Halong Bay pt. 2

Titov Island

The next morning, apart from the sunrise (for which we needed to be up at half five), Bobby had told us that we should try and get up early so that we could eat breakfast early and be ready for the walk to the top of Titop island as soon as it was open. As ever, Bobby knew what he was talking about and we were indeed ready at the gates before they opened and got a few minutes of relative peace at the top until the hordes descended (actually ascended, but that phrase doesn't exist). The views were pretty spectacular which the photos cannot, through their low dynamic range, really do justice to as we were sort of looking into the sun.

Titop (Or Titov) Island is so named as it is the name of a Soviet cosmonaut that the Vietnamese wanted to honour for, I guess, political reasons. As you get onto the island you can see a large statue of the man and a brief explanation of who he is - the second man in space. The island itself is quite a nice bit of tourist fodder with the high-level viewing platform and a well-tended, though small, beach. We were given an hour or so before we had to return to the boat so many took the opportunity to sunbathe a little or even swim. Obviously, I didn't. Upon return to the boat, we all had to get our stuff ready for a transfer to another boat which was smaller and, rather thrillingly, was through a boat to boat transfer. As I mentioned earlier, there is a real industry around the tourism of Halong Bay and the level of efficiency here was a sight to behold. At about 11, another boat came and we docked together. Their passengers then boarded our boat and walked onto our deck and we passed them as we boarded the boat that became ours. I found the speed of it quite brilliant and we were connected for a very short time.

Other than allowing us to witness this wonderful economy of movement, why make this switch? It was a little bit of a hassle to move with our luggage and the new boat didn't have the space of the previous one so we could not leave our bags somewhere else - there were no cabins. Sans cabins, we were not due to stay on the boat but the boat was to take us to Cat Ba Island for some wandering and then also to a hotel for the night. This was the sensible reason but it appeared there was another pertinent reason around governance - we were entering the waters of another jurisdiction. Halong Bay is part of the Quảng Ninh Province but Cat Ba is not, it is part of Haiphong. I think this is a pretty enlightening example of some the odd economics in play here that can occur within countries as well as across borders. The tragedy of the commons is an economic concept that shows the pitfalls of resource sharing and this felt like a slight offshoot of this. Each province is incentivised to get money from their resource and in order to keep its share and so actually try to, in some ways, prevent the other province from making as much as they could treating it as a bit of a zero sum^[1] game. Halong Bay is a world-famous tourist hotspot and so there is a lot of industry that is built up around it but Haiphong would not benefit from this as much as it could. Thus, in order to try and generate some income for itself rather than allowing the Halong Bay province to use Cat Ba as another income stream, ie as a common good, Haiphong does not allow boats registered in Halong Bay to cruise the waters. Thus, a boundary has been created whereby those boats registered in Halong Bay cannot ply their trade around Cat Ba and vice versa - you may call this a trade barrier. So Cat Ba, presumably gets 100% of a smaller total which is what it wanted. This doesn't really help the tourists as a whole of course and so makes the visits to Cat Ba a necessarily less convenient stop which is usually less enjoyable - unless you enjoy the boat to boat boarding process. I do enjoy that so thanks be to trade barriers.

There was a fairly short cruise over to the island but as this was more of a day boat, all time was communal time and we enjoyed the views, subtly different as they were, as we sailed the seas. It also felt a little colder and there was a necessity to get coats and jumpers from our bags which I did not expect at all. This may not be completely apparent from photographs as the light^[2] was summery even where the temperature was not. It meant that almost everyone left the sun deck and went under cover to escape the cold even before lunch was served.

Cat Ba Island

There was a stop before the town and hotel combination which was for the day's activities - a little exploring of the island using bicycles which allowed us to visit a village and some other bits and bobs. The cycle spot was right near the boats (another efficient bit of tour making) and we all, as a group, made our way towards the goal which was about 5 km away. It was, I think, a "mixed ability" group so there were quite a few trailing behind including an interesting girl^[3] from Russia who said that she hadn't ridden a bike for a decade or so (though she looked sufficiently young that this would have been when she was a child…) and so was a little wary of cycling at all. She could do it, but I initially thought that I'd make sure she was OK until Bobby said he would. At that point, however, almost everyone else had gone so I cycled off alone at a slightly faster pace but still a relaxed pace until I caught some other relative stragglers, who were the French girls (henceforth referred to as A&E^[4]) that I kept crossing the paths of. Pleasantly, it has to be said. They were very pleasant anyway. We cycled along in a sort of peleton to keep exertion to the minimum. No, obviously we didn't, that would be unlike a holiday, but we did kind of stay close to each other until we got the village spot where the others were along with a handy bike park. From there, we walked as a full group through the woods and up to a small cave for a little climb and explore for about half the group. It didn't feel particularly safe and I didn't have the right footwear but it was still worth the effort to crawl through for a marginally higher viewpoint of the tops of trees. A little more walking and scrambling up some rocks did bring us to a proper viewing area and seemingly most importantly, a group photograph. It was a pretty nicely balanced group at this point which made getting around feel comfortable in a way that I am not necessarily that used to. From there, we returned to the bikes and cycled on a little to find a house in the village.

The village stop wasn't quite what it sounds like as we stopped at a house and were offered snake wine^[5] which is sake with a snake in it. There was also a little farm there where we saw some pigs, which were apparently very cute, and some other farmy bits.

Cycling back, there was a little more flexibility in terms of how we did so and so I was fairly relaxed at picking up the rear and making sure stragglers were alright but I would overtake people every so often as others were stopping to take photos (which I was obviously doing too). I especially liked a couple from Colombia asking for photos to be taken of them enjoying the bikes which were staged but also did capture the memories. I enjoyed it because they didn't just do it but did actually redo them a few times in order to get it right. There is something nice about people actually trying to get it right instead of "phoning it in". As mentioned before, most people on the boat had taken sabbaticals of some sort and this couple were on their honeymoon. The honeymoon was not to Vietnam, nor even to Asia but was a year spent travelling around the world, which was mind-blowingly brilliant as an idea^[6]. Some of the pictures they wanted were of them cycling away which were staged for the cameras. I've a soft spot for photos of the backs of people as they enjoy themselves in some way - I assume it is from third person videogames^[7] aesthetics.

Upon return to the boat, it felt like a full day had passed but it was actually still mid-afternoon and we were told we had opportunity to swim and kayak if we wanted to. Pleasingly, everyone wanted to kayak and a few wanted to swim - the was not really sunbathing weather. One of the differences between the Halong Bay rules and the Lan Ha Bay rules was that you were allowed to jump directly from the boat into the water here and we were told this a few times - hence a few people tried it as the USP of the area. It looked pretty cold in there and sounded even colder when the people did actually jump in. Fair play though, that is what holidays are about.

The kayaking was more interesting as it was a little bit different from the previous day as it was much further away to the lagoon of choice so we had to actually row there rather than starting there. It meant we would pass some little fishing platforms and other people but it also meant we would need to put some effort in. This time, I was paired up with nobody. As the group was an odd number and I was less adept at making friends than other people, I was on my own which made the whole thing a lot harder and also more prevented me from taking photos which was doubly gutting. It was, maybe, 15 mins or so in the open waters and although we tried to keep in a straight line, I was prevented from doing so all the time by the earlier mentioned A&E who playfully forced me off course and made me row more. I didn't mind too much, they were apologetic enough before they started to be deliberate about it, but it did involve a lot more rowing and it was harder to manoeuvre with just the one person of course. Once in the lagoon, it was very peaceful in contrast to the day before as it was large and sparse enough to avoid others so I could float and take pictures. I was even asked to take pictures for the aforementioned Colombian couple which I was very pleased to do. On the way back, as for the cycling, everyone was spread out and I ended up as a straggler. Unlike for the cycling where this was not really a problem, in this situation, I was slower than most people and also not entirely sure of the way back so when I got cramp and everyone disappeared off into the horizon - as the sun was also about to do - I was actually a bit worried. Every so often, I had to stop because of the cramp but I just could not see anyone so I continued along on what I thought was the right path but every time I had to stop for the cramp, the boat would rotate slightly. It was not ideal and I was pretty close to panic but I did eventually find the right spot and waited for my leg to recover a bit before powering back. As it happened, I did not return much later than the others but it was a bit scary when I was doubled over with cramp. It is one of the more obvious pitfalls of going to places where I need to be aware of risks and not push on all the time. More annoyingly, with the light as it was, I could not take many photos!

The town of Cat Ba was not far from the port which we reached after sailing through a nice little floating market (and the docking was done with incredibly low margin for error, I have to say). We then boarded a coach for a few minutes to be taken to the biggest hotel on the island (apparently) and given the evening to do what we wanted amongst the bright lights of Cat Ba Town (population: approx 13,000). The town has developed into bit of a tourist enclave which is pretty handy at this moment in time as it meant it was fairly live with restaurants and bars.

I ended up with A&E as a couple of dining companions^[8] which made it that little bit less flexible but a fair bit more enjoyable. I am pretty unfussy when it comes to eating, it wasn't a problem at all to find something that would suit. They were concerned about the quality of food and so consulted their French travel guide (Routard), although they did also have a copy of the Rough Guide, in order to be comfortable with dining. We found a basic looking place which was less empty than neighbouring restaurants after a little discussion. As it was a smaller group, conversation was different and maybe a little more personal. Clearly, this meant that the question was coming. The question I now always get asked in foreign countries by foreign people. The question being, of course, "What do you think of Brexit?"...

This is a dangerous question for me, especially in social situations as I am wont to add entirely unnecessary intensity as the whole thing sits so uncomfortably with me. So uncomfortably. And it seems entirely at odds with what most travellers know of the UK as a welcoming place that allows people to be what they want to be. They seemed genuinely confused as to why on earth anyone would do this and also how incongruous it was with their experiences. I explained, as I have done with British people too, that the statistics on the voting patterns were fairly clear - as you moved from one end of the spectrum to the other on lots of variables, it was going from remain to leave in fairly clear ways. With level of education being one of the very clearest of the lines, I explained that the types of Britons they had met would, almost implicitly, be of the more cosmopolitan, urban and educated subset. It was at turns cathartic and infuriating for me to explain my view, having to reaffirm those things that people used to take for granted about British people. It is a question you only get asked when people feel comfortable to ask, so I could at least see it almost as a stamp of acceptability. We spoke a bit about French politics and they mentioned how Macron was popular amongst people like themselves and they hoped he was well received around Europe.

It was nice to spend time with what felt like a more honest conversation where I could say what I felt - it isn't always possible in the UK with all the built up experiences and politeness we all have. It was a nice dinner although, actually, the food was nothing special but then, as was said which I assume is a translation from French, dinner is not just about eating but it is mainly about "sharing a moment", which really is a wonderful sentiment.

The Return

The next morning, the plan was to leave fairly early after a quick breakfast and that we did. Sailing through the floating market in the morning felt different and lively with a little more action. There were not really any activities on this day as we aimed to get back to Halong Bay for about noon which was about the time we started a few days earlier. The efficiency of the whole process meant there were basically switchovers with as little waiting time. As we had when we transferred to this particular boat, we did another boat to boat transfer and then had an early lunch on the vega boat. The cabins were available but there was no point in using them as we were not there for long as we just had lunch before disembarking. What was striking after the bitter cold of the previous day on the sundeck, was how much warmer Halong Bay was and also how much busier. I was really pleased to have that extra day as it worked really well to have that different feel and it was great to see a bit more. The scenery in the area is truly awesome and the trip as a whole is wholly recommendable as it includes a decent amount for three days. Vega Travel were really excellent.

When we got to dry land, the efficiency of the whole process was breathtaking, we waited for, maximum, ten minutes for our bus which arrived with new tourists. Those tourists boarded the boat and we boarded the bus so each transport was empty for a very short time - it really was an astonishingly low amount of downtime. The bus return back was ostensibly similar to the journey there but although it was bleary-eyed and only a little talkative, the journey was with non-strangers and so took on a different air. It also helped that we were bathed in sunlight so I could enjoy listening to music and looking wistfully into the middle distance out of the window. Living vicariously through others on the bus, it was pretty nice and heartwarming to see people other than myself having fun - and with a musical backing that meant I could not hear the words but just see the animated conversations. It made it feel a little like an art installation. During the trip back, Bobby (who continued to be excellent fun) asked us to add our names to his Facebook list to become friends. I didn't have a problem with this, as such but I did ask as I was handed the phone by somebody else, why we were doing this. Doing what? Why are we all adding to a friends list on Facebook? The gist being that it is nice to do so, that it would be nice if our paths were close to crossing, we could make them cross. A visit to London could be enlivened by meeting up, she said. This is true, of course, maybe it is all about adding optionality to travel and I felt much better about it. I'm not particularly precious about my Facebook profile (available here) so I didn't really mind about adding myself and maybe the way we can judge the quality of a holiday in hindsight is the number of Facebook friends added. Pretty modern, right? That's how you define modern success^[9] It was still light upon the return to Hanoi and I had a few hours to kill before my plans to move on, as did a few others. I was taking a train to Hue but others were taking flights or other trains out of Hanoi so we decided to kill some time together as a group of about 6. Again, this is not what I am used to and not particularly in character but what are holidays for if they are not for doing things you would not do habitually? For those that had to do something else, plans were made to meet at a coffee place that had a roof terrace in the Old Quarter overlooking the lake.

We chatted for a while as I simultaneously enjoyed the company and felt it was a bit of a waste when I could be walking around and absorbing a bit more of Hanoi (although this was clearly a bit of Hanoi). I feel like a lot of my thoughts are bracketed in these situations. It was a nice cafe and I enjoyed an egg coffee while I could and then left in order to get some dinner before my journey - I had a bit of a Pho craving. On my way to the specific Pho restaurant I was after (location), I bumped into A&E on the streets. This was a happy coincidence although not quite a pure one as they were looking for^[10], and failing to find, the coffee terrace as it was a bit hidden away behind a silk store. They joined me for a quick Pho (which I believe was their first in Vietnam) but I did have to rush off fairly rapidly in order to get back to Vega Travel to catch my moped to the station.

Train to Hue

A reunion followed by the reunification line, I am a huge fan of train travel and was quite excited by the thought of a night train to Hue. I'd booked to Hue only and so I knew I had to be careful about getting off at the right time. The station was fairly large and fairly simple so getting to the train was of no great trouble, I was shown to my shared cabin. Inside already were an older Vietnamese couple (assumptions made) but there were plenty of people milling about along the corridor. The carriage corridor was clean and simple but for me, the main thing they had were windows! I was on the top bunk within a four-person room so I didn't have easy access to the views but I wasn't too bothered as there would not be much to see at night except around the stations so I was happy to stand in the corridor to soak in the Hanoi fumes. I would, in the morning, also spend a bit of time looking out while standing but it wasn't a popular activity at that time. For just a few moments more, I was in Hanoi and it was worth letting that wash over me.

CLICK FOR HALONG BAY PHOTO ALBUM


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<sup>1. Simplistically, you could see it as a zero-sum as each VND spent in province A is not available to spend in province B but this simplistic approach, which has the implicit assumption that there is a finite amount of VND, does not take into account the fact you can "grow the pie" - if the combined offering of province A and B was better, then more people would spend more VND. Personally, I think that it is this fundamental misunderstanding of zero-sum economics that has poisoned debate in the UK and leads people to believe, somehow, that trade must have a winner and a loser rather than potentially two winners. That is what has led to Brexit, to anti-immigration via the lump of labour fallacy. Maybe this is worth more than a footnote, or maybe the fact that this misunderstanding seems irrelevant for democracy at the moment when louder people are the ignorant, means a footnote is all it will ever be.↩
2. One couple, from the UK, were making their way to Australia via a slow and enjoyable jaunt through Asia which is why they were in Vietnam. They were sending photos back to family and friends to show what a great time they were having and it sounded like it really was a fantastic adventure for them. The intriguing thing about them is that they always took photos together after taking their jackets and jumpers off. The reason, we later found out, was that they wanted everyone back home to see how brilliant and hot it was - even when it wasn't actually hot. The temperature at this point was such that I got my coat from my bag which I had only brought because it has been snowing when I left London because it was so cold. I found this presentation of their holiday fascinating and it was a real view behind the curtains of Facebook that more people need to see. I'm sure the pictures were lovely and the relevant people were made to feel envy but it doesn't feel like the best aim for a holiday.↩
3. She was travelling alone, which is interesting enough. I found her to be quite outgoing which may have come from the travelling alone but the thing that I remember about her was that she was travelling really light with just a bag for a few months - it was very impressive.↩
4. This is like Accident and Emergency, in order to retain an element of anonymity. Yes, that is an a and an e too.↩
5. Interestingly, second languages and all that, I was asked about this by someone translating to French in their heads. They couldn't get their head around it being called wine rather than alcohol, which is an entirely sensible position to take. Sake, which this was, is often translated as rice wine in English but rice alcohol in French. Hence the confusion.↩
6. Again, a rather lovely thing about travelling away from Britain, and away from Britons, is that you often hear people being overwhelmingly positive about the UK and London. I am sure that this is partially politeness, but even so, it makes a nice change from being in the UK. This couple told me that they loved the university towns they visited and how wonderfully academic they felt. More surprisingly, they said that the best food that they had eaten so far on the trip, 6 months in, was in London at Burger and Lobster. This was a surprising turn of events… I have not eaten at Burger and Lobster but that is an incredible statement.↩
7. I very recently read an article about a painting that was said to be very influential for videogame art. Link here and the painting itself, Wanderer above the sea of fog by Caspar David Friedrich is here.↩
8. This ended up happening in quite an odd way. A&E already had a footnote dedicated to the problem with their cabin the day before and this time, they didn't have any hot water which I found out when I went to check if they wanted to head out as discussed but not planned. As a result of no hot water, we went downstairs to request help on the way out and I said that if it had not been sorted, they were obviously welcome to use my room. Pretty unfortunate to have it happen twice in two nights right?↩
9. For completeness, I think I added 4 from people I met in Vietnam, 3 from this interaction and that is quite a decent number I reckon. Oh, sorry, I think I was meant to say "spoiler alert" as that is about the future…↩
10. They were looking after we had sort of organised to meet after sorting their hotel out. I was told that they would find the coffee shop with the details and that I should not worry and that I should "do my life" while they checked in. Again, I really love these little phrases. Rather annoyingly, the hotel they were staying at which they had picked for the location was either full or there was a problem with the room. As a result, they were offered an upgrade to a different hotel. Sounds familiar, non? I asked if it was Kingly. I was right, what an incredible coincidence…Pretty unfortunate to have it happen thrice in three nights right?↩</sup>

Halong Bay pt. 1

A 3D2N trip to Halong Bay

The previous night had been a bit more involving than I had thought it would but I had a fairly early start the next day for a 3-4 hour drive to Halong Bay. The bay is one of the better-known parts of the north of Vietnam and has some interesting limestone formations through the bay lending it an otherworldly atmosphere. The person that I met a few days earlier in Ninh Binh had suggested that a day trip was all that was required to drink it all in but a) I had booked it earlier than the conversation and b) I was not convinced that I agreed. The tourism trade in Hanoi is very much aware of the gamut of opinions on this and offers a multitude of trips of differing ranges and prices. As the bus ride is about 4 hours, the majority of boats leave at about 11am-1pm and so a day trip gets you a few hours on the water. I did not feel that this would sate me, so I looked at the two and then three-day options. Most of the options are much of a muchness but the slight variations of offer to me led me to plump for a two nighter and a stay on Cat Ba Island which seemed to offer a slightly different perspective. in the end, we are all just tourists so maybe it did not matter too much.

I was ready in my room at the allotted time, 7:30 am, and when not contacted, I went to the reception and was told that they had already gone but would return to pick me up in a few minutes. Those minutes dragged on until it got actually rather a bit later - about 8:30 which I found a bit stressful, to be honest as I was not sure whether the next three days would be a write-off. Obviously, the name of the post suggests that it was not. I was taken to a part of the Old Quarter where Vega Travel were based and boarded the bus with about fifteen others. Everyone looked, like me, a little bleary eyed and so it was a pretty tired looking ride until the first refreshment stop. The tour guide, Bobby, tried to inject a little energy into proceedings which he did do - he was a good guide to be fair and surely had a lot of experience of these types of morning rides. After the first stop where we could get some snacks and refreshments, the bus was a little more chatty but obviously not with me. These kinds of tours, any kinds of general tours really, are not really aimed at people travelling alone and so, of course, people will talk amongst themselves. This is to be expected (and was by me) and is not in any way a slight against the tour or the people there. This is actually one of the weird parts of travelling alone if you have my personality as you are basically surrounded by people having fun which just seems odd - I didn't come on holiday to watch other people having fun! Anyway, the ride was relatively uneventful and we reached the port on time despite the late start.

As I mentioned, the tours are plentiful and there is a real industry built up around do them with lots of boats setting off at similar times to enter the bay. Those tours follow a similar plan and that, today was:

Lunch while cruising,

Lagoon kayaking

Going through the surprising cave.

A "cooking class" followed by Dinner

A morning on Titov Island

Transfer to Lan Ha Bay on a different junk

Time on Cat Ba Island

Cruise back to Halong

Onto the Junk

We were given access to our rooms^[1] and told when lunch was, to be enjoyed in the dining room/bar, so everyone retired to their rooms for half an hour or so and returned for lunch. The room was barely big enough for the beds but was fairly well appointed and seemed pleasant enough - as ever, I didn't expect to spend much time there.

A shared lunch was pretty nice and a quick and easy way to bond, or at least get to know, your fellow tourists. Being on a boat is different to being in a hotel as the space is so much more restricted so although you can escape, it is much harder to do so. Being able to not feel awkward with people is pretty useful here and the chat was relaxed and easy to enable that through the trip. This may be something that goes on in my head, but I feel more comfortable knowing that it isn't like a speed date, that I don't have to be instantly interesting and can just be myself a bit more. As I say, this may be an internal debate. The lunch was shared in the sense that we all had our own plates but we picked from central bowls of the dishes which I sometimes forget is not a particularly European way of eating. I do like it like that, but it can mean that there are some silent negotiations around who gets what and a little bit of game theory in order to get what you want. The scenery was fantastic as we ate but it was easy to forget the scenery as the food was also pretty good.

Post lunch, as the boat made its way to the stop for the kayaking at the lagoon near the Luon cave [map], there was opportunity to spend some time on the sun deck and relax - which for me meant taking rather a lot of pictures of very similar scenery. Deleting incredibly similar pictures later is one of my holiday pleasures. Others took fewer pictures and spent more time sunbathing which was a wise move.

Excursions from the boat

The timing of our departure meant that we went to the lagoon before the cave as the sunset times made that more sensible - interestingly we were all asked to consent to the change. Kayaking was done in pairs and so my partner for this was the guide, Bobby. This worked out pretty well as he was both competent at kayaking and obviously knew the place and could point things out to me so I could try to see it and not quite make it out^[2]. The weather was great and the timing of the water time was ideal to capture the later afternoon light which was pretty close to the golden hour. We also got to see some monkeying around by some actual monkeys which was fun. The other notable thing within the lagoon was the non-kayak boating which seemed to be larger boats seemingly for Chinese tourists. Vietnam is obviously easily accessible from China and it has become a popular spot to visit which has made Halong Bay even more popular than it was. This tourism market is different to the European market and you get a very different clientele as it is a much shorter trip and less of an "adventure". The more mass-market style holidaymaker means a different feel and these boats were much louder, more apparent and left a bit more of themselves behind. It seemed to chime with the Ninh Binh experience too, of larger groups of Oriental faces and "foreigners" in smaller boats that were a bit more expensive although I would guess a lot of the Chinese tourists were very well off. Bobby told me that they had a much bigger litter problem than they used to as Chinese tourists were far less careful about what food they threw to the monkeys - often throwing fully wrapped food that they could not get into. The Chinese tourist phenomenon is one which seems constant across most holidays that I have been on recently and it brings both opportunities and challenges for host nations but also, arguably, a little more cultural sensitivity is required from the tourists too.

The Surprising Cave (or Sung Sot) was not too far away from the kayak spot so we were not long on the boat before mooring again to enter the surprisingly named cave. I believe the surprise^[3] is that it is so large inside but there are many other stories for the name of varying degrees of believability. It was big inside and genuinely impressive to see the rock formations and also the lighting that had been done to give it some drama. To give it the kind of compliment that you won't see in many travel guides, it reminded me very much of being in a JRPG and going into the centre of a cave to find a sword or something similar. You may not be aware, but this is high praise.

By the time we left the cave, it was nearing sunset and we were treated to some lovely dusky views - the delay of my trip by a day was really paying off here - as we returned to the boat for an exciting cooking class. In this cooking class, we made summer rolls which, famously, involve wrapping meat and salad in rice paper and no cooking. Which seemed a little incongruous for a cooking class. I have had summer rolls plenty of times before and sometimes you are given the option of rolling your own but they are often prepared for you in London. The only real thing to learn was about not overstuffing and getting a tight roll - I also learned that the rice paper should be square, as round is only for fried rolls. This surprised me as I have usually used round ones, even earlier in Hanoi, but I did not think it was worth mentioning that to remove the magic of the "fact" from everyone else. The class was followed by a dinner which was, again, shared at the table and we had all had a few more opportunities to talk so the conversation was less stilted than it had been. They were a pretty good bunch of people from lots of different parts of the world which made it quite fun. There was nobody that I spoke to here that left me with the same desire to jump off a boat that I had experienced earlier in the trip so it was a lot less awkward than I thought it would be. What I did find interesting was that I think all except two other groups, everyone was travelling through Vietnam as part of a "break" in their lives of some kind rather than a simple holiday like myself. I wasn't yet sure why that was interesting, but I felt like it would end up being a fault line of some sort at some point. One couple from America seemed amazed at the idea of Europeans on the tour being able to take sabbaticals from their jobs for a few months to travel and still have jobs to go back to. We do take the employment rights fought for and earned in Europe for granted sometimes. We really shouldn't. It didn't get particularly rowdy or anything like that and it stayed fairly low key and conversational, other than some games revolving around making coins do things on tables, which was pleasant for me until the majority of people retired for the night as we had another early start the next morning to try and catch sunrise. Of course, I retired to the deck to try and get some photos... [TBC]

^{1. On the bus, we were all asked if we wanted double or twin rooms and also if we wanted to upgrade which was phoned ahead to make sure all could get the rooms they wanted and they would be ready. The perils of cross-cultural communication is that sometimes jokes can go awry. Next to me, a couple of young ladies from France were asked and they said that they didn't really mind- "either" and then "whichever has the best views". It caused a bit of an odd atmosphere with the organiser and there was a certain frisson in the air which I assume was confusion or uncertainty around what that meant. Female friends are generally a bit more comfortable around sleeping arrangements (I find) than male friends, but I assumed that they were homosexual but that they didn't want to make a big deal which in itself reminded me of a Seinfeld episode [link to video montage]. The guide, Bobby, asked a few times (they were next to me - I was not eavesdropping) but there was not a seemingly clear answer - they answered: "whichever has the best view". When we were all given our room keys the ladies came back from their room and asked what was going on as they had not got what they asked for. Bobby was confused and said that he had asked on the bus to which they responded that they thought he had been joking and that they had booked a superior room anyway when they had booked the tour so were not sure where the mixup had been. The situation was resolved and they got the room they had paid for but it was a reminder that most people were conversing in what was not their native language and attaching language and cultures together can lead to problems sometimes. Kind of like linguistic "false friends". I think they had a good time though - they were not false friends after all. ↩}

^{2. It is at these times that I remember how much worse my eyesight is than most other people as I cannot really see so far and camouflage really works on me.↩}

^{3. Here is your Orange Surprise, sir. [sips drink] this is disgusting and I can't even taste a hint of orange. Why is it called an Orange Surprise? The surprise, sir, is that there is no orange.↩}

Hanoi and around

Day trips from Hanoi

Ninh Binh is a popular day trip from Hanoi and is often referred to as Halong Bay on land due to the Karst scenery. The tour itself was a simple one visiting Hoa Lu and then the Tam Coc area for a boat ride. My tour had told me that they would collect me from my hotel in the morning, which they did. What they had not told me was that they would collect me on a moped. Could I really say no?^[1]

The moped ride was short and sweet and we reached the tour bus in a few breezy minutes to join a group of 10 or so. I sat fairly sleepily and gazed out of the window for an hour or so until the first stop. As we walked out, a guy behind me struck up a conversation and asked where I was from. Naturally, I responded "London" to which he responded "oh, me too". His accent didn't sound particularly Londony but I always say London welcomes all. I didn't question it^[2].

The Ninh Binh tour was pretty standard and involved a visit to the old capital city of Hoa Lu, which is now quite a small space. It was the capital for a relatively short time and so it is a fairly simple set of temples and the stories behind it are arguably more interesting than the actual site. The tour guide showed us a few items, explained a bit of the history and then walked us to one temple. After that, we had "free time" which is always my favourite bit of these tours. I do enjoy tours generally but travelling alone means that it is by far the simplest way of seeing things so some of the choice is removed. These little snatches of freedom are, therefore, quite nice and the enjoyment of seeing things is slightly modified by the jeopardy of missing things. The fact that you can miss things, however, adds to the enjoyment for me a little - it adds a little bit of agency into the mix. I made my way to the temples to see that they were pretty similar to each other so I can see that people would not have missed too much, but I would have retained the feeling of having missed something so I am glad I looked.

The guy who'd spoken to me earlier continued the conversation as we returned to the bus and told me he was from Mumbai and where he lived in London. He told me quite a lot. I'm not sure I reciprocated to the same degree.

One of the things that my (sage-like) manager at work had told me about travelling in Asia, and maybe generally, as I pontificated about destinations was to assure me that I would enjoy the trip wherever I went and that it was all about the people that you meet along the way. I thought, as she said it, but did not respond, "true enough if you are an interesting person yourself, but I'm not sure I want to do social interactions, really. I can get that sense of disappointment at home!". And this comment swilled around my head in a couple of different ways: one, I'm trapped here; two, he thinks that holidays are made by people you meet and he's just met me - I'm about to ruin this.

We were then taken to the next item on the itinerary which was a boat ride and lunch in Tam Coc. The Tam Coc area is known as "Halong Bay on land" but this wasn't so helpful to me as I hadn't been to Halong Bay (and at this time of year, it just isn't) so I based expectation on the photos I'd seen which were an astonishing display of bright colours. Today was not that. The weather was a little grey and that meant a quite different feel but it was still a pleasant trip. The boats are rowed by locals and they use their feet instead of arms which makes an interesting visual as you watch them. There is a simple bit of differential pricing as foreigners have a maximum of two per boat but not sure what it is for domestic tourists - a lot more though from what I saw. The ride is pleasant enough with a little stop for refreshments at the halfway point where you are persuaded to buy snacks for the rower. As I understand it, they often accept and then sell straight back to the shop to realise an instant cash profit. I think that is what they call arbitrage. Clever.

Travelling alone, I was still to be paired up and paired I was with, the guy from earlier. He was pleasant enough but really quite a bit more talkative than I had wanted, especially as I just couldn't get any hooks into an interesting conversation. Instead, I suffered the banality of hearing about other holiday destinations, how much flights cost, life history, places to visit in Vietnam and the itinerary. I didn't enjoy the conversation particularly but I also felt guilty for not doing so and I didn't want to get trapped - yet here I was on a boat.

Returning to land was followed by a buffet lunch where I tried, subtly, to sit with other people who were potentially more interesting. I did chat with a few more people and it flowed a bit more freely but these chats generally follow a pattern that it is difficult to escape from and I don't have much interesting to say on those topics of introduction. For other people, there isn't much of a hook to me either, an accountant living in a city that it feels like everyone already knows. The answer "London"^[3] is a bit of a double-edged sword sometimes.

After a fairly decent lunch, we had an hour of "free time" with the offer of bicycles or just hanging about in the town so I chose the cycling option to get out a little bit with a couple of other people. I was surprised at how few people wanted to cycle but it was a good option. In all honesty, we cycled along a road that had trucks and other HGVs so it wasn't always relaxing but it still gave a different view. This was actually an advertised bit of the tour so I was a bit disappointed at how unstructured it was and that it wasn't quite the rural idyll that I'd been expecting. There seemed to be lot of construction happening, although maybe stalled, for a greater tourist infrastructure with signs for hotels and inns. Even so, rattling along on ropey old bikes in Vietnam is always pretty fun and I did enjoy the lack of conversation for a bit. Well, the lack of that particular conversation anyway - more the "which direction?" type.

On the coach back, I wondered about how to extricate myself from having to awkwardly go for drinks or something like that with other tourers but the nature of the drop-offs to each individual hotel was very convenient in both the geographical and social senses for me. Released from the societal pressure I wandered the streets of the Old Quarter in the evening to find some dinner and returned to the hotel.

The sights of Hanoi

As I had booked my Halong Bay tour based on the weather, I was staying in Hanoi for one day more than expected - and it was a day that I knew would not have particularly good weather. This also meant I had no more nights booked at my present hotel and so I needed to book another hotel for one more night. Picking one that was nearby for convenience seemed sensible and stored my bags at the hotel I had already stayed in to move at check-in which would be at a time after 2pm and headed out.

This day was sort of an "extra" day and so I wasn't really sure about it but thought I'd embark on a basic city sightseeing thing which, for me, just means walking between sights and getting a bit lost. I started off at the Hoa Lo prison which had a history of being used by a few different regimes but seemed to have a particularly nasty period when under French colonial rule. It was interesting to see the guillotine and read about the past but it did feel a little distant. The prison was also used during the Vietnam War (US War, as it may be known here) to hold US PoWs and got given the name "Hanoi Hilton". There was an exhibition at the end which had a lot of information on the US military held there including, famously, John McCain. From there, I had a bit of a wander around and made my way to Hanoi train station in order to buy my ticket to Hue, a city in the central region of Vietnam.

As I mentioned earlier, I rather like buying tickets on the streets rather than via the Internet but it can be a bit problematic to communicate. The Vietnamese Railways website is not too bad and I could see the tickets I wanted and which train and sleeper compartment I was after. Even so, I had asked at a few different shops about the price of train tickets and they charged quite significant markups so I went to the Railway station itself. Here, I entered and went to the ticket office (or at least what I thought was). I asked there if they spoke English and explained exactly what I wanted. They then typed some numbers into the calculator - the international symbol of being taken for a ride. It was still quite a bit higher than the website price and they said, "not here". This was not, apparently, a ticket office but a ticket agency within the station. A little walk along and a very similar section revealed an actual ticket office where I was able to buy the ticket I was after - a sleeper train to Hue. There are two types of compartments - 6 and 4 berth rooms and I was after a 4 bed as I thought it would be a little easier. That was the point of difference at which I felt I could be mis-sold so I was very clear about this.

Not too far from the station, I grabbed some lunch at an open air (sort of) restaurant and made my way to Van Mieu Mon (Temple Of Literature) which also had a pleasant landscaped garden around it. It felt very Vietnamese in the touristy "real Asia"^[4] sense) to me which was nice.

I returned to the area I first went to where the Mausoleum and the associated museum was and tried to visit the area as it was far quieter although still a little busy. There was a pretty good reason that it was quieter, although it did not explain why it wasn't quiet in absolute terms - the museum was closed. As kind of evidenced by the crowds, the area was still interesting from an architectural angle and the space was pretty impressive and photogenic. This was also the area where Government sat and so there was quite a bit of security there and also open spaces that you were not allowed to enter. In many ways, it is those gaps that make it more photogenic. Near this area was the World Heritage site of Thăng Long Citadel which was home to the seat of power for many years. Entering was not clear as it is not really designed for walk-ins, more for coach trips. Even so, there are some things to see at the ticket office and then a walk to the citadel area (walking past a small military exhibit of warplanes, oddly). It was quiet and didn't have much there really but this made it enjoyable. Something pretty uncommon happened there too - I was asked to take a photo for a group of girls. There is something quite lovely about it not being a selfie and the growth of the selfie has been really obvious over the last few years. After this, I returned to shift my luggage and check in - and of course, I walked.

An upgraded room

As I checked in, I was informed that there was a problem with my room's air conditioning and I was being "upgraded" to another hotel which just happened not to be particularly close to where I was or where I wanted to go in the evening… It also did not look particularly different to what I had booked. The hotel "very kindly" offered to book me a "taxi" to that new hotel so I got on another moped (with my luggage this time) for a short hop to Kingly Hotel.

As a fan of flexibility, I decided to stick with my original plan of returning to the spa and having a walk around the city at night. I was getting a sense of familiarity with Hanoi and was referring to the map a lot less and just getting a feel for the area so I made my way to Vega Travel to inform them that my pick up hotel had changed. As the evening encroached, the light was pleasant and there was a buzz and hum from the early evening movements of the city which felt quite nice. I returned to the spa via a different route and ended up having the same masseuse who remembered me, I do have a relatively uncommon name after all.

It was a risk, but I thought it relatively low risk, and I felt like I could do with a haircut. It was a thing in Hanoi to have haircuts by the side of the road - street barbers - but I'd not seen many so I found a salon that looked open and asked in English whether they were open and how long for. They didn't really understand me but, even so, I thought "why not?". I figured that I could sort it out in the UK if needed before I went back to work and people here didn't know me anyway. I'd guess that the photograph of me that has been seen most widely by the most people is one to illustrate a haircut that I had a number of years ago by someone that didn't speak English. That photo has been used as my "profile picture" for Facebook and Twitter for many years and it showed that English communication is not always needed. Just usually needed. They didn't really understand and it took a few attempts to get close to what I was after but it ended up close enough and it was a memory made.

Walking back using a slightly different route, the city had transformed into a pedestrianised (sort of) one of markets and festivities. One of the major roads had stalls all the way down and the area around the lake was now completely devoid of cars. And in place of those cars were hundreds and hundreds of people doing the kinds of things city planners dream of them doing. Where once there was the risk of being run over by cars, now you were more likely to be hit by a lit shuttlecock or by some dancers. Apparently, central Hanoi, which at most times is full of mopeds, scooters and cars is pedestrianised each week and I was fortunate enough to see this on the Friday and it really was like a family-friendly party. There was actual street food and drinks, people singing using portable sound systems, large semi-formal dances and other kinds of impromptu activities. I was particularly taken by the aforementioned lit shuttlecocks. Football is hugely popular around the world but even countries where it is popular, and this is quite true in Asia particularly, the level of ability isn't necessarily that high. It seems counterintuitive that people so interested in a sport would not have got better at it. On the streets of Hanoi (and I saw it in other places too), there were groups of people in a circle kicking these shuttlecocks (and they were often with lights at night) up and doing group keepy uppies or playing a game similar to badminton^[5]. It looked pretty fun and I was pleased to see such diverse groups enjoying the act of kicking things. Kicking things is the best.

I needed to get all my bags sorted for the trip and ensure I had all my things charged so I went back to the Kingly Hotel to prepare. I would come back to Hanoi after Halong Bay, but only briefly so I soaked in what I could and retired to ready myself for being stuck with strangers for a couple of days.Strangers, but hopefully not strange people. We shall see.

CLICK FOR HANOI PHOTO ALBUM

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<sup>1. In early 2017, I went to Bangladesh for the first time in more than a decade. Elements of it were a pleasure but the traffic was definitely not and it was constantly remarked on by the Dhaka people. The traffic in Hanoi was arguably denser yet faster moving due to it being made up of lots and lots of scooters in the main. I'd noticed this in the cab but at ground level, it was quite an intense experience and this made it quite the practical illustration of neoliberalism - everyone doing as they feel and no concern for the consequences. Obviously, I had crossed the road a few times the day before but it was not a case of finding a crossing and waiting. It is not even a case of finding a crossing (there are markings for crossings at most junctions) and waiting for a gap, there is not really a gap to wait for. Instead, you have to become as one with the flow of traffic - read the runes and insert yourself in. The previous night's tour guide had told us that it was just a case of walking out with your arm outstretched to a stop to show people you were crossing and just walking. This seemed risky and a little too reliant on the awareness of others. It worked that night but we were in a group. My method was to find gaps, but gaps in a type of traffic rather than the traffic as a whole. The scooters were pretty well controlled and agile so they were able to avoid each other but this was not the case for the cars so I decided to cross by avoiding cars but being as one with the mopeds. It was a method that served me well for crossing the road that day and the trip as a whole. Not everywhere in Vietnam was quite so hectic but they all seemed to have a liberal interpretation of the rules of the road…
I did actually get hit by a scooter later on when I was in Ho Chi Minh City but this wasn't when crossing the road, it was when I was walking by the side of the road and a moped drove up the wrong side into me. And then sped off. I limped for a bit but was alright. ↩

2. I have, rather guiltily, questioned similar responses in the past which made me feel bad almost instantly. I did this in Budapest, where I also thought through some of the ramifications of the "no, really?" response [link].↩

3. This is a recurring theme in these posts.↩

4. I heard this phrase a lot about cities or places that had developed in some sense not being the "real Asia". It annoys me greatly to denigrate those living in cities as not being "real" and now happens in the UK regularly talking about London not being part of the "real" UK (especially re: it being a left-leaning city and where it voted for on the Brexit debate) even if it has approximately 20% of the country's population. Asia has quite large cities and so the proportion of the population living in cities is huge - the late 20th Century to now, modern history, is a story of urbanisation across the world and to say that these people are not "real" is pretty offensive to me.↩

5. Walking around Hanoi, there were quite a lot of Badminton courts painted on to the public pavements but I have to be honest, I only saw one street game taking place.↩</sup>

Into Hanoi

On to Vietnam
Management of annual leave is quite a skill, and not one that I have exactly mastered so as the tail end of the year rolled around, I had over a month's worth to take it and not a huge amount of time in which to take it. Two weeks in September would be followed by a couple of weeks in December and that was that. What I would do with it, I was less sure, but the time was booked and that prompts action, doesn't it? Necessity being the mother of all invention and all that. It would seem that some inventions are orphaned. I spent the September jaunt in Peru, but December was fast approaching and my itinerary was empty.
Through a somewhat circuitous^[1] route, I ended up with flight tickets to Hanoi and coming back via Ho Chi Minh City (previously known as Saigon) - in itself, a somewhat circuitous route.
Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam and has been for some time but during the middle of the 20th century, Vietnam was split in two as one of the effective theatres of the Cold War that generated quite some heat in parts of the world that were neither Europe nor America. At that time, Hanoi was the capital of the North and Saigon was the capital of the South. Connecting these two large cities now is a 1,726 km train line informally called the Reunification line and this was pull enough for me. Further research showed that this vast distance would obviously take days to travel so I considered some stops in order to flex it to a two-week jaunt. There's the creation of a holiday right there.

An 11am flight from LHR means a rush hour journey to the airport and this wasn't something that I was looking forward to… In the end, it wasn't too bad which may be a December effect. An 11am start meant a 5am landing in Hanoi which seemed an efficient use of my time on paper. Plans like that don't always work out though.
The flight was not too bad but was pretty full so I stayed ensconced in my seat for the flight with a little bit of napping. Actually, the napping was kind of forced as the plane used central lighting control to dim^[2] all the windows to help us all sleep. I have never seen that done centrally, which was also used at take off, in the other 787 flights that I have taken but it was a good idea. As a result of almost forcing us to sleep, and this reminded me a little of the opening to Battle Royale, the flight was relatively uneventful with the only event being the dropping of a cup ramen onto my lap due to the ineffective table at my seat. This didn't quite burn me as it mainly went on my jumper and jeans but it was still rather hotter than I would like...

Hanoi
Landing in Hanoi was a bit disorientating at that time but there was a fair bit of movement around and it was at least light. I ended up booking a cab to my hotel - not something I am a fan of generally as it feels a little bit removed. I was staying in the Old Quarter which was central and close to the sights so I dropped off my bags, got my camera and started to walk in the approximate direction of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum which was open early.

The weather wasn't great but it wasn't raining and made my way to the entrance and saw a queue and so followed it to find the front. I followed the queue for a few minutes and it must have been maybe half a kilometre or so and I thought against joining it. There seemed to be so many families there too so I thought that there must be some kind of special event but was told later that this was a normal day. I walked around a little more until I found a local coffee shop for some sweet, black Vietnamese coffee and then wondered how to fill my time until I could check in. I did this by finding somewhere for a massage.
Omamori Spa is a place that I read about in the Lonely Planet that intrigued as it offered "blind massage" It was quite a nice place and they were very welcoming with fairly decent English too. I was seated and then shown the "menu" and each massage came to about £10 per hour which seemed reasonable to me. Once I was in there, the masseuse was indeed blind but very good at the massage part and I had my eyes closed for a lot of it anyway. I can highly recommend it as a place to visit as it is also for a good cause as well as being a decent massage. After that, I walked back to my hotel to check in.

Once I was checked in and sorted my bags out a little, I headed out to get a feel for the old quarter and book a tour to Halong Bay. Halong Bay is a very popular destination to visit from Hanoi as it is not too far, about 3.5 hours by minibus, and there are many options and tour companies that run trips there which range from day trips to multi-day cruises. I felt that I should stay at least one night on the boat so I had a little look around to find an appropriate tour. This is not the most efficient way of handling booking things like this it is of course much better to book ahead and not waste time at the destination but I rather like the on the ground interactions and I have a sense of how much things can cost online as a backup plan anyway. I'd had a look at the differing possibilities before but had decided to wait to book until I knew what the weather was going to be like. This ability to shift plans around the weather is what I like having flexibility for and so I ended up booking for 3 days rather than 2 and a day later than I thought. This also meant that I was staying in Hanoi for a day longer than I had thought and decided to fill that with another tour to Ninh Binh the next day. As I was walking around the area, there were loads of tour shops offering tickets and foreign exchange so it was very convenient. I ended up also joining a Street food tour.

The street food tour was not for so many people there were only 8 of us but this was then split further so I was in a group of four - the three others were friends from the US. I figured that this would be a good use of time as it would encompass a nice bit of walking around and dinner in one go. "Street food" is a phrase that annoys me but it is self-explanatory. Except it kind of isn't always, as all of the street food on this tour was not from the streets. Food from Vietnam seems to be gaining popularity in the UK of late and I have Vietnamese food fairly regularly. There is a nice area near Hoxton in London where there are quite a few restaurants ("Little Hanoi", apparently) where I rather like Hanoi Cafe and I used to, at my old office, have Vietnamese food from Sen Viet in the Kings Cross area about once a week. The food there is truly excellent. Anyway, a lot of Vietnamese food may, at first glance, look to be not massively different to the food from around these part - noodles, rice, meat and broth. The thing I feel is different to, say, Thai food, is that it tastes fresh. The accompaniment for much of the food I had on the tour, which did fall into the meat and (rice) noodles, was green. It was usually lettuce and other types of fresh veg which makes all the food taste really fresh. Another regular thing is "fish sauce" which is also a nice addition. One thing that is fun is that often the fried food is wrapped in lettuce to keep your hands dry and adds a different texture. The tour was really good and it was nice to chat with the guys from New York who seemed to be good travellers. I am not always a fan of some of the people that I have met from America when travelling as they can, sometimes, be a little "Lost in Translation"^[3] in terms of not really taking new things on board with an open mind. These guys were pretty open to trying new things and not just as a novelty. They had arrived recently and reminded me that the time difference was 12 hours so they were struggling! It is interesting to think that Vietnam and the USA are so far apart when we think of how closely associated they are. This was something that I thought of a few times over the next few weeks and that distance, I feel, is so important for what happened.

I returned to my hotel via a cash machine and found myself unable to withdraw money using my credit card which then got blocked - this was pretty annoying as I had specifically got the card due to the low foreign exchange rates. Anyway, I needed to get some rest before my day trip.

[Next - day trip]
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<sup>1. I had booked my leave and had in my mind that I would like to go somewhere further afield than Europe but as time rolled forward and I had not planned anything, I was left without much in the way of concrete ideas. My last day was on a Friday and the Thursday before was my departmental Christmas lunch/party at a local bar. During this afternoon/evening, I was asked plenty of times about what I was doing with my holiday and I was not really sure so I listed off a few places that had been of interest. Two people, specifically, told me that I should go somewhere in Southeast Asia and that they would bring a book in for me the next day to see. One person, my manager, did, which was the Lonely Planet guide to Southeast Asia which I had a look at and decided on Vietnam and Cambodia - later refined to just Vietnam. I was asked "Why Vietnam?" in a later portion of the trip and I retold my somewhat unstructured planning and was then asked "If she had brought in a book for Iraq, would you have gone there?". And you know what? I don't know.↩

2. The 787 has a rather nice electronic dimming feature on the windows rather than the standard plastic shutters. This means that you can dim the windows so that they are like sunglasses which is fantastic at altitude or darken them totally to block out most light. The windows feel larger too, so it is a pleasant flight experience.↩

3. Lost In Translation was a very popular film and was released when I was in Japan but it was not something that worked for me. I wasn't sure why, at the time, but I read an article or comment which I cannot find about how the film was a cinematic version of the George W Bush approach to the world. Basically, "why is this different to America and therefore not very good?". That comment spoke to me and I remember a lot of people being obsessed with the idea of visiting the hotel when they came to Tokyo.↩</sup>

The hierarchy of hobbies

For anyone that has met me, they would be flabbergasted to learn that I used to teach conversation. Those who can't, teach^[1]. One of the easiest, and classic, of openers to these lessons with new or potential students would be “what are your hobbies?“

Apart from having to explain to approximately 70% of people in Japan that sleeping isn't a hobby, this works in situations where someone has actively come to speak in an informal situation to give them an opportunity to talk about something that they are interested in, and the teacher would be expected to be non-judgemental of their content but entirely judgemental on their delivery. 

I was reminded of this recently when discussing job interviews and being told that this particular hobby question was an interview closer^[2]. 

I said that I really didn't agree with that in an interview and was asked why? 

"It's just an easy question to deal with, anyone can answer it and it works as a nice wind down^[3]. "

Well. It isn't quite as simple as that, is it? It never is. 

We've all heard the stuff about an interview being two way, "the candidate is finding out about the company as much as the other way around" but that isn't really the case. The balance of power in the conversation is usually tilted towards the prospective employer so the point is, "What's the right answer here?" Interviews aren't the same as conversation, they are a dance of negotiation and we all know that each answer is used as a proxy to work out the answers to other questions left unasked. So the dancers are entwined asking, going back to the fundamentals, this:

Do I want this job?
Can they do the job? Will they fit in? 

So what is the right answer? Something that says: I am interesting, I am capable, I'm reliable, I fit your team, I fit the profile of the person you want.

This isn't a conversation, this is an indicator. And what you want to indicate is all of those things without indicating it too much. As an accountant, the last thing you want to show is a surfeit of character, not a problem I ever have. So maybe it is better to be defensive and that is exactly what the answer is. 

Ooh, I do a team sport, that shows I work well in a team and I bloody enjoy it too. 

That's the ideal, is it not? 

But let's have a look at what I could say, feasibly and honestly, using my blog posts here as a guide^[4]. 

Travel

Yep, this is fine. We want those that seem culturally plugged in and this is such a broad idea. Everyone likes holidays^[5] and so this isn't hard to back up. List off a few places etc but not too much detail. 

Film

Is it right to say this? What does someone that likes going to the cinema (and I actually don't particularly like cinemas) say about themselves? I like to sit in the dark and not talk for a couple of hours. Film is a broad medium, what is the commonality in the films I have written about (generally at the more esoteric end of the mainstream) and someone that loves the latest Transformers movie? 

Games

Maybe I'm out of date with this but surely this does not play well with large segments of society. I could list off many ways in which I'm a better person through games but I'm not sure that I'd ever recover from the initial eye roll you just did then when you read that… 

Photos

Is a situation where people create photos in huge numbers going to allow this to be really seen as a hobby? Taking photographs with a dedicated camera, as I do, is really the preserve of a certain mindset now and I'm not sure that is necessarily a mindset people want in the office. Photography is probably an acceptable answer^[6] as I think it has the appearance of being normal and well-adjusted.

Political 

What's the chance of a person interviewing me having similar politics to me or even understanding what being interested in politics even means? I didn't know what it meant a few years ago, but I did know that they might be weirdos. Party politics is probably not a good thing to bring up. The local elements of it have brought me into the community in a way that otherwise seems unlikely and I think this sounds good in this situation as it does not imply a political position… I’d argue being the kind of person that is interested in the community suggests a particular kind of person but this is a safe answer.

Football 

I feel like this is a safe option. Most people like, or feign an enjoyment of, football and it does not seem to have the same connotations that it did when I was younger. There is also a massive range over what being into football means and I don’t seem to like talking to most football fans that much so it may also be a risk.

Being “meta”/Blogging

Does having a blog count? I would not count this as a hobby but it does use up some of my finite time, and there are obviously some things it would indicate about me. But I'd guess a lot of people would argue that it is pretty geeky. It does not feel like a safe answer to me.

Fundamentally, the point is that what I mean and what that indicates to the listener can be hugely different and arguably a risk that isn't worth taking in an interview for a candidate. I'm pretty likely to be drawn into an aside if I get probed and I see most of my time in public as a struggle to ensure that I am not being myself too much so I am quite reticent to be forthcoming in these situations. Once someone is stuck with me, then I might be myself a bit more. Contractual obligation is a beautiful thing.

I think that an interview is almost inherently (for most situations) asymmetric in terms of the power dynamic and that any element that further puts a candidate under pressure about non-work items isn’t very fair. What does an interviewer do with that information or what is thought to be done with it? I think that is the risk and I would not want to be open to the accusation that I did not hire someone because they had a heartfelt interest in the pottery of the 19th century. But then, you would have to wonder about someone who would say they had that interest^[7], wouldn't you...? 

<sup>1. This is an incredibly unfair assertion, as a phrase. Apart from denigrating a very important profession, there are many instances when you can know what to do but be unable, through ability, physique etc, to actually do it.↩
2. Conversationally, there are basically two types of questions - opened and closed. I used to suggest that closed questions are often good for opening up a conversation as they don't require much thought from the answer but the question needs formulation. The point being that the effort comes from the questioner showing willingness to interact and then adapting the flow of conversations depending on that answer. ↩
3. I may just prefer the wind-up.↩
4. Using only the blog allows this to be self-reflective but is not exhaustive - I don't have posts related to all of my interests.↩
5. "I wish I didn't have vacation time - I have no idea what to do with it. It's like a four-week reminder of what a loser I am." as a character in The Imperfectionists state. Maybe not quite everybody.↩
6. I am not sure that it makes sense for me, personally, to talk of the visual medium.↩
7. Hmmm, maybe it does work as kind of a test of intelligence?↩</sup>

Collaboration and commonality

In an earlier life, I had quite an interest in aircraft, to the point of studying it at university in the form of Aerospace Engineering. 

In what now seems like a parallel life, the UK joined up with other major European nations to form an aircraft manufacturer to compete with the big American ones. 

Airbus was to be, and had to be, disruptive within the industry in order to compete effectively. Airliners have one major differentiator which is their width - wide-body have two aisles and narrow-body just the one^[1]. In 1987, Airbus created a portfolio of aircraft offerings with the launch of the narrow-body A320^[2] which was wildly successful and integrated advances in digital communication to use a fly-by-wire system that allowed the plane to be controlled by fewer people and with a small side-stick rather than a hulking great yoke. What was different about this new plane to the previous wide-body planes was obvious and this could definitely be considered disruptive^[3] in a positive sense. Disruption is kind of fun but it should lead somewhere. The A320 was successful and that meant some demand for some slight differences leading to the A321, A319 and A318 - even named as derivatives of the original - which were added to the portfolio. 

The differences were obvious from the outside but the similarities were not. From the inside, the similarities were obvious yet the differences were not. 

What Airbus decided to do was introduce the concept of commonality into their operations and by sharing large parts of the cockpit, from the pilot's perspective, with different planes, a new plane became instantly familiar. Flying a plane (like many things such as rally driving: see some casual skill here), is both trivially simple and also hugely complex at the same time depending on your skill level and experience. Shared design allows you to draw on your previous, similar, experience - at work we often call them transferable skills. I’m no longer in the careers that I have passed on, but there are plenty of skills that I picked up that I have transferred over - skills are transferred to people, not to jobs. 

To that end, pilots flying Airbus planes can fly other Airbus planes with “Cross Crew Qualification” that gives training to fly any aircraft within the family. This has large savings of time and cost for running an airline with multiple types of planes - the portfolio^[4] of planes of traditional carriers, such as British Airways, is quite broad. 

Modular design is a time saver, things slot in and out saving the time and efforts of redesign. Any redesigns can be slotted into multiple products so designers can spend their time on something else. Truly modular design is very difficult but now most often seen, but not necessarily appreciated, within computer design. When you open a file in one bit of software, that file open screen is usually the same across multiple bits of software. Why waste time writing an “open file” screen when there is a perfectly serviceable one that you can latch onto? 

Good design is rarely about saving the designer time, it should be about how the design works in active use and modular design ends up saving the user time too. Whilst true that familiarity can breed contempt, it is also quicker to pick something up when it is familiar - to the point where you may not even consider it “picking something up”. I rarely get shown how to open files in new software, for example, yet it is theoretically a new task each time. 

Flying a plane effectively also depends on understanding the often huge amounts of feedback that a control panel is giving you. There is a question of how much information that you need at a time and how much is ignored (active and passive ignorance being different things) which is why there used to be a larger crew with a flight engineer to help with swimming in that information. With a truly reductive approach, everything that we do is a binary choice of either doing it or not within a sort of decision tree and a well-designed panel can do the simple thinking for you to leave the complex stuff for those with complex brains - humans. The Airbus approach here took those dials and meters and decided to light them only when they were needed which both hides the irrelevant and accentuates the relevant.

As thoughts of UI and UX seep into normal conversations, mainly as a result of the pervasiveness of smartphone design, it is worth thinking about the end user for things we design at work. Even if they aren't aeroplanes. What can be added or taken away to streamline things to a common flow? What is necessary right now and what is not?

That “Airbus” approach, as I like to think of it, is really a defining point of my attempts at work (and sometimes outside too) and we should strive to achieve a common language, even if we do not have the same output. Not only is that shared culture more enjoyable, it is also much easier to switch from one to another if you can find the common threads that bind different elements. The common threads that bind us together.

<sup>1. The body distinction usually corresponds to distance but not always as some Asian carriers can use wide-body planes such as the 747 for short flights where the market dictates and BA offer a flight to New York from London on an A318! Airbus, as would seem sensible, started with one model and although some of the philosophy around design were different to Boeing planes at the time, as a first foray that is what you'd expect. ↩
2. The first commercial Airbus, the wide-body A300 was introduced in 1974 and was fairly unremarkable but gave a sign of how collaboration across national borders could work. The bulk of the orders for the A300 were from countries that had a stake in production so it was not as successful as hoped but a lot had been learned. The 1982 launched A310 was released as a derivative of the A300 - in many ways a more refined, but slightly different, version that saw a much more marketable product. First, competence was proven but the A310, as a second product was less risky for the buyer. ↩
3. Modern companies, usually American tech companies such as UBER and Amazon, are often called disruptive when they enter a market and change it in some way fundamentally. They often do this by breaking the laws of the land and losing a lot of money - but having the capability to lose money that their competitors do not. It also helps if you do not have to pay too much tax and you get government assistance.”Amazon was founded in 1994, first traded publicly in 1997, and didn’t turn a profit until 2001” Amazon Never Makes Money But No One Cares | Investopedia  ↩
4. The lack of variability in planes is actually one of the major reasons that low-cost carriers are able to run so efficiently. This makes all parts, human or not, within the process chain interchangeable. Having a warehouse full of parts for multiple planes is much more expensive than lots of parts for one plane. It also means each aircraft can replace another quite directly if necessary.↩</sup>

My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday (2016) / Boku wa Ashita, Kinou no Kimi to Date Suru / ぼくは明日, 昨日のきみとデートする

While looking at a list of films, I could not help but notice a strand of similarity between the film title and the title of this blog:

Now this is material. Whether terrible or good, this is ideal for blog posting and kind of interesting in its own right. I can start off with a little bit about how I came to choose it and then go on about the nature of choice and naming. If it is the standard kind of derivative Japanese film that i have seen so many of, I can actually say that too. Perfect.^[1]

And that is the only reason I chose to watch this film, even the poster looks terrible^[2]. I checked the main cast and crew and did not recognise any of them so this was a real shot in the dark.

The film starts off at a leisurely pace following an art student, Takatoshi as he makes his regular way to college on the train^[3] and on that train he is rather taken by an attractive girl that is also on the travelling. Although not the type to approach girls, as almost all Japanese protagonists seem not to be, he decides that he will talk to her if she gets off at the next station, which she obviously does. When she does get off she also gets off little bit too quickly for him to follow in a particularly cool way so he chases after her. It works though so he does speak to her, belying his lack of experience and tact, he straight out asks her for her email address^[4].

The young girl (Emi) responds by saying that she does not have a mobile phone. In 2016. This seems pretty unlikely and so the boy apologises and she reiterates that she really has no mobile phone. After a short chat, they part and Emi, rather cryptically instead of saying bye, says "See you tomorrow".

Tomorrow comes, labelled definitively as Day 2, and although quite taken with Emi, he seems unable to find her again having retraced his journey from the previous day in order to let serendipity play again. 

See you tomorrow.

Drawing giraffes at the zoo, Takatoshi, is suddenly approached by Emi who'd remembered that he'd be at the zoo. After some stilted and awkward conversation between the two of them, Emi inexplicably persuades Takatoshi that they should go and have a wander around and even offers her telephone number to arrange a proper date. Japanese romantic films are almost always based around first experiences or inexperienced couples and often revolve around an awkward chat fantasy whereby love blossoms as a result of awkward yet heartfelt chat. It seems inexplicable that Emi would be taken with someone that seems so inarticulate and awkward, but it is a pretty standard trope. I always have a little difficulty with this as it seems so far fetched but with it being such a common thread within Japanese films I can only assume it is vaguely realistic or a very common fantasy that gives hope to those that are not socially capable. In this film, the couple are both 20 years old (which is the age of majority in Japan) and as the film progresses, it depicts a number of relationship waypoints such as holding hands, cooking and the stages of informality for names^[5]. 

These stages are shown quite mechanically, almost in a step by step way. The sharp focus of the moment, with quite specific timings feels pretty forced and a little too heavily signposted for my liking. When Takatoshi wants to do something new, he asks whether it is OK to do, such as hold hands, which has the effect of signifying them as important moments in their relationship and lives. It is kind of sweet to see them get quite so excited, Emi in particular is wont to cry, but also a little tiresome initially. It begins to feel like going through the motions, it all feels quite prescribed. Cinematically, it feels a little unoriginal with the soft, advertesque music bed also feeling like a by the numbers construction. 

Once the basic foundations of the relationship are set in the film, things do get significantly more interesting after Emi’s secret is revealed which changes the nature of their relationship quite markedly. It also entirely changes the nature and complexion of the film. It both isn't fair to say what that secret is and also quite difficult to review a film without doing so. Suffice to say, the motivations and excitements of each person is basically flipped on its head although it definitely retains a romantic edge throughout the film. 

As I have intimated before, I really love films that dizzy and disorientate me and the changeover^[6] here does that both subtly and neatly which makes the remainder of the film pass by in a bit of a daze. There is considerable lightness of touch here to make the fulcrum of the film so easily understood with a willingness to suspend belief. After the changeover, the previously smitten Takatoshi is a little dazed himself as he comes to terms with it and that fits perfectly with how the viewer feels. He starts to reconsider the last few days with a fresh perspective as I also started to do at a cinematic level and some of what were weaknesses can now be reassessed. 

Without giving too much away, the questions asked of the viewer about the nature of relationships and their purpose are intriguing enough to consider for some time. The numbering of the days also reminded me a little of 500 Days of Summer (which I rather enjoyed) as did some of the tone of the film. I cannot quite put my finger on what it was that seemed to link them in their atmosphere other than maybe the tension within both films of connection and disconnection. The number of days being displayed works well, acting as a constant reminder of how finite a given situation is. 

I can say that the director has done a very good job of creating the narrative and the construction of the whole film is truly brilliant. It is a little difficult to judge some of the film as I did think that it was quite poor initially but the end makes you reappraise the beginning and made those odd moments coherent. The handheld, yet relatively static, camera style is used to give a level of intimacy that is important for a piece that really does revolve around two characters - the friends and family are rarely seen. The dates take place in and around Kyoto are well captured and the details of the city come through well without having to show a tourist/highlights reel of temples and suchlike. As much of the story takes place in the suburbs of Kyoto, there are some nice little details of the space which appeal. 

The level of serendipity involved in watching My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday is kind of covered within the film itself as it revolves around coincidence and whether it ever really is coincidence. Was it always destined to catch my eye? I'm not sure I believe in that kind of destiny and I hope that some may be prompted to not wait for coincidence and search this film out (and you can start with the trailer).

^{1. I think this counts as breaking the fourth wall.↩}

^{2. They say you should not judge books by their covers but surely, the cover forms part of the book and surely it is fine to consider the whole product holistically - the cover is there for a reason.↩}

^{3. This train looked very familiar to me and as the film is set in Kyoto, I wondered where it was set. I did not have to wait very long as it is fairly integral to the film that it is around the stations/areas of Takaragaike and Shugakuin which I happened to visit in 2016. These little details always ground me into films.↩}

^{4. In Japan the email address is a very personal piece of information as it is implicitly linked to the mobile phone and so is the most direct way of contacting people. As this was used instead of text messaging, it is also quite personal.↩}

^{5. At what time do you switch to casual? This question is asked within the dialogue and captures the social structure set within the Japanese language so it may not be so clear to everyone. Initially names have an honorific suffix, most commonly -san. As a relationship develops, and this is true of platonic ones too, that suffix can change to a more informal one, such as -chan, and nicknames can also develop. This gives quite clear defined ranges within any interaction you have with a a person.↩}

^{6. "It's called a changeover. The movie goes on, and nobody in the audience has any idea."↩}