While we were on our whizz round the world, Nigel published a daily picture on Instagram. For those of you who are not Instagrammers, we’ve reproduced the photos in 4 blog posts. This one covers China, Vietnam and Cambodia. Day 39 was our first full day in #Beijing and it was off to the #ForbiddenCity. … More Round the world in pictures: China, Vietnam & Cambodia
Introduction: Time of year: Late October 2016 Purpose of trip: As part of our round the world trip, we were determined to see Halong Bay. In reality, that is best done by an overnight junk cruise. Why we chose this place: Halong Bay is unlike anything else, with thousands of limestone mountains rising from the … More Review: Dragon Legend II, Halong Bay, Vietnam
Vietnam was a new country for both of us. Oddly inspired by a Top Gear special back in 2008, where Jezza, May and Hamster rode motorbikes from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to Halong Bay, we’ve attempted the journey in reverse .. by train … with a few extra bits thrown in. We’ve cruised in … More 10 things we’ve learnt about Vietnam
Vietnam’s chaotic. The roads are a battleground: cars, cabs, trucks, buses and thousands upon thousands of scooters fighting for space; all, seemingly, blaring their horns at each other simultaneously . Our cab ride to the station at Hue immersed us into this now familiar tangle of traffic. On one side: ten-ton trucks bearing down on … More Life and death on the Vietnamese Express
We traveled the length of Vietnam on the Reunification Express – the train line linking Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. And then disaster struck. … More Life and death on the Reunification Express
Someone was rapping on the locked door, barking orders at us like a prison guard. It was 5 a.m and our night train was pulling into Hanoi. Sleepy people were dragging themselves out of bunks, queuing for the toilet and a chance to brush teeth at the shared carriage sink. Last time we’d hit this … More Hanoi unscripted: how to fill 12 hours in a crazy city
We had a wonderful time in Sapa, which is in the north-western corn of Vietnam, not far from the Chinese border. It’s a mountainous region with the natural/artificial landscape of terraced paddy fields. Vietnam has many minority ethnic groups and each village in this area has one or two tribes living in it. What is … More Photo essay: the fantastic faces of Sapa, Vietnam
Cue Earth, Wind and Fire. Start digging out the knee-high, brown suede boots. Think about ordering logs for the wood burner, and sourcing those warming, home made soup recipes.Those are the kind of things I’ve always thought about at this time of year. But I only realised the other day that, for the first time … More Another kind of autumn…
An update is probably in order. In January, when we booked our flights to go around the world, September seemed a mighty long way off. How were we going to while away the time until the adventure was due to begin? Now we are less than four weeks away and, perhaps unsurprisingly, we are left … More Less than four weeks to go …
Psssst. Got a minute? I need to do something that I don’t think I’ve ever done before. I accept that it might be of *slightly* more interest if you’re a female, rather than a male reader…..but with the range of male “grooming” products on the market today, you can never really be sure, can you? … More Girl talk. (Kind of)
2emptynesters 