The Boy and The Coconut Tree

I spent my first 2 weeks in Hanoi living in a hotel, it was lovely and a vast improvement on the first night hotel which was so hideous that I spent less than 12 hrs in it. The bed was alive with god knows what, there was sewage leaking up through the tiles in the breakfast room and the staff were scary and very aggressive pushers of organized trips to the tourist spots.  I changed hotels and with the porter from my new hotel and a scooter I was transported across the old quarter of Hanoi and from a world of no star grubbiness to 3 star comfort, hot water, clean rooms, laundry service and all the things a very demanding Englishman needed whilst job hunting and apartment hunting in a city of 5 million people whose language was totally unfathomable to me! My 2nd, 3rd and 4th days were spent job hunting, usually on the back of a Xe-Om (motorbike taxi), traveling far and wide to suburbs that claimed to be central but were practically in another province. I had 5 interviews and...

It is Halloween on October 31 st , it has always been on October 31 st . Try telling that to the crazy people I encountered on my evening out in London last night (October 27 th ).   On my train journey to central London, people were dressed as Vampires, Zombies, blood stained nurses and doctors (though they could easily have been real and simply finishing a shift in A&E). There was a woman dressed as a crazed zombified Bette Davis, a guy dressed as a vicar with blood stained face yet there were no Jimmy Saville costumes? Too soon perhaps? This is a little gripe about the need to celebrate everything early.   Halloween is one example but Guy Fawkes Night is another. There have been fireworks going off in my area for weeks now and I doubt there will be any left by November 5 th and as for bonfires, this area of London has seen enough arson and fire so you would wonder if the locals of SE London are giving Bonfire night a miss? And Christmas, well Oxford Str...

As the end of October approaches and the stores already have their Christmas displays up, my mind has turned to Christmas and Christmas gifts. When I was a kid, and relied on my pocket money, it was easier to buy gifts for my parents, sisters and grandparents, now that I have a bigger budget and access to bigger and better stores (online and high-street), I am stumped .  Feeling festive yet?  As an uncle to 2 nieces and 2 nephews I always want to be the cool uncle, buying good gifts but not being too lavish as not to spoil them or push noses out of joint. It is bloody hard!  This year I am going to Paris for a Christmas shopping trip in the hope that French style, French prices and the rudeness of French shop assistants will inspire me?  If anyone has a good idea what to buy for a Dad then please comment. He is the hardest individual to buy for, especially as he doesn't drink or smoke.

Waking up in Hanoi for the first time can be quite confusing. It is a noisy place and even in the middle of town you hear the call of the rooster at sunrise and trying to out-do the rooster are the government announcements, broadcast from loudspeakers hoisted up on lamp-posts. The messages tell the locals that they must keep the city clean etc though with my limited knowledge of Vietnamese, they sounded intimidating and something I am happy to say we do not have in England . I’ve lived in many cities around the world, 8 cities, 5 countries and Hanoi is the most foreign, the poorest and dirtiest and one of the most exciting places I’ve had the good fortune to reside in. The combination of noises, smells and sights cannot be replicated.  A cup of hot vietnamese coffee A typical day involved strong coffee drank on my balcony overlooking the centre of the city, the old quarter, known as Hoan Kiem. My apartment was on the 4th floor of a residential building full of local ...

I visited Vietnam in February 2011 and took a train from Saigon (HCMC) to Hue. The journey was 20 hours and I shared a berth with 3 locals. One of them was Dang Ngoc Hieu a 24 year old shopkeeper from Tuyen Quang. Only one person in the berth could speak English so using my phrase book and drawings, we chatted. For 20 hours I was overwhelmed by a sense of being the centre of attention in the most innocent way. This boy from Tuyen Quang had never met a foreigner; he lives in a small village, an 8 hour drive north of Hanoi, closer to China than Hanoi.  He asked for my phone number and in rough English asked me to visit Tuyen Quang province if I ever returned to Hanoi.  A totally innocent experience that felt like my first ever crush and so hard to put into words.  Our lives are very different.  And the coconut tree? Hieu was delivering it to his village from relatives in Saigon. He carried it almost 2000km by the time he reached his home in Thuong Lam village....

For some a blog is there way of sharing their ego with the world. For me its for sharing everything. Mainly my love for travel and my fascination with the people and places I encounter. Even now that I am 42 I have not lost my curiosity or enthusiasm for travel and new people and I love writing about it.So here I am on a Sunday afternoon, it is raining, I have a hangover despite drinking low alcohol lager last night and my social life is as good as a Jimmy Saville Fan Club meeting. So, I decided to waste my time re-creating my blog. I had one last year and stopped updating it when I finished traveling. And as you all know, I have way too much to say to be silent for too long. Me on one of my many trips overseas, summer 2009 seandusher@gmail.com