Author: menata9@gmail.com

Think of Venice, think of Casanova, artist of love. He lived here for years until he was forced to flee after being imprisoned for years in the Doge’s Palace for committing many ‘public outrages against the holy religion.’

I took a bus from Ho Chi Mhin city to the jewel of the Vietnamese riviera, Nha Trang. The road was extremely bumpy, there apparently being no money in Vietnam for road renovation and improvement.

Bangkok, in search of temples. Outside the Grand Palace I met the person who turned out to be my host for the next four hours, a tuc-tuc driver who told me his first lie of the day, that the Grande Palace was not open until 12.30, but in the meantime he could take me to a few places (nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more).

Ah, to be buried in Père Lachaise!! What more could you want? Jim Morrisson nearly went apoplectic trying to get the Parisian authorities to allow him to be buried there, and eventually succeeded, and, if his grave isn’t the most ideally situated, lost as it is behind a gigantic edifice to some French writer, it is still one of the most visited.

Trim by name, not by nature, for this sprawling mass of old masonry known as Trim Castle cries out for Hugh de Lacy, its original owner, to come back from the grave and set things right.