Vietnam is endlessly fascinating. Because it is Vietnam of course. But mainly because its people are polite, energetic, entrepreneurial, curious, engaging and well, just Vietnamese. They are charged up about building their country and raising their standard of living in the pell mell pursuit of the West. Fortunately they are not completely corrupted by that…
With my chin cupped in my hand and elbow propped on the arm rest I found myself on short finals from Singapore into Kuala Lumpur reminiscing about my first experiences of the country. Actually they were not the absolute first – I think that was a project in primary school on alluvial tin mining in…
There is a view of Singapore that gets my attention every single time. Sometimes you see it in all its glory as you fly into Changi from the south. Sometimes you catch a glimpse of it through the trees as you ride to the city in the cab. And if you indulge some of that…
I do know better, I really do. I rationalised the $25.00 hotel breakfast yesterday as being necessary since I had a busy day coming up. But it was an “American” breakfast of indifferent tomato’s, cardboard bacon, and rubber eggs. All leaving me with the impression they were cooked up the previous night and run under…
The evening started perfectly. I had turned the air-conditioner off, opened the windows and pushed aside the slats. Warm moist air flooded the room to the accompaniment of bird chatter and the background hum of air-conditioners hanging off walls in the lane I look onto. A few minutes after doing that, as if by invitation…
Getting around a city in the early hours always opens up a new vista on a place. This week I am staying down on the outskirts of Chinatown (Duxton Hill to be precise) and am therefore well away from the tourist and shopping end of town. A travel “snobbery” I am happy to admit and…
Not by inhaling some of its roadside greenery tamped into a bong but by travel. Which will do that to your mind (if you let it), regardless of where you go. But we usually start with such polarised preconceptions about India that any visit there dislocates our understanding of the place. This picture from a…
…I’ve been to London to to visit the Queen. Well, if not actually visit her then to wander around some of her parks. Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park to be precise. And what did you find there? Londoners no less. Strange folk, the lot of them.
