Turns out any luddite can make a GoPro video of their weekend at home.
I promise more text in the next post…
Saigon Stuff
Springtime in Saigon
It’s 2015. It’s mid January. And spring is here in Saigon.
In what has become my annual celebration of just how pleasant a time of year it is over here, when so many other parts of the world are either sweltering in their own juices, or snow ploughing their way to the office, I can’t resist once more in proclaiming the bleeding obvious: life is so much easier when you have the weather on your side.
Biking into work these days you are struck by the golden light, the intensely perfumed scents of the orchids and bogainvilleas, and the breeze. The fact that there is a breeze is enough to be thankful for, given Saigon’s notorious humidity track record. The New Year marks the lowest temperatures Saigon will experience until next January – somewhere in the mid 20’s – perfection in my mind, although many locals are already donning their puffer jackets and scarves in protest at the chilly starts to their days.
2015 – no resolutions for me, a year instead to appreciate all that comes my way and to embrace the here and now. I am grounded in Saigon until a UK visit next month, hosting as I am a regional workshop here at the end of the month, and enjoying the novelty of “routine” after a fabulous Christmas break, involving some long weekends away, and plenty of indulgent moments of sheer fun with Florence and Martha.
Perhaps a suitable 2015 resolution after two months absence from this blog (I’ve been peppering the sister site – http://www.definitelymaybe.me – with musings on development issues over the past few months instead) would be to post a bit more regularly.
Let me see…
Meantime, a lazy capture of the last quarter of 2014, which saw me travel extensively, can be found below in the form of pictures. I took to instagram last year, so check out @saigonsays on that if you are similarly hooked.
Wishing you all a very prosperous New Year to come.
September 2014
October 2014
November 2014
December 2014
And off we go again
It’s been so long since I wrote a blog here, that I had to remind myself of the correct address of my own site.
August 11th, and too much to fill in since my last post, but several fabulous weeks back in the UK recently – both girls had 6 weeks over there in total, having a blast up north, down south, in London and on the beaches of Cornwall and Devon – and then a new school term underway as of this morning, back here in Saigon, and we are off again, refreshed (partly, the jet-lag this weekend was a killer) and ready for the long run into the next break at Christmas…
The merry-go-round is in full tilt.
The happy and somewhat jaded campers (above) took it in their stride this morning that the summer holiday adventures were over. Bless them both, Florence and Martha just seem to take whatever is thrown at them and make it fun.
Flo was not the least bit put out for example that it took me twenty minutes this morning to realise that her penguin stepping around the apartment in her new skirt/shorts combo for Day 1 at the Australian International School, was in fact because when she’d got dressed she had put both feet into one shorts leg, rather than what she was thinking to herself at the time, which was that her new school practice some quasi-Geisha ritual for their Year 2’s, by forcing them to hop about the classroom for the first term.
Nor did she seem intimated by the chaos of the busy new school gates, or the strangeness of her new surrounds. She was too busy taking it all in to kiss us goodbye.
Anyway, you’ll hopefully find me more prominent on these pages soon, but in the meantime I wish you all happy ends of the holidays when you get to yours.
Much love to all.
Short and sweet
Hello. Now where was I? On the verge of heading to India about a month ago, I seem to recall…
Well, India, Delhi, the Holi Festival, and the workshop I was running all went off well. Delhi is thriving, the weather was sublime, the food delicious and, as you’ll see from the photo below, I managed to pull off a mean impersonation of some kind of overweight commando at the end of an afternoon of celebrating the first day of Spring, in true Hindu style. Memorable stuff.
On next to the UK, for some long days of meetings, but intersected thankfully by short snippets of quality time with friends and family.
Some of which took place in pubs and involved pints (I miss pints).
There was even time whilst I was in London for some swapping of school day photographs on a night out with mates from the Merchant Taylors’ years, circa. 1985-1993.
One I can’t help but post being of our fly-by-night sixth form band, Orange Bud. Watch out music seekers, it’s not too late for a 40 year birthday reunion in 2015.
And the past week has been back in Saigon, hosting the delightful Hellewell family, over from the UK shires. Kathryn, James, Leo and Sam collectively took to the heat, humidity and cold beers over here with ease, and provided some wonderful times together (crammed in to my apartment as the seven of us all were!)
So “local” were the Hellewells, that they can now tick off ‘riding Vintage Vespa bikes in the Mekong Delta with the kids’ from their bucket list.
Tomorrow I am off to celebrate a friend’s wedding up in Nha Trang on a stag weekend, over Easter I’ll be playing in a football tournament in Shanghai, and I’ll be up to Hanoi and across to Bangkok for work after that. On the cards for May currently is Beirut and the Philippines (both work) and planning out Martha’s 3rd Birthday party (very much in the ‘play’ category).
Happy Easter to you all and, next time, I promise some more words and less bullet points.
Chocs away!
Year of the Horse, belatedly
My last post on this site was pre-Christmas. I spectacularly missed the opportunity of writing about my January 1st commitment to stop smoking (achieved so far with flying colours, by the way). I then reneged on posting suitably colourful and joyous photos of my kids enjoying the Chinese (in Vietnam, ‘Tet’) lunar New Year celebrations last week, as well as the standard picture of my Tet tree in bloom, them performing in their Tet concert, and me pontificating on what the new Year of the Horse might all be about. On which front I am still none the wiser.
February kicked off nearly a week ago, and my “No Booze Feb” pledge was underway (watch this space, at this rate, next month I’ll convert to Buddhism, take up sunrise yoga classes and become a caffeine-free, vegan) in earnest – and yet I just didn’t get round to documenting this very sobering moment in time.
If I’d had the chance, I would have regaled you sooner with the rather tragic weekend story of how a stomach bug last Saturday ensured my quick demise over a 48 hour period, during which I didn’t eat, and spent as much time in my bathroom in two days as the average person might spend in a year. It was not pretty.
And then, yesterday, I flew up to Hanoi on business, to find the Old Quarter looking resplendant in Tet decor, and abuzz with a heady mix of local adults drinking Tiger beers from 9am, and kids dancing in the streets (for once, not crowded with bikes and traffic).
All of this I have failed to represent so far in 2014. Such slackness is potentially, in itself, a fatal start to any new lunar year. Even my Tet tree flowered 6 days late. The omens are not good. Continue reading
Walking in a Metrosexual Wonderland
That I even have a fruit bowl, is the first admission I’ll make on this rather “forgive me Father” Sabbath day journal entry…
Forgive me, for I appear to have rather over-embraced my inner ‘Metrosexual’ wannabe, released as it was yesterday like some kind of bottled up camp genie, deliriously happy at the prospect of all the indulgences available, given I was home alone for the weekend.
The early hours of yesterday began with feet firmly (despite the number of drinks I’d had that evening) wedged into hetro-man world. I was in town, out with a mate from my football team. All the raw ingredients for a “boy’s Friday night” were in play: games of pool, booze; sports talk; rock music – life was uncomplicated.
You’ll imagine my surprise then (or some won’t, as it would seem many of you clearly “outed” me as a metro-man many years back) when in a moment of mild panic yesterday evening, I briefly took stock of my day’s activities, which included the following: Continue reading
Colonel Sanders in Saigon
Guest Post by Martyn Barmby
Why would you fly 6,000 miles to Vietnam to eat at Kentucky Fried Chicken? Twice actually: once successfully and once with the bathetic failure of vegetarian falafel.
It’s not that I dislike Vietnamese food; I love it. Nor is it that I lost patience with my badly wrapped Banh Xeos (“I would not smoke it, never mind eat it” was the withering review of my efforts). It is not even the repeated faux pas of mixing the wrong sauce with each gorgeous parcel of fish, vegetables and the most fragrant herbs. It is more about friendship with a dash of nostalgia and maybe a dipping sauce of stubbornness.
After what might technically count as a long weekend in Saigon I got a second taste of what our dear friends love about the place. Although crossing the road in itself is as fun as going on your average roller coaster, Tim Bishop tours laid on a number of special experiences. Continue reading
The bicycles hit back
Who said men have all the fun and the power in this country. And who said that the hierarchy of who drives what on Saigon’s busy streets always needs to be prescribed by the size of your vehicle…
Check out this cool customer (courtesy of http://www.saigoneer.com) riding her bicycle the wrong way up a busy street, and knocking over two frustrated men on their motorbikes in the process.
With her headphones playing her favourite tune, and her shopping basket hardly compromised, the cheeky cyclist walks off and leaves them with nothing to do but gesticulate in vain.
And there was me worrying about the hapless bus drivers on my commute each day.
Girl power.
saigonsays 