There Is Another Party Here

Of course this was a full moon party VietNam-style but lets try not to be condescending; no it didn't have the coolness of a Koh Samui sandfloor; of grooving Thai-dyed hedonists, still there, still not. And no, there was no Balaeric pick-up; thongs and songs in a post-Mediterranean setting, a site for disc eyes and incubating doubt. There was none of that. Instead there was guy with a couple of homemade fireballs which he acrobatically wooshed around him. A Danish man helpfully pointed out that the night before ( a pre-full moon party?) one of the fireballs had come off and spattered into the sand close to bare, tanned feet. This was what we were here for; moments on the sand, blissed and melded but always with the chance of being welded to the bean bag we had flopped on to after stiff Long Island Iced Teas. Sure, we could see it was unsafe and we crumpled backwards but we watched the fireball dancers dignify their lack of experience with pure enthusiasm. Thank XX we are not too jaded to see that.

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Music: Calexico/The Clash Guns of Brixton

Night Train to Saigon (Reprise)

music: Elfpower

Came back on the night train to Saigon, five hours from Phan Thiet and the beach. Sluggish and daylight at first as it passed through red sand dunes and into the countryside with its rasta Dragon Fruit trees, a crowd of nodding dreads with pink heads and green gills hanging limply in the air. A strange fruit. Then it sped up as it closed on Bien Hoa as though rushing to dismiss a city which had led a small-scale resistance against the northern communists even after the fall of Saigon. Inside the train, the Vietnamese are beginning to wake up from slumber or recover from being slumped on the floor, crippled with motion-sickness and soon it is our night train cutting through streets where a hand reached out could be touched and where we groan not quite arrived into a station dimly lit and we walk the last three hundred metres down the rusty track.

Parting Glances

Home is where the hope is; body parts don't come into it. We confirmed an expat status and toured our home; where before, a month earlier, we looked forward to coming home a month later we looked forward to coming to this other home, to this sub-tropical land. Tired of noise and clogged with dust we had left Saigon. On our return we spent just a few hours in the push and rush and made good time on the slow train to the beach. Home is where the palm trees are.

Home is where the cliches are. Nothing ever changes but of course it does. There is new life and sad absence; there is the blur of catch up; of a year's worth of nights out and evenings in crammed into some fizzy celebration with emotional greetings and premature partings. There are children a year taller, changed irrevocably from gurgle to speech and adults of course slow-changed, comfortably astride the slide to a certain age. Growth is such an optimistic state when young.

Homecomings whether to places of birth or relocation stir notions of staying put, of re-domiciling with the familiar, of re-navigating relationships with people and place; yes, home is where the roots can shoot into solid ground. I am back. I never left. But it is too soon. I am not done yet and though I don't want to backpack into somebody else's hell, I do want to settle and live in somebody else's culture. Home is where the absorption is and this life is filled still with some curiosity that hasn't been killed or that hasn't been numbed by not being...There is still life in Saigon; writing, Thailand and Japan beckon and there is much to be hopeful for. But with more than a glance I look back at so many hellos and goodbye with sadness and gratitude towards friends and family who made it an incredible month for me, for both us. Better not run shy of sentiment now because it's too late and sure I will post again with a different head, let's get cynical and aw that but for this moment, a huge and heartfelt thank you to friends and family.


Photos: Church in Xativa, Spain; Eric Ravilious art in Morecambe; Filip and young Pip in the hills near Glasgow; Kite-Surfing Boards at Mui Ne Beach