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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 11 Bangkok
Soundtrack: “Pink Pony Club”, Chappell Roan “Bangkok, oriental setting, and the city don’t know that the city is getting … I’d let you watch, I would invite you but the queens we use would not excite you.” So go the lyrics by Tim Rice and Bjorn Ulvaeous, and in the context of the Chess musical fair enough. But I can tell you that Bangkok queens should excite you. Just don’t get too excited. I woke up after too few hours sleep, too little water, and possibly one too many drinks the night before. Bangkok is a noisy city, and my generic hotel room’s airconditioner is possibly overpowered for the space:…
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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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7NNT25: Day 2 – Tashkent
Soundtrack: “Going Underground” The Jam Our first full day in Uzbekistan was spent exploring the old and new parts of the capital, Tashkent, with our driver and also a guide who tried to take us through 15 centuries of history in 6 hours. In summary: most of the cultures that have dominated Uzbekistan over the centuries have had a mix of good and bad elements, except the Mongols, who were all bad. Seems like the Uzbeks still have a bit of a grudge from the days of Ghengis Khan, which I’m sure would make an Uzbekistan Vs Mongolia ice hockey game rather interesting. So here’s the non-wikipedia version: the Uzbeks…
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Baltics24: Day 5 – Helsinki
Our last full day in Helsinki, so we spent it eating, walking, shopping, sightseeing, and for me another sauna. We headed to the harbourfront markets for an early lunch and to check out the various stalls selling souvenirs, things made from wood, reindeer, elk, amber, silver, and other assorted animals. L has been eying off various warm hats, but in the end decided that Perth just isn’t likely to get cold enough. Lunch was a shared plate full of potatoes, salmon, and crunchy fried vendace, a freshwater whitefish a bit larger than whitebait that the Finnish love to eat. Its bones are soft, so I ate them tail, fins and…
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Viet Nam the fourth: Day 4 Quy Nhon
It’s new year’s eve, and from the 15th floor of the Odin Hotel we can clearly hear what sounds like the strains of a passionate karaoke singer, while out the window the Grand Hyams Hotel is one big light show. The streets of Quy Nhon are full of families on scooters, but its not the same dense throng we saw in Ha Noi a few years ago. We didn’t hotel breakfast this morning (generally L will go the hotel breakfast as she’s more likely to get gluten free options this way), instead heading out into the streets to find something. We didn’t have to go far to find a little…
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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…
