random (& not so random) photo-shots

a picture speaks a thousand words… and i’m lazy to type

hot bods, cool powder

boat on halong bay

feasting like a king

basking in the sun/shade/semi-shade

Tito island bay

sweaty, stuffy, stinky

kitchen of hanoi restaurant

mid-trek break in the highlands

our homestay family in Sapa

new-age lingas amidst ancient ruins

enigmatic ruins, the route next and food watch in Hoi An

The Lonely Planet guide described the Cham ruins of My Son as “enigmatic”. This is the exact same word used to describe the Bayon in the Angkor Wat complex. However I feel that the word’s meaning is different for both ruins.

well it looks real enough and Hoi An is an anagram of Hanoi

Hoi An is a place for three things: tailors, shoes and tourists. There are probably 49328590328 tailor shops lining the narrow streets of Hoi An and if you threw a stone, it will probably land on several sewing machines, 10 sweat-shop tailors and a handful of tailor shop bosses calculating Hoi An is so small we can walk it in a day. The only reason why we are staying here till tomorrow evening is because Roger and I have tailored two suits plus gazillions other articles of clothing at a tailor here in Hoi An. We are officially seriously fucking broke; I need to draw cash from an ATM soon and Roger has to borrow money from Zizihaohao.

The Ill-Made Knight

I’ve been reading T.H. White’s The Once And Future King in my spare time here in Vietnam. It’s a nice retelling of the Arthurian legend, and funny in it’s own way. I find Sir Lancelot to be a very interesting character. It’d be nice to be Arthur – he’s such a simple character. Lancelot’s more complicated.

The Once and Future King

The best feeling in the world

What is the best feeling in the world? My long-time suspicions as to the nature of this object have been emphatically confirmed by our trip. The best feeling in the world is putting on fresh, clean clothes after a refreshing shower.

Of course, the climate conditions prevalent in Vietnam mean that this feeling is often ephemeral. Hot and humid weather is aided by poor-quality air-conditioning to produce a suffocating, sticky nightmare – which, as with the Cambodians, the Vietnamese themselves seem not to be afflicted by. I am no closer to understanding how the locals manage it, than I was in Cambodia.