Have You Feeling Today Sir ?

So many things have been lost in translation. Not just here where here is the last day at Quy Nhon in Central Vietnam; not just the tonal gymnastics of Vietnamese that is tackled with a kind of obdurate pessimism by expats. It's too hard. It's too difficult to understand... It always is. Not just here. Miscommunication is everywhere be it from a cell phoned gallows to a carnivorous public; from the struggle against freedom from inspiration to endless muzak blighting our ears. Both here in our retreat and 'out there' there is little to understand and too much to witness.

When we arrived it was as though we had arrived to the West Coast of Scotland. I hadn't expected to see such high waves nor a scurrying, howling wind that had other visitors running for the cover of the foyer. Unfortunately, they had come for a hot slice of paradise and had been served with a cold shoulder. They had been shunned by the sun and now a torpid malaise hung over the resort. Children played increasingly anarchic games of pool while sun-seekers, their tans fading by the second, thumbed too quickly through Der Spiegel or Les Temps du Mauvais occasionally glancing over to their partners, in boredom, in the gradual quaffing of wine to ease then ooze the horror of another day without tropical heat. We were lucky. We basked in the cold after the fug of Saigon and we embraced the wind that rushed around our room like a dog chasing it's own tail. We were dizzy yet delighted to be duvet'd.

We were not typical visitors. We saw neither Cham Tower nor local fishing fleet. We did not tour but were lured, away, retreating writers limping into the sunset with the weight of...Ok. You get the gist. We missed out on the outside world in order to spend time in the inside world. Crazy. Stoopid. A waste of paradise. Of course. Not. For us, this has been time well spent in a slower, more reflective place and it's been good to breathe clean air.

I will miss the sound of the waves that seemed to break so close, the lick of their fury spattering white foam on to our windows. But now that we are returning to the city we can rejuvenate our senses and let memory play its important part in who we are. If our night thoughts have been shaped by the rush of wind and surge of tide then of course we can have that in our apartment: our wirelessed, broadband(ish) connection means that we can upload the sound of the sea and hear waves looped with an optional seagull plug-in. The wonders of technology. Nature has a lot to learn.