House Hunting in Hoi An

            

As much as we love spending weeks at a time sleeping five to a room, we are ready to find a house that we can call home for the next year. Typically I don't mind house hunting, which is a good thing because we tend to make a habit out of moving.  However, house hunting in Vietnam has proven to be a bird of a different feather.  At home I would simply check the paper and check the Internet for local listings and get down to business.  Here in Hoi An it's a different game.  There are no classified ads.  There is no Picket Fence Preview.  There are no real estate agents.  There are one or two listings on the Interent which were posted a year ago.  It's all about who you know and who you talk to.  We don't know anyone and we don't speak Vietnamese...two strikes. We do, however, have bicycles, and we attract attention wherever we go.

So, a day of house hunting begins at the crack of dawn when we bike out to the suburbs to check an address we found on the Internet.  We pull up outside the gate of a store.  A nice woman comes out, and we tell her in English that we are looking for a house to rent.  She goes inside and kicks grandma out of bed, shoos the kids out of the kitchen and proceeds to show us her house/store front.  It's a nice, big house (complete with Vietnamese fountain with fish in the living room).  She sits us down in the kitchen to get our details.  We clarify that she is, in fact, renting out the house.  We tell her that we're looking for just a ten-month lease.  Ten months is too short for her, but she has a friend (everyone has a friend with a house that they might be willing to vacate for the right price).  We apologize to grandma for getting her out of bed, thank the kind woman and carry on.

Next we pass a torn "For Rent" sign on a gate.  We do a double-take and screech to a halt.  The people across the street having tea on the sidewalk giggle.  A young girl runs over.  We ask if she lives in the house (asking involves a lot of hand gestures and limited vocabulary).  She doesn't, but she has a friend. A few phone calls are made.  We have a pantomimed conversation in which she seems to be repeating the word "fixing."  Perhaps the owner is far away fixing something?  Perhaps the house needs fixing?  Either way, it seems there is no one around who can actually show us the house.  We leave our hotel card in case she gets in touch with her friend with a house.

Next we venture through some paths to the penninsula in the ancient city.  We've been warned about the flooding here during the monsoon season, but the draw of being in the middle of it all is tempting.  We see a "For Rent" sign and stop the bikes again.  This time a restaurant owner who speaks fairly good English comes out to greet us.  She calls into the house to someone who could be her father sitting on a couch.  We explain that we are looking for a ten month lease on a house.  For some reason he doesn't like the looks of us, so grandma gets called into action.  Grandma does not look excited.  It appears that this restaurant owner is having to twist her arm to get her to cooperate.  She seems to grudgingly agree, and we're told to follow her.  She shuffles off down the street, and we walk our bikes slowly behind her.  In a few blocks, she motions us through a gate and unlocks the door to a super-skinny house.  She waves us in.  She doesn't speak to us at all - just points at the rooms.  The house is tiny, so we thank her and move on.

Over lunch we take advantage of a restuarant owner who speaks relatively good English.  We let her know we're looking for a house to rent.  She has a friend (that's a shocker).  The next thing we know, another woman arrives on a scooter.  The restuarant owner brings me a helmet and tells me to get on her scooter.  She tells John to take a "sleep" (that's another whole blog about gender roles in this culture).  John's down with that (too bad he's got three kids clamoring to get a move on).  He takes them down the road to hang out with our new Aussie friends and leaves me to house hunt with strangers. 

With no idea where we are going, I hop on the back of this woman's scooter.  Just a few short blocks later, we're parked in front of someone's gate.  A few phone calls are made, and we leave.  I'm starting to get a complex.  Next we arrive at an enormous building.  A stooped, old woman leads us inside.  The place is huge.  She shows me three bedrooms on the second floor and gestures at the bathroom.  I inquire about the first and third floors. Oh, it seems this woman also lives here with her family.  We would share the kitchen on the first floor.  They would live on the third floor and only disturb us everytime they scurried through our living room to go downstairs.  Something was apparently lost in translation. I explain that we are looking for something just for our family (no offense to the little woman), and I am taken to another house.

At this stop I am escorted inside and seated in the living room. My motorcylce escort whispers to me, "This woman is very rich.  She owns three houses.  One, two, three.  How much do you pay?"  I give her our budget.  No translation necessary.  Our hostess has nothing for me.  But she has a friend.

Two women on a motor bike appear at the door.  I hop back on with my original escort and we scoot across town...way across town.  We are miles from where we would like to live.  I take off my shoes, yet again, and look at a house where it seems someone is being offered money to leave on our account.  It's not the right fit, so, again, I thank the owner and hop back on the scooter.  Now my escort starts showing me cheap hotels - in case we are stuck in a hotel for a long time before we figure this housing thing out.  I eventually convince her to return me to her restaurant and my bike.  There I find John relaxing.  We thank my scooter escort profusely for her efforts and give her our hotel card...just in case she has another friend.

Tomorrow's a new day.  We'll start the process again.  I'm trying to chalk this up to a cultural experience.  Whether a house materializes or not, at least we'll have lots of new friends.