Month: November 2011

Saigon by Vespa

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We’ve had some friends in town recently – Sarah and Manjit – and took them out to experience the sights and sounds Saigon has to offer, on the back of vintage Vespas…

 “Vietnam Vespa Adventures” is the brain child of Steve Mueller, a guy as equally fanatical with the bikes themselves as much as he is with the country in which he has now resided for thirteen years.  Steve’s website offers some useful history on the noble Vespa (the Italian word for “Wasp” – I’ll give you that one for free) and his company’s aim is to provide clients with a perspective on Vietnam otherwise unavailable to the average tourist. Continue reading →

The Art of sweating

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With each week seems to come a new tweak or ache somewhere up and down my body. 

Ankles and heels are the target areas at the moment, and I cut a pathetic figure at 5:30am each morning as I limp across the kitchen, hand flailing out to switch on the kettle, as Florence is pulling at my leg and demanding a DVD be fired up.  

Despite our attempts at negotiating with Flo about the somewhat unruly hour at which she springs into life each day – which on some mornings simply involves the inevitably futile command of: “It’s still dark, it’s not time to wake up, go back to sleep!” – she often, literally, jumps out of bed with energy levels pulsating through her to the extent that walking is enthusiastically replaced by a combination of breathless skipping, pirouetting and running. Continue reading →