A hot air balloon tour of the incredible temples of Bagan is not to be missed… if you can afford it. It’s eye-wateringly expensive (we’ll deal with the credit card bill when we get back and get a job) but utterly amazing. Seeing the temples from the air gives you a whole new perspective, Read More
This is probably our longest smug Monday adventure ever, as we started it well before the sun came up at 05:30 in the morning, and it didn’t finish until long after the sun had disappeared behind the mountains in a blazing storm of reds, pinks and oranges.
Holy Crap! We’ve Only Bloody Gone And Arrived In Myanmar! This is our third day in Myanmar, and as we’ve got a couple of hours rocking and rolling through the plains on a train, I thought I should jot down some first impressions of the place. We’re heading down the country to Myawlamine, 300km, Read More
I was fearing that Kanchan (as the locals call it) was going to be horribly built up compared to the last time we were here in 2003. Well, it has changed, that’s inevitable, and everywhere that we’ve returned to has changed massively in the last thirteen years, but Kanchan has been refreshingly similar to, Read More
Today we went kayaking, drifting along in two man plastic kayaks secretly tying mine to Evan’s so that he pulled me along . It was awesome. We kayaked from a temple far away to Kanchanaburi.
Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand, is one of our favourites cities in Asia. We love Bangkok. We’ve been here for a week now, which is much longer than we were ever expecting, and it’s been absolutely brilliant. It only took three hours to get here from Sri Lanka, but it’s a complete world, Read More
Today we hopped on a train for 1 3/4 hours to go 44 miles to Ayutthaya ( i-oo-t-iy-a ) wat (temple) complex. Ayutthaya used to be the capital of Thailand before it was destroyed by the Burmese in 1769. The train was a 3rd class rickety one with plastic (and slightly broken) seats and, Read More
Sri Lankan fishermen traditionally use Oruwa fishing boats, high-sided wooden canoes with outriggers and a square sail. These are still used today as some of the shrimp fishing grounds around Negumbo are still reserved for traditional sailing boats only. The sail is used to pull a shrimp net over the fishing grounds. During, Read More
A Smug Monday post by Evan (aged 9) Today’s Smug Monday was started on a Sunday when we went to Negombo in Sri Lanka. We found our hotel and then drove in our car (dirty Fenny) to the beach. I can only say one thing about the beach, it was crowded. I know why, Read More
Before we go any further, I have to say that I haven’t found travelling in Sri Lanka to be the most rewarding experience of the trip. I’ve found it lacking in culture, history and identity, and the food is generally rubbish. I think that the whole country is overly expensive, and that it has all, Read More