Corto Maltese en route vers le Sai Gon

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I got the title for this blog entry from a postcard i picked up somewhere, although Corto Maltese was actually on his way to 'Cambodge'...I don'tknow much about the chap personally...from the postcard and what little i read online he sounds like an older, tougher,meaner and grizzlier version of tin-tin..

May 24th

Hi, hope everyone is well….

A while ago I bought a Honda Supercub. Now, it’s hardly Judge Dredd’s Lawmaster or a top trumps superbike favourite but for whizzing through the streets it’s pretty sweet. I had to custom built by a guy called Philip out in Saigon South…it’s a sweet matt olive green with a bigger engine than the usual cub…which means I get extra purchase on the long straights and little more than a cursory glance from the po-po. Although on the downside I get old blokes checking it out at places. The other week it took me nearly 15 minutes to get out of the racetrack, so intent were some old geezers at the gate on admiring/criticizing my bike.

It runs pretty good for an old bike although it did conk out on me not so long ago but fortunately I was at a bike rental place helping Dawn sort out some wheels now she’s arrived in Saigon and so Patrick basically gave me a shove through the traffic, it was a bit hairy to be honest because I had no control (does anyone really ever have control in this traffic?) as he pushed by sticking his foot on my pedal and riding his bike behind.

Riding in the city has been extra exciting recently because I’ve been seeing this woman who rides a nice shiny Honda click. It’s so quiet and effortless to ride it’s like moving around on a cloud. I got so carried away with enjoying riding it the other week I managed to ride off and leave Thuan stranded outside the restaurant shouting after me. On the down side, I got pulled over by two of the most least intimidating policemen I’ve ever met. Apparently I was in the wrong lane. As Thuan argued with one of them over ‘what could be done to make this indiscretion go away’, the other turned to me and, with his ‘I look about 15 years old’ smile and ill fitting uniform he started chatting to me as If he was selling coconuts to a tourist….

Then the following Sunday I went to a Jacuzzi party with some teachers from work…one of whom was hosting the party. I was pretty good…the place was really nice, massive rooftop garden with aforementioned Jacuzzi…One of the nice things about Saigon, for a foreigner earning a fair bit more than the national average is that places you could never afford to rent (or at least I could’t) are available to you…Having said that the house I share with Nick currently has enough cobwebs and dusty stairs to put Hammer Films to shame…

At some point during the time between this blog and the last,I I reconstruct this from barely legible keywords I’ve written in a notebook, I got tonsillitis and was the sickest I’ve been in years…my throat felt like I’d swallowed a cricket ball…

Towards the end of April I had a bunch of time off as a result of public holidays and gaps between courses ending and finishing…I went to Kuala Lumpur, which, whilst it was nice get away, I didn’t enjoy as much as I hoped. Sitting outside in the park shadowed by the Petronas towers was pretty sweet, you just can’t help but gaze up at them…I had some really nice Arabic food whilst I was there, but never really bothered investigating the Indian food which I’ve heard is really good there…partly because, well Indian food isn’t really that new to me and also because I had a dreadful cold the entire time I was there…I’d love to say that the city held up it’s delights to me, but in all honesty I found the MRT a pain in the arse, although a monorail is always a treat no matter how bunged up you may be…I still did stuff, had dinner at an amazing hotel with a great view of the city and managed to catch ‘Kick Ass’ at the cinema which was sweet as it doesn’t look likely to land at a Saigon muliplex anytime soon…I loved it by the way, it does as it’s title says…I’m sure KL has more to offer and I was happy to be away somewhere different, but It was nice to get back to HCMC…

Socially my life has been a bit up and down recently. Not so long ago I seemed to be going out a lot but in the past fortnight I seemed to have done nothing. I think this may be to do with the fact that I’ve been trying to save some cash, but also because I’ve been holed up catching up on dvd boxsets. Spartacus: Blood and Sand seemed to take up the past few days alone…what a truly ridiculous yet amazingly entertaining piece of TV gold that was…

A couple of weeks ago it was Nick’s birthday. We went to the driving range in the morning where Nick managed to let go of the club mid swing and nearly kill some Korean guy with the falling light said club smashed. The day ended up with some classic karaoke, my repertoire now including Billy Joel’s ‘An Innocent Man’, some Kenny Rogers and a lovely duet with Iris borrowed from Barry Manilow’s Mandy simply entitled ‘Iris’. It’s my second serious duet at karaoke, the first being ‘Father and Son’ which I sang with Fintan at the “Stephen Gately Memorial Karaoke Festival”.

A few weeks ago we had a fire at work. Nothing too serious but the corridors were filled with smoke (the alarm didn’t go off) and I had to shepherd 18 kids down the fire escape along with the other 150 kids or so who were at the school at the time. We were in the middle of an end of course party so all my kids were jacked up on candy. Still, made for an exciting end to the day and the kids didn’t seem to bothered about it. I think they are pretty stoical here. However they cry like babies when you send them out the class for bad behaviour. I don’t get it, when I was at school being sent out was a good thing to happen. My happiest time at primary school was spending a term with my desk in the corridor. It was sweet, you got your own desk and there were other kids sent there for the same reason.

Last week I went to see Robin Hood. It was entertaining enough but a bit too grim. Personally I’d have liked to see a little more Lincoln green and maybe an archery competition in it. Also, Alex was down shooting a TV ad for hand sanitizer, so it was nice to see her, show her around etc. The advert sounds great, she basically pretend to be Fay Wray and will only fall for King Kong is he cleans his hands.

Now I’m looking forward to the world cup and my holiday to Borneo.
So, until next time…come one England…

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