My Travelogue #7

Welcome to my final travelogue blog. Here are my last 10 cities visited (alphabetically) that are in the Lonely Planet top 200 cities list.

Taipei is absolutely underrated. It should be up there as one of the best travel destinations in Asia. If you are interested in Chinese culture and history, visit Taiwan rather than China. The National Palace Museum in Taipei has the largest collections of Chinese art and artefacts in the world, brought over by the Nationalists when they fled to Taiwan in 1949. By comparison, the Forbidden City in Beijing is just an empty shell.

Taipei may not have the best cityscape and its attractions may not be obvious, but its beauty lies on its people's friendliness, open-mindedness and cultural richness. Take time to explore Taipei and you will fall in love with this city.

I had a day trip to Estonia while visiting Helsinki. Tallinn old city is a World Heritage Site. It is small and everything is within walking distances. I had a leisurely stroll in the city and would recommend it for anyone visiting Helsinki.

Tokyo is the largest city in the world (again, forget about what citypopulation.de says). So large that it was an absolute brainteaser to navigate its complex rail and metro networks. As I said before, I have only visited Japan four times so far, compared to many Asians who go there few times a year, so I cannot claim to be an expert of the city.

Similar to Taipei, Tokyo was underrated. But it has gained popularity and began to be recognised by many as one of the best cities to travel in the world (26th is definitely too low). Beside the obvious tourist attractions, simply discovering its various districts, shops and restaurants, or browsing the aisles of convenient stores or even buying from the ubiquitous vending machines are interesting experiences. So if you haven't been to Tokyo, trust millions of other visitors and go there and discover it for yourself.

I went to Toronto on the same trip as Montreal and Quebec during the middle of winter. Toronto was what you would expect from Canada - nice, clean, friendly and cold. It was a delightful version of what an American city could have been.

On the other hand, I went to Vancouver on a separate trip during autumn, so it was not as cold as Toronto. Vancouver is probably the most liveable (and expensive particularly in real estate) English speaking city in the world. It has a beautiful harbour, Stanley Park, a gorgeous mountainous backdrop, and the Capilano Suspension Bridge located in a tranquil forest not far away from the city centre. Vancouver has a large Hong Kong diaspora as well as many high-rise apartments, so it felt somewhat close and familiar to me.

Venice is the pinnacle of all tourist cities, so much so that few locals remain, and the entire city turns into a "theme park" during the peak season. There is nothing wrong with theme park, just go there with the right expectation and don't fall victim to tourist traps such as those notorious restaurants in St Mark's Square.

Vienna embodied elegance but approachable. It is a living city, popular yet not completely overrun by tourists like Prague or Barcelona. The public transport is excellent and the cost of living is reasonable. Its palaces and museums are world-class, with so much wealth and treasures accumulated by the Habsburg dynasty, one can easily spend a whole day or two visiting them. I have been to the city twice, and both times I had truly enjoyable experiences.

I have only visited the monuments and the National Air and Space Museum, which was great (if you are into aerospace, which I am). However I know (from watching House of Cards etc.) that the DC is more than just the capital. Unfortunately I did not have enough time to see it beyond the tourist spots. It would be interesting to explore the city itself one day.

Before I went, I worried that Myanmar would be similar to Laos or Cambodia and I wouldn't find it interesting. My worries were totally unnecessary. Myanmar was a unique and beautiful country, and Yangon was a bustling city. It did not have the pervasive motorcycles like in Vietnam because apparently the junta leader hated and banned them. What I found were men wearing skirts (the longyi), women painting their faces (the thanaka), and everyone was friendly and genuine (unlike cheats in many other poor or not-so-poor countries).

When I was there, Myanmar was going through rapid development under Aung San Suu Kyi. Businesses were thriving, advertising billboards were up and skyscrapers were being built. I could sense that in few years time it would catch up with Ho Chi Minh City or even Bangkok. Many colonial buildings were crying to be restored back to their former glory. And then there was the Shwedagon Pagoda, one of the most majestic Buddhist temples in the world. Therefore I am particularly upset by the news on what is happening in Myanmar now, with many young people fighting and sacrificing themselves in pursuit of democracy and freedom. I hope I can do more to help the country and its people.

I travelled to York on a weekend while I was working in Glasgow. I was not disappointed. The huge gothic York Minster was iconic and could be seen from far away. Its historical shopping alleys were full of activities and as pretty as you could find in any old English town. York also had a fantastic Railway Museum, and for any train fanatic it was like a child in a toy store. So don't just go to London, head north and visit York.

This is the end. I have gone through all 70 cities I have visited so far over 7 blogs. If I were asked to recommend them to a first-time traveller, I would rearrange the Lonely Planet ranking like this:

Hong Kong, Yangon and Esfahan lose out only because of their current political situations.

Then there are 131 other cities in the Lonely Planet list that I have not visited. Of these, here are my top 10 wish list:

1. Buenos Aires (016): ever since the movie Happy Together it has always been the city I wanted to visit the most.
2. Thimphu (173): it would be my personal pilgrimage to retrace the steps of Ellen Loo since her tragic death in 2018.
3. Cape Town (009): the only top 10 city I haven't visited.
4. Rio de Janeiro (017): I have always wanted to visit Brazil.
5. Havana (035): to go there before everything changes.
6. Marrakesh (042): I often regretted that I didn't visit Morocco while I was in Spain and Portugal.
7. Varanasi (072): I sometimes joked that I wished my ashes to be spread in the Ganges (I was just kidding).
8. La Paz (094): the high altitude capital is full of history and looks beautiful in pictures.
9. Moscow (061): Russia has always fascinated me.
10. Pyongyang (187): that would be quite an experience, and my friend visited and highly recommended it.

Other cities I'd want to visit include Mexico City (029), Tel Aviv (132), Bukhara (146), Baku (182), Yogyakarta (129) and Zanzibar Town (074).

That's it. I hope I can travel again soon and write another travel blog of some new cities in the near future. Thank you for following my blog and bon voyage!