I haven’t fallen off the edge of the world just yet, but I have fallen behind in reporting on my recent travels. To remedy that problem I have bought a laptop. I should now be able to write as and when inspiration strikes (perhaps maintain my photos). Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City as it has been renamed since the 70’s but most people still refer to it as Saigon) is altogether more modern and much larger than Hanoi in the North. Western influences are much more prevalent - both in architecture and culture - the city has the appearance of [View Full Entry]

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The bus from Hanoi left at 19:30, an overnight journey that should arrive in Hue at 08:00 the next morning. They have this thing called a "sleeping bus" here in Vietnam. I've never seen anything like it before but in principle it sounds like a very good idea. Instead of seats you have three rows of bunk beds, so you're almost lying flat while you travel - hence sleeping bus. The bus only takes around 35 passengers so you pay a premium over the regular "sitting bus" tickets. As I mentioned in a previous post, I bought my sleeping bus ticket [View Full Entry]

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I have to admit that I didn't really want to go to Halong Bay. Yes it is recognised as a UNESCO world heritage site, and yes the photographs look interesting, but I have to learn to listen to and trust my instincts. The weather had been poor in Hanoi, overcast and showery, and Halong Bay is only 170 Km north-east of Hanoi so I knew that the weather would be much the same and not the best conditions to go boating. I had been hanging around Hanoi for about 3 days and every morning I was bombarded by the hotel receptionist, [View Full Entry]

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I have the body of a vietnamese - an observation from the women selling slices of sweet carrot cake from a window of the bakery in Hanoi. Thin and short, although to be fair, I'm a little heavier set than your average Vietnamese person - they are small people and on more than one occation I've been glad that I do conform to their proportions. The seats on buses and in theatres for example are tiny. The currency (Vietnamese Dong) is very weak - when I exchanged the few Thai Baht notes at the airport I instantly became a multi-millionare. People [View Full Entry]

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After a quiet evening in downtown Kuala Lumpur I hopped onto the express train for a 30 min trip to the airport for my flight to Bangkok. After all the new cities I've been to recently, it's comforting to be visiting a destination I've been to before. I'm pleased to say that Bangkok is exactly the same as I remember it (except that it seems to smell SO much better than before - perhaps it's the season). Bangkok, home to the tuk-tuk - an exercise in making as little progress as possible while making as much noise as possible - is [View Full Entry]

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I stepped off the plane this afternoon in Kuala Lumpur, my sandals still damp and sandy from the morning rains on Palau Kecil in the Perhintian Islands. I visited the little group of islands on the north-eastern coast of Malaysia with the intension of a short stop of 2-3 days. I stayed for more than a week and couldn't find any reason to leave. A week earlier I had stepped onto the bus at 09:00, traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Bharu. Apparently there is a large national reserve along the way, however as far as I could tell the whole [View Full Entry]

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After sunset is the most interesting time to explore the streets of Kuala Lumpur. Not only is it cooler but most of the stalls and restaurants are open for business, illuminated by neon signs and flashing strings of christmas lights. A strange sight are the large number of "reflexology/massage" studios that line certain streets. They claim to be able to cure most ailments by simply mapping the troublesome area (head, heart, stomach etc.) to a region on your foot and rub the problem away. Invariably they are staffed, not by young ladies, but elderly men and women, I guess they are [View Full Entry]

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I went to Pizza Hut for lunch the other day. I know, not too adventurous but bare with me, it was actually quite an interesting meal. I was served by no fewer than 4 waiters. One ushered me to my seat, one took my order, another delivered the drinks and yet another person delivered the meal. You get the soup of the day when you visit Pizza Hut too! That's right, soup then pizza served in this little one-person size dish. It was so posh I felt compelled to use the knife and fork to eat my pizza. They also had [View Full Entry]

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I only spent a few hours walking around Brisbane's CBD but in that time I had one of the best meals of my entire trip. A short walk from the bus terminal, I walked into a bar and ordered lunch. For $12 I had rump steak with beer-batter chips and mushroom sauce plus a beer, yum! Lunch always tastes fantastic when you haven't had breakfast. Brisbane looked like a nice enough place, downtown buildings were quite old (in a good way, in a good state of repair) and there was a large walkway on Queen St. with all the high end [View Full Entry]

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A warning sign declared, "NO ENTRY, 4WD ONLY", and to drive the point home, what had only moments before been a good tar road suddenly turned into the bumpiest stretch of road I have ever been on. Backpacks went flying through the air, people were thrown from their seats and all fifteen of us roared with laughter over the thrumping stereo bashing out tunes from the driver's ipod song library. The long suspension travel on the 4WD bus accentuated every undulation in the road. Welcome to Inskip Point, the closest point between the Australian mainland and Fraser Island. Fraser Island is [View Full Entry]

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