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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 1 – HCMC
And we’re back to South Seas Asia, Viet Nam again. A quick 12 day jaunt for me (L has a few extra days at the end as she doesn’t need to go straight back to work) for food, shopping, and generally soaking in the VN vibe. The day started, as these trips generally do, with the damn early Singapore Airlines flight out of Perth. Our various alarms were squawking at 3.30am, mine being the traditional friendly posh English voice quoting Henry Rollins, “Smile, you’re travelling”. Sadly works every time. Fortunately the packing was done, as a trip like this can be done fairly lightly (enough linen shirts and underwear for…
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Day 1: Transit – Singapore – Frankfurt
There’s a line by Mick Thomas in a Weddings Parties Anything song that goes, “There’s no point writing postcards on your bad days” and I quote it a bit. I’m gonna tweak it a little today, and turn it into: there’s no point writing long postcards on you long days; and with today being a long long long day, I’ll try to keep it short. Wasn’t the bet flight into Singapore, there were several small people around where I was sitting, and they haven’t yet got to the point of enjoying flying. One poor cherub must have screamed for 90 minutes straight, I didn’t ee what their parent’s were doing…
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Vietnam the third: day 19, Singapore
Our last full day in Singapore, and, weirdly enough, according to our various step trackers, our most walked day of the trip. We kicked off with the Gardens by the Bay, that wonderful Singapore landmark with the crazy artistically fake trees that you see in all the tourist videos. Our rideshare driver taking us there was a hoot, had lots of interesting knowledge to share, including apparently Singapore has a bit of a fresh chicken shortage at the moment, due to borders opening and closing with Malaysia, which is affecting the quality of that Singaporean icon, Hainanese chicken rice. Singapore’s main source of chicken now is Indonesia, which is great…
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Vietnam the third: day 18, Singapore
Gin. All over the world, countries that have never grown juniper berries are making this stuff. And then a selection of these come to Singapore, to the ground floor of a crazy faux art deco tower. Atlas Bar. I first came here in Feb 2020, during a Singapore boys’ trip that I meant to blog but never got around to. That evening, my wonderful and articulate male friends said, “We’re going to a gin bar”. Oh, I said, what is this place called. “Atlas,” they said. So I googled it, and all these links with titles like The World’s Best Bars started appearing. So I promptly changed out of my…
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Vietnam the third: day 17, Singapore
It’s kinda weird to be back in a place where people speak English, signs are in English, cars drive on the left all the time, intersections are controlled, people queue in an orderly fashion, yet at the same time looks and feels foreign. Singapore, somewhere I’m yet to spend enough time in to gain anything but a surface understanding of: organised yet still South East Asian; both incredibly multicultural with multiple significant minority populations, yet to a degree lacking integration with each population having their own little enclave, and it seems that the upper-echelons are confined to a single group; a somewhat progressive country yet also quite conservative. The contradictions…
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Vietnam the third: day 16, Hoi An – Singapore
Was a little sad to say goodbye to Vietnam: for all the heat, chaos, hawking, and haggling, it’s now elevated to a home away from home, a place where there is much good food, friendly people, and a general good time to be had. It’s also proof that a country can bounce back from being screwed over by the US and make something for itself (now if only the US could do the same). The Vietnamese seem to generally be a proud people, who can both hold onto traditions and also adapt with the times — many of the businesses we shopped at also have strong online presences, and will…
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Vietnam the third: Day 1, Transit Day
Who doesn’t like a 3am start? Me for one, but when the mobile starts beeping and calling out that wonderful catch phrase, “Smile, you’re travelling!” then it’s just a case of sucking up the entitlement and hauling my white arse out of bed. An added bonus was pissing the cat off by having the audacity to get up before she’d had a chance to get in my face about her breakfast. So it was last minute run around, make sure animals were sorted, recheck the notes for the house sitter, and drive to the airport. Being generally prepared and seasoned travellers, we aimed for 2 hours pre-flight and weren’t too…
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Vietnam the third, Day -1
And we’re back, just about ready for the next trip. This time it’s back to Vietnam, and a few days on the way back in that Disneyland with the death penalty, Singapore. Our first trip in a post-COVID world. The packing is almost done, just the few basic bits like electronics and toiletries to pack. Nothing fancy is needed on this trip, as it involved Hoi An so there will be many more clothes joining us there. It’s an early morning flight, so I doubt I’ll sleep much tonight, but L has done her magic on the bookings so it’s business class all the way to Hanoi. It goes without…
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Holiday in Cambodia Day 1: Siem Reap
If I only make about as many typos this time as I’ve had hours sleep today then I think I’m doing pretty good. Today has been a series of fitful, uncomfortable naps, followed by food, and repeat. I got about 2 hours on the flight PER > SIN, followed by not the best airline breakfast. The staff were looking after me, though, as the inflight entertainment wasn’t working for my seat, so they kept checking to see if they could do anything else for me. It meant I got breakfast along with the dietary groups that normally get fed first, so I probably missed an extra 30 minutes sleep there.…
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Mambo de la luna: Day 1+, the longest day
I’m a little bit north of the Aleutian Islands, a little south of the Bering Strait, the International Date Line is possibly somewhere below me, and am just over halfway through the longest flight of my life. And not just my life, many lives, as I’m on what is currently the longest non-stop commercial flight in the world, heading from Singapore to Newark, approximately 16,700 km. It’s been a while between trips, and without going into it, between KL and now I have just been working far too hard. This is just to put things in perspective: I’m way out of practice at putting my thoughts into words, so apologies…
