Tag Archives: photos

Apr 01 2019
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Daily Post, Transport

In the delta

Monday 1st April 2019, 12.30pm (day 2,776)

Mekong delta, 1/4/19

I will remain in Vietnam until Wednesday night but I have to work from this point on, so today, Monday, was the last of my three-day weekend of tourism. Shipping visitors out from Saigon and into the Mekong Delta is a major industry which I was happy to buy into for a day; in case you think there is something ‘authentic’ about this shot let me observe that the four people in the front of this boat are all Europeans of various types. Nevertheless this doesn’t reduce the attractiveness of the place, with its water the colour of milky tea and a general level of peacefulness here on the northern edge of the county of Ben Tre, 90 minutes’ drive south of the big city. Yes, I like Vietnam… highly recommended.

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Mar 31 2019
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Daily Post, Transport

The local dominant lifeform

Sunday 31st March 2019, 11.30am (day 2,775)

Saigon motorbikes, 31/3/19

If you’ve been to Saigon you are surely aware that the dominant lifeform in the city is the motorcycle. There are hordes of them. They make crossing the road an act that takes definite courage and the permutations of humans and cargo that can fit on them beggars belief. I even saw one today with two people and a dog on it, I kid you not. I tried to get a shot of a horde in transit, but this one, of one of the many street-side motorcycle parks, seems also to sum up their sheer number quite well.

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Mar 30 2019
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Daily Post, Portrait, Stranger

War tourism

Saturday 30th March 2019, 12.20pm (day 2,774)

War tourism, 30/3/19

This blog is both commentary, and record. So there is one part of me that regrets there is such a thing as ‘war tourism’ exists — that the dreadful conflict between the two parts of Vietnam, with the interventions of the USA, that lasted for some ten years from 1964 or so should now be something that people have come to feel is merely the background for a family photo. On the other hand — I went to the War Remnants museum in Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh CIty) today; I too was a war tourist. So should I feel guilty? The place was even-handed enough, there were some fascinating things to look at (most of all, the gallery of war correspondent photographs from both Vietnamese and European/American photographers), it passed most of the day. I learned, and that’s surely what matters. But could I stand and smile for the camera in front of a death machine? That’s something else.

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Mar 29 2019
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Art and architecture, Daily Post

Nanyang Technological University campus

Friday 29th March 2019, 2.45pm (day 2,773)

NTU, Singapore, 29/3/19

Last day in Singapore before I move on once more on this spring tour of Asia. Nanyang Technological University, or NTU, becomes the latest campus to feature on the blog. It’s a pleasant green space, though with that generic feel that many campuses — and, in the end, the whole world — is starting to have. This is one of those shots that would be nicer if it were truly symmetrical, but I guess that level of symmetry happens only rarely, so perhaps I should embrace the nearness of it, its imperfections in that respect.

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Mar 29 2019
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Daily Post, Urban scene

The Singapore River and Boat Quay

Thursday 28th March 2019, 1.30pm (day 2,772)

Singapore, Boat Quay, 28/3/19

Boat Quay is that bit of Singapore that you come to if you are happy to be enticed into one of at least thirty pubs, cafes and/or restaurants that line the riverside: the corrugated iron rooves that cover the al-fresco tables are clear on this shot, taken from 33 floors up. It’s a good-looking city in fact: and far more attractive than Dubai.

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Mar 28 2019
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Daily Post, Landscape

Cloudscape: the descent to Singapore

Wednesday 27th March 2019, 6.45am (day 2,771)

Cloudscape, Singapore, 27/3/19

My journey eastwards continued overnight. I slept not at all, I never do sleep on planes. So I could get a shot of this great cloudscape as the sun came up about ten minutes before we landed at Changi airport in Singapore (where, back in January 2013, I had a few hours’ stopover on my way to Australia). I guess with Singapore being the small size this is, I could here be in Malaysian or Indonesian airspace but what the hell, let’s not split hairs.

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Mar 27 2019
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Daily Post, Interior

Lunch, Emirati-style

Tuesday 26th March 2019, 12.10pm (day 2,770)

Dubai lunch, 26/3/19

Regardless of anything else that has ever happened on any of my trips to the Middle East — I have never come away complaining about the food in any way. In my opinion — the nicest cuisine in the world…

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Mar 25 2019
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Daily Post, Urban scene

Palm tree graveyard, Dubai

Monday 25th March 2019, 4.15pm (day 2,769)

Dubai palm graveyard, 25/3/19

So the first stop on my tour of Asia and Australia is Dubai, just for forty-eight hours. My colleague Alex and I were worked hard all day in the University of Manchester office that exists here, in the ‘Dubai Knowledge City’ — which like the rest of this place has been raised out of the desert over the last fifteen to twenty years or so. The towers in the background are the Marina Towers which apparently started the whole property boom off as this was the first place in which non-nationals had been allowed to buy freeholds in pretty much the whole of Arabia.

But though I don’t know this place, not after one day (who could) and so can’t call this a considered opinion — there’s something about it which just leaves me cold. It’s just the antithesis of things I like about the world, in so many different ways. The chopped-up palm trees are my attempt to somehow encapsulate these feelings. The symbolism is deliberate.

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Mar 24 2019
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Daily Post, Interior

The view from seat 79K

Sunday 24th March 2019, 6.55pm (Gulf standard time) (day 2,768)

Flying to Dubai, 24/3/19

This is how I spent my day, up in a huge tin pipe, consuming inordinate amounts of fossil fuels and generally being a little bored. I got the usual window seat in the hope that, as it was a daytime flight, there would be plenty of photo opportunities, but there were clouds almost everywhere, including over places one would think would normally be rather sunny (like Iraq, for example). Thus, this interior — the 11th pic on the blog where I’ve been unable to specify what country I was in at the time.

However, I do know where I’m going, and barring the highly unexpected there will be four different countries coming up in the next three weeks, three of which I have not visited properly before (meaning, more than just changing planes there). But it’s a work trip — mostly — so you may just get a load of office interiors, particularly for this first few days….

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Mar 24 2019
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Daily Post, Sport

A beer in the sunshine

Saturday 23rd March 2019, 2.35pm (day 2,767)

Cheshunt FC, 23/3/19

My last full day in the UK for three and a bit weeks. There might be a photo from the airport tomorrow, but if there’s not this is the last of 117 consecutive UK pictures: not the longest run I’ve had but it does seem a while since I was last away (Germany, late November). It being Saturday, I went to the football; the ground is (as you can see in the background) Cheshunt FC, but the home team today were FC Romania, who groundshare there. This picture does not show that at all, but I like the red of the guy’s top against the muted tones of the stands and tarmac.

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