Welcome to Jensetgo, a travel blog!
A colorful doorway in Hanoi, Vietnam
Without planning it, I ended up spending almost a month in Vietnam during this little trip o' mine. It could just be spending $60 on the visa made me determined (initially) to get the most out of it. And I'm (mostly) glad I did, although towards the end I could have sped things up a bit and headed on to Singapore sooner. I also could have shaved off nights in Ho Chi Minh City and Hoi An to make the whole trip a bit more compact.
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Women in a trishaw in Malacca, Malaysia
A better name for this blog might be "The Lazy Backpacker" because it would certainly describe my amazing ability to sightsee at a snail's pace and somehow idle away a day wandering around not "accomplishing" very much. I guess that is the joy of extended travel, you can go at a really different pace than when you're trying to cram everything in in less than two weeks. At the beginning of this trip, once the jetlag subsided, I was definitely trying to do and see lots (or feeling guilty if I didn't); now I seem to be very content with eating a late breakfast, wandering around for a while, retreating out of the sun for an hour or two to relax, then venturing back out for dinner, making my way back to my hotel once it's gotten dark out. (Unless I'm actually out with other people. Which has happened at least once or twice on this trip. I promise I am not a total antisocial loner all of the time. Just most of it.)
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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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