Travel photos and journals from across Asia [1997-2024]
We opted for some luxury after a week in a tent and stayed in a decent hotel on the lakefront. Phayao has a very laid-back feel to it and a marvelous lakeside boulevard with seating, flowerbeds, and plenty of shade trees. By late afternoon the locals gathered there to flirt,…
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From here it was a drive west out of Nan province and into Phayao province to the picturesque Phu Langka viewpoint. This is another spot that has become wildly popular with Thai weekend warriors and hi-sos so there was a lot of pricey accommodation up on the mountain. The reason…
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The ‘Pua Nam Sai’ campsite on the Pua River is also a very popular weekend spot, but as has been the norm for this trip, we were the only couple there during the week. The owner was nice enough to keep the kitchen open so we had enough to eat…
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This was when the trip started to get interesting with a drive on the now famous 1081 mountain road to Sapun, a quaint mountain town also growing in popularity after featuring on Thai TV and social media. The road, which was pristine and would have been awesome on a motorcycle,…
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We only had one night at the ‘Rai Pah Suk’ campsite due to the lack of food and power (we’d assumed there would be something going on at this otherwise popular spot) and drove down to visit the Sao Din Na Noi paleolithic rock formations the next morning. After a…
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After a few perfectly relaxing days (aside from the all-morning roosters) we drove north again to Phrae for a hotel stay, a decent shower, some laundry, and to restock on camping supplies. Most Thai provincial towns are homogenous, once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all, and Phrae was no…
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The following day we drove to Chainat to visit family but ended up staying across the river in Uthai Thani province. Both areas are very rural with very little to see or do but we did visit the most blinged-up temple I have ever seen – Wat Tha Sung, otherwise…
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The climate in Thailand has become progressively worse in recent years with hotter, longer dry seasons and wetter drawn-out rainy seasons often lasting months on end, not to mention the new smog season when air pollution is hazardous across most of the country from February to May. For that reason,…
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For our final day in Seoul and of this epic road trip we headed over to the Lotte World Tower, the fifth tallest building in the world at 555 meters according to Google. Being a Monday morning, there were no epic queues or crowding which made a nice change. ‘Seoul…
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It was another transit day and we checked out and walked a couple of blocks to the bus stop to grab the 41 to Busan station. The connection and KTX (bullet train) ride to Seoul took around three hours and went without a hitch. The train maxed out at just…
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The weather looked pretty dire this morning but the forecast was for it to clear by 11am. Since our original plan was scuppered by non-functioning Korean websites, we decided on Busan’s third main beach – Haeundae Beach – instead which was a short bus ride away. The beach was pristine,…
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From Gamcheon it was another bus to Songdo Beach for a ride on the ‘Busan Air Cruise’ cable car. Just like in Japan, there is no dual pricing in Korea and attractions are cheaper to enter than Thailand with this ride costing just 13,000 won. The sky ride gave us…
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The first objective of the day was to secure tickets for the bullet train (KTX) to Seoul in a couple of days. However, we were bamboozled by technology yet again with the Korea Rail website telling us everything was full when we tried to book online. As we did in…
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Today was a transit day with a 6am start to take a train to Kansai airport which is on an artificial island about an hour out of Osaka. The airport transfer was one of the fastest I have done though there was very little in the departure lounge which appeared…
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Day thirteen Our final day in Japan was dedicated to shopping so we headed over to the Don Qui supermarket to get lost in the warren of tiny aisles where everything from designer handbags to four-litre bottles of whisky to wasabi paste was for sale. We were looking for some…
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