No Time for Existentialist Laments, There’s Sunburn to Attend To

Ever since moving to Asia on an impulse two and a half years ago, I’ve been donning and alternately shedding personal identities like a character out of a bad espionage thriller. Except that my character has been more Austin Powers than Ethan Hunt. There was the indefinitely jobless layabout expat tourist in Japan, followed by the itinerant English tutor and, after that, unwitting illegal immigrant. I’ve spent three months as an unbathed, shaggy-haired (well, you know what I mean) bead-wearing backpacker hoofing it through a succession of smelly hostels and guesthouses Southeast Asia. Most recently, I’ve played the part of international university lecturer, where I’ve successfully conned Australian communications academics that I’m qualified to teach young Vietnamese students how to be professional communicators. But I have still another identity, a secret double life I’ve been living for almost a year and a half – that of international tour company owner and operator. It’s a far cry from newspaper editor, although the pay is about on a level and I’ll admit the view out the office window is an improvement.

More on my company Vietnam Vespa Adventures later. I’m just back from a three-day road trip up the coast to Mui Ne with 11 guests – a young, hard-drinking Aussie bunch – and my body is insisting on a long weekend of intensive care and recovery from the combined effects of overdrinking, overeating, sunburn, and acute rider’s butt before I resume classes on Monday. For the remainder of the weekend, I’ll don the identity of quietly moaning couch potato.