and that it all seemed to happen at the same time, then you think to yourself "I'm never going to let anybody else be that close to me!" but we start all over again. (OMIH, taking a lot of poetic license, as you can see..)

And this is it. In the space of one week, three of the most important people in my life in Hanoi have left/are about to leave (today!): my housemate, best friend, colleague (and much more...), Liam has gone back to the UK; my closest colleague and friend Phuong, gone to study in France for a year; and Hilary, my friend and person I admire the most, is leaving today.

But you see, now, back to what OMIH was saying as well, Hanoi is like that. Now besides the people I've just mentioned, who came here on a temporary basis - with the exeption of Phuong, who has been given an excellent opportunity - the cycle of life in Hanoi for people who aren't sure whether they should stay or go seems to be 3 years at the most. And you, newly arrived, get the feeling that you got here right at the end of those 3 years, and as you introduce yourself, you're saying goodbye.

Ohhh, sorry, don't think I'm making much sense now.

Now I'll just enjoy the peace of one less barking sound.