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Iberian Spring: Day 4 Lisbon
Soundtrack: “Swimming Horses” Siouxsie and the Banshees Our last full day in Lisbon, and we’d booked a food tour to make sure we got a taste of just about everything that one muse consume in Lisbon. It was a walking tour, a mix of history and culture with stops for food, and we were promised at least 17 different tastes of Lisbon (to be honest I can’t count to 17 in Portuguese, so if I go through listing stuff and you count it as less than 17, please don’t tell me). The tour info said to eat a little something before the start, as the first couple of stops were…
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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…
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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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Day 16: Hanoi today, Hoi An tomorrow
Our last full day in Hanoi. I read an article recently that of all tourists to Vietnam, only 10-20% return for another visit. And we’ve seen the signs of this in the reactions of locals — many are surprised to hear that we’ve been here before. I know the world is a big place, with so many wonderful sights still to be seen, but I wouldn’t be surprised if L and I come back again: the food is great, the people are friendly, the prices are generally reasonable, there’s still things to see here in Vietnam, and the weather is usually pretty good. This afternoon it rained. Not a huge…
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Day 1: Transit to the heart of darkness
The day started way too damn early, up before dawn. It finished with a good meal, fine company, some booze, and with an extra hour thanks to these time zone things. The first leg, PER > SNG, was generally uneventful. L did the booking, so it was business class, but an older airplane so not super shiny and swish. Still, I could recline the seat, and got some okay food, but for business class I’ve certainly had more attentive staff. At Changi we had to get passport pics for our Laos visas on arrival, and tried to score some Changi $$$ but due to the Byzantine bureaucracy the computer said…
