Welcome to Jensetgo, a travel blog!
Ah, Singapore. Where the temperature is a constant humid 85 degrees, where a gentle breeze is always blowing, where the traffic hums along and the sidewalks gleam and the living is easy.
This has been a moment of calm in my SE Asia journey, a little moment to rest and recuperate, to stock up on a few things (hello, regular toothpaste!) and to actually have a minute to reflect and think.
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When I first mentioned to people I was excited about going to Singapore, the normal reaction I got was one of surprise. "Singapore? Why do you want to go to Singapore?"
The list of things wrong with Singapore were as follows: it's expensive, boring, uptight, soulless, and really expensive.
And you know, maybe it is all those things. But if soulless means I can cross the street without fearing I'll be run over by a moto, and boring means I'm not clutching my purse afraid it's going to be ripped off me by a motothief, well, then a few days of "boring" and "soul less" is exactly what I need. If uptight means there's an efficient, air-conditioned subway networking the entire city, I'll take it. And if it means spending a little bit more to indulge in it, I am happy to open my wallet.
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Well, my month in Vietnam is winding to a close. Here's a recap of the specifics for how I did Vietnam! I don't think you need a full month to see this country; I probably could have planned better and finished this all in 3 weeks. And if I had planned it a little better, I could have definitely squeezed in two places in the south that I thought sounded interesting, Mui Ne and Da Lat. (I intentionally bypassed Nha Trang, the popular beach city, because I heard it was overrun with Russians and discothèques blasting cheesy dance music.) By flying from Ho Chi Minh to Da Nang, I sped up the trip a bit, then have kind of lagged with blocking off too much time in Hanoi as "down time" in between side trips to Cat Ba and Sapa. However, one of the things I've enjoyed most about this trip is having time to actually sit and write for the fun of it, and having the opportunity to do this here has been nice, especially since I found a great café with air con that hasn't seemed to mind me camping out in it for hours on end.
All right, without further ado, let's get down to business.
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Did not bring this fellow home with me
All things considered, I'm a pretty good packer. Definitely, a light packer. Very light. So light I didn't pack certain things I really wish I had with me. Here's a list:
1. Hand sanitizer
I realize this will be strange for some people, but personally I find hand sanitizer really gross. It's goopy, it's wet, it doesn't make me feel like my hands are clean. I'm one of those hot-water-and-soap folks. But here, where there can be a real lack of places to wash one's hands after using very questionable toilets, some hand sanitizer would be welcome. Add touching unpleasant surfaces like hand railings on buses and trains into the mix and hand sanitzer is one item I definitely wish I'd added to my bag. (Of course I have two bottles of the stuff back home, why didn't I think to just throw one in, just in case?)
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