One of the joys of foreign travel is conversations with people from different cultures and perspectives – locals and other travellers. However, we were a bit apprehensive about inevitable Brexit discussions as we travelled down the Italian peninsular and made a decision to leave Rome before the EU 60 yr. anniversary celebrations (as much for our own mental health as anything).
Category: Travel
A democratically elected leader of a 1st world country who came to power with no previous political experience having cobbled together a campaign team at short notice which then degenerated into infighting once in office.
‘These torturing hours of ascent seemed as though they could never end ……… the sun trampled overhead through sizzling and windless air. Feet became cannon-balls, loads turned to lead, hearts pounded, hands slipped on the handles of sticks and rivers of sweat streamed over burning faces and trickled into our mouths like brine. Why, we kept wondering, though too short of breath for talk, does one ever embark on these furious wrestling matches, these rib-cracking clinches with the sublime?’
Patrick Leigh Fermor, ‘Mani – Travels in the Southern Peloponnese’ (1958)
They say ‘ never go back’, but they also say ‘never say never!’ It’s hard to know what to do for the best sometimes and if you really want to grapple with the mixed messages in the genre that is our culture’s helpful sayings you can do no worse than Richard Hoggart ‘Uses of Literacy’ (1957) where the comedy of ‘too many cooks’ vs ‘many hands’ is explored in full.
Sue and I did go back – to the Sporades in the northern Aegean after 36 years, and in doing so felt that we were risking a fair bit as the previous trip had been huge for us – our first big holiday together and one which very much cemented our relationship. We both have very fond memories of the summer long adventure and of the islands – so would a return so many years later prove to be a huge disappointment and worse, would it contaminate our precious memories?
Our family, and many of our friends and their families, have regularly camped in the summer holidays on a small, family run, campsite on the north coast of the Llyn peninsular in North Wales. Earlier this month Sue and I were camping there, where we met Simon from Shropshire who reminisced about the years that he and his wife Jane had been coming to the site. Simon was particularly keen to recall the evening football matches that took place in ‘the top field’ in the late 80s / early 90s – ‘England v Wales, often 40 a side,men and boys …. men and boys!’
We routinely camped in a different field and our children were too young to be involved in these matches – but it was impossible not be aware of them.
The following is based on memories of actual events ……..
It was our last morning in Hanoi and Sue and I wanted to revisit the early morning public t’ai chi sessions around Hoan Kiem Lake that we had witnessed in the rain five days previously. We left our small hotel in a quiet side street in the Old Quarter just after dawn and made our way through deserted streets to the lake. We commented on how easy it was to walk the streets when there were very few mopeds about – either on the streets or parked on the pavements.
Everyone who has been to South East Asia talks about the traffic in the cities and old hands caution that this is something that travellers have to get to grips with. Guide books are clear about the optimum approach for pedestrians – to walk slowly across the road at a constant pace thus allowing vehicles to weave round you – to suddenly stop or run in response to fear of collisions is to be avoided as these are likely to cause the very problems you are seeking to prevent. This sounds bad enough to a westerner who is used to more regulated traffic system (as you are putting your safety entirely in the hands of others) but the reality is much more complex and challenging!
Where do you start?
Well virtually anywhere on the network – Da Nang? Hanoi? – the trains are the same, long lines of carriages pulled slowly along by huge work-a-day diesel units, no streamlined euro trains these! Passengers gradually assemble in large echoey station waiting rooms and are entertained by Vietnamese soaps at high volume until the gates are opened and everyone streams out across the tracks to hunt down their carriage, conscious of large machines moving in the dark as engines are changed with much clanging and not a little shouting.
