L is for Lampeter

St David's University College flag

Lampeter, a small town hidden a west Wales valley, is where I went to university, and is peopled with a mixture of farmers, local people who are slightly chavvy (and dare I say it, sometimes suffering from living in an isolated community where too many cousins have married each other!) but lacking the harsh edge of their big city look alikes, hippies, drifters, oddballs, refugees from the badlands of (post) industrial south Wales come to start businesses or retire and an eclectic selection of lecturers and students. These photos are all taken at during my graduation in July 2007, on a rather changeable summer day!

inside the Old Building Quad

I had a wonderful three years here studying English. Unusually for an undergraduate course, I was actually able to get to know my lecturers. Possibly they may have regretted this when they received yet another email from my wanting to discuss some obscure point of English literature!

The Old Building

And despite being the smallest public university in the UK, and I think Europe, there was a remarkable mixture of students, from 18 year olds to retirees, people of all social backgrounds and interesting variety of overseas students. Even more remarkably, espcially when compared to the experience of my friends at university where social groups tended to stratify around class and age, everybody mixed in together. I met so many different types of people from all over the world, which having lived my whole life in a rather narrow minded town, really broadened my horizons.

statue in above the cloisters of the Old Building, possibly of St David?

Lampeter is the third oldest university in England and Wales, after Oxford and Cambridge, and was founded in 1822. It's interest in educating people who are capable of benefitting from a university education, rather than playing the league table system, and its small size, means that there is a distinct possibility that it might not make it to it's 200 year anniversary, as this makes in an unfashionable anachronism in an age when universities in the UK seem to be becoming more and more like factory production lines.

clouds over campus and town

This is a remarkably beautiful place, so expect more photos of it from my archives when I get back to the UK!

Visit other abc wednesdays.

Saigon

stripey Saigon streets

Arriving in Saigon was a slightly strange experience because, although it was evidently an Asian city, the European style of the architecture coupled with the way the super skinny buildings are all painted pastel colours reminded me strongly of Lampeter, the Welsh town where I went to university. The laid back traveller hippy-ish vibe added to the whole effect as well. Perhaps this is why I took to Saigon immediately. I know it has officially been called Ho Chi Minh City since 1975, but I never once heard it referred to as anything other than Saigon when I was there. So that’s what I’ll stick with. It’s easier on the spell check too.

shabby chic a la saigon

My favourite way to get to know a city is by walking round it, so I was glad that central Saigon is compact enough to get around on by foot. Although it did mean that on my way from our hostel to the Reunification Palace and the Saigon Notre Dame Basilica I had to decline the offer of a motorbike taxi on every other street corner. The drivers, although naturally vociferous, were also friendly: my ‘No thanks yous’ were met with smiles and ‘Ok’s, and I was never hounded down the street. I even felt a bit guilty for not taking one, but it was so enjoyable wending my way through the back streets, occasionally happening upon wonderful, shabbily elegant buildings that no-one has yet thought to gentrify.



no wonder my passport stamp says 'socialist republic of vietnam'

The road to the Reunification Palace, lined with trees and communist flags, was more attractive than the Palace itself which is a spectacularly ugly concrete box. There is a wooded park between the Palace and the Basilica, which offered a welcome shady place to pause.

A couple came up to me and asked me to take their photo, and then we fell into conversation. They turned out to be cousins, on holiday in Saigon from Malaysia, and we chatted pleasantly about nothing in particular for a while. Then they asked me to come to a party at their friend’s house, and I kept having to politely decline, without actually coming out and saying ‘No-one but a maniac would wander off to the house of two strangers she just met that could be serial killers.’

saigon notre dame basilica

When I got to the Basilica, they were starting a service so I couldn’t go inside. Instead, I peered in through the grate and then started on my way back. This involved crossing what seemed to be the main road in the city by foot, without the aid of pedestrian crossings, via the grandest roundabout I’ve ever seen. I got stranded for five minutes on it, before bolding taking my life in my hands and dodging the buses and scooters to get to the other side.

roundabouts are taken seriously here

I tried my first Vietnamese curry that night, which seemed (unsurprisingly) to be quite similar to Thai, but less spicy. There were shoot type things in it (lemongrass perhaps? I’m a bit fuzzy on south-east Asian cuisine) that I chewed on once and then spat out in horror. The rest of it was delicious though, and it came with a free happy hour starter of garlic bread. Weird combination I know, but garlic bread is one of the Western foods I miss the most in China, and I was going to take every opportunity to stuff my face with it.