2025 | seven nation noodle
seven nation noodle tour april/may 2025. uzbekistan, thailand, vietnam, philippines, hong kong, macau, singapore
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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…
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7NNT25: Day 15 – Chiang Mai
Soundtrack: “Yellow”, Coldplay (sigh) Khao soi day. I dragged my slightly tired carcass out of bed, quick stop for some hotel noodle and egg breakfast, and then headed out to a laundry I’d spotted on my wanderings that offered 50 THB/kilo. I handed over my trusty orange laundry bag (it’s been with me since at least 2009) and was told it would be ready after 6pm (note that I put in this detail about the time because I occasionally think I can do clever writer things, like foreshadowing future events, so you’ll just have to read along until I get to 6pm — FYI I’m under no pretensions that this…
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7NNT25: Day 14 – Chiang Mai
Soundtrack: “Umbrella”, Rhianna Sunday in Chiang Mai. Managed to wake in time for breakfast, it wasn’t the best sleep as congestion and coughing was a pain. Hotel breakfast nothing much to speak of, no types of cheese, congee, rice, noodles, sausage, and eggs basically. I skipped the rice and the congee, as I wasn’t sure how long they’d been sitting there, instead opting for the noodles, sausage and eggs. Noodle 7.0: Unnamed Thin Stir-fried Noodles (Royal Lanna Hotel breakfast) They were okay. Possibly an egg-noodle, with some green leaves in the mix. When you’re a tired and hungry traveller and want something to soak up egg yolks that isn’t white…
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7NNT25: Day 13 – Chiang Mai
Soundtrack: “Born This Way”, Lady Gaga / “Relax”, Frankie Goes to Hollywood The battle of the aircon continues. On one hand, Chiang Mai is starting its hot season, so daily temps are high 30s, mostly dry during the day but getting a bit more humid in the evening, so turning it off isn’t an option. But I’m yet to find the right setting that doesn’t require a bit of tweaking, but I’ll keep trying (of course, part of it is that now I’m here and unpacked I’m too lazy to as reception to change rooms, which might not make a huge difference as far as I can tell it’s just…
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7NNT25: Day 12 – Chiang Mai
Soundtrack: “Nikita”, Elton John I’ll probably keep throwing occasional remembrances from Uzbekistan into these entries as they pop up in my thoughts and as I start to process the similarities and differences to other places. One that I completely missed mentioning is that Elton John’s “Nikita” possibly plays constantly on a loop in the background of Uzbekistan Airways flights. I first heard it when we boarded the flight from Urgench, and thought it neat: the story of someone going through a soviet checkpoint and deciding they love the guard (pretty sure Nikita is generally a male name, but the film clip had a female playing the part, as Sir Elton…
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7NNT25: Day 10 & 11 – Somewhere in Uzbekistan
Soundtrack: any song about waiting in airports… Writing this in the Pie Republic outlet at Tashkent International Airport, consuming an overpriced chicken caesar sandwich and a cappucino, which in these parts is the same as a flat white. Also, the chicken caesar sandwich has tomato. Also also, the Pie Republic doesn’t sell any pies (though they do have meat filled somsas, which I guess comes close). That’s probably a metaphor for something, I don’t quite know what. In the lst two days I’ve experienced Uzbekistan airways, had actual gluten-free Uzbek food, walked a bit, sat around waiting a bunch, shopped for trinkets for the folks back home, and made sure…
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7NNT25: Day 9 – Khiva
Soundtrack: “Helter Skelter”, The Beatles Today we explored the ups and downs of Khiva, the old provincial capital and city that’s a mere 2,500 years young. Khiva, like many historical places, is a city within a city, there’s the old walled city, Itchan Kala, and then the rest of the city. Itchan Kala is largely a walled museum city, with the bulk of building done in the 18th and 19th Centuries (Ghengis Khan was here, you know the story). Much of the construction of the period remains intact, owing to the Khanate of Khiva capitulating fairly rapidly to the Tsarist forces, and then having their own revolution after the soviets…
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7NNT25: Day 8 – The road to Khiva
Soundtrack: “Wide Open Road”, The Triffids Somewhere on the road to Khiva, with no other people in sight, the only signs of civilisation being the power poles and the road itself, my phone showing no signal, I glanced at the dashboard and the realisation kicked in: the damn fuel light is on. I don’t know when it came on, but I figure that if this car is like most, that means it has at most somewhere around 50km worth of fuel. I start doing the maths, if we’re doing just over 110km/h, that gives us maybe 30 minutes. I’m not panicking yet, afterall the driver seems quite calm about it,…
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7NNT25: Day 7 – Bukhara
Soundtrack: “People Who Died”, Jim Carroll Band A full day in Bukhara that kicked off with meeting a new guide at 9am. She spoke fast and I’m really bad at remembering names, so I’m not sure what exactly her name was. Uzbek names also take a bit of getting used to, there’s a lack of Shazza, Kazza, Bazza and Dazza here. Mix this with a morning of more stories about 16th-19th century Uzbek Amirs and I’m sadly floundering in the name department. All credit to the guides, they definitely know their stuff and have got all the names, dates, and places sorted, but it’s a lot for someone who’s only…
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7NNT25: Day 6 – Samarkand to Bukhara
Soundtrack: Having hit peak Timur, it was time today to leave Samarkand and head further down the Silk Road to the old capital of Uzbekistan, Bukhara. I keep remembering and then forgetting that these are kind of the footsteps of Marco Polo, who came through here 800 or so years ago. Would have been cool if he’d been like the Vikings, and left some graffiti behind, but can’t have everything. I can safely say that he never took the fast train and watched the countryside scroll at 159 km/h. Though the fast train didn’t have the same level of service today, there were no free pastries or tea, boarding was…
