How to life an unfulfilling life

Day 85 - Hanoi

The bus back to Hanoi deposits me at 3AM and I stagger, dead-eyed, into bed. When was the last time I got eight hours sleep? Not for a while. But I've had four days of indisputable joy. Looking upon monuments to the meaning of life and swaying on tightropes where there was only forward, no turning back. To ride for hours along sheer drops and over unmade roads was surely beyond me. Until it wasn't, until I did. One of the best things I have ever done.

It seems like a worthy trade even though my brain in its deprivation pulls low speed turns like an over-cautious Thai driver (but only on turns mind). One of the problems with dorms...one of the several problems with dorms is that sleeping in requires the hibernation ability of a bear or an industrial quantity of alcohol. Lights flick on, ladders creak, people chat and zips move endlessly back and forth, I wake not entirely refreshed. Back in the city I feel that welcome anonymity after four days of enjoyable but relentless socialising. But the car horns are jarring and the heat is oppressive and in this stressed state of mind I decide to go and buy a laptop to replace the one so cruelly deprived of me three months earlier by unlucky idiocy. I find a shop on what appears to be Hanoi's equivalent of Tottenham Court Road and they have the one that I want. What follows is a convoluted process that involves me taking a piece of paper from one room to another room and swapping it for a different piece of paper that is then taken to the next room. After traversing 17 rooms (3) I make it to the payment room. On tenterhooks as they swipe my card I am relieved when it's not instantly blocked. Withdrawing 29,836,154 dong from an ATM might have been challenging. No-one should hold that many dongs in their hand. Flushed with success and lightened of money I return to my favourite bia hoi spot. In a low plastic chair I let the horns and bustle coalesce into a white noise that begins to sooth. The awesome stimulation of Ha Giang and this simple street corner bar both rank amongst my favourite experiences so far.

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The Duke

Pub review They say: "We came for a skittle on a Saturday night and they were very welcoming but you know how you hear about lizards ruling the world, the barstaff had a very lizardy look. Make your own mind up!" --Craig Savage 4/5 I say: 'The place where everybody knows your name' The claim is painted onto the wall and doesn't seem so outlandish on this chilly Tuesday night as there is no-one in the pub to know my name or not. Dry January? I can't imagine that's a thing around these parts. You don't keep over 30 pubs in business with virtuous gestures like that. It might be a Tuesday thing. Per usual I try to find a quiet corner with my beer, surely an easy task in an empty pub? Not so. Speakers hang from every nook and carpet the space in a thick fog of sound. It isn't even the usual autotuned pop/R&B dirge being vomited into my ears. That stuff I can confine to a background hum. Instead it's the pre-match commentary for the Brighto...

Sisyphean Airlines

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Angkor Whaaaaat?

Day 5 - Siem Reap With the water festival finished we has one more place to visit in Cambodia. Angkor Wat is an indisputable wonder of the world and the largest religious monument ever constructed. It sits within a temple complex covering 400km², the scale of which is impossible to adequately describe. Its towers seem to rise organically from the ground, the stone flowering from the earth into wonderfully symmetric form. Only modern capitalism and totalitarian hubris seem to inspire similar architectural endeavour as the gods did in the past. I don't necessarily agree with any of those ideologies and their human cost but religion's diminished power permits me a less coloured appreciation of its monuments. In the stone of Angkor Wat you see reflected the same desire for, and defiant belief in, permanence that runs through our species. I see it in the chiselled signage above the entrance to long dead banks and businesses in the City of London. The owners thought the gilded lobbi...

You don't have to mentally unstable to live here, but it helps...

Day 380 - Margaret River It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. It was a Tuesday, it was like any other. Me and the Cornish lads had slogged through another day on the vineyard and were driving home. I switched on my phone to check messages, my housemate Emily had text. All our stuff's on the street. Martina showdown. It had been building to this but with 3 days left before we left Margaret River she'd actually done it. Perhaps I should recap? The housing situation at Tunbridge Street had been deteriorating since, well, since I moved in really. I'd have to say that this was in spite of rather than because of my presence. I hadn't met the landlady before I took the room so my first contact with Martina was after wo...

The Hallmarks™ of civilisation

Day 9 - Bratislava Breakfast was taken in Hotel Sacher in Vienna, home of the famous Sacher Torte. I wouldn't ordinarily begin the day with cake but holidays do strange things to a person. Suitably tortified we jumped on a train for the second of our two day-trips, this time to Slovakia. I had preconceptions about the places that we'd been to so far, some based on personal experience others less so but Slovakia ranked as a genuine unknown. Having great affection for Prague and by extension the Czech Republic I suppose I wondered if the Velvet Revolution of 1989 had cleaved off the less desirable part into the eastern state. Luckily we three had established a means of determining the level of advancement of a place, thus - Question 1 - Does it have an Ikea? yes, we saw one from the train. Question 2 - Can you tour the place on a segway? yes, one was sitting outside a tourist office. Question 3 - From where you are standing can you see an H&M? ...oh Bratislava you were so...

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