Travel Newsletter By Nomadic Notes - 15 May, 2020
Kraftwerk, fairy penguins, socially distant pandas, and walking across India.
A weekly newsletter of great travel reads and news by James Clark from Nomadic Notes.
Greetings from Ho Chi Minh City, where Vietnam has now gone 29 days without a domestically transmitted infection
Domestic travel is getting back to normal here, though I have held off from making any bookings. First I had to wait until my passport was returned from the visa office. I have another three months here now, so I can now think about travel again.
With travel restrictions lifted there was a bit of a mad rush at the airports, with workers and stranded citizens going back to where they need to be.
And with pilots not working for a while this is how I imagine pilots after quarantine. I will let them have a few practice runs first.
I’ve been thinking of going to Hoi An, as it would be interesting to see it without international tourists. Stay tuned for updates!
This week I’ve reading about Kraftwerk co-founder Florian Schneider, who passed away last month. I was never exposed to Kraftwerk in my youth as it was not the sort of music you would hear on regional Australian radio.
I’m sure there were kids who were listening to them, but publicly admitting to liking them would have been as bad as saying you play Dungeons and Dragons. You would have been called a nerd and then given a group beating. Ahh Australia in the 80’s.
“What has this got to do with travel?!” I hear someone yelling at the back. Good point.
I’ve been listening to Kraftwerk this week to understand their legacy in todays modern music, and I found their album from 1977 called Trans-Europe Express.
I saw the song of the same title and thought, “I love trains, so I will give this a listen”. It’s a great tune, and I can see how they have been influential over the years.
I was reading the comments on the video and someone mentioned that Trans-Europe Express might have been a reference for a continental drug-smuggling system. Maybe it was, but I Googled it, and it turns out that there literally was a railway service called the Trans-Europe Express. This was a first class railway service that became redundant when trains started including 1st and 2nd class together. Sadly I didn’t get to Europe until after this service ended.
Another article I read was Kraftwerk: Düsseldorf’s electronic heartbeat. I have been to Dusseldorf twice, but reading about how the city relates to the music of Kraftwerk had me curious to give it another look. Or maybe it’s just that I miss hanging out in the great hauptbahnhofs of Germany.
Have a look at how cool they were in the 70’s. You could wear this today and not look out of place. Around this time they were hanging out with David Bowie and Iggy Pop (as name-dropped in the song). They really were from the future.
Travel News
Social distancing pandas fill empty seats at Bangkok restaurant
Ryanair passengers will have to ask to use toilet when flights resume
I fly with Ryanair every 10 years to remind myself not to fly with Ryanair. This might add another 10 years on top of the 10 years.
American Airlines, Hyatt hotels offer free vacations to NYC healthcare workers after pandemic
Stonehenge will livestream its summer solstice celebration for the first time ever
Travel Reads
The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months
These 9 people dropped everything to join a historic walk across India
“Spanning the world's largest democracy, Indian storytellers rediscover their country and witness the completion of another leg of an epic walk across the world.”
“Where the clusters of cruise ships sit idle with crew still on board.”
A moveable feast: Missing the joys of dining out in Southeast Asia
Check out the inside of the world’s largest private jet that looks like a flying mansion
Making tracks through China: from the heart of Yunnan on the trail of an old French railway
Our Zoom date with one of the world’s last artisanal globemakers
Travel Photos
The eight winners of the 2020 BigPicture competition for nature photography
Travel Videos
If you visit Melbourne you will see tourism brochures advertising the penguin parade at Phillip Island, which is an hour and a half drive from Melbourne. It’s one of those things that is so touristy that I have never been in all of my years of living in Melbourne.
Despite having never gone, I was happy to see that BBC sports commentator Andrew Cotter has made a video about the fairy penguins.
With no sports to commentate, Andrew Cotter has been commentating his dogs while in isolation (see his funny video on his dogs eating breakfast). These videos will be remembered as part of the history of the things that we watched during the coronavirus lockdown era.
Social Media
@nomadicnotes on Instagram
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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