We, as travellers, often look for the scenic, the beauty spots, the ancient monuments but as we leave the port of Haiphong on a road far worse than any they could hope for I wonder if we ever 'see' the real country warts and all. Haiphong is the country's third largest city, a jumble of container terminals, refineries and factories. Having suffered drastically in the war it is now in the process of being connected by high speed motorway to Hanoi and beyond. Hence the potholes or rather the crevices in the road into which small cars disappear. The road is yet to be surfaced, concrete towers loom out of the dusk as precursors to multiple flyovers which disappear into the distance - a new spaghetti junction in the making. Through the rain showered windows of ... read more

As I gaze out of the doors across the paddy fields my thoughts remain indistinct. Gauzy, flimsy and somewhat opaque - like the mosquito net covering our mattress in the communal stilt house in Mai Chau. Not quite the homestay I had imagined but is anything what we really imagine? Yesterday we had cycled 14km around the local villages and paddy fields ending up in the market, a bustling, thriving centre for Tet purchases. We had bought baskets of goodies for our homestays back in Hanoi, joining in the spirit of things, watching the locals stock up on food for the four day celebration. We ate com lam, a winter delicacy of sticky rice rammed into a bamboo holder and grilled until cooked served with peanuts and salt and sipped dark caramel flavoured Vietnamese coffee. At ... read more

My Son is actually near Hoi An, so apologies to those looking for it near to Hue. Can't seem to set locator to Hoi An. Tearing down the QL1A whisked by buses and trucks is not my favourite occupation and hurtling back from My Son in the ever decreasing dusk is far from palatable. My sister's words keep ringing in my ears about the dangers of motorbikes and the horrific accidents that occur. Nevertheless, the trip to My Son was worth it and in our case we returned home unscathed having tasted some of the best pho in an unprepossessing restaurant in a small town just before the turn off to the ruins. We had despaired of finding a coffee in any of the numerous ca phes that we had seen as being a Saturday they ... read more

Kerala’s backwaters We negotiated our way through the family holiday like the boats through the famed backwaters. Mostly calm and placid, gently drifting, sometimes swerving to avoid the clumps of water hyacinth a pest and potential hindrance to the centuries old way of life practised here. We navigated the varied tangled relationships, mother – daughter, father-daughter, sisters, sister-stepsister, aunts, cousins, step-cousin, mother-stepdaughter, father-stepdaughter, mother -son-in-law (actually out of law)and came out smiling. This was to be a family holiday extraordinaire with family members travelling over varying seas and continents to meet exactly halfway, 5 ½ hours ahead for the London contingent and 5 ½ behind for the Australia mob. Our daughter and her partner had truly chosen a magical spot for our get-together and I don’t think even they realised how extraordinary ... read more

You know it’s going to be difficult when people can’t even agree on how to pronounce the name of the country. ‘Lao(s) ‘, I had said confidently with the silent s until I heard others say Laos. So, ‘We’re going to Laos,’ I said to the next inquirer. ‘Where?’ she said, ‘Oh, we just loved Lao(s)! And there it was again, the silent s. It’s difficult to strike a happy pronunciation medium between the two so we continue the struggle. Wiengchan instead of Vientiane. We shall be linguistically challenged every step of the way. Difficult too was our mode of arrival. We had rather hoped that after a flight to Kuala Lumpur we would make our way by train up through Malaysia down along Thailand to Bangkok and up to Nong Khai and into Laos. It ... read more