Now that we’ve safely returned to good ol’ Blighty (quite a culture shock already), we thought we’d share some of the stranger things we managed to snap on our way around South America, Australia and South East Asia. Look closely…
What makes a “paradise island”? A beautiful, white sandy beach? Warm, perfectly clear sea, complete with shoals of playful tropical fish? Wooden bungalows that look out over long stretches of unspoilt and virtually uninhabited coastline? A bit of jungle in the middle for exploring? If this all sounds like the paradise ideal you’d imagined, then it also almost describes at [...]
Modern Cambodia is a story of the sublime and the ridiculously difficult. Corruption, poverty, extreme begging and, in the living memory of many, the horrific recent past under the Khmer Rouge mixes with a gentle and proud culture, harbouring a more distant and glorious history when the Khmer Empire were “the Romans of Asia” an their capital was the unparalleled [...]
Gollum would have been at home here. Harry and Dumbledore, Kirk and Spock, Orpheus and Persephone, they’ve probably all paid a visit. And now that it’s in the book that’s surgically attached to every traveller – I hope not to see another Lonely Planet for a long time after this trip – many others may be making the interesting curveball [...]
Shortly after setting off from the Elephant Village our minivan driver stopped in the middle of the dirt track that was the road, wound down his window and, without pause for thought, proceeded to throw a large amount of plastic shrink wrap out of the window and out into the forest. We and other westerners in the van squirmed with [...]
It’s still the mid-nineteenth century in the Old Town in Luang Prabang. At least that’s what they like you to think. One of the more upmarket bars even advertises itself as taking you “back to the elegant good old days, the great colonial days..” No wonder the French love it here. Nevertheless, the reputed charm is not without merit. The [...]
There are some people and places that you just cannot rush. Sometimes this is because the terrain, weather or lack of infrastructure is preventative; sometimes it’s because the people just like to take things slowly; more often than not it’s a combination of the two. Laos is a prime example of a slow-moving people in a sometimes tricky environment, trying [...]
Unless you’re still at a nightclub, very loud European trance music (with accompanying DVD pictures) is not the sort of thing that makes 5am a more pleasurable hour. Still less comfortable, is to have this inflicted on you at this time in the wee small hours whilst effectively being stuffed into a tin can. Nevertheless, it seems that this might [...]
We’d been warned, but the weather was a bit of a suprise, to be honest. From the warm stickiness of Saigon and the Mekong Delta, arriving in Hanoi in Northern Vietnam was a little like arriving to a late Autumn in the UK. Cold and incredibly damp (98% humidity), fleeces, hats and the occasional shiver were the order of the [...]
It’s not often that you get treated like a good luck charm, welcomed with open arms everywhere. It’s even less common for this to happen when you’re a red-faced sweaty mess, but happen it did in the waterside villages of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, as we (accompanied once again by Den and Babs) cycled through during the Lunar New Year’s Tet [...]
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- Babs on The Perils of Paradise – Koh Rong
- kirsty on Images of Angkor
- Hear from Volunteers at Allambie | Allambie Orphanage on New Friends – Allambie
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- Really interesting and enlightening few hours today at @COPELaos. Take a look to find out more about UXO in Laos etc http://t.co/le7Ge0FX
- Tom-Yum Martini, complete with kafir lime leaf and chilli. The best cocktail in Laos? http://t.co/EGFxq1Hk #hipstamatic
- Luang Prabang http://t.co/arxfDbzb
- Bring on the elephants!!!!!!!!!!!
- Taking It Slow - Northern Laos http://t.co/YAMoxAfb
- No #snow here in Lang Prebang, #Laos - in fact it's pretty warm to say the least. Nevertheless, Helen still has a cold...
