October 15
I’ve just been making a short film with a few people in Ba Be National Park in northern Vietnam. I’m not going to write much now, just putting up a couple of photos. From the land where the pith helmet is actually worn by millions of men on bicycles.
October 12
On the spur of the moment I booked a ticket to Hanoi, northern Vietnam, last week. Tonight I sit on the balcony of a wooden stilt house by a lake with touring limestone peaks as a dimly made out sky line all around. This laptop is about to run out of batteries, so I’ll keep this short and write more soon. Last night I sat on the back of a scooter and crossed downtown Hanoi in peak hour traffic, in a tropical downpour. I have to say that this one of the scariest experiences of my life and I loved it. The traffic in Hanoi is a quivering and twitching organism of intricate give and take. Amazing experience. Didn’t like the feeling in my lungs, but amazing. The food here is the best I’ve ever eaten and leaves Thailand for dead. I’m on the move with lovely local Vietnamese people. Half of this countries 83 million people are under 30, and it seems like every single person here is a slim and good looking 25 year old. A huge number of people still live in the country and they know more than us Westerners that eating is an agricultural act. More soon. Facebook is blocked in this Communist state by the way.
September 27
This week on Understorey its a reggae special. I talk with roots reggae legend Pablo Moses – pictured above – about his music and the place of nature in the Rastafarian faith. Later I interview Ian Scobie, director of Earth Station, a boutique environment and music festival taking place in a National Park in South Australia in October. On the line-up for the festival is Melbourne-based reggae outfit Mista Savona, which of course gave me an excuse to interview the man behind Australia’s biggest reggae act, Jake Savona. Here is this week’s show.
