Travel Newsletter: 9 September 2022

Where I’m At: Bali, Indonesia. Latest Post: A guide to the urban railways of Bangkok Travel Reads: Raja Ampat, travel when you are young, a long walk in Vietnam, and more travel reads.

My travels through Southeast Asia this year have been a journey of discovering what is still open after the pandemic. I’m now in Bali for the first time since 2019, and I have been taking count of my favourite places that have gone and those that are still standing. Tourist numbers are nowhere near pre-pandemic levels, but there is already talk of a beach entrance fee for Kuta to maintain the beach.

I’m here to write about transport on the island, and by coincidence, it was announced this week (again) that the government was planning some kind of railway system. They keep talking about a surface railway, but if you have been to Bali you might be wondering where it would fit. So I am walking and riding around to have a look myself.

[Where to put a train on roads like this?]

In addition to urban and beach wanders, I’m catching up with my expat friends at the many cool cafes here.

Bali has become a haven for digital nomads, of which my friend Dan was an early adopter in 2011. The nomad hotspot is in Canggu, so I will visit there on this trip.

Indonesia is considering a nomad visa, so I am wandering around while wondering if Bali is the right fit for me. The visa situation in Vietnam is still complicated, so this is something I am thinking about for next year.

Latest posts at Nomadic Notes

• Bangkok Mass Transit System – A guide to the urban railways of Bangkok

I’m alternating between writing travel guides and travel blogs at Nomadic Notes, and this week I’ve published a guide for the Bangkok metro system. I wasn’t planning to do a guide until I started writing about the new Bangkok railways at Future Southeast Asia. It turns out that there isn’t a unified website or map for all the railways, so I went down a rabbit hole looking for the official links and maps. I have rounded up all the links and maps in one place.

Travel reads

• Indonesia's Raja Ampat: 'The last paradise on Earth'

• The road to Columbine heaven

“Shara Johnson knows where to find some of Colorado’s most spectacular wildflower spots. What she doesn’t know is whether she should tell you — or anyone — where to find them.”

This is from The Statesider, which also has a great newsletter rounding up American travel reads.

• Pakistan’s trucks are vibrant, bedazzled works of art

“The tradition of decorating any mode of transportation—from camels to ice cream carts—dates back centuries.”

• Why work when you can play? Young travelers say they’ll live now, make money later (via Pocket).

• Experience Panama’s coffee farming tradition in the Chiriquí Highlands

• London to Calcutta by bus

“For fifteen years from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, it was possible to hop on to a bus in London and travel all the way to Calcutta, India. The journey took fifty days and went through such breathtaking destinations such as the Caspian Sea coast, the Rhine Valley, the Khyber Pass and the Kabul Gorge.”

• A new newsletter about hitchhiking through Britain: Britain By Thumb

“Hitchhiking in Britain was once as common as taking the bus, or hopping on a train but these days, the British roadsides are empty. As a photographer and writer I’m determined to revive the forgotten practice, reinstating it as a valued and trusted means of travel, and gaining a unique perspective of Great Britain in the process.”

• Mông lad and his zero đồng journey through Việt Nam

“After more than a year of being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and many other reasons, the ethnic minority Mông man Thào Quang Khải has just fulfilled his dream of walking across Việt Nam covering the last section Hà Nội – Hà Giang, with the cost of zero đồng.”

• What's the oldest city in America?

• Geoff Wilson completes 600km Simpson Desert journey on wind-powered buggy

🚆Train travel

• Train bragging’: Swedish service joins glorious resurgence of sleeper travel

• How traveling by train led me to learn about my family's black history

✈️ Air travel

• The humiliating history of the TSA

• Hawaiian Airlines mother-daughter pilot duo hits the skies

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The Nomadic Notes Travel Newsletter is a weekly newsletter of the best travel reads and interesting travel news from around the web, and random ramblings by the editor.

- James Clark