Solstice Canyon.





A quiet, beautiful, almost private place just off the PCH. It's a lovely mile and a half walk along a path through undergrowth filled with rutting animals to the boulders and waterfalls where I clambered, desperately trying to convince myself that I was somehow still seven years old and not a million and a half years old, like I am.

Look, here's me clambering. You could be forgiven for thinking I'm stalking game from this photo', or at least doing something daring. I'll let you think that. I definitely wasn't trying to navigate my way up the waterfall without slipping on dog pooh or potato chip packets; no, I wasn't, not at all. I was exploring and stalking, like a wild man. Yes.



Note I have my hair partially tied back. I think men (or me, specifically) shouldn't tie their hair back in pony-tails as it looks well, a bit pony. So this is my compromise. It's a partial pony, favoured by French Alpine skiers. Better be a bit of a wanker who can ski than a complete tosser without any style who can't.

Of course, I could get a haircut. And aside from the fact that it would give me cause to visit the lovely Mika one more time this month, it would also mean I'd have no hair. And that, friends, would mean I'd look exactly like a right banker in all my suits.

After Solstice Canyon I ate delicious fried evilness while admiring the pacificness of the pacific. Top trumps. It took two and half hours to get home. Gots to love LA.

I went to see the Watts Towers in Watts. I tried to visit them before in January but I got lost in Watts. Not the best look for me, was that. I drove around in smaller and smaller circles trying to find my way back to the freeway, waving at all the nice young men who were enjoying the afternoon sun by communing on the street corners. It was quaint. I called my friend Rob in London as I was driving around. "I just called for a chat." I said. "I'm er, a bit lost in Watts."
"Are you scared?" he asked from the comfort of his house in south London.
"No." I said. "I just called for a chat."
"From LA to Streatham, on your mobile?"
"Yeah. So?" I kept thinking of Reginald Denny stopping his truck at the intersection of Normandie and Florence just after the Rodney King verdict. I like to class myself as English but on this day I had to admit I felt white. Sad that, isn't it? But maybe not so unusual, only unspoken in polite circles.
"Just asking." he said.


This time I didn't get lost. I liked the Watts Towers. The strangest thing about them for me was that after Simon Rodia spent 33 years building them he just upped and left them behind, I think he gave them to his mate or something. That seemed very sad.






It has been nearly a month since I got back from Vietnam. I was missing lording my inherent wealth over poor people. Can you believe there weren't any poor people here for me to gloat over? Look at this place - shameful. Not one measly beggarwoman or hungry child outside the Watts Towers. How am I supposed to prop-up my insecure personality without paupers smiling up at me as I shower them with small coins? This isn't a proper vacation, that's all I can say.



Afterwards I went to see Gwen Stefani (in concert, not at her house or anything like that. I'm not allowed to do that anymore--by law). I like Gwen Stefani - she's like a larger than life cartoon character, which I think is an essential attribute for a pop star. I wasn't expecting her manly talking voice though, that threw me a bit. I didn't get to see the No Doubt reunion and I missed What Are You Waiting For, which is my favourite, as I'm old and prefer getting into the car and out of the parking lot before seventyleventy thousand people do the same thing. I heard the song as I walked away and it reminded me of Harley, as he rings-out PA systems with that song when he's mixing shows. I was going to tell him but I read on his blog that BA had lost his luggage for days so I thought this: I bet Harley couldn't give a monkey's willy about me hearing that Gwen Stefani song from the parking lot right now, so I didn't tell him. But I was thinking of you, H. Hope you got your bags. And the home address of the guy who manages luggage for BA.

Now the Solstice has passed I enjoyed this cheery thought. From now on we're on a downward slide through to December 22nd. Days are getting shorter, life is pasing us by, winter is rushing headlong at us and soon our feeble aching bones will be shivering under bitter winds and against spiteful, driving rain.

And I'm in a good mood these days, too.

It's All Too Beautiful:

Halong Bay, Vietnam.

I couldn't post pictures before while in Vietnam. But now I can, so lucky you.

Actually, as you'll see, lucky me.

You get to Halong Bay proper at first by "sailing" on a boat from Halong City for about 45 minutes. The bay is made up of about seventyleventy million limestone islands along the coast of Northeast Vietnam and Southwest China.

Some people live in floating houses on the bay. They farm fish. Each house sat atop a cage for breeding fish in the salt-water below. Most had dogs on them as alarms to prevent fish thieves from stealing the goods. Alarm dogs for fish, whatever next?



When the tourist boats got to the "Amazing Caves" (Which were, I have to be honest, pretty amazing) they waited around while the tourists transferred into little row-boats to land at the caves. As we stopped to switch boats, a small fleet approached, each boat captained by a pretty girl who tried to sell everything from Choco Pies (marshmallowy type biscuit/chocolate things) to cigarettes and whisky from her floating 7-11.



These kids lived on the water. They'd fashioned a raft out of an old polystyrene container and they were rowing around the bay. The water is very deep but they didn't care. Note the guy in the boat at the back rowing with his feet.



So we were all joking about being stung by a jellyfis as we saw plenty of them floating through the bay. "It never happens," said Chi, our guide, as we stopped near an oyster farm for a swim. It took me around 2 1/2 minutes in the water to get stung.

On our boat there was an Australian surfer (he'd got lost...) who had some antihistamines (jellyfish being a big problem when you're an Aussie surfer). I took one, which was just as well as 1/2 hour later the gland under my arm got tight and my lips started to tingle with the poison. Later it moved down my spine and through my kidneys. It's a weird feeling is being poisoned. This is the sting the morning after. You should have seen the other guy....(and everyone suggested peeing on it...everyone.)



The bay went on and on. I sat on the poop deck with my my fizzy ginger pop and frizzy ginger sideburns, looking for all the world like a pale, bloaty crap Bond Villain. I simpered every now and then to get some sympathy for my throbbing stings. As I was competing with this, no one could care less...









Quite right too...

Hanoi:

It's easier to pictures than it is writing about it. And besides, don't you just like to watch sometimes...?

Hoan Kiem Lake

This is the lake in the centre of Hanoi. Sometimes, when I was feeling especially ebullient, I would run around it at 6:30 in the morning before the sun got too high for pale, blue-skinned, below-rock dwellers like me to be out. It's a little over a 1 1/3 miles in circumference and in the mornings, at about 6:30, lots of nice Vietnamese people also like to exercise around the edge of the lake too. I know they were nice people as I spoke to them. All of them.




In the middle of the lake is a small island called Turtle Island. It is an ancient monument to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who were all born in this very lake. Local legend has it that there is still a huge turtle living in the lake, but since he didn't get in the movie like the others he's rumoured to be little more than a bitter drunk, endlessly swimming up and down boring hapless tourists with stories about growing up with Michealangelo, Donatello and the zany Raphael. I never saw him. He must have been down the pub when I was there.



Look! See the nice Vietnamese people enjoying their bodies first thing in the morning. It is true I hardly saw any fat people in Vietnam. When I got off the plane at Newark the first thing I thought was this: Aren't there a lot of fat fuckers at Newark Airport?

In addition to badminton (who's nets were strung exactly at the right height to garrotte a 6ft tall jogging westerner. Some war habits die hard, eh chaps? And boy, did I laugh...I laughed and laughed, as I fell gasping to the floor clutching my trachea....) people were doing Tai Chi in groups. One old guy was punching a wall for fun. He looked like he'd auditioned for the role of mean Mr Myagi, but never got the part. (Maybe Hanoi is full of failed film wannabees? The Vegas waitresses of Vietnam...?) On the east side of the park was a huge aerobics class that spread to both sides of the street. Directions were shouted out over the music (I couldn't see who was leading the class, but obviously everyone else could) and lots of women were bending and stretching on the street. Some of the moves were a bit rude. As I ran past I noticed that some of the grannies were doing saucy pelvic thrusts and doing them quite well too. Maybe being a Granny, that's something you've had a bit of practise at? Then I felt a bit weird that I'd been appreciating the pelvic thrust of someone's granny (Not that it would have been any better if it had been my granny).



Train tracks. I looked for a band to photograph on them but no one in Vietnam has the time or inclination to be in a band. I think they're all busy trying to make a living instead.



This is what it looks like just before the lights change. Come on, lover....



A nice peaceful pagoda on the west lake. Possibly the quietest spot in all of Hanoi.



I liked the streets in Hanoi. I liked the way the electricity power cables are a cluster-fuck. It's the roadie in me - I notice things like that. (When I went to watch the Water Puppet show, before it started, I saw that the curtain wasn't hanging straight. It bugged me so much that had it not been for the fact it was hanging in a pond of stagnant water then I might have gone over to straighten it).



A lovely street market.



Many of the streets in Hanoi seemed to sell the same thing, making them look almost themed. This street sold chinese lanterns, decorations and lots of red envelopes for giving money during festivals.



This street was a motorbike maintainence street. These lovely gelato-looking things are, in fact, different oils and grease for engines. I only found this out because I bought one on a waffle cone.



Lots of vendors all over Vietnam carried their wares like this. I think it's really hard work. They were all women too, I don't remember seeing (m)any men doing this kind of work. The men were all busy selling motorbike-grease waffle cones.



Everyone had Bananas. Often the women selling fruit like this on the street were quite cheeky with westerners. Being a vain, imperialist pig, I enjoyed their flirting and the feeling of power it gave me. Despite my 6ft height, I am a very, very small man.



When people weren't carrying things on bamboo planks over their shoulders, they carried them on their bikes / motorbikes. I saw everything from 3 live, caged pigs, large panes of glass, to heavy machine-tools / drills all balanced precariously on the backs of motorbikes.



Recycling. Arf.



It's very, very fresh.




No, I didn't....



Squids in.



We met under a Banyan Tree after dark, the city hot and chaotic around us. These women spoke no English, I spoke no Vietnamese. It sounds romantic, right? I pointed at their giant deep-fryers and they fed me with unhealthy fried deliciousness. We never spoke. I wonder if they're missing me now? I miss you, deep-fried meat-pasty-thing Ladies, I miss you.

Picture This:

Some of the remaining photo's of the end of the trip. I'm done with opining now ("aaand I'm spent"). So, now I've got nothing to say...

A road sign on the way to Hanoi Airport - note the special horse and cart lane.




Inside a Chinese Temple in Saigon. Peaceful.



And just to keep you in line....do all religions have punitive deitys?



70Km North of Saigon is a religion called Cao Dai. This is their temple. The religion is all-inclusive and based on buddhism they also incorporate elements of Christianity, Taoism, Islam & Confucianism. The temple is overdone and kitsch ( to my all seeing eye) but fascinating. Tourists are allowed to watch (and photograph) the four daily services. The different coloured robes on the right represent the different religions and the closer to the All Seeing Eye at the end of the room you sit, the higher you are in the temple's hierarchy. Victor Hugo was posthumously named the Chief Spirit of Foreign Missionary Works.
And why not?



The All Seeing Eye.



Along the Mekong Delta.



Note the forest of TV ariels above the floating poverty.....



When I toured with Pulp and I was doing everything too much and a bit of a knobhead someone joked that "Kurtz had gone too far upriver." (They were right, btw). Here he is, over 10 years later...still doing the same thing. Hot, sticky, covered in flies, mmm looking good....



I ask you, would you jump into this and swim?



these Water babies would....



My last night in Ho Chi Minh City and it rained like a bastard....



On my last night in Hong Kong on the way back home. Did I mention yet that I love Hong Kong? I did? Oh, sorry...



Now the only thing I've got to talk about is my love for backpackers.....

Motorbike Pimps:

I encounted a couple of motorbike pimps in Ho Chi Minh City. I don't like pimps, it's a loser's way to make a living. Their pitch is this: hassle you as you walk along the street in the posh downtown (Dong Khoi) area as you walk past the Gucci stores etc. After about 5 minutes of relentless badgering and when they finally concede you don’t want a motorbike taxi they change tactics and offer to sort you out with some girls, almost in a pantomimed version of what a seedy pimp on a motorbike would say.
"Where you from? Where you going?"
(Whistles in reply)
"You want girls? Very pretty, nice girls, just for you…”
This was kind of annoying - especially when they park their motorbikes in front of you to stop you walking.
So I started to reply, “No thanks mate, but I’d really like to fuck you.”
That did the trick.

I've discovered whistling helps get rid of street vendors too and they ply their trade elsewhere, sooner, for some reason. Today’s top whistles have been Neil Diamond, Peter, Bjorn and John and also Eagles of Death Metal.

Yesterday it was the Bonzo Dog Band’s Urban Spaceman and The Rutles Ouch! The Beatles' Your Mother Should Know is hard-wired into my brain and I keep whistling it everywhere I go. I have no idea why. Suggestions on a postcard please--address them to Richard the Pimpfucker at the usual address. Everyone around here knows who that is.

Jail Bait:

Just to jump topics for a moment here.

Every time I hear about Paris Hilton I always think to myself: Isn't it about time they released the Manson Family?

Vietnamese High School Girls.

The High School Students go to school in white Ao Dais (one of the few times it’s acceptable to wear trousers under a skirt – Trousers under a skirt are like socks with sandals for men). They look immaculate as they ride their bikes. Sometimes there’s three or four on a bike: one driving, one texting, another looking bored and one at the back changing the gasket for the oil pump on a Honda 50 CC moped engine. And they never, never ever--even on rough, dusty country roads, have a speck of dirt on them; even the one fixing the engine. I don’t get it.

In my hotel room, if I walk to the bathroom it’s so hot I come back red-faced, sweating like a chased pig, clothes transparent with sweat and salt stains like an embarrassing white tide-mark around my waistband. How do they stay so immaculate-looking?

I guess I’m getting old if I can see four teenage girls on a bike and all I think about is how clean they are.

More War: What is it good for?

After the DMZ and the tunnels in Hue I visited the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City / Saigon and also the Cu Chi Tunnels 50Km outside of Saigon. Finally, after countless tours and exhibits I finally feel like I have a grasp of how the war developed and who was involved. And it’s way less black and white than it seemed.

History – skip it if you know it. I didn’t before i went to Vietnam:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War

In the blue corner - the US and the Southern Vietnamese. In the red corner -- the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong (VC).

End of History lesson.

I thought previously that the US had stormed into Vietnam to get the Commies and shouldn’t have been there, period. This is only half-true (the shouldn't have been there half...)

55000 US troops killed. 3 million Vietnamese killed.

Previously I’ve been disparaging about the US troops in the Vietnam. Not anymore. I can’t imagine being 19 or 20 and from the Midwest and sent to a difficult, unfamiliar, hot and humid jungle environment to fight for the Southern Vietnamese who look just like the people you’re trying to kill and, not only that, can sometimes support the NVA too. You wouldn’t know who to trust, you’d be scared, playing an away-game and you’d want to go home. Armies train soldiers to dehumanize their enemies – it must be harder to kill someone you think is trying to raise a family and look after their land as opposed to someone who is a baby-eating monster - and who do you (de)humanize when everyone looks and behaves the same to you?

A tiger trap....



In the Vietnamese Museums the US are depicted as monstrous imperialists. This point of view is not without merit and the US Foreign policy leaves a lot to be desired, then as now. However the soldiers were soldiers were soldiers. The NVA propaganda movie we were shown at the Cu Chi Tunnels made me sympathetic to the US it was so biased. I know this is to be expected but all the displays are like “This is a picture of the Americans panicking.” or, “This is little Chan. She can shoot a rifle and though she was too young to join the army once she had finished planting rice she followed the soldiers wherever they went. She was so fearless she was awarded the medal for being the "Most American Killer.” (as opposed to her friend who was awarded the title of "Most American Executioner.")

Another one ran: “These are the Vietnamese people fighting the imperialist Americans by night and planting their rice by day (Cue shot of smiling peasant with rifle slung over the shoulder as he plants rice in some kind of pastoral idyll).” It’s to be expected, but I don’t imagine for one minute that the inhumanity stopped with the US troops. As far as I know all fighting forces dehumanize their enemy. The Japanese did for the POWs, the British did in China and I suspect India and Africa, The Germans did and the Russians definitely did. I can’t imagine the North Vietnamese upon finding a ditched US pilot brought him home for tea and cakes before letting him finish out the war sleeping in Granny's room…..

An abandoned tank in the woods around the Cu Chi Tunnels. Back in the good old days it were once nothing but mud around here as far as the eye could see...



Anyway, I think all soldiers are brave (braver than me, that’s for damn sure) and necessary. But only a crappy government ever has to use them. (Hello Margaret Thatcher you vile old witch, Hello Tony Blair, you fop….then again George was going in regardless wasn’t he, despite what the rest of the world thought, eh? May as well have joined him to get the oil...it's not like your kids will ever go to fight).

The tunnels only come in women's small and children's sizes...this park ranger challenged everyone to squeeze down the original opening.



Fake steps down to a real tiny tunnel.



I could walk down the fake steps, but I wouldn't fit any further. (Does this tunnel make my thighs look big?)



So, back to the war museum. Along with Dachau it’s the most disturbing exhibit I’ve seen. From the Vietnamese point of view there were despicable mass slaughters (My Lai and Senator Bob Kerrey’s swift boat patrol – these people should all be in jail for life or investigated for murder), the affect of the 21 million gallons of Agent Orange that was deployed, still creating birth problems now--4 generations later. There are still 55 gallon drums being found in the countryside that have leaked into the eco-system, babies born deformed, joined together or with Downs syndrome. (Governments should be forced to clean up after themselves in a war – the US should be addressing the Agent Orange and unexploded ordnance in Veitnam; Britain should be clearing the Falklands of landmines….etc, etc), and there are still many unexploded bombs, grenades and landmines that every so often maim or kill children or farmers (40000 farmers maimed or killed since the end of the war). The photos are graphic, especially of the babies murderd at My Lai and the two fetuses in jars as examples of what Agent Orange does in the womb: these are beyond words. For the Americans there are also victims of Agent Orange – the servicemen who handled it all the time, for example. And there’s a mental cost of the war. How you can have your photo taken with a decapitated corpse (as some US soldiers did and as the Vietnamese love to display to show them what monsters the Americans are compared to the kindly, rice-planting NVA) How do you get to a point where you can pose with severed heads? Or slaughter entire villages? How do you cope with following your enemy down a tunnel into blackness and an invisible death? How do you live after that? How do you ever go home?

Recovered ordnance at the Khe Shan museum.




At the Khe Shan museum on a hilltop in the DMZ you can go into a US sandbagged dug-out. I can only imagine how scared you would be in there, staring at the jungle in 100 degree heat all the time knowing that not far away, beyond the greenery and through the heat, there was amassing a large force of alien people who wanted to kill you and who knew exactly where you were. I think it would be easy to discover you were someone else while you were there. I mean, I find out I'm someone I don't like about halfway through every poncy rock and roll tour that I do...even when there's good catering and daily showers.

Anyone can play guitar.



It cost US$6 for 10 machine gun bullets. Not as much fun as going to the shooting range in Hawaii with Brian, but a good second.....

And it's a sport, most of all. One where you can wear a bumbag / fanny pack as you participate. They even have nice Lady Guns (see below):

Oh, Superman.

I saw Laurie Anderson in Starbucks in Union Square just before I left for Vietnam. She smiled at me. I smiled back because she looked familiar and I’m friendly like that. But, I digress…

In Asia, and I suppose any poor country, being a Westerner is similar to being famous; people are always vying for your attention. Admitedly when your famous they want you and your attention, and when you’re rich in a poor country they want (usually) your money, but ultimately, the effect is similar. Wherever you go you're not short of attention, be it a street hawker trying to sell you some tat or some kids who call out "Hello" as you walk by. Wherever you go, you're comparatively very rich - even if you're a lowly backpacker.

I think some men develop a strange arrogance that they’d never pull-off, or even attempt, in their own countries; a kind of Superman Complex. I suspect it's the lamest gits who do it because back home they're the people with the least power--kind of like poor-quality TSA officials who get ignored when they're out of uniform but who get to wield a small amount of power at work and consequently milk it. In Asia these guys are easy to spot and seemed more common than they should be.

It does get a bit tiring constantly saying “No” to Motorbike Taxis, Cyclos, Restaurant Hawkers and the like, but it’s not like they’re bugging you for any other reason than they want to make a living; it’s certainly not because any of us whiteys are so special. And over there we are very rich in comparison, pretending we're not is kind of silly and pointless. (I didn't see any Vietnamese take a year off to go find themselves after college or to--slaps back of hand to forehead--get away from their cruel and gruelling music-business jobs for some r n' r traveling around for three weeks). But like the newly famous, there’s a tendency for some to be gauche and arrogant – waving away the pesky little natives with a regal flick of the wrist, as though the attention means anything in the first place, and the dismissive air correspondingly means whitey is just too above it all, too over this shit.

At it’s most obvious it’s the plug ugly bastard with the cute yellow girl--like the French bloke on the plane from Hue to Saigon. He looked like one of the baddie collaborators in a WWII war movie or maybe Quasimodo's ugly mate, she looked like she danced and she was showing way too much skin in her tight Bebe sequinned top and short denim skirt. That doesn’t take much to work out, and it’s more common than I thought it would be. On the plane he was showing her the map in the magazine and what the sick-bag was for (well, not an actual physical demonstration....) as if it were her first time in the air. To their credit (I know, judgemental bastard that I am) she seemed affectionate with him but at some level and to casual eye the reationship seemed uneven. I don't bemoan anyone finding love anywhere, but there's something unsavoury about picking up country girls overseas. Or am I saying that just because I couldn't?

I saw another guy trying to pick up a stunning but very demure Vietnamese girl at Hanoi Airport. She gave off no signs of interest that I could see, but this twat—who looked like he’d not only been hit by one ugly stick but had been beaten daily since he was a child by a whole forest of ugly sticks – was coming onto her. If she’d been in the west she would have been out his league, completely - and maybe he's one of those guys who always plays out of his league? - but the fact he was traveling alone to a resort town in a developing country and dressed like a muppet told me that he probably wasn't. He was simpering and smarmy. If she'd come from New York she would have told him to F*** Off, that much was clear. But she was a nice Vietnamese lady and (probably) wouldn't do that.

There’s a cockiness to some numptys who are plain rude and you know these people wouldn’t dream of behaving this way at home. One geezer walked into the Catholic Cathedral in Hanoi, walked up the aisle, started taking photos during the service, and then walked around again, stepping through groups of praying Vietnamese catholics without so much as an excuse me. Can’t imagine him doing this in a church in the West. I think it’s because that in some way some Westerners can find Asians not quite people because of little perceived commonality between the races and because to a degree, at least in the Cities, you know you're not going to get messed with by anyone as a rule and can float above the local society if you want to. (I know this works the other way too – a quick walk as a Westerner through Ho Chi Minh City or Shanghai will tell you that much - or even smaller towns in China where they’ll shout “Laowai!” as you walk past – it means Foreigner).

The sales tactics are sometimes extreme and persistent but I’ve found calm ignorance works as well as sanctimonious indignation (hawkers leave you alone if they get no reaction-they ain't got time to waste). Whitey walks through the poor areas looking regally at the poor and maybe hoping to pay peanuts for tat to take home ("I got this G.I. Zippo lighter for less than the locals pay for it!"--"Great, do the locals buy fake G.I. Zippo lighters then?"). The Asians see Whitey and start hustling so they can feed their kids. They know you've got money - how else do you fly to the other side of the world and not work for a few weeks? One can’t really complain about being hustled if you walk through a street market as whichever way you cut it, you're waving your wealth around, whether you mean to or not–-if you want solicitous and subtle service go to Bergdorfs where they're calmer about trying to get your cash. I suspect some people get off on the attention and of the dubious power it gives them to be dismissive. In fact, I'd put money on it.

This isn't true of everyone, not by a long shot, but it's true of many. You can see it after a while; the haughtiness, the affected superiority, the lack of respect or interaction. And you know that these tossers back home would be the emasculated cretins who have no power or dignity in their own lives; the guy no one listens to in the office, the bloke who can't get on the packed train. I guess the extreme example of this are the sex-tourists. I didn't see any obvious prostitution while I was there, except for the motorbike taxi guys in Saigon who, after I'd told them several times I didn't want a motorbike taxi ride anywhere, would offer to get me women - the logic of such a sales trail I couldn't quite fathom: don't want a taxi? How about a shag with a whore then? There were a few dodgy looking Karaoke bars and massage places I guess, but the Vietnamese don't seem like an overt people in whatever they do - unless they're motorbike taxi drivers.

And to be fair, as far as dubious-looking relationships go who am I to judge? Ten years ago in New York when I went for my green card interview the Immigration Official thought I was the American marrying my ex-wife into the country as she’s ABC. Now that I think of it, was he saying I'm plug ugly and white and she was cute?