-
Five flavours: Day 2 Hue
Soundtrack: “Umbrella”, Rhianna Hue. The ancient capital of Viet Nam, full of history and royal tombs, ruined citadels. The scene of some of the worst conflict during the Tet Offensive during the American War (see previous ruined citadels). We toured a lot of that history back in 2014, so this visit is mostly just seeing modern Hue, eating the food, and relaxing knowing we are far from our day jobs. Despite being quite tired from yesterday’s expedition, we were awake fairly early, early enough to catch the hotel breakfast before it entered its death throes. This hotel does a fairly decent breakfast spread: as with all hotel buffets there are…
-
Five flavours: Day 1 Perth – Hue
Soundtrack: VietJet boarding music Frequent readers (all 3 of you) can skip this paragraph. It was the same old story, even though I was packed and ready, and it was a mid-morning flight that didn’t need a 3am alarm, I still slept badly and woke up far too early. I’m beginning to think that even if I booked an afternoon or evening departure my body alarm would still kick me up hours before my phone has the chance to say, “Smile! You’re travelling!” We’re flying VietJet this time, even though I basically swore never to fly with them again after the last time (https://www.slowlyandloudly.com/2024/01/08/viet-nam-the-fourth-day-12-hoi-an-transit/) the fare price we got was…
-
Iberian Spring: Day 17 Singapore Home
Soundtrack: “My Island Home”, Warumpi Band Another holiday comes to an end. In one of the many bookshops in Spain I flicked through a Spanish edition of Sylvia Plath’s Selected Poems, and flicked to my favourite, “Dos amantes y un buscador de conchas junto al Mar Real” so it seems appropriate to finish with the opening in Spanish, “FrÃa y definitiva, la imaginación Cierra su famosa/legendaria casa de verano; Las vistas azules están cerradas; nuestras dulces vacaciones Se desvanecen en el reloj de arena.” (I’m relying on the internet giving me a good translation here.) In spite of yesterday’s walking, eating, and drinking, I found myself fairly well awake before…
-
Iberian Spring: Day 16 Singapore
Soundtrack: “Juice”, Headless Chickens The last full day in Singapore, and the last full day of the trip. Tomorrow I’ve got the morning, then a flight to be back in Perth for the evening, back to work on Monday, back to the other world. (I’m actually writing this on Sunday morning, having been awake since a bit after 4am, trying to doze for hours, before eventually getting up and as yesterday’s t-shirt is still damp from sweating, am doing the laundry.) I took it esay in the morning, trying to decide if I should stay local in Bugis or hop over to Chinatown for some tasty treats there. Chinatown, and…
-
Iberian Spring: Day 15 Helsinki to Singapore
Soundtrack: Lady Gaga medley It will come as no surprise to anyone who has taken a flight in the last 30 years that standard economy seats are not designed for comfortable sleeping for any normal sized person. So when I say that the Finnair flight from Helsinki to Singapore was pretty good, it should be read with the above caveat, along with airline food generally not being the best food ever, and stuff like that. Finnair fed me an ok pasta, and an acceptable sweet and sour chicken and rice, enough to break the chicken rice curse before I got to Singapore. The aircrew were among the best I’ve encountered…
-
Iberian Spring: Day 2 Istanbul to Portugal
Soundtrack: “The Four Corners of the Earth”, Weddings Parties Anything Slept pretty well in a very soft bed. Woke a few times, having no idea what the local time was, but eventually was too awake to go back to sleep bout 30 minutes before I’d set my alarm. I find it a little depressing when I wake and reach for my phone, only to have it cheerfully ask me if I want to turn off my upcoming alarm. The answer is almost always “No, I want to go back to sleep until it’s the time I’ve decided is early enough to get things done, even with allowing extra time so…
-
Iberian Spring: Day 0-1; Perth, Kuala Lumpur, Karaburun
Soundtrack: every song by every band about spending time in airports and travelling (on repeat) So it begins again. Having spent 4 months back in the real world of day jobs, traffic, kicking against the pricks and generally just doing what has to be done these days, it’s time to dust off the passport. It’s been a long few months, so this break is very welcome. It’s a crazy old world out there. Flight tracking maps have a couple of vey obvious gaps, and we’re heading right through those to the other side. We’ve had to do some last minute flight changes to keep out of the way, including changing…
-
Buns2025: Days 14-18 – Belfast > Singapore
Soundtrack: “Departure”, R.E.M. Filling in the last few gaps from a couch in Nyungar Boodjar, home at last. My final morning in Belfast was full of rain. I had a plan: check out of hotel, take my case down to the Central Train Station and store it for a couple of hours, go get breakfast and last minute souvenirs, then head back and take the bus straight from the station to Dublin airport. Nothing that a little rain would affect. Belfast Central Train Station doesn’t have luggage lockers. Nor does it have a nice and easy ramp to get to it, just steps. For all I know the lack of…
-
7NNT25: Day 37 – Singapore & home
Soundtrack: anything and everything by Lady Gaga; “Without a Trace”, Soul Asylum “Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,Do not go gentle into that good night.” — Dylan Thomas Figured I’d mix up the quote, as I know I tend to use the opening from Sylvia Plath’s “Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea” at the end of trips a fair bit. I’m writing this from the relative comfort of my home, over a day after arriving back in Noongar Boodjar, a contented dog snoring softly beside me. I say “relative comfort” as, after 5 weeks…
-
7NNT25: Day 36 – Singapore & Monsterville
Soundtrack: “The Edge of Glory”, Lady Gaga Today is the most important day of the trip, because today I had laksa. Noodle 13: Katong Laksa (Sungei Road Laksa) Right or wrong, I’ve always considered laksa to be more of a malay/indonesian dish, so have not had it in Singapore (despite Singapore’s malay heritage, yeah, I know, I never said I thought everything through) but today I decided to change that. After reading several lists of the best laksa in Singapore, I found a place within walking distance of my hotel that is claimed to do some of the best laksa around. There’s no menu, all they do is laksa, though…
-
7NNT25: Day 35 – Singapore
Soundtrack: “Holiday”, Madonna Waking and checking social media, it turns out that if I’d stayed in the basement parking lot of the first venue for another hour or so, I’d have spent all that time sweating and queueing but at least seen Lady Gaga, who turned up and did a few minutes in the club. I still probably wouldn’t have got in, but I could have done the star spotting thing. Oh well. My body really didn’t like waking up today, but I’d arranged to meet Singaporean-native pal D and have lunch and catch up so out I went. Lunch was at Pizza Express, the Singaporean version of a UK…
-
7NNT25: Day 34 – Singapore
Soundtrack: “Hotel Womb”, The Church While my last few days in Singapore were still fairly active, they weren’t nearly as exciting individually as the rest of the trip for at least a couple of reasons: it’s my 5th time here, so there’s less of the novel experiences to be had; and after close to 35 days living out of the same suitcase, the same 5 or 6 days’ worth of clothes, I was feeling a bit fatigued. I’m beginning to think there’s a pattern, where once my mind knows I’m in the last place before home, all of the energy reserves that I’ve been running on start to deplete, and…
-
7NNT: Day 33 – Singapore
Soundtrack: First full day in Singapore, and first priority is sorting laundry so I have enough clean clothes to get me through. I failed to find a laundry service nearby (a mall might have one but I walked around it and couldn’t find the place, I did find a second hand bookshop to check later). Instead I headed for a coin operated DIY facility, it’s sad that it’s come to this, no option to just hand my bag and some money to someone else, this load was all on me. Being Singapore, the coin laundry was clean, everything worked, there was a coin change machine, and the washing machines dispensed…
-
7NNT25: Day 32 – Macau to Singapore
Soundtrack: “Departure”, R.E.M. Of course I was up before the alarm, at least an hour before. The whole travel day body clock thing is good, I guess, but when I’m setting an alarm to give me more time than I need, and then a second alarm in case anything goes wrong with the first, surely I’ve got enough conscious measures in place I don’t need my unconscious joining the party. I was showered, packed, heading out the door and down to the hotel breakfast at around about the time the alarm would have gone off. I’m not looking to dump on the hotel breakfast, I mean there are some really…
-
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…
