Are n't holidays the best ? Really they are, admit it. Everything is different; it's novel, it's unusual, it's exotic. Sights, sounds, tastes, the whole mogambo, nothing is the same. We've parked our quotidian life on the side of the road for a quick bite of something else rare and wonderful.

Let's not forget our hosts either, they're out to impress too, you know flatter, endear themselves, pay attention, make us -the tourist - oh so happy. And on this last point I speak with gratitude, boundless and undimmed at that, 'cos even if what someone said to me in Vietnam was simply part of their standard sales pitch, they could n't have made me a happier man if they'd tried.

It happened like this. I was in a car driving through the Hai Van Pass, a coastal mountain road which swoops and dips, loops and curves through central Vietnam. Thin, persistent rain pattering the road surface and lack-lustre grey clouds blowing in from the sea. From time to time we slowed down to sidestep mounds of earth that had been pushed down the sides of the pass by mudslides. Only a few days before the tongue, but not the body, of a typhoon had lashed this area of the country indiscriminately; the mudslides were it's visible wounds.

We stopped at a small trading post for something to eat. It was damp, it was muddy, it was forsaken, and as the sole tourist I was the star attraction. The lightening conductor. It all came my way: chairs pulled out, the cup of tea produced from nowhere. Beautiful. Then the sales pitch and believe me I'll buy anything as I proved when somewhere in the spiel is "....you very handsome man" I don't care if that contravenes the trade descriptions or bears no reality whatsoever to my er...unconventional charm....Baby, I've waited all my life, all forty plus years to hear that !

Did I say it was a grey, featureless day ? The moment those words rang out, my sun shone, the clouds rolled back, the birds sang and the grass got greener.

I've been called a lot of things but these four words have never come up in any sentence flung my way. Never. Are there any other words that can lubricate a wallet faster than these four horseman ?

This is how to make a sale. Whatever it is I'm buying it. That's right I do need three identical maps, fifteen postcards I'll, in all likelihood, never send, jewellery for my wife even though I'm not married. You take Visa ? What else have you got ? I don't need it, but I'll take it anyway. I'll take it in small. You only have XXL ? I'll grow...don't worry. What colours have you got? Fluorescent purple...how did you know that's my favourite colour...you read my aura ! You can arrange shipping....I'll take the lot.

This is why I say holidays are good. You hear things you never hear at home....so it was to get me to buy something, yeah as if....She saw my inner beauty, no really she did...