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Isn’t Life Strange
Spring sunshine pours through our windows, the first warmth of the season alternating with blasts of cold wind coming in off the North Sea. Music plays, books get read, the TV is on more than usual. We are filling time, trying not to dwell on the fact that we would today have been in Hoi An, taking evening strolls along its quaint lantern-lit streets. Each day the saved internet sites update us with the growing death toll across the world, the TV news has just one subject every single broadcast, an unprecedented worldwide horror story unfolds before our eyes. We tune in to our Prime Minister’s daily briefings, obeying closely…
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Nobody Told Me There’d Be Days Like These…
……strange days indeed…. It seems impossible that it was only a week ago today that matters really started to unravel and it became more and more obvious that we needed to get out of Vietnam. Such is the unique nature of life in the UK just now that it seems a lot more than five days since we arrived home. There’s not really much point dwelling on our lost dream, difficult as it may be for us, when the scale of what the world is dealing with right now is so immense. At the end of the day, when all this is history, we will, hopefully, be ready to pack…
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It’s Life Jim, But Not As We Know It
It’s just a few short days since we walked back into our own home, which in itself was a strange feeling given that we hadn’t expected to see our home again for a long time yet. Not quite as strange though as coming to terms with how much has changed in those few days, for us, for our country, for the world. On a personal level, it’s still hard to take in that our plans for the entire year have gone, plans and dreams which were so long in the making, let alone taking in this unchartered territory which now surrounds us. We retired at Christmas with the sole intention…
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Glad To Be Home, Gutted To Be Home
First things first, we got home. The euphoria of escaping Vietnam was soon replaced by the sadness of losing our dream year after 7 weeks, which was in turn soon replaced by the stark reality of how much life has changed back here in the UK, and how insignificant are our own experiences in the face of this crisis. After almost 24 hours travelling home we had missed the latest developments and quickly tried to appraise ourselves by scouring the internet as we neared home. And it seems the new buzz words are social distancing. We couldn’t have imagined what was going to happen when we set off on what…
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Our Place In The World As The World Collapses
And so we pick up our story from our eviction from Tuan Chau…. For 4 hours we sit at the offices of Halong Tours, at first outside and later, as it chills, inside with the lovely Nhur Minh (aka Julian), who is incredibly sweet and helpful and looks after us for those four hours, from providing water to reassuring chat to organising our driver. Nothing is too much trouble for her. We will never forget these four hours. As we sit here, scared and bewildered, news is changing at an incredible rate as nation after nation take extreme measures to combat the pandemic. Everything is collapsing across the globe and…
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Halong Bay, Coronavirus And Us
In the few days we’ve been in Hanoi, the news around the COVID-19 outbreak has raced on, both at home in the UK and across the world. And as these days unfold, so the evidence of change becomes more obvious here too: we are issued with face masks; Michaela is refused entry to a shop simply due to her Western appearance, and the talk of our next destinations on this trip being on shutdown is escalating. So we are only half surprised when our bus to Halong Bay fails to show, and the message comes through that they are refusing to take us on board because we are British. It…
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Hanoi: Back Into City Mode
Island paradise, tribal villages, wonderful scenery, small towns and villages, now in the blink of an eye we are transported to a crazily busy capital city and our whole mentality has to change. This regular shift is a part of travel which we are finding particularly stimulating, there’s not much chance things will go stale. We’ve read a lot on line about difficulties in entering Vietnam with onerous visa checking, so what with that and the Coronavirus threat we arrive expecting delays: in reality there is no such issue and after some health checks we are quickly through. And so we leave Laos where it was around 11,540 kip to…
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Laos: Final Words
In our short time here we have seen a stunningly picturesque country, packed with glorious scenery, some so beautiful as to be hard to believe. Mighty rivers flow through mountainous landscapes; lush green crop fields fill the plateaux between jungle clad mountains; unchanged tribal villages mix with developing visitor spots and peaceful laid back towns and cities. Laos remains a poor country in spite of increasing popularity and over 80% of the population are still farmers or self sufficient; fortunately this is a fertile land and food, particularly fruit and rice, is plentiful. Its people are happy and honest and eager to please. Yet the memory of the bombings must…
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Laos: Nong Khiaw
Nong Khiaw is an absolutely spectacular and beautiful place, just simply one of those places which really does take your breath away. It wows everyone: every other traveller we meet uses phrases like “most beautiful place I’ve ever seen”. It is for us too, it is beyond stunning. More description in a minute. First, it seems the storm on our last day back in Luang Prabang was actually the outer reaches of a typhoon, and as we leave, our minivan has to pull around fallen trees and other debris, and we hear stories of one of the Mekong riverboats being turned over into its murky depths. Hopefully with no one…
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Laos – Luang Prabang
As the mighty Mekong swings its way through northern Laos, a tributary, the Nam Khan, no small river itself, sweeps around to join the Mekong at a 45 degree angle. In the resulting triangular peninsula sits Luang Prabang, a UNESCO world heritage site with a reputation of being one of the most beautiful places in South East Asia. Here is the story of our 5 days in Luang Prabang. The Town Expectations were high coming here, based on many blogs and commentaries, and, as we all know, high expectations can often lead to disappointment. Not here though: everything about Luang Prabang is delightful, from its mix of Lao housing and…
