Bangkok was our first stop in Thailand. Not being fans of big cities, we would both have been ok to skip it but we thought we would give it a chance and stay there for a few days. Well, we could have skipped it. It turned out I didn’t like it at all. The city is not really pretty in itself, it’s big, busy and between the buses that you can wait for hours (I speak from experience here…), the BTS that gets as crowded as the Paris metro at rush hours and the overcharging taxis, it’s not that easy to get around. It also didn’t help that it rained all day long when we arrived and were trying to get to our hotel with our big backpacks on.
We went to the nonetheless nice city of Hanoi mainly as a starting point to explore beautiful Ha Long Bay, both as a cruise and what is called the terrestrial part of it, Tam Coc.
Hoi an is a very small town but the city and the area have enough to keep you busy for a few days. It’s famous for its silk lanterns (probably the main reason why I wanted to go!), but also for its shopping opportunities. There is an endless number of shops selling art crafts, bags and clothes. This is the place to go if you want tailor-made clothes (if only I had just a little bit of room left in my backpack..!).
After spending one month in Ho Chi Minh to rest and spend time with my brother, we were on the road again to the pretty city of Hue. Hue was the imperial capital of Vietnam until 1945 and thus played an important part in the country’s history.
Mui Ne is located in South East Vietnam and it’s a real paradise. It’s a small, quaint but touristic town that’s developing fast and I’m sure if we were to go back in a couple of years, it would look completely different. It’s the perfect destination to take a break from the big city of Ho Chi Minh, where we stayed for a whole month. We spent a weekend there with my brother and his girlfriend and we loved it, we were able to fully relax and just enjoy.
After almost four months of travelling, we were starting to feel some kind of burn out – all the temples looked more or less the same, we were a bit less excited about all the new things that surrounded us and more than anything else, we were exhausted all the time.
Asia is a paradise for tea lovers and I am definitely one. So when Simon had the idea of going to a tea tasting, I was all in.
After one month in Japan, we are now in Hong Kong. We’ve been here for 24h and I wanted to share my first impressions of the city.
The Kyoto Chocolat Organic Tea House is not really being advertised, which is definitely for the best or I’m sure the waiting line would be endless. I can’t remember how I heard about it, probably thanks to the magic of Pinterest.