Kebab & traffic light

After 2 boring motorbikes post, here is a funny one (still related to motobikes). I took these pictures a few days ago.

Kebab-bike

Connected traffic light (you can check it on Dai Co viet")

You can find more funny traffic pics @ pinkvn. By the way, don't think it's special pics, i (and all long term expatriate) have seen most of these situations.

Co Ca

Yes Vietnam is still communist (Ahem... considering my recent trip to Saigon) and Ha Noi is still a communist city:

Coca-cola pagoda in front of Vincom

Maybe Coca-Cola is the best of both worlds as we can read it like: COmunist and CApitalist cola?

More Tet photos later...

action man & flood photos

I promised more photos of the flooding of Hanoi, here it comes... right after Mr President:

Transportation in the rain

Motobike?

not a good idea

Car? seems better but you risk more money...

Traditional? The safest one?

Consequences

If you are lucky: just dry and change the oil of your motorbike

i just did that ^_^

More serious situation for underground park

Oh shiiiiiiiiiit situation

People can get very wily

For more you can check:

• VnExpress
• VnExpress
• A flash slideshow

Don't trust' em

Last friday was the birthday of a colleague, we had to celebrate that... let's go to bia hoi!

Conveniently, our boss were not there and the idea to go to some bath & massage place in the countryside popped quickly during lunch. Although, it was raining and the decision was made to go to a classic massage, tam quat, nearby.

When i say classic, i mean in the vietnamese way:

Traditional medicinal vietnamese massage

As you can see it's very tradtionnal but if you prefer boyz it may be possible, samson example (not kinky at all...unfortunately :p).

Actually, i really disliked that because it was obvious it was a place for happy ending as the masseuse acting quite frankly (seating on me in a very direct way, touching everywhere, etc). I was also displeased by colleagues thinking i would enjoy that but... actually they were not surprised i disliked that.I forgot, the masseuse was a girl and not pretty :p.

Conclusion

Vietnamese birthday coworkers parties suck: bad food, (bad) beer, bad massage.

Note

i'm thinking more and more prostitution, maybe "soft" like this or not, is so common in Vietnam because:

• You see many massage/haircut/tam quat/karaoke om (om means to hold someone like you do as a passenger on a mototaxi: "xe om") places with pink light, frosted glass and opened very late
• You can see them everywhere (countryside, city center, surbubs, etc)
• A colleague had his first time there and was ready to bring there too
• Another colleague go there from now and then
• I even experienced proposition for this kind of service in a traditional medecine institute which seems perfectly ok before

Flood survivor

No school today

A quick post about Hanoi floods: our house survived though we were stuck in the neighbourhood for two days. We went to the supermarket as we were out of food on saturday afternoon... we had water up to the half of the high (and we avoided several deeper area).

Though it was quite an athmospher in the street at that time, people finishingin the lake, walking around to see how is it outside or just drying their motorbike by all means (dish towel, hairdryer, mini "flame thrower"... this one is to dry and clean spark plugs), it was not the case for everyone. I saw pictures of underground car park with car covered of mud and probably totally broken. Moreover i heard that around 20 people died in Hanoi only.

I guess it was safer to stay all the week end home.

The famous submarine mode (with the optionnal ultimate umbrella)

i'll post some more (stolen) photos later.

Dry season ?

Normally it's the rainy season in Ha Noi since a month but as you can see on the picture it's still possible to have huge amount of rain. Hopefully, i have a submarine mode on my motobike (full power & prayer).

MSM Hanoi

A while ago i found a document called "MSM in Hanoi" and forgot about it but finally i read it (the doc can be found at unaids or some refs): it has not many useful or interesting information but some confirmations.

Men holding hands at a prevention meeting*

For the common people there is no gay people in Vietnam (or just the north? ^_^ ) or at least people never talk or think about that. The first point we see/feel is that there is no harassment on the plu community.

For example, whenever i go out with my bf we try to avoid places where he may meet friends but as long as we keep quiet no one would ever think of us as a couple. An even better example is a vietnamese girl friend of mine: she saw me many times with my bf and many times we left the party together and she still thinks we are both singles. In addition, she's been studying abroad for sometimes and probably know about plu.

The big disadvantage is about STD, particularly AIDS. It may be unknown but AIDS is spreading quite fast in Vietnam, at least in the north, and i'm sure of it as a friend was working on the subject last year. Thus AIDS prevention is developing, finally!, but only towards female sex workers... not for MSM or young people "being young“ or people having affairs etc.

As i usually say, Vietnam is moving very fast and i guess that this is very likely to evolve in less than 10 years, would it be early enough? No idea... It's so complicated to get any opinion about heomosexuality from my vietnamese friends or common people...

*: i stole (sorry 'bout that) the photo from a photographer blog. In contrary to what i say he took part in a project about MSM and aids prevention, his post about it is very very interesting and has some strong photos.

Water sport

or being prepared to live in Ha Noi, the city of 1000 lakes.

(Sorry for such a bad title ^_^)

Well, Ha noi has not anymore 1000 lakes but there are still plenty of lakes. For example, there are 3 lakes near my home.

Thus Hanoi is a water city which means that when the rainy season comes, comes the problems (well now the season just ended, woohoo!).

By problems i mean:

• If you have a non-pro appointment and it's even slightly raining don't ever hope the person to come (90% of the time from my experience so far).
• Learn how to drive under heavy rain with a neat "raincoat', which often means putting your foot in the middle of the motobike to avoid "splashs" from cars and other people.
• Learn the submarine mode! It's a special mode of the vietnamese motobike but hard to get.  Sometimes, you'll need to drive right in the middle of water with a depth higher than your gaz exauster. The only way to succeed is to take a run up, go max power and pray!

What happens if you fail...push your motobike in the dirty water...

Nevertheless there are a few reasons to like the rain:

• The city gets quiet (almost)
• The temperature falls down greatly (and yes rainy season is also hot)
• I love the rain

The end is near!

It's getting more and more difficult to find lubricant in Ha Noi. Before i could go to Vincom, then i had to go to some westerner shops, now i have to go to the pharmacy and explain it in vietnamese! I will soon need to go to some dedicated shop like condomviet.

Maybe i should let my dear bf do that? ;)

Hook up online?

To meet guys there are a few places in Hanoi (bars, park, etc) as i previously wrote. The other alternative is on the web.

I found one main website to hook up online: gaydar  though gay.com (i tried...not so many guys) or gayromeo (never tried) but also vietsingle. I'm quite surprised by the last one as it is a "local only" dating site and it's operated locally. 

In contrary to what i know from field (bar) there are some lesbians too! Although after a quick check there is none from Ha Noi and most of them are from Saigon... what a shame for Ha noi! :p

Anyway, this post is just a little introduction for another one coming much later... :p

Coming out status

I had two purpose with this blog:

1. An outlet: at the very beginning i wanted to make a personnal diary to express all the things i could not.
2. Share my (gay) life in Hanoi: later on, the first purpose was quite left aside and i wanted to talke how it is to be gay in such a city.

Recently, i have talked only about number 2 but today is number 1...mostly.

I am officialy-to-myself gay since around june 2007 while i met my bf in late July (yeah we both forget the exact date -_-). Actually it is thanks to a housemate: she told me "it's weird, usually, i don't get along with boys like these appart gays" and then i told her (and myself) that i may have some questioning on the subject. 

After being with my bf, quickly all the housemates have been told about it. The last one, a boy, could not understand what i said and though for a few days it was joke but then he understood. It was no problem COs as we were young westerners “opened to the world".

A bit later on, a new housemate arrived, a very posh and not very resourceful guy. I knew, it would be a problem but we were not getting along so we didn't met so often. Althoug, once we've  been at the nightclub at the same time, quite drunk, and he told me: 

"i have something to tell you..." (why we don't get along etc) 

so i answered him 

"Nice, me too i have something to tell you, i prefer boyz and i know you can't take it". 

His answer is memorable:

"No, You, you don't take that" (like to take drugs), 5 times in a row!

That is the worse reaction to my CO so far though i had no pressure for this one.

Later on (last winter), i finally decided to tell my best friend about it. I did it using skype late at night, it was not easy to say the words without seeing the person but finally it came out. His reaction was "ah ok" which is quite ok ;) but what suprised me is that he already had a MSM experience and it was his first time but it was not his type... I asked him not to tell our shared friends as i was not ready yet.

A bit before summer, a friend came to Vietnam and i decided to tell him though i knew if i tell him, most of my friends will be informed. After many tries, i finally succeed to say:

 "ok wanna have a drink after dinner" 

- "no i'm tired"

- "you are sure?"

- "yes i'm really exausted"

5min later

- " well i want to take a drink because i have something to tell you"

This time it was difficult because he was in front of me but finally i succeeded and he had the  "ah ok" reaction. After that he met my bf and we chatted a bit. He stayed one more week in Vietnam so i had this time to prepare my friends back home.

As often, i was lazy and i call just 2 before his coming back and the rest after that. All of them were surprised, but had the "ah ok" reaction, but not shocked and wished me"be happy together".

The final CO was eventually to my family. That was the most difficult and still going on...but may evolve toward a good end.

Today, i got the idea that it may be the time for me to start my COs with vietnamese people. Shortly, there are two (maybe 3) categories of vietnamese i know who i may do a CO.

Colleagues

When i say "colleagues" it is only the young ones that may be able not to kick me right away. I tried to do a few jokes like "well i'm not very good at getting a girlfriend so maybe i show go for boyfriend?", their answers were a big minute long silence. Although, i think the women may take it quite ok while i think the men will take it quite bad.

Friends

I don't have so much friends that are not my colleagues but they are more open minded people (in my opinion). Actually, according to my dear friend N., one of them, a girl, may have guessed already...too bad she's one of the few i'd like to try again *** with 0:-)

Why doing a coming out to vietnamese?

The first reason is that there is a lot of gossip about me (like anyone else though especially singles) and one includes a former "affair" (i use to try to date) with a girl. It's some time i don't think about her (Hey i've been with my BF more than 1 year now) but some people still think i'm depsaired about her.

Another reason is that i would like to be free to say "yeah i'm not single anymore" and "sure, i'll come with bf"...sweet but impossible i think.

The last reason is that it would such a great pleasure to make them understand "you liked me but i was sucking dicks...so what do you think now? Will you fuck up your mind thinking i was a just an asshole since the beginning or try to accept it?" ... that would be nice!

It's more likely not to happen anytime soon but stay tuned!

Backlash

I didn't play so much with boyz when i was single though once i met a specific guy. This guy was starving for sex and why especially? Because he's married! Yes, it's pretty common here, notably for more than 30 years old gay (i think).

Actually, i didn't really want to meet him but unfortunately he studied in my home country, speaks my mother tongue and guessed easily from a few hints where i work. Thus i agreed to meet.

He was not the kind of boy i like  (sissy but nasty)  but i was starving too... Plus he was back in Vietnam since 6 months and it seems he had no man since that and.... "oi troi oi".

Finally, i decided not to ever see him again (Hanoi is not full of boyz but there are more than a few :p).

What happend today?

As everyday, i was iddling reading some websites when 2 guests arrived! This guy and a friend!

 My colleague introduced them to me. The guy is a friend of the other one and has no reason to be here beside that (officially... unofficially i guess it's for me or to see some neat westerners :p). I think i blushed a little at first but then i played it cool, even some chit-chat with him.

Actually, since the day i met him i was afraid of him to come to my work but then nothing happened. I just wonder if he'll try to contact me again (IM, dating website, phone, ...)?

Condom in Vietnam

Unlike Thailand, with its 7-11, it's not easy to find (good) condoms in Vietnam (Hanoi).

When i arrived and i started to need some i luckily found some western (durex) quality checked condoms in the Vincom maul as long as lubricant. Unfortunately, the stock was out in a few weeks.

Often supermarkets have some big arrival of western stuff

 then nothing anymore, i guess it's some discarded stuff.

Though, i am a bad foreigner who likes to have some westerner delicacies once in a while (a bit more often indeed), i know some westerner oriented shops and there i found the precious stuff to have safely some local delicacies ;). Thus i advise you to go to so

me westerner oriented shop or grocery they are much likely to have western quality condoms. 

The other place, i  have yet to check, is condomviet which has a website with a bit of english. While searching again for this website in order to do this post, i happen to find this: sexshopviet. Unfortunately it seems to be only in HCMC not in Hanoi... 

By the way i tried Vietnamese condoms called

 "Romantic".... it's a bit rough/thick, that is why i thought this issue deserve a post here.

Karaoke

I'm back from Bangkok but i don't have enough time to write about it now. Instead just a funny anecdote at the karaoke.

It has been a long time for me and especially for my friend N. thus she decided to organize again (the 2 previous attempt were crashed thanks to rain mostly) a karaoke. We know a very nice karaoke, thanks to L. , which has a lot of english song and you can choose directly the music with the remote control (most of karaoke here need you to find songs in the list then give it to the "DJ"). Actually, this plus the athmosphere let me guess (this time only) that this place is also a whorehouse but who cares really?

Anyway, the funny part is that N., another housemate, went with us for his first karaoke in Vietnam and he sang YMCA which is great as sometimes he has some homophobic talking (and blogging...just when he is drunk). Unfortunately (for me) i didn't take any video of that!

Actually, i am quite surprise because he did that and he tried several times to take a romantic picture of me and my bf but has N. is a bit old school in photography he didn't manage to succeed with brand new all automatic camera...poor us. More surprising he will try again when he receives is good ol' camera bought on ebay... Stay tuned!

Sauna or not?

And when i speak about sauna i obviously speak about gay sauna!

Here's the fact:

I recently read on utopia, that there is a gay sauna in Hanoi! I even went there to check the surroundings of the place. It is located in a narrow and long alley, typically vietnamese. First it surprise me because you have the common life around. Second, it's quite discreet and really quiet, the front room is a moto parking (it was full last friday when i drove around there). It is also quite cheap (5$ i think).

(edit) address: Adam's Spa 92 Ngo (alley) Tho Quan, Pho (street) Kham Thien . They even have a website though i don't understand anything...

Will i go?

I think, i will go there... one day. 

• Why one day? 
  

I don't really to ask my bf to go there, i don't want him to see me as a pervert (that i may be one day :p).  When we talk he is someone who dislike the gay athmosphere (everyone knows everyone and had much "fun" with many / girly fashionned boyz etc). Finally, thanks to my confidante, i may ask him to go there with me. He and i would feel really uneasy there but it would be better for him to know that i go there and he is sure that i didn't do something bad there...

• Why going there?

I have some morbide curiosity about that kind of place, curiosity to know my "sexual comrades"! I really want to know if it is like i imagine (all that stereotypes) with people having fun anywhere or "just" a lustfull athmosphere!

Anyway i will keep my (so many) dear readers updated on that... but maybe i'll check another gay bar before (one of the nightlife places i told you before).