Phnom Penh: Happy to be Back in Southeast Asia

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I love Southeast Asia and when we landed in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, I couldn’t have been happier to be back. I first visited the area just under two years ago on a two-month backpacking trip by myself where Dan joined me for two weeks in Thailand – our first trip together. My love of SE Asia is hard to explain – it has something to do with hectic cities that are somehow calm and refreshing; the amazing mix of nature and ancient cultures with hints of westernization everywhere and of course, the people. Continue reading →

My First Christmas Abroad

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After our first six months of travelling and constantly being on the move, we needed a break – and took a month off at home in Vancouver. Six months later we were due for another break, but not at home this time. Instead, we booked ourselves an apartment for one month in Chiang Mai, Thailand where we experienced our first ever Christmas abroad!  Continue reading →

100 Days in Europe: From Iceland to Hungary

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It’s been less than two weeks since we left Europe for Asia, and yet it feels like a lifetime ago. That could possibly be because we’re in Varanasi, India which is a whole world different than Europe. Having had enough of the sensory overload from the city, we’re hiding in a café drinking coffee (made with filtered water) and reflecting on our 100 days in Europe. Continue reading →

Varanasi: The Holy City of India

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The holy city of Varanasi was our first stop in India. Varanasi is the spiritual capital of India and quite possibly one of the world’s holiest city. It is the holiest of the seven sacred cities in Hinduism, and is also a very important place in Buddhism. It is also one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities of the world. Mark Twain famously recounted Varanasi as “older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.” Continue reading →

Dubai: The World’s Biggest Everything

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A stopover in Dubai en-route to India was an obvious choice for us as almost all flights from Europe to Asia go through Dubai. Most flights arrive late in the evening/early morning and the connecting flights leave hours later. We thought it would be much better to spend a couple days gawking at the engineering marvels in Dubai. Since the early 2000’s Dubai has been dumping money into infrastructure and luxury accommodation to attract tourists and has become a city of the world’s biggest/best everything. As an example of how far the country will go to attract tourists you just have to look at the Palm Islands: because the beautiful pristine coastline wasn’t long enough for the amount of tourists, Dubai built the Palm Islands with the first (Palm Jumeirah) adding 78 kilometers of beach to the city and another two islands are in the works. Continue reading →

The Ancient City of Ephesus

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Our last stop in Turkey was Selçuk which we chose mainly for it’s proximity to the ancient city of Ephesus. We also read that it’s only a short bus ride from Şirince, a neighbouring town famous for its wines. We spent four nights in Selçuk (you only really need two) because we wanted to relax before our overnight flight to Dubai followed by another overflight flight to India three days later. Continue reading →