Remember when you were a kid and you went on holiday, and you were really looking forward to it, then you'd get all excited and pack far too early, then you get there and then, then all you want to do is make some friends then play around with a ball till you get shouted in by your mum for your tea? "Johnnnnn, yer dinner's ready!!"
Making friends on holiday was easy as a young lad, you would just find a small clearing, then holding a football, a tennis racket, or even better, a swingball kit, you stand and wait. Guaranteed as sure as night follows day within 10 minutes you'll have a new friend from some part of the UK you've never heard of before like Basingfordshire.
I've just come back from two weeks in Vietnam (oh and by the way that preamble you just read has nothing much to do with the rest of my wee story, or maybe it does and I just don't know it yet) and I'm still trying to let the experience sink in.
So while it sinks I'll just recount what we have to go through before going on holiday. For those of you wanting to find out about Vietnam I would recommend picking up a copy of Lonely Planet's excellent 'Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia'. For those of you happy to read the ramblings of someone with mild jet lag, read on.
Our cat Caley is a very sensitive, perceptive little creature. She doesn't like change. Once she threw up on the carpet because I was assembling an Ikea bookcase. Another time she hid behind the bed for about an hour because I tried to sing some of the high notes on a Beach Boys song. Pet Sounds? Not from my mouth they're not.
You can imagine then that she doesn't take kindly to us going away for two weeks. I like to think that she misses our company, but deep down I know that she just associates us going away with her having to go in her transporter to travel the five miles to her grandparents' house.
So, on no account can we let slip to her that we are going on holiday, which means packing at the last minute after we have managed to get her into the box and off to her holiday home. Let slip of our impending trip and we may as well hire the steam cleaner for the carpet right away.
Anyway I'm getting a severe case of mission drift here, so back to the Vietnam story. Anyone ever watch the Two Ronnies? Does this remind you of the wee fella Corbett's lengthy anecdotes where he struggled to reach the punchline? Nope? Me neither. Well obviously it does remind me a bit or I wouldn’t have mentioned it.
So anyway back to making friends on holiday – I think that’s the closest thing to a theme I have. There was no swingball where we were staying, however I did make a new friend in Vietnam called Tommy. How could I describe Tommy? He didn't speak much, had bad breath, pointy ears and he made a funny noise every time he took a drink of water. Somehow though he was still excellent company.
He'd hang around with us by the beach during the day, then at dusk he would see his pals accross the way then run to meet them to do whatever dogs do when left to their own devices. Tommy the Ridgeback* was meant to be a guard dog, but he was the worst guard dog I have ever seen. For one thing he would clock off just as the sun went down and for another thing he was a big softie with about as much menace as an empire biscuit, but minus the glace cherry.
Friendships take many forms, but something unites them all. Whether it be the wee chap who desperately wants to play you at swingball, the cat welcoming you on your return from holiday with a sandpapery lick on the elbow (no idea why she does that to me!), or the dog you bade farewell to on a Vietnamese beach, they all make you feel connected to the other beings on this planet. After all, you can go on holiday to an island, but you wouldn’t want to be one.
The language of friendship is not words but meanings. Henry David Thoreau
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*Phu Quoc ridgeback dogs are a breed of dog from Phu Quoc Island in Vietnam’s southern Kien Giang Province. They are reputed to be one of the world’s three rarest dogs with whorls on their backs, in addition to dogs from Thailand and Africa, as recorded by the International Association for Rare Dogs.
The Phu Quoc Ridgeback is one of only three breeds that has a ridge of hair that runs along its back in the opposite direction to the rest of the coat (The others are Rhodesian Ridgeback and Thai Ridgeback).
According to old people on Phu Quoc Island, the dog was traditionally four main colours: spotted, black, yellow, and striped; however now the colours have become more varied. A mature dog is about 20-25 kg, with a small head, long neck, quite a long snout, thin yet long ears and dark speckles on the tongue. The body of tapering belly, straight legs and webbed feet, this allows Phu Quoc dogs to swim and run exceedingly well.
According to some dog experts, the Phu Quoc dog is much more intelligent than others. They are famous for hunting and protecting houses, for their friendship and loyalty to owners, and their fearlessness against competitors. They excel in swimming and running and are able to leap over high fences.