Engineering in Sin: March 2011

I suppose that in the past year or so I have written a lot about the good things living over here. But there are of course frustrations that I feel. At the moment, there are a couple of residual things in the UK that are just a touch frustrating.

Firstly, my beautiful park view house is still empty, two months after the tenants moved out. This is not a disaster financially (though obviously isn't good). It's just a frustration that it sits there being so unloved when it is such a loveable home! My letting agent did find a set of tenants, however when one of them calls themselves self-employed when they are really on benefits, it really doesn't help. Hopefully the place will be let soon though.

Secondly my student loan fees have been re-assessed. Nothing new in this. But the exchange rate doesn't help me any more. The result is an 80% increase in the fees that I have to pay now. I did expect it to go up, perhaps by 20% because, well, my salary went up 15%. But to almost double? Not really fair! Still, I guess I am better paying it off whilst interest rates remain quite low.

Mind you, at least I'm not complaining about 20% VAT rates... and my pay did go up by 15%, which is 15% more than it would have gone up by in the UK... so perhaps I should just 'zip it'.

I think that if you had told me at the start of my degree that I would be working on a 400m span cable stayed bridge I'd have been reasonably happy. Might have prefered a 50 storey building, but this would be ok. If you'd told me that I'd be doing it in the middle of Vietnam, I might have looked at you with a slightly strange expression. Nonetheless, a week ago, an American, born in Britain, and working in Singapore, found himself on Singapore Airlines on a flight to Hanoi, to do just that.

In fact the bridge is about 100km from Hanoi, in a place called Hai Phong. A somewhat industrial port city that my fellow countrymen were shamefully bombing in my parents lifetime. Now, I lived about 100km from Heathrow Airport when I was in the UK - it takes not more than 2 hours. In Vietnam, that was 4 hours. Oh, and you need to add in an extra hour to get my visa on arrival (gratitude to the 4 other AECOM personnel who waited paitiently, and did not abandon me in Hanoi Airport!!)

The reason behind the slow traffic is mainly the motorcycles and slow lorries, and somewhat narrow roads. There is a complete lack of what I (and most western types) would call road discipline. In fact, the techniques I have for driving would be, frankly, useless in Vietnam.

So, with the slow Visa, and the long trip, I was not well pre-disposed to the trip. The weather didn't help either. It wasn't cold by UK standards. But I didn't see the sun in 4 days (again - this happens in the UK, but I'm a spoilt Singaporean, where this doesn't happen).

The place does have its charms. The people are very welcoming and friendly - and are quite happy to attempt to speak English to those who know not a single word of Vietnamese. It is also, quite like Java, a window into a time gone by elsewhere in Asia. Lots of small roadside stalls.

The bridge we're looking at building (quite some way into the future) sits over a port - the ships are BIG. Some 200m long in cases. There is an existing bridge, built a few years back, but currently it's 1 lane in each direction. Last year 3 ships drifted into it in a typhoon and bent it. They are now thinking they should repair it.

The food is relatively typical Asian. At least the stuff I ate was. Simple veg, with more elaborate meats. I don't think I ate anything too unusual, certainly some pidgeon though - quite tasty actually. The exception was an attempt at a western dish in our hotel: Chicken Maryland; breaded chicken served with tomato sauce, potato dauphinoise, and bacon wrapped around banana. No - not a typo! It really was bacon around banana, and tasted about as good as it sounds. So rubbish then. (Actually, the dauphinoise with tomato sauce isn't a great hit either. One to avoid next time).

I think that I'm heading back again in a few weeks time - hopefully I'll have enough notice to get my visa in advance and not have the queue for so long!!

Here are some photos: