Graduated, Gone, Garbage Not a travel journal per se, just something to record ideas, thoughts and photo's for anyone interested.

Everywhere I go in Vietnam there is usually some person doing some strange gyrating. A quick swivel of the hips, a stolen moment lunging, some prostrating at irregular angles, it all happens sporadically and potentially anywhere. Spend a moment walking down the street and walk past at least three or four limpid bodies shaking it all out before you. What is the meaning of it all? Is the open air simply one big gym that we all have exclusive membership to? Is the pavement our treadmill, our motorbikes our rowing machines? In Vietnam the answer is that exercise, despite being low on the usual man’s agenda, is done in the outside realm for pure public consumption. Nowhere is this more evident than local swimming pools. For just VND30,000 or around $1.5 access is open to the sunny and friendly complex of Lan Anh in District 10. Lying in wait is a nice pool area complete with sundeck, loungers, poolside bar and Jacuzzi (rarely in operation). Also included at no extra fee are armies of Vietnamese kids gawping at you in your skinnies and pointing and laughing amongst friends. I know my organ’s small, but I was told I would be a giant among men in Asia, so something must be seriously wrong. Anyway, I usually get over this my reassuring myself Mark Wahlberg Boogie Nights style only to be later lambasted by the reams of gyrating elder fathers and elongating mothers. Some of their warm up methods are bizarre. A quick sprint back and forth on an invisible line. A couple of press ups whilst dipping a head into pool water. Rubbing buttocks into blissful oblivion. What is their deal? I just want to enjoy the pool and a bit of Vitamin D, I don’t want to have some daytime TV style troop of aerobic acrobats stalking my every move.