Monday 4th January 2010, 10.35pm, Phuong Thanh Guest House - Dalat
One thing I have learnt on my travels so far is to remember that someone else's opinion on a place is always just their opinion. Even his Lordship the Lonely Planet is only a collection of opinions by whichever travel writers were sent to be the intrepid explorers of that destination. I'd heard many mixed reviews on Mui Ne before boarding the bus there from Saigon on Saturday morning; from the glowing, 'great beach resort, best kite surfing in Asia - a must', to the damning, 'smells bad, dirty water, nothing to do there - bypass', both of these critiques from friends whose opinions I value. In the spirit of discovery and adventure, and wanting to be able to add my own critique to the pile for future travellers' reference, I took the advice of the former friend and hopped on down to Mui Ne, on Vietnam's South Eastern coast.
I can wholeheartedly agree with him on two things, number one: the sand is 7km long, cotton wool soft under aching, pavement pounding city feet, sunshine yellow and spread wide from the beach bars to the frothy surf - it's a great beach resort. Number two: if you like kite surfing, you will REALLY like Mui Ne. Approaching the beach on the afternoon we arrived I told Ella that I felt like an extra in that scene at the end of Mary Poppins. A somewhat redundant extra however, standing open-mouthed and staring at the daredevils on surfboards being pulled 10 metres above the waves by the roaring wind filling the kites attached to their waists by harnesses. Watching other people kite surf is fun for about an hour (N.B. positive frame of mind and breezy disposition necessary to last whole 60 minutes). It was kind of the Mary Poppins equivalent of being cast as a chimney sweep and being made to stand out the way on the roof while everyone else flies their damn kite...'up to the highest heights!'.
Nevertheless I am neither brave nor patient enough to be dragged through rough seas on the back of a foam plank by a glorified piece of tarpaulin and Mother Nature's wrath. So we gave kite surfing a miss. After spending that evening in bars full of 'kite surf bums' - I'm not being derogatory, this is what they have cheerily termed themselves - I was even more relieved to have not plumped for lessons that afternoon. I don't like to generalise, but I'm human, and we do, so I will... kite surfers are dull, or stoned, or both. They do not understand why anyone would want to live anywhere other than the beach getting tossed around like a ragdoll for 8 hours a day. They dress like a 10 year old Avril Lavigne fan who has spent the entirety of his school summer holidays perfecting skateboard tricks on the kerb outside his house. They also have over inflated confidence in their attractiveness to the opposite sex and react with visible shock and puzzlement if told by two astute, streetwise, city-dwelling girls 'No thanks mate.' Clearly I will not be marrying in to kite surfing stock any time soon. I'd rather eat my own hand.
Anyway, these matters aside, I didn't like Mui Ne. Not because I'm rubbish at water sports, or because the men had ego dysmorphia issues, it just didn't suit me. My attitude and Mui Ne's atmosphere travel on parallel paths in opposite directions - we were just never going to meet in the middle, not even to pass each other by and exchange pleasantries. Incidentally Ella concurs with my dislike of Mui Ne, as my second friend correctly observed, there is nothing to do there. The main problem I would say it has is that it doesn't know what it wants to be or who it wants to cater for, lack of focus has made it directionless so that it floats adrift amongst a sea of other nearby beach resorts who know and play to their market, it has a little bit for everyone but not much of anything for anyone. Hey, that's only my humble opinion though.
On our second evening there the two of us were so disheartened with the place that we avoided going out altogether. Ella was missing a friend from home and had promised this girl to find a lookalike for her on our night out and take a photo. Having failed on her mission the previous evening, I offered to be made up as Ella's friend and have my picture taken. So we spent some time playing fancy dress, we took "comedy" photos of me throwing my hair straighteners in the bin (they are the size of a pencil and unsurprisingly, on trying them out for the first time that evening, we discovered that even at 200°C, they made precisely zero difference to the current state of my untameable locks, they are still in afore-mentioned bin), we fussed about examining our clothes and jewellery, we de-matted Ella's windswept tresses, we danced around to MGMT, we filed our nails, we gossiped about boys (the good, the bad and the ugly) and then to top off our evening of self-made entertainment I went to the mini-mart, bought us Coca Cola and Oreos, and we sat in bed and watched the X Files movie. Slumber Parties R' Us. We both secretly yet thoroughly relished having a little temper tantrum over our disappointment in the place, had a giggle later about the way we had seized the first opportunity in over a month to find a viable excuse for said temper tantrum that wasn't hair related, and we created our own fun. Despite not being Mui Ne aficionados, we definitely managed to enjoy ourselves.
You know what, it's alright that I didn't particularly like it there, there's no rule that says you have to love every place you visit (jeez, I've lived in Essex for 23 years, there's not even a rule that says you have to love where you live) but I think there is a duty that I give everywhere I can a chance. I don't know when I will next be lucky enough, if ever, to find myself in Vietnam again, and what if Mui Ne and it's arrogant young bums had been my Mecca, my home from home, and I'd not bothered to give it the benefit of the doubt? Friends' valued critiques are helpful, but not your own, and if you don't get on the bus with an open mind and eager feet then you will only ever have other people's opinions to talk about, you will only ever speak with someone else's voice. And that would make you even less interesting than a kite surfer*.
*In the spirit of anti-generalisation I would like to offer my sincere apologies to any kite surfing enthusiasts reading this who may be neither dull nor stoned. Congrats, you broke the mould.
Friday, 8 January 2010
Blame It On Zac Efron
Sunday 3rd January 2010, 4pm, Hai Ten Swimming Pool - Mui Ne
I have a confession to make. Actually no, I retract that last statement. We have a confession to make, Ella and I, I will not shoulder the recriminations for this on my own. On the 1st January, our last day in the wonderful Ho Chi Minh City, we spent a large portion of the afternoon and evening (OK, OK, most of the day) watching television in our hotel room. There is a good reason for this, and that reason is Channel 'V'. In some instances a music channel, a chart show, but also a broadcaster of live gigs and a coverer of fashion week catwalks, Channel 'V' is hypnotic television at it's most entrancing. As we have found to our detriment, once you turn it on you are powerless and mesmerised by it's shiny MTV-wannabe gloss. Pretty Asian teenagers with faux Americanised accents enthusiastically announce the next music video in front of pop art print holographic green screens and what can we do but pay attention?! I quite like Shakira, but I'm no mega fan, and yet the other day I watched a whole Shakira concert because Channel 'V' told me to. One night we accidentally on purpose happened to find channel 54, got into bed eyes glued to 'V' TV, and then realised about 30 minutes later that we hadn't uttered a word to each other since we got in; 'V' doesn't want you to talk to your friends, it just wants you to waaaaaaatch......
After spending a hefty majority of the first day of the year paralysed and gaping at the screen we decided that enough was enough. We dragged our hungover, sleepy selves out of bed, away from Channel 'V', and reclaimed our lives by going for dinner at an Italian restaurant in town. Maybe it is worth admitting at this point that the only reason we went for an Italian is because a commercial on 'V' showed someone eating a bowl of spaghetti and instantaneously we both exclaimed 'Ooh, Pasta!'. We are an advertiser's dream. One pizza, one plate of Carbonara and a couple of glasses of red wine later we congratulated ourselves on having made it back on to Saigon's streets one last time before our bus the next morning. Self-redeemed and rather pleased with our progress we strolled through the alleys that form the backstage of Ho Chi Minh's theatrical playground, home to our beds... and our TV.
Where I am glad to report that we did not turn on channel 54, thereby carefully avoiding 'V'; our lover and our nemesis. Travelling has clearly bestowed Ella and I with refined taste in all things televised because instead of Shakira concerts, Asian boy bands and the Spring/Summer 2010 Prada show, we stumbled across the Disney Channel, and in guilty, conspiratorial silence spent an hour or so of our lives watching High School Musical 2. I must try from this point on to no longer watch TV in Asia, my judgement has been seriously clouded by lack of British comedy (oh why don't they have Peep Show out here?!), 'V's' tacky and garish Hello Kitty graphics and saccharine sweet offbeat offerings, and of course, in part, by the loveliness of Zac Efron's face.
I have a confession to make. Actually no, I retract that last statement. We have a confession to make, Ella and I, I will not shoulder the recriminations for this on my own. On the 1st January, our last day in the wonderful Ho Chi Minh City, we spent a large portion of the afternoon and evening (OK, OK, most of the day) watching television in our hotel room. There is a good reason for this, and that reason is Channel 'V'. In some instances a music channel, a chart show, but also a broadcaster of live gigs and a coverer of fashion week catwalks, Channel 'V' is hypnotic television at it's most entrancing. As we have found to our detriment, once you turn it on you are powerless and mesmerised by it's shiny MTV-wannabe gloss. Pretty Asian teenagers with faux Americanised accents enthusiastically announce the next music video in front of pop art print holographic green screens and what can we do but pay attention?! I quite like Shakira, but I'm no mega fan, and yet the other day I watched a whole Shakira concert because Channel 'V' told me to. One night we accidentally on purpose happened to find channel 54, got into bed eyes glued to 'V' TV, and then realised about 30 minutes later that we hadn't uttered a word to each other since we got in; 'V' doesn't want you to talk to your friends, it just wants you to waaaaaaatch......
After spending a hefty majority of the first day of the year paralysed and gaping at the screen we decided that enough was enough. We dragged our hungover, sleepy selves out of bed, away from Channel 'V', and reclaimed our lives by going for dinner at an Italian restaurant in town. Maybe it is worth admitting at this point that the only reason we went for an Italian is because a commercial on 'V' showed someone eating a bowl of spaghetti and instantaneously we both exclaimed 'Ooh, Pasta!'. We are an advertiser's dream. One pizza, one plate of Carbonara and a couple of glasses of red wine later we congratulated ourselves on having made it back on to Saigon's streets one last time before our bus the next morning. Self-redeemed and rather pleased with our progress we strolled through the alleys that form the backstage of Ho Chi Minh's theatrical playground, home to our beds... and our TV.
Where I am glad to report that we did not turn on channel 54, thereby carefully avoiding 'V'; our lover and our nemesis. Travelling has clearly bestowed Ella and I with refined taste in all things televised because instead of Shakira concerts, Asian boy bands and the Spring/Summer 2010 Prada show, we stumbled across the Disney Channel, and in guilty, conspiratorial silence spent an hour or so of our lives watching High School Musical 2. I must try from this point on to no longer watch TV in Asia, my judgement has been seriously clouded by lack of British comedy (oh why don't they have Peep Show out here?!), 'V's' tacky and garish Hello Kitty graphics and saccharine sweet offbeat offerings, and of course, in part, by the loveliness of Zac Efron's face.
Friday, 1 January 2010
The First and Last Days
Friday 1st January 2010, 11.40am, Bobby Brewers Coffee House, De Tham Street - Ho Chi Minh City
On the first day of 2009 I was with a group of 10 or so of my best friends, visiting them in Canterbury. I'd taken a week off work and went for a mini-break to see them in their home town. It was a gloriously lazy and decadent week of pub lunches, river walks, horror movie afternoons, SingStar karaoke, communal cooking efforts, vintage clothes shopping, You Tube surfing, espresso and Marlboro Lights on the cobbles, Moroccan restaurant dining, and of course a New Year's Eve party that culminated in the lot of us sprawled out on the lounge floor at 7 in the morning listening to Sia and Elliot Smith, drunkenly professing undying love and friendship (I.D.S.T.). One of my friend's put some photos from that week up on facebook and entitled the album 'The Reason 2009 Will Be OK'. That stuck with me because I knew how right he was, whatever 2009 threw at us we'd still have each other. This turned out to be more vital to me than I could have realised at the time, 2009 bringing the cancers of betrayal, heartache, stress, depression and illness to parts of my life and to those closest to me. But you know what, 2009 was OK! In fact, without deconstructing the specifics, 2009 held a lot of joy and good fortune for me. Sure there were some pretty awful downs (June in particular can kiss my arse and go to hell) but there were also some fantastic highs because of the people that surrounded me. My friends and family, as Dan correctly predicted, made everything just A-OK.
If somebody had told me on the first day of 2009 as I was cushioned safely in the bosom of love that true friendship provides, that in a year's time I would be sitting in a coffee shop in Vietnam, thousands of miles from all the people that have been integral to my enjoyment, and sometimes survival of life, I would have balked at the idea (and probably thrown up a little bit). Yet here I am.
New Year's Eve in Saigon was what can only be described as SPECTACULAR. Firstly, I have never seen anywhere so decorated. I said to Ella that it was as though someone on the Street Care team at Ho Chi Minh City Council opened a cupboard at work and found 10 billion fairy lights, 5 million multi-coloured balloons, a million Vietnamese flags and thought 'what are we gonna do with this lot?! Oh fuck it, let's put 'em all up.' Traffic came to a standstill, the streets were packed back-to-back with human bodies of numerous nationalities, music from competing bars blared from huge speakers erected on street corners, the confetti and spray foam sellers had the best sales figures of their lives, strobe lights illuminated the sky and at midnight everyone embraced and danced and cheered - it was the photo opportunity of Chinese tourists' dreams.
Ella and I covered ourselves in glitter and went to the Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theatre earlier on in the evening which was hilariously entertaining and simultaneously baffling (are the puppeteers under the water wearing scuba suits and oxygen tanks on their backs we pondered?!) before meeting Hitan, a friend we'd made in Sihanoukville, plus two heart-breakingly gorgeous Swedish girls who we had met the previous day on a tour of the Mekong Delta. The Delta tour consisted of eating coconut candy, rowing through canals in wooden kayaks wearing cone-shaped straw hats, listening to local musicians over honey tea, taking in the scenery from a river barge, and for me only... getting lost on an island jungle walk, jumping out the way of a large black snake, being chased by an angry territorial dog, and then hitching a ride with a Mekong local on her motorbike back to the confines of the tour group! Ella was sensible and had cycled round the island with the rest of the group rather than playing Indiana Jones like yours truly, and while I was having 'real cultural experiences' she had got chatting to the beautiful Kattis and Emelie, thereby recruiting fellow NYE revellers for the next evening.
So that was how I spent my last days of 2009, a year that I am partly relieved to see the back of, but mostly grateful for - it was the year that showed me what I am capable of facing with the unwaveringly loyal aid of those that love me, and safe in the knowledge of their unconditional steadfast support, 2009 gave me the courage to leave them. I'm here having the time of my life, and in spite of distance, they are there for me as I for them - this is the reason 2010 will be OK.
On the first day of 2009 I was with a group of 10 or so of my best friends, visiting them in Canterbury. I'd taken a week off work and went for a mini-break to see them in their home town. It was a gloriously lazy and decadent week of pub lunches, river walks, horror movie afternoons, SingStar karaoke, communal cooking efforts, vintage clothes shopping, You Tube surfing, espresso and Marlboro Lights on the cobbles, Moroccan restaurant dining, and of course a New Year's Eve party that culminated in the lot of us sprawled out on the lounge floor at 7 in the morning listening to Sia and Elliot Smith, drunkenly professing undying love and friendship (I.D.S.T.). One of my friend's put some photos from that week up on facebook and entitled the album 'The Reason 2009 Will Be OK'. That stuck with me because I knew how right he was, whatever 2009 threw at us we'd still have each other. This turned out to be more vital to me than I could have realised at the time, 2009 bringing the cancers of betrayal, heartache, stress, depression and illness to parts of my life and to those closest to me. But you know what, 2009 was OK! In fact, without deconstructing the specifics, 2009 held a lot of joy and good fortune for me. Sure there were some pretty awful downs (June in particular can kiss my arse and go to hell) but there were also some fantastic highs because of the people that surrounded me. My friends and family, as Dan correctly predicted, made everything just A-OK.
If somebody had told me on the first day of 2009 as I was cushioned safely in the bosom of love that true friendship provides, that in a year's time I would be sitting in a coffee shop in Vietnam, thousands of miles from all the people that have been integral to my enjoyment, and sometimes survival of life, I would have balked at the idea (and probably thrown up a little bit). Yet here I am.
New Year's Eve in Saigon was what can only be described as SPECTACULAR. Firstly, I have never seen anywhere so decorated. I said to Ella that it was as though someone on the Street Care team at Ho Chi Minh City Council opened a cupboard at work and found 10 billion fairy lights, 5 million multi-coloured balloons, a million Vietnamese flags and thought 'what are we gonna do with this lot?! Oh fuck it, let's put 'em all up.' Traffic came to a standstill, the streets were packed back-to-back with human bodies of numerous nationalities, music from competing bars blared from huge speakers erected on street corners, the confetti and spray foam sellers had the best sales figures of their lives, strobe lights illuminated the sky and at midnight everyone embraced and danced and cheered - it was the photo opportunity of Chinese tourists' dreams.
Ella and I covered ourselves in glitter and went to the Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theatre earlier on in the evening which was hilariously entertaining and simultaneously baffling (are the puppeteers under the water wearing scuba suits and oxygen tanks on their backs we pondered?!) before meeting Hitan, a friend we'd made in Sihanoukville, plus two heart-breakingly gorgeous Swedish girls who we had met the previous day on a tour of the Mekong Delta. The Delta tour consisted of eating coconut candy, rowing through canals in wooden kayaks wearing cone-shaped straw hats, listening to local musicians over honey tea, taking in the scenery from a river barge, and for me only... getting lost on an island jungle walk, jumping out the way of a large black snake, being chased by an angry territorial dog, and then hitching a ride with a Mekong local on her motorbike back to the confines of the tour group! Ella was sensible and had cycled round the island with the rest of the group rather than playing Indiana Jones like yours truly, and while I was having 'real cultural experiences' she had got chatting to the beautiful Kattis and Emelie, thereby recruiting fellow NYE revellers for the next evening.
So that was how I spent my last days of 2009, a year that I am partly relieved to see the back of, but mostly grateful for - it was the year that showed me what I am capable of facing with the unwaveringly loyal aid of those that love me, and safe in the knowledge of their unconditional steadfast support, 2009 gave me the courage to leave them. I'm here having the time of my life, and in spite of distance, they are there for me as I for them - this is the reason 2010 will be OK.
Coming Home To Ho Chi Minh
Wednesday 3oth December 2009, 11pm, Bui Vien Street Bar - Ho Chi Minh City
I'm going to write about something which I guess is quite personal to me, it feels pertinent to talk about it today. I won't censor myself for fear of what others will think of me as this is my blog after all, and if I don't write about it then this entry will only be half the story, and these days I'm looking for completeness.
When I was 16 I spent a portion of my summer holiday living and working in an orphanage in Kenya. The orphanage was on a farm (called 'Graceland' as it happens) in the remote Kenyan countryside on a hilltop overlooking the Rift Valley with views of Mount Kenya. The area was relatively secure but we were told not to walk too far on our own especially at night, tribal gangs being an unlikely but still possible threat to our safety. But I was 16, disobedient, and having the most incredible experience of my life to that date, so one evening at dusk I went a-wandering. I found myself at the far Western corner of the land, looking up at the Water Tower - a wooden platform resembling a raft that was home to a huge water tank, perched precariously on 4 wooden stilts with a shoddily built bamboo ladder of about 100 steps going up to the platform, 30 feet or so in the air; and I climbed it. I don't know what possessed me really, not much thought went in to it at the time other than 'I want to sit up there', it was an utterly spontaneous and probably careless thing to do. One of the more worthwhile stupid decisions of my life though. The sky was blanketed with stars, the far horizon on the plains still aubergine purple from the touch of the sunken sun, the moon was so close you could make out the craters, the smell of smokey African dust was in the air, Elephants were calling to each other in the forest, and the sprawling Kenyan wilderness is still the most beautiful landscape my eyes have had the fortune of looking upon, I was alone in silence with the wonders of the natural world at my feet. It literally took my breath away, I was quite tearful but never more at peace, I felt like I'd been given an intravenous shot of adrenalin or Prozac or Ecstasy or Holy Spirit or whatever you want to call it... liquid happy.
If you have ever felt that you truly belong somewhere, that you've come home to a home you've never known before, that there was a specific place in the world that revealed itself to you and showed you where you should have been all along, 'Surprise! Here I have been waiting for you and at last you've found me!' then you may have some inkling as to how I felt that evening. Frequently miserable, always troubled and far too self-critical and introspective to be healthy, a 16 year old Grace on top of the Water Tower had no memory of previous pain in her heart, worry in her head or weight on her chest. If someone had told me I could have flown off the top of that platform I would have jumped and trusted that wings would sprout from my back. I was up there maybe 20 minutes, maybe an hour, I don't know, but I eventually had to come down after a couple of concerned grown-ups in our party realised I was missing and sent the Kenyan guards armed with bows and arrows to search for me - everyone was cross with me for scaring them and for endangering myself by going up the ladder, but I couldn't find it in me to care too much about that.
So why have I chosen to share this now, having only told a handful of friends about it in the 7 years since it happened? It is because, albeit in a less dramatic way, I feel like that again. I've not had the perspective altering thunderbolt of a moment that I did in Kenya, but definitely a gradual realisation that I've come home - because the concept of 'home' is changing for me. I think I've hit my stride, I've been travelling for over a month now and suddenly feel like I've found my feet. Having been a backpacker virgin and strictly a 2 week summer holiday kind of a girl, my soles are now inexorably glued to my Havaianas, my hair doesn't remember what it felt like to be straight, I have all manner of beads and trinkets and wicker bangles adorning my wrist, and I'm nearly always wearing something cotton and creased. But of course it's much more than the change in my physical appearance, although numerous friends have told me that that they've never seen my face so mellow as in recent photos (my mouth seems to settle into a smile more easily now I think).
I've realised, apart from how much I hate my hair, that I can make anywhere a home, temporary stays in big cities no longer feel like tourist excursions. I live here, I live in Ho Chi Minh City. Since Sunday evening I have been a resident and it feels as natural for me to be here as it would anywhere else in the world, and why shouldn't it? I drink black, muddy ice coffee in the morning at a roadside cafe, I jump on and off motorbike taxis that navigate their way through the mazes of city back alleys, I eat egg noodle soup and pak choi spring rolls and coconut pastries from street vendor carts, I ask for prices in Dong not Dollar, I lie and read in the grassy shade of the palace garden, I sip rice wine and play with street children and gossip with shop girls and read the local paper and only ever say 'thank you' in Vietnamese. Whilst Ella was fast asleep in bed this morning I got up, threw on another crumpled linen trouser and vest combination, scraped my poor old curly mop of hair into a scarf (for one of my friend's at home - it's not a scarf, it's the dreaded 'head snood' we laughed about at dinner!) and went wandering round the town, skipping on and off the broken pavement, dodging the endless stream of 2 wheeled traffic flooding through the Pham Ngu Lao district and tried to assimilate myself into the city, becoming just another stitch sewn into the patchwork of Saigon.
It's like Kenya in that it's home but no home I've ever known before. It's louder, faster, busier, smellier, more buzzing and endlessly 24/7 frenetic than any of the world cities I've ever seen. Ho Chi Minh is a 10 year old boy with attention span problems who's just eaten a packet of Skittles, Ho Chi Minh makes London look like a retired 60 year old with arthritis who spends his days tending the garden, Ho Chi Minh is Bangkok's more boisterous younger brother who stays up after lights out and jumps on his bed. Ella remarked to me that it feels cozy here, despite the pace and noise of the place. I know exactly what she means, almost as though there is a ceiling on the city - everything is so close and contained - the aromas of street cooking and trash cans invade your nostrils, the humidity sticks to your skin, the motorbikes run over your toes, there are always a hundred things to look at directly in front of your eyes, and the locals are tactile and touchable; in a city of 10 million people and 4 million motorbikes they've not had much cause for learning about 'personal space'.
Ho Chi Minh is a personal space though, crammed full to the invisible lid with the sweetness and the stench of human life - a city made of people not of buildings, of community next to commerce. Maybe this is why it feels like a home to me, because one more human being (even one with such outrageously large curly hair as mine) can go relatively unnoticed as she merrily potters about town with an inane grin on her face. The city has carried me with it, woven me into it's kaleidoscopic quilt. Never has it felt so good to be anonymous, it is a privilege to be one faceless thread when the whole tapestry is as rich as this. A couple of weeks ago one of my oldest and dearest friends sent me an e-mail and one sentence read 'I'm really hoping you find your Water Tower moment, some inner peace.' Well my darling, more and more right now, even in what has to be the busiest city on earth, I feel very peaceful indeed. As at home here as if I were back in my beloved Kenya, sat with my wings resting on my back, on a raft 30 feet in the sky.
I'm going to write about something which I guess is quite personal to me, it feels pertinent to talk about it today. I won't censor myself for fear of what others will think of me as this is my blog after all, and if I don't write about it then this entry will only be half the story, and these days I'm looking for completeness.
When I was 16 I spent a portion of my summer holiday living and working in an orphanage in Kenya. The orphanage was on a farm (called 'Graceland' as it happens) in the remote Kenyan countryside on a hilltop overlooking the Rift Valley with views of Mount Kenya. The area was relatively secure but we were told not to walk too far on our own especially at night, tribal gangs being an unlikely but still possible threat to our safety. But I was 16, disobedient, and having the most incredible experience of my life to that date, so one evening at dusk I went a-wandering. I found myself at the far Western corner of the land, looking up at the Water Tower - a wooden platform resembling a raft that was home to a huge water tank, perched precariously on 4 wooden stilts with a shoddily built bamboo ladder of about 100 steps going up to the platform, 30 feet or so in the air; and I climbed it. I don't know what possessed me really, not much thought went in to it at the time other than 'I want to sit up there', it was an utterly spontaneous and probably careless thing to do. One of the more worthwhile stupid decisions of my life though. The sky was blanketed with stars, the far horizon on the plains still aubergine purple from the touch of the sunken sun, the moon was so close you could make out the craters, the smell of smokey African dust was in the air, Elephants were calling to each other in the forest, and the sprawling Kenyan wilderness is still the most beautiful landscape my eyes have had the fortune of looking upon, I was alone in silence with the wonders of the natural world at my feet. It literally took my breath away, I was quite tearful but never more at peace, I felt like I'd been given an intravenous shot of adrenalin or Prozac or Ecstasy or Holy Spirit or whatever you want to call it... liquid happy.
If you have ever felt that you truly belong somewhere, that you've come home to a home you've never known before, that there was a specific place in the world that revealed itself to you and showed you where you should have been all along, 'Surprise! Here I have been waiting for you and at last you've found me!' then you may have some inkling as to how I felt that evening. Frequently miserable, always troubled and far too self-critical and introspective to be healthy, a 16 year old Grace on top of the Water Tower had no memory of previous pain in her heart, worry in her head or weight on her chest. If someone had told me I could have flown off the top of that platform I would have jumped and trusted that wings would sprout from my back. I was up there maybe 20 minutes, maybe an hour, I don't know, but I eventually had to come down after a couple of concerned grown-ups in our party realised I was missing and sent the Kenyan guards armed with bows and arrows to search for me - everyone was cross with me for scaring them and for endangering myself by going up the ladder, but I couldn't find it in me to care too much about that.
So why have I chosen to share this now, having only told a handful of friends about it in the 7 years since it happened? It is because, albeit in a less dramatic way, I feel like that again. I've not had the perspective altering thunderbolt of a moment that I did in Kenya, but definitely a gradual realisation that I've come home - because the concept of 'home' is changing for me. I think I've hit my stride, I've been travelling for over a month now and suddenly feel like I've found my feet. Having been a backpacker virgin and strictly a 2 week summer holiday kind of a girl, my soles are now inexorably glued to my Havaianas, my hair doesn't remember what it felt like to be straight, I have all manner of beads and trinkets and wicker bangles adorning my wrist, and I'm nearly always wearing something cotton and creased. But of course it's much more than the change in my physical appearance, although numerous friends have told me that that they've never seen my face so mellow as in recent photos (my mouth seems to settle into a smile more easily now I think).
I've realised, apart from how much I hate my hair, that I can make anywhere a home, temporary stays in big cities no longer feel like tourist excursions. I live here, I live in Ho Chi Minh City. Since Sunday evening I have been a resident and it feels as natural for me to be here as it would anywhere else in the world, and why shouldn't it? I drink black, muddy ice coffee in the morning at a roadside cafe, I jump on and off motorbike taxis that navigate their way through the mazes of city back alleys, I eat egg noodle soup and pak choi spring rolls and coconut pastries from street vendor carts, I ask for prices in Dong not Dollar, I lie and read in the grassy shade of the palace garden, I sip rice wine and play with street children and gossip with shop girls and read the local paper and only ever say 'thank you' in Vietnamese. Whilst Ella was fast asleep in bed this morning I got up, threw on another crumpled linen trouser and vest combination, scraped my poor old curly mop of hair into a scarf (for one of my friend's at home - it's not a scarf, it's the dreaded 'head snood' we laughed about at dinner!) and went wandering round the town, skipping on and off the broken pavement, dodging the endless stream of 2 wheeled traffic flooding through the Pham Ngu Lao district and tried to assimilate myself into the city, becoming just another stitch sewn into the patchwork of Saigon.
It's like Kenya in that it's home but no home I've ever known before. It's louder, faster, busier, smellier, more buzzing and endlessly 24/7 frenetic than any of the world cities I've ever seen. Ho Chi Minh is a 10 year old boy with attention span problems who's just eaten a packet of Skittles, Ho Chi Minh makes London look like a retired 60 year old with arthritis who spends his days tending the garden, Ho Chi Minh is Bangkok's more boisterous younger brother who stays up after lights out and jumps on his bed. Ella remarked to me that it feels cozy here, despite the pace and noise of the place. I know exactly what she means, almost as though there is a ceiling on the city - everything is so close and contained - the aromas of street cooking and trash cans invade your nostrils, the humidity sticks to your skin, the motorbikes run over your toes, there are always a hundred things to look at directly in front of your eyes, and the locals are tactile and touchable; in a city of 10 million people and 4 million motorbikes they've not had much cause for learning about 'personal space'.
Ho Chi Minh is a personal space though, crammed full to the invisible lid with the sweetness and the stench of human life - a city made of people not of buildings, of community next to commerce. Maybe this is why it feels like a home to me, because one more human being (even one with such outrageously large curly hair as mine) can go relatively unnoticed as she merrily potters about town with an inane grin on her face. The city has carried me with it, woven me into it's kaleidoscopic quilt. Never has it felt so good to be anonymous, it is a privilege to be one faceless thread when the whole tapestry is as rich as this. A couple of weeks ago one of my oldest and dearest friends sent me an e-mail and one sentence read 'I'm really hoping you find your Water Tower moment, some inner peace.' Well my darling, more and more right now, even in what has to be the busiest city on earth, I feel very peaceful indeed. As at home here as if I were back in my beloved Kenya, sat with my wings resting on my back, on a raft 30 feet in the sky.
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Waving Anonymity
Tuesday 29th December 2009, 1pm, Dam Sen Water Park, Saigon - Vietnam
I have never seen so may Asian children in my entire life. In fact, scrap that, I have never seen so many children in my entire life. There must be a hundred thousand of them here, 100,000 little Vietnamese faces having the time of their life - school groups and birthday parties, family outings and coach trips full of children, plus 3 very noticeably White, Western, 20-something year olds spending an afternoon's leisure time at Dam Sen Water Park, just outside Ho Chi Minh City. I'm sat in the area marked with the sign 'Where Foreigners Can Sunbathe', so I'm doing as I'm told - a foreign sunbather looking after the bags of my two friends whilst they play in the wave machine. Don't fret though, I'm not being a killjoy, I'm just feeling a tad delicate today due to indulging last night in one of my life's great passions - tequila slammers. I told them to leave me with my notebook for 20 minutes and then I'll be bulldozing Asian children in all directions to get on the water drop zip-wire and the slide flumes.
I thought I would take this opportunity to write about something I have been meaning to for a while. Well, not something, rather someone; the enigmatic 'companion'. It was my intention when first starting this blog that I would not name anyone, it's my choice to write about people, but I thought it would be courteous to allow my blog 'characters' partial anonymity. However, this has proved impossible thus far as I haven't the imagination to create pseudonyms for everyone I meet, and she is understandably such a pivotal part of my life right now that if anyone deserves a name it is her. I have asked her permission to write about her and I think she is quite looking forward to seeing what I have to say. Her one condition was that I don't mention the evening where she returned home unknowingly stoned having drunk a 'Happy Shake' at a restaurant in Sihanoukville and then sat sprawled over the sofa, wide-eyed and grinning like a Cheshire Cat for a good hour whilst I tried to keep her talking just to see what funny things she would come out with when spaced out. So I definitely won't write about that.
Before we decided to spend 7 months of our lives travelling together we had only known each other for 10 weeks. A week after I had made the decision to book my ticket and embark upon this adventure alone, we were introduced by a mutual friend (the same boy who talked me in to coming away - man he has a lot to answer for!) at a pub quiz in The Florist Arms in Bethnal Green. I chatted away about my new life direction, we came 2nd in the quiz and won a pizza, I liked her cardigan and she liked my jewellery, and a week later she sent me a very sweet and nervous e-mail saying that she too wanted to travel, to the same places and at the same time as me, and how would I feel about tagging along together? Evidently I thought this was a brilliant idea. After a few wine-fuelled 'getting to know you' evenings in London we were set, and when we met each other at Koh Samui airport on the 29th November it felt like greeting an old friend; such a relief on that nerve-wracking first evening to have a familiar face in attendance.
We've been living side by side for over a month now, and I couldn't be happier that she had the courage to send the e-mail she did to a relative stranger. So what can I say about her other than that having her here has automatically doubled our wardrobes and halved our rooming costs?! She has buckets of style, her share and mine I think, but this figures as in her previous life she was working as a freelance fashion designer; she prefers 'Womenswear Designer' though because she says that 'Fashion Designer' sounds like one of those unattainable childhood dream job aspirations - but this is her career! Her hair makes me green with envy - down to her waist, golden blonde, naturally dead straight - life is full of injustices but at least she lets me play with it and plait it for her so this is some recompense for my jealousy. She has an unfathomable knowledge of obscure up-and-coming London bands and artists that I have never heard of - yes quelle surprise Grace I hear you say - I am always the last to know about the next big thing and still think that La Roux is the best thing to happen to pop music since Beyonce.
She sometimes forgets what country we're in and speaks Thai to Cambodians and Cambodian to Vietnamese. Personally I find this very endearing, especially when she looks at me, her forehead creased into a frown and says 'where are we?'. She refuses to give up Mojitos even though beer is a fifth of the price (relevant quote time... 'I need to ask the barman two questions. One is about the pitchers. I don't remember the other one.'). She thoughtfully points out babies and puppies that she knows I'll go 'clucky' over and she has the superhero ability to scope out blonde dread-locked Swedish surfer types within a mile radius - if I point out someone I think she will be attracted to she has always already clocked him 15 minutes ago. She is rarely silent because if she's not talking she makes adorable little humming/clicking/hiccupping noises and she has no idea she's doing it until I start mimicking her, she eats a banana pancake in almost every place we go to and then when finished takes on a quiet, contemplative face before giving me a rating and rationalised Pancake Judgement Breakdown, (I believe she is also keeping some kind of deadly serious recorded scoring system for this in her notebook), and if we are running low on toilet roll, instead of saying 'Grace we need to go to the Mini-Mart' she says 'Gee-Gee, we need to steal some more loo roll.'
Mostly though, what I love about her, why she has turned out to be a pretty perfect travelling companion for moi, is that she too craves Gallivanting and Goodness, she just gets it. She knows how to party and of course wants to have as much fun as we possibly can over the course of the next 6 months, but she also wants to know about the history and culture and traditions of the extraordinary countries we visit, to learn about other places and people in the hope that it might teach her something important about herself and her own place in the world.
She's running over now, huge smile plastered to her face, drenched from head to toe and wearing my t-shirt over her bikini because she was worried about 'being the most naked person at the water park'. No longer an enigma, but still the most considerate, adventurous, intelligent, exuberant, long-blonde haired companion I could have hoped for... Ella Cloud Pritchard. Her friends' and family's temporary loss is very much my gain.
I have never seen so may Asian children in my entire life. In fact, scrap that, I have never seen so many children in my entire life. There must be a hundred thousand of them here, 100,000 little Vietnamese faces having the time of their life - school groups and birthday parties, family outings and coach trips full of children, plus 3 very noticeably White, Western, 20-something year olds spending an afternoon's leisure time at Dam Sen Water Park, just outside Ho Chi Minh City. I'm sat in the area marked with the sign 'Where Foreigners Can Sunbathe', so I'm doing as I'm told - a foreign sunbather looking after the bags of my two friends whilst they play in the wave machine. Don't fret though, I'm not being a killjoy, I'm just feeling a tad delicate today due to indulging last night in one of my life's great passions - tequila slammers. I told them to leave me with my notebook for 20 minutes and then I'll be bulldozing Asian children in all directions to get on the water drop zip-wire and the slide flumes.
I thought I would take this opportunity to write about something I have been meaning to for a while. Well, not something, rather someone; the enigmatic 'companion'. It was my intention when first starting this blog that I would not name anyone, it's my choice to write about people, but I thought it would be courteous to allow my blog 'characters' partial anonymity. However, this has proved impossible thus far as I haven't the imagination to create pseudonyms for everyone I meet, and she is understandably such a pivotal part of my life right now that if anyone deserves a name it is her. I have asked her permission to write about her and I think she is quite looking forward to seeing what I have to say. Her one condition was that I don't mention the evening where she returned home unknowingly stoned having drunk a 'Happy Shake' at a restaurant in Sihanoukville and then sat sprawled over the sofa, wide-eyed and grinning like a Cheshire Cat for a good hour whilst I tried to keep her talking just to see what funny things she would come out with when spaced out. So I definitely won't write about that.
Before we decided to spend 7 months of our lives travelling together we had only known each other for 10 weeks. A week after I had made the decision to book my ticket and embark upon this adventure alone, we were introduced by a mutual friend (the same boy who talked me in to coming away - man he has a lot to answer for!) at a pub quiz in The Florist Arms in Bethnal Green. I chatted away about my new life direction, we came 2nd in the quiz and won a pizza, I liked her cardigan and she liked my jewellery, and a week later she sent me a very sweet and nervous e-mail saying that she too wanted to travel, to the same places and at the same time as me, and how would I feel about tagging along together? Evidently I thought this was a brilliant idea. After a few wine-fuelled 'getting to know you' evenings in London we were set, and when we met each other at Koh Samui airport on the 29th November it felt like greeting an old friend; such a relief on that nerve-wracking first evening to have a familiar face in attendance.
We've been living side by side for over a month now, and I couldn't be happier that she had the courage to send the e-mail she did to a relative stranger. So what can I say about her other than that having her here has automatically doubled our wardrobes and halved our rooming costs?! She has buckets of style, her share and mine I think, but this figures as in her previous life she was working as a freelance fashion designer; she prefers 'Womenswear Designer' though because she says that 'Fashion Designer' sounds like one of those unattainable childhood dream job aspirations - but this is her career! Her hair makes me green with envy - down to her waist, golden blonde, naturally dead straight - life is full of injustices but at least she lets me play with it and plait it for her so this is some recompense for my jealousy. She has an unfathomable knowledge of obscure up-and-coming London bands and artists that I have never heard of - yes quelle surprise Grace I hear you say - I am always the last to know about the next big thing and still think that La Roux is the best thing to happen to pop music since Beyonce.
She sometimes forgets what country we're in and speaks Thai to Cambodians and Cambodian to Vietnamese. Personally I find this very endearing, especially when she looks at me, her forehead creased into a frown and says 'where are we?'. She refuses to give up Mojitos even though beer is a fifth of the price (relevant quote time... 'I need to ask the barman two questions. One is about the pitchers. I don't remember the other one.'). She thoughtfully points out babies and puppies that she knows I'll go 'clucky' over and she has the superhero ability to scope out blonde dread-locked Swedish surfer types within a mile radius - if I point out someone I think she will be attracted to she has always already clocked him 15 minutes ago. She is rarely silent because if she's not talking she makes adorable little humming/clicking/hiccupping noises and she has no idea she's doing it until I start mimicking her, she eats a banana pancake in almost every place we go to and then when finished takes on a quiet, contemplative face before giving me a rating and rationalised Pancake Judgement Breakdown, (I believe she is also keeping some kind of deadly serious recorded scoring system for this in her notebook), and if we are running low on toilet roll, instead of saying 'Grace we need to go to the Mini-Mart' she says 'Gee-Gee, we need to steal some more loo roll.'
Mostly though, what I love about her, why she has turned out to be a pretty perfect travelling companion for moi, is that she too craves Gallivanting and Goodness, she just gets it. She knows how to party and of course wants to have as much fun as we possibly can over the course of the next 6 months, but she also wants to know about the history and culture and traditions of the extraordinary countries we visit, to learn about other places and people in the hope that it might teach her something important about herself and her own place in the world.
She's running over now, huge smile plastered to her face, drenched from head to toe and wearing my t-shirt over her bikini because she was worried about 'being the most naked person at the water park'. No longer an enigma, but still the most considerate, adventurous, intelligent, exuberant, long-blonde haired companion I could have hoped for... Ella Cloud Pritchard. Her friends' and family's temporary loss is very much my gain.
Saturday, 26 December 2009
Hospital Hi-Jinks
Boxing Day 2009, 11am, Sihanoukville General Hospital
I am writing this blog entry from my bed, my bed in Sihanoukville hospital. So, this is my second Cambodian hospital experience in the same number of weeks, however this time I am unfortunately here not through my own choosing. I do have a needle in me again though! It's just that instead of taking blood out, I am having 4 bottles of fluid antibiotics transfused in through a drip painfully passed through a vein in my hand. Lovely. I was astute enough to ask for the drip to be placed in my left hand though in order that my right one would be un-pierced and free to document this!
I'm perfectly fine and just quite surprised to be here really. I got out of bed this morning and discovered that what I thought were about 30 tiny, harmless little bites on my legs, had now grown 5 times their original size, filled with pus, itched like hell and made me look like a leprosy victim. No problem I thought - go to the hospital - get magic cream - bites calm down. But when I got to the hospital (one ward, no doors on the front of the building - open shop medical care!) I was informed by the Doctor through a translator that the reaction I've had to the bites proves I have a viral blood infection and needed to lie down for 2 hours whilst they pumped me full of drugs. So here I am! I've also been given a whole bag of pills to take for the next 7 days (should be fun crossing the border tomorrow with all these in my bag, morning in Cambodian hospital, afternoon in Vietnamese prison?!), antihistamine to take before bed which will apparently put me in a coma-resembling sleep, and the magic cream that I had initially travelled here for. The real thing that's troubling me is that the nurse has told me I'm not allowed to drink alcohol for the next week whilst on all this medication. I smiled sweetly, thanked her, and told her that I appreciate her opinion but it is New Year's Eve in 6 days time and I'm afraid there's nothing in my power I can do to change this. Tablets Schmablets.
Icing on cake - when I got on the back of the motorbike this morning to bring me here I managed to burn the only bite-free part of my leg on the exhaust pipe. I found this hilarious, laughed my head off the whole way here and told the Cambodian guy driving the bike that I guessed it was a happy coincidence we were going to the hospital anyway, oh the irony! I am still laughing as I lie here now, the motorbike driver and all the nurses looking at me like I'm a madwoman. Sometimes things that shouldn't be funny just are though aren't they, and I like having a proper laugh at myself, good for the soul.
Strangely enough though I'm the only one giggling away on the hospital ward this morning. The boy in the bed next to me had to have an injection in his bum, is a pale shade of green and keeps vomiting in to the empty gasoline carton/sick bowl next to his bed. An old woman in the bed opposite is covered in tubes and wires and catheters with her family sat nervously around her head. Another English woman is being treated with a drip like mine but for heat exhaustion and dehydration. An Australian girl on the other side of me has the worst case of bed bugs I've ever seen in my life - she's basically just one big red mark. Only me and the Doctor are having any fun... he's sat on a bench in the middle of the ward watching Miami Vice on the TV and smoking a cigarette. Couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.
I am writing this blog entry from my bed, my bed in Sihanoukville hospital. So, this is my second Cambodian hospital experience in the same number of weeks, however this time I am unfortunately here not through my own choosing. I do have a needle in me again though! It's just that instead of taking blood out, I am having 4 bottles of fluid antibiotics transfused in through a drip painfully passed through a vein in my hand. Lovely. I was astute enough to ask for the drip to be placed in my left hand though in order that my right one would be un-pierced and free to document this!
I'm perfectly fine and just quite surprised to be here really. I got out of bed this morning and discovered that what I thought were about 30 tiny, harmless little bites on my legs, had now grown 5 times their original size, filled with pus, itched like hell and made me look like a leprosy victim. No problem I thought - go to the hospital - get magic cream - bites calm down. But when I got to the hospital (one ward, no doors on the front of the building - open shop medical care!) I was informed by the Doctor through a translator that the reaction I've had to the bites proves I have a viral blood infection and needed to lie down for 2 hours whilst they pumped me full of drugs. So here I am! I've also been given a whole bag of pills to take for the next 7 days (should be fun crossing the border tomorrow with all these in my bag, morning in Cambodian hospital, afternoon in Vietnamese prison?!), antihistamine to take before bed which will apparently put me in a coma-resembling sleep, and the magic cream that I had initially travelled here for. The real thing that's troubling me is that the nurse has told me I'm not allowed to drink alcohol for the next week whilst on all this medication. I smiled sweetly, thanked her, and told her that I appreciate her opinion but it is New Year's Eve in 6 days time and I'm afraid there's nothing in my power I can do to change this. Tablets Schmablets.
Icing on cake - when I got on the back of the motorbike this morning to bring me here I managed to burn the only bite-free part of my leg on the exhaust pipe. I found this hilarious, laughed my head off the whole way here and told the Cambodian guy driving the bike that I guessed it was a happy coincidence we were going to the hospital anyway, oh the irony! I am still laughing as I lie here now, the motorbike driver and all the nurses looking at me like I'm a madwoman. Sometimes things that shouldn't be funny just are though aren't they, and I like having a proper laugh at myself, good for the soul.
Strangely enough though I'm the only one giggling away on the hospital ward this morning. The boy in the bed next to me had to have an injection in his bum, is a pale shade of green and keeps vomiting in to the empty gasoline carton/sick bowl next to his bed. An old woman in the bed opposite is covered in tubes and wires and catheters with her family sat nervously around her head. Another English woman is being treated with a drip like mine but for heat exhaustion and dehydration. An Australian girl on the other side of me has the worst case of bed bugs I've ever seen in my life - she's basically just one big red mark. Only me and the Doctor are having any fun... he's sat on a bench in the middle of the ward watching Miami Vice on the TV and smoking a cigarette. Couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.
A Christmas Card
Christmas Day 2009, 10pm, Monkey Republic Guest House - Sihanoukville
To, my Loved Ones,
Today I took a boat to a private island with 4 lovely ladies and 10 strapping lads. The 15 of us swam in the ocean, had a barbecue on the beach, played with a frisbee, slept in hammocks, and drank cold beer dressed in tinsel and bikinis. We also had hi-jinks setting up a camera on a tripod, with a timer, and all attempted to jump up in the air at the same time for our Christmas card photo homage to The Beach. I had as much fun as it sounds like I did, but missed you all dearly. I hear it is snowing at home, and even though the new friends, sun on my skin and dance beats on the boom box were welcomed with open arms, a small part of me couldn't help wishing I was with old friends, in the freezing cold of London town, sick to death of hearing Jingle Bells on the radio.
If we are lucky I figure that most of us will see around 75 Christmases in our lifetime? This thought makes my heart leap this evening; I have had 23 traditional Christmases with family and friends and 1 Christmas celebrating on a Cambodian island, who can tell at what future parties and with what future loved ones I will spend my next 51 Christmas Days. It is a good feeling to have no idea, for the first time I am relishing the unpredictability of life - not knowing what another 51 Christmases have in store for me makes just being alive seem like one big adventure. I only hope that this time next year, wherever I am, whoever I smother in kisses at midnight on Christmas Eve, whether I'm moaning about frostbite or sunburn, that I will have held on to this contentment. My favourite author, Carol Shields, says that 'happiness is a pane of glass we carry in our heads', the idea being that it is perfect and pristine, but fragile, and sadly, too easily broken. I'm cushioning mine in bubble wrap this Christmas, refusing to let it shatter.
Merry Christmas my darlings, far away but holding you all firmly in my heart today.
Here's to the Uncertain Future.
All my love always,
Gracie xxx.
To, my Loved Ones,
Today I took a boat to a private island with 4 lovely ladies and 10 strapping lads. The 15 of us swam in the ocean, had a barbecue on the beach, played with a frisbee, slept in hammocks, and drank cold beer dressed in tinsel and bikinis. We also had hi-jinks setting up a camera on a tripod, with a timer, and all attempted to jump up in the air at the same time for our Christmas card photo homage to The Beach. I had as much fun as it sounds like I did, but missed you all dearly. I hear it is snowing at home, and even though the new friends, sun on my skin and dance beats on the boom box were welcomed with open arms, a small part of me couldn't help wishing I was with old friends, in the freezing cold of London town, sick to death of hearing Jingle Bells on the radio.
If we are lucky I figure that most of us will see around 75 Christmases in our lifetime? This thought makes my heart leap this evening; I have had 23 traditional Christmases with family and friends and 1 Christmas celebrating on a Cambodian island, who can tell at what future parties and with what future loved ones I will spend my next 51 Christmas Days. It is a good feeling to have no idea, for the first time I am relishing the unpredictability of life - not knowing what another 51 Christmases have in store for me makes just being alive seem like one big adventure. I only hope that this time next year, wherever I am, whoever I smother in kisses at midnight on Christmas Eve, whether I'm moaning about frostbite or sunburn, that I will have held on to this contentment. My favourite author, Carol Shields, says that 'happiness is a pane of glass we carry in our heads', the idea being that it is perfect and pristine, but fragile, and sadly, too easily broken. I'm cushioning mine in bubble wrap this Christmas, refusing to let it shatter.
Merry Christmas my darlings, far away but holding you all firmly in my heart today.
Here's to the Uncertain Future.
All my love always,
Gracie xxx.
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