Ben and Asimina

We’d decided long ago to travel Vietnam from south to north, overland. We’d envisaged making reasonably rapid progress on sleeper trains, similar to our experience in Thailand. Then we bought $45 bus passes, entitling us to travel the one thousand miles from Saigon to Hanoi, on buses in various states of disrepair, with numerous stops on the way. So our journey took us to the better-known destinations, but didn’t allow for much getting off the beaten track. In central Vietnam, we surprised ourselves by enjoying the seaside resort city of Na Trang; fell in love with the simple beauty of Hoi An and marvelled at majesty and history in Hue. It’s difficult to imagine three cities in one country that are more different. Different in a good way, not simply different like Milton Keynes, Middlesbrough or ... read more

On many hours spent on public transport in Asia, we had noticed that the locals rarely seemed to read a book, or anything else. Illiteracy rates are still high and presumably books are too expensive for many. Despite this, Cambodia is home to countless on-street booksellers. They offer contemporary favourites, travel guides and everyone’s favourite, Khmer Rouge genocide memoires. We read one of these, the emotive and gripping “First They Killed My Father”, by Loung Ung, who was only five years old when the Khmer Rouge took power. At the Choeng Ek ‘Killing Fields’ and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, and at the ‘Killing Cave’ near Battambang, we saw with our own eyes what remains, including victims’ skulls and bones. More emotional still was the audio guide at Choeng Ek. We walked around trees, ... read more

We broke up the almost interminable bus journeys in southern Laos with a detour to the impressively vast and vastly impressive Kong Lor cave, which runs for about five miles under south central Laos’ mountains. The cave is over 100m high in places, with small waterfalls occasionally pouring down, illuminated only by our torchlight, their sound amplified by the gloom. An adjoining cave provides a chance to leave our tiny wooden boat, and explore a land of gigantic stalagmites and stalactites on foot. Unfortunately the floodlights aren’t working, but this merely adds to the unearthly atmosphere, as our meagre torches illuminate the columns one by one, slowly revealing a vast cavern full of eternally developing formations. A few days later, at Laos’ south-western tip, we found Si Phan Don, literally “4000 Islands”. They’re all named Don ... read more

Of all the countries we planned to visit, Laos was the most enigmatic. We cannot recall a single item of news or feature about Laos. Myanmar was mysterious, but no stranger to followers of UK news. Tonga is the Secret South, but they play rugby at the world cup, and Captain James Cook went there. All we knew about Laos is that it had been one of the world’s poorest countries. Even its two decade long conflict is known as the ‘Secret War’. Northern Laos feels remote, rural and relatively undiscovered. We entered the country at the small town of Huay Xai, on the eastern bank of the Mekong River, which flows by languorously in the parched days of April. Unless you want to backtrack into Thailand, there’s no place bigger within than a two-day boat ... read more

Truth be told, we weren’t particularly excited about visiting Bangkok. However, like Rome, all roads, and indeed, railways, seem to lead there, so we had little choice. Our first visit lasted about 45 minutes, as we quickly boarded another train bound for the general vicinity of the Khao Yai National Park. By this time, we were becoming increasingly aware that the Asian countryside we most wished to see is gazetted in numerous, but relatively small, protected areas, often designated as national parks. Khao Yai is home to wild elephants and tigers, among other species. The German, who, with his Thai wife, ran our guesthouse told us that he had been a guide at the park for 15 years, and never seen a tiger. So we quickly downsized our wildlife spotting ambitions, and fears. Elephants were seen ... read more