I was never actually stationed in Saigon (as it used to be called), but I have been there fifteen times so far: four times in 1964, eight times in 1965 and three times in 1995. In a letter dated July 17, 1964, I wrote: I am now ca. 31,000 ft. Read More …
My fifth visit to Saigon was from January 31 to February 4, 1965. My photo above is the 1960s version of a selfie, with me taking a picture of myself in the mirror in an air-conditioned café in Tự Do Street (= Freedom Street). The guy sitting outside on the Read More …
My thirteenth visit to Saigon wasn’t until thirty years later (thirty years and thirteen days, to be exact) when my older son Nick and I arrived on a flight from Singapore on Friday, July 21, 1995. We stayed in Saigon Star Hotel and spent the evening at a restaurant in Read More …
This hotel would have been perfect for me if only there had been a CityBike station nearby. But that was my own fault for not doing my homework before booking. Somehow, I thought Vienna would be like Paris, with 1400 bike stations all over the city and nearby suburbs. But Read More …
The novel L’Hôtel du Nord by Eugène Dabit (1898-1936) tells the story of a working-class couple — the author’s parents, in fact — who ran a small working-class hotel in the 1920s on the left bank of the Canal Saint-Martin in Paris. The author kept the real first names of Read More …