High-lights in Hội An
Walk through Old Hội An on Vietnam’s central coast and you’ll pass seamlessly through colourful generations and cultures under a continuous canopy of vibrant oriental lanterns. It’s hard to believe that Hội An was an important trading sea port dating from the 15th century – except that rail and air travel wouldn’t have been an option then, as it remains today. If you want to get to Hội An today, you travel by road. We’ve stayed...
A slow train to ‘nowhere’
This sleepy ponderous train ride gives us a sense of overall fulfillment when visiting the old British Burma colonial hill-station of Kalaw. Boarding the train at Shwe Nyaung station, near Inle Lake, we’re struck immediately by the Spartan and somewhat grubby nature of the Upper Class carriages we’re to travel in. The curtains look as if they’ve doubled up as cleaning cloths and the seats as footrests, so we’re under no illusion that...
Stepping out in Stone Town
The best way to appreciate Stone Town’s history in Zanzibar, is simply to walk the streets. Although the principal building material of Stone Town is coral, hence its name, the warm-coloured stone has been sculpted by successive occupiers to leave their cultural and architectural signatures throughout. Zanzibar’s strategic and easily accessible location along the East African coast made it a cosmopolitan melting pot, where...
