After a couple of great months in SE Asia, it was kind of nice to have a brief stint back in the familiarity of a western-style city with wall to wall shopping malls (complete with aircon relief!) We took in a few sights across the city, including “The fountain of wealth” (one of our favourites), the esplanade and a city bus tour which took us through the cultural centres of Little India (with 24 hour shopping mall) and Chinatown (gearing up for the Chinese New Year). We treated ourselves to a nice drink on the river at “The Penny Black” an [View Full Entry]

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Kuala Lumpur was seriously hot and humid when we arrived, and so busy that it was quite a shock after chilling out on the beach for a couple of weeks. We stayed in the first proper hostel on our travels, and to be honest it was grim! Our room was damp, with a really disgusting bed and a totally feral communal bathroom. Needless to say we didn’t spend much time there… One of the main tourist streets in the city was bizarre - full of massage parlours (mostly legit), with huge tanks in the front windows full of fish. You put [View Full Entry]

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Thailand has some amazing reefs, so we decided to make the effort and take a PADI Open Water diving course so that we could fully appreciate the underwater sights. We chose to stay in a small town called Khao Lak, north of Phuket. It’s a fairly quiet place (certainly when compared to Phuket and other major resorts!), but it thrives on dive tourism - Khao Lak is the gateway to the Similan Islands, one of the worlds premier dive sites. Khao Lak was one of the many areas devastated by the Tsunami on Boxing Day 2004. The town has since bounced [View Full Entry]

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Bangkok is a real mix of culture and chaos. On the cultural side, we went to see the Grand Palace, a host of golden buildings and beautiful statues. We thought that we had done our homework and dressed accordingly - however upon arrival Si was told that his ¾ length trousers were not allowed in - so if you see his strides in the pictures please be assured that they are not some type of hippy fashion statement, just borrowed from the palace! After the palace we decided to walk to see the famous reclining buddha at Wat Pho. On the [View Full Entry]

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Unfortunately we were both pretty sick in Chiang Mai (though considering that we have been on the road for nearly 2 months without any dodgy tums it’s not too bad really). Most of our time there was spent hanging out in the hotel… Still determined to see the lovely city we crashed on and managed to fit everything into a busy 1½ days. We took a day trip rammed full of activities, beginning with a look around a beautiful orchid farm. The next stop was a visit to see the Karen hill tribe (originally from Burma) whose women and girls wear [View Full Entry]

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Life's a Lazy Beach! We took a bus from Phnom Penh to the seaside town of Sihanoukville, and spent the night. Then the next morning we headed off to an island called Koh Rong Saloem and the Lazy Beach bungalows - the final leg of our journey being a 3 hour fisherman’s boat trip. It was seriously lush, and we couldn’t believe our luck! There are only 10 bungalows on a huge stretch of beach, and we soon made full use of the hammocks on our balcony. The sunsets were awesome, even better with a sundowner (or two…) We spent 4 [View Full Entry]

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After an expensive boat journey up the Mekong Delta (in an attempt to take a couple of pics on deck, Si’s sunnies flew off never to be seen again) we arrived at Siem Reap. The small town was really relaxing, and we couldn’t wait to visit Angkor Wat. Our first view of the site was at sunset, we hired a tuk-tuk to one of the ruins, which is supposed to be the best place to see it, and walked up a massive hill - with thousands of others and were quite disappointed by the whole thing, it was just too busy. [View Full Entry]

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On our first day we headed out to Wat Phnom - a temple in central Phnom Penh where Khmers go to pray for their fortunes. It appeared that a hefty number of monkeys have also cottoned on to this idea. An elephant called Sambo would also hang out around the temple, and we would often see him on the commute home in the evening as we chilled out in a cafe. The Royal Palace was the most expensive attraction so far (Si was somewhat put out) but once you are inside the walls and see the amazing buildings and how well [View Full Entry]

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Ho Chi Minh City was pretty chaotic to be honest. We took a trip to Cu Chi, where during the "US war in Vietnam" the Viet Cong carved out hundreds of kilometers of underground tunnels to assist in the fight against the Americans. They were quite amazing - we shimmied through some which have been widened for the westerners, and they were still snug! How anyone could spend more than 10 minutes in such hot and cramped conditions is unbelievable. At the end of the tour, Si couldn’t resist the opportunity to take up a weapon and unleash it on a [View Full Entry]

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Guides and internet forums seem to offer a very mixed opinion of Halong Bay, with some reckoning its now too busy and packed with tourists. We thought we should see for ourselves, but our expectations had been lowered. They were then lowered further when our guide for the three-day trip mentioned to us that our boat had broken down that morning and had been replaced with a smaller one. As it turned out, we shared a 14-berth boat with just one other couple. Our tour also took us a different route to every other boat (we went to visit a floating [View Full Entry]

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