Our first afternoon in Sydney was spent wandering the neighborhood around the hostel and down to the harbor to get a view of the famous opera house and explore the city a little. For the first time in a long time, we ate at an Italian restaurant and we had noodles that weren’t fried with soy sauce. Our accommodation in Sydney was certainty an interesting place. The bed had a fitted sheet with cigarette burns and a top sheet with mold, which we…
When Jen left us after our visit to Angkor Wat, we had to decide what to do next. We had about 2 weeks unaccounted for before heading to Australia and New Zealand. We thought about continuing on to see other parts of Cambodia and toyed with the idea of heading to Malaysia for some scuba diving. However, we kept hearing great things about Sri Lanka and decided to get out of Southeast Asia to experience something different. We are so glad we ended…
Ha Long Bay is advertised (at least by our selected cruise company, Ocean Tours) as one of the “New 7 Wonders of the World.” I was not familiar with that category of world wonders but it certainly is stunningly beautiful. Over 1,000 towering limestone islands surround one bigger island (Cat Ba), rising above the turquoise water. It’s a magical sight to see. Our 3 day/2 night cocktail cruise began with a 2 hour bus ride from Hanoi to the coast….
After having a great experience trekking in Myanmar we booked a 2 day/1 night trek in Sapa, a small town in northern Vietnam, through Ethnic Travel. We had very little information on the details of the trek prior to leaving Hanoi and were unsure of what the mileage would be, what size the group would be, etc. All we knew was that we had to arrive at the company’s office in Hanoi at 7:30pm for our night train to the north….
Planning The Trek The trek (aka hike) from Kalaw to Inle Lake is about 40 miles and is one of the more popular tourist activities in Myanmar. This is the only region in Myanmar where overnight trekking without prior permits and approval from the government is needed, so it’s easy for your average traveler to do it without too much planning. We learned there are over 80 tour companies operating the trek out of Kalaw, a small mountain town of about 20,000…
Chai Lai Orchid is about an hour’s drive from Chang Mai in northern Thailand and is situated right along the Mae Wang river. It’s run by a woman from New York and staffed by locals who are in most cases refugees or at-risk women learning hospitality skills they can use to tap into the area’s booming tourist industry. Chai Lai’s mission has expanded from supporting local communities to providing ethical elephant experiences and saving elephants from some of the harmful…
We had four fantastic days in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital city. We saw some of the city’s historical temples and shrines, visited the newer downtown area (home to Taipei 101, the world’s 5th tallest building), and sampled lots of local food at several of the city’s night markets. We also did a day trip to Yehliu Geopark. Taipei Temples We started our day with an attempted trip to Confucius Temple but quickly learned a lesson about checking which days of the week…
The “glass half full” observation of the morning we planned to hike to see the famous snow monkeys at Jigokudani Snow Money Park was that we got to see Japanese rain for the first time in our lives. Luckily, after a couple of rounds of Phase 10 under our heated table, the rain let up enough for us to begin the walk to the monkey park. Shortly into our 30 minute walk the rain stopped completely for what ended up…
We spent four nights in Hong Kong and fell in love with the city immediately. It has beaches, mountains, and an incredible bustling city all wrapped together and connected by an excellent public transportation system. The weather couldn’t have been better while we were there – it was consistently in the 70s and sunny – so we opted to spend lots of time exploring Hong Kong’s great outdoors. Dragon’s Back Hike John’s cousin Jeremy and his family live in Hong…