Disney, no, Vin-Pearl Land

Ever felt like you were in a James Bond movie? From the beginning to the end, visiting Vin-Pearl Land is, well, odd. Prehaps on the Florida coast, in amongst other spectacularly well oiled tourist attractions, VPL would fit in. Out here, in the midst of ’south central’ Vietnam, it’s surreal. VPL declares its presence to [...]

Dalat

Twice I got up to turn off the air con in Dalat, then realised there wasn’t any. How I laughed at locals in their hats and gloves. A few hours later, they were laughing at me staggering back to the hotel in my T-shirt to retrieve my wolly jumper.

Dalat has some wonderful scenery. Truc Lam [...]

Mui Ne

My preconceptions were all wrong. So wrong. I thought it’d be smaller. I thought it’d be full of jovial red faced expats smoking cigars and playing tennis, mixed up with odd backpacker who got lost on the way down from Nha Trang. I thought it’d all be quaint little bungalows on the beach, tropical breeze [...]

Hoi An

Here’s a collection of nice shots from a recent trip to Hoi An. The courtyard below is nice.

Here’s a jug and a sign. Maybe not the best place for said sign.

Here are some mini hot air ballons. Them seem to be quite popular in Hoi An.

Marble mountain is a 20 minute motorbike drive from Hoi [...]

Can Gio

Can Gio is an island a short distance from HCMC, consisting of mud flats, mangrove and overly agressive monkeys. You can see from the map below (from here) that it’s basically the delta of the Saigon River (the green area bottom right).

Access is via a car/motorbike ferry which connects with Nha Be and takes only [...]

Con Dao

This picture is from here.
I won’t blog about the fact that Con Dao has beautiful rocky coves and long deserted sandy beaches, I’d rather just speak about some of the stranger things observed from this remote place. I say remote, it’s only a 45 minute flight from HCM, but it may as well [...]

Nearly Home

Only 6 short days until I return home after a month in Korea. And what a horrible month its been so far. Seoul is a rat race defined. The weather is unbelievably stuffy, even my SE Asian acclimatised body is finding it oppressive. My accomodation provided by way of contract is barely bigger than my [...]

Pictures from Seoul

Just a couple of pics from the Korean capital I took today.
Myeong-dong : Trendy shopping district - plenty of peps on a Sunday afternoon I tells ya.

Those same-same cars in downtown Seoul

Some Tarot readers working in the subway station. Many Koreans regularly visit such fortune tellers, and I know they do in Vietnam as well. [...]

Tales of a Tsunami : Part One

(This map is from The World Atlas)
On Boxing Day, 2004, I found myself tied up in the strangest event I think I’ve ever experienced. My family was on a two week package from England which started off in Bangkok and then spent most of the time traveling between the islands and beaches in the [...]

Blast from the past

Tobs - aren’t you happy that your trip will become infamous with my blog readers throughout the world (read: you and my mum……).
I took delight in meeting Murrill at the airport and racing him the 20 minutes or so into District 1 (town center) via motorbike. If you don’t know already, the roads in Vietnam [...]