Category Asia
Like I mentioned in my last post, the wife and I went from Singapore to Hong Kong to meet up with my parents for a few days. We’ve both been in Hong Kong before and we’ve checked off all the standard tourist stuff like Victoria Harbour, the Star Ferry and the peak. However, my parents have been in Hong Kong a number of times before and my mom, ever the travel agent for the family, had found a number of places slightly off the beaten track for us to visit.
The Hong Kong Heritage Museum at Shatin supposedly has a … Read the rest
National holidays in Taiwan largely follow the lunar calendar, and this year the mid autumn festival fell on October 4th and the National day is on October 10th. With a weekend between the two, it means a lot of people only have to take a few days off to get a full week’s vacation. Naturally Renegade Wife and I made use of this opportunity.
My parents are going on a tour in China but will stop in Hong Kong for a few days before it starts. We wanted to see them but we couldn’t spend an entire week in Hong … Read the rest
Today we spent most of the day out at the coast at Long Dong. Long Dong is pretty popular, every parking space along the little street leading off the main road down to the beach was already taken when we got there a little after 10 am. That wasn’t a problem for us though since we could squeeze the bike in easily enough. Down on the beach there were plenty of people and the amount increased as the day went by, but it was never so full that it felt crowded.
Here in the north east there are very few … Read the rest
A while ago my colleague mentioned that he would go to Long Dong over the weekend. His description of the place made me interested, and this weekend me and the wife finally had time to go.
For the sake of added adventure I decided we should go by motorbike and while there are fairly fast routes, they largely go through urban areas which is not much fun. So after a bit of playing around in Google maps, i deviced a route that would take us through the mountains out to the north east coast. Here is roughly the route I … Read the rest
Always on the lookout for places to go and things to do my wife recently used her googling skills to find a hiking trail and waterfall in the nearby mountain area that we hadn’t been to yet (good work Honey). It seemed like a fun trail, so today we decided to go there. We took the motorbike up to the mountains and parked at the trail head; from there it was only a few hundred meters to the waterfall. Since it was a pretty hot day, the pool of clear, turquoise water at one the steps of the fall looked … Read the rest
A couple of Taiwan’s major country roads (road number marked by a blue shield) go through the mountains. Last year, Renegade Wife and I rode across the island on one of them, number 14 – often referred to as the Central Cross-Island Highway – and despite some rather miserable weather, it was a fun little adventure. There are a few more that look very tempting to a motorcyclist studying a map of the country and as it happens, they are connected in a big loop. With Tomb Sweeping day extending the weekend to four days, and the weather finally becoming … Read the rest
Many companies in Taiwan have a (for me) strange practice where, if there is a work day squeezed in between a national holiday and a weekend, they will give their employees that day off. As compensation, you have to come in to work on a Saturday, usually the week before or the week after. This Tuesday it was the 228 Peace Memorial Day which commemorates the February 28 Incident. Due to the squeeze day policy this meant that we had a nice long four day weekend. It is still winter here in north Taiwan with bone chilling temperatures of around … Read the rest
I’ve been at home for a while now and had time to reflect a bit about the trip and the countries I visited.
Though the region is called Indochina (from the two main cultural influences on the region), it’s much less homogeneous than you might think at first glance. Geographically they are of course very similar with jungles and mountains and very similar climates. The difference lies in the people and culture. In my experience Laos and Cambodia are very similar and Thailand, though more developed, is culturally close to them as well. Vietnam sticks out as very different from the other … Read the rest
I’m back home and I’ve had a fantastic trip! I’ve actually been at home for a few days now but I haven’t posted anything until now because it’s taken a few days to unpack my stuff and sort through all my photos. Now I’m done with all that and it’s time to write the last post.
Before I sum up my trip however, I want to do a little bit of promotion:
The people I stayed with in Mae Hong Son were so nice and so hospitable I think they deserve a special recommendation. If you (or anyone you know) are … Read the rest
I didn’t really have a plan for what to do for new years but I got a few ideas from my guides at the elephant camp. Since new years eve happened to be on a Saturday there was a night market in town, so I went there to start my evening with some street food. It’s a huge market, and it was very crowded but I did find some tasty food.
The night market
Someone told me there would be activities at the various temples, and there were, but they seemed to be mostly for worshipers. I skipped that and … Read the rest