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Day 7: Mambo de la Luna, Santiago de Cuba to Camaguey
Cuba, like many nations, could use a good highway system for the 1000km from Santiago to Havana. Maybe one day, if a method of recycling plastic drink bottles into roads pans out, as there is plenty of the former and less of the latter. They have a plan, and the first few kilometres out of Santiago de Cuba is a generally solid six-lane highway, but after a while it generally turns into a Scottish B road or WA country highway, one fairly narrow lane each way. Only with horses and bicycles. Cuba is, I’m told, possibly the only carbon neutral country in the world, and they achieve this partly through…
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Day 6: KL, sticking to it
Today was a fairly solid reversal of fortune compared to yesterday. I decided not to overextend myself and to check out a few more places local, and on the whole it paid off. I kicked off with doing my laundry, by which I mean going to where I got my last clothes washed, finding them closed, and walking across the road to a different, less swanky place. These folks charged me 10MYR, and told me to come back in a couple of hours. Having been quite haphazard in my eating patterns, I decided to make a concerted effort today to eat 3 meals, and to be approximately regular in doing…
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Day 5: Of markets and malls
Today was a day of shopping fails. Today, I have to say, I hate the shopping in KL. Remember yesterday’s coffeeshop power outage? Turns out this got me twice, as the laundry I dropped off yesterday wasn’t ready due to the same power issues. And while we’re talking about power issues, I discovered my room’s mini-fridge didn’t work, forcing me to sadly throw out the cooking class leftovers as they were at the wrong temperature for who knows how long. I headed out this morning for the Amcorp mall flea market, a place where all manner of weird and wonderful trinkets and knick knacks and second hand things and gifts…
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Day 2: KL, Chinatown and other markets
Dear diary, today I walked and ate. And walked and ate. And walked. And ate. Though, in comparison to what I’ve previously been guilty of putting in my mouth, I took it fairly easy today. After my customary first night away from home that takes forever to get to sleep (I’ve been trained to wait for the cat to get comfortable, so when there’s no cat, I just wait…) as well as the room being a little less effective at keeping the outside light and sound out, I woke up a little meh. Probably also from sleeping in aircon, in a different bed, wth different pillows, you know, all the…
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Day 1: Kuala Lumpur, Bukit Bintang and surrounds
Some travelling days end too soon. Other days find me frequently repeating the Henry Rollins’ mantra, “Smile, you’re travelling”. Today was a fair whack of the latter, and a hint of the former. The plane got in early, and I spent the flight with a row to myself but even with that space I didn’t sleep comfortably. I tried lulling myself into a state of rest listening to Natalie Imbruglia’s Male, which has some really good cover versions (but I’m still not sold on the c&w “Friday I’m In Love”, I think she either needed to go much bigger or back the hell away) but even with this I don’t…
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Day 0: PER to KUL
The tired and grumpy baby edition. And that’s not referring to the grumpy and tired baby waiting to board behind me, heck I sympathise entirely. It’s way past everyone’s bedtime, and who at Malaysia Airlines decided that 2.10am was a reasonable time to fly? I’m talking about the muppet waiting next to me, who has his mobile volume turned up and all the sounds trned on. I’m getting every beep, whorp, woowoo, and ding, and in my rather tired state not enjoying the soundtrack at all. I may not have documented this previously, but consider this a new pet peeve: just turn that shit off. I’m killing time, waiting to…
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Day 21: Hoi An today, gone tomorrow
Our last day in Hoi An, and L’s birthday (age unspecified). We kicked off with our standard hotel breakfast, though I had to stop and post a picture as it seems, following yesterday’s pic, a significant amount of dragon fruit envy out there. I hadn’t realised as, other than looking absolutely alien on the outside, the inside edible part is somewhere between kiwifruit and watermelon, not a strong taste, and lots of little black seeds. We’ve been having it almost every day on our trip. We took a boat ride along the river, paddled by a woman who was certainly no spring chicken, but I’m not game to arm wrestle.…
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Day 17: Hanoi and Hoi An, a tale of two anagram cities
We kicked off our last day in Hanoi with the standard hotel breakfast, before plunging forth into mid-morning traffic in search of S****ucks, so L could add the special Vietnam mug to our collection (I was also tempted to get the Hanoi mug, as it’s bright orange on the inside, and we don’t have any that colour, but I’m not sure I’d want a coffee in a mug that colour, either). Mug purchased, we meandered back through a few stores to see what we could find (obligatory Vietnam pun: in Hanoi it’s okay to Hang Bac, hyuk hyuk hyuk). We’d kind of discussed the whole Hanoi egg coffee thing, and…
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Day 8: And so this is a Bangkok xmas
Happy 25th December, however you choose to celebrate it! We chose to celebrate it with a quiet dinner cruise on the Chao Phraya River, thinking it would be a simple, relaxed option, given that Thailand is a Buddhist country and all that. Of course, you’ve probably worked out by now that Thailand loves a party, and any excuse will do. So, L and I, and thousands of complete strangers, took a river cruise, along with a DJ, a singer, two traditional Thai dancers, three cabaret performers, and a full complement of kitchen and waitstaff to manage about a ton of buffet. To clarify the exaggeration, I doubt it was actually…
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Day 4: Laos and water
Today’s rather accidental theme was water. After another good bowl of chicken noodle soup and too many chillies for breakfast, we headed into the jungle, aiming for the Tat Kuang Si bear rescue centre. This is home to a couple of dozen moon bears, beautiful creatures that wander around like big dogs until the stand up, and then you realise that’s no dog. The younger ones can be playful, and the older ones seem happy — especially when you consider the alternative is being caged and tortured for a miserable short life for some limp dick chinese or vietnamese to take their bile to make them “stronger”. If you think…
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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…
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[NY Day 12] Catching up
Late checkout arranged. New suitcase bought. One Rueben on rye consumed (the Rueben weighed almost as much as the suitcase). Time for a brief pause as the sounds of New York assert themselves through the open window. Should probably catch up on the blogging. This is it, the last day in NYC. It’s been an amazing trip, seeing iconic landmarks, standing where the awesome and inspirational stood, often while people walked past, perhaps not knowing the esoteric history of the spot, possibly knowing and not caring, or possibly just quietly satisfied that their daily life takes them through such places. A lot of songs have been going through my head…
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[NY Day 9ish] World Fantasy Convention part final
This is brought to you by a grant from the Western Australian Government Department of Culture and the Arts. This isn’t quite a convention wrap-up, but I am writing this as the train speeds south to New York City along the Hudson River, with Saratoga Springs behind me. But I’ll do a proper wrap up later. I’ll start by saying how chuffed I am that pal and Aussie Angela Slatter won a World Fantasy Award for her collection Bitterwood Bible. It was a strong field of 5 fabulous works this year, and it’s great that she came away with a trophy. I’d say that the dealer room is the elephant…
