Seizing the day

We've been on the road for about 2 months now so I thought I'd stop and reflect on what made us start travelling in the first place. Being on the open road (Marble Mountains, Da Nang) When you stop and think about it travelling is a bit odd – you leave behind family, stuff you’ve worked for and the comfort of your home to go to an unfamiliar place where you don’t understand the language and you deliberate over every piece of food you put in your mouth. But believe it or not travelling isn’t a revolutionary thing – if no one did it then most of the world wouldn’t know each other, and worst of all we’d probably have really bad coffee. For me I see it as a means of educating and enriching myself in my own way. Learning that's not taught in some classroom, or read on the news, but mine. Why we decided to travel For us (my partner and I) deciding to travel wasn't based on one reason as such, it was more of a collection of things and a shared understanding...

Finding a veggie place to eat in Hanoi can be rather daunting - but lucky for you, we found some! All of these places you'll find in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, where you'll find all the trendy restaurants, bars, cool coffee spots and historical buildings. 1) Noodle and Roll Where it is: 39C Ly Quoc Su, Hang Trong, Hoan Kiem, Ha Noi Good for: veggie alternatives to Vietnamese classic dishes at street market prices Price range : 35,000 to 70,000 dong We went here 5 times in a week - says it all really! Veggie bun cha Price: 45,000 dong This dish is usually made with meat, such as grilled pork, but this one comes with spring rolls as an alternative. You get rice noodles with fresh herbs such as mint and coriander together with 10 or so crunchy spring rolls that are filled with vermicelli noodles, a mixture of vegetables and spices. This is all served with a classic bun cha dressing. I'd recommend putting a douse of soya sauce on your noodles to give the...

If you're thinking of travelling to Laos from Thailand or visa versa, then I'd strongly suggest taking the slow boat down the Mekong River. It's a beautiful way to see rural Laos whilst chilling on a boat for 2 days. This post includes: how we got to the border town, Chiang Khong how we chose our cruise what the boat was like what we did over the 2 days overall impressions Docked at Pak Ou Caves Getting to the border town, Chiang Khong We took a massive mini bus trip from Pai to Chiang Khong, a town on the border between Thailand and Laos, where we stayed the night before our cruise. The bus trip took about 9 hours and we didn't feel totally safe or comfortable during it. The driver was on his phone constantly, overtaking people and was generally rude. When we reached Chiang Mai we changed mini bus and unfortunately I got the middle seat at the front, which had no seatbelt. Anyway, despite this they did stop a few times, which included a short st...