Friday, March 25, 2011

Ubud OK, Vietnam a Hassle

A well-travelled friend who recently returned from Asia reported that he really enjoyed time spent on the Indonesian island of Bali, particularly the town of Ubud, which is a center of traditional arts and crafts. Hotels and restaurants were good and inexpensive, the locals were welcoming and there were interesting bicycle excursions.
However, he was not so pleased with Vietnam. There, he said, the beauty of the coutnry was marred by extreme traffic hazards and by the overly persistent people who plagued tourists. He said it was worse than Egypt, which is also known for both these problems. (I personally love Egypt, but have also experienced being harassed by taxi drivers and other touts there.)
Anyway, forewarned is forearmed. Sorry I have not been posting much on this blog recently, but I am trying to put the finishing touched on my suspense novel based in Russia and thought that I might need to concentrate on that for a while.
Writing is a strange game, and sometimes one must sacrifice some writing for other writing. In any case, I hope to be posting more soon.