Blogs from Da Nang , South Central Coast, Vietnam, Asia - page 4

2016. So it all passed by with barely a memory worth saving.....like after the big meteor strike of 65 mil years ago....huge fucking hole, clouds over the entire planet and a pile of dead dinosaurs...but, other than that, nothing much to show! Sitting out front of my house. watching the world go by, as the sun fades and the street light takes over, the long shadow and squeaky wheels approach, it's the old woman who sells deep fried (in sump oil I suspect) battered bananas, the little cart is so fucking rickety I'm almost going to offer her a hand but that would be met with either fear and trembling or a job that would have me pushing her little cart 3kms across town, I stay put. She battles womanfully to negotiate the potholes and cracks, ... read more

They call it stormy Monday....and Tuesday's just as bad.....It was a very stormy Monday, windy and persisting down rain all day...unusually so....crossing Tran Thi Ly bridge where last week the repercussion of thunder claps over my shoulder bowled me across 3 lanes, last night I was blown across 3 lanes, water gushing, plastic poncho billowing out like Michellin man....the rubber-to-road ratio of a bald-tyred 125 Honda is scary......and then smacked in the head by a huge moth.....Sister, did you see the size of the balls on that moth?....it was Mothra....it was Behemothra...how was it surviving in this weather? A special specie of bad weather moth? Of course the forecast....I believe here we only have postcasts....was for a really big storm on Tuesday....didn't they notice it was here...now...Monday?....So they ordered all the schools closed on Tuesday....Although it ... read more

So, how many blogees, still staring at vacant screens....waiting for some more billshit from faraway?.....once more, with feeling, into the breech....Thit Vit Tit Tet - meat, duck, breast, lunar NY. Yes, I cooked a duck breast for Tet...and it's taken me 3 months to remember to write about it.....maybe 7? Now I'm living in Da Nang, it is so peaceful. It's only at times like this (I'm in Saigon for a couple of days....not) that I realise just how much easier it is to live there. Clean air, great beaches, cheap everything, indescribable array of seafood and such friendly people, no traffic to speak of, bicycle friendly, best business environment in VN, infrastructure, well, what can you say? And, every 2 years, the international fireworks comp. On the downside....hmmmm......some western tucker is harder to find, no ... read more

Spent a very pleasant morning strolling about the Nguyen imperial palaces, built between 1803 - 1844 or thereabouts. It is not old by any means but they lived according to Confucian rules and hierarchies which meant that the emporer was entirely removed from his subjects, with his mandarins to take care of affairs of state and his many wives and concubines to keep him happy. They could easily have been living a thousand years earlier such was the dress and ceremony and the rules and regulations covering every aspect of government and every day life. Hue is a very elegant city, with the Song Huang, or Perfume river, running through the centre. They have really nice tree-lined parks running the length of the river as it winds through the city, and with mountains in the distance ... read more