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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 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 16 Singapore
Soundtrack: “Juice”, Headless Chickens The last full day in Singapore, and the last full day of the trip. Tomorrow I’ve got the morning, then a flight to be back in Perth for the evening, back to work on Monday, back to the other world. (I’m actually writing this on Sunday morning, having been awake since a bit after 4am, trying to doze for hours, before eventually getting up and as yesterday’s t-shirt is still damp from sweating, am doing the laundry.) I took it esay in the morning, trying to decide if I should stay local in Bugis or hop over to Chinatown for some tasty treats there. Chinatown, and…
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Iberian Spring: Day 14 Barcelona Paris Helsinki
Soundtrack: every song about spending time in airports, but especially “Departure”, R.E.M. So begins the next adventure: getting home. Right now, L and I should have been sitting in Qatar business class, somewhere over the Mediterranean, perusing the champagne and whisky menus, before lying back in our seats and having a nap 36,000 feet up in the air. Maybe I’d be blogging to you over the complimentary wi-fi, maybe I’d be thinking about blogging to you but I’ll have another drink and some canapes first. What fun to pander what might have been. Right now, L has just left Milan on her way to Singapore, after a brief tarmac stop.…
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Iberian Spring Day 12: Barcelona (Gracia)
Soundtrack: “Red red wine” Neil Diamond A full day in Barcelona. We’d booked a food tour, after looking at several options, that promised to take us to some more local spots. I was a little worried at the 5 hour duration — being honest, no one wants to spend 5 hours trying to keep me entertained, at any amount of money. We met our poor guide P at a placa in Gracia. She gave us a brief run down of how we’d be spending the time, visiting a number of places in the Gracia neighbourhood. As the tour progressed she explained a bit more about Gracia: we’re in Catalonia, a…
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Iberian Spring: Day 9 Madrid
Soundtrack: “Spanish Bombs”, The Clash | “Hieronymous”, The Clouds Today is art day. Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado, or The Prado for short, houses some of the world’s most magnificent paintings by white people. It’s amazing how language translation works, here Prado means things of beauty, while in Australia Prado means ugly faux-tank driven by white people. According to google translate, prado actually translates to meadow, which really neither describes a multi-storey building with over 100 rooms full of priceless artworks, nor a metal box that flattens all in its path, plants or otherwise. (Apparently there used to be a meadow where they built the museum, sometimes the truth is…
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Iberian Sprint: Day 7 Seville
Soundtrack: “La Isla Bonita”, Madonna Our last full day in Seville. We started with a little wandering the local streets, a bit of shopping. As luck would have it, the nearest barbershop to out apartment was the eponymously names The Barber of Seville. I’ve been holding off on the shaving so that I could get a shave here, and when they said they could fit me in at midday it was perfect timing. I just hoped there wouldn’t be any singing, or at least I wouldn’t have to sing. We found a little place for breakfast not too far away, down a side street and while they had an English…
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Buns2025: Days 14-18 – Belfast > Singapore
Soundtrack: “Departure”, R.E.M. Filling in the last few gaps from a couch in Nyungar Boodjar, home at last. My final morning in Belfast was full of rain. I had a plan: check out of hotel, take my case down to the Central Train Station and store it for a couple of hours, go get breakfast and last minute souvenirs, then head back and take the bus straight from the station to Dublin airport. Nothing that a little rain would affect. Belfast Central Train Station doesn’t have luggage lockers. Nor does it have a nice and easy ramp to get to it, just steps. For all I know the lack of…
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Buns2025: Day 6 – Paris
Soundtrack: “Never can say goodbye”, The Communards I have Louvred. Somehow I managed to get up early (probably due to my body not yet knowing what time it’s supposed to be) and headed down to that big old museum. Stopped for breakfast at an artisanal boulangerie, where I couldn’t decide if I wanted the croissant or the the pain au chocolat so I went for both. And they both were very nice, either dunked or undunked. I’m still not converted. Does dunking add something to the croissant? Not really if it’s fresh. Does it add anything to the coffee? Nope. I booked a 9.30am admission so when I wandered to…
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Buns2025: Day 5 – Paris
Soundtrack – anything but “Candles in the Wind” It never fails to amaze me how badly the worlds of accommodation and travel fail to to be in sync. Flights arrive all the time, but most hotels only let you check in between about 2pm and 1am. You might be able to store your luggage, but I’m yet to find a hotel that will let me check in at 8am or 9am, even if I do offer to book a full extra day (I won’t rule out that there may be places of the 5 star variety allowing this, and if I ever get to the point of being ablke to…
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7NNT: Day 33 – Singapore
Soundtrack: First full day in Singapore, and first priority is sorting laundry so I have enough clean clothes to get me through. I failed to find a laundry service nearby (a mall might have one but I walked around it and couldn’t find the place, I did find a second hand bookshop to check later). Instead I headed for a coin operated DIY facility, it’s sad that it’s come to this, no option to just hand my bag and some money to someone else, this load was all on me. Being Singapore, the coin laundry was clean, everything worked, there was a coin change machine, and the washing machines dispensed…
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7NNT25: Day 31 – Macau
Soundtrack: “Money Changes Everything”, Cyndi Lauper (and any other song with money in the title really) Macau for a full day. I’m sure there are people for whom Macau is their favourite place in the world. Some of them might even be from outside of Macau, who visited and found this former Portuguese colony to be all they’ve ever looked for in a holiday destination. I’m not one of them. I gave it a good shot, but it just possesses a level challenge that doesn’t mesh well with my style of travel. Today didn’t start well. My goal was to get a shave, as it’s humid and I’m getting a…
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7NNT25: Day 30 – Hong Kong to Macau
Soundtrack: “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, U2 Today was probably my least prepared border crossing ever (I’m ignoring Schengen Zone crossings, because they don’t even feel like you’re in a different country, those ones are like, oh, we just drove around a roundabout and have now been in 5 countries: if I don’t have to stop and show someone my passport it doesn’t count). With no flights to catch, and ferries every 30 minutes, I could take my time packing, grab breakfast, and get a taxi to the terminal pretty much whenever I wanted. While I said yesterday I was trying not to only go to the…
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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…
