My Travel Adventures

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.

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.  

I rarely explore different public transport options in the cities I visit, preferring to travel everywhere by foot. I think I developed this habit in places where I did not understand the local language and where the threat of getting lost seemed much more real and potent. There was something about Lyon’s public transport system, however, that won me over. Accidentally walking into Perrache Station yesterday, I noticed the shallow tram channel, the unthreatening walk across the tracks, and the simple turnstiles behind which the metro zoomed to and fro, turning transfers into a matter of seconds. Enamoured with the ease of everything, I bought a 48 hour all purpose ticket for the entire city.

For a normal person, a trip from Ferney-Voltaire to Dijon might take about three and a half hours on a good day. I, however, am an anxious anchovy, and connecting times below ten minutes scare me. I would much rather wait at a train station for twenty minutes than fret about having to buy tickets and find the right platform in the time it takes to boil an egg.