18-23 March: London - New York - London - Singapore - Hoi An - Vietnam (in 5 days)

This is the summary of my recent London - New York - London - Singapore - Hoi An trek, which I did between 18 and 23 of March. More daily recaps will follow shortly. Please bear with me if the writing is a bit patchy at times. I hope it can get better as time goes by. And if you have any comments, please share!

New York to Asia 18-22 March – notes, thoughts and stories

New York time: GMT-4hrs             

London time until 24 March: GMT

London time from 25 March: GMT+1hr

Vietnam and Cambodia time: GMT+7hrs               

Singapore time: GMT+8hrs

Sunday 18 March – London and New York

12.00pm: flight London to New York for meetings Monday 19^th.

8.30pm: great burger and fries dinner in NY with a friend in south Manhattan. The meat was just outstanding. Three large HD screens show NCAA March Madness.

11.30pm: bed time, big day tomorrow.

Monday 19 March – New York

5.00am: awake, can’t sleep, try to.

6.00am: awake, can’t sleep, try to.

7.00am: I am out of the door to see NY wake up on a Monday morning. Clear skies, the sun comes out slowly. I grab a coffee at Starbucks by the Empire State Building.

New York around Times Square at 8am

8.00am: I continue my walk down to Times Square, where they are shooting Good Morning America. Apparently a famous girl-band is the guests. Tens of teens scream, constantly. Their mums scream at the host. I don’t know her name but she is a tall, slim afro-american and very confident woman.

9.00am: I get a sneaky peak of Central Park. It has been a dry winter apparently and are no signs of spring blossoming any time soon. The sun is higher. The traffic volume too.

10.00am: I do some stretching in my hotel room to take some of the stress out. The hour goes by slowly.

11.00am: I am off for my day of meetings in a slick suit and tie, or so I think.

12.15pm: I am having lunch with one of the people I am meeting. I am also staring at a giant chicken avocado sandwich, with fries. Approximately two litres of coca-cola, with ice, is brought by the very attentive waiter in the space of 30 minutes.

12.45pm: we finish lunch, tip accordingly and continue.

2.45pm: I have finished my 5 meetings. I think it went well. My brain is running on reserve though, jet-lag is hitting home too. 

3.15pm: After wandering for a bit I settle at a low key Starbucks to sit back and gather my thoughts.

New York life, right there

6.45pm: I do some more wandering around, admire the life and energy of this city and take a taxi to the airport for my 10pm flight back to London.

New York taxi view from inside, special

Tuesday 20 March - London

5.15pm: I wake up on my couch after a 3 hour siesta. I don’t know where I am but make some coffee and head off to the gym, I need a run. Do a 45 min cardio session. I sweat, a lot. I feel alive again.

Wednesday 21 March - London

07.30am: I catch up on my Portuguese lessons for 90min. With YouTube and an Assimil language course, I feel I can learn the language properly in a couple of months. Muito bom.

10.00am: Off to the gym. Last big 60 min weight session before Asia. I push my self and do 65 min. Marvellous.

  

9.00pm: at Heathrow T3 about to board the Airbus 380 to Singapore. It is my first time in this mammoth of an aeroplane. It is so big I ask myself ‘can this really fly?’ I find out later that it definitely can. 

Thursday 22 March - Singapore

7.00pm: I am walking in awe through the Singapore Airport arrivals terminal. I ask myself ‘why is that in Europe we like to make airports so small when we have even more space than here?’. It is a great piece of long-term planning.

8.00pm: I set off from my hotel to discover the city.

8.30pm: I am lost. I ask a European looking couple how can I get to the city centre. “Basically you came the wrong way. Go back to your hotel and walk by the river”. Aha... that right should have been a left.

9.00pm: I am back at the hotel, find the river. Now we are talking. And sweating, a lot. I settle for a nice looking bar by the river. They do not have Singapore beer. They do not have Singapore food. I give in and order Asahi beer and a mini burger, and chicken wings. Not my proudest dinner.

Asahi beer in Singapore - cool bar too, poor food!

10.30pm: I walk along the river to digest the dinner. Lovely nightlife. And plenty of restaurants, with local food. I am amazed as how modern and clean is everything. It is humid too.

Singapore by night

Friday 23 March – Singapore and Vietnam

12.30am: I switch off my phone and try to sleep. Got a 7.55am flight to Vietnam. Wi-fi hasn't been working at all so I cannot instant message with friends and family for free.

3.30am: I am wide awake. Body clock is all over the place and it would not listen to me. I turn my phone’s 3G connection on. Among several WhatsApp messages there is one from my mate Steve. I am attending his wedding in Hong Kong in three weeks time. He wrote to me at 12.35am that he was in some club. In Singapore.

3.35am: I text him back to check the status.

3.42am: ‘I got my arm broken by a very aggressive bouncer’. I laugh out loud. Some things never change.

4.40am: After debating by text whether to meet or not I jump on a taxi to go to his hotel. I need to see his arm. And I’d also like to see him too. I am honoured to be one of the ushers at his wedding and have not seen him in more than two years. Four days ago it was also his epic stag do which I could not attend, there were several 'casualties' too. We speak quite regularly, mostly usual nonsense trash talk, but he is one of those friends you know you can always count with, any time, any day, for whatever that may be. I am lucky enough to have a few of those.

4.54am: After asking the taxi driver to get me to Steve’s hotel as quickly as possible I agree with him to pick me up at 5.45am to go the airport. He seems confused but says yes.

4.57am: I am outside Steve’s room. In his usual loud, exaggerated Spanish-like accent he shouts some Spanish-sounding words, which I cannot understand. It is good to see him. I enter his suite-like room and get lost between the living room and the two bed room, two bathrooms. I spent £100 in a really not spectacular hotel for a room I barely spent any time in when I could have crashed with him. Schoolboy error. We curse each other for not having coordinated better but still it is great that we actually have met.

4.59am: we start catching up. I laugh so loud at one of his stories that I am crying. I am actually crying and hyper ventilating. The things you have to do some times.

5.50am: After a great chat, I am good to my common sense and make a move to get that taxi. I have a 7.55am flight to Hoi An in Vietnam. If I hadn’t checked in my luggage from London all the way to Vietnam it could have been a different story. Steve has a day of meetings ahead. I wish him luck with that.

6.30am: the taxi driver drops me off at the airport. He has been telling me funny stories about women in Vietnam. I am not sure what to make of that, but he was laughing all the time. I laughed too.

7.30am: we are boarding the flight. I got lost twice in the airport, good thing I had time. It is such a big airport.

9.00am: I am trying to sleep on the plane. I can’t. My body clock really has its own life nowadays. I realise I have had aeroplane meals at least one a day for the past five days. Singapore Airlines was the best. Virgin Atlantic the most forgettable. I am landing shortly in my fourth country, also third continent, in the past five days and I am not even working. I am loving this moment. Very much.

11.30am: I take the taxi to the hotel. Roads are decent enough. There are scooters everywhere, and they go fast. Particularly at the roundabouts. There has just been an accident a scooter lies still under a van, at a roundabout. There is no driver, and no blood either – hopefully they are ok.

12.00pm: I meet David, my travel companion for the next month, at the hotel and head off into the old town. The city of Hoi An gives you immediately that feeling that you have travelled back in time. There is a floating peace about the place. Most buildings are yellow, the locals smile at you, and it is all calm and relaxed.

Hoi An old town

There are bikes EVERYWHERE

 3.30pm: I have an outstanding cheese cake at a cafe overlooking the river. The French left good cooking tradition in the country. We continue walking around. It is a beautiful lovely town.

They carry it all day, and the smile too

Peace and Calm in Hoi An

Hoi An river - plenty of life 

5.30pm: We are on the beach and I just wake up from a short but immensely gratifying snooze. The beach goes on for miles, simple and beautiful. We meet the girl with the biggest smile of Hoi An, she also wants to sell us souvenirs. After a lot of haggling and bargaining, I agree to buy a few items for something like 10 US Dollars. I may adopt two of her selling lines: “you’ve broken my heart” (when I counter-offered at 60% from her first quote) and “buy another one! Lucky number three!”

Biggest Smile in Hoi An

10.30pm: We go for a few drinks and meet people from Australia, Germany, France and Norway. Locals do not go out, not at least where tourists go. Locals take you around though and we discover a few bars around town. It is a decent night out.