Travel photos and journals from across Asia [1997-2026]
We didn’t have to wait long for a Grab taxi to take us out of Vinh Yen and up the mountain road to the old French hill station getaway of Tam Dao. From a distance, Tam Dao looks like a bunch of tacky hotels, apartment blocks, and restaurants clinging to the side of the hills…
Shit luck would have it that on the day we departed Sapa, the sun was out, and the sky was clear after almost a week of living inside a cold, dank cloud! There are no direct transport links between Sapa and our next destination, Tam Dao, so we decided to break the journey in Yen…
Today was our last full day in Sapa and the last day of the long public holiday, so we planned to go up to Fansipan, hoping the crowds would be limited. However, the weather gods were against us again, and it was pissing down, so we couldn’t ride and had to take a taxi to…
Determined not to be put off by the weather, which was still a dank, chilly whiteout this morning, we waited for as long as possible for it to clear before jumping on the bikes and heading for the O Quy Ho Pass, a mountain road famous for its twisties and viewpoints. Within a few kilometers…
An early start and a cab across town dropped us at the G8 Sapa Tour office, where we were booked on a bus to the tourist hotspot. Buses in Vietnam have come a long way, and this one had 24 bed-cabins in which to comfortably spend the six-hour journey to Sapa. The journey went by…
The China Eastern flight and transit through Kunming and Hanoi airports could not have been quicker or smoother. We were in our apartment in downtown Hanoi by mid-afternoon and sitting in the famous train street with a cold beer an hour later. This major tourist spot is where the trains heading into Ga Hanoi pass…
Another early start began with dragging a trolley laden with suitcases through the desolated morning streets of Lijiang’s old town to the road access point, where we jumped into a couple of cabs to the station for the four-hour train back to Kunming. After a bit of faffing around with taxis, we got to our…
Our last day in Lijiang was spent exploring the parts of the sprawling seven-square-kilometer ancient town that we hadn’t seen yet. We wandered through the relatively quiet morning streets to the Heilong Park, or Black Dragon Pool, for some spectacular views of the lakes, pagodas, and Jade Dragon Snow Mountain backdrop. Locals were hand-feeding squirrels,…
Today’s excursion would be done manually without a tour, so we were up early again and off to the station to grab a train an hour and a half north to Shangri-la, a place mythically meaning paradise, utopia, or heaven. The good thing about being up and about before dawn is that it’s the best…
We booked this tour on Trip dot com as it was virtually impossible for foreigners to secure the tickets to the cable car, which is extremely popular. Yulong Snow Mountain, or Jade Dragon Mountain as it is also known, is an imposing set of peaks, the highest at 5,596 meters, overlooking Lijiang. It is a…
We were up early and over to the sprawling Kunming station to take a bullet train north to Lijiang. Trains can be booked online and are very reasonably priced. Our C86 left at 10.30 on the dot and took 3.5 hours; boarding was done by scanning our passports, no tickets required. The weather had turned…
Our last road trip to Georgia was becoming a distant memory, so that meant we needed another one. China is a place I’ve always wanted to visit, but have always been deterred by the visa hassles. Things are changing for the better, though, and a ten-day transit visa was possible at the time we booked…
We had an empty Sunday, so instead of wandering around another characterless Bangkok mall full of overpriced branded crap, we ventured over to Koh Kret. A ten-minute taxi ride took us to the ferry pier at Sanam Neua temple, and fifteen minutes and seven baht later, we were on the island. Koh Kret (เกาะเกร็ด) is…
I’ve always wanted to go to Asia’s largest motor show, but never got around to it in all of my years living in Thailand. This year, I made the effort, and it coincided with my birthday, so we made a weekend of it and met up with the boys. The irony is that it also…
Camping season in Thailand is generally a short window from late November to mid-February due to the country’s weather and climate. This is the only time of year it gets cool enough at night (below 20 Celsius) to sleep comfortably in a tent. The rest of the year is either too hot or too wet,…