In Ha Noi there 's nothing quite so debilitating as having your motorbike out of action. When Emma and I turned into the alleyway the other day, the "thud" of the rim against the driveway announced the bad news. Of course I had not even contemplated what I might do about a flat tyre. I assumed my Nouvo was invulnerable. Apparently it isn't invulnerable, but it is very stubborn about letting people get at it's back wheel area.
Anyway, tending to our faithful steed became our top priority. After all it carries us to work, school, the supermarket and pretty much everywhere, except the pub. We cab to the pub and this is highly advised. Breathalysers are urban legends here like the bunyip in Australia but the road conditions are deterrent enough!
One of my workmates, I call him "Trip", gave me the great idea of asking one of the local tyre repairers to come to our place to fix the tyre. I came up with the "great" idea to print the photos you see here and attach the following note:
xe may cua toi bi thung sam, anh mang dung cu ve nha toi sua xe cho toi duoc khong?
I then headed down to the local bike wash, which also had tyres hanging up. I took this to mean they fixed tyres. The lady took the note and burst out laughing, she then passed the note around and everyone else had a great laugh. Apparently without the correct tonal marks the note was not all that clear, but very funny. Anyway the photos were clear enough so she said "mot tram nghin" (100,000). I needed the tyre fixed so I agreed. This brought another round of merriment all around. I may not understand all that much Vietnamese but laughing, finger pointing and high-fiving are pretty much the same in any language.
Anyway she sent a man to come with me to fetch the bike and we walked it up the road. The effort that followed to change that inner-tube was monumental with all hands-on-deck to get it done. While the boys sweated and strained to get the repair done the lady of the house spoke to me at length about everything from my age to my height and regardless of speaking no English whatsoever we managed to chat a bit. She told me all about the business which is almost completely staffed by the extended family. You get that a lot. The business premises is the home and the family is the staff,
When the job was finished they gave my bike a "free" wash so it looks like new again. Now I have a pumped-up tyre, a shiny looking bike and some new friends up the road. Once again something that I initially thought might be quite painful turned out to be a great opportunity to experience more of life here.
