by Jan Picture a nice, very quiet beach. Nobody bothering you, selling you useless and overpriced souvenirs and clothes. Add friendly locals, a great crowd of chilled out backpackers and amazing food! This, in a nutshell, is Uppuveli, a place where we spent a week, even if our intention was to stay only a few nights. When leaving Polonnaruwa we weren't even sure where we were going. When looking for a tuk-tuk we decided that we want to go to the train station and head to the east coast of Sri Lanka. West and South coast are the two main tourist attractions, while East is slowly recovering from the civil war which ended a few years ago. The area around Uppuveli was part of the fighting between the national army and the Tamil Tigers, so just ... read more

by Jan We entered the new year, the one with 366 days, and it was time to move on. Our holidays in Chiang Mai came to an end and it was time to get back to 'work' (travelling). We took the night bus to Bangkok, spent the day at the airport watching movies and in the evening boarded a flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka – our next destination. Upon arriving we were in for an unpleasant surprise. From the beginning of the year Sri Lanka started charging $25 per Visa on Arrival. If we arrived just two days before we could enter the country for free, but not any more. We paid the fees, got the receipt and were sent to the immigration counter. There we got our passports stamped. I love passports stamps, I am ... read more

by Jan 15th of December, Siem Reap, Cambodia I am sitting on a very comfortable chair, on the terrace of Garden Village Guest house in Siem Reap, with music in the background, Polona is opposite reading a book and we are both just trying to re-charge our batteries. Re-charging our batteries has been the theme of Cambodia so far. It seems the last couple of months caught up with us. In between we have also set a return date . Since then we have slowly started thinking about where to live, updating our LinkedIns and all the rest of the threatening stuff like that. But before that there is still loads to see. Both of us are very much looking forward to Sri Lanka, which we somehow included in this trip on Burma's expense and then ... read more

by Jan Ticket drama We visited seven different towns in the first three weeks in Vietnam. Now it was time for some rest and Mui Ne, a small beach town, seemed like the perfect place for it. But first we had to get there. We reserved our seats on the bus a day before, went back to the tourist office in the morning and everything was fine,.., until it wasn't! We already started our journey, picked up some more people from other hotels across town but then returned back to the starting point. At that point we were called off – the ticket lady telling us that our ticket is valid only to Saigon, but not for Mui Ne. Polona was already fuming so I figured it might be better if she stays on the bus ... read more

by Jan Finally, it was time for our three day tour with Freedom Riders. We have been looking forward to this since the first weeks of this travel, when Chris and Kay recommended this tour to us. They were in their last months of their half a year trip and already covered the "main land" by then and told us that the tour with Mr. Tai was the highlight of their trip. Now, anybody who is reading this blog a bit will know we are two very cheap bastards . We are prepared to travel for hours or do anything (apart from selling our bodies) to save a couple of dollars or to book a flight which cost a tenner less – I hope that once we are over with this trip and back "home" in ... read more