For those Laos purists who are scoffing at us for barely having left Luang Prabang, let us reassure you we did venture out into the stunning countryside for day trips. This included day treks, river cruising, kayaking and a disappointing elephant ‘trek’. Tours in Asia rarely live up to their billing. Customer safety and satisfaction […]
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For backpacking adventure types, Laos is the holy grail. Within that you have Luang Prabang, the UNESCO-ed historic capital of Laos, Land of A Million Elephants (now down to 2000 in the wild). It all sounds remote, exotic and largely removed from western trappings. But to say Luang Prabang represents Laos is like saying New […]
We expect Siem Reap to be a bigger dump than Phnom Penh. Again Cambodia surpises us. It’s buffed clean and built up with western money, largley because of the magnetic pull of Angkor Wat. It’s compact and navigatable, loads of amenities (eg 2hr oil massage with mini facial for $16–sheer heaven) and is so easy […]
Phnom Penh, Cambodia – Dec 12-15, 2009 First impressions of Phnom Penh aren’t great. We arrive at night, our hotel pick up isn’t there, the tuk tuk drivers swarm us like piranhas, putrid smelling garbage and litter dominate the streets like no other Asian city we’ve seen, and one of the hardest things to deal […]
The Mekong Delta (incl Saigon and Phu Quoc Island) Dec 3-12, 2009 We land in Saigon having been pre-warned it’s chaotic in a way that makes Hanoi look like a German nunnery. Fortunately with expectations as low as they were, we rather liked it. Yes the streets are especially thick with traffic, but they are […]
Views from our hotel, Phu An River, Vietnam Nov 28-Dec 2, 2009. The most powerful website in the travel industry must be Tripadvisor.com. We, and many others don’t make a booking without researching and this is likely our first line of defense. Hoteliers beg us to review them positively. And the Midas kiss in the […]
Nov 25-28, 2009 The Citadel in Hue As fascinating and mind blowing as Vietnam can be, it`s a spender`s nightmare. From any street corner to decent hotel, this country shops, sells and hawks as good as any. Yet it`s not always a relaxed experience. It`s a safe assumption that as a traveler, […]
Nov 21-23, 2009 Halong Bay if you believe the Vietnamese, is one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. It has a UNESCO stamp to back it up, plus there is nary a soul anywhere who will tell you that its overblown and overrated. The 2000 drop-dead gorgeous limestone pinnacles rise from the emerald […]
Presidential Palace Temple of Literature Hanoi, Nov 14-21 and 24 Well before one lands in Vietnam, you are forewarned and buried with redflags and alerts about touts, scams, thieves, annoyances, dangers and cheats. Indeed we saw evidence of this immediately after hitting the arrivals area when teams of young men plied us with questionable offers. […]
(NOTE: THIS ENTRY SHOULD PRECEDE “THE ROAD OUT OF CHINA…..PRAGUE”) Nov 5-7, 2009 Kunming as capital of the province of Yunnan, and our last major city, is the gateway to our last region of China. It’s hardly worth noting except for the pix that show some of the seemingly wanton destruction of the past and […]