Everywhere things to sell: decorations - lots made of bamboo; canvas, plates, knives, tableware, spoons, lamps, paintings, hats, spices, clothes, DVDs, clothes, clothes, DVDs, clothes, DVDs...
As the Chinese friends, Vietnamese are masters in the “art of copy”.
The DVDs are always interesting; just that while looking through the boxes full of these fake DVDs, your fingers change colour because of a thick black layer of dust
instantly attached to them…
Same happened in the supermarket after touching some of the products. For example the juice box needs to be washed before opening it.
Also my hair is greasy the day after I wash it, which only makes another proof of a polluted air.
...So, most probably I am not hypochondriac when I say all the time that everything is dirty.
Like in China, “fake” reigns! Everything can be copied and there is even a long street where you can find copies of all the famous paintings that you heard about, for prices that will make cry of envy all your neighbours!
An unexpected surprise in the “copy chapter” was a book that I bought. Nothing lets you think that is not the real one - and who would think that you could buy a fake book?! But once you open it, you can see that paper is not cut straight and here and there you have to struggle and guess the words; but still, I am glad I bought it because is the most funny book I read lately and I found out stories of some travelers that assures me that, if lucky, misadventures strikes when less expected!
("There's no toilet paper" : http://lecture-sans-frontieres.over-blog.com/article-18246037.html )
Improvising is the little sister of Fake. The image of the object is copied but not the functionality of the it. Like there is no thinking behind the image.
The furniture of the TV is one supposed to turn and let you watch the TV from any corner you like, at least the little support on top of the furniture it is exactly like the ones I've already seen with this functionality. Well, not here; this little TV support it's imitating the original without having the little screw that allows the movement... No, it is not broken, it is not there at all.
Why bother to add the little support on top if no intention of it's functionality? Because it fools the eye. Just after you rented the apartment you'll find out about all this non-functional details; details that are not vitals and no one is really unhappy because they aren't working, but these details allow the owner to rent the apartment at a higher price, as it is one with high standards, “European functionalities”.
An advice: you better check every support in all rooms, even the ones in the bathroom, as one other surprise was a bottle of perfume broken as soon as I put it on the bathroom shelve.
But I am a fool : what the hack was I doing with a bottle of perfume in Vietnam?! Who needs perfume on top of dust ?!
I started to get used with the fact that nothing is at our standards of living - I am not asking for luxury, but just that the things in the place we stay would not fall apart as soon as I touch them.
I started to get used with the noise, with the small lizards that are cohabiting with people in all hotel rooms, all restaurants and in the apartment that we stay - we see them time to time crossing the walls very, very quickly; fortunately they are nothing like the spiders and I find them cute. :)
I get used with the very humid air, with the fact that the things I wash are dry in a week; with the fact that when people say “yes” that means “I do not know”, or they say “yes, you do have this and that” but in fact you have just a half of “this” and not at all “that”!
For example: they said that we have all the internationals channels on the TV but in fact in the apartment we have just one single channel! And for changing it, we have to go down at the reception and ask, this complicated operation that is changing the channel being possible just from there.
Of course, if in the same time someone else is watching another channel you either disturb them or came to a disagreement. An if not, eventually you'll get tired of going up and down the stairs.
The electricity wires are hanging on a branches of the poor, small trees, in total disorder and risking to fall at every minute; they also hang at the high of an average man, so if just one will break and fall, people will die electrocuted in mass!
Every step seems to be an adventure, and if you look around a little, it is a very courageous one!
(the picture is at a mobile phone company office, still eloquent...)
Besides, at a point the TV refused to show other then black&white spots. The cable needed to be changed because as soon as touched, the image was disappearing.
Not that we amused ourselves with touching the cable every now and then, but as it was running through the middle of the room, it was kind of inevitable...
After two days of climbing the stairs with another and then then another TV, in spite of the fact that I told them that the cable is broken, at a point they got tired and changed it.
And when they did, I assisted at the most surprising and unexpected event: I was amazed to discover that the new cable was coming in the apartment through the window !!!! More exactly through a hole they made in the window! Yes, they broke the window !!!
No need to mention that of course it was the window in the very middle and the only one that slide open. ...No (more) comment! See the picture attached.
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