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

Warm Air Can Still Be A Draught

They are taking away the Cyclos. Another icon bites the dust, the march of progress of course, a roughshod quickstep over what was once essential but now inconsequential. So it was with London Routemasters; Glasgow trams, Shanghai rickshaws. Russian Trebant Taxis. What next? The Manila jeepney, the Thai songtaow...


The cyclos are as iconic for VietNam as the conicle hat. Although only seen in the major cities, they are for most people visiting the country a way of accessing some sense of the past that isn't enshrined in a museum or simply post-carded. These contraptions, bicycle meets rickshaw are still a way of life for a lot of people. They now ferry passengers from A to B in lesser quantities as people upgrade to motorcycle taxis but they also transport all manner of stuff that can't be shouldered on a motorbike taxi or squeezed into a car. Cyclos, ridden with grace and without urgency can carry an incredible range of things; from construction materials to bottled mineral water; from a baby palm tree to a drinks vending machine. The cyclo drivers are to a man, stretched and weather beaten; their elongated frames both skelatal and sinewy strong. The government has promised that these men will be given a motorised substitute for their pedal-powered cyclos. Considering the staggering rate of change in Saigon and the accompanying ability of a lot of Saigonese to adapt to that change, it may be just another moment of transition. But the atmosphere of an ex-colonial, 'Fall of Saigon' era city is rapidly going up in construction dust and the noise of millions of motorbikes.



Photo courtesy of Kate Hildebrand's travel blog.

Dead Swimming Pools of VietNam