My Travel Adventures

My train left Málaga as scheduled at 7:30 in the morning, calling at Antequera and Córdoba before reaching Madrid at half past ten. I had an hour to kill until my friend Victoria arrived from Barcelona, so I took a short walk from the train station, passing by the Lope de Vega House Museum on the way to the Metr ópolis Building. From the eastern end of the Gran Vía, I looped back along the Cibeles Fountain, and we met at a brunch restaurant close to the train station. A long queue, I noticed, was snaking its way along the Museo del Prado, so we decided to visit it first thing in the morning the next day rather than in the afternoon.

With all tickets to Alhambra and Granada’s other main attractions sold out, my expectations for the day’s trip were minimal. I would, I told myself, have to come again anyway, so I might as well treat this trip as an opportunity to prospect for a future visit and eliminate a few minor sites on the list.

I woke up at six o’clock in the morning with a burning desire to test the public transport network in the greater Málaga area. My mum’s house lies around forty minutes by foot from the centre of Sayalonga, and I read that there are four regular departures for Málaga on weekdays. The bus stop was not particularly easy to find. It is marked accurately on Google Maps, but there are no evident markers or noticeboards nearby. I only became sure that I was in the right place when a fellow passenger came to stand beside me. To my great surprise, however, the bus arrived by this roadside stop in a Spanish village on time, and it reached Málaga just a few minutes behind schedule.

On the 26 th we made a short trip to Málaga. I hesitate to call it a day trip, as we only reached the city at noon owing to forgetfulness and general malaise. We made our first stop at the Moorish Castle of Gibralfaro, which served as a good introduction to the history of Málaga. The city was founded around 770 BCE by the Phoenicians, who named it Malaka – a name that either derives from the word for salt or the word for trading post. Although the Phoenicians were the first to build fortifications on the hill overlooking Málaga, the current fortress dates to 929 when the Caliphate of Córdoba was founded. The name Gibralfaro traces its origins to this period: the first part of the name is likely a butchering of “jabal,” the Arabic word for mountain, and the latter part comes from the Greek word for light. The fortress was one of the last Moorish footholds in Spain, only falling to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1487.  

For Christmas, I visited my mum at her new home in Sayalonga, a mountain village to the east of Málaga. Reaching this village is no easy task: it takes almost an hour’s drive from the airport, and the last stretch is composed almost exclusively of winding and steep roads. I spent the 23 rd and 24 th participating in the joint efforts to prepare for Christmas Eve by making sweets and hanging decorations. On the morning of the 25 th , I decided to explore the neighbourhood and take the 45-minute walk to the centre of Sayalonga.  

Not long after my flight from Sukhothai landed in Bangkok, I called myself a Grab cab to the river and took a final tour of the city that had been my home for the past five months. I began on the pier across from Wat Arun and noticed that the winter sun was casting harsher shadows on its sides than I remembered. I then walked to the Grand Palace without paying for the tickets and walking inside: I merely strolled all the way to the gate and back again, weaving my way through the crowds of inappropriately clad tourists as they scrambled to buy trousers with elephant prints. I also remembered I had never taken a good picture of the City Pillar Shrine, so I tried my luck after eating some pad thai at a nearby restaurant.

I originally intended to visit Si Satchanalai by bus, but a few considerations made me change my mind. Firstly, I could not find the bus timetables on the internet. The receptionist at my hotel even insisted there was no bus at all, but I did not believe her, as the bus I rode from Kamphaeng Phet to Sukhothai had the words “Si Satchanalai” written on its side. Still, I did not want to wait at the station for an hour or two before catching this likely infrequent connection. Secondly, while I was doing my research on the sights in Si Satchanalai, I realised that some attractions were a bit far away from the nucleus of the historical park.

I woke up at half past six thinking I would catch a taxi to the bus station and travel to Si Satchanalai. Once I finished my breakfast and opened my phone, however, neither of my mobile apps could find any drivers in the area. For a while, I waited by the side of the road hoping that a taxi or tuk-tuk might go by, but to no avail. After a few minutes, I figured I should stop wasting my time and come up with a proper plan to get myself to Si Satchanalai the next day. In the meantime, I would spend the day exploring Sukhothai. Walking down the road, I soon came across a bike rental place, where I borrowed a creaky bicycle for a hundred baht. Although I would go on to physically exhaust myself, I was very happy I had decided not to walk: the distances between the different sites were considerable and there were often no tuk-tuk drivers waiting to pick up tourists at the more distant attractions.

Since it is my last week in Thailand, it is high time that I made a trip north of Bangkok to visit Sukhothai. It is not a trip to undertake in one day, both because of the long journey and because there is a lot to see in the area. Beside the three sites that are co-inscribed on the UNESCO world heritage list (Sukhothai, Kamphaeng Phet, and Si Satchanalai), there is also Phitsanulok, a historically significant city with several interesting attractions. Founded in the thirteenth century as Song Khwae (meaning “Two Rivers”), the city became the seat of the Sukhothai Kingdom in 1378. Song Khwae would retain its prominent status even after Sukhothai’s incorporation into Ayutthaya in 1448. King Trailokanat moved his residence to the city during the Ayutthaya-Lanna War (presumably to be closer to the battlefield) and renamed it Phitsanulok, meaning “The World of Vishnu.” In the sixteenth century, Phitsanulok went on to serve as the seat of the Uparaja (or heir presumptive) of Ayutthaya.

I woke up to an extremely foggy morning. Despite my inn’s prime location at the top of Batad’s rice terraces, I only caught a few glimpses of the terraces below through occasional tears in the clouds. The night before, I had arranged a tour around the terraces for eight o’clock in the morning, but I began to doubt whether I should go through with it as the fog showed no signs of lifting. I considered staying at the inn all morning. It was a cozy place run by a young lady and her mother, and I found the set-up quite charming.

I had a bit of a scare after midnight. The night bus from Manila to Sagada stopped on a mountain road in the middle of nowhere and did not budge for ten minutes, then twenty, then half an hour. As the cars kept moving past us, I wondered what could have happened. Had we run a flat tyre? Had there been a landslide? Either way, what would we do? Would we wait until morning for someone to repair the road or our bus? Would we turn back to Manila? In my groggy state, I eventually noticed that cars were only driving past us from the opposite direction, which meant that we were likely waiting to drive through a narrow pass. After what seemed like an eternity but realistically did not take longer than an hour, the cars stopped coming and it was our turn to go. Our bus then hurtled down the winding roads, which in some places narrowed to the width of a single car.

When I went to sleep at around one in the morning, I set my alarm to half past nine not believing that I could really sleep so late. I expected that even though I was tired, I would still end up waking up at around seven or eight because of my circadian rhythm. My first words upon waking to my alarm, therefore, were “oh my God!” It was not that I was upset but genuinely surprised that my body had finally asked for and given itself the amount of sleep it needed.

My night bus from Manila to Vigan had its ups and downs – both literally and metaphorically. One of its indisputably positive attributes was its one-by-two seat configuration. I sat on the single seat, which reclined quite far, and the monitor in front of me had a USB charging port for my phone. These were already great improvements over my long-haul bus rides in Europe, but there were considerable downsides as well. First of all, the driver only turned off the lights once we were well outside of Manila and all the tickets had been re-checked. Second, it kept getting colder and colder on board, and while I thought that wearing all my spare clothes would provide enough insulation, I still ended up feeling chilly. To that end, I repurposed my pyjama trousers from serving as an eye-mask to becoming a scarf, and shamelessly put my black underwear on my face.

Today was so rainy that I only realised mid-afternoon that my sunglasses were useless. The surface had been destroyed by yesterday’s rain showers, which blurred the view by wearing down the polarised coating in uneven patches. Luckily, I found a big mall during my wanderings through the centre of Manila and bought new sunglasses there. Taking a gamble, I decided to pay for them in cash, as I am almost halfway through the trip and I have not spent anywhere close to half of the quantity I exchanged. Still, I do feel a bit nervous that I might run out of cash in the middle of nowhere at the most inconvenient time.

I woke up early again this morning, as the curtains in my room were too thin to keep the sunlight out. I did not mind too much, though, as I had arranged to borrow a motorcycle at seven o’clock. Of course, the motorcycle dealer – whom the hotel had contacted on my behalf – did not show up at seven but at quarter past, which came in handy because I had not yet finished my breakfast by seven (the café had spent a full half an hour making two waffles).

My final Southeast Asian trip of the year took me to the Philippines. I left Bangkok just before two o’clock in the afternoon on a flight bound for Manila: I could have taken a direct flight to Cebu, but all of them were scheduled for the wee hours of the morning, and I did not want to feel tired given the strenuous week ahead. The plane’s touchdown at Ninoy Aquino Airport gave me my first flavour of Filipino culture. The sound of seatbelt buckles unclasping, overhead compartments opening, and people fumbling about only got louder upon the attendant’s request that everyone remain seated until the plane finishes moving.

When I first began planning my trip to Ayutthaya, I did not think I would be able to see all its attractions in a single day. After all, this legendary city flourished for four centuries as the capital of Siam, one of the most powerful and prosperous kingdoms of Southeast Asia. However, with a bit of planning and a reasonable amount of cab money, a journey from Bangkok and back can take just around ten hours. At eight in the morning, Reese and I were getting breakfast at the Krung Thep Aphiwat train station just as the national anthem boomed from the speakers. When the national anthem played again at six in the evening, Reese and I were in front of the same train station waiting for our cab.

Today, Reese, Linda, and I made a trip to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, an iconic golden temple that stands atop a mountain just west of Chiang Mai. We started our journey later than I had hoped, as finding a breakfast place in the morning proved quite a challenge. We racked up a further delay while waiting for our Grab cab, with all the taxi drivers either still recovering from a late night or already ferrying huge quantities of tourists. At around ten o’clock, we finally reached the beginning of the so-called Monk’s Trail.

November is a busy time in Thailand. As locals prepare for one of the biggest celebrations of the year, thousands of tourists from around the world descend upon the country’s most popular attractions, from Chiang Mai to Ayutthaya. The festival, known as Loy Krathong, celebrates the full moon in the twelfth (and final) month of the Thai lunar calendar. In Northern Thailand, which encompasses the historical domains of the Lanna Kingdom, Loy Krathong also overlaps with Yi Peng, a festival that celebrates the full moon in the second month of the Lanna lunar calendar.

I set today’s alarm to six o’clock, but I was up much earlier. Siam Reap is a city whose peace has been destroyed by tourism, and the pounding of drums and bass guitars in nightclubs can be heard from afar until sunrise. After packing our bags and eating a quick breakfast, we ordered a Grab to the eastern entrance of Angkor Wat. While this was my second time visiting the temple, I was still surprised by the width of its moats and the length of its walls. We walked around the arcades decorated with bas reliefs of heroic battles and dancing apsaras before ascending to the very top of the temple’s central tower.

We woke up early this morning, as we had booked a tour to go to Preah Vihear and Koh Ker. These temples lie quite far from Siem Reap: the journey to Preah Vihear takes around three and a half hours – or three with a fiendish driver like ours. When we arrived by the ticket office at the foot of the mountain, our guide asked whether we would like to rent motorcycles or a van to ride up. We had already noted our rapidly diminishing supply of riel as we were buying the tickets, so when we learned that the motorcycles cost five dollars each and the van twenty-five, we opted for the former.

Today was our last day in Laos. We ate a slow breakfast and asked the front desk to arrange a van to the airport, which was ready in about half an hour. Joining us was a group of Canadian tourists who seemed completely nonplussed about getting to the airport just minutes before their flight to Saigon. We, on the other hand, arrived over an hour early, which gave us plenty of time to check in and fill out the e-entry form to Cambodia: We were only informed of this obligation by the lady at the check-in counter, but at least she saved us time at the airport in Siam Reap.

Since our hotel was a bit far from the centre of Pakse, we had to hail a cab that would take us to the street with all the motorcycle rentals. We found one right in front of our hotel: it was a motorcycle with a roofed carriage attached to the side, and the driver asked for fifty thousand. I doubted he would know the rental place I had in mind, so I told him to drop us off at a temple nearby; that way, we could take a few pictures and walk right over.

Yesterday evening, we asked our hotel’s front desk service whether they could arrange a taxi for the following day. We wanted to be driven around from about eight to twelve, intending to eat lunch at noon before setting off for the airport. The price we were quoted, however, amounted to about a million kips, which we judged far too high for a four-hour hire. Instead, we decided to trust the local rideshare app Loca. After our checking out the following morning, we hailed our first cab to the Lao National Museum, which only cost us 120 thousand.

We began our first and only full day in Vientiane with a bus ride to the famous Buddha Park. We had considered hiring a tuk-tuk, but taking a bus – at 36,000 kip per person for a round trip – was a cheaper alternative that allowed us to observe a little bit of local life. Finding the Talat Sao bus station was not difficult, and we knew from the internet that we were to take bus number 14. We also made sure to cross-check this piece of intelligence with nearby information boards, which to our surprise were translated to English. And, as though these two sources were not enough, several local busybodies came up to us and confirmed we were waiting in the right place.

Barron and I began our breakfast promptly at seven o’clock, but our efficiency was undermined by Barron’s capacious stomach demanding a serving of noodle soup after finishing a whole buffet plate. We felt regret at leaving our hotel so early, as our fifth-floor room offered us a beautiful view of the mountains across the river. Still, we knew better views awaited us.

On the morning of our last day in Luang Prabang, I made a quick excursion with my camera to Wat Xieng Thong. It had been cloudy during our previous visit, and I really wanted to get a few pictures of the temple under clear blue skies (Barron quite rightly made fun of me for being a slave to Instagram). Having completed this task, Barron and I checked out of our hotel and walked to a nearby motorcycle rental place. For about eight dollars, we rented a motorcycle for the whole day, with no questions asked about licenses or insurance. I imagine the lady renting us the motorcycle had some second thoughts about this policy when I asked her to start the engine for me.

We began our second day in Luang Prabang with a bright and early rise at half past five. After brushing our teeth and dressing hastily, we made our way down to Sisavangvong Road, where the Tak Bat ceremony unfolds every morning around sunrise. Traditionally, the Tak Bat is an almsgiving ritual during which locals give rice to a procession of monks from the temples in the city. In Luang Prabang, however, the whole ceremony has become more of a spectacle for Chinese tour groups: Rice and other foods are sold to tourists, who line the roads for the opportunity to deposit them in vessels carried by the monks. Since the monks are vastly outnumbered, a whole system has been devised whereby they dump the excess food into nearby receptacles, and the food is distributed among people in nearby villages.

This Thursday evening, my friend Barron arrived in Bangkok. Planning his visit, we decided that I would take a week off from work and that we would explore Laos and Cambodia together. On his first day, Barron toured Bangkok by himself while I wrapped up my work and did some last-minute research. I also bought tickets for the train from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng and from Vang Vieng to Vientiane, as these only became available three days before the journey. I had hoped we would be able to take the night train from Bangkok to Vientiane, but these were sold out far in advance.

This weekend, I visited my friend Yang in Singapore. My Friday night flight had a two-hour delay because of bad weather coupled with Lion Air’s inexplicable decision to begin refuelling only after everyone had boarded. These unfortunate circumstances have added to my ever-deepening dislike of Lion Air for imposing a ban on the use of all electronics during take-off and landings (regardless of whether they are in flight mode) and for its strict policy of “no outside food.” To this I add the fact that I was not able to check-in online for my flight from Bangkok to Singapore, but I was able to check-in for my flight back with a different airline. This may not have even been Lion Air’s fault but at this point I am not exactly primed to be understanding.  

This Monday was a holiday commemorating the death of Bhumibol Adulyadej, Thailand’s previous king. Although I was still a bit tired from my trip to Chiang Rai, the sky was so blue that I could not help feeling drawn outside. At eight o’clock, I called a Grab cab and rode it all the way to the nearby town of Nakhon Pathom; I should point out there are trains from Bangkok to Nakhon Pathom, but I could not for the life of me figure out the schedule, which seemed to indicate that only one single train would leave that entire morning.

For our second day in Chiang Rai, we booked a visit to an elephant sanctuary. I was very proud of myself for making the reservation, as I had gleaned from the sanctuary’s website that its owner was a Frenchwoman and managed to make the phone call entirely in French. We were picked up promptly at half past eight in the morning and began our forty-minute ride at the back of an open-air truck after picking up two other tourists and buying some insect repellent at 7-Eleven.

This weekend, Reese and I travelled to Chiang Rai, a city nestled in the northernmost corner of Thailand, and so far north that local agencies offer two-day boat rides to Luang Prabang in Laos. Chiang Rai was founded in 1262 by King Mangrai, who named it after himself: the word “chiang” means city, so a loose translation of “Chiang Rai” would be “the City of (Mang) Rai.” Heir to the kingdom of Ngoenyang, Mangrai unified the city states (or mueangs) of northern Lanna and present-day northern Laos, establishing the Kingdom of Lanna.

This weekend, I made a visit to Khlong Lat Mayom Floating Market with my friend Reese. We arrived a little after nine o’clock while the air was still fresh and before all the stalls had been set up. There were enough stalls, however, to guarantee a wealth of breakfast options, of which many were vegetarian due to some upcoming religious festival. The market was a bit more touristy than I had hoped. There were no fruit and vegetable stalls selling local produce, and instead most stalls offered various snacks and drinks, which visitors would carry to wooden tables overlooking the canal. Nevertheless, the place was not completely overrun by foreign tourists, appearing relatively popular with Thai people looking to get out of the bustle of central Bangkok.

Today I got to undertake the tour because of which I had planned this whole journey. Having arranged for a private guide with my hotel, I was pleased to find out that he spoke English very well and enjoyed talking; throughout the day, I learned a great deal from him about local history, customs, and prejudices. As it happened, my guide turned out to be Hmong, which provided a valuable insight into life in Laos, as the Hmong are the country’s second largest minority group after the Khmu. I was told that both ethnicities are well represented in Xieng Khouang province, but they do not have their own schools because the only official language of instruction in the country is Lao.

It seems that the whole world meets in the small city that is Vientiane. Leaving the airport, one passes by big advertisement boards by Western beer brands and Chinese investment companies, after which a derelict Renaissance-style dome welcomes visitors to the town proper. Without making much of an effort, one can find both an American Centre and a Russian “Science and Culture Centre” on streets that still bear their French names. Thai and Vietnamese banks have a strong presence along the roads, which are traversed by public mini busses gifted by “the people of Japan” and tour busses from China and South Korea.

I saw most of the famous sights in Bangkok’s historic centre during my first two weeks in the city, and since then, I have been filling in occasional blanks. In early August, I set up a date close to the Grand Palace, as I realised I had not seen the Royal Clock Tower or the Drum Tower, and I wanted to view Wat Arun at sunset. On another date, I visited Lumphini Park, where I spotted several big monitor lizards and accidentally walked through wet cement in my excitement.

Since I had seen everything I had planned to see in Brunei on my first day, I could not escape having to make some last minute plans. That very afternoon, I stopped by a tourist office close to my hotel to book a river cruise. Since it was set to depart early in the morning, I decided to buy some durian crackers for breakfast instead of eating at my hotel. I also bought a whole bag of rambutans for only one dollar fifty, which – despite my best efforts – I was not able to finish by the time I checked out. That evening, I ate dinner at an Indian diner, having given up on trying to find local vegetarian options. The fresh garlic naan was one of the best I ever had, which is sad considering I do not foresee ever returning to Brunei.

Planning a weekend trip to Bandar Seri Begawan from Bangkok is not easy. As far as I can tell, the only direct flights are operated by Royal Brunei, the island country’s national carrier. While the airline schedules four flights a week, the timing around the weekend is a bit awkward, as the plane flies in on Saturday afternoon and departs on Sunday evening, leaving a visitor less than 24 hours to explore. That being the case, I decided to fly to Brunei through Malaysia: I arrived on Friday evening, stayed at an airport hotel, and left for Bandar Seri Begawan early next morning.

I dedicated my last day in Malaysia to exploring its capital. Kuala Lumpur is a relatively young city, having arisen from a tin-mining settlement in the nineteenth century. The period brought about an enormous demand for tin: it was used to make household items, line tea chests, and fuel the industrial revolution in the Western World. To harness the production of this valuable material, the local Raja invited Chinese miners and engaged Chinese businessmen in support of the venture, succeeding in expanding the town despite rampant malaria and other tropical ailments. Disputes over the flourishing industry led to the outbreak of the Selangor Civil War (also known as the Klang War) between 1867 and 1874, which saw Kuala Lumpur burned to the ground and decimated by an outbreak of cholera.

My second day in Malaysia was dedicated to the exploration of Malacca. Legend has it that the city was founded in 1402 by King Parameswara, known as Iskandar Shah after his conversion to Islam. Parameswara had been the ruler of Singapura until it was invaded by the Majapahit Empire, which had its centre in East Java and extended its influence all the way to northern Malaysia and Eastern New Guinea. Exiled from his homeland, Parameswara was once resting under a Malacca tree when one of his dogs cornered a mouse deer. In one last act of defiance, the mouse deer stood up and pushed the larger dog into the river. Inspired by the deer’s courage, the king decided to found a city on the very spot and named it after the tree under which he had witnessed the scene.

Only two weeks after my return from Indonesia, I am on the road again. I never planned to travel as far and as often as I am right now, but the circumstances have aligned to make it both possible and desirable. Firstly, Thailand is holding a holiday for yet another royal anniversary: this time, it is the Queen Mother’s birthday. Secondly, most of Southeast Asia is quickly heading into wet season, threatening to make travel more unpleasant in the coming months. Thus, it is imperative, as the Romans say, to carpere as many dies as possible.

My last day in Java was a Monday. No, I did not skip work or take a holiday: it was the Thai King’s birthday over the weekend, and everyone got the day off – including the staff at international organisations. I ate a leisurely breakfast and took the hotel’s shuttle to Yogyakarta Airport, leaving for Jakarta at 10 o’clock.

The sun rose over a cloudy landscape in the morning. While I could faintly make out the contours of Borobudur from my hotel, the iconic Merapi Volcano was hidden from sight, and would stay that way despite ever-bluer skies. I checked out at eight o’clock and was promptly picked up by my driver for the day: I had ordered a tour online for visiting the Borobudur and Prambanan temples a few days earlier. While the tour was advertised as being without a tour-guide, Didik proved savvy, helpful, and very good at English.

I spent a restless night at my hotel in Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta Airport. I woke up almost every hour fearing that my alarm wouldn’t go off, until eventually it was so close to the time I had set that I simply got up and started preparing for my flight. My plane arrived in Yogyakarta a little after nine, but the Grab journey from the airport to the city centre took another hour.

As I lie in my hotel room, it occurs to me that even a few hours in Indonesia have given me a very different impression from my first few weeks in Thailand. While I gather that Bangkok can get quite smoggy during some months, this has not been the case so far, and the contrast with Jakarta could not have been greater. I could tell the plane was nearing Indonesia’s capital not because I could see the city below, but because I could not; the rough contours of buildings only started emerging at closer range through a thick milky screen. We touched down at about quarter to six, and as I walked through the rather empty airport at six, the loudspeakers started playing the Muslim call to prayer. Of course, Islam is quite popular in Southern Thailand, but I have spent most of my time in Bangkok, which is decidedly Buddhist.

I received a very welcome visit this week from Jyoti and David, two friends from my evermore distant Oxford days. The two arrived on Thursday morning, and after eating lunch I showed them around a few places in the neighbourhood: Wat Chana Songkhram, Wat Bowonniwet Vihara, the Metal Castle, and Wat Suthat. I left them to explore the Grand Palace and Wat Pho the following morning, as there was scarcely any time to do them justice once we had eaten. Despite my best efforts, the highlight of the day had nothing to do with the things we saw but with the food we ate. We had dinner at the fancy Methavalai Sorndaeng restaurant by the Democracy Monument, where we turned up without a reservation and found a table despite its multiple Michelin reviews.

I began the day by finishing my move into my new apartment, after which I set off for the city again. Walking towards the centre, I caught a tuk-tuk, and for 100 baht it carried me all the way to the pier by Wat Pho. The pier lies opposite to the famous Wat Arun, whose pale spires rise from the river in perfect symmetry. Dating to the 17 th century, Wat Arun assumed a special importance under King Taksin, who established a new capital on the western bank of the Chao Phraya River following the Burmese destruction of Ayutthaya. It was during Taksin’s reign that Wat Arun housed the Emerald Buddha and formed part of the royal palace.

On my second weekend in Bangkok, it was finally time to move from a hotel into my long-term accommodation. Fortunately, I secured a place very close to my office and just across the road from the hotel, so I did not have to lug my luggage too far in the sweltering heat. I found my apartment nice and tidy with two sets of air conditioners, a small kitchen with a fridge, and a spacious living room. Its only downside is that it is on the fourth floor of a house without air-conditioned staircases.

I did not expect to go out on Sunday as it was supposed to be cloudy, and my impressions of the weather when I woke up seemed to confirm the forecast. As I sat at my desk, however, the sky kept getting bluer and bluer until I could no longer bear staying inside. Walking along the road, I thought I would stop a passing tuk-tuk, but the farther I walked the less inclined I felt to pay money to cover the remaining stretch. My first stop was San Chaopho Suea, a Chinese temple also known as the Tiger God Shrine. Relatively small and lacking an open courtyard, the place was hot and heaving, its thick trails of incense smoke assaulting the senses. In addition to the Tiger God, the Goddess Mazu, and other mainstays of the Chinese pantheon, I noticed that the temple had a large statue of the Monkey King Sun Wukong.     

Having figured out almost all the logistics of my long-term stay (including accommodation), I spent my second morning in Bangkok touring more monuments in my neighbourhood. For the next few months, I will be living and working in northeastern Phra Nakhon, a district that encompasses Rattanakosin Island, which was designated as the capital of Rattanakosin Kingdom by Phutthayotfa Chulalok (Rama I) in 1782.

After a few weeks working as a research assistant at Oxford, I had the good fortune of finding a job to bring me back to Asia. My position began online towards the beginning of the month, and my visa was approved shortly afterwards. I arrived in Bangkok on the 27 th of June. Careful as I am never to let myself form idealistic expectations of my travel destinations, I was surprised when – in the land of smiles – one of the guards at immigration hit me on the arm and pointed in front of me. He only spoke Thai, and the gesture meant to convey the simple and unnecessary instructions that I should move forward in the queue by about five centimetres. Thankfully, my carefulness not to form idealistic expectations of countries is matched by an equally strong resolution not to judge them by first impressions.  

Having left Vilnius this morning, I want to jot down a few notes on the differences I observed between the Baltic countries while they are still fresh in my mind. Firstly, the capital cities are very different architecturally. Tallinn does have quite a few imposing baroque and gothic buildings, but its alleyways, city walls, and towers give it a distinctly medieval feel. Riga, on the other hand, has a strong Hanseatic atmosphere thanks to its prominent brick gothic churches and its location on the wide Daugava River. Much of Riga’s urban fabric is also woven out of art nouveau. Finally, Vilnius is the quintessential baroque city, though it boasts a few neoclassical and gothic gems.

On my last full day in Lithuania and the Baltic states, I saw my friend Diana, and together we made a trip to Lithuania’s second largest city Kaunas. The modern history of Kaunas is quite interesting, as it briefly became the country’s capital during the interwar period. During the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921, Vilnius frequently changed hands between the Poles and the Russians. In 1920, the Soviets awarded the captured city to Lithuania, but Polish President Józef Piłsudski secretly ordered a mutiny to annex Vilnius. Kaunas, which had been Lithuania’s provisional capital during the unrest after WWI, thus remained its capital for twenty years until its return to Lithuania in 1939 by the USSR – which proceeded to annex Lithuania in the following year.

This morning was the first cloudy morning during my entire trip, and I was very thankful for it. While it meant my pictures would not be full of beautiful azure skies, it also stopped my bouncing from shade to shade like a desiccating frog. My first stop today was the Gate of Dawn, which houses a prominent icon of the Virgin Mary in a chapel facing the inner part of the city. When locals walk through it, they often turn around and cross themselves, sometimes adding a short prayer. Right in the vicinity are the Church of Saint Theresa and the colourful Orthodox Church of the Holy Spirit, and farther along the same road one can see the imposing baroque-era Church of Saint Casimir and the city’s neoclassical town hall.

My tourist itinerary for today was sparse, as I have already seen much of Riga and some of its environs. After checking out and leaving my bag at the hotel, I walked to the train station, where I bought tickets for the train to Jelgava. Jelgava is the largest town in Zemgale (Semigallia) and the erewhile capital of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia. As many other places in Latvia, the origins of modern Jelgava reach back to the Livonian Order, which ruled the town until its fall in the late sixteenth century. The newly created Duchy of Courland and Semigallia was a vassal state of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from its inception, and it fell to Russia in the Third Partition of Poland.

I struggled to come up with an itinerary for Latvia, as travelling between interesting places can be quite difficult without a car. The medieval town of Kuldiga lies a good three hours away from Riga and the buses are not frequent, while the buses to Pilsrundale seem to have been discontinued entirely. Latvia’s second largest city Daugavpils can be reached by train, but the journey takes three and a half hours, and to be honest I am not sure there is all that much to see.

Contrary to the gloomy predictions of the weather forecast, today was a lovely day. I began the morning at Freedom Square, where I took pictures of the column to the 1918-1920 War of Independence. Using the symbolism of this location, a large banner of Ukraine’s and Estonia’s flags hangs from the large building at the northern end of the square. Somewhat to the detriment of the message, the building houses Tallinn’s Department of Transportation and has a rating of 2.2 stars on Google Maps.

It is a strange time to be in the Baltics, as the normality of everyday life belies the concerning headlines in international relations. Just yesterday, for example, I read that Russia has been stirring up trouble at the border with Estonia by removing demarcation buoys from the Narva River. What complicates matters even further is that due to the USSR’s Russification policies, about a fifth of Estonia’s current population is ethnically Russian. This makes it difficult to gauge how much of the Russian I hear around here is being spoken by Russian emigres, refugees from Eastern Ukraine, or locals.

Having finally found a job, I realised I do not need to spend all my days searching for one. My new posting will begin in June, and until then I will be using this suddenly brief period of freedom to travel and visit friends. Thinking of where to go, I remembered that I thoroughly enjoyed my travels last summer, when my wanderings took me to Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. It was warm but not hot, the days overflowed with many golden hours, and the weather mostly stayed sunny. Since I have not yet been to the Baltics, the concrete choice of destination was easy.

By the time my last full day in Germany came around, I had run out of cities to visit in the neighbourhood of Cologne. Therefore, I decided to venture a little farther out and took a train to Münster. This German city is best known for its centrality to the Peace of Westphalia: It is where negotiations began in 1641, taking almost seven years to reach a conclusion. One frustrated participant reportedly paraphrased Shakespeare’s Tempest , remarking that “Hell is empty, and all the devils are in Münster.”

I started the day by eating breakfast at the Cologne Main Station, which was a source of immediate annoyance. Why, I thought, would a bakery put pistachio cream on top of a croissant, only to then cover it with a sheet of wax paper and throw it in a bag? Do Germans think it is normal to eat their pistachio cream croissants by biting into the pastry and licking the cream off the paper?

Riding through the Rhine Valley offers very different views to my previous trips on this journey. While the area between Cologne, Düsseldorf, Essen, and Dortmund is a more or less contiguous suburban expanse, the Rhine south of Bonn has very few settlements until the 50-kilometre distant Koblenz. Unlike the stretch between Aachen and Maastricht, for instance, the landscape there is hilly, with an occasional fort or palace nestled comfortably above the river.

The title of today’s entry deserves an asterisk, as Maastricht obviously is not in Germany. However, Maastricht lies less than an hour’s train journey away from Aachen, which is itself about an hour’s journey southwest of Cologne. The journey to Maastricht would be much shorter, too, were it not for an awkward semi-circular detour through a series of suburbs.

It was supposed to rain all day so I decided that from my base in Cologne, I would visit some of the less interesting areas in the region. I started the day in Düsseldorf, whose main claim to fame is being the capital of North-Rhine Westphalia. This fact is somewhat meaningless, though, considering how interconnected the whole region is. In fact, I took the suburban rail all the way from Cologne to get there. Similarly to Cologne, Düsseldorf has a silly name, as “Dorf” means “village” in German, and Düsseldorf is definitely not that.

Perhaps the silliest thing about Cologne is its name. When the Romans founded the city, they called it “Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium.” Rather than shortening this name to something descriptive, later generations chose to fixate on the most generic part: Colonia, meaning colony, from which we get Köln and Cologne. To me, that sounds as silly as calling a city “City” or a town “Town.” Throughout history, Cologne was a very important commercial and political centre, as betokened by its membership in the Hanseatic League or its status as a Fortress of the German Confederation.

If the combination of Bayreuth and Würzburg seems a little strange, then congratulations on knowing a lot about North Bavarian geography. Snark aside, I do admit that had this combination of destinations been planned, it would have been a silly plan indeed, especially seeing as Bamberg (which I visited yesterday) lies right between the two cities. It would have made much more sense to visit Bayreuth and Nuremberg on one day, and Bamberg and Würzburg on the other. However, I got myself into this situation entirely by accident: I toured Nuremberg and Bamberg much faster than I thought I would, leaving myself a whole day to fill somewhere else.

Not long ago, I decided to stay in the UK while looking for a new job, which has allowed me to finally check an item off my bucket list: to make a rail journey from Prague to London. Sketching out a list of places I wanted to see, I decided to cluster my journeys around two centres rather than sleeping in a different city each night. The first of these centres was Nuremberg, which serves as an ideal base for exploring Upper Bavaria. After finding out that rail connections to Nuremberg are quite a pain, I immediately ditched my initial resolution and took a direct bus instead.

Having walked far too much in Brussels, I came back to Paris completely exhausted. I decided to spend my weekend in a leisurely way, seeing some of the major sights on Saturday morning and spending the rest of the day in Louvre. I ate an almond pain au chocolat for breakfast in front of the glamorous Hôtel des Invalides, which lies only a short walk from the Eiffel Tower. There was much construction work going on that day, either because of the upcoming marathon or in preparation for the Olympic Games, and I found the tower obstructed by tall metal barriers.

My second day of job-hunting in Western Europe took me to Brussels, where I was welcomed by rather unwelcoming weather. It rained in short bursts until the afternoon, and having forgotten my umbrella in London I frequently took refuge in doorways and niches. My first stop in Brussels was the Gate of Hal, a strange remnant of the city’s erewhile battlements that was clearly renovated in the nineteenth century without much regard for its original form. From thence, I continued to the Palace of Justice and the Royal Palace of Brussels before escaping the bustle of the city at the Parc du Cinquantenaire.

As part of my job hunt, I decided to make a trip to Western Europe and tap into my network in a few cities. After staying with some friends in London, I went on my first train ride through the English Channel Tunnel and spent the rest of the week at another friend’s place in Paris. I cannot yet say that the trip was very productive, but I did meet the people I set out to meet and saw quite a few sights along the way.

The last few weeks were a whirlwind in all the wrong ways. After coming back from Vietnam, I immediately started my new job, which I was to do remotely until receiving my visa in May. I quickly found out, however, that I did not like the position at all, and decided to quit only three weeks in. Since then, I have been looking for other opportunities in a state of anxiety and benefitting from only occasional bursts of enthusiasm. Amidst this hassle, it did not feel very responsible to go on any trips, seeing as I spend a lot of time afterwards writing about my experiences and sorting through my pictures. One of my sisters did, however, manage to persuade me to visit the Botanical Garden in Prague one weekend, and to drive to Nymburk the next. I decided to view these trips as favours to her.

We started the day very early, waking up at 4:30 because we were told that the Cai Rang floating market would die down soon after sunrise. We got to the river at around 5:15. The first sign that things were a little off was the sight of a cruise boat full of local tourists zooming past us. As the next few minutes unfolded, more and more cruise boats filled the river, and it became evident that the floating market had been completely hollowed out by overtourism. Instead of locals buying and selling goods on little peaceful boats, the heavily outnumbered salespeople steered their boats to the vessels full of tourists and cruised alongside them while offering fruits and breakfast foods.    

My dad and I woke up at half past six to eat a quick breakfast and check out of our hotel before embarking on our last adventure in Vietnam. Leaving our luggage at the reception, we walked over to the travel agency where we had previously workshopped our ideas for a trip to the Mekong Delta. Our driver and tour guide were already there.

With our tour group gone, my dad and I have been looking for things to do around Saigon before our departure on the 27 th . After some googling, our sights fell on Vũng Tàu, a seaside city known for its beaches (which are of no interest to us) and for the biggest statue of Jesus in Asia (which is of interest to us). Having booked a cab the day before, we headed over at nine o’clock in the morning, arriving by the statue a little after eleven.

We spent the whole day today in Ho Chi Minh City, and I have to say it is quite different from Hanoi. Hanoi feels smaller, calmer, and more rigid, whereas Ho Chi Minh City is – as my dad put it – “what Bangkok was twenty years ago.” It feels distinctly more southeast Asian: the roads are busier and crazier, and the streets seem much more alive. Ho Chi Minh City is to Hanoi what New York is to Washington D.C. or what Hong Kong is to Beijing.  

We woke up early in the morning to pack our bags and hunt for breakfast outside the hotel. We vastly overestimated our non-verbal communication skills and sat down at a local restaurant in the hopes of ordering me a vegetarian dish. Unsympathetic to our struggle, the waitress kept frustratedly pointing at the menu on the wall, which was written entirely in Vietnamese and was unaccompanied by any pictures. I suppose it did not occur to her that two foreigners might penetrate as far as Tây Ninh without being able to string together a single sentence in the local language.

Today was a real adventure, as my dad and I decided to split off from the main group and head to Saigon early instead of spending the day in Nha Tranh. Every part of the journey was an experience. Riding to the airport, we found that local taxi drivers love to play karaoke on their displays. While they likely don’t sing along (our driver, at the very least, did not), the text running at the bottom of the screen seems rather distracting. As do the music videos that accompany the songs, with cameramen focussing on the cleavage of female singers.

Today was a free day dedicated to resting by the beach. My dad and I aren’t made for rest, though, and so we planned an excursion to a few interesting places south of the city. Taking along two other travellers from our group, we hired a cab for the day and headed to Từ Vân Pagoda in Cam Ranh. Built in 1968, the pagoda is a supremely kitschy complex, starring giant dragons of all colours, statues of Buddhist holy figures, and a whole temple built from corals and seashells. Most interesting, perhaps, is its “Road to Hell,” a long and narrow tunnel built of corals and winding its way past various allegorical depictions of Buddhist moral philosophy. The tunnels are hot, stuffy, and dark, so it is quite difficult to walk their whole length without sustaining an injury of some kind. From the entrance to the exit through the mouth of a huge dragon-like beast, the walk and crawl took us over half an hour.

We left for the airport very early in the morning, as there are not very many flights from Hội An to Cam Ranh. Having left our hotel at the ungodly time of 4:30, we arrived in Nha Trang by ten o’clock. We first stopped at our new hotel by the beach, after which we boarded our bus once more and did a little sightseeing. Our first stop was the two centuries old Long Sơn Pagoda, which is famous for its massive seated white buddha. Inside his pedestal is a little shrine with decorated walls and constantly burning incense. While unpleasant in the midday sun, the walk up to the Buddha statue does offer some respite in the form of other attractions, such as a giant lying Buddha.

In the morning, we visited a silk workshop just outside the historic centre of Hội An. The demonstration was interesting: we saw tiny silkworms grazing on macerated mulberry leaves, and their larger cousins slowly preparing to weave their cocoons in wooden frames. After boiling the cocoons, the women working at the shop deftly unpick them and prepare the material for spinning and sewing. Although I enjoyed the show, we spent another hour at the shop, which I felt was rather excessive.

Today was a day spent in slowly making our way from Huế to Hội An. We made a leisurely start, leaving our hotel at nine o’clock in the morning. After some two hours on the road, we stopped by a small touristy village of pearl fishers, where we took pictures of the quaint stilt houses and ate caulerpa lentillifera (also called sea grapes). We then proceeded to a proper seafood restaurant, where I ate clams with lemongrass and chili. They were very good, and I managed to scrape out an entire coconut with my spoon.

In contrast to the hectic itinerary of yesterday, we spent the whole day today in one city. After eating a leisurely breakfast, we boarded a “dragon boat” on Perfume River and sailed for about forty minutes to the Thiên Mụ Temple, founded in 1601 by the Nguyens. Its most impressive sight is its seven-story pagoda, which directly overlooks the river and serves as an entry point to a much larger complex. Besides the usual temples, this complex also contains a functioning monastery and a few historical exhibits. Perhaps the most interesting artefact is the car driven to Saigon by the Monk Thích Quảng Đức, who immolated himself in protest against the anti-Buddhist persecutions of the staunchly Catholic president Ngô Đình Diệm.

We woke up at 5:15 in the morning and left our hotel half an hour later. Checking in for our flight to Huế was simple enough, and although the ride was a little bumpy, we made it to the city in good time. All of us, however, were quite hungry by the time we had left our luggage at the hotel, so our guide arranged for us to order some bánh mì. We did this from the bus, as it could not enter the road of the bakery due to holiday closures. Instead, the food was delivered to us on motorbike. Mine was underwhelming. I had asked for a vegetarian version, and what I got was a baguette filled with peanut butter and sugar.

Our ship left Halong Bay in the morning, though not until we had made a small boat excursion to a nearby cove. Our local guide clearly hoped we would see monkeys there, to attract which he bought a handful of bananas. No one was more disappointed than him when the monkeys failed to turn up, and he munched on his bananas with an air of resigned gloom. The sun briefly came out as our ship headed back to the port, but the clouds set in once again by the time we got there, breaking into light rain as our bus returned to Hanoi.

We left Ninh Bình at quarter to eight and rode almost 200 kilometres to Hạ Long Bay. Known for its many limestone islets, the bay is a very popular destination: there are around five hundred boats providing transport and accommodation to tourists. The bay’s name means “Descending Dragon.” Legend has it that when fighting off foreign invaders, the local Vietnamese were aided by dragons who spat jade into the water to form a defensive wall. Seeing the beautiful landscape they created, the dragons decided to settle down, and they live in the bay to this day.

We left Hanoi in the morning, riding our tour bus for almost two hours to Hoa Lư. Known as the ancient capital of Vietnam, Hoa Lư was elevated to prominence by local warlord Đinh Tiên Hoàng, who successfully unified the region following the expulsion of the Southern Han. His short-lived Đinh dynasty was succeeded by the Early Lê dynasty of Lê Đại Hành, which continued to rule from Hoa Lư. While the Đinh lasted only twelve years, the Early Lê did not do much better with their paltry twenty-nine. The ruler of the subsequent Lý dynasty, Lý Công Uẩn, then moved Vietnam’s capital to Thăng Long, now called Hanoi.

Our tour group began the first full day of our Vietnam trip by walking around the old city of Hanoi, taking pictures of fruits vendors, fishmongers, birdmen, butchers, and many more. Our first proper historical stop was Hanoi’s oldest temple, Bach Ma, which is called the White Horse Temple in English. The shrine was founded in 1010 by emperor Lý Thái Tổ, founder of the Ly dynasty. Legend has it that the emperor struggled to construct a citadel in Hanoi, his buildings sinking into the marshy ground as soon as they were finished. Finally, a white horse led him to a suitable site, tapping its hoof on a piece of solid ground that would become the foundation for modern Hanoi.

My redeye from Delhi arrived close to five in the morning, and I did not catch a jot of sleep. Once I got to my hotel, however, I did not feel particularly drowsy, and instead of napping for a few hours, I started sorting through my photos from India. This exercise lasted for as long as it stayed cloudy outside – that is to say – until around eleven, when I grew bored of the very mechanical editing process and decided to go out.

On my last day in Delhi, I managed to cross off the last few items on my sightseeing list. I began by packing my luggage, all the while congratulating myself on having remembered to ask the hotel to do my laundry in advance. That finished, I ordered an Uber to Akshardham, a massive Hindu temple east of the Yamuna River. The opening hours of the temple are not well advertised, and when I arrived by the front gate, I learned it was still closed. For a few minutes, I took pictures of the temple from afar, when suddenly an autorickshaw driver approached me. He reasoned with me that since the temple would not open until ten, I had better come with him and see other sights. I had to admit the soundness of his reasoning and gave him my next address.

On my penultimate day in Northern India, I went on another guided tour. My cab picked me up at six o’clock in the morning, and we met the guide in Agra after nine. Our first stop was Taj Mahal. While it may seem counterintuitive to begin an excursion with the most spectacular sight, it makes sense when one considers the sheer number of tourists who start pouring in throughout the day. Even at this hour, the place was bustling, and my guide hurried forward at breakneck speed in a futile attempt to beat the crowds.

Today was another sunny and busy day, with my explorations broken up by three meetings early in the afternoon. I started the morning by catching an autorickshaw to Shri Laxmi Narayan Temple. It was built on the initiative of Mohandas Gandhi with the goal of serving all castes – a very progressive idea for the time. Although quite glamorous and expansive on the outside, the interior of the temple is not overly ornate, with little to attract the eye beside the statue of each shrine’s main deity.

On Tuesday, I had an appointment at Ashoka University, a relatively new institution whose vision has attracted major investors and academic heavyweights. Modelled along the lines of American liberal arts colleges, it dubs itself the Harvard of Haryana, the Yale on the Yamuna, and several other slogans I cannot remember. I was surprised to find the campus quite small and cozy, housing only around 3,000 students. Nevertheless, it has already grown significantly since the time my friend Sparsh studied there, and is now expanding by another whole campus.  

I booked my Friday trip to Jaipur online after discovering that the Taj Mahal – a portion of which serves as a mosque – closes to visitors on that day of the week. Since I did not want to visit Jaipur or Agra over the weekend for fear of encountering a horde of tourists, my window for scheduling both day trips shrank considerably, and I realised the need to slot Jaipur very early.

As soon as my traineeship in Geneva was over, I flew to India. I do not have a job yet, and so I figured that a week spent sightseeing and networking might be just the right thing for me. Even if it doesn’t work out this time, perhaps making a few contacts will lay a good foundation for the future; it would be nice to live in India for a few years getting to know the country properly.

Perhaps two weeks into my stay across the border from Geneva, I made it my personal challenge to buy as many different types of cheese as I could. At first, I thought it would help me find the cheese with which I would stick for the rest of my stay, but I soon discovered that my local store sold more types of cheese than I could ever hope to taste. Indeed, Charles De Gaulle was off by over seven hundred when he famously lamented: “How can anyone govern a country with 246 varieties of cheese?” That said, I did my best, and I made the following notes on how I liked each cheese I tried:

My traineeship at the EU Mission to the WTO is rapidly hurtling towards its end, and I will be leaving Geneva soon. In preparation for this inevitable event, my dad visited me to help me move some of my things back to Prague – namely my guitar, some collared shirts, and an extra suit. Since he is a fast walker, we saw practically everything there is to see in central Geneva on his first day here, and I struggled to come up with a programme for Sunday.

The weather remained unwelcoming during the second day of Li’s visit, though the remaining snow brightened the otherwise dreary city. This was my first time showing someone around Geneva, and I felt relieved that I did not have to come up with a very long itinerary thanks to our late breakfast. We started in the centre, walking north along the lake and past the Brunswick Monument to Parc Mon Repos, which I only recently discovered has a small grove of beautiful redwood trees. I started feeling a little cold, but awaiting us were the greenhouses of the nearby botanical garden. The papayas and habaneros were completely ignorant of the snow outside, happily growing out their fruits by the bushel.

I had the chance to pay back my friend Li this weekend for hosting me in Bologna. She and her friend Hannah visited me in Switzerland, and for their first day here, I took them to Luzern. The train ride took a little over three hours. There were options that took about ten minutes shorter, but we figured a direct train would be more comfortable. As we rode, we realised that the weather forecast for the weekend was probably mistaken and it would not turn sunny as the day went on. Rather, the entire day would continue in a haze.

Having seen a decent amount of Palma yesterday, we went about our day at a leisurely pace. In the morning, we checked out of our hotel and rode the exhilarating car-lift to the ground floor, after which we drove to the hill of Nuestra Señora de la Paz. My dad had spotted the statue from a distance the other day, and seeing as we had nothing else to do before everything else opened, we thought we might as well make a visit. Had we not stopped by, I likely would never have learned how ugly the statue really looks from up close.

We woke up at seven o’clock with a single goal in our mind: to drive all the way up Formentor Cape and back by breakfast. The task was urgent, as we knew the road to be narrow, winding, and perched atop uncomfortably precipitous hillsides. We began our ascent on the outskirts of Port de Pollença. After a while, we reached a barrier at a crossroads and, seeing that it was raised, continued onwards. I had my fair share of scares during the ride, though at least the wild goats had the good sense not to jump into the road right behind bends.

Flying into Mallorca is a magical experience. As soon as the island draws into view, it dramatically unfurls its rows of craggy mountains into the sea. The peaks occasionally gleam with a patch of sunlight but mostly maintain a dark mien; forming a high range along the northeastern coast, they hold back a barrage of dark clouds from pouring over the southern flatlands. These, the visitor soon observes, are dotted with a host of old windmills: round and quadrilateral, painted and bare, they find themselves in various stages of disrepair.