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7NNT25: Day 31 – Macau
Soundtrack: “Money Changes Everything”, Cyndi Lauper (and any other song with money in the title really) Macau for a full day. I’m sure there are people for whom Macau is their favourite place in the world. Some of them might even be from outside of Macau, who visited and found this former Portuguese colony to be all they’ve ever looked for in a holiday destination. I’m not one of them. I gave it a good shot, but it just possesses a level challenge that doesn’t mesh well with my style of travel. Today didn’t start well. My goal was to get a shave, as it’s humid and I’m getting a…
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7NNT25: Day 30 – Hong Kong to Macau
Soundtrack: “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, U2 Today was probably my least prepared border crossing ever (I’m ignoring Schengen Zone crossings, because they don’t even feel like you’re in a different country, those ones are like, oh, we just drove around a roundabout and have now been in 5 countries: if I don’t have to stop and show someone my passport it doesn’t count). With no flights to catch, and ferries every 30 minutes, I could take my time packing, grab breakfast, and get a taxi to the terminal pretty much whenever I wanted. While I said yesterday I was trying not to only go to the…
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7NNT25: Day 29 – Hong Kong
Soundtrack: “Kong Foo Sing”, Regurgitator Monday, time to wander, eat, shop. I’m not sure when the last time I managed close to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep on this trip, but last night my body got the memo and came to the slumber party. I still felt tired when I work, but less tired than some mornings, maybe it was all the sichuan pepper coursing through my veins. I was alert enough this morning that breakfast was a no-brainer, and I chose a different place a little further away from the hotel that was similarly reviewed. I think it’s a travel dilemma: do you go to the same place again…
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7NNT25: Day 28 – Hong Kong
Soundtrack: “Sunday Morning”, The Velvet Underground Sunday, day of rest, day of recovering from two very long days with late nights. Despite hoping that my body would step up, do the right thing and grant me many hours of sleep, it didn’t, and I was awake again and thinking about breakfast earlier than I hoped. It shows how tired I was, as it took me at least 10 minutes to work out what I should have for breakfast. Hmm, what do folks eat for breakfast in this part of the world? When the Hong Kong Dollar finally dropped, those two words fell into the part of my brain I could…
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7NNT25: Day 27 Cebu to Hong Kong
Soundtrack: [intentionally left blank] I don’t know how, given the time my head hit the pillow, that I was awake before the alarm. Possibly the magic of travel brain, that just kicks in to make sure I don’t oversleep and miss a flight (even when I also set two alarms to make sure). I’d given myself plenty of time to negotiate any traffic in getting back to the airport, but there wasn’t much, sparing me a good few minutes of easy listening radio. The Phillipines and easy listening radio. I don’t know if it’s something that drivers do when they’re picking up tourists, but pretty much every car I’ve taken…
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7NNT25: Day 26 – Cebu
Soundtrack: “Personal Jesus”, Depeche Mode; “All Around the World”, Lisa Stansfield; “Abracadabra”, Lady Gaga (again) Cebu, one of the central islands of the Philippines. For thousands of years inhabited by folks who generally seemed to mind their own business, and who otherwise spent a chunk of their time perfecting the cooking of pork. Then one day a Portuguese/Spanish guy named Ferdinand Magellan turned up on their shores, hung out with the locals, and told them all about Jesus. He also got involved in local politics, which meant folks from the neighbouring island of Mactan didn’t join his fan club, instead deciding to kill him when he showed up to either…
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7NNT25: Day 25 – Angeles City to Cebu
Soundtrack: “Danger Zone”, Kenny Loggins Not the most exciting of days, basically a get up, pack, check-out, check-in, pass security, wait for flight, wait more for flight, squeeze into plane, squeeze out of plane onto bus, get luggage, get car, check-in, walk, get dinner, sleep. That’s the 30 or so word version — am writing this in Wordpad as my ISP has temporarily broken the server slowlyandloudly lives on, so I don’t have a word count function handy. Last morning in Angeles City, so I headed out and grabbed a toasted ham and cheese sandwich and coffee at the same cafe as yesterday. I think I’m at that point where…
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7NNT25: Days 23 & 24 – Angeles City
Soundtrack: any bass-heavy party track from the last 30 years. Angeles City is just down the road from Manila, less than 100km, so only about 2-3 hours to drive if the traffic is normal. It seems to have three claims to fame: the food is awesome; they know how to party; and there used to be a really big US air base here (now converted to an international airport). I was hoping I could use it as a base to do the Mt Pinatubo trek, but sadly that was not to be. When picking accommodation options, I stumbled across a hotel too swanky to really be true, at a price…
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7NNT25: Day 22 – Manila
Soundtrack: “In These Shoes?”, Kirsty MacColl Shoe day. Older folks, such as myself, will remember legendary First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos, who in western media at least was portrayed as liking the luxuries in life, including shoes. When the Marcos dictatorship was ended, the western media was full of stories of the hundreds and hundreds and thousands of custom and designer shoes she owned, this was part of the claims of excess that the ruling family indulged in. Successive Philippine governments used the shoe collection, among other things, for their own marketing/propaganda purposes until earlier this century, when a part of the collection was put on display in…
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7NNT25: Day 21 – Manila
Soundtrack: “Abracadabra”, Lady Gaga The day started slowly, as I was still feeling the effects of the hike. I figured I should get out of the hotel room for at least a while, so after reading about the Legazpi Sunday Market, got a Grab and headed out. At this point it seems my bank with the nice card that refunds international transaction fees has developed issues with Grab, so I spent some time arguing with the app before choosing the cash option. Figured I’d be able to sort later. Legazpi Sunday Market isn’t huge, but has a bunch of great food options as well as some shops selling bits and…
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7NNT25: Day 20 – Mt Butalao (& Manila)
Soundtrack: “Easy”, The Commodores (though probably the Faith No More cover version) / “When the Going Gets Tough (The Tough Get Going)”, Billy Ocean One of the big ticket items I’d planned for this trip was to visit the crater of Mt Pinatubo, prior to 1991 a fairly unassuming, nondescript place that no one really paid too much attention to: it wasn’t the highest peak in the area, and hadn’t really shown much activity. Until early 1991, when it did, culminating in the second biggest eruption of the 20th century, making for some wonderful sunsets around the world because of all the stuff it threw into the atmosphere. Sadly about…
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7NNT25: Day 19 – Manila
Soundtrack: “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”, The Police Bit of a catchup time, am pushing out a couple of days at the same time. We’ll see how it goes. Manila. It’s a big, tall, loud city. From my 9th floor hotel room I can hear all the sounds of Malati, cars, horns, scooters, trucks, people, machinery. I truly sympathise with any introvert who lives in this city, as it’s not a city for quiet spaces. My main mission for Day 19 (Friday 2 May) was to find the Australian Embassy and vote. I was still unsure of how Saturday would work with the booked tour, so to be safe…
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7NNT25: Day 18 – HCMC – Manila
Soundtrack: “Concrete Jungle”, The Specials It was an earlyish morning, but at least not 530am. Grabbed a standard breakfast in the hotel, while the room was awesome, the breakfast lacked a little dedicated pho station so it was just bacon and eggs for me. Traffic to the airport was a lot less busy, possibly helped by it being a second public holiday, and it only took 25 minutes. Customs and immigration took a while, as there were a lot of people leaving, but I got through with plenty of time to wander the various overpriced souvenir shops on the way to the gate. The flight was full, who knew that…
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7NNT25: Day 17 – Ho Chi Minh City
Soundtrack: The Vietnamese National Anthem / “50 Years”, Uncanny X-Men [Disclaimer: I’m writing this entry a day after the events, and am a bit tired and headachy, so if I fail to capture sufficiently in the words below the sheer wonder I felt all day, well that’s on me.] If we want to go with the idea that there are two types of people defined by some arbitrary criteria, then I’m definitely the type that doesn’t like waking up at 530am. There have been times in my life where I’ve had to wake up at that time consistently, but given any choice or wiggle room, I’m sleeping more. So, regardless…
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7NNT25 Day 16: Chiang Mai > Bangkok > Ho Chi Minh City
Soundtrack: “Khe Sanh”, Cold Chisel Having left day 15 on a cliff hanger, I can reveal that I was able to get up in time to head out and get my laundry just after 9am, so I won’t have to buy any new clothes anytime soon. While I’m travelling with a few treasured items, my green The Clouds t-shirt that I got at a gig the night before I last came to Thailand, which has travelled a bunch since, was recognised by a friend of the band in Fort William, and was also photographed in the main court of the Rijksmuseum (two of us have now done this, so it’s…
