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Unfinished Melbourne: Day 5
Soundtrack: “My Bag”, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions There’s always mixed feelings about the last day. The knowing that I’ll be heading back to the 6.30am alarm, getting ready to go to work, the daily commute traffic, the junkie-like fix of the morning coffee, salad for lunch, the daily routine, the torment of only being able to dream of travel to come. Then there’s being home with L, the comfort of familiar surroundings and sleeping in our own bed, getting to know our two new feline overlords, the comforting stability of being home while dreaming of travel to come. The alarm kicked me out of bed at 6.30am so I’d…
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Unfinished Melbourne: Day 4
Soundtrack: “Unfinished Sympathy”, Massive Attack Today was kind of a rest day, in that I had definite leg tireds so hoped to not walk so much. I decided that if I wasn’t going back to the old breakfast favourite cafe, I’d be totally promiscuous and not even go back to yesterday’s spot. Instead I crossed the laneway to a place offering middle eastern style eggs. These came out in a scorching hot dish, swimming with meatballs in a tomato sauce, along with some creamy labneh. With a couple of fingers of crusty bread on the side it was a decent way to start the day. Probably not every day, though…
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Unfinished Melbourne: Day 3
Soundtrack: “In the Land of Make Believe”, Dusty Springfield I woke feeling almost human, if still a little not quite myself. It was a day for big decisions: do I go back to my regular breakfast place, even though the most recent menu change basically removed anything I found interesting, or look for somewhere new. I like to think I’m loyal, not a fair-weather fan, but this is breakfast we’re talking about. So when I walked past a laneway cafe offering Spanish-style coffee options, I was enticed into the strange doorway and offered a seat. Seems the price of my breakfast loyalty is a coffee bon bon, the Spanish equivalent…
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Five flavours: Day 17-18 Chiang Mai to Singapore to Perth
Soundtrack: “Cars”, Gary Numan My flight out of Chiang Mai wasn’t until the late afternoon, and I managed to sleep fine, no waking in a panic thinking I might have overslept, no lying for hours not getting to sleep. I even slept long enough that my sweaty clothes from the night before had time to dry. I repacked everything, in spite of Sunday evening’s shopping spree, everything fit comfortable with minimal effort. The suitcase expansions weren’t required. I had time to kill between breakfast and checkout, so headed out for another massage. Again I got a solid working over, it’s one thing to have a light person walk on my…
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Five flavours: Day 16 Chiang Mai
Soundtrack: “Hit me with your best shot”, Pat Benatar Last full day in Chiang Mai, last full day anywhere on this trip, so it’s go hard and then go home. Woke up with plenty of time to do the same hotel breakfast, then get a rideshare to The Arrow Rest. Even the traffic was running early, so I wandered a couple of minutes up the road to a little cafe and bakery. I was hoping for a little pastry or something, but they only had cake. I went for a slice of a double layer mango cheese cake, and a cup of a coffee crime. I’ll be honest, it took…
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Five flavours: Day 15 Chiang Mai
Soundtrack: “Jet Airliner”, Paul Pena/Steve Miller Band Today was about mixing things up, getting out of the Ancient town and into the rest of the city. The historical parts of Chiang Mai are interesting, but also with a focus on tourists. It finally dawned on me that for Chiang Mai at least, if I wanted to get out and see and taste what the locals eat, I wasn’t going to find it in places full of foreigners. Also, Chiang Mai has one of L and my favourite places, The Arrow Rest, an archery cafe, and I’d booked some time there. After a hotel breakfast of noodles and egg, I took…
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Five flavours: Day 9 Hoi An
Soundtrack: “Fame”, David Bowie Tôi no vô bụng rồi. Sitting on the bed after a wonderful evening eating (and drinking) our way around Viet Nam, all within a few hundred steps of our hotel. So very full indeed. Breakfast was banh mi, and I’m happy to say that our hotel does one of the best banh mi around. Having had the famous (thanks Anthony Bourdain) Banh Mi Phuong yesterday, I’d honestly say that I thought this morning’s was better. The bread was as crunchy, and the fillings, pork, egg, greens, pate, were just a little better, plumper, and more balanced. After a few days here we’re feeling the hotel loves…
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Five flavours: Day 8 Hoi An
Soundtrack: “Dedicated Follower of Fashion”, The Kinks I could get the hang of holidays like this. Sleep in, breakfast, shopping, banh mi, massage, relaxing, more shopping, cocktails, and dinner. The hotel’s breakfast this morning included a serious serve of cao lau, meaty rice noodles with plenty of pork on top. Lots of greens on the side too. I’m working on a theory, backed up by no evidence whatsoever, that the Vietnamese diet used to just be a lot of noodles and meat, until a nutritionist (possibly sponsored by big lettuce) came along and got famous promoting having a big serve of chopped greens on the side of every soup dish.…
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Five flavours: Day 7 Hoi An
Soundtrack: “Fashion”, David Bowie A quiet day in Hoi An. We started with the hotel breakfast, not a huge buffet but a small menu freshly prepared to order. We started with some yogurt and fresh fruit: watermelon, pineapple, dragon fruit and banana. I think that this hotel, and many hotels in Hoi An, get a lot of western tourists wanting western food, as when I was asked for my coffee order and I replied ca phe sua da, our server’s eyes lit up. I went for a banh mi for breakfast, the delicious crunchy bread, nicely filled with pork, scrambled egg, vegetables, herbs, and a little spicy sauce. I happily…
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Five flavours: Day 4 Hue
Soundtrack: “The Lovecats”, The Cure Five flavours: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, spicy. I must admit that over the last few years bitter and sour had become almost synonymous for me, thanks to flavours like bitter lemon, I’ve been using bitter to mean sour, and sour to mean bitter. Call it getting old and lazy. So I went back and looked it up: lemon juice/citrus is sour, coffee is bitter. Sour is related to acidity, bitter is more about the other chemistry. It gets confusing with things like beer: beer is acidic, but with the addition of hops it’s bitter. Lemon juice is sour, but lemon rind is bitter. A whisky…
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Five flavours: Day 3 Hue
Soundtrack: “Khe Sanh”, Cold Chisel Today I’d booked us into a tour of a number of significant sites relating to Viet Nam history, reunification, and of course the American War. L isn’t a fan of war tourism in general, and while I wasn’t looking for some sort of huge glorification, I’m fascinated by significant places of all stripes, and with Hue being so close to the former Khe Sanh AFB, it seemed an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. After another hotel breakfast of soup, ca phe sua dau, and assorted other bites, our guide H met us in the hotel lobby. Once the group of 5 tourists were all in…
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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…
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No Tour: Naarm Day 2 and change
Soundtrack: “Changes”, David Bowie After a night of excellent sleep (sassy tracking bracelet’s words, not mine, though I felt I slept pretty well) I headed down to my regular little laneway breakfast cafe. A place where I’ve gone most trips in the past few years, where I can sit in a slightly untidy corner next to various boxes of ingredients, enjoy a spicy and hearty Eastern Mediterranean style pile of eggs and other yummy things (though checking back to my last visit I went with eggs benedict as they’d started drifting more Mexican inspired). This time around it’s more change, big change, under new management type of change. gone are…
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No Tour: Naarm Day 1
Soundtrack: “Under the Clocks”, Weddings Parties Anything / “Reward” Teardrop Explodes Not really a tour, just a couple of days in Naarm/Melbourne to wander, shop, and celebrate old pals turning older. The day started in Perth, way too early, as I was on the 6am flight. As per usual I slept badly, but these days I have a monitoring bracelet/smart watch to give me a second opinion on this: it scored me a 57 “needs attention”. I’m taking that as it saying my sleeping needs to be better, rather than it being otherwise really shady. I’m likely to catch enough shade from the old friends, I don’t need a portable…
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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, “Fría 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…
