ColinDotPDX

Comments and thoughts from travels in the world

[colindotpdx]

Snapshots from Normandy

Deauville and Trouville are cheek to cheek facing the Atlantic on the Normandy coast; across from Le Havre and east of the WW2 landing beaches. Deauville is the bourgeois home of horse racing, sailing, film festival and shopping in stores like Hermes with distinguished solid houses with Tudor trim and massive pointed roofs. Trouville is more populaire with the fishing boats moored in front of the casino and shops like Monoprix and lots of trinkets and fridge magnets.

This week the Hippodrome (race track) hosted a group of Irish horse breeders training and trading and the best restaurant in town was full of ruddy faced owners, Barbour clad trainers, and pint sized jockeys - all toasting their success and talking about prices and bloodlines. The horses were everywhere from dawn to dusk being exercised on the track or on the beach and being walked slowly through town there and back.

The huge beach is edged by their iconic art-deco changing cabins that are retained from generation to generation along Les Planches - the boardwalk. The whole walk recognises exclusively American stars as their festival is only for American films.

Robert Evans was an actor and producer who turned Paramount around in the 70s with Rosemary’s Baby, The Odd Couple, True Grit, The Godfather and dozens of others. He said “We didn't strive for commercial. We went for original. We fell on our asses on some of them, but we also touched magic." I had never heard of him before I saw his name here.

The Marche de Poissons in Trouville is a gem with a few merchants selling the freshest seafood; sending customers away with huge works of art “plateau de fruits de mer” or serving them with some white wine on that spot - you bring the baguette and dessert and they bury you in shells; gamba the size of bananas.

[colindotpdx]

I had to talk to a fromager in Paris to learn about Stilton. Shame on me.

Rue des Martyrs * is our local food cornucopia; 500 yards of gastronomic delight.

Fromagerie Quatrehonne had Stichelton in their vitrine. I said surely you mean Stilton. Mais bien sûr que non Monsieur. The name Stilton can only be used when made from pasteurised milk. This cheese is made with raw milk as originally intended so the makers had to call it something else - Stichelton is the name recorded in the Domesday Book. One of the best cheeses I have ever tasted but don’t ask the price. 🙁

It’s actually made by the owner of Neal’s Yard in London at a creamery in Cuckney on the Welbeck Estate near Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. A stone’s throw from where I grew up.

* To read more about Rue des Marytyrs, I can recommend Elaine Sciolino’s book “The only street in Paris”- a street “that has resisted globalisation”.

[colindotpdx]

Transformation is Driven By Art … and Transportation

Cole Schiffer’s grandfather founded the 99Cent company which closed its doors in 2024 and sold its 350 store locations. But they held on to a block of property on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles which had been unused for a long time and Cole was given the keys and asked to see what he could do with it.

But who wants to move into neglected but cheap property? Artists of course. The office is now called Wilshire Online and is home to art and new media companies (including YACHT), the 99Cent store was the location of a show for a group of local artists that drew 30,000 visitors, the adjacent Johnie’s Diner was most recently used as Bernie Sanders’ LA campaign headquarters and may yet reopen as a restaurant.

It will certainly have to be preserved as an iconic example of Googie architecture - a term I had not heard before this week - a 50s to 70s futurist style with neon and bold shapes to attract motorists.

This corner of Wilshire and Fairfax is the heart of the area once known as Miracle Mile when developer A.W.Ross turned it into a car-centric shopping area in 1929 to challenge downtown LA. Everyone said he was crazy but the idea succeeded; hence the “miracle”.

Now it is called Museum Row with the Peterson Automotive Museum, the Academy Museum, LACMA (LA County Museum of Art), an oddball collection of galleries large and small, and the La Brea Tar Pits which have of course been here since Woolly Mammoths roamed the Earth and certainly before Henry Gaylord Wilshire donated land in 1895 to create his eponymous boulevard.

LACMA will soon open a completely new $750 million extension that snakes its concrete and glass bridge across Wilshire with more than its fair share of controversy - over budget, inexperienced architect, and hostile environment for art preservation - you can see a huge Matisse behind a southwest facing plate glass window that would become a curator’s nightmare

The huge plant-covered animal head by Jeff Koonz is internally irrigated and we’ll see how it fares in the Southern California summer heat.

There is a section from the Berlin Wall - some panels are untouched from the fall but others are a rotating works managed by the Wende Museum that focuses on “art and artifacts from the Cokd War era.”

We popped into the small Anat Egbi gallery and met artist Marc Dennis setting up a new show. I recognised him from a reflection of himself he’d added to one picture and we struck up an animated conversation. His works are exquisite reproductions of Ingres and Caravaggio with cheeky modern hyper-realistic additions - food, pets, love letters. Purchase here … https://www.artsy.net/artist/marc-dennis

This corner of LA will soon be more easily accessible with the opening of a station on the extended D-line metro west from Koreatown that will eventually reach the beach in Santa Monica. When Mr. Wilshire, then described as “an eccentric millionaire socialist”, donated this land he specified that it should bear his name and have a “park like character” but he banned railways or commercial trucking.

Hopefully he would not have objected to an underground railway that will bring people to his property.

[colindotpdx]

Driving To A Fault

The plan returning from Lake Tahoe to Los Angeles was to find great driving roads and avoid Interstate 5 at all costs. Charles Kuralt is famous for observing that the Interstate Highway System made it possible to travel coast-to-coast "without seeing anything”

The plan to find new roads worked fabulously and this part of California is a wonderland. CA-89 alongside Lake Tahoe is a sensational overload and frequently scary - few guardrails and a huge temptation to try and watch the scenery and the road. Spoiler - you cannot. Then CA-88 over Kit Carson Pass past Kirkwood ski area and down to West Point and then CA-26 through West Point to San Andreas is a never ending delight.

At San Andreas, I was disappointed to find that the town is not actually on the same-named fault - so started the drive to Parkfield the “earthquake capital of the world”. When I searched for information, Google quickly told me there had been a quake there that very morning.

Parkfield has had an unusual number of magnitude 6 quakes which prompted researchers at the USGS to imagine they could maybe forecast them. They drilled a deep hole to house monitors. Long story short: they did not learn how to predict earthquakes but Parkfield (population 18) liked the moniker.

More great roads - CA-198 from the oil field country of Coalinga over the Diablo Range to San Lucas - from Cholame on Bitterwater Road for 50 miles through open range in the pouring rain with not a single other vehicle in sight - dirt roads through the Carrizo Plain National Monument that also lies along the San Andreas Fault and has the aptly named Tremblor Ridge - finally the absolutely marvelous CA-33 to Ojai through the Los Padres National Forest and Wheeler Gorge. Stunning.

Grin from ear to ear.

Other photos - a strange ranch with cherubs on the gate - San MIguel Mission near Paso Robles.

[colindotpdx]

A quick jaunt north from LA on Highway 395.

Antelope Valley is famous for its Spring wildflowers but not so much this year - maybe too late in the season - a pretty paltry paucity of poppies popping in the pastures.

But lots of other things that start with P - panels, pylons, propellers, parked planes, and parks.

Antelope Valley is a perfect east-west wind tunnel that leads right to the Mojave Desert. For about fifty miles in every direction there is a profusion of pylons supporting propellers and turbines and an enormous expanse of solar panels. Hard to take a good photograph but from a distance the panels look like large polished lakes reflecting the sun.

Mojave is a perfect dry climate to park planes for parts or protection. Some of these planes look like they are already being cannibalised and may never fly home. Given the rosing cost and declining availability of jet fuel, there may be many more planes parked in permanent places.

Lone Pine has been a Hollywood film location for over a century - The Round Up (1920), Gunga Din (1939), How the West Was Won (1962), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), Django Unchained (2012). The loop around the Alabama Hills State Park is a spectacular drive around the Rubenesque rocks; the picture here is on Movie Road with the Sierras and Mount Whitney as the backdrop.

[colindotpdx]

The Beauty From Obsession

The Adding Machine is the current production at The Actors Gang in Los Angeles; a theatre group founded in 1981 by a group of actors including Tim Robbins who is now Artistic Director and is there most nights at the Ivy Substation, a former railway building on Venice Boulevard.

The 1922 play by Elmer Rice tells the story of an accountant that is fired after 25 years of service to be replaced by an adding machine; a stylish expressionist piece that is a moving look at the consequences of automation on the people involved - a hundred year old story ripped from today’s headlines.

As the play was announced but not yet in rehearsal, imagine the moment when an IT professional, Stefan Lyon who lives two blocks from the theatre, walked into the lobby and asked if they needed any adding machines as he as a collection from the 1950s onwards.

Stefan was on hand with his huge collection and it was a delight to chat and discuss how he restores them and how they are programmed for the different businesses they served how mathematical functions are performed mechanically.

The machine collector and theatre director, two obsessives meant to work together.

#TheActorsGang

[colindotpdx]

Final Snapshots from Vietnam

Things that caught my eye.

The only way to handle waste disposal in rural Vietnam is to set it on fire - right here, right now, job done. Food waste is an oxymoron here so the trash is a mix of paper, leaves, and plastic. EVERYWHERE there are small fires burning at the roadside or in every field.

So … with apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein … I was riding along singing …

There’s a bright, silver haze on the meadow

And the toxins are whyyy

There’s a sting in your eyyyye

An’ it looks like smoke’s climbin’

right up to the sky.

Oh what a wonderful morning.

Oh what a wonderful day.

Shopping in the Hanoi Old Quarter is an odd mixture of local essentials and tourist kitsch. The later and cooler the day gets, the crazier the scene develops. But I did not like being called a “visiting relic”.

It is illegal to criticise the Vietnam electric car company Vinfast. It is taking over the country and the company story is so implausible as to send warning bells into every stock exchange. The founder - Phạm Nhật Vượng is Vietnam’s first dollar billionaire - graduated from college in Russia and made his first fortune creating a pot-noodle company in Ukraine - I kid you not - and selling the company for millions. But somehow he was massively into residential property in Vietnam before he sold the noodle company, and then started a car company shortly thereafter. The Vietnamese government is tipping the scales by mandating that Vinfast be the only taxis in the major cities. Criticism of Vinfast on social media in Vietnam will get you jail time. The holding company is VinGroup that also owns VinHomes, VinBigData, VinBioCare, and VinBrain. Elon Musk look out. The whole story stinks of Russian money laundering.

But they do make a cute little EV mini-Bronco and all of them in Vietnam have fake branding from big name luxury companies like this one labelled with Christian Dior.

The railway station is in the Old Quarter and the passenger trains come and go through a couple of narrow streets with trackside restaurants and bars. Having dinner there with Mai - who helped organise our ride for two weeks - we had to move sideways to let three trains go by. Just check the train schedules on Google Maps.

You do get used to the tiny chairs.

People asked to toast with them in a few places. Happy to oblige.

The tee-shirt of Trump is spot on. Magically and very quickly items that were made in China are now being made in Vietnam.

If you want a souvenir photo on the spot, there will be photo boxes that will spit out a printed photo for loose change - like this charming young lady in Dong Van.

[colindotpdx]

Travel is Fatal to Prejudice

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness” that stems from living in a “little corner of the earth” Mark Twain - The Innocents Abroad

You cannot talk to everyone you meet, but it’s fascinating to talk to one person and try and join the dots.

Just the events that have forged the modern Vietnam, even in recent history, in just the lifetime of a baby boomer, are astonishing. Trying to summarise in one paragraph … as I understand it …

After the Japanese surrender at the end on WW2, Japan retreated from its occupation and left a vacuum which the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, used to grab the reins before France returned to try and reclaim its former colony. In 1954, after the battle of Dien Bien Phu, France let go and Vietnam became independent but split “temporarily” at the 17th parallel into communist north and separate south. This led to the Vietnam War from 1955 to 1975 with superpowers eventually piling onto each side. Since then the reunited Vietnam fought a war with the Khmer Rouge in 1978 and occupied Cambodia to bring an end to Pol Pot’s unspeakable atrocities and killing fields. Which prompted a war with China in 1979 to defend Vietnam’s northern border which was not truly settled until 1999. Since then Communism adapted to the global economy and growth in prosperity.

But history happens to people.

Looking at all this through the lens of someone younger and Vietnamese, I was interested to quiz our local guide over a few days and a barbecue dinner. His stories illustrate this timeline from the perspective of his own family which fled from the north multiple times.

First they moved in 1945 to flee the chaos and famine in the aftermath of WW2 and the Viet Minh takeover. Then some of his Catholic family members headed south below the 17th parallel in 1954 to avoid Communist restrictions and to be able to freely practice their religion. Then again in 1975 after the Vietnam War when his father, who served in the South Vietnamese army, had to escape reprisals and only survived and avoided joining the “boat people” who fled abroad due to the help of his uncle who had remained in North Vietnam and served in the Viet Cong.

It is always tempting to believe that wars, disasters, and the consequences happen to people “over there”. Somewhere poor and hot and devastated and primitive and ignorant.

I’ve been chewing on the statement made by Gen. William Westmoreland, the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, that "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does the Westerner. Life is plentiful, life is cheap in the Orient".

At the time he clearly did not understand that his enemy was fighting for a cause that they were actually willing to die for; something existential that they had only recently achieved.

Trump and Hegseth are making the same mistake in Iran. Believing that everyone - like them - sees the world as transactional and without principles; that a deal can be done. Both of these wars will end with untold and unnecessary American deaths and humiliation. For the same reason.

#ThaiViet26

[colindotpdx]

Vietnam the Scooter Economy

in Vietnam there are 77 million scooters for a population of 102 million people. More scooters than adults. Over 7 million scooters just in Hanoi. Scooters rigged to carry unimaginable loads. Scooters with a family of four and their shopping. Scooters carrying cargo that, in America, would justify the purchase of a Ford F-150 truck.

A selection of photos here but so many other examples that I was not able to capture as we rolled along - three men on three scooters each with a large pig tied on the back - we could not tell if the pigs were alive and kicking or just bouncing over the bumps. A scooter carrying two more scooters. Scooters with trees or baskets carried on bamboo poles wider than a truck. Huge baskets of piglets or chickens or dogs. The equivalent of a FedEx truck.

If it needs to get moved in Vietnam it WILL fit on a scooter.

#ThaiViet26

[colindotpdx]

Vietnam Traffic Police at Ha Giang

Organised crime and Easy Riders

When we arranged to rent motorbikes in Hanoi to include the Ha GIang loop in northern Vietnam, one of the items on the invoice was “Police Fee”.

Anyone riding a large motorbike here is almost certain to be non-Vietnamese and riding on a license that is technically not legal even with an International Drivers Permit.

This is predictably going to lead to a shakedown by the traffic police, especially on this road that is a tourist pilgrimage, so the rental company builds the bribe into the price and lets the local guide negotiate.

No surprise then, heading into Ha Giang we were all pulled over without even the pretence of an infraction and held for a while to haggle. They eventually settled on a number (started out at $300 and we ended up at $150 per bike) and they agreed to our demand that they tell their colleagues up the road that we have already been fleeced. They agreed, took our number plates, and entered them into a database which means they have a system - a WhatsApp page maybe - to communicate among the police groups. Hence “organised” crime.

(Photo of our guide counting the money and thanks to Bill Werlin for the illegal photo of the police taken from his Meta-glasses)

The Ha Giang loop itself is a fabulous 600km route right up against the Chinese border that usually takes three days. The scenery is breathtaking, the geology is fascinating, but the people are struggling. The roads are also challenging, ranging from interesting to terrifying depending on your riding skill level with hairpins, traffic, and lots of surprises.

Nonetheless, a lot of people take the trek including a lot of cute young couples, dressed to impress their social media audience right from the zero kilometer marker, on rented scooters with whimsical helmets. They want to ride through Heaven’s Gate and take photos at all the obligatory hashtag spots.

There are not, however, any western scooter renters for a number of reasons. First it’s a tough ride for people who did not grow up on a scooter and are not as adept as their Asian contemporaries. But also because of the predatory traffic police. The Vietnam government has decided to be more strict on enforcement and it is almost certain that a European visitor will have an invalid license; the fines might take a big bite and the random breathalysers are going to annoy everyone.

One comment in the Gaia map near Ma Pi Ling Pass says “Locals drive here but you shouldn’t. Hazardous conditions.”

So, for every problem there is a market response and there is now an expanding business opportunity for Easy Riders - a Vietnamese rider with a paying European passenger with a couple of days luggage bungeed on the bike in a plastic bag including a couple of nights lodging in a “home stay” BnB . They travel in packs of a couple of dozen scooters from the same company. For the new customer: no hassle, a thrill ride, no fines, drink as much as you want, still pay less than the potential fines, meet new people, or even start a new romance.

(All of the bikes here in the photo at one popular spot are Easy Riders; maybe 200 hundred of them)

A new business that exploits the fact that Vietnam has a limitless supply of young men with advanced scooter skills looking for work that cannot be replaced by AI agents.

In the cities, the Grab rideshare app also takes advantage of this supply of scooters to offer rides. In the stores in the Old City, you can find Grab uniforms and the mandatory helmet that must be offered to passengers.

#ThaiViet26

[colindotpdx]

All of Us are Retired

Just a regular day hanging out with a group of retired Vietnam army officers - one of whom had the Ho Chi Minh look perfectly. We were in the same restaurant and motorbikes and alcohol are always the best conversation starters. Where are you from, please have a drink, don’t mind if I do.

The white plastic bowl had home-made rice wine that was being ladled out into tiny white cups. They only had two words of English - Hello and Thankyou - but they were just a delightful group and delighted to have us toast Vietnam together.

With a litttle interpreting from our local guide, the lady officer said they invited me over because I looked the oldest of our group (which I’m not) and so about their age (which I am)

This means they were all too young to have been in the Viet Cong other than very late in that war but certainly would have served in Vietnam’s war with China and the invasion of Cambodia to eliminate the Khmer Rouge. I wish I could have heard their stories

[colindotpdx]

Ho Chi Minh Looms Over Vietnam

We are currently riding around the Ha Giang Loop in the northern highlands of Vietnam and tonight in Dong Van almost on the border with China, we enjoyed the national celebration of the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh.

No way to understand exactly what was being said and sung but the chorus to the last song was “Vietnam Ho Chi Minh” repeated many times. The show was performed with absolute perfection mainly by school age kids. The actual translation of the backdrop was “Celebrating the 95th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Youth Union” and the building behind the stage is the local Communist Party headquarters.

A couple of weeks ago was the election of the XVI National Assembly of Vietnam when, according to government official figures, 99.7% of eligible voters participated and the Communist Party won 482 of the 500 seats. All over the roads we have ridden were posters and patriotic murals encouraging voting.

#ThaiViet26

[colindotpdx]

Snapshots and People and Facts of Thailand

It is technically illegal to leave your house without underwear.

E-cigarettes are banned; possession can result in heavy fines or jail time.

Using a durian as a weapon is illegal, with fines based on how many thorns strike the victim. Hotels will find you fit even bringing a durian into your room

The usual Thai taxi would be called a “paddy wagon” elsewhere. Prisoners lined up each side.

Every morning at 8:00am radio broadcasts are replaced with the national anthem and everybody stands to attention, sings, and raises the state flag.

The movie “The King and I” is illegal in Thailand.

The highest spot in Thailand at Doi Inthanon contains a shrine and the ashes of Inthawichayanon, Grand Prince of Chiang Mai, who was concerned with preservation of the forests in the north.

Everyone steals electricity it seems.

Ethical elephants - well the establishments are supposed to be ethical in their treatment of the animals and these ladies seemed to be well looked after.

The gentleman in the high-viz vest claimed to be the official motorcycle instructor for the Thai King’s motorcycle guard unit. They ride Harley Road Kings and he told us that the short Thai bike cops need special training.

Mai and George looked after us all week

[colindotpdx]

Laos Special Economic Zone - Crime and Politics in the Golden Triangle.

The Golden Triangle is where the Ruak River flows into the Mekong River and forms the borders between Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos and this has been the largest area of opium production since the 1950s.

The first “narco-state” in the world was, of course, Great Britain as the East India Company expanded opium cultivation in the 18th and 19th centuries in order to make addicts of the Chinese to solve the massive trade deficit.

In the late 1940s, China took action and put tens of millions of addicts in treatment, executed dealers, and forced farmers to grow other crops. In 1949, thousands of defeated Kuomintang troops crossed into Burma and setup the precursors to private narcotics armies and cartels across the whole area.

From around 2000 Afghanistan took over as the leading opium producer but the Taliban put an end to that and Thailand claims to have eliminated poppy growing. So we are now back to Myanmar being the world’s leading heroin producer - one thousand tones of opium per year.

Today the area on the Thai side of the Mekong is a pleasant tourist stop with an Opium Museum, non-addictive gift shops, a 7-11, craft markets, and a huge golden Buddha.

But one door closes and another one opens.

Across the river in Laos we visited the Golden Triangle Special Economic Development Zone - technically not in Laos so no border guards, no visa requirement, no paperwork. This is 30 square kilometers leased to one Chinese businessman Zhao Wei. The series of morally uplifting billboards describe the wonders of development “a beautiful symbol of China-Laos friendship” for “infrastructure construction, cultural exchange, and tourist development” that sprung from Mr. Wei’s visit to this “beautiful island of kapok flowers” that will attract many tourists.

Reuters had a very different description “Scam centers in Laos, primarily operating as "fraud factories," are heavily concentrated in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Bokeo Province. These compounds, often under Chinese criminal control, use human trafficking, forced labor, and scams like "pig butchering" to steal billions in cryptocurrency and online fraud. While Lao authorities, often with Chinese assistance, have ordered shutdowns and raided these areas, many operations have adapted or relocated within the region.”

“The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone - is 3,000-hectare zone, leased to Chinese businessman Zhao Wei's Kings Romans Group in 2007, is considered the primary hub. It functions with high autonomy, often under Chinese currency and security, making it difficult for local authorities to manage.”

None of these buildings were here 20 years ago. Huge apartment blocks, a Chinese temple with an eight ton jade Buddha, a Chinatown with a few stores with goods priced in Yuan, lots of unfinished apartments, a bizarre Vegas-like fantasy town built around canals, and we visited the casino that was buzzing with two Rolls Royces decorating the forecourt. Great new highways and no traffic. Most of the cars and scooters have no number plates as they are mainly stolen elsewhere. We were driven around in a large golf cart by a lovely young lady earnestly trying to sell apartments.

Basically, scams, human trafficking, and money laundering on an industrial scale.

Opium or pig butchering. We seem to now have both.

#ThaiViet26

[colindotpdx]

White Temple, Motorbikes, and Retirement

We have passed by hundreds of Buddhist temples across Northern Thailand. Each one is eye-poppingly gilded and decorated and visible for miles. Each village trying to outdo their neighbours in their sincerity and grandeur. The people do not feed the Buddhist monks, they offer alms and food to monks who reach out and pray for their communities. It’s a fine line.

I suppose this is not unlike driving around England where every village has a parish church with its steeple and stained glass windows meant to attract and bedazzle believers. We just don’t paint St. Mary’s church yellow but otherwise it’s the same

In the larger temples you see professional photographers hired to show young ladies in hired traditional costumes in the best possible light with the temples as backdrop. Tradition meets religious observance meets social media for sure.

The grandest temple that we visited was the White Temple - Wat Rong Khan - that was designed, funded, and built by the highly successful artist, Chalermchai Kositpipat who also decorated the Buddhist temple, Wat Phutthaprateep in London.

From a distance the White Temple is striking white but its brilliance comes from millions of cut mirror mosaics. The symbolism is in your face and modern - a bridge over reaching hands as you cross from hell to heaven, pop idols Michael Jackson, Neo from The Matrix, Harry Potter, and characters from Kung Fu Panda decorate the interior, the bathrooms are in a huge gold building that the artist says represents “the vanity of earthly things”.

It’s hard to decide if he is really religiously serious or pulling your leg and ‘aving a larff.

Last year, Kositpipat announced he was retiring from art and public life to ride his motorbike - him and his BMW R1200GS are pictured here. A man after my own heart. He said …

“.. for me, I’ve had enough. I don’t want to be the person who [works] till death. I’ve done a lot and now I want to rest. … I’ve completely let go. My only responsibility is to travel and find happiness. I told my wife and son that it’s enough, they should earn for themselves. Everyone should seek their happiness.

“I want to travel and relax, ride my motorcycle with my students and then die. I exercise to stay fit and meditate to accept the inevitable end – death. I accept everything and am happy with everything. I want to live freely in old age, keep travelling until I die.”

“I don’t want much. I don’t want to see myself working to earn money for my children and grandchildren until I fall ill and die without having a chance to travel and relax. I’ve chosen this path, the path of happiness in old age and death.”

Today motorbike groups come here to be photographed in front of the temple - a different kind of devotion.

#ThaiViet26

[colindotpdx]

Kayan “Long Necked” Women

The Karen people are Thailand’s largest ethnic minority who migrated from Tibet and China through Myanmar to settle on the current Thai-Myanmar border. There are separate groups of Karen that have been involved in an armed struggle for autonomy against the Myanmar government for decades; even sheltering and training other pro-democracy groups against the military junta.

One subgroup of the Karen is the Kayan who are known for their “long neck” tradition that requires women to wear brass coils. It is possible to visit these hill tribes by boat from Mae Hong Son. There is a bamboo footbridge but this is washed away and rebuilt after every rainy season.

It is impossible to imagine these people as part of a larger armed struggle just over the border.

Everyone asks if it’s unethical or exploitative to enter into their world and the answer, to me, is clearly no. Tourism is easily controlled, brings valuable income from crafts that are clearly done here, and allows them to continue to protect their cultural heritage.

Is it acceptable for them to continue to insist on brass ringed necks for their women? Well ask the same about any number of traditions from piercing, to tattoos, to hijabs, or circumcision. Do they need to put all this on show as a spectacle? You may as well ask if King Charles needs to have his palace guarded by soldiers on horseback with swords and bearskin headwear. History, tradition, and pride in all these cases.

Footnote: the brass coils do not actually stretch or separate the neck vertebrae. They do push down on the collarbone and ribcage creating an illusion of a longer neck. There was a posted in the village with the results of an x-rat study that confirmed this. Not saying this would be comfortable.

[colindotpdx]

Snapshots from an Arctic London

Oscar Wilde said “Somehow I’ll be famous, and if not famous, I’ll be notorious”. We can only imagine how he would have exploited our world of TikTok, YouTube, and social media. He understood how to generate outrage and push social hot buttons better than anyone. Famous for being famous - until it all landed him in jail.

The Importance of Being Earnest was his last play and it is riddled with references to his own life and lifestyle. The word Earnest obviously rhymes with the name Ernest, used in the play as an alias by both leading men, but it also resonated with the word “Urnings” that was coined by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs who argued in 1860 for a “third sex”. Victorian society would have known all this and it was whispered in the text but the National Theatre production, however, decided to plug those whispers into a megaphone to spectacular effect. Olly Alexander was extravagant and wonderful as Algernon and Stephen Fry stole the show as Lady Bracknell; a performance strangely closest to the way in which the play has been staged for a century and totally familiar to anyone brought up on British cross-dressing Christmas pantomime. The costumes used for the curtain call by all the cast were truly over the top breathtaking. (Pictures were not allowed

Lovely posh lunch at The Ivy (the original one) with my beautiful sister Sally who was wrapped up against the sub-zero weather.

The NOW Building is a four storey cube with flat screens across five surfaces that houses the Outernet Project projecting a rotating series of short films in a completely immersive space. At the corner of Charing Cross road and part of the redevelopment of that area for the new cross London railway station.

At the same spot is Center Point, looking for all thje world like it is about to blast off, which was London’s first skyscraper - completed in 1966, empty for a decade, now a listed building and converted from office space to flats. Badly conceived in the first place but now iconically too important to tear down.

The number of shops selling London kitsch is beyond imagination. I loved the King’s smug mug on a mug but cannot image enjoying a cup of tea from it.

Hard to fathom that the Gothic masterpiece of St. Pancras station was almost demolished until tweedy Poet Laureate Sir. John Betjeman led a campaign to save it. The space under the main lines was originally a huge warehouse for beer brought to London from Burton-on-Trent but is now posh shops and the departure lounge for Eurostar trains.