All about me
As I write this, I am looking down the barrel of a birthday with a zero at the end of it. I should be happy it has only one zero … I should consider myself lucky that I’m having another birthday at all.
Anyway, I thought it was time to bring my website up to date. After all, since I last posted anything significant on here, I have had two more books published and acquired a degree.
I have fallen in love with Vietnam and I am planning to lead a couple of tours there – one will be tightly related to Tunnel Rats and A Sappers War (my books with Sandy MacGregor) and the other will be much more about Vietnam as it is now. You can read about them HERE.
Somewhere along the line, I have become an ‘expert’ on apartment living – if the definition of expert is that I know where to find out the stuff that other people don’t know. The Sydney Morning Herald Flat Chat column is now has a Melbourne edition (the laws are very different so the columns usually are too) and I have started getting invitations to speak at conferences, which is cool as it scratches the itch that might otherwise have me foolishly try to do an open mike night at a stand-up club.
You’ll find the new, enhanced website here http://www.flat-chat.com.au. That’s the place to be if you want to find the most recent examples of my trouble-making and attempts at problem solving in the area of strata living. After a blistering first year when I was getting about 1000 readers a day, it has settled down to a sensible 5-600, although it peaked one day when I had a story in the Herald’s online pages read by 123,000 people and at one point 518 people were all, at the same time, reading the follow-up on my little website. What was the story? Whether ot not it was illegal to photograph someone’s illegally parked car. Don’t ask!
Oh, and I finally acquired a university degree – an MA in writing from the Open University and Swinbourne in Melbourne. So I can now legitimately lecture about writing, as I occasionally do, to students who are less well qualified than I am. And, as part of my final submission, I wrote the first 20,000 words of a crime novel that I desperately want to finish but which has lain untouched ever since.
Time moves on so quickly. The kittens (below) who appeared the last time I revamped the website are now cats – one of them a ginger monster. And I have discovered a new desire – the desire to have done something (rather than wanting to actually do it). I’m calling it my Empty Bucket list. I would like to have run the City to Surf, I would like to have parachuted from an aeroplane and run for parliament. I have no desire to do any of these things in the future, I just think it would be cool if I had in the past.
And on that note, I wish I had started fixing up this website two years ago when those kittens were just fluffy little balls of fur.
Mac and Pepper at about 8 weeks
Jimmy Thomson, December 2013
Jimmy, the actual original VC HQ Tunnel. is at 11 deg 07’ 12 21”N. 106 deg 30’ 02.18” on Google Earth. That BHQ & B Company’s area. I was the guy that found the VC HQ while going to have a bog. I’ve been to the exact location. Nothing much there now but worth a look. You can get to it by the Highway 15. When you leave the first set of Chu Chi tunnels & join the Highway again , drive about 2.5K & look for a road that veers to the right slightly. That’s Cay GO rd. That’s the road B Company walked down & cop all the flack. Or, from where the road veers it’s 5.6 K on the highway to BHQ HQ. If you look on Google Earth you will find it. The open space where we were looks like a dog or a cat. There is a road of to the right that joins Cay Go Rd & you can drive back a 370 meters to the 2nd. bend. I think our AO was from the next road on back to Nguyen Van Tiep Rd. The Iron Triangle is directly over the river.
The woman that gives the lecture was a little amazed when I stood up & took over from her & told the story of our Ho Bo Woods. I enjoyed that. The tunnels at the complex are a lot bigger than I remember. They’re made big for tourists.
I took my guide down Cay Go Rd. & told him when to stop. I got out & had a look around & told him all about it. He & the driver were worried we were lost. They usually only stay on the Highway. I guided him back to the Highway & he was amazed. “40 years & you still remember.” “Of course.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him about Google Earth. We were treated really special after that.
cool stuff.
Hi Jimmy
It was good to catch up with you in June, in the Ash St Cellars, at Sue’s Larapintian reunion.
We were discussing about revisiting Vietnam next year. I was wondering if there has been any developments on more tunnel ratting.
Please say hello to Sue for me.
Regards
Ken