Unlike many of the other cities throughout Vietnam, Hoi An does not have a list of must-see sights. Instead, visitors come for the made-to-order clothes, shoes or bags, the beautiful lantern-lit streets and, to Adrie’s delight, the food. Needless to day, Adrie is in her element and has a list of all the local delicacies … [Read more…]
Today we are exactly halfway through our sabbatical. From start to finish we have 200 days of holiday. Today is Day 100. What a ride it’s been! But it seemed we had another fun ride ahead of us… We have decided to travel from Hue to Hoi An – about 150km – on the back of … [Read more…]
Where Hue perhaps lack famous city sights, it makes up for in temples, pagodas and tombs – it is almost impossible to see them all! We took advice from our hotel and picked three of the most interesting and elaborate of the emperors’ tombs to visit around Hue, as well as the Citadel – the city’s most … [Read more…]
I am going to say something controversial. I really didn’t like Halong Bay. Full disclosure: 1) The weather was not great and 2) I was travelling on my own (will explain later). But despite this, I was very disappointed in Halong Bay. Let me explain why. After a pretty grim first day in Hanoi, Derek’s … [Read more…]
To many, Vietnam is a war and not a country. Derek and I spent at least one long evening discussing this sentence, trying to establish just where the invisible “line” might be between people who see it as a war, and those who see it as a country. We never really landed on an answer, but … [Read more…]
We had a long travel day ahead of us, not because the distance between Koh Rong and Phnom Penh is great, but rather because of the slow cruise back to the mainland coupled with the busy traffic on the country’s roads. The bus ride was rather interesting. Driving out of Sihanoukville, we drove behind a … [Read more…]
“STOP!” There used to be a time when there were only two acceptable responses to that order. You either went; “…Hammer time!” or “…collaborate and listen”. It was only until we set foot on Cambodia’s beaches that we realised the word “stop” was enough. Throughout our travels over the last few months there wasn’t much time … [Read more…]
We only had a short hop over the border ahead of us today into Cambodia and Siem Reap – the gateway to Angkor Wat and surrounding temples. We were both beyond excited to see this incredible place. Fortunately our hotel included airport pick-up and it was wonderful not having the hassle of finding our own … [Read more…]
Having the lights on all night does not make for the most restful sleep, but we only woke up at 10am so it couldn’t have been that bad. We set out to do some sightseeing around Bangkok. If there is one thing that annoys me more than anything else, it is being taken for a … [Read more…]
(…or so we thought) After the ease of Malaysia and the convenience of having our own driver in India, it proved quite a mission to find our hotel in Bangkok. The hotel was, rather annoyingly, on the “wrong” side of the river, a location that was carefully selected as it was close to the train … [Read more…]