Saigon
7–11 maj, Wietnam ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C
Good morning, Vietnam! After our week-long transit through Cambodia, we caught the bus from Phnom Penh into Vietnam, heading for Saigon (officially: Ho Chi Minh City). Gambling is illegal in Vietnam, so there are hundreds of grim casinos right on the Cambodian border, and busloads of gambling tourists making this the slowest border we’ve had so far. Taking about one hour, it was still MUCH quicker than the 4 hours Chelsea endured in 2017—Vietnam has loosened up since then and UK passports now get 45 days visa-free. This was our last land border in SEA, and they’ve all been surprisingly simple. Nice!
We just missed the 50th anniversary of reunification celebrations (the end of the Vietnam war was 30 April 1975), but Saigon was still decked out, making for a very festive atmosphere. Arriving at a very nice hotel, we were confused given how cheap our room was... just £10/night. That was until we were shown to the *tiniest* room, most of it window. There was no floor that wasn't mattress. We realised on departure that we’d slept in the wrong direction given even Chelsea’s feet hung off the mattress 🙃
On the plus side, Saigon is great! We trotted out to two museums and were impressed by the no-nonsense tone of Vietnam’s self-declared history. In summary, the Ho Chi Minh City History Museum taught us: ‘this is a scrappy nation that absolutely cannot be invaded or defeated, and all comers are cowardly losers’. Noted! The War Remnants Museum was heavy, given the history of the Vietnam War and America’s genocidal tendencies. The exhibitions on the war correspondents who died in the conflict and the ongoing consequences of Agent Orange are particularly arresting.
After the museums, we extended by two nights to wander the city, see the Cu Chi tunnels, and visit the historic Post Office and Notre Dame cathedral. The Cu Chi tunnels are interesting to see, and extremely small, further proving the grit of the Viet Cong who lived and fought in the tunnels for years during the war. Dan crawled through 100m (as much as they’d let him) and Chelsea stood in the rain, thinking about the monsoon scene in Forrest Gump. We decided against paying extra to shoot AK-47s, but could still hear them blasting our eardrums from a few metres away while we sat in the cafe listening (incongruously) to Vivaldi.
We had a very foodie few days, starting at the strangely themed 'Warning Zone 76,' which was filled with toxic barrels and gas mask illustrations. We also dropped in at the Cafe Apartments building and Ben Nghe street food market, sampling noodles, skewers, and many many spring rolls. Dan has also absolutely lacerated the insides of his mouth with several Banh Mi. He'll need a liquid diet for a bit to recover: more pho, less crusty bread.
We’re currently on an 18hr train north, listening to a three-year-old play games on her mother’s phone. Chelsea is excited to be going north and seeing how much has changed in the last eight years given Vietnam’s rapid expansion. So far, so good! Czytaj więcej
Phnom Penh
4–7 maj, Kambodża ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C
So long Cambodia! It's been a shorter stop than other countries we've visited, because we have some set dates when we need to be in Vietnam. But we still managed to squeeze in a week here, rounding things out in the capital city, Phnom Penh.
We had no idea what to expect here, except very intense genocide museums. And boy did we get them. We did these sites on day one, so we'd have some time to decompress afterwards. After taking power in 1975, the Khmer Rouge regime attempted to turn Cambodia into an agrarian communist society. They forced millions of people out of the cities to work on brutally punishing farms. The communist leaders had no understanding of agriculture and set impossible targets, which meant they increasingly had to use children as slave labour. At the same time, they rounded up millions of perceived anti-revolutionary enemies (especially educated people, teachers, lawyers, doctors, and anyone wearing glasses), tortured them and their families, and executed them en masse. From 1975-79, the regime murdered three million people—around 40% of the population. We visited the infamous S21 torture prison, now a museum: of 20,000 prisoners, only 12 survived, 4 of them children. Then the Killing Fields at Cheoung Ek, the site of mass graves where the executions took place. They are eerily peaceful now, though cloth and bones continue to surface in the dirt. The two sites are well curated, respectful of the victims and careful in acknowledging that this could happen anywhere.
The Khmer Rouge began their reign of terror less than 50 years ago. What's stunning is how developed urban Cambodia is today, given the devastation of that genocide. Phnom Penh is a modern city, with bustling streets and cool hipster neighbourhoods full of bars and cafes. They have skyscrapers and boutique hotels and a waterfront promenade on the Mekong. People in Cambodia’s two major cities speak better English than anywhere else we've visited in Southeast Asia, except Singapore. After the harrowing history lesson, we spent our remaining time in the capital enjoying all of these things and marvelling at Cambodian resilience.
Chelsea took the rare chance for a proper swim, taking two dips in the national Olympic pool. Cambodia is *not* a swimming superpower like Australia, so the pool was pleasantly uncrowded. She also bought herself a whole camembert as a snack and then felt guilty—she’s reading an excellent book on France’s activities in Indochina (which glommed Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam together). She also visited the Khmer Women’s Food collective (fish amok!) and took in the Independence Monument and the Royal Palace, enjoying zipping around in a tuktuk with the extremely cheerful and patient Ek. They shared a moment of excitement seeing the royal cavalcade passing in the traffic. Meanwhile, Dan took the opportunity to relax in nice cafes and make some progress on his writing. Perhaps inevitable in a city with 'Pen' in the name. In the evening, we caught up with Charlie & Amelia, who we met in Laos (they're traveling through Cambodia and Vietnam in the opposite direction to us).
We only booked two nights here to start with, but ended up extending for a third. We did the same thing in Siem Reap too. That's because... *drum roll*... Cambodia is excellent! The people are lovely, the food is great (although not as spicy as we usually like), the culture feels vibrant, the beer is cheap and tasty (Cambodia draft for ~60p), and the country is clearly developing at a rate of knots. In some ways it's a shame we've had to do such a whistlestop tour, but even with a whole year on the road we still have to make some compromises.
We're currently on the bus to our final southeast Asia destination: Vietnam 🇻🇳 Czytaj więcej
Angkor Wat
2 maja, Kambodża ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C
We've generally only been uploading one post per place that we stay in, but we decided to make an exception this time. There are too many photos that need to be on the official records!
We're in the second city of Cambodia, Siem Reap (more about the journey down here and our other Siem Reap adventures in the next post). But the biggest reason for visiting is for a chance to explore Angkor Wat 🇰🇭
Angkor Wat is the world's largest religious structure. In February we visited Prambanan Temple in Indonesia, the world's fifth largest Hindu temple... Angkor Wat makes that seem like a Lego house. Originally a Hindu temple built by the Khmer emperor Suryavarman II in the 12th century, it then evolved into a Buddhist temple too. It's enormous! And Angkor Wat itself is just one of the temples in a huge complex, with more than 70 other monuments spread through the surrounding jungle.
It is also an extreme tourist magnet, so we held our noses and set our alarms for 4am, so we could be there in time for sunrise to avoid the crowds. This meant we were lucky enough to get a front row spot in prime location for the sunrise... although it didn't deter the masses. We reckon there were at least 1,000 people watching the sunrise with us, and if we'd arrived even five minutes later we would have been standing ten people deep in the pack, trying to get a glimpse through a forest of raised phones.
After sunrise and a wide-eyed wander around the temple, we went for breakfast at one of the on-site cafes. It was called 'James Bond'. Other cafes were called Harry Potter, Captain Jack Sparrow, Spiderman and Angelina Jolie. We asked the proprietor why it was called James Bond, and she said she called it that because she likes James Bond. We should have known. It also said 'License to Coffee' on the sign, which is fun, but feels like a missed opportunity to say 'Caffeino Royale'. If you have other puns, drop them in the comments.
Angkor Wat is incredible, but the other temples we visited in our 8-hour tour were somehow even more magical. Ta Prohm is famous for being used as the set for the Tomb Raider movie, and features trees growing through the temple ruins. Bayon Temple has over 200 giant stone faces carved into its towers. Ta Keo has an ancient pyramid with views across the jungle.
We'll let the photos speak for themselves though... Czytaj więcej
PodróżnikThought you would like it despite all the other tourists. Are you heading onto Tonle Sap to see the floating villages?
Siem Reap
1–4 maj, Kambodża ⋅ ☁️ 32 °C
After crossing the border from Laos, our first stop in Cambodia was Siem Reap, whose major economic activity is Angkor Wat tourism. As a city previously under French control, the bread and coffee options have vastly improved. Our host at the ‘Villa du Bonheur’ was the extremely flamboyant Michel, who spent the evening getting increasingly drunk and enthusiastic about his own 80s playlist. What a life.
We explored the Angkor National Museum to learn a bit about the ancient Khmer empire. They claim to have been the largest in the world between the 6-9th centuries, which perhaps needs a fact check. It boasts the Gallery of 1,000 Buddhas, which did seem accurate, because they have a LOT of Buddhas.
The next day we made a very early morning visit to Angkor Wat (see previous post) and then scurried back to the cool of the hotel pool to rest. The temperatures are hitting the high 30s every day, with +70% humidity; it’s a sweaty exercise just going for lunch. Fortunately, the Grab app operates in Cambodia—we felt its absence in Laos—so a tuktuk across the city costs less than £1.
We zipped around on a food tour with recurring pals Jess and Ian, plus two horrifically hungover lads from Kent. One of them could barely speak, except to express sweaty regret after eating a whole birdseye chilli. Not such a big man after all. We tried several new dishes (pin noodles, amok, deep fried garlic dough balls). Cambodian fare is much lighter than Thai, with chilli available as a side so you can manage your own spice levels. The tour concluded with a pick-and-mix selection of fried bugs and frogs from a street vendor. Chelsea braved an unusually spicy locust and Jess retched on silk worms, while Dan and Ian peeled a few water beetles. The crickets were the least objectionable option.
Friends back home tipped us off to the Phare Circus as an absolute must in Siem Reap. They were right! Incredible gymnastics, virtuosic musicians, live painting, and lots and lots of rice (surely a trip hazard?!). It’s got it all. The circus is an empowerment programme to enable artists to earn a living in Cambodia; it pays to fund the arts!
Chelsea wandered around town, exploring the markets, and happily stumbled across a book fair. The stalls sold mostly earnest academic fare, self-help, and children’s books. However, a few were more ambitious, selling Korean lesbian romance and gay Buddhist demon love triangle smut (see photo). Chelsea’s opinion of Cambodians is even more positive now.
We finished Siem Reap with a night out, starting on ‘Night Market St’, which contained no night market. Disappointed, we headed instead for the famous Pub Street, which did in fact contain pubs. After putting on a bold defence in beer pong (played with vodka-cranberry buckets), the girls danced into the early hours at a bar playing 00s club hits, while Ian read a chapter of The Count of Monte Cristo and Dan caught up on his beauty sleep.
Next up is a hungover 6hr bus ride to the capital. More to come... Czytaj więcej
Si Phan Don
27–30 kwi, Laos ⋅ ☀️ 34 °C
Our final stop in Laos was Si Phan Don ('Four Thousand Islands'). Here, the Mekong fragments into a delta of—you guessed it—4,000 islands, before flowing into Cambodia.
After a 4-hour bus from Pakse and a short ferry, we landed at our target island: Don Det. The hotel we’d been recommended was closed, the troubled-looking German owner ranting about his misfortunes. We beat a hasty retreat to the Crazy Gecko. This was an apt name, because their outdoor lighting attracted enough insects to feed the entire gecko population of Laos.
The tourist season is very much over, with most guesthouses and restaurants in hibernation, the proprietors confused that you might want to give them money for a bottle of water. But this did mean we had the island almost entirely to ourselves to enjoy, although admittedly in oppressive heat. It is even cheaper this far south: our family-sized ensuite room cost £10/night, and we rented bicycles for £1/day to see the ‘old port’ (broken down concrete structures that could be 100 or 5 years old). Beer Lao was less than £1/pint.
On our last day in Laos, Chelsea went for a full day kayaking tour around the islands, leaving Dan to read and write. A large section of the trip was completed on a tractor, which is about as quick as walking but more rattling, and advisable only if you don’t want to carry your kayak from one side of an island to another. There are many waterfalls in this part of the Mekong: the largest in Asia by volume is Khone Pha Pheng, though thankfully Chelsea was not required to kayak through it.
She drifted past Cambodian military posts on the border and took a sneaky pic, although we suspect that the blue tarp shack will not yield much in the way of military intelligence. There was a particularly unfit couple on the kayak tour, sharing one kayak while Chelsea was paired with the guide, Soot. It became clear that they had never kayaked before. Ahead of a tough stretch, the guide asked Chelsea to switch kayaks and take the ‘big man’ for the rapids, while the guide piloted his wife. Chelsea took the back seat and thus found herself acting as both power and steering through grade 2/3 rapids while our hero lay on his back in the front seat. Her arms ache today.
Meanwhile, Dan spent all day relaxing at the dubiously named ‘Torture Bar’—an agonising afternoon drinking iced lemon tea and watching the river flow by. Don Det was also the spot where we finally had a chance to swim in the Mekong, after spending three weeks travelling along it.
Don Det felt like a fitting finale for our Lao adventures. Like everywhere in Laos, it sits on the Mekong River but still manages to be extremely hot. It is astonishingly cheap; we spent around £40-50 per day for two people (our average for all of Laos was £80/day, which is the cheapest country we've visited by a good margin). It was mostly empty of tourists and you had to go on a determined crusade to get any customer service. But that aside, it is (along with Indonesia) our favourite country in Southeast Asia so far; much more laid-back and authentic than Thailand especially! Our three weeks here have been great, and we'd highly recommend it to anyone thinking about a visit—we have plenty of notes to share 🤩
Next up, Cambodia 🇰🇭➡️ Czytaj więcej
Bolaven Plateau
22–27 kwi, Laos ⋅ 🌧 39 °C
Having finished our adventures in North Laos, it was time to head down south. Reviews of the capital, Vientiane, are universally grim, confirmed by a brief taxi ride through trash-strewn neighbourhoods, so we decided to skip it and catch an overnight bus straight down to Pakse. Pakse is another former French colonial town on the Mekong River (like everywhere in Laos), though much hotter—up to 39⁰C—and with far less to do. It is however the gateway to the Bolaven Plateau Loop: a self-guided motorbiking trail around the countryside, which is Laos' answer to the (very popular) Ha Giang loop in north Vietnam. We figured we'd rather bike tour here, where there’d be fewer tourists and better opportunities for smug gap year one-upmanship in future.
Day one: the anticipated first 85km required 108km in blazing sun, due to a detour when Dan missed a turning. We visited a climate-stricken coffee plantation and got stuck for ages behind a massively overloaded cassava truck which Chelsea refused to overtake, much to Dan's chagrin Root veg was spilling onto the road in front of us, smashing like Mario Kart traps.
Eventually we arrived at our first stop, Tad Lo, exhausted and sunburnt. Turns out having your knees and forearms exposed from 10-1pm is not ideal. Dan has burnt a red patch around his watch which looks a bit like the Laos flag. We vowed to start earlier and wear long sleeves for the rest of the loop.
Day two: Now that we’d got the hang of it, we vowed no more mistakes. We had a quick ‘shower’, taking it in turns to pour a bucket of water over one another’s heads, and were raring to go. Our host promised that she'd be up at 6am to start breakfast, so we planned to be on the road by 7am to avoid the worst of the sun. She emerged groggily after 7, and our bikes were locked in the garage until she’d sold us pancakes and coffee. We got on the road after 8, and immediately took another wrong turn and 20km detour.
Around 10:30am, high up on the plateau with only miles of forest in sight, clouds began to gather. Then a lightning strike. Moments later, we were in the middle of a torrential downpour. What happened to 'hottest time of year'?! The only long trousers Dan had brought on the loop were his pyjama bottoms, which he was wearing to protect his legs from the sun. They got nicely soaked before we pulled over for 'pop mie' (instant noodles), and contemplated the deluge while a small child tried to stab Chelsea in the leg with a fork.
The rain also turned all unsealed roads into mud slides. This wasn't a problem for most of the journey, but the last stretch to our second farmstay was a dirt road. We skidded our bikes over in puddles three times (luckily no major injuries), Dan plunging shoes and PJ bottoms into the mud while Chelsea muttered darkly about sprained ankles and never leaving the house again. We were very relieved to dry out indoors on arrival at ‘Shared Happy Farm’, aided by pets and some scorpion whisky we’d wisely packed.
Day three: Surely we’d get it right on our last day! The plan was an 80km ride back to Pakse, with a coffee stop and a waterfall dip. After waiting out another rainstorm, we decided to make a dash while the sky was clear-ish. The local custom requires that women cover up in the waterfalls, so Chelsea wore her leggings and t-shirt into the falls... aaaand then dripped all the way back to Pakse as the last of the rain spattered against her glasses and the wind chilled her soaked clothes. Dan could only see a glimpse of Chelsea's gritted teeth in her wing mirror, and thought she was grinning. He followed cheerfully along with his soggy pyjamas flapping around his ankles, singing 'Born to be Wild' at the top of his voice.
These minor inconveniences aside, it was a really fun loop, highly recommended. Motorbikes are exciting! The rolling mountain views are incredible. The waterfalls we stopped at along the route were stunning. The food in the countryside is cheap and fresh and excellent. Dan has been stuffing his face to regain the weight he lost during his illness in Thailand. He's never going to bulk up to be a beefcake, so we're calling this 'Project Fishcake'.
...We did however spend a bit more (a whole £29!) on a plush hotel once back in town, where we could have a proper shower and sleep in mosquito-free aircon. It is unlikely that we will need to do the Ha Giang loop in Vietnam now 😅 Czytaj więcej
Vang Vieng
18–21 kwi, Laos ⋅ ☀️ 37 °C
Our second stop in Laos was the storied party town of Vang Vieng, which we felt some trepidation about given our experiences in Thailand. However, the Laos government reformed the infamous ‘tipsy tubing’ about 10 years ago and Vang Vieng is now more of an outdoor activities town these days—much more our speed.
We hired a tuktuk for a day and visited three of the Blue Lagoons with Jess and Ian, pals from the Mekong river boat. The roads were atrocious and the tuktuk has no meaningful suspension. Dan pulled a muscle in his shoulder hanging on in the tuktuk. We also had to ford a river where a bridge had collapsed, which doesn't fill you with confidence as a passenger.
At the first lagoon, Dan twisted up in the rope swing and got his hair trapped; he's still not used to dealing with flowing locks yet. Having lost two inches off the back of his head, Dan then instigated a 'lagoon crawl' starting with the first beer at 9:30am. We are now absolutely certain that Beerlao is the superior beer, despite the earnest efforts of the recently established Vang Vieng Lager.
Despite the consistently oppressive heat, we opted for a high-octane second day, hiring mountain bikes and cycling out to a couple of hike points. We were, of course, the only muppets on bicycles, sweating sunscreen into our burning eyes as locals and tourists buzzed past on scooters. We attempted one hike but decided that it was too overgrown and we did not want to risk becoming a UXO stat. Instead, we cycled even further out, to the famous Nam Xay hike and hauled our sorry selves up some serious elevation. We posed for the ubiquitous bike and flag shot, and hustled back down for ice cream. Chelsea crawled on all fours like a crab to protect her still-healing sprained ankle 🦀
After indulging in some much needed pool time in the afternoon, we eventually stirred our battered bodies to get massages, unwittingly signing up for more battering. The traditional Lao massage is similar to the Thai, but with some additional pretzel manoeuvring. This was particularly amusing as Dan was issued with a minuscule pair of net panties that concealed *nothing*. We also had salt body scrubs, which revealed every small cut and minor sunburn in agonising clarity. Once flayed, we cycled gingerly over to a rooftop bar, and watched as a spectacular thunderstorm moved in across the dragon’s teeth mountains, sending us scurrying indoors.
There are a couple of long travel days ahead, taking the Chinese-built bullet train to the capital, and then a 13hr overnight bus to do the same distance again to get south. Wish us luck! Czytaj więcej
Luang Prabang
10–18 kwi, Laos ⋅ ⛅ 35 °C
We've been in one spot for eight days, so have a chunky update. If you just want the SparkNotes and pretty pictures, here's a summary in 10 words: Lao New Year, beer-fuelled water fights, elephants, thunderstorms, quitting Instagram.
Luang Prabang is the former capital and royal seat of Laos, and the most important cultural hub in the country. Its downtown area is almost entirely a UNESCO world heritage site. You can immediately feel the difference here compared to Thailand — almost all the buildings are single or double storey, with wooden cladding and roof tiles, traditional architecture and a terracotta and cream colour scheme. It's very nice! Dan embraced the beauty of the place by immediately blocking the toilet with a large deposit as soon as we arrived. He was too embarrassed to ask the staff for help within five minutes of checking in, so filled up the plastic bin with water from the sink and managed to flush it manually after several tries. Little did we know, it was the first of many buckets of water we'd be throwing this week...
On our second day in Luang Prabang, we went to a shop on the high street to book an Elephant Village tour. The high street was quite chaotic; Laos holds its New Year celebrations (Pi Mai) on April 14-16, and the best place to be is Luang Prabang. Pi Mai is the equivalent of Songkran in Thailand: the world's biggest water fight. The city centre was gearing up for it days beforehand, with military-grade water blasters on sale in all the street stalls. So all the high street shops set up tables where punters can drink beer, refill their water guns from huge barrels, and get completely soaked. In the spirit of Pi Mai hospitality, the staff at Elephant Village invited us for a drink and snacks with them after we'd booked. We went into the back room with them for a quick, polite drink, and stumbled out four hours later (still in full daylight). It turns out Lao people love giving free beer to guests at New Year. This was on the 12th; the party hadn't even started properly yet.
The closer it got to Pi Mai, the more hectic the city became. Hordes of people race around the city on scooters and mopeds (up to five people per bike), wielding their water guns, faces covered in red and white flour, like a budget Mad Max reenactment. They will squirt anyone indiscriminately, so you have to keep your valuables in plastic bags. There are also flatbed trucks driving around with full paddling pools in the back, full of more kids with guns and buckets. In return, shop owners and their families will fire hosepipes back at pedestrians or vehicles. This seems dangerous for the overloaded scooters, but everyone appears to be having fun so we tried not to think too hard about it. The shops also have industrial speakers hooked up to blast out Lao club music at deafening volume (every shop plays something different, in close proximity). Everyone is getting drunk throughout; it's bonkers.
Luckily for us, our friends at the Elephant Village tourist shop invited us back to join them for another session during the festival proper. It meant we had a base to keep our bags dry in relative safety, and also a near-unlimited supply of free beer. We invested in some big water guns of our own and took a stand on the street to terrorise all passersby. It's surprising how quickly a big gun makes you give up any pretense of following the Geneva convention. We even had a small army of child soldiers armed with buckets, for whom we provided cover while they darted out and fully drenched our worst enemies. These included people with neatly groomed hair, those with any dry clothes remaining, those unwisely trying to film the festivities on their phones, and groups of Americans wearing matching Hawaiian shirts.
Aside from Pi Mai, we also crammed in a bunch of other activities during our eight-day stay. The Elephant Village tour — an ethical sanctuary where we could feed and wash rescued elephants — was really special. Even if we were extremely hungover and one elephant did shit in the river upstream of Dan so it coated his legs as it flowed past.
We went to a night market to watch 'Miss Pi Mai', where girls from across Laos compete in a sort of beauty pageant to decide who gets the honour of riding the tiger (not a euphemism) at the big parade. The rabid screaming of the supporters and their vuvuzelas was a bit incongruous, considering this was a painfully slow procession of identically-dressed women for three hours. We skipped out after 45 minutes to get Lao BBQ skewers for dinner which, FYI, are maybe the best food discovery of the year so far (and only 30p each).
On the final night of Pi Mai we went to a slightly more upmarket hotel restaurant for their daily screening of 'Chang', a 1920s silent film about jungle life which was filmed in the area. We thought this would be relaxing after a few hectic days. In fact, the screen was right next to 500m of gridlocked Lao and Chinese teenagers, revving their engines and blasting their horns. To make matters more intense, during the first half of the film there was a flash thunderstorm, with apocalyptic winds and sideways rain that tore down palm fronds and sent bins rolling down the rapidly emptying street. The staff had a frantic rush to bring in anything not bolted down, which made it feel a bit like being in the dining room on the Titanic. The film itself was also slightly traumatic.
It’s not been all chaos and hedonism, we’ve also visited the Kuang Si waterfalls and several museums. The gold-leafed royal palace is a time capsule from the end of an empire and the UXO exhibits are extremely confronting. Laos is the most bombed country in the world per capita. Dozens of people are victims of unexploded ordinance every year, even 50 years since the American shelling ceased. One particularly brilliant museum is the Tradition Arts and Ethnography Centre, spearheading the Cultural Intellectual Property Rights Initiative to stop fast fashion brands from appropriating the heritage of the local Hmong tribes.
One last note in an already long update: we've decided to give ourselves a break from Instagram. We really enjoy writing this blog and Chelsea's monthly email newsletter. But Instagram has felt like a chore. It sucks our time and energy, we increasingly hate the content, and we're not sure who we're doing it for. Just making the decision to ditch it feels liberating already. It's a shame it took us 100 days to make the call.
We're now on a bullet train to our next stop. Updates should be back to normal frequency from now on! Czytaj więcej
Mekong River
9–10 kwi, Laos ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C
Country #7 unlocked: we've entered Laos 🇱🇦
A few weeks ago we learned that you can get a boat from the north of Thailand to Luang Prabang in Laos, following the Mekong River. We weren't originally planning to come this way, but the boat sounded very compelling so we changed our plans to include it.
Crossing over the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge at the border, the first thing we noticed was: they drive on the right! We've somehow managed to make it a quarter of the way through the year without leaving any left-hand drive countries. But now we've finally entered true alien territory. The minibus drivers here also use normal gearsticks, instead of the gross, customised, phallic ones they used in Thailand, which is a big plus.
Once we were on the boat, our job was to sit back, relax, and enjoy cruising along he Mekong for two days. We read, napped, and played many hands of Caracole with newly met Sydney-based friends Elodie & Felix (there cannot be any French people still in France, they all live in Sydney). Chelsea continued her spectacular Caracole losing streak from New Zealand, taking impossibly high scores international.
The Mekong river is one of the longest in the world, starting in the Chinese Himalayas and running through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and emptying into the sea in Vietnam. We're traveling in the dry season, so the level is fairly low, exposing a lot of terrifying looking rocks. At one point in the river, a rather worse-for-wear Hello Kitty plush doll has been tied to one of these crags, like an anime Prometheus.
Our overnight stop was in the small riverside village of Pak Beng, where we took out some currency and bought SIM cards. The currency in Laos is Kip, which is roughly 28,000 to £1. However, USD and Thai Baht are also widely accepted. We have all three currencies, but have come up with a foolproof way to decide which one to spend: shag, marry, kill.
1) Kill the Thai Baht, as we don't need it any more. Spend it as soon as possible.
2) Shag the Lao Kip. Extremely transactional, we'll use it heavily in the short term, but it doesn't have a future with us.
3) Marry the USD. Feels icky to marry an American right now, but we may need dollars in Cambodia and beyond, so we're keeping this for the long term.
On the second day we had two stops along the river, at the Pak Ou caves (only accessible by boat, full of hundreds of Buddha statues brought in by worshippers) and at Xang Hai village. Xang Hai specialises in distilling Lao whiskey, which is made from fermented sticky rice. This can hit 50% ABV, and they boost the flavour by adding various small animals to the bottles. We bought one to drink along our travels — no spoilers, but expect to see a picture of that in future updates. Czytaj więcej
PodróżnikDefinitely want to do this boat trip, looks better than Simon's suggestion of sitting on a wooden pallet for a 8 hour crossing. Lovely Laos 🇱🇦
Chiang Rai
7–9 kwi, Tajlandia ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C
The final stop of our month in Thailand was in Chiang Rai (not to be confused with the previous stop, Chiang Mai 🙃). We entered the country at one of the southernmost land borders a month ago, and Chiang Rai was the last stop before exiting from one of the northernmost border posts (see our next post for a watery border crossing).
The city itself is quite small, but its economy is clearly adapted for backpackers and tourists. There are a lot of western-coded bars (Steve’s Hangover Bar, Siam Corner, etc) and international restaurants. The markets are mostly full of souvenirs and mass-produced clothes made in China. The major temples are apparently exceptional examples of contemporary spiritual art and seem heavily geared for tourists and photo ops. That said, we definitely took advantage: Dan got some new clothes, we enjoyed a rare Italian dinner (a traitorous decision on our last night in Thailand), and visiting the modern temples was a *UNIQUE* experience.
The two big landmarks in Chiang Rai are the Blue Temple and the White Temple. Both are relatively modern, and that means the decor is extremely strange (or, at least, not what we expect when we think ‘Buddhist temple’). The Blue Temple is surrounded by a large car park, and is full of what appear to be AI-generated portraits of the Buddha, as well as huge fibreglass statues covered in skulls. It feels like a Disneyland parody of Buddhism.
The White Temple, somehow, managed to be even stranger. It was designed by 'nationally renowned artist', Chalermchai Kositpipat, who accepts no donations over £250 so that his artistic vision remains untainted by big donors. His vision is so untainted that it is blinding. The whole place is incredibly intricately adorned and startlingly white, with tiny mirrors embedded in the plaster, so that it looks like a bleached coral reef on land. To enter, you cross a bridge between two massive fangs, over a pool full of demonic grasping hands. A recorded voice shouts ‘Do not stop on the bridge, please keep moving’ in English, French, Spanish, German and Mandarin, on repeat, at volume. Very spiritually profound. Once inside, the real fun begins: the deep red interior is overlaid with a mural of Buddhist symbology and religious figures interacting with various icons of Western pop culture, including Yoda, the Terminator, Harry Potter, Spiderman, the Minions, Pokémon, Angry Birds, Michael Jackson, and many more. It’s like stepping into a twentieth century pop culture-themed vagina. To really bring the point home, the mural also includes a painting of the 9/11 attacks, the planes soaring out of oil wells. We snuck a photo on the assumption that the spiritual purity of the place couldn’t be any more sullied than it is by MJ moonwalking across the back of a guardian naga serpent while the War on Terror begins.
For regular readers, you may remember we are keeping a 'spiciness index' for each country we visit. We can now include Thailand too. In descending order:
- Malaysia: 9/10
- Indonesia: 8/10
- Thailand: 7/10
- Singapore: 4/10
- Timor-Leste: 4/10
- Australia: 0/10
Our overall review of Thailand: there are some really beautiful areas of this country, the food is delicious, and it's very affordable. However, we struggled to get past how touristy a lot of it is. Obviously we are tourists, but we prefer places that arent entirely oriented to providing for our needs - we want to have to learn a little of the local language, be forced to figure out how things work, not totally mollycoddled. We often found ourselves among crowds of visitors, overwhelmingly white, which made a lot of the experiences feel inauthentically adapted for a Western gaze. There is clearly a richness to Thai culture which we caught glimpses of in the quieter areas, especially Ayutthaya and Chiang Mai, but often it gets obscured by the easy, western-friendly hospitality industry. For a relaxing family holiday or a beach resort break, it is surely one of the best places in the world. But for a more involved backpacking trip where we want to be immersed in the local culture, it left something to be desired. We much preferred Indonesia by comparison! It will be interesting to see how the rest of Southeast Asia compares... we'll report back over the next few weeks. Czytaj więcej
Chiang Mai
4–7 kwi, Tajlandia ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C
We weren't originally planning to come to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, and didn't know anything about it except that the air quality is often abysmal during the burning season, when farmers set their fields alight to clear dead crops. However, the city shares its name with Chelsea's favourite Thai restaurant back in Oxford, and since we have a pretty flexible itinerary this year, that was enough justification to make the trip. We booked a nicer hotel with a pool, so that if the air was awful we could just hang out there instead.
We didn't need to worry though! Chiang Mai is perhaps our favourite place we've visited in Thailand so far. We have been quite lucky to arrive in a good year when the smog from the burning season is minimal. And since we were able to go outside without gas masks on, it meant we had plenty of time to appreciate Thailand's second biggest city.
We started with an evening food tour of the Chiang Mai night markets, where we finally managed to get some properly spicy Thai food. We also took the opportunity to try durian fruit, which we had been both dreading and looking forward to for a while. This fruit is so smelly, it is banned on all public transport in Southeast Asia and you have to eat it with plastic gloves on so it doesn't get under your nails and stink up your life for days. It is an acquired taste, but people in Asia go crazy for it — you can get durian ice cream, durian coffee, durian cake. It can't be grown in China, so you see busloads of Chinese tourists visiting Thailand just to eat different types of durian. A Chinese national was arrested last year with a suitcase full of Thai soil, trying to take it back to China to work out how they could grow the fruit there and start a local industry. We were warned that 90% of locals like the fruit, whereas 90% of western tourists find it disgusting. Unfortunately, however much we wanted to be "not like other tourists", we did also find it repulsive. But it was worth a try!
Next day, we took a day tour of Doi Suthep, a temple on the hillside just outside town. We were the only ones on the bus — we've finally made it past the overcrowded parts of southern Thailand! Doi Suthep temple, the 'hidden temple' at Pha Lat, and Wat Chedi Luang in the city centre were so much more peaceful and pristine than any of the temples we visited in Bangkok. It's really beautiful up here, and much less touristy. Chiang Mai has definitely improved our overall perspective on Thailand.
We also had a chance to walk up the 'sticky waterfall' at Buathong. This runs over porous limestone, meaning the rock is very grippy, and you can walk uphill through it in bare feet. Chelsea was pleasantly surprised (heroic) and managed it even with her recovering (deeply bruised) ankle. Maybe it wasn't so bad and she's just been a crybaby about it the whole time, or perhaps she’s pushing through the pain due to FOMO.
Even though we've been enjoying Thai food for 90% of our meals, we did get very excited to find a good quality Middle Eastern restaurant called ‘Hummus’. Perhaps TOO excited. In our enthusiasm, we ordered so much food for lunch that they had to pull two tables together to make enough space for it all 🫃 By the time we had eaten a large meal's worth of falafel and labneh, they were still bringing out more dishes that we forgot we had ordered. Clearly we didn't realise the level of our chickpea withdrawal symptoms.
Lastly, we made sure to get tickets to a Muay Thai show on Saturday night. Muay Thai is the national sport: a martial art that is like boxing, but with shins, elbows, knees and feet involved too. Basically, you can hit your opponent anywhere except the groin, with any part of your body. Some of the fights were fairly poised and strategic (the women and the leaner men), and some were just slugging it out (bigger lads, and the title fight). It was terrifying and also very impressive. We consistently backed the wrong fighter in every bout, discovering our total ignorance of this extremely athletic sport and witnessing several knockouts plus a fair bit of blood.
We're currently on the bus to our final stop in Thailand, with a big doggy bag full of hummus for the journey... stay tuned! Czytaj więcej
Ayutthaya
2–4 kwi, Tajlandia ⋅ ☁️ 34 °C
Leaving Bangkok to head north is like entering another country: quiet, calm, dignified. Southern Thailand was an education, but arriving in Ayutthaya provided actual, physical relief. You don’t realise how much you’re bracing against the noise, pollution, and odour until it lifts. All this to say, we loved Ayutthaya.
As the former capital circa ~1380, it is chocka with ancient ruins connected by wide, empty streets. Dan found a gorgeous little oasis of a hotel, and after some much-needed reading time, we jumped straight on a river tour around the island city to visit three of the ancient sites. We were permitted to wander around both working and defunct temples, seeing the daily working and prayer of the Buddhist monks. After a sunset exploring Wat Chaiwatthanaram, we had a swim and then the first truly spicy curry of our time in Thailand.
It wasn’t all plain sailing. After complaining about repetitive Spotify playlists in Bangkok, our restaurant in Ayutthaya decided to go one better: a single song on loop. Our meal was accompanied by 23 consecutive, uninterrupted plays of ‘Drive’ by The Cars.
The following morning we borrowed bicycles, chuffed to add a new mode of transport to our trip log. It was, however, an extremely muggy day, and we arrived very sticky to each consecutive Wat (four almost indistinguishable ancient temple ruins). There was one stand-out, a temple ruin populated by an army of chicken statues, Buddha as wing commander.
We only stayed one night in Ayutthaya, using it to break up our long journey northward. We are writing this entry at 5am from Chiang Mai, having caught an overnight train, this one with actual berths! Not much sleep in the rattling bunk, but it was very clean and at least one of us could stretch out (Dan was curled up tight and had to be hurriedly shaken awake on arrival). We’ll be in one place for a few nights now, and very much looking forward to catching up on laundry, calls with friends, and adding to our reading tally. Czytaj więcej
Bangkok
30 mar–2 kwi, Tajlandia ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C
Bangkok is a weird place. In some ways, we found it surprisingly modern and relaxed, considering it's an Asian city of 17 million people that has just been through an earthquake. On the other hand, if you scratch below the surface you can definitely find exactly the kind of chaotic seediness that it is famous for.
We arrived at 4am after an uncomfortable overnight train, with Chelsea still suffering from the Koh Tao gastro. Unable to check into our hostel until at least 12:30, we had to just sit in the lobby and try to nap on the hard chairs. This was made worse because we were staying in an absolutely bizarre place: an outer space-themed backpacker hostel, with bunks designed to look like pods on a spaceship and alien decorations everywhere. The man behind the desk had a playlist of about six songs (mostly Bieber) that played on a loop for hours. It also, inexplicably, smelled of BBQ sauce everywhere. We thought the space pods would be funny, before we knew we would be sick, and regretted it immediately when we arrived. Hard to imagine anything worse than being trapped in a claustrophobic airlock in the middle of the night when you are desperate to "evacuate". We stared into the void, and we did not like it, so we booked another hotel and returned to planet earth.
After a good night's sleep in a comfortable bed, Chelsea was back to full strength, so we were finally able to get out and explore Bangkok. We took a river boat (very cheap, excellent public transport option!) to Wat Pho, to see the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, and then caught a tuktuk (more expensive but great fun) to Chinatown — the largest in the world. The stalls were filled with exactly the kind of unexplainable, alien stuff that you expect in a Chinatown, but we did also find a small road with cute, indie cocktail bars to spend the evening.
The next day we caught another river boat to the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha, and watched a traditional dance show at the Royal Theatre, before meeting an old friend of Dan's for happy hour drinks. Chelsea likes to think she's the globe -trotting one with the international friendship web, but this time it was one of Dan's old uni contacts from his year abroad in Canada that we caught up with. So that's one in the eye for Chelsea and her Rhodes network.
Later, we all went to Patpong Night Market (the red light district), which was... enlightening. This was the seedy Bangkok that we had been expecting, full of ladyboys and sex workers and gross old white men looking for various kinds of service. We knew it couldn't all be efficient public transport and beautiful monuments! The drag show we watched was extremely impressive, while other parts of the district were a lot less so. All in all, a worthwhile cultural visit, but perhaps not somewhere we're desperate to go back to! 🙃
On the plus side, it feels like we've finally left 'White Lotus resort Thailand', and accessed something a bit less polished. We're looking forward to what North Thailand has to offer over the next week or so! Czytaj więcej
Koh Tao
26–29 mar, Tajlandia ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C
Strap in for a dramatic update. We left Koh Phangan with high hopes for our three nights on the next island, Koh Tao, but got more, and less, than we bargained for.
It all started so well. Arriving in the afternoon, we checked into our hostel, the 'White Jail'. We're not sure if this is because of the building design, or because it's where white people get trapped on the island - based on our experience, both could be true. The dorm has helpful signs that say things like 'good prisoner', but don't clarify anything.
We enjoyed some cheap rum and coke at a rickety, reggae-themed bar made of driftwood, then found somewhere with a beach view to enjoy the sunset. After that, we got dinner at a Thai restaurant where the server decided to put on a wig and lipsync to YouTube videos of Whitney Houston after midnight. So far, so good.
The next day was fairly uneventful as we read our books and nursed mild hangovers. But luckily, we knew we had two more full days to enjoy the delights of Koh Tao - the viewpoints, the beaches, the scuba diving. What could go wrong?
Well, before dinner Chelsea slipped off a 1-inch ledge and damaged her ankle so badly that we had to take a taxi to the emergency clinic. The x-ray showed it was just a sprain, not fractured, but it was still swollen and bruised to the size of an impressive ALDI sweet potato. Dan gallantly provided a piggy back to return to the hostel, joking that he would spend the next day exploring the island without her.
In fact, the next morning Dan was assaulted with an awful case of gastro and was bed-bound all day. Meaning between us we were almost entirely incapacitated. A true White Jail experience.
While we were in lockup, we also had news of the huge earthquake in Myanmar, which affected Bangkok (our next destination). This led to some hasty planning, to decide whether we could/should still go, or whether to stay longer in our island prison. The latter didn't seem very appetising, since lots of other people in the hostel were also sick, and there was going to be an all-day power outage which would mean no aircon or flushing toilets (less than ideal during a gastro episode). We'd also lose a bunch of money on non-refundable transport and accommodation if we changed plans.
In the expectation that Dan would revive, we decided to plough on and leave Koh Tao for the mainland. We were correct that Dan would feel better after 24 hours. The only problem was that now, during the power outage and ahead of a long travel leg, Chelsea developed the gastro too.
We're writing this update in good spirits but very poor physical condition from the overnight train up the spine of Thailand. Annoyingly, Dan is now mostly fine while Chelsea has BOTH a strapped ankle and gastro. Overall, it's fair to say our trip to Koh Tao was a complete failure - but hey ho! See you in Bangkok. Czytaj więcej
PodróżnikSorry for the ankle and gut problems but I'm pleased to know you weren't caught up in the earthquake. Feel better!
PodróżnikThanks, Louis! All is well and we have friends in Bangkok if anything changes.
PodróżnikHope you're feeling better soon love! Unavoidable really...bound to happen at some point and its always when you have a long journey to get through 🙄
Koh Phangan
24–26 mar, Tajlandia ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C
Not yet done with sea and sand, we have spent the last couple of days on Koh Phangan, the island most famous for its full moon party, which we avoided entirely by being there on a quiet week and on the other side of the island. We are all partied out for Thailand 🫠
The transfer from Khao Sok to Koh Phangan heralded a South East Asia first: Dan finally got enough leg room on the bus! (See photo).
Our two days on Koh Phangan gave us time for a lightning visit, so we got up relatively early for a hike up to the highest point on the island at Khao Ra. Pulling out his hiking shoes, Dan discovered the lost wallet from two weeks ago, which he must have ‘cleverly’ stowed in his boot on the night out in Ao Nang and then forgotten about in the morning. Needless to say, everything in it is now useless: all the cards have been cancelled, a new driving license is already on its way, and the padlock key is pointless as we used bolt-cutters to destroy the lock. But at least his masculinity is restored and he no longer has to carry random loose notes in his pockets when Chelsea occasionally entrusts him with cash.
The Khao Ra hike was 3km uphill and then 3km back down the same way. Even starting early, the heat and humidity were intense, and we sweated buckets. The hike was made more complicated by the presence of a large, black Labrador puppy, with no obvious owner, who followed us and some Russian hikers all the way up and down the hill. They gave her the zippy nickname ‘Chernokozhiy’. This was all fun and games until the dog inexplicably decided it was time to attack Chelsea's shoes and prevent her from walking, and wouldn't be deterred by stern warnings or physical restraint. She was very happy to bite our hands playfully when we pushed her away, loving the ‘game’. We spent about 20 minutes getting increasingly concerned (including a real worry that this dog might give us rabies or tetanus). Eventually Chelsea had to concede we needed help and Dan went to ask the Russians for assistance, who arrived only to find the menace had calmed down and was innocently tearing apart an abandoned shirt. Gaslighting masterclass.
We are getting better on motorbikes, although Chelsea did manage to tip hers over, very slowly, on an incline at the Khao Ra carpark. Humiliatingly, this also required the assistance of the spectating Russians. Like Western Europe in 2022, we found we relied too much on their resources, and have been humbled.
After the hike, we rode our bikes around the island to recover at an Israeli-dominated beach at Srithanu. Dan’s Saturday school knowledge of the Hebrew for ‘fish’ surprisingly useful in this unique setting. The west side of Koh Phangan has loads of Israeli tourists, with quite a lot of raves advertised in Hebrew. More significantly, this meant this was the first time since we left Australia that we have seen hummus and falafel for sale. After two months of rice and prawns, no political tension could stop us from indulging our base desire for chickpea products.
Lastly, in the evening we bought supermarket beers to enjoy sunset at our hostel. The ranking of Thai beers goes:
- #1, Singha (⭐⭐⭐⭐)
- #2, Chang (⭐⭐⭐✨)
- #3, Leo (⭐⭐)
Our good luck so far this year with hostels finally hit a snag. Chelsea was on a bottom bunk, which made a repetitive creaking noise and slight movement for the entire night. We thought the man above her was wanking, but he appeared to be lying perfectly still, and surely couldn't keep it up for 10hrs straight without a medical emergency. However, in the morning he left and we tried to find out what was wrong with the bed, but couldn't find the fault. The mastur-mystery remains unsolved.
Two final thoughts:
1) We found an electric scale outside a pharmacy and discovered that Dan has managed to lose around 3-4kg while travelling. This explains the presence of so many rib shadows in all our photos.
2) The Thai language has two words you can put after a sentence to indicate politeness, based on the gender of the person you're speaking to: "khat" for men, "kaa" for women. But you have to know someone’s gender to get this right, obviously. This feels like a genius linguistic prank in a country where there are more gender-ambiguous people working in hospitality than anywhere else in the world - it's a misgendering minefield! 😅
10/10, Thailand, keep us on our toes!
More island adventures to come in a few days time... Czytaj więcej
Khao Sok
21–24 mar, Tajlandia ⋅ 🌙 26 °C
Being back on dry land has left us a bit discombobulated, so we decided on a slow reacquaintance with stable accom and booked a night in a floating bungalow in Khao Sok National Park on the Ratchaprapha Lake.
We narrowly avoided missing our transfer after our dive trip thanks to the chaotic driving of a hastily negotiated taxi. Our driver, demurely veiled, insisted she both loved the English and that if an Englishman who had promised to marry her abandoned her she would ‘box him.’ Chelsea agreed this seemed fair. She handed out dainty chiffon cakes while careering across the twilit roads and we made it to our transfer location slightly late, but still a minute ahead of the shuttle.
Trips to the floating bungalows are bookended by a stay in Khao Sok town itself, which heaves with daytrippers between 3pm and 9am as sweaty tourists are shuttled to and from the pier. Once at the bungalows we had an afternoon messing about in the water with Molly and Jack, newly met friends from London, and Jack and Dan demonstrated that you *can* do a forward flip into the lake after three large Changs, but you must do a funny little run beforehand (see video).
The lake itself is man-made. In the late 80s the Thai government built a dam to generate hydropower for the as yet undeveloped southern Thailand, and today the dam hosts gorgeous floating bungalows and eerie trees amid the island tops of what used to be mountains.
At what point does a mountain become an island? This was one of many lofty questions we hazily contemplated as we finished off our hash brownie supply. Chelsea went for a kayak and came up on the lake, which was a *time*.
Returned to Khao Sok village for a catch up with Jess and Jason in the UK, who we'll cross paths with in Vietnam in May. It’s great being on the road and meeting new people, but the prospect of a few days with close friends is like a conversational oasis in a desert of ‘so where are you from?’ smalltalk.
Before leaving on our next transport leg, Chelsea indulged in an absolutely enormous paradise crepe (a crepe filled with watermelon, mango, pineapple and banana), and accidentally sprayed maple syrup on her hands and shorts. We're posting this from the bus, onto which we were ushered quickly (and sticky-ly) to make our way to the east coast of Thailand. We're booking less than a week in advance at the moment, and the results have been a mixed bag: we won’t actually have berths on the overnight train next week because we didn’t book soon enough, but the flexibility is often worth it to allow us to stay longer in great places. More island time coming up! Czytaj więcej
Andaman Sea
15–21 mar, Andaman Sea ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C
We finally got around to our only pre-planned 'big ticket item' for the year: a week-long scuba diving trip around the Andaman Sea. Whereas most of the year is fairly unscheduled and flexible, this was one thing that we booked in advance about six months ago, so a lot of our timings for the first months of 2025 have been working towards this milestone.
We caught a ferry from Koh Yao Noi across to Phuket and, after a quick detour for replacement toiletries, boarded the 'Gentle Giant' liveaboard which would be our home for the next week.
Dan went to the toilet as soon as we boarded, only to find out immediately that it wouldn't flush, and also that we're not meant to flush toilet paper on the boat. So he went back to fish out the offending paper, and then tried to fix the plumbing too. Meanwhile, the crew were preparing a traditional 'good luck' ritual for the boat, consisting of fireworks set off right outside our cabin door. So while Dan was crouched behind a befouled toilet, fingers still wet, trying to work out why the cistern wouldn't refill, he was suddenly victim of what seemed like a terrorist attack or catastrophic maritime explosion.
The good luck charm clearly worked in the long run though, because they fixed our toilet and there were no more explosions for the rest of the week.
Some notes on our fellow passengers: there were a bunch of Europeans, a couple of Chinese, and four Israelis (including a white dreadlocked girl and a stacked guy who we theorised was her bodyguard). Thailand is full of Russians and Israelis, which makes it feel a bit like neutral Switzerland during WW2. Our main enemy on board was the Chinese man who was diving in our group. He was bald, but wore a fake Rastafari swimming cap, and swimshorts that said 'Wang' all over them with pictures of pugs. He also swam aggressively after every fish in the ocean, scaring them all away, with all the energy of an idiot chasing sheep in a field. Basically, what we've learned is: inappropriate dreadlocks = 100% confirmed evil.
In between these cartoon villain episodes, we actually had some incredible diving all up and down Thailand's west coast. We covered Hin Daeng, Koh Haa, Phi Phi, the Similans, Koh Bon, Tachai, and finished at Richelieu Rock. Those won't mean much to anyone who's not familiar with Thai diving, but suffice to say it's a lot. Of the 22 scheduled dives across six days, we managed 20, with just two respite breaks.
The sea conditions were excellent for 90% of the trip, with visibility of >30m, no strong surge, current or waves, and temperatures consistently at 29-30⁰C. Chelsea did all the diving in just a rash vest, no wetsuit. The only exceptions to the perfect conditions were one dive where we had to rapidly swim away from a huge dust cloud of cold water, along with all the other fish in the ocean, which was quite intense. And then on the final night, we hit very rough seas on our way to Richelieu Rock, which rocked the boat so hard all night that Chelsea started making Titanic-style survival plans. We tried to sleep, but spent the night being thrown from one side of the bed to the other. No sea-sickness as we seemingly have cast iron stomachs, but a sensible amount of fearing for our lives as the waves crashed against our cabin door.
Here's a partial list of the stuff we saw on the dives:
- Turtles!
- Sting rays!
- Eels!
- Sharks!
- Seahorses!
- Groupers!
- Clownfish!
- Barracuda!
- Sea urchins!
- Trevally!
- Cuttlefish!
- Crabs!
- Sea cucumbers!
- Puffer fish!
- Lobsters!
- Squid!
- Starfish!
- Anemones!
- Batfish!
- Shrimp!
- Nudibranches!
- Lionfish!
- Stunning coral!
- Huge underwater boulders!
- Shipwrecks!
...and much, much more.
We're now thoroughly exhausted, and have only just managed to avoid missing our transfer, to the next stop, but it has been refreshing to spend six nights in one room for once. Now, we're back on the road - and with no more milestone experiences booked in the months ahead. The adventure continues... Czytaj więcej
Koh Yao Noi
13–15 mar, Tajlandia ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C
After party central in Ao Nang, we wanted somewhere a bit more relaxed for a couple of days. That meant we needed to avoid the more popular spots around Krabi and Phuket, so on some good advice from Dan's parents, we caught a speed ferry to Koh Yao Noi. This is about halfway between the two party towns, but surprisingly quiet and off the tourist radar. It is majority Muslim, meaning there has been a strong push from the local community to avoid it becoming a boozing zone, although they are happy to welcome visitors who are looking for a more relaxed atmosphere—just the spot for our hangover recovery! We also have a big adventure coming up (more info in our next update in a few days), so this was a necessary pause.
There's no public transport on Koh Yao Noi. Rather than spending unnecessarily on taxis, we decided it was a good time to practice our motorbike skills, in case we need them later in Southeast Asia. This was probably a good decision, because we clearly need some practice (both as drivers and passengers). Going from 'stationary' to 'moving' was a challenge. Dan nearly zoomed into a pond, Chelsea was consistently confused by her left and right. We'll need more experience to get accustomed to the controls and manoeuvres. Either the speedometer was broken, or we never went fast enough to register more than 0kmh... very emasculating. But with our extremely brief riding experience, we now feel totally prepared for the wild streets of Bangkok and Hanoi 🙃
Chelsea visited a yoga retreat for a drop-in session and then we drove, precariously, to a secluded beach where we both read about half of our current novels. We are at least getting through loads of books!
The main benefit of Koh Yao Noi has been a respite. We probably should have spent one more night here and one fewer in Ao Nang, but hey ho. One of the challenges of this gap year—something neither of us has done before—is working out how to pace ourselves. The lack of routine, the constant movement, the mixed levels of comfort, all catch up with you even while you're ostensibly having fun.
We're also thinking a lot about what it means to be productive while we travel. Should we be trying to 'achieve' something, or is the trip an end in itself? If we spend a whole day reading instead of 'doing something', does that mean the day has been wasted, or well spent? What does it mean to have been to a place—do you need to 'complete' it? How do we keep a generous mindset so that we appreciate all the things we are doing, rather than regretting the things we've missed?
We have the next couple of stops planned due to advance bookings, and then from March 23 we're into the unknown: no more landmark dates in the calendar for the rest of the year. Wish us luck! Czytaj więcej
PodróżnikI can't speak for Hanoi but a motorbike in Bangkok will be terrifying - be careful please 💕 to be fair, I can't even ride a regular bike and crashed my moped in Myanmar 😂 so maybe I'm not the best judge!
Ao Nang
10–13 mar, Tajlandia ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C
New country alert: Thailand! We swapped the cultural calm of Penang for the chaotic crass of Ao Nang, with about 11 hours on various buses to cross from Malaysia to Thailand. On the Malaysian side, what should have been a 4-hour journey was cut to 2.5 by the driver’s refusal to stop at red lights or proceed below 140km/hr.
Fortunately immigration was extremely chill. We had been moderately worried (and did not tell our parents) as there was an insurgency bombing at a nearby border town the day before, but the revolutionaries of Songkhla gave us a clear run through. Dan did find a large, sharp knife hidden in the overhead storage on the bus, which we carefully ignored.
Someone told us Krabi was better than Phuket, more chill, less touristy, but no one has told the Ao Nang clubs that. (Unless Phuket is actually worse?! Heaven forfend). We picked a cheaper, 'party hostel', who were very insistent that they are only for under 35s who are keen for debauchery. We figured, how bad can it be? In summary: you access the hostel through 4 bars and a drag club. Bass thrums through the bunk bed until 3am, every single night. The shared bathrooms double as nightclub bathrooms during the evening, so if you're not partying then you have to queue for a midnight piss between drunk teenagers. Overall, it's a slight departure from our backpacking experience so far!
We launched ourselves into the spirit of things and joined a pub crawl as soon as we arrived in Ao Nang, on which we were the oldest people by 5 years. Dan lost his wallet, Chelsea lost Dan for a bit, and we ended the night crawling into bed around 4am, very much part of the problem. (Fortunately the wallet didn't contain much of value, so this isn't a crisis — don't worry, parents!)
We spent a lovely recovery afternoon visiting our jungle trekking friends Jess and Nathan at their resort pool on Railay Beach, and in the evening Chelsea got reacquainted with her beloved Pad Kee Mao: spicy drunken noodles. Our final day in Ao Nang we bought hash brownies (weed is lethal in Thailand) and had an *extremely* slow day on the beach, before sneaking into Jess & Nate’s resort again to make use of the loos and pool. Also enjoyed the freshest curry of our lives at Railay, and various treats at the famous Ao Nang night market 🤤
We also both had our bones rearranged via traditional Thai massage, and did a little shopping as well. Now, having proven to ourselves that we can still (just about) keep up with the kids and make silly decisions under the influence, we're going somewhere a bit less hectic. This morning we hopped on a speed boat to our next destination: a tiny, quiet, party-free island, inshallah. Czytaj więcej
Penang
7–10 mar, Malezja ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C
Kuala Lumpur is a shopping mall on steroids, and we were a little concerned that Penang might be more of the same. In fact, this city ended up being one of our favourite places in Southeast Asia so far.
The city is split across both sides of the Penang Strait, with the old British colonial centre of George Town on an island just off the coast. This is the food and culture capital of Malaysia, and you can feel the difference to KL as you walk around. It's full of street art, carved balconies, cosy cafes, craft vendors, ornate wooden doors, bars and restaurants tucked in side alleys. In the evenings the old town comes alive with neon signs, plastic tables and wafts of smoke from the food carts. Chelsea has decided her new favourite dish is 'char kway teow', although she has failed to pronounce it correctly even once (much to her chagrin).
On night one we risked some chef-recommended desserts from a local café. Dan's 'see guo tang' was a syrupy soup with lychee, jelly and tapioca bubbles, which was... fine. Chelsea ordered 'ice kachang', which had a scoop of ice cream, pink shaved ice and peanuts (all plausible ingredients so far), plus black jelly lumps, kidney beans, and creamed corn. Not so great. You can see our reactions in the montage photo.
The next morning we took a food tour—our new favourite activity—and stuffed ourselves full of local delicacies with a proper guide who could tell us what would actually taste good. We've started a ranking system for which country has the spiciest food, and Malaysia gets a 7/10, with its Sichuan Chinese influence pushing the score up. We'll update as we go along. After five courses in three hours, we just about managed to waddle around town for the rest of the afternoon.
The next morning we got up early to beat the heat and hike up Penang Hill. The 2.5km distance is deceptive; this is all uphill, mostly on unrelenting flights of steps. We were very proud to blitz past hundreds of other hikers on the way up, although it was extremely sweaty work. Reaching the top, we realised how delirious this effort had made us: Chelsea burst into uncontrollable laughter at a café menu with the phrase "egg on bed". Is this really a side-splitting joke? Let us know in the comments.
Our last activity was the most scenic, as we walked over to Kek Long Si temple. We fed the resident turtles, wandered around the beautiful shrines/shops (there is clearly less of a distinction between religion and commerce in Buddhism!), and picked up a small souvenir of our time in Malaysia.
We're very happy with our budgeting since Singapore. Our five days in Malaysia have cost us just £86/day total, largely because we haven't taken any flights or expensive activities. We're hoping to maintain these cost savings over the next three months in Southeast Asia, which will leave a bit more leeway in the budget for Japan and Europe later. Happy to discuss how we've managed the money with anyone interested.
For now, we're blasting along the national highway in a rogue minibus at 140kmh on our way to Thailand. See you soon! Czytaj więcej
Kuala Lumpur
5–7 mar, Malezja ⋅ 🌩️ 32 °C
The Malaysian leg started with a 6hr bus from Singapore, including a suspiciously seamless border crossing where Dan didn't get a stamp in his passport... we'll find out whether this was significant when we try to cross into Thailand. Arriving in Kuala Lumpur, we immediately realised we'd been scammed by a fake hotel booking website, who had charged us more than the cost of the hotel in 'service fees'. They'd have their hands chopped off in Singapore, but we don't have that level of nanny-state protection anymore. More's the pity 🥲
Kuala Lumpur has a population of just under 9 million people (to Singapore's paltry 6 million), and you can feel the difference as you come in. The skyscrapers are much more intense, the highways are broader, and all the routes are tangled together in a web of overpasses and underpasses. They even have a monorail network, which we were unfortunate to not have a chance to ride. The major landmark is the Petronas Towers, a pair of twin 'postmodern islamic' towers that were the world's tallest buildings from 1996 to 2004. Now, they are about to be overshadowed by Merdeka 118, which will be the world's #2 tower behind Dubai's Burj Khalifa when it officially opens later this year. At the same time, in the centre of KL there were a lot more homeless people and beggars, more hawkers on the pavements, more dirt and dereliction. It's all very cyberpunk, techno dystopian. It felt much closer to how we imagined China than Southeast Asia.
KL was not somewhere we intended to spend much time. It has some big landmarks, but the main reason people come here is for the shopping opportunities. We did explore a couple of the major malls, which were EXTREMELY large and labyrinthine. These are malls on steroids: up to ten storeys tall, with few (if any) maps, poor signage, and zero consistency with staircases, entrances and escalators from floor to floor. They also have covered walkways between them and a monorail station running through the middle, so that in practice they all join together into one mega-mall like a kilometres-wide ant colony.
Chelsea had a brainwave for how to go swimming in the city centre; we bought day passes at a hotel with a rooftop pool, underneath the Petronas Towers. This was a good chance to get away from the crowds in the malls, read our books in peace, and also watch would-be influencers doing hours-long photoshoots.
Lastly, we wandered around Jalan Alor for dinner, which comes alive at night-time with street vendors and outdoor restaurants. Things are ramped up during Ramadan and it’s busy with people feeding up after the day’s fast. Being Muslim in the tropics is no mean feat, and the clamour for sustenance is substantial. Instead of sitting down, we picked up a few different snacks, including pani puri, doughy 'fishcakes', Thai banana pancakes, and blowtorched marshmallow ice-cream on a stick. The latter, despite sounding great, was actually quite chewy and gross; would not recommend. We still haven't worked ourselves up to trying the ominous durian fruit yet, but watch this space. At the end of the night, we went for a drink on the famous nightlife street at Changkat Bukit Bintang, where the happy hour deals run until 10pm and the promoters have to clear the sex workers off the tables to make room for punters. A lovely evening out.
Regular readers will know that in our last installment, we talked about how little went wrong in Singapore. Malaysia feels like somewhere where things can definitely go wrong—we're back in business! Stay tuned. Czytaj więcej
PodróżnikGutted the marshmallow wasn't as good as it sounded. I'd continue to steer clear of the durian if I were you 🤢
Singapore
1–5 mar, Singapur ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C
From the Sumatran jungle to the city streets of Singapore! We enjoyed a four-day stop in the 'city of lions', a misnomer as the only four-legged creatures we saw were a family of otters in the marina. Otterpore doesn’t quite work though, does it?
Singapore is a strategic trading post, finance hub, and former British colony as expensive as Sydney. Hence the brief stay. We were entertained by nation-building narrative projects at the National Museum, as well as the South East Asian solidarity of the Asian Civilisations Museum and the National Gallery. Chelsea particularly enjoyed the work of Lee Cheng Yong, Georgette Chen, and Chen Wen Hsi.
We assailed our ears in Little India, Chelsea caught up with Anja in Chinatown, and we enjoyed the chaos and culinary delights of a hawker hall. We also frequented a local café on Haji Lane that served $3.50 nasi lemak, allowing us to ‘splurge’ at dinner. We’re down to two meals a day, a financial decision with aesthetic consequences. However, one thing we have added to our diet is sweet tea in all its varieties—we have gotten firmly on the bubble tea train and seriously regret not buying stocks in Mixue.
The Singapore Botanical Gardens were excellent, before returning to town for happy hour at CHIJMES (the wedding venue in Crazy Rich Asians). We decided against a Singapore Sling at Raffles ($41pp!) because the queue was too long and it’s just silly expensive. We opted for the $10 version at a Sichuan restaurant instead, and decided we’d made the right call.
On our last night we visited the Gardens by the Bay for the light and sound display in the Supertree Grove, the ship-on-stilts of the Marina Bay Sands looming in the background. The show is pretty overwhelming with flashing LEDs and strobes, which is on brand for the region of course.
It's very hard to go wrong in Singapore. Everyone is very well-behaved, everything is well-ordered. The ongoing threat of the death penalty might contribute to that a bit. We have thoroughly enjoyed being able to rinse our toothbrushes in clean tap water and walk on pavements absent of gaping holes. But the cleanliness and clarity also means we haven't had any embarrassing adventures or mishaps since we arrived. Apologies to our loyal readers hoping for gossip.
All good things must come to an end though. For the sake of our wallets, we're on our way to Malaysia. Updates from country #5 incoming! Czytaj więcej
Sumatra
25–28 lut, Indonezja ⋅ 🌧 27 °C
Our final stop in Indonesia brought us to North Sumatra, which also took us across the equator. Our southern hemisphere adventures are over already!
With a brief overnight stop in the hectic city of Medan, we made our way to the jungle town of Bukit Lawang. There are three ways to get to Bukit Lawang: private car, shared 'tourist minibus', or public bus. We opted for the tourist minibus, which was probably the best option: our driver said that the two public bus companies are fiercely competitive, and will try to aggressively overtake their rivals when they see each other on the road. He also said they don't care about hitting pedestrians or bikers, because it's taken as the cost of doing business in their insurance. He told us all of this with a chuckle, reassuringly.
We met a (very tired) French couple who had just spent 56 hours on these public buses to travel the length of Sumatra. Chelsea took this as a cautionary tale, while Dan (inexplicably) thought it sounded like fun. Clearly he hasn't learned anything from the +20hr stints we spent on Australian coaches just last month.
The attraction of Bukit Lawang was a multi-day trek into Gunung Leuser National Park, an enormous swathe of jagged hills draped in dense rainforest. Sumatra is one of only two places in the world where wild orangutans still live (there is a bigger population in Borneo), so we spent two days hiking through the jungle and sleeping in tents for a chance to see them.
En route, we saw: gibbons, macaques, hornbills, jungle squirrels, giant geckos, and a hell of a lot of bugs. Multi-lane highways of ants and termites, hundreds of butterflies, stingless bee colonies, plenty of mosquitos and flies, strange spiders, and a handful of very friendly leeches desperate to give us a little kiss.
And of course, we also got the main attraction: orangutans! Mothers and babies, swinging through the trees, eating mushrooms and termite nests. Truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
We came out of the jungle by riding an inner tube down the river – we had no idea it was such a common form of transport before we got here. Currently we're on our way to the airport to finally leave Indonesia and move onto country #4.
Our Indonesian has come along in leaps and bounds over the last month, and luckily the language is almost identical to Malay apart from a few words, which should mean it will be useful for a couple more weeks until we get to Thailand. And then nowhere else, unless we come back in future - which is not out of the question. This is a brilliant and beautiful country, with so much to offer beyond Bali. It's bustling and chaotic and enormous, with complex multiculturalism and incredible (spicy) food – even on a vegetarian diet. The people are open, friendly and have a great sense of humour. And, of course, it's very affordable 😅 we'd highly recommend, and will happily share tips if anyone wants to visit.
For now though, aku cinta Indonesia, selamat tinggal! Czytaj więcej
Yogyakarta
18–24 lut, Indonezja ⋅ 🌧 23 °C
We have not, contrary to popular opinion, died. We've just been parked in one spot for a week. After our volcano adventures, we caught the train from Surabaya to Yogyakarta (or 'Jogja' to the locals), which is where we've been holed up since.
Sidenote: trains in Java are actually very good. It's the only part of Indonesia with a sophisticated train network, which makes sense, because Java is the world's most populous island. For context, this place has the population of Russia in a space the size of Greece 🤯 so it's no wonder the trains are decent. It wouldn't be Indonesia though without a little bit of madness sprinkled in; when we alighted at Jogja, we discovered the train doors don't line up with platform steps. So you just have to go down the train until you find somewhere you can step off, or jump down 4ft to the ground with your luggage in hand.
Jogja is the cultural heart of Indonesia, a special region with its own sultan and government, over 100 universities, a thriving arts and food scene, and many of the country's most important religious sites. It's mostly popular with domestic tourists, not foreigners, which makes it feel like a hidden gem. The national government has plans to make the city more inviting to international tourists though, so if you want to visit we would recommend doing it as soon as possible!
We've been here for six days, so in the interest of keeping this blog entry relatively concise, here is a quick rundown of our activities:
1. Visiting the world's largest Buddhist temple at Borobudur.
2. Taking a night-time food tour with a local guide (maybe our highlight?!) where we were introduced to bakpia, jamu and kopi joss, among other local treats.
3. Being lowered 60m into the abyss of Jomblang Cave by ten men with a rope.
4. River tubing at Goa Pindul (better organised this time than our adventure in Lombok). Dan jumped in from 7m, losing his watch in the process 🙃
5. Exploring the world's 5th largest Hindu temple at Prambanan, in the pouring rain.
6. Watching an Indonesian ballet performance of the Ramayana, including glorious costumes, masks, backflips, archery, and fireworks on stage.
7. A dash around the sultan's water palace, Taman Sari.
8. Shopping and eating on Malioboro and Prawirotaman Streets. Including some fresh, new Batik shirts for Dan.
9. Looking into Jogja's 'Horror museum' (spoiler alert: so bad that it's laughable, and therefore good).
We've also been slowly improving our Indonesian over the last three weeks, so we have a lot of simple phrases locked in now. Banyak Bahasa! Also 'dan' means 'and' in Indonesian, which might explain why so many people struggle to understand Dan's name.
There is a lot more international food and culture in the Jogja restaurants, which has been a welcome break from rice three times a day. At some point, we had to renege on our travel credibility and admit that we really wanted a pizza. The pizza was okay, but Nasi Goring Pesto is not a fusion to be repeated. Jogja is very multi-cultural, so there's a fair bit of western music in the cafes, especially 00s RnB for some reason – we've heard a lot more Akon, Ne-Yo and Bruno Mars than expected.
It has been really refreshing to stay in one place for a few days, after only spending max 3 nights in each location so far. Now we're revitalised and ready for the next hop, which will be our last adventure in Indonesia. Today we cross the equator. Stay tuned! Czytaj więcej
Mt Bromo & Mt Ijen
16–18 lut, Indonezja ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C
Volcanoes! That's the tl;dr summary for this post, in case you're too busy to read on.
We took a long coach ride from Denpasar to the port of Gilimanuk on the western edge of Bali, from which we could see our next island just across the water: Java. This should have been a short ferry journey (25 mins), but unfortunately the ferry decided to wait outside of the Javanese port for another 30 minutes rather than docking 😡
The arrival city was Banyuwangi, which is decidedly NOT a tourist town. Most places in Indonesia, people offer you taxi rides while you are already inside a taxi. But in Banyuwangi, we had to walk ten minutes in the midday heat and humidity before anyone would pick us up. In some ways it was nice to be in a town where the local people are just going about their lives, rather than harassing you to offer tourist services. But equally, there's basically nothing to do here. It's a stop en route to more exciting stuff – the Swindon of East Java.
Dan did manage to buy a nice pair of hippie pants, which has been a challenge so far because no clothes in Indonesia are designed for men over 5'9". Or doorways, which have been a problem for Dan's forehead.
Our stay in the stunning Banyuwangi metropolis concluded at 1am, when our guide picked us up for a tour of Mount Ijen. This was the purpose of our visit: a sunrise hike on an active volcano crater, spewing sulphur and blue fire. It is one of only two places in the world where these blue sulphurous flames are visible. Despite starting the hike at 2am and requiring a gas mask, it was surprisingly busy. We spent much of our time dodging around underprepared teenagers in Converse and puffer jackets to keep up our pace. This meant we left our guide behind many times (though he fully showed us up by walking casually through the noxious gas clouds in the crater without a mask, smoking a cigarette, while our eyes streamed from the fumes). The views (and the toxic odours) were unforgettable.
Our driver destroyed the transmission on our first vehicle doing 90km/h on tiny, steeply inclined, and heavily potholed roads, so we showered off the volcanic ash and packed into a replacement car for a long drive (8hrs on *more concerning* roads) to our next volcano: Mount Bromo. To catch a consecutive sunrise here, we had to get started at 2am. As you can imagine, our eyes are being held open by matchsticks as we write this post. Bromo doesn't require a hike to reach the summit, just a simple Jeep drive, so thankfully we could just turn up in our warm gear and wait for the sun to arrive... or so you might think. We had chosen the cheapest tour we could find online, which clearly meant we also got the worst quality vehicle(s). On the 25⁰ uphill drive (in pitch black darkness), our 4x4 broke down just around a blind corner on a switchback. Hundreds of other Jeeps barreled up behind us with their accelerators floored to maintain momentum. Fun. We're extremely grateful we did this in the low season: apparently there are over 1,000 Jeeps trying to park on the narrow mountain road every night in July.
We made it to the peak eventually in a backup vehicle, picked our spot, and hunkered down for the sunrise, sipping tea we’d brewed up in a water bottle. We'll let the pictures and videos speak for themselves. On our way back we had a quick photoshoot with the rescue Jeep on the 'sea of sands', and poked our noses into the active Bromo crater to complete the tour. Another olfactory delight.
Next stop: bed! Czytaj więcej
PodróżnikHahaha those under prepared people wearing converse were there when we went too! Such an incredible place xx
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Wow
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😂 looks cosy!
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Interesting & fun