Introduction

raw, unedited, incoherent rambling…

I’ve always hated writing and have never considered myself to been any good. Despite my English teachers trying their best with me it seemed as though I was a lost cause. It’s funny how I ended up in a professional position that requires me to do a lot of writing. I suppose that over the years I’ve found a way to do what I need to, in order to get by. What’s that saying? “Fake it until they find out….and then fake it some more!”

However, a few years ago when I was travelling through India (not on a bike), for some reason I felt the need to keep a written account of my trip, a diary I guess. Maybe it was the need to keep notes, that I could look back on; or maybe it helped me to re-live the excitement of the day; or maybe it was a way of filling time at the end of each day; or passing the numerous hours sat on buses and trains as I made my way from place to place. Whatever it was that prompted me to start writing, rather surprisingly it became good fun and by the end of the trip, I actually started to looked forward to my daily writing sessions. Of course, they made no sense to anyone else and in actual fact, you probably couldn’t call it writing. It was more like scribbled notes, random thoughts from the day, reminders and facts. It was also full of sketches (although I’m definitely no artist) and diagrams.

At the start of this trip I thought about doing the same – buy one of those locally produced leather bound books with pretend parchment paper from a local draft market. But then a friend suggested creating a VLOG of the trip. It was an interesting challenge and although I’m not shy of the camera, creating a VLOG was a whole different ‘ball-game’. To be honest I had no idea where to start – and I knew that I wasn’t going to have the time or energy to figure it all out as I went. However, old school blogging…..that seemed a more realistic challenge and coincidentally, I’d brought my MacBook with me, so it should be fairly easy to do….or so I thought.

After a quick GOOGLE search, WordPress.com seemed to be the platform that everyone was recommending. A quick registration process completed (that was easy) and I was on my way…..I even paid for my own BLOG address – paulsamuel.blog (very original, I know).

But then it got more difficult…..in short it took me 2 days to work out how to use the platform so that I could actually start writing BLOGs. I still don’t know what half of the options are on the platform or how to navigate my way around properly but I’m hoping that the more I use it, the more I’ll start to understand it. The whole process reminded me of trying to order a coffee nowadays. There was. a time when you’d order a coffee and the only question you were asked was, “milk and sugar“. Now when you go to order a coffee, you get asked a hundred questions and it takes 20 minutes to make it.

“Hot, cold, syrup, cream, sugar, sweetener, to go, sit in…….“, and so the list goes on and on and on. When did ordering a coffee become so difficult?

Similarly, a BLOG is just a piece of writing and writing should be simple, shouldn’t it? But there’s so many options that it all seems very confusing. I’m sure in time I’ll see the advantages and be able to use at leats some of them (just like I now understand the coffee ordering process) but for now, all I’ve been able to do is what I’ll refer to as ‘Level 1 Blogging’ – created BLOGs using text, pictures and even a few hyperlinks. And so, welcome to my BLOG space – A Vietnam Adventure – “From child hood dream to the ramblings of an old solo biker”

However, although I do hope you take some time to read at least some of them, and maybe even find them just a little bit interesting, I must point out that I’m writing these more for my own benefit than anyone else’s. Just in the way I kept my notes when travelling around India, these BLOGs are likely to end up the same…..incoherent notes full of grammatical errors, inappropriate comments (and probably even some swear words), naught innuendos and riddled with spelling mistakes! So, if you’re expecting to read something that makes sense, is beautifully written and is error-free…..stop reading now and find something else to read.

But, if you’re just a little bit interested in finding out about my 12 day road trip through Vietnam, from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi – including the highs, the lows, lessons learnt, confessions and reflections then feel free to read along.

As this is my very first attempt at blogging you’ll probably notice all sorts of errors, in fact I guarantee it will be full of them. But in some ways that raw and unedited sharing of experiences is what I think blogging should be about. Professional editing is what you expect when you buy a book and this certainly isn’t that!

Anyway, whatever you decide to do…thank you at least, for visiting this page and if you do read on, I’d love to hear your feedback so please leave a comment – maybe it will help me to improve my blogging skills.