My Motorbike Tour – Northern Vietnam

On By Rick McIn health & fitness, travelLeave a comment

Right now I’m on a 3-day motorbike tour called the HĂ  Giang Loop close to the Chinese border.

It’s become super popular with tourists the past 15 years.

Here’s how A.I. envisions my adventure.

Here’s my actual bike. 1500cc – THUNDER down UNDER.

… actually, I don’t ride the crotch rocket myself.

Instead, I sit on back. A grinning lump. I have an expert driver / guide here seen reloading on coconut coffee.

He’s the leader, as well, of our group of 9. No doubt I got the boss because I looked the biggest trouble maker in the group. 😀

Mã Pí Lèng Pass

It’s surprisingly safe. I did run off the bike once when we hit a pothole at low speed.

AND I do have evacuation insurance, just in case. 😀

Crosshairs by Patterson & Born

On By Rick McIn booksLeave a comment

For a James Patterson book, this is quite good.

Sure, it’s cheesy. It’s Patterson.

But I enjoyed the character of Rob Trilling, a shooting expert—a former Army Ranger and sniper with NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit.

He’s there to help New York City detective Michael Bennett find a killer sniper who’s been taking out seemingly random people.

Crosshairs (2024) is Michael Bennett series.

Of course, Bennett’s wife and 10 children are always entertaining.

Outsider by Brett Popplewell

On By Rick McIn books, health & fitness, philosophyLeave a comment

A surprising and important book.

Outsider follows journalist Brett Popplewell as he uncovers the story of Dag Aabye, an aging former stuntman who lived alone inside a school bus on a mountain, running day and night through blizzards and heat waves.

The book chronicles Aabye’s life from childhood to the silver screen, reflecting on our notions of aging, belonging and human accomplishment. 

Dag Aabye is often credited the world’s first extreme skier.

His life is extreme, as well.

GREAT ending.

Into the Wild meets Born to Run meets The Stranger in the Woods in a fascinating true story of a marathon-running hermit and a journalist’s quest to solve the mystery at the core of the enigmatic man’s existence

Apostle’s Cove by William Kent Krueger

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Apostle’s Cove is a 2025 murder mystery novel by one of my favourite authors, William Kent Krueger.

The 21st book in his Cork O’Connor Mystery series. 

This one has an interesting format.

A few nights before Halloween, as Cork O’Connor gloomily ruminates on his upcoming birthday, he receives a call from his son, Stephen, who is working for a nonprofit dedicated to securing freedom for unjustly incarcerated inmates.

Stephen tells his father that decades ago, as the newly elected sheriff of Tamarack County, Cork was responsible for sending an Ojibwe man named Axel Boshey to prison for a brutal murder that Stephen is certain he did not commit.

Cork feels compelled to reinvestigate the crime, but that is easier said than done.

Not only is it a closed case but Axel Boshey is, inexplicably, refusing to help.

The deeper Cork digs, the clearer it becomes that there are those in Tamarack County who are willing once again to commit murder to keep him from finding the truth.



My Singapore Photos

On By Rick McIn photos, travel1 Comment

I’m planning to return to Singapore in October, connecting with friends.

NIGHT is the very best time to be out and about in this hot and humid city close to the equator.

Most low budget travellers stay in Little India. Shop at the Mustafa mall.

Indian food was a welcome change after a month of mostly rice and noodles.

Masala Dosa

Here’s a gallery of some of my favourite pics from September. Click to move through the 18 photos.

Ultramodern Singapore

On By Rick McIn economics, food, government, human rights, travelLeave a comment

Clean, efficient, safe. An ideal tourist destination for me after chaotic Indonesia.

Almost everyone speaks English. They are very welcoming of visitors.

Yes, some things are very expensive. But you can have a great time spending very little money.

For example, Shimano Cycling World will rent you a high end road bike for $150. Or you can take one of their mountain bikes for free. Nice.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. Drone footage I shot of myself was done in one of the parks dedicated to drone pilots. Singapore thinks of everything. 😀

Changi Airport (always ranked in the world) provides free city tours if you have a layover of enough hours at the right time of day.

Singapore’s diversity of cuisine is touted as a reason to visit the country, due to its combination of convenience, variety, quality, and price.

I find it a very green city.

Singapore is an economic success story. This tiny island nation has the highest PPP-adjusted GDP per capita in the world. 

Singapore ranks highly in key social indicators: education, healthcare, quality of life, personal safety, infrastructure, and housing, with a home-ownership rate of 88 percent. 

Singaporeans enjoy one of the longest life expectancies, fastest Internet connection speeds, lowest infant mortality rates, and lowest levels of corruption in the world.

This is the kind of nation fiscal conservatives should study.

Personally, it’s not democratic enough for me.

The laws too strict. Singapore still has the death penalty.

Male homosexual relations were not decriminalized until 2022.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Cold Storage by David Koepp (Book & Movie)

On By Rick McIn books, moviesLeave a comment

Cold Storage is a 2019 science fiction novel written by one of the top screen writers of all time.

After decades underground in a forgotten sub-basement, a highly mutative organism – capable of extinction-level destruction – has found its way out.

Only Pentagon bioterror operative Roberto Diaz can stop it. With the help of two unwitting security guards, he has one night to quarantine this horror, before it destroys all of humanity.

Loser Teacake is hilarious.

It’s one of those end-of-the-world thrillers. Not too believable — but would make a good Hollywood film.

I did enjoy the humour. Some of the dialogue could be kept for the movie.

In fact, a film version is planned for 2026. Starring Joe Keery, Georgina Campbell, and Liam Neeson. 

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Gourmet Dining – Seafood Tower in Singapore

On By Rick McIn food, friends, gymnastics, travelLeave a comment

Dennis hosted dinner for myself, Cliff Parks, and friends at the Greenwood Fish Market in Sentosa.

He ordered a Seafood Tower for the table.

. … I’d never seen anything like it.

Fantastic.

The highlight for Cliff was his 1st raw oyster. A BIG one.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Mustafa Centre, Singapore

On By Rick McIn travel2 Comments

One of the amazing tourist destinations in Singapore is the Mustafa Centre.

Unlike the many modern shopping malls, Mustafa caters mainly to the budget market.

75,000 square feet with a 130-room hotel.

It’s crammed with almost any product you can imagine. Over 300,000 products.

Open 24 hours. Packed at all hours of the day and night. An experience.

11 stories. Near impossible to find the nearest exit as they don’t want you to leave.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown

On By Rick McIn books, movies1 Comment

I’m one of millions who enjoyed all the Dan Brown books.

The Secret of Secrets (2025) is his latest.

If you liked the rest, you’ll probably like this one.

I do enjoy the many little scientific nuggets included.

But Brown is an infamously terrible writer:

At this stage, everything that needs to be said about Brown’s sentence-by-sentence ineptitude as a prose writer has been said.

Fear not: he’s still hopeless. It may be counted as a metafictional joke that in a novel where a favoured adjective like “elegant” can appear in two consecutive sentences, where bells are said to “blare” …

This is, in other words, a Dan Brown novel. It’s weapons-grade bollocks from beginning to end, none of it makes a lick of sense, and you’ll roar through it with entire enjoyment if you like this sort of thing. …

Guardian review

The Secret of Secrets (2025) by American author Dan Brown is the 6th instalment in the Robert Langdon series.

The Associated Press review described the novel as a 650-page thriller featuring Langdon on a dangerous quest through Prague, where he is caught up in an international race to unlock the mystery of what happens after death.

Brown once again blends suspense, philosophical themes, travelogues, codes, puzzles, and secret societies …

Too long. Tom Hanks must be exhausted.

Killers stop to join in long, philosophical discussions.

No doubt the movie will be better than the book.