According to a couple of old books I read, Phnom Penh used to be the ‘Pearl of Asia‘ in the days when it was occupied by the French. Since then, it has gone backwards. First, thanks to a series of incompetent Cambodian governments, second, thanks to the Khmer Rouge who drove the inhabitants from the […]

“Why do you want to go to Battambang?” we were asked by an inquisitive guest at our lodgings in Siem Reap. It was a good question and one that we could not convincingly answer. It seemed the obvious place to go after Siem Reap, mostly because, next to a dot on the map, the town’s […]

Cambodia seems to embody all that is wrong with a developing world country. The politicians are institutionally corrupt, the gap between rich and poor is enormous, the rainforest jungle has all but disappeared, the waters have been fished out and the country is dependent on (and purposely makes itself dependent on) foreign aid. Even all […]

We arrived at our beachside hotel on Phu Quoc Island where we had booked a bungalow with a sea view for the princely sum of US$20 per night. To get here involved turning off the dirt track that served as the island’s main north-south highway and down a 30-degree incline that scraped the underside of […]

‘Fasten your seatbelts, Ho Chi Minh City is a metropolis on the move’. So says the tourist information. If it is talking of the motorbikes then they are correct. We had thought that Hanoi was awash with bikes but Hanoi’s traffic is chickenfeed compared to Ho Chi Minh. There must be at least ten times […]

Shunning the normal tourist route that visits Nha Trang, an old fishing port that has developed into a purpose built tourist resort on the sea, we head for Dalat in the central highlands. What a contrast this place is to other towns we have visited in Vietnam! First off it is cool. Helped by an […]

Hotter than Hanoi and just as humid, Hoi An is a charming little town about 5 km inland from the sea and around 180 km south of the old demilitarized zone in what was South Vietnam. At the moment, it is unspoilt but that is not going to last much longer as the entire coastline […]