The band is back together, Ken doll is joining us and Aki who’s name henceforth is Barbie, for a day trip to Ise and the grandest, most important Shinto shrine in Japan, Ise Jingu. With amazing grace and beauty preserved in Japan at every turn it can be hard to know exactly where to look, […]
In the rainy pen of Hanoi we settle and slow our pace in contradiction to this city that is anything but slow of pace, we’re seeing the sights before the food storm descends upon our lives, a calm before the storm. The Ngoc Son temple sits in a lake near our hotel, this gracious setting […]
A new dawn, a new day; unlike most dawns of untainted promise this day carries some of the frayed nerves from the past two days of toil and trouble. But the sun does rise, it is a new day and what’s more we’re in Hoi An, the town that many describe as the pinnacle of […]
So distant now is the punishing slog of our first leg on this road trip, getting lost, bad roads, baking sun and sore bums seem a more distant memory than just two days ago. A shimmering ocean flanks our right side in this adventure north, cows graze on a beach and sandy soil even more […]
We follow our scratchy paper map weaving through the hectic rampage of Ho Chi Minh to the street corner we seek, the next alley on our right is where we get our fix, the lady with the stuff; it can’t be far. Sure enough the alleyway is there, swept concrete of no more than a […]
Spat out into the world once again; a new city to explore, a new culture to taste, a new language we can’t speak. There’s a mountain of history pouring down on us in Ho Chi Minh, the southern capital of Vietnam but for now the long stories of Vietnam and its place in the region […]
Thailand. Close your eyes a minute and what do you see? Cheap beers, bars, beaches, ladyboys, nightlife? Many do and many are so wrong. Like judging a book by its cover, the pages have revealed so much more; Thailand deserves a second look; a proper look. This is what we saw in the short time […]
They’re falling like ten pins these borders, we’re crossing countries in a flash but in the hasty flight that is our south east Asian whirlwind travel gems are not lost to the void of a swirling tempest. On a recurring theme of ‘more than what you thought’ we leave Thailand and with it comes the […]
We’ve finally recovered. Battling through self doubt, harsh acceptance and crippling restraint there emerges now light peeking through a dark cloud so full of trials, an uplifting wash of euphoria at the achievement that always seemed to distant. We’ve finally broken free of our eating disorder, the Lao food eating disorder that compelled us to […]
After three weeks camping in Africa, two weeks hiking in Nepal and two weeks cycling in China we entered Laos in need of a rest and a return to a more casual style of travel. The border post into Laos was an open eyed blank canvas into relaxation and recovery; more like the first day […]
Charlie and Steve's Excellent Adventure 