When I told people I was going to India I met with a variety of comments. My Indian friends encouraged me, my yoga friends were excited for me and some people said: ‘Buy locks’ (always good advice) and ‘Trust no one’ (as if I was going to the X-Files). I do remember thinking: ‘Indians probably […]
Month: February 2023
Vietnamese Kindness
All the time in Vietnam I kept thinking about the war. I remember the last few years of high school and our worries that boys we knew would be forced to mobilise and spend army years in Vietnam. We comforted ourselves that very few Australians were killed but went to protest marches anyway. My parents […]
Seas I Have Swum In
I sat in the pool in Vietnam and enumerated to a friend all the seas I had swum in and why there was no need to add the South China Sea to the list. But it was just there, on the other side of the pool so eventually I did. I kept thinking how somewhere […]
Cambodia and the Vietnamese
I got on with my guide in Hanoi, he was laid back and willing to exchange information more than impart it. He let me correct his English and told me about local food and customs. He told me that, because his wife was born in the year of the tiger and he in the year […]
Going to Vietnam
I used to love travel but now I find myself nervous, unwilling to leave my home, worried that something terrible will happen. I wonder if I’m just getting too old, like my aunt who went to Hawaii in her late seventies and came back swearing she would never travel again. I don’t want to be […]
Hanoi and Halong Bay
The hotel room in Hanoi is small but nice, though the deluxe city view is mostly a view of someone’s messy rooftop. There’s a laneway below with lots of activity: motor cycles coming and going, women chatting and opening and closing intriguing shops. The hotel food isn’t as good as in Hoi An or Da […]
Hoi An
The first visit I caught the shuttle from Danang and walked along the main shopping street in the old quarter where even cyclos (carts attached to bicycles) weren’t allowed. There were wires up above from which lanterns were suspended and shops selling art and jewellery and other things tourists would buy. I bought scarves and […]
A Walk in Jerusalem
Everyone is working so I take my nostalgia tour of Jerusalem alone. I walk down to the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv, past the money changers and the stores that sell soft drinks and food you buy in a hurry, past the place that sells motorbikes and is full of Ethiopians, past the place […]
Sydney Harbour
Sydney Harbour reminds me of a book I read once, where a group of children find a tree in the backyard which is so tall it reaches to the clouds. After you climb a ladder at the top you find yourself in another country. Every few weeks things shift and a different country comes to […]
Writing Cliches
Good writing should be delicious. Words should roll around the tongue like ice cream, with smooth bits and bits that are harder to digest. Sentences that go straight to your bloodstream and sentences you need to unpack syllable by syllable, mash them up with your tongue and swallow with a long slow slither into the […]