There has been a bit of delay in this entry cos i guess we have been busy actually traveling to different places and doing stuff (v long v long sorry Ed). This is being written in Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City if you prefer), in the last almost 3 weeks we have been North to South starting in Hanoi. We arrived on a Saturday to be confronted with the pouring rain and a thunder storm, thankfully by the time we did the 45 minute drive from the airport to the hotel the rain had stopped. Unfortunately the rain has followed [View Full Entry]

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So we survived the road show downs and enter a sparsely populated tourist town that is Vang Vieng. It's a one road town really, with a few side roads. Even by Luang Prabang standards it is pretty empty. I guess the only reason people come here is to open a tourist type shop, guest house or you are a tourist yourself. Once we decamp to our hotel, paying the extortionate rate of $6 a night we wander the main road. The first thing you notice is that most of the bigger cafes and restaurants have a kind of raised lounge seating, [View Full Entry]

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The road to Vang Vieng from Luang Prabang is a twisty turny one for the most part followed by a straight potholed one that means you do just as much twisty turny to avoid the holes. The first 3+ hours takes you through the hills and valleys, and it is then you realise how green Laos is, i mean really green. The place is vibrant, everywhere you look verdant lushness assaults the eyes. The day is overcast most of the time which spoiled the camera's view of the world but it makes me feel like green is my new favourite colour. [View Full Entry]

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Our second day in L.Prabang and it was activity day, A slow boat up the Mekong to visit the Pak Ou caves and its 1000's of unwanted buddhas. It took us about an hour and a half or so to motor upstream, stopping at the so called whisky village. Here they makes 3 types of rice whisky that range from crazily 50 odd proof and taste like lighter fluid, to the more sedate 15% or so that taste a lot more flavoursome and drinkable. The red rice one Shabana liked as it was a little like Port. For the crazy people [View Full Entry]

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Well we made it to Laos, it was a day later than planned due to an unfortunate combination of sickness, malaria tablets, food and timing. Suffice to say I didn't have a very nice night and on arrival at the airport i decided that discretion is the better part of valour and thought we would postpone the flight until the next day. The next day we did make it and entered the Bangkok duty free section of the airport, man that place makes Heathrow look like a corner shop in comparison. It does a fair job of imitating any number of [View Full Entry]

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Ok now for the first real entry of the 2008 trip. Bangkok is what it is, London in the east with more noodles and motorbikes and less McDonalds and tubes. It's busy and hectic, stiffling hot, or air conditioned into oblivion. There is always someone in eyesight eating or drinking something, on a motorbike or chatting on a mobile phone. It doesn't take many minutes to find someone doing all three. On arrival we wander the Khao San Road night market, pick somthing to eat and chow down. Tired from the flight we take a early night and a late get [View Full Entry]

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Well we meet again dear friends, Let's hope this trip is not like the Matrix Reloaded which is all about the glitz, glamour and cgi with very little substance and no story. Wait a sec, up until now that's pretty much what my life is like, obviously without the cgi (as i insist on doing all my own stunts). Jokes aside hoping this really will be the honeymoon to beat all honeymoons, the power of wifi and ipaq should mean this maybe gets updated a little more often that last time. I hope you all enjoy it as much as we [View Full Entry]

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Well thats it then, back in Blighty. Cor blimey govnor that holiday went quick. 14 weeks, 8 countries, 14 airports, 40 odd hotels and guesthouses, countless bottles of water (environmentally unsound i know), taxis, tuk tuks, rickshaws, bikes, hundreds of I wonder what that tastes like, hmm sweet. Thousands of photos and look at thats and we are back in the London and the cold, safe and sound. Dubai gave a slight warning of the weather to come as it dipped to around 15 degrees and on a trip out to the desert it got even colder, but it still came [View Full Entry]

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This is a land of contrasts, that is if you count concrete constrasting with glass. Everywhere you look there are huge towers that are invariably either a shopping mall or an apartment block or frequently a mixture of the two. 90% of Singapore's 4 million people live in a high rise of some kind. At least we are not talking about Hackney style council flats, but clean colour coded concrete jungleness. Everywhere we have travelled in Asia seems to be under construction and here is no exception. I read somewhere that all heavyweight buildings here is causing Singapore to sink slowly [View Full Entry]

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Not much time again for a full update and this slow modem not helping matters. My last update was eaten by the web so I will have to paraphrase what we haver been up to in the last few weeks. Bangkok - A shopper's/eaters paradise (luckily for us we are both). If you didn't bring an empty suitcase then you should buy one here and fill it up with clothes, trinkets, cds and dvds (originals of course) and other assorted goods. The transport system is similar to that of London minus the tube. Cars, trucks and bikes loading with huge boxes [View Full Entry]

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