Blogs from Asia - page 23

Our third and final South Korea blog comes to you from the southern coastal town of Busan and the Island of Jeju. If you missed our two previous blogs, they are here for you to take a look. After the fantastic experience that was Seoul, we left that amazing city riding in the first-class cabin of the train out of Seoul Station. No surprise that it is very comfortable and provides a lot of room for luggage. Koreans seem to know how to do public transport well. We enjoyed our two-and-a-half-hour ride along the interior of the country. In South Korea, they do not allow you to eat or drink in most of the train but in first class we discovered it was allowed. You can bring food on with you which in retrospect is what ... read more

I was up at about 8am this morning. I could hear the yoga moving around, looked at the time, then chose to turn over for another half an hour! I am enjoying the lazy mornings, but they aren’t going to last the whole holiday. I know that when I hit Australia, it will be a whole different ball game! Ha ha! So I’m enjoying whilst I can! It was overnight oats and fruit, with all other bits on the end for breakfast today. To be honest, I’ve never eaten them before, but Ella gave us the option for going out for breakfast for a change. I could have gone with that option, but it’s nice for Ella to have a change from time to time. We got a tuk tuk to Hangtime. We had smashed avocado ... read more

Xin Chao Mai Chau ! Nous voici arrivés en début d’après-midi à Mai Chau, province de Hoa Binh dans le Nord Ouest du Viêt Nam. Le trajet en navette « limousine » d’une durée de 3h30 au départ de Hanoï , fut très mouvementé … Les vietnamiens ont une conduite très dangereuse. Sans visibilité, ils doublent n’importe comment en prévenant à coup de Klaxons. Sur les routes montagneuses, nous n’avons pas cru arriver vivants… sans exagérer! Sur une aire de repos, les toilettes turques pour femme sont communes … il ne faut pas être trop pudique … Nous sommes partis de la bruyante Hanoï pour arriver dans un endroit calme et paisible, entouré de rizière. Nous passons la nuit chez l’habitant ce soir. La homestay atypique en bois sur pilotis possède une magnifique vue sur la montagne. La ... read more

We were not going to venture back to Bali as it is just so overcrowded down in the Kuta to Seminyak area BUT John came across some fantastic fares just $750 return for the two of us, so here we are! Booked our taxi transfer on Booking.com and that was perfect good price and were messaged the night before and day of the flight, was there waiting for us, in no time in the car and on our way, two hour trip to Ubud. Now they have E-gates we were out of the immigration area in probably 10 minutes from landing but the luggage took an hour to come out....improvement in some areas and worse in others. By the time we arrived at our beautiful little guesthouse we were both suffering whiplash.....I dont think the driver ... read more

Gili Air has come back to life! What a difference since our last visit just after things reopened from COVID in 2022. In Oct 2022, there were so many stores and villa’s deserted, overrun with nature and closed shops. Now there is so much here! Spa’s (went from 2 to at least 10), new and restored restaurants, shops and villa’s. Even multiple medical clinic’s that I hear are very good. So great to see this 5 km wide island booming, now we just need the people to come back. There seems to be some unfortunate misinformation on social media and old video’s showing it quite run down… this is simply not the case. Yes there are parts that are still not occupied and have not recovered from the earthquake and COVID. But so many have, and ... read more