Life in the Village

[KenW]

I first came to Asia some 25 years ago. It was not for sex.

My initiation was via Indonesia, where I researched for a while. But it was so formal, so intense, that little went on outside meetings and field visits. Every trip was so busy and so professional. I ranged from the upper echelons of Jakarta government high rises to riding the wild bemos in Kupang (Timor), drunk as a skunk, the west winds pushing my copper curls back off my forehead, the whoopies bursting out of my open laughing gob. Life was good.

[bemos are the equivalent of baht buses.]

I haven't been back to Indonesia, airport stopovers apart, since the early 90s. That's something I will rectify in the near future.

For, believe it or not, I have yet to have sex with an Indonesian person. And I hear their LBs (banci, waria, etc.) are gorgeous, and their gayboys delicious.

Then I switched my research focus to Vietnam (VN), where I have worked since 1994.

My visits to VN were longer and even though intense also, seemed to allow for more downtime. I took in a little sexual activity. (In my thread of VN LBs I relate my first ever sex event here, with 3 VNese LBs.)

Taking early retirement, I moved to VN in 2004.

I live in what is officially called now Ho Chi Minh City, the place the locals still refer to by the age old name: Saigon. My house is in the southern suburbs, about 10 km or 15 minutes from the Central Business District (CBD).

This is my life.

[KenW]

I have regular sex with LBs, femboys and gay guys. There are local beer bars near my house that always seem to toss up adventure in the gentlemen's convenience. Every so often some local boyo wants to grasp my shaft or do more. [Again, see VN LBs thread for a couple of examples of same.]

But in the main I live a quiet normal life. This is my life in Asia. I am a writer. A professional academic writer, that is. Not a producer of glib sensation of raunch and shallow rubbish. (I save that for LBR - ha!) I live for my work, not for sex. To the extent I live for fun, that is eighty % gained through my creativity, 20% (I AM old, remember) through my bodily needs.

Mostly, these days, when I require a burst of sexual activity, I catch the bus to Phnom Penh or the plane to BKK. My Trip Reports are available in the usual places.

My friend williethepimp told me once he thought I should live in Pattaya, as I seemed a natural for the place. In telling him why not, I guess back then I inadvertantly began, in the far reaches at the back of my mind, this thread. Which tries to give readers a feeling for what such a life is like. Not, I emphasise, in the which bar I went to tonight and which LBs I screwed, kind of style. Rather, in the mundane day to day life I lead. Hence the title of my thread. Mundane the operative word. (And I haven't got to village yet - be patient.)

I am not a big noter, nor am I a pretentious man. But after much thought and hand wringing, I decided yesterday to open this thread. It is aimed at those who don't know about such a life, but might be thinking of one day undertaking it, stepping out of the home country mould, the national prism, the workaday and lifestyle prison, and catching that one way flight to another planet, a cocklover's heaven.

I know most of you think SEAsia is Thailand.

A lot of general discussion, even on a site as grand as LBR, sits under a Thailand rubric. Yes I visit Thailand as a sex tourist, and I have many mates I love to meet there (can't wait to get back to Sunee in fact). But I have located this in the A List, partly to remind readers that the site is about ASEAN in speciality, and other parts of the world in extra (words of my friend and the owner, pdogg, more or less).

Bear with me.

[KenW]

Earlier this year, armed with my camera, and full of a new enthusiasm captured from my expert friend bumblebee, I opened a thread called Saigon Scenes & Scapes (? was it, I forget the title now). It has gone into hibernation through my basic inability to find time and enthusiasm to roam wider than my local area.

This local area is what I refer to here as my village.

It was my hope - and remains so - that I will eventually get to go downtown more often, gadabout a bit, and produce some scummy pix for you to get a flavour of a city in a country other than Thailand. So far it hasn't happened; but that thread is not closed. Stay patiently tuned.

In the meantime, as I said last post, I want to offer some flavour - boring to many, perhaps interesting to some contemplating more than a few visits to BKK or Pattaya - of what life is like hereabouts.

[SiamSam]

Ken,

I for one am looking forward to it. Can't wait to read. I am sure it is going to be terrific. You go boy, you go!!!

[KenW]

Thank you Sam.

Setting the scene.

Life during wartime saw the place I live in as paddy field and orchard, a place where the likes of Graham Greene and Neil Sheehan sat on balconies of downtown Saigon hotels watching the airstrikes or artillery fire rain down upon local Viet Cong activity. (I often wonder about unexploded ordnance - for example, when they dug the foundations of my house.)

Back then my village was countryside - real villages.

Might only be 10 km from the CBD, but it was political light years from the power clique who controlled South Vietnam and the Western ideology. This was rebel territory - in the American vernacular: Indian country.

They fought the French, the US, and of course the coalition of the willing including Australia, whose Prime Minister of the time sang shamefully "all the way with LBJ" to get re-elected in a divisive street marching campus rallying country I was proud to be part of. (I was young then and as always, on the losing side.)

Now my village is modern development, a melange of nouveau riche middle class Asians with money to spend and largesse to show big face with.

I cope with all this.

[deepthroat]

I'm with Sam (and you) on this - looking forward to a portrait of life in Asia, but not LOS. Let's see those pics too!

[BigTel]

I am going to settle in and enjoy this unfolding .

[randiuno]

Village life...that is living the real dream to me....looking forward to rest of report.

[williethepimp]

(I was young then,and as always ,on the losing side).....lovely turn of prase Ken...thats why I like to read your stuff,for gems like that......keep it coming

[bumblebee]

Good to see another Ken thread coming along. I always enjoy reading about places off the beaten track in Thailand and SE Asia in general, and I just know you are going to do this Vietnam report justice Ken.

[TEXASMAC]

I have a Diet Mt Dew and some popcorn so I am ready for a good read.

[KenW]

Here's a couple of shots of the village: the street where I live.

The white truck is used for ice delivery. It is parked outside our local iceworks. Immediately behind it, on the corner where the motorcycle and dark car are about to cross paths, is a cafe om. This is a VNese phenomenon: it translates literally as coffee hug. It means you go there for coffee (no alcohol unfortunately, which is why I don't go there), and a pretty GG comes and sits at your side. Just like in a LB bar you might buy her a drink. If you flirt with her long enough, and she likes the big fat thing in your trousers (your wallet), she may agree to go short time with you to a hotel up the street.

The pic below shows some new housing where the nouveau riche are settling comfortably. About 200 metres beyond is a bar owned by an Englishman and his VNese girlfriend. But because of her jealousy, no pretty girls are hired to fraternise. I go there about once a week to eat Western nosh.

Houses like these are currently selling for around 250,000 USD.

[deepthroat]

nice looking digs - at least those two on the end look very nice.

[SiamSam]

Ken,

Am I correct in assuming the two units on the end are single 3 storey dwellings? If so what is there approximate square meters and market value?

[KenW]

Ken,

Am I correct in assuming the two units on the end are single 3 storey dwellings? If so what is there approximate square meters and market value?

Correct Sam. The blue one on the left is 3 storey + roof deck; the one on its right 2 storeys & deck.

The one on the right has just been sold. Asking price was 5.5 billion VND (275,000 USD), but I have not heard what the final settled price was. That would imply the one on left (extra storey) would probably have asking price in excess of 6 billion (300,000 USD).

They are 4 or 5 metres on frontage, and depth is about 25 m. So say ground floor area 100 - 125 sq m.

[deepthroat]

The one on the right has just been sold. Asking price was 5.5 billion VND (275,000 USD), but I have not heard what the final settled price was. That would imply the one on left (extra storey) would probably have asking price in excess of 6 billion (300,000 USD).

If those numbers are right, I definitely don't get it. That's incredibly expensive, especially compared to USA real estate.

I recently purchased a 3100 square foot (think approximately 288 square meter) home with 3 car garage, 1/2 acre fenced lot which backs up to a protected greenbelt, and includes a Mother In Law apartment that I rent out for a bit over $1,000 per month. It's literally 10 minutes from downtown (in a major metropolitan market - one of the 15 largest markets in the US). It's NOT in a depressed economic/real estate zone like Las Vegas or Southern Florida.

I paid $315,000.

Doesn't seem right... you sure those numbers are correct? Seems like the decimal point should be one place to the left.

[KenW]

As an old fart I rise now at about 6 or 6:30 in the morning. Don't know if this has happened to anyone else, but over the years my biological clock has gradually shifted: I was once a creature of the night, didn't do mornings. Now I'm in bed at old fart time, and awake early. It hasn't happened suddenly, but it's something that has really struck me these past 3 or 4 years.

So. I'm awake at 6 a.m. What to do? Exercise of course. I have in 2012 begun a regimen of taking early morning walks. I'm no bumblebee; these are not forced route marches. I merely stroll about the streets near my house for about 30 or 40 minutes. Then I sit down at some street stall and have breakfast.

That's another biological clock thing. For 60 years I have never been a breakfast eater. My mother never understood me, and during school years forced me to eat breakfast like everybody else. So I could spew it up at the edge of the school oval as we ran around after cricket balls and footballs. When I got loose of that breakfast was gone too; for the ensuing 45 years my first meal day of the day was a kind of brunch or early lunch, eaten between 10 and 11.

Then in late 2011 and 2012 I began to suffer fatigue. Was it my heart? Apparently not. Was it one of these fancy new Fatigue Syndromes? What was it?

It was an old man's body crying out for breakfast, that's what it was.

My biological clock had me waking at 6 and going walking, then wondering why, from 7 or 8 onwards I had no energy. I had to bite the bullet, eat some breakfast and see if I could keep it down. I struggled, gagging a few times, but I did it.

Lo & behold, now here I sit, apeing a VNese: rising early, eating breakfast, being well, and cheery to all & sundry I meet along the way. My brain - a bit slow - has finally twigged, now allowing my behaviour (eating) to fall into line with my age & early rising (biological clock).

[KenW]

Doesn't seem right... you sure those numbers are correct? Seems like the decimal point should be one place to the left.

The numbers are correct. The VNese real estate market is ridiculous. The bubble has to burst sometime soon. It just cannot go on like this. In fact the whole VNese economy is overheated. There is so much borrowed money around. And probably quite a bit of shonky as well.

House and land prices have gone up some 300% in the past 5 years or so.

[4:17]

The numbers are correct. The VNese real estate market is ridiculous. ...

Hi Ken, you live in or near District 7, I assume? Please correct me if I'm wrong ... but just to help DT and others, that part of town is particularly expensive, too. It's the upscale yuppie part of Sai Gon, with new developments, restaurants, malls, etc. When I was looking for apartments last year, a Vietnamese friend of mine wanted me to look in District 7, and the prices surprised me -- I found a one-bedroom on the edge of District 1, a stone's throw from District's 3 and 5 (a pretty prime spot in terms of being relatively close to everything) -- and it was bigger and cheaper than anything we could find near her in District 7. Of course my building is old and not nearly as high falutin' -- and much more urban. I don't think I could sleep without the background noise of motorbike horns, now. I'm sure there are more traditional places to live that are cheaper down there, but my friend is young, and she felt I should be in some flash building.

Anyway, I agree though: the VN economy has gone bonkers. Even in just the last two years -- I first came here in the beginning of 2010 -- to now, it's amazing how things have grown and changed.

A great thread -- as was the earlier one -- I'm looking forward to the rest. You've got a unique perspective, being one of the few foreigners having been on the ground here in the 1990s.

[KenW]

VNese breakfast. Essentially 3 kinds of options: soups, rice dishes, bread (French baguettes) based.

My weekly breakfast menu (give or take):

Monday. Pho soup (pronounced fir). This is a flatstrap rice noodle (akin to tagliatelli or fettucini), served in a broth with beef or chicken, leaves (basil, mint, coriander), beansprouts & sauces of your choice (chilli, soybean).

Tuesday. Mi gio heo (pronounced mee zor heo). It is wheat noodle soup served with a chunk of pig's trotter or shank, slices of carrot and white radish, fried onion and leaves (as above).

Wednesday. Bo kho (pronounced boor koor). A broth with the usual leaves and chunks of boiled beef with some carrot. It is eaten with a baguette, or with noodles called ho choo, which are a vermicelli type version of rice noodles, or again, with nui (noooeee), a kind of wheat pasta like conchiglie.

Thursday. Bun rieu (pronounced bwoon zeeoo). Another soup with thin rice noodles, containing this time mushed crab innards (brain, etc.), tomato, leaves, sauces, some various meat cuts such as chicken sausage slices.

Friday. Bun bo. A sort of combination of the above two. The bwoon noodles with beef (boor).

Saturday. Chao long (pronounced chow lom). This is rice gruel. The long means offal, so the soup contains slices of stomach sausage, bits of windpipe, ear gristle, liver and bean sprouts. Served with batter sticks about the size of 2 normal sausages. These are cut up and dunked in the chow.

Sunday. Banh mi trung (pronounced bun mee choong). A fried egg sandwich. Two fried eggs, usually sunnyside up, put in a baguette split from end to end, with cucumber slices, coriander and soy sauce, salt & pepper.

As you can see I avoid rice in the mornings. I eat rice for most lunches. Once a day is more than enough. The above is stylised of course. I don't hug strictly to any routine or anything like that. But these are my choices.

[KenW]

Hi Ken, you live in or near District 7, I assume? Please correct me if I'm wrong ... but just to help DT and others, that part of town is particularly expensive, too. It's the upscale yuppie part of Sai Gon,

A great thread -- as was the earlier one -- I'm looking forward to the rest. You've got a unique perspective, being one of the few foreigners having been on the ground here in the 1990s.

Thanks 4:17. Yes, I live in District 7. Not sure I like the yuppie label though. There are plenty of us seedy old buggers out this way, quite aways along the spectrum from yuppiedom.

[KenW]

And the prices I pay for my breakfasts.

One dolla, one dolla, one dolla...

Well, more or less. The dishes I eat for brekkie range in price from about 75 US cents to 1.30 USD.

So while things like real estate might be absurd, the above costs show how easy it is to live here. By way of contrast, once in 6 months or so I wander down to that Englishman's cafe I mentioned in an earlier post and eat his all day breakfast: a typical English fry-up with bacon, eggs, sausage, fried tomato, and toast. Cost 6 USD. I eat a week's worth of VNese brekkies for that.

Yet many expats I know live like that. It's as if they're afraid of VNese food or something. Still I guess they have the salaries to be able to afford 6 bucks for breakfast every day - and maybe even think that's cheap.

[deepthroat]

Funny, I never took you for a yuppie Ken. Guess I'd better reassess.

All the breakfasts sound good except Saturday, as I'm not a fan of offal. I too cannot understand the guys that come all the way to asia, and then eat far more expensive (and less healthy) food from back home. I love thai food, and you cannot swing a cat around town without hitting 1 or 2 Pho shops in a single swing. Seems they've replaced the donut shops you used to find back in the dark ages (before Oprah and her diet doctors). Sure, I understand a guy gets a hankering for food like mama cooked after being confronted by nothing but pho and pad gow and all that, but many never even try the local cuisine. I'd eat it every meal if I could (and do when I'm in LOS).

[4:17]

Thanks 4:17. Yes, I live in District 7. Not sure I like the yuppie label though. There are plenty of us seedy old buggers out this way, quite aways along the spectrum from yuppiedom.

Heh, I was thinking more in terms of the Vietnamese people that it attracts, although I do know a few business types my age or younger that live down that way. Anyway, I didn't mean to imply that everyone who lived there was a yuppie.

As for foreign breaky, I totally agree. I splurge about once a week or so; the rest of the time I stick with the local stuff or just eat in.

[iceberg]

KenW and 4:17 I envy you guys who've made the leap and actually live in places only us others can dream about,good for you and thanks for posting!

This is a great thread and very informative, thanks a lot for posting.