Travel Newsletter - 16 April 2021
More obscure Mekong Delta reads, spending the night in Chernobyl, the 'world's greatest airport' that never was, Koh Kradan, the world's highest infinity rooftop pool, and more travel reads.
Hello from Ho Chi Minh City. While I continue to see friends in the US getting vaccinated, it’s a different story in Vietnam where they are having difficulty in securing Covid vaccines. It’s not an urgent matter here with no local cases reported recently, but it shows how uneven the global recovery will be.
Here is this week’s roundup of travel reads from around the web.
Latest posts at Nomadic Notes
Notes on Bac Lieu – Most people don’t go here
Bac Lieu is the capital of Bac Lieu Province in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam.
COVID-19 and travel (or lack thereof)
Vaccine passports could unlock world travel and cries of discrimination
“Vaccine rollouts in some countries have a long-locked-down world dreaming of travels abroad again. But they have also set off a fraught debate about the fairness of a two-tier system for haves and have-nots.”
COVID-battered Malta to pay tourists who visit this summer
What does a travel writer learn from staying home?
“Anne McElvoy asks the prolific travel author Paul Theroux about the virtues of being homebound during the pandemic.”
Assorted travel reads
Here’s what it’s like to spend the night in Chernobyl
Everglades Jetport: The 'world's greatest airport' that never was
“It was supposed to be the world's largest airport, a glamorous intercontinental hub for supersonic airliners with six runways and high-speed rail links to surrounding cities. But today, it's little more than an airstrip in the middle of nowhere.”
The enduring allure of lost cities
What can the faces on its currency tell us about a country?
Things of Riga I’ll miss when they’re gone
The Vietnamese filmmaker turning travelogues into cinematic spectacles
I had not seen this channel before, and now I am itching to go back to Quy Nhon in Binh Dinh Province.
The Nepali mountaineer reclaiming the Himalaya
“Nirmal Purja is a man of firsts. Having climbed all 14 of the world’s peaks above 8000m in one season, earlier this year his all-Nepali team reached the summit of K2 in a line, placing no climber ahead of the rest. The 37-year-old is leading the way for South Asian climbers, and leaving the notion of Sherpas ‘assisting’ western climbers firmly in the past.”
Anyone else here using TikTok? I always register my name on social media sites even if I don’t use it, so I’m @nomadicnotes. I’ve been following some fellow travel bloggers to get a feel for the format. I liked this one: Instagram vs Reality: Japan.
The ‘other’ Shangri-La: A journey through western Sichuan
Last week I got one of those Facebook memories reminding me that I was on Koh Kradan two years ago…
Sigh. Also this week Thai Island Times featured Ko Kradan: A modest name for a dazzling island. I’m taking this as a sign to return when I can. Here was my trip report.
Fancy a dip in the world's highest infinity rooftop pool?
How do you write an Anthony Bourdain book without Anthony Bourdain?
“After the author and TV personality’s death, his longtime assistant was left to finish his last book, a world travel guide.”
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The Travel Newsletter by Nomadic Notes is a weekly newsletter of the best travel reads and interesting travel news, and random ramblings by the editor.
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- James Clark