House 5 drinks in Trung Hoa

Lets be real, I was 28 and from a post recession Ireland. By 2018 I had felt like the times of clubbing, going on the lash and generally being up until 4 or 5 in the morning were on the way out. Maybe I could be capable of pulling out an all time mad sesh again at a friends wedding, a Eurotrip with the lads or maybe around Christmas, but it seemed a given that mad sessions weren’t on the cards for me anymore. This seemed doubly true after moving into house 5, sometimes known as the OAP house to other teachers in their early 20’s. It seemed like the other houses were where the casual sex and cans until sunrise were happening.

And yet, it seemed to me that House 5 pulled its weight just as well as anywhere else when it came to parties at the weekend!

BME made rules at the beginning saying there was a midnight curfew in our houses, but in practice only the main accommodation was checked as some of the taxi drivers lived there too (yet another blow to anyone stuck living there). So this allowed our house to set up the tables on the ground floor, play tunes at a decent volume (the neighbours weren’t going to complain) and bring bags of cans from the Circle k, less than a hundred meters from the house! The convenience made us a magnet for some great pre drinking nights. The women would be able to find vodka Ha Noi or Alligator vodka near the Eurowindow building at a decent price. Combined with a few tubs of pringles and crisps, and the night was ready to roll.

Some other houses would have sessions too, usually the one near the bia hoi lake. However, the police were often called to that house due to the noise, and I was uncomfortable with being there when the only door out could be padlocked. As someone with a habit of leaving scenarios before they get too risky, this was a bit much. I would always have meerkat senses there even with Saigon specials just in case. Other memorable sessions were had at Jacks house beside the twin lakes on St Patrick’s Day, and a few games of poker in the main accommodation using 1000 dong notes as chips.

On that note the parties were noisy. This was an issue in general, as it seemed a lot of the teachers were absolute chatterboxes that wouldn’t shut up even when there were important things to listen to, such as taxi times, collecting flashcards or keeping quiet when police were on the way to check the goddamn house for noise! There must be something about the interns but in general the parties had people talking really loudly, playing loud music and laughing, well, LOUDLY. Its no surprise neighbours were complaining about the noise, but even at later sessions of maybe 3 to 4 people we would somehow have enough noise to get complaints. Cian especially loved turning the volume up to 11, be it the music being played from the telly, on a speaker or just off the phone. I never really got the noise part, but interestingly it must have rubbed off on me when I returned home. I was asked to turn down music that in my mind wasn’t that audible for fear of upsetting the neighbours. It must be the Irish psyche. How could you not want to listen to Orbital-Halcyon and on or Reflekt-Need to feel loved?!

In any case nights would involve getting out of the by now really sweaty BME uniforms, throwing them in the wash and having a long shower. Then after cleaning up, putting on some decent clothes and shoes, I would head down the staircases to have some beers and listen to music. Depending on the house people could smoke on the rooftops, outside the front door or just at the table. It was cheap to smoke and most places would allow it, so my clothes would often smell like an ashtray by the end of pre drinks. It was like IADT all over again.

House drinks would make up the bulk of weekend partying as the $700 salary wasn’t tailor made to weekends on the town the same way $1500 was just a few months later. However, every other weekend I would hear words from Laura or Sadie about the clubs in Tay Ho, such as ‘The Birdcage’ or ‘Sidewalk’. Birdcage especially seemed very mysterious and interesting. They said it was in the middle of nowhere but the music and drinks were amazing. Sidewalk and the Old Quarter seemed like a more conventional night, but more on them in a future top 5 list.

What made these nights great in House 5 was the real sense of ease that everyone had. Nothing bad felt like it was around the corner, and we tended to be at the level of having loads of laughs while also not getting police called for the noise. Fortunately for us the FPT shop next door had a massive pair of speakers outside blaring Vinahouse, so our noise was tame by comparison. When we were finished with cans, we could get more, head to town or simply walk upstairs to bed. The options were handy.

Most smaller sessions involved Alex, Chris, Laura, Kelly, Kristina, Rebecca and Leonie. Larger ones would have a few different houses showing up and the whole house would get involved. Birthday surprise parties were a real highlight, hiding in the dark house waiting for whoever’s birthday it was to come in and give them a shock! Drinking games and music would follow. One particular memory involved Kelly’s birthday. Once I had lost a game of beer pong, Chris Howells immediately stuffed my mouth with a bottle of Alligator vodka to finish. It began the slow descent to madness that was the trip to town.

Many quieter sessions would just happen whenever we felt like it, and often during the week. We found a TV in one of the rooms and plugged it in on the ground floor. Then, after buying a HDMI cable we turned it into a place to watch films or just more music with graphics. School of Rock, Mortal Kombat and the Beach were shown on the telly, so it was something to focus on while having drinks and snacks. Of course if we felt like it we would also just have mad conversations and games too to liven things up. Either way it was all just a bit of fun.

All the chill out sessioning really endeared me to House 5, and I look back on it with a lot of fondness. Were there better places to stay in Hanoi? Absolutely! But none would have this level of craic balanced so well.