The Boy and The Coconut Tree

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....

If there were ever anyone who has thoroughly tested the idiom "the grass is always greener" it has to be me. I have jumped over more fences into more gardens in the past 22 years than I care to count. I am not even sure why! It started in 1992 or so when university ended as did the cozy cocoon like life I had with my friends. It ended abruptly on a June morning in 1992 as my Dad woke me from my sleep. I was asleep on the sofa in my tuxedo, hungover. It had been the last night of university, the Summer Ball,  The summer ball with Penny, Kirsteen and Mathew it was fantastic. We all sat in a park and watched the sunrise, the first day of our new, adult, post graduate lives. I remember the drive home, 5 hours of hangover hell, I was so sad. I realized life was never going to be the same and I have spent the past 22 years looking for something like it, a security blanket, an adult life I can feel comfortable with. I've never really found it. One of my students is a ...

There are good sanctions, ok sanctions and then there is bloody mindedness. Take Cuba as an example. As most of you know, I’ve been to many countries including one that is communist and had a rather bad war with the USA that cost millions of lives (mainly local, Vietnamese civilians) and it is an easy place to get to and buy American goods and it is possible to use American owned websites to arrange that holiday. So this gets me to the subject of Cuba.   I was trying to help a friend book a trip to Cuba and as the local travel agent had quoted him a price of over E2000 for 8 days I suggested we hit the internet to find a better deal. Seems sensible, the internet was supposed to encourage competition. Wrong. Not when it comes to Cuba! First I went to   Kayak.com   – Cuba doesn’t exist in their databases, it has been wiped off the map. Next I went to   Expedia . com   (and I even tried the Spanish and British sites), again, Cuba doesn’t exist. ...

I've now been back in England for 11 weeks, not long but long enough to realize that I am back but not back here in spirit. I am restless, probably because this current job is neither good for soul or my intellect anymore. I am stifled. I loved being a teacher and love being a teacher. I am so temped to flee, head overseas again. Now I know I can teach, and I know I am good at it, I could go anywhere, but where? I shouldn't be so hasty but it is in my character to make huge decisions quite quickly and only ask for advice if I have the slightest doubt. Usually I ask the wrong people, the people who tell me off rather than wish me well. I am giving myself 7 days to take stock, decide and then put a plan in place. Sean 2 November 2012