Saigon Storm

We're here,there, not here, not there, swirling like specks of dust, claiming for ourselves the rights of the universe. Being important, being nothing, being caught in lives of our own making that we never wanted. Breaking out, trying again, wondering why the past comes with us, wondering how to talk about the past at all.

Jeanette Winterson from 'Lighthousekeeping'

Paradise File No.32A

So, you reach a new place, a life trailing behind you and for a moment there is a sense of perspective. A confident, seemingly fulsome knowledge hiccups its way through possible tales of eclectic experience to eccentric bars; from the needy tug on a sleeve by a street kid to declaring pride in the importance of cultural exchange. Here we have the congratulation of something already celebrated. And then there is always later, the tipsy exit from such a cheap bar, the needy tug on the sleeve by a street kid, the nod of understanding and then the sliding along alleyways like they belonged to you, to cafes like you were crowned imperial surrounded by courtesans of the dollar.

This country should say to me, an upstart lyricist in a land rich in narrative, abundant in the force of talk, it should and it will say in its best Samuel L Jackson dub“ You don’t know me, you just think you. do.”

Condoleeza Rice is comin to see us; George Bush is coming to see us. When I arrived in Hungary in 1989 , Margaret Thatcher became the first Western leader to visit since the fall of their communism. The streets were lined with soldiers leaving, going back to Russia and a great white hairdo hope was coming to help those brittle and freezing Magyars who needed to be told to get off their Trebants and on their bikes.

Anyway, the photos say enough. Don’t wanna wax about palm trees, sultry evenings and dawn swims. C’mon. I came all this way to do that ? I guess this blog could be about being postcard; heightening the experience with consummate descriptions of travel in paradise, a vain and pedestrian emulation of Denton Welch. Please. Let me try not to do that. But it was pretty, sorry, it was peaceful and significantly a long way from the throb 0f scooters. Mui Ne, a less crowded, less resourced, less overdeveloped resort. Here endeth the advertisement for paradise. Finding it,holding on to it, losing it. It’s all pretty well documented. But for me the trick is always going to be recognising it.

Okay, here are some photos.

Archetypal Tropical Beach Photo #23A
Kate being noticed by visiting children

Ooops. I guess we have arrived. Through the looping films of the long flight over, the whooping of Big Mommas House 2 merging somehow with the squeak of the hostess trolleys; into the thick, embalming heat of the airport with its bewildering layers of red tape and the anxious moments as customs question our motives for entering the country. They are of course good questions.

And on, rushed through like couriered parcels of damp white sweat, our meeters and greeters do their best to make themselves understood through the smog of language and we are all polluted by our trust in our own language. The throng that heaved around the aiport arrivals hall was not interested in our confusion, in our cultured shock. They were looking for loved ones and missing ones or wailing children and then heaving huge boxes held together somehow by dirty string and making sense of finally arriving.

And then the contrast of the hotel, the sounds of the crazy traffic dampened by the hush of luxury; the sound of silk rubbing against silk. No friction, no spark nor life. Just a lull in commotion; an oasis of soothing ointment applied with smiles and bows. Truly this is for wounds not even opened. There is nothing sore here. But of course who argues with the embrace, the ritualistic, economic hug that gathers around us. Not me. For some hard currency we are given soft furnishings and a potent view over the thriving city; we find ourselves in a rooftop pool swimming with what energy we can muster as exotic fronds hang loosely over the water. And with this tickling, delicate touch, we can pause for a moment and consider the journey, the move, the change and I can duck my head under the water with the noise of a thousand mopeds just a hundred metres down, and believe that we have arrived.