Anastasiya and Kalle

We hit Saigon relatively fresh and get instantly bewildered by this jungle of roaming mechanic beasts. There are estimated 5 million motorcycles filling the streets of the Paris of the Orient. Crossing the traffic-clogged streets poses an interesting challenge, as one basically has to adopt a piecemeal approach, stopping in the middle of a street once or twice while the motorcycles narrowly miss you. But to our own surprise, after a few days, we become quite good at crossing the streets, usually shadowing the natives when they cross the street. Fear is your only red light. Following the fall of Saigon in 1975, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in honour of the late leader of North Vietnam himself. However it seems everyone is still using the old name, despite the revered status of Ho ... read more

Upon arrival at Phnom Penh we face the usual drill of being surrounded by a swarm of tuk-tuk drivers who try to grab our backpacks and who all happen to know a very good guesthouse run by a very good friend. "Mistel, mistel, tuk-tuk ok? You come with me. Me know vely good hotel, special plice fol you my fliend, ok?" To be honest, I have in some morbid way missed this fuss, maybe because of all the sedated time we spent on the 4000 Islands. After some haggling, we agree on the price with a driver and convince him we already have a hotel booked, so he doesn't have to waste either his or our time taking us to any hotel where he would get a commission for bringing us there, a commission that would ... read more

The third new year in four months seen off in grand style, we feel we have acquired enough good karma to explore Asia's murkier side and start off the much anticipated expedition to the Golden Triangle, a wide swathe of northern Southeast Asia comprising remote parts of Burma, Laos and Thailand. A savage region of rugged mountains and inaccessible forests inhabited by Akha, Hmong, Karen, Lisu, Shan, Tai Lu and a few other hilltribes. Imagine warlords with private armies, megalomanic Burmese generals, opium mule trains chugging through the jungle, hidden opium refineries, Chinese triads, remote villages and above all the chest-high pink and white poppies that are the source of opium and numerous opiates deriving from it: codeine, morphine, heroin, just to mention a few. Add in the mix secret wars waged by CIA and financed ... read more

If you were to spend a day on each and every island of Indonesia, it would take you modest forty years. Now, if for some reason you don't have the luxury of time to visit all of them in order to choose your perfect tropical island getaway, your only option is to be extremely selective like a good headhunter. But don't you worry dear reader, we are about to share the location of a paradise with you.The three Gili Islands, affectionately known as the Gilis, just off the coast of Lombok, are the true pearls of Indonesia. Trust us, you could easily spend a small eternity on these tranquil islands of white powdery sand surrounded by clear turquoise water. We begin our stay on the Gilis with Gili Trawangan, which is the furthest of the three ... read more

Crossing Cook Strait from Wellington to Picton by a gigantic ferry is by far a more civilized experience than taking a similar ferry from Helsinki either to Stockholm or Tallinn, namely due to the complete absence of legions of badly dressed Finns being either in process of getting obnoxiously drunk or hoarding tax-free booze behaving as if the Prohibition were abolished just yesterday, causing one to consider whether one is actually better off jumping off the board rather than being stuck in a confined space with the aforementioned fellow passengers for any meaningful period of time. Meanwhile on the other side of the world, we thoroughly enjoy the 3 hour crossing, spending most of the time on the outer deck absorbing the magnificent landscape of the rugged coastline displaying all the imaginable shades of green. Whosoever ... read more