Below is a link to a video on the second part of my recent trip to Vietnam. This was a 14 day trip with Exodus, going from Hanoi to Saigon, and taking in Da Bac, Thung Nai, Halong Bay, Hue, Hoi An, Cu Chi Tunnels, Mekong Delta, Can Tho, some kayaking, and some cycling.
I’d originally booked a seven day trip with Ethnic Travel going to the north west of Vietnam, and taking in Mai Cha, Pu Luong, Son La, Dien Bien Phu and Sapa, but in the event I joined a group going to the north of the country, right up to the border with China, and taking in Dong Van, Meo Vac, Bao Lac, the Ban Gioc Waterfall and Ba Be lake. What a fascinating part of the world! Awe-inspiring scenery, colourful ethic minority people, and some very interesting stilt-houses for homestays.
At one point our van broke down and we piled onto scooters, three at a time, just like the locals. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many foods, especially fruits, that I couldn’t identify.
I hope you enjoy the video below, which details our wonderful trip.
This is a new travelogue of a recent trip to Bulgaria. Starting in Sofia, it features several places of interest, and then details day trips to Melnek, Plovdiv and Koprivshtitsa.
The World Stone Skimming Championship is an annual event that takes place on Easdale Island, in Argyll on the west coast of Scotland – a lovely part of the world. It’s an absolute hoot! Much fun and entertainment. Everyone is so friendly and it’s impossible not to have a good time. The event is great fun for all ages, with many children also taking part. My video above shows some of what happened during the 2019 Championships, which took place on 29th September.
The rules are fairly simple. Stones used for skimming must be formed Easdale slate and be not more than 3 inches at its widest point. Each contestant has 3 skims per session. The stone must bounce on the surface of the water no less than 2 times before being considered a valid skim, and must sink between the designated area. Essentially, everyone is trying to skim the furthest distance, and if you reach the ‘back wall’ you will get through to the ‘Toss-off’ final.
The 2019 men’s champion was Peter Szep, from Hungary. The women’s champion was Christina Bowen-Bravery, who is shown in my video.
A five day trip to the Isle of Barra, September 2019. Kayaking around Bàgh Bhreibhig. Cycling to Vatersay. Barra Airport.
Michael Herr, who authored Dispatches, is mentioned in The Cat from Huế which I reviewed in this blog a few weeks ago. Herr was a journalist who volunteered to go to Vietnam to cover the war. He effectively volunteered every time he got in a helicopter and was taken to a landing zone, as he could have turned around and walked away. To repeatedly put your life under threat when you don’t have to is a very strange thing to do. The ‘grunts’ knew this, and frequently asked Herr what he was doing in Vietnam. It was a question he found difficult to answer.
Herr writes in a unique style about the Vietnam War. It’s almost gonzo journalism, like that of Hunter S. Thompson. You can read many of the sentences once and they seem to make sense, but if you read them again, the flow of words is harder to comprehend. But parts are similar to how some in the military spoke in Vietnam, at that time. This is how he makes things authentic, and is part of the appeal of the book.
Herr, like John Laurence (author of The Cat from Huế) knew Sean Flynn, the son of Errol Flynn, who was a photojournalist in Vietnam. I believe that Herr, like Flynn, was one of the better correspondents. There were plenty of others who barely left the briefing rooms, or who simply repeated verbatim the military briefings in their reports. Herr, Burrows, Laurence, Keith Kay, Greenway and a few others ‘walked the walk’ (to quote that chap in Full Metal Jacket) and tried to report accurately what they saw. Sometimes they were hated by the grunts, and they all heard from officers words to the effect of ‘My Marines are winning this war, and you people are losing it for us in your papers’ (the war became very unpopular at home in the US). The correspondents saw that it was a pointless war, where the victims were too often civilians with no particular affiliation to either South Vietnam or North Vietnam, so how do you accurately report on that situation? What will the colleagues of a dead Marine in a body bag think of the photographer who takes a photo of the bag?
The western music played by correspondents and grunts was very distinct, and included songs by Creedence, Hendrix, Wilson Pickett, the Doors and the Grateful Dead.
All concerned had a macabre sense of what was going on in Vietnam, and this comes across well in Herr’s book.
Here’s a short video of our recent kayak trip around the north of Seil Island, on the west coast of Scotland. The weather was calm, but it was quite a cloudy day.
