March 26, 2017
“Don’t go to Varanasi.” That’s what we’d been told by a few people we’d met on our trip. “You’ll either love it or hate it,” others had said. It’s certainly not for the faint-hearted. Filthy, smoggy, the traffic is insane – it makes New Delhi seem like The Cotswolds. But it is one of, if not the most mesmerising and unforgettable…
March 19, 2017
Orchha is a small town on the river Betwa in India’s northern Madhya Pradesh, a beautiful ancient land filled with magnificent forts, medieval palaces and sacred temples steeped in history and legend. It is mystical, spiritual, colourful and completely vegetarian.
March 7, 2017
Alipura is a small rural town in Madhya Pradesh. Around eighty percent of the Indian population live in small towns and villages like this one, so it was really great to visit another. We stayed in Alipura Palace which is over 150 years old and has been partially converted to a heritage hotel by descendants of the original ruling family. Staying here…
February 24, 2017
Tordi Sagar is a small village in rural Rajasthan, around a three hour drive from Jaipur. Our home for the night was Tordi Palace, a beautiful heritage hotel and the ancestral home of the Khangarot clan. We spent just a day there, walking through the narrow, dusty village streets and observing daily life. Children followed us everywhere, desperate to pose…
February 18, 2017
Jaipur, the capital of India’s Rajasthan state, is an amazing, colourful city, with chaotic streets and lively bazaars. Camels and elephants share the roads with scooters and cycle rickshaws. In the hills, the remains of palaces and forts show the splendour of the city’s ancient royal past.
February 5, 2017
Luang Prabang is a small city in Northern Laos which sits on the Mekong river. It has a peaceful, small town feel and the pace of life is slow. We ended up spending a week there just soaking up the atmosphere. Listed as a Unesco World Heritage site, Luang Prabang is a fusion of traditional Lao houses and French colonial…
February 1, 2017
The tubing haven of Vang Vieng in central Laos is an example of tourism gone wrong. This sleepy town on the Nam Song River became a famous party mecca for backpackers, who would float down the river on inner tubes, stopping off at bars along the way. Drunk revellers would dive into the river from rope swings and down the…
January 28, 2017
We missed out Laos on our last trip, it was monsoon season and we decided to go to Myanmar instead, so we were happy to get the time to fit it in on this trip. There wasn’t a lot to do in the capital Vientiane, but an interesting place to visit is the COPE centre. About a twenty minute walk…
October 27, 2015
Long term travel means you are constantly watching what you spend, so avoiding being scammed out of your life savings is a big deal. More often than not, you rarely lose more than a few pounds, but it’s difficult to find the balance between wanting to help someone out who is genuinely worse off than you, and not having…
October 24, 2015
Vietnam we found was best value for money in terms of hotels and food and drink. We just couldn’t spend money there! We stayed in nice hotels with private bathrooms, ate what we wanted, drank what we wanted and did quite a few tours. I imagine if you stayed in hostel dorms you could probably even halve the cost.
October 22, 2015
After bearing as much of Kuta as we could, we booked a bus and boat transfer to Gili Trawangan, part of a group of three islands off the coast of Lombok.
August 29, 2015
“They say If you like Kuta, you need to go home” is what Jimmy, our host on the Island of Gili Air in Lombok said upon meeting. We told him we’d just spent a week there, the Magaluf of Bali – full of young, wild Australian tourists.
October 14, 2014
The Shinkansen ‘bullet’ train from Tokyo took us the 513 km to Kyoto in just over two hours. Let’s put that into perspective. The 696 km train journey from Bangkok to Chiang Mai took 16 hours! Another point to Japan.
September 17, 2014
A four hour bus from Penang took us to the town of Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands. Another hill station from the colonial era known for its tea plantations, strawberry farms and cold weather. We were a little skeptical of this promised cooler climate but sure enough we were in hoodies for 3 days..the first time in nearly 5…
September 10, 2014
We couldn’t leave Penang without trying Malaysia’s national dish, Nasi Lemak. Traditionally eaten for breakfast and often seen wrapped in banana leaf parcels in food courts and on the the street.
September 1, 2014
Little India in Georgetown is a lively, vibrant neighbourhood with some fantastic food options. Walking down the road we saw this guy come out of the butchers with a large bowl of marinated chicken and it looked so good we decided to follow him to his restaurant.