I have just finished another challenging & inspiring week working with law enforcement officers from 10 countries in this region. Clicking on the thumbnail below will bring up a slideshow with a few images of this group.  

I have a new love in my life and it’s ugly, oily, smelly and noisy but it handles well, has adequate suspension and is responsive when stroked the correct way. Yes, it’s the old Minsk motorbike that we’ll be riding to Sa Pa beginning tomorrow. I was a bit intimidated by the appearance of these […]

Mimi, Lisa Terry and I were leaving the Hilton Ha Noi Opera Hotel the other night when one of the doorman enquired whether there was something we were looking for and Terry quipped that actually we were searching for “happiness”. We all encouraged the doorman to please inform us if he came across true “happiness” […]

What can I say? Click on the thumbnail for a few images taken over the past few days around Ha Noi.  

Having Mimi along on this trip has already paid dividends as we had no sooner checked in to our Bamboo Hotel than one young male member of staff asked us if we could regard him as our son because he liked the way Mimi looks. After some general joking about this situation where I told […]

Here is the happy ARLEMP4 crew taking lunch at the Me Le Hotel on Tam Dao Mountain  

All over the village of Tam Dao there is road maintenance and construction of new retaining walls taking place and with each crew there seems to be at least one lady carrying a blackened tea pot to allow for regular cups of tra. Clicking on the thumbnail will bring up a small slideshow.

Each morning when I am staying at the Win Hotel in Hang Hanh St I eat at a tiny restaurant directly opposite. The lady who runs it is very famous for not only her noodles, but more especially for her sticky rice which I love. The locals are highly amused that I eat so much […]

What an interesting and diverse life we lead right now. For the past week I have been working with law enforcement officers from 10 nations in this region. This is always a challenging experience as these people are educated and have a wealth of real life experience, which makes working them them completely different from […]

I’m blogging this from Ha Noi as I flew here today to present for the next week at the 4th Asian Regional Law Enforcement Management Program (ARLEMP 4). The weather in Ha Noi is ‘chilly’ right now and it is already making me wonder how much more ‘chilly’ it will be in two weeks time […]

There are a young couple who run a small (maybe a dozen plastic stools) pavement cafe serving soft drinks and selling cigarettes who we often stop and talk with if we happen to be going down Nguyen Thi Dieu St. Two of our favourite eateries are in this street and as it is close to […]

This is a first for me, I’m blogging this from a hairdressing salon. This is not just any ordinary hairdressing salon however, its a very new, very modern huge place and while you are waiting there are plenty of computers to sit and access the Internet from. Bianca and Lisa have come here to get […]

It was while I was presenting a two day Leadership & Management seminar last week that I realised something about myself. I believe I had known this thing for a long time, but by verbalising it, it crystalised and became very clear to me. I had involved the group in a discussion about communication skills, […]

this place is becoming weirder and weirder, buildings swaying and statues crying, what next? As reported here, here and here an earthquake with an intensity of 5.5 on the richter scale struck here twice during this week. I didn’t feel the first tremor as I guess that I must have been asleep, however the second […]

I have been doing a great deal of reflection lately about myself, living in Viet Nam, the culture here, the people, my colleagues, my relationships with those I love. Everything has had a bit of a going over and there is a lot more inner peering that needs to be done yet. What have I […]

The cyclo driver who lives about 6 houses away from ours can be seen these days carrying his little granddaughter on walks or taking her for rides in his cyclo. Both he and his wife adore this little girl so much and the love and affection they shower on her is so obvious that she […]

This sort of alters the way in which I think about prawn toast. This is REAL prawn toast. Taken this morning at Banh Mi Ha Noi on Nguyen Thien Thuat St. click on the thumbnail for a larger pop-up image  

Landon is going home tomorrow to say a final goodbye to his Mom in the States. Good luck mate, I know this must be a tough one for you.