I have worked with a good deal of NGO’s in India over the years but never in Mumbai so, I was keen to get involved and experience how organisations work in this city that is known for its extreme’s of wealth and poverty and for the fact that 55% of the population live in a slum of some sort. Check out the Reality Tours and Reality Gives Story here…
Read MoreMiniens Sextape
Thats right folks we had to do it, Numbers were flagging and we have not posted for a while so we had to resort to our sextape! When Times are hard do what the celebs do and get saucy!!
Read MoreWar Remnants Museum
Our first stop was the highly recommended Military Museum. I was keen to see more detail about the military side of Vietnam’s history and specifically the US and french involvement and I was not too be disappointed, but we were also to be surprised and blown away by the museum.
Read MoreSneaking Around Saigon!
I had a romantic notion of Saigon; I was filled with the imagery from stories of journalist and photojournalists from the decades on war during the twentieth century, and I was also filled with imagery from Graham Greene’s book The Quiet American. As we drew close I was excited to see what this well taled city had to offer and has been the norm we were dropped off for the last time by the magic bus.
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Nha Trang Tan
We were told differing stories about Nha Trang by a few travelers, some said it was like a cheesy resort town likened to Benidrom in Spain and some could not promote the amazing beaches enough! So, we were torn when deciding whether to go there or not!?! In the end we felt the need for some proper beach time so we opted to stay for a couple of days!
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Designer Weekends: Traveling the World through the Lens of Francis Minien
A new outlet for Francis Minien Photography has been a recent article about the 1 day 1 photo project completed as part of the Around the World Trip by the McMiniens in 2011/2012. Regan Billingsley Interiors picked up on the project and posted a recent article on her Blog. Read the article here
Read More5 Years of the Masters Cup Photography
Organized by International Color Awards, the annual Photography Masters Cup is the world’s leading contest honoring color photography. Now in its sixth year, it has showcased thousands of photographs from 117 countries around the world, making it the benchmark by which international photography is rated.
Read MoreHoi An
On our next stop on the Magic Vietnam bus trail we landed in Hoi An. Hoi An is a pretty Fishing village on the coast a couple of hours south of Da Nang. We gave ourselves a couple of days here to enjoy an different slice of life in Vietnam.
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Overnight Buses
One of the best bits of advice we received before we got to Vietnam was about the Overnight buses. We were told services vary but it is a much better deal than the trains (accept for going to Sapa).
Read MoreDMZ
As you have probably learnt over the time of our writing I have a keen interest in History and especially military history, so visiting Vietnam held a great number of points of interest to visit including learning about the differences between views of the war between people in the north and south and also the official party line to the actions and exploits of the Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and also the French and subsequently the Americans and its Allies in the war.
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Life on the Street
Ha-Noi - I was not sure whether I would like this city, the evening we arrived it was to drama of dealing with dodgy taxi drivers either overcharging or with high charging meters, I was disappointed and my heart sunk thinking that Vietnam was going to let me down.
Read MoreTour de Sapa
We landed in Sapa with some ideas of what to do and some recommendations we had picked up one of them was doing a cycle from the O Quy Ho Pass cycling downhill into the next valley region Lai Chau. The three of us were all keen to go for a cycle so we signed up with a shop near our guesthouse with a guide whom looked liked, Mr. Chow from the hangover!
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The 'Nam
Now I am not going to lie as we were leaving Laos and preparing to cross the border into Vietnam I was getting really excited, this was one of the countries that I had always wanted to visit for many reasons and was one of the countries at the top of my list when we were originally planning our journey.
Read MoreLaotian Grooves
From the moment we heard our first sound of free music in Laos we were constantly on the go and music was our companion. From the winding mountain roads, to the sleepy river towns and onto the epic cross country journey to the border this playlist is a selection of the songs that where sound bites from our journey or songs that evoke memories of the sights, sounds and scene's of this fabulous country.
Happy Listening!
Les Petits Ecolies – by the ‘Frenchies’
This is a plug for our new friends the ‘Frenchies’ who we met during our elephant Mahout Training. They have taken time out from there respective careers to travel the world. In addition to seeing the world they have embarked on a personal project to meet children from the countries they are visiting and find out about there thoughts on key and important Environmental Issues!
A fantastic project and a very important one listening and learning to our future generations! Check out and follow the work here!
Bagels and Coffee
After two months on the road and pretty much living off curry followed by Chinese food, with a couple of breaks for a Macca’s we arrived in Luang Prabang which had been touted as the Latte Capital of Laos. Now based off what we read and had seen so far we were not expecting much, but had been told by our new friends in Luang Namtha to visit a café called Arthouse Café. It apparently did great western food and was managed by an American lady who had inspired them to set up their place in LN.
Read MoreThe Picture I Never Took
I tend to beat myself up when I miss a great shot, be it I never had a camera or we are traveling and I cannot get the driver to stop or something similar, but this is not a story about a photograph I wanted to ever take, its about a scene that shocked, disgusted and saddened me all in the space of a brief 5 second glimpse.
Read MoreLaotian Massage
It is like being back in Africa, so many happy memories of the African Massage, who knew we would find them in Laos, in some respects even more rough!
Read MoreReminiscing Upon China
Like many of the countries we have visited there have been many things that have amused us or shocked us and sometimes both! China has been no exception what follows are a few of the things that have made us chuckle and cry along the way!
Read MoreChina Crisis: Bloggers Block
Now some may have noticed that we have taken a little longer than normal to write and post our blogs on China. Now we had a fantastic time in China and the landscapes, the culture and the people (apart from the tourism folks) made for a great experience.
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