The scenic area of Xiaoqikong wasn’t in my guide book or on travel blogs, I ended up finding it from scanning the map of China and being drawn in by the intense blue water. It turned out to be fairly easy to reach, involving two high speed trains and then a taxi for the final…
Category: Asia
Meeting the locals in traditional Dong villages | China
Zhaoxing is a traditional village, all made of wood and home to the Dong ethnic minority group. It used to just be a special place where a few western tourists came to see a real Chinese village but with the high speed railway being built it’s brought with it the domestic tourists. Luckily the village…
Exploring the karst peaks along the Li River | China
The city of Yangshuo is nestled between the dramatic karst peaks that spread across this scenic corner of Guangxi. It’s a place we really enjoyed on our last visit, hence us deciding to come back and even stay in the same hostel. The hostel was based a bit out the city so the patio area…
The Longji Rice Terraces |China
We couldn’t decide whether it was worth returning to the Longji rice terraces as our previous experience wasn’t a great one. We arrived on a cold January day 8 years ago and the guesthouse we booked wasn’t where it said it would be on the map which meant we had to hike all the way…
Returning to China | Navigating Guangzhou and eating bizarre food
After a brutal travel journey that lasted 39 hours and consisted of us living like Tom Hanks in The Terminal at Kuala Lumpur airport we finally made it to Guangzhou in China. It’s our second visit to China, the first of which was in January 2016 and we’re so excited to be back. Due to…
Swimming with nurse sharks in the Maldives
Quite remarkable how we could pick the worst weather day in a 16 day holiday to do the one tour of the trip. But alas, that’s how we roll apparently. We’d actually been meaning to go for a couple of days but our host said he didn’t have a boat available the first day and…
Budget travel in the Maldives | Sunsets, storms and sharks
It’s time for us to travel to the second local island on this trip so we’ve opted to stay on Huraa until 1pm when we can catch the very reasonably priced $10 speedboat back to Male and we’ll just have a one and a half hour wait until our public ferry to the next atoll…
Returning to The Maldives to explore more local islands
Finally, we’re back in paradise! The last time we visited the local islands in the Maldives was in 2018 and we loved it so much. It feels great to be back, although prices have definitely increased since our last visit when the same resort day trip which cost $30 is now $200 for example!! To…
Day trips from Taipei | Hot springs, Dog Cafes, Volcanic Pools and Juifen
The colourful town of Juifen is the perfect side-trip from Taipei, set in the mountains of north east Taiwan. I fell asleep on the bus and woke up realising we were only 100 meters from our stop so we quickly buzzed the bell, grabbed our bags and hopped off the bus directly into torrential rainfall….
Earthquakes, flower festivals and temples | Taichung, Taiwan
It was time for us to leave the east coast of Taiwan and explore a bit of the west and to get there we needed to catch a couple of trains. We could of made it there in a few hours by catching the high speed railway that can travel up to 330kph but we…
