The food in Singapore is unbelievably good. In three days I ate nothing below "excellent," and dishes topped out at "I will remember this for the rest of my life." Never spent more than $25 on a meal. Good lord.
I went fishing in the jungle with my friend Larry. First time I'd been in about 20 years. Caught a fish thanks to Larry's serious expertise. He's a spouse here -- my friend JF works for an NGO and he's tagging along for the year -- so he fishes 3-4 times per week.
Singapore is very clean, very pretty, and very efficient. Public transit is outstanding. You almost never see police. There is no crime to speak of. Punishment for crimes is astonishingly harsh and swift and corruption is absent. You can drink a beer on the street but smoking weed will get you literally caned and sent to prison for a significant period. Drug trafficking is a likely death sentence.
Big chunks of traditional Chinese Buddhist moral teaching are horrible, just nakedly designed to keep the peons in their place.
Hanging with Larry and JF was a pleasure. They're good company, their dog Oliver is a sweetie, and their place is nice. And Larry is very chill and game, which are the two most important qualities in a travel buddy.
Now I'm headed to Saigon and AB. We're going to do some Brazilian jiu jitsu tonight apparently!
My penchant for not planning super carefully bit me in the butt a bit this morning, as I found out belatedly that to get a visa on arrival in Vietnam you first need an "approval letter" from any number of private companies that exist to provide such letters. This is a legalized scam, but there you have it. So I had to scramble a bit this morning, but in the end I got it printed at a kiosk in the Singapore airport and no worries. Relieved that, after some slightly miserable travel experiences so far on this trip, I handled this hiccup with my cortisol close to baseline. That is good Travel Luke. Bad Travel Luke hates how Thai people pronounce English words because he's fed up with their country.
I went fishing in the jungle with my friend Larry. First time I'd been in about 20 years. Caught a fish thanks to Larry's serious expertise. He's a spouse here -- my friend JF works for an NGO and he's tagging along for the year -- so he fishes 3-4 times per week.
Singapore is very clean, very pretty, and very efficient. Public transit is outstanding. You almost never see police. There is no crime to speak of. Punishment for crimes is astonishingly harsh and swift and corruption is absent. You can drink a beer on the street but smoking weed will get you literally caned and sent to prison for a significant period. Drug trafficking is a likely death sentence.
Big chunks of traditional Chinese Buddhist moral teaching are horrible, just nakedly designed to keep the peons in their place.
Hanging with Larry and JF was a pleasure. They're good company, their dog Oliver is a sweetie, and their place is nice. And Larry is very chill and game, which are the two most important qualities in a travel buddy.
Now I'm headed to Saigon and AB. We're going to do some Brazilian jiu jitsu tonight apparently!
My penchant for not planning super carefully bit me in the butt a bit this morning, as I found out belatedly that to get a visa on arrival in Vietnam you first need an "approval letter" from any number of private companies that exist to provide such letters. This is a legalized scam, but there you have it. So I had to scramble a bit this morning, but in the end I got it printed at a kiosk in the Singapore airport and no worries. Relieved that, after some slightly miserable travel experiences so far on this trip, I handled this hiccup with my cortisol close to baseline. That is good Travel Luke. Bad Travel Luke hates how Thai people pronounce English words because he's fed up with their country.
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