We arrived in Bangkok quite early in the afternoon after leaving Siem Riep at about 9:30. We’re staying in the humungous Holiday Inn hotel in the business district of Silom for two nights before heading back to the UK.

It didn’t take us long after arriving here to hit the streets in search of a replacement ring for Emma (after our unfortunate “quality control” issue). After visiting a few stores immediately adjacent area, we were rescued from a potential road mishap by one of the locals, who enthusiastically advised us that the best place to get jewellery from was the… (more)

We’ve just arrived at Siem Reap international airport, bound for our last stop on our journey - Bangkok. We’re delayed by about half an hour, so I’m sitting around drinking iced tea while Emma goes off to the gift shop.

You have to hand it to the Cambodian’s - they’ve managed to come through wars, oppression and sheer bloody murder to make Angkor an extremely popular and tourist friendly destination, and have had to do so extremely quickly in order to cope with the mass influx of people.

Unfortunately, I leave here with a slightly bitter taste in my mouth.… (more)

It’s our last day in Cambodia, and for our final day’s activities we took a trip up to Tonle Sap lake. It’s the main water supply for almost the whole country, and has the distinction of being the only lake that is fed (or depending on the season, starved) by a bi-directional source; the Mekong river. During the wet season, the lake grows in volume approx. four times, and people who live on the land nearby have to move uproot and move their houses to dry land.

The most fascinating thing about this area though is the people who live… (more)

There’s only one reason why anyone comes to Siem Reap - and it’s not for the gambling or the jewellery shopping. Like so many people before us since it was first uncovered in the late 1800’s, we’re here to visit the ancient temple complex of Angkor, from the majestic beauty of Angkor Wat and the Bayon to the smaller, less tourist-trodden paths that lead to finds just as impressive.

I’m not going to go into great detail over the history and culture of these ancient monuments (there are many websites on the subject where people far more qualified than me… (more)

We’ve been in Siem Reap for the past few days, temple-hopping around the wide-spread and magnificent ancient ruins of Angkor. We arrived here three days ago, and we’ve been so busy going from one place to the next that there literally hasn’t been much time to stop and take a breather.

We’re staying at the (outwardly) posh Shinta Mani hotel, one of the many boutique hotels catering for the daily mass deluge of tourists here. It’s one of those places that advertises premium quality, and despite offering that on the surface, it always (almost intangibly) falls a little short in… (more)

We’ve just arrived at the airport, bound for Siem Riep. We’re actually very early as they’ve delayed the flight for an hour, so we’re availing ourselves of the nearest cafe until our flight comes up. We’ve doubled our luggage thanks to our recently purchased stack of fine wares (Vietnam is definitely the place to come for home wares and cheap name shoes), so much so that I imagine we’ll be paying excess luggage from here ‘till Heathrow.

What to say about Hanoi… well, I stand by my original comments about it being dirty and chaotic; nearly being pissed on by… (more)

Today was a little bit underwhelming after the excitement of previous 24 hours. We sailed back to Halong City on the Dragon’s Pearl after an early and tedious cave tour (the cave was beautiful, but completely ruined by coloured lights and fake water effects - sort of like a nightclub without the music and expensive drinks). The weather had returned to Vietnam’s trademark overcast-teetering-on-downpour again, and somehow the journey back to port seemed an awful lot more mundane than the journey out.

We made it back to Hanoi after a three and a half hour bus ride (stopping along the… (more)

We’ve just spent the night aboard the Dragon’s Pearl junk, on our second day of cruising around Halong Bay. We where woken at 6:30am to the sounds of rowdy backpackers and cheesy dinner music filtering through from the restaurant upstairs… which must mean that it’s time for breakfast.

We arrived in Halong City at about midday yesterday, after a three hour bus trip east from Hanoi. Along the way, you could see workers clearing land and building roads to enable access and amenities for tourists, for which the city and boat trips are a major draw. It was here we… (more)

We’re back in Hanoi again after completing our two-day excursion out of the city in the south-west. There are a few bits and pieces we need to tie up in town before heading back to the DeSyloia for dinner and an early night, then we’re off to Halong Bay tomorrow at around 7am so an early night is on the cards.

We left Cuc Phong National Park at around 8am this morning, after a simple breakfast of bread, jam and the strongest, sweetest coffee I’ve tasted since I’ve been here. Looking around the place, you get the impression that a… (more)

The second day of our planned excursions led us south-west to Cuc Phong National Park. We’re actually staying up here overnight, so we’ve checked out of the Desoylia with plans to return on the evening of the 7th.

As it was a three hour drive out of Hanoi, we managed to get a good view of rural Vietnam on the way up here, which is something we hadn’t experienced until now. The land seems to be mostly made up of rice paddys, which is understandable being the second largest country for rice exports in the world. It was very foggy… (more)

Our first day of planned tours was meant to include visits to four “craft villages”; parts of Hanoi that specialise in local handcrafts including pottery, silk, noodles and woodcarving. Unfortunately (and annoyingly) for us, despite booking us onto this tour, our operator neglected to mention the impact that Tet would have on the proceedings. Despite everything being closed, our guide did manage to recommend some other activities which actually proved to be just as interesting (and probably a lot less expensive, thanks to the lack of gift open gift shops).

We visited the Pottery Village, where we got to see… (more)

We’re back at the hotel again, after returning from the shops and markets in the Old Quarter. Emma loves local arts, and It’s highly possible that we’re going to have to buy another case for all the stuff we picked up - which is fine, we’ll just need to go to the street that specialises in suitcases…

Before our shopping extravaganza, we visited Temple of Literature, named due to being one of the first universities in Vietnam over 1000 years ago. One of the most striking things about this temple were the lines of stone tortoises, all carrying tomes with… (more)

We’ve just spent our first full day on the streets of Hanoi, and to say it’s different from our last port of call is an understatement; unlike the luxurious and affluent trappings of Hong Kong, this is what I expected an Asian capital to be like - dirty, crowded and chaotic. As we soon found out though, there where quite a few hidden gems to be discovered…

On first hitting the streets, it doesn’t take you long to realise that the preferred mode of transport here is of the two-wheeled variety. Mopeds and bicycles rule the streets here in pandemonius… (more)

After a short hop over from Hong Kong (flight time 1hr 30mins), we’ve arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam.

We’ll be here for a week staying in the DeSoylia Hotel, one of the classier “boutique” hotels in the city. The rooms here are huge and modern, and they’ve to kept all the classic hotel traditions, including complimentary bowls of fruit and chocolates on the pillow.  

We decided not to brave the outside world for now, a decision swayed by the fact that the hotel restaurant (Cay Cau) is one of the best in the area, and despite the indefinite lack of… (more)

We’ve just arrived at Hong Kong International, for our flight to Hanoi. I have to say, I’m not quite ready to go and I’m going to miss it; it’s one of those cities that you just feel instantly at home in, and not once did I ever feel threatened or insecure. Sure the locals can be a little rude and pushy, but it’s nothing really when compared to your average London commuter at rush-hour on a weekday. Getting around the city is both convenient and inexpensive, which is definitely a bonus in my book.

On the surface, it’s not actually… (more)

We figured that a trip to China wouldn’t be complete until we visited a Bhuddist temple or two, so today was pretty much dedicated to just that.

We headed out to Diamond Hill on the MRT, to our first stop at Chi Lin Nunnery. This is a very new temple in relative terms (about 15 years), and even though very traditional architecturally it had a certain artificial quality to it. It’s actually so modern, that the original architects must’ve designed the place with tourists in mind; the well signposted tour-route ended with a well stocked gift shop.

Despite all this… (more)

We made a beeline to The Peak today, hoping to get a good ariel view of the city. We had originally planned to get the funicular up to the top, but after taking one look at the queue we sensibly decided to forgo that idea and get a nice, air-conditioned taxi there.

I hadn’t read about it in the guidebook yet, but I wasn’t expecting it to be quite as touristy as it was. I was imagining a municipal park-type affair with a car park, a few ice-cream and drinks vendors with a large viewing terrace with a few telescopes… (more)

We’ve just arrived back at the hotel after skilfully missing the greatest fireworks show on Earth by half an hour. We checked the time on the web before planning the day, but it just goes to show that you can’t trust everything you read on the internet, and in retrospect we should’ve double checked the time with the concierge. Anyway, the day wasn’t a total loss…

We left the hotel a little later today (around 9pm) and had breakfast at the Metropolitan Cafe - a highly stylised cafe in the business district that serves sandwiches, panini and custom salads. After… (more)

What was supposed to be “a bit of kip” ended up being almost seven hours of deep sleep, only briefly interrupted by a maid who didn’t understand that “do not disturb” means exactly that.

We ventured out at about 7pm in need of food, only to find the place that we planned on going to no longer existed (a persistent problem with printed guidebooks). We had a bit more of a wander and found a bustling restaurant in a nearby Novatel called Eli Towers Southern China Provinces Food.

The food here was excellent, and I managed not to show myself… (more)

It’s about 12:30 now, and we’ve just come back from a bit of a walk around. Thanks to our “early start”, it’s the first time we’ve ever made it out of a hotel by 9AM, and probably the only time when there was no advantage to it being a) Sunday morning and b) Chinese New Year.

Emma had this peculiar desire for a sandwich in the night so we were on a mission to find a cafe. We walked down to Times Square (which despite it’s name, is just a giant indoor shopping mall), and finding nothing open there took… (more)

Recovering from jet-lag is always the hardest thing for me. It’s 4:15 in the morning and we’re both wide-awake, and as there’s nothing better to do we’ve raided the mini-bar. So far we’ve had two packets of cookies, a cup of tea and we’re just contemplating that large bar of dark chocolate that’s just begging for a devouring.

The flight over was a pretty typical sardine-in-tin-can affair, and including delays took about 13 hours in total. We took the precaution of eating before we left, which turned out to be a sensible move as the beef dish they were serving… (more)

For the first time ever, we’re early to the airport; the roads were clear and we managed to make it up from Brighton in good time. However, it seems as though we’ve been a bit *too* keen, because we’re three and a half hours early and they haven’t even opened the flight yet. Now I know why they have all those coffee shops before you go airside…

Things have definitely changed since we last went long haul. British Airways have a new automated check-in system where you just punch your credit card in to an ATM-style device, and out pops… (more)