- Africa, Asia, Independent travel, North America, Photography, South America, Travel Blog, USA, Vietnam
Crossing The Line
We’ll be crossing the equator on Monday night this week as we head out for our first ever visit to South America, arriving in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday morning. Perhaps surprisingly this will be only our second ever foray across the equator, our one previous destination south of the line was our honeymoon trip to Tanzania and Zanzibar back in 2013. Given that Rio will be the furthest point south we have so far visited, our thoughts have turned inevitably to the extremities of our previous adventures. The furthest point north so far is St Petersburg, a beautiful and majestic city which we visited in the depths of its…
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Da Nang: The Modern Face Of Vietnam
Laying our Vietnam ghosts has been such an edifying process, we now have a very strong affection for this country after our bad times here at the onset of COVID when we met with some real hostility simply because we were British (this was when the pandemic had taken a stranglehold in the UK more than anywhere else). We’d also had bad food experience, the meals we ate in Hanoi back then were consistently poor, a bit like being given a bowl of washing-up water where if we were really lucky the dishcloth had been left in the bottom. We always knew though that this was not typical – every…
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Hot Days & Warm Hearts: A Week In Hoi An
The advice we’ve been given is that, when it comes to visiting the My Son Sanctuary, we have two choices: go in the morning when the coach parties are doing the rounds and visitor numbers are high, or risk coping with the intense heat of the afternoon when we’ll more or less have the place to ourselves. Seeing as we are one half of the “mad dogs and Englishmen” couplet we opt, of course, for the quieter, hotter alternative. As it happens, temperatures have raced up the scale since we’ve been in Hoi An and at the same time someone has adjusted the humidity setting so that T-shirts last about…
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To Hoi An: The Land Of Lanterns
And so we head to Hoi An, a place about which we have heard so many good things that this will be our longest stay in one place whilst in Vietnam, a full six days. Our original intention was to go by train from Hue to Da Nang and then taxi to Hoi An, but we got chatting to a guy in a cafe on the first morning in Hue who told us he can book a bus which will take us door to door for half the price of the taxi alone. Bargain. Bargain? Well, yes, but boy does the journey bring surprises. Sure enough, we get picked up…
