We started off this past week with a few days in Bali. Originally we had hoped to explore the area for a week, but alas with the Lunar New Year approaching flight prices to and from Bali were skyrocketing, so we elected to spend only a few nights there. Just enough time, we thought, to see what all the hype was about.
The area where we stayed (Canggu) was filled with Instagramers. You could not turn around without seeing immaculately dressed women posing for their friends or boyfriends, doing elaborate, costume-change-involving photo shoots in restaurants and on the beach. And there certainly are some lovely photo opportunities in Bali. We went to the beach every night at sunset to wade in the waves and watch the sky change.
In between all those lovely photo spots, though, there was an awful lot of trash. The five minute walk from our apartment to the beach was lined with construction debris, usually featuring at least one stray dog sniffing about for anything edible.
There were tons of restaurants nearby (many with excellent brunch and other western specialties), but they all lined a street that felt dangerous, rather than peaceful, to walk along, as the sidewalks were usually blocked by parked cars or street vendors, and the two lanes of the street itself were shared by cars and motorbikes with little interest in making room for pedestrians.
Although we may not have seen Bali at it’s best (and we did only see a very small part of the island), we took full advantage of the good food and our little oasis of an apartment, spending our days sheltering from the heat in the pool, or reading and sketching on our little porch between meals.
After Bali, we took what will be our last flight for some weeks to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in the south of Vietnam. Alas, much of the city was closed for the new year, but we did see plenty of the sights, ate some excellent Vietnamese food, and rejoiced in the plentiful options for bubble tea.
What I will remember most about Ho Chi Minh City, however, are the streets. Remember how I thought the little two lane roads in Bali were overwhelming? Well, this was a new magnitude of chaos for which I was wholly unprepared. Crossing the street was a nightmarish game of Frogger where you must simply step into traffic and pray that the cars and motorbikes will swerve around you or else slow slightly until you pass (you don’t step in front of buses, they don’t slow for us puny pedestrians). I feel about the streets of Saigon the way Byron feels about getting on an airplane – it’s an utterly ridiculous situation to be in and it’s entirely possible we’ll be killed at any second. Thankfully, Byron is totally unfazed by the chaos of those streets, and I’m unbothered by airplanes, so at least one of us is always calm during these parts of our journey.
Yesterday we took a long train ride to Nha Trang, Vietnam, right on the beach and near mountains, where we’ll spend the next few days. To my immense relief, this city is much smaller, and the roads far less crowded.
PS: One of the many perks of a 7.5 hour train ride on a sleeper car is that there is ample time for knitting – both the lace scarf and the hat are coming along nicely, though it’s still difficult to imagine needing a hat while traveling in a place where it is 90 degrees in January.
