Jason Kottke spent three weeks in Asia, including extended visits to Saigon and Singapore and 24 hours in Dubai.
As promised by Kottke, this essay is relatively long, but it’s a fast, enjoyable read.
He advises taking a food tour on your first visit to a new city. That’s a great idea!
My superpower is taking an extra day on a business trip to anyplace I haven’t been often, and seeing the sites. I often just take on-off bus tours for a good part of the day. A food tour sounds like another great option.
I anticipate significantly less business travel in the future, but still a lot compared with most people. And visiting a strange city is definitely a plus. Even if it doesn’t sound like a glamorous place to visit – if I have never been there before, it’s a plus to me. I spent an excellent day on my own in Dusseldorf a few years ago.
Kottke correctly identifies the pluses and minuses of solo travel. The pluses are, of course, freedom. The minus is that it can be damn lonely sometimes. Last year after Mobile World Congress, I stayed an extra day in Barcelona and got excruciatingly lonely and depressed, and ended up dialing in to the Friday news meeting, which was 5 pm local time, just to hear friendly voices.
Here’s one of Kottke’s impressions of Saigon:
Because of the motorbikes, the process for crossing the street on foot in Saigon is different than in a lot of other places. You basically just wait for any buses (which will absolutely not stop for pedestrians) or cars to go by and then slowly wade out into traffic. Do not make any sudden movements and for god sake don’t run. The motorbike swarm will magically flow around you. It’s suuuuuper unnerving the first few times you do it, but you soon get used to it because the alternative is never ever getting across the street.
The motorbikes make walking around Saigon absolutely exhausting. It’s not just crossing the street. You literally have to be on the lookout for them everywhere. They drive up on the sidewalks. They drive into and out of houses and buildings, turning every doorway into a potential intersection. Having to look both ways every few seconds when you’re walking 6 or 8 miles a day around the city really drains the ol’ attention reserves.
Things I saw carried on motorbikes in Saigon, a non-exhaustive list: trees, dogs, tiny babies, ice (for delivery to a drinks cart, the ice block was not even strapped down), a family of five, a dessert cart, an entire toy store, a dried squid shop, and 8 huge bags of clams.
The food in Saigon and Singapore sounds wonderful.