Dawn at Angkor Wat
The alarm went off at 4:15am but we were already awake. You know how it is – we knew we had to be in the lobby at around 4:40 and the body clock did the rest. Everybody had elected to … Continued
Temples in the jungle
Our visit to Ha Long Bay was over. We disembarked the ship at mid-morning and boarded the bus for the trip to Hanoi airport. We’d be flying from Vietnam to Cambodia’s Siem Reap airport. Lunch (and Happy House) was at … Continued
Ha Long Bay – where a picture isn’t worth a thousand words
Ha Long Bay is part of the Gulf of Tonkin, a couple of hours’ drive from Hanoi. It’s an amazing place, a shallow bay where something like three thousand islands tower out of the water. The vast majority present vertical … Continued
A busy day in Hanoi
After an overnight stay in Hue we went straight to the airport for our flight to Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi. We booked into the beautiful Metropole Hotel, which has an interesting history. Built in 1901, it is on the edge of … Continued
An Imperial experience
Travel mornings are always the same. Have your suitcases outside your rooms at (say) 7am ready for collection by the hotel porters and meet in the foyer after you’ve had your breakfast and vacated your room at 7:50. We identify … Continued
Back to school – cooking school
We were up bright and (relatively) early this morning to go on a guided tour of one of Hoi An’s large markets. Our guide was a chef at a local cooking school where we would be taken to learn how … Continued
A wonderful day in Hoi An
Situated on the Thu Bon River. Hoi An was a trading port, at its height between the 15th and 19th centuries. The old town is a UNESCO World Heritage listed site and you can read all about that here. The … Continued
An artists’ colony on the Saigon River
On our last morning in Saigon Pete and I joined two of the ladies in our group to visit an artists’ colony on an island in the Saigon River. We were taken to the location in an SUV, crossing a … Continued
In war, there are no winners
Vietnam was the war of my generation. While I marched in moratoriums, my male peers were conscripted into the army. About sixty thousand Australians served in Vietnam, a small number in comparison with the nearly three million Americans but even … Continued
The sights of Saigon
Because we’d elected to arrive a day early for our tour, we had a day to ourselves. The Park Hyatt is centrally-located, within a stroll of the major tourist stops on the map so, having fortified ourselves with a wonderful … Continued