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 In April 2010 we travelled to the previous French territories of Cambodia and Vietnam: ‘French Indochina’, as they had been called when I started school; until 1954. Since then many things have changed.  But of course, this has been a region of change for tens of thousands of years. Our trip ‘filled in’ areas of the map between our previous trips to India and China and did not disappoint.  There is certainly a sense in which Indochina is a blend of China and India; with differences tangential to both. Both have recovered from recent conflicts of which there is still evidence everywhere, like the smell of gunpowder after fireworks.

As the Ganges dominates north-eastern India so the Mekong River dominates this region. From the Tibetan Plateau it flows through China's Yunnan province, Burma, Laos and Thailand meandering more slowly as it crosses Cambodia and on into Vietnam.  Its plain is flat and fertile and numerous societies, cultures and religions have left their marks here. 

 

Not so long ago, in geological terms, Indochina was a lot bigger.  When humans first arrived it was possible to walk all the way to Java. The Gulf of Thailand across to Borneo and Java was a low-lying plain probably intersected by substantial rivers. 

Stone Age and early Bronze Age humans lost this territory and overland routes to inundation due to sea level rise and tectonic activity (making Australia even more isolated around ten thousand years ago);  this rise continues slowly today, ever-changing the shorelines.

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From Wikipedia:  Early Human Migration & Sea Level change 

With the advent of metals technology and organised agriculture, civilisation began to develop across these lands spawning trade routes, great empires, great tyrants and maybe a few benign rulers.  In turn, these cultures were a great breeding ground for religion; to give meaning and succour to the disadvantaged; to justify power and the rule of law; to give the powerful hope that their power would never end; and maybe, to encourage the well off to help those less so.   As one empire fell so another took its place; from dust unto dust; ‘for all is vanity’; to borrow from another religion.

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Travel

Europe 2022 - Part 2

 

 

 

In July and August 2022 Wendy and I travelled to Europe and to the United Kingdom (no longer in Europe - at least politically).

This, our first European trip since the Covid-19 pandemic, began in Berlin to visit my daughter Emily, her Partner Guido, and their children, Leander and Tilda, our grandchildren there.

Part 1 of this report touched on places in Germany then on a Baltic Cruise, landing in: Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Sweden and the Netherlands. Read more...

Now, Part 2 takes place in northern France. Part 3, yet to come, takes place in England and Scotland.

Read more: Europe 2022 - Part 2

Fiction, Recollections & News

Christmas 1935

 

When I first saw this colourized image of Christmas Shopping in Pitt St in Sydney in December 1935, on Facebook  (source: History of Australia Resources).

I was surprised. Conventional history has it that this was in the middle of the Great Depression. Yet the people look well-dressed (perhaps over-dressed - it is mid-summer) and prosperous. Mad dogs and Englishmen?

 

 

So, I did a bit of research. 

It turns out that they spent a lot more of their income on clothes than we do (see below).

Read more: Christmas 1935

Opinions and Philosophy

Death

 

 

Death is one of the great themes of existence that interests almost everyone but about which many people avoid discussion.  It is also discussed in my essay to my children: The Meaning of Life on this website; written more than ten years ago; where I touch on personal issues not included below; such as risk taking and the option of suicide.

Read more: Death

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