My Sri Lanka companion, Hayles, and I kicked off our second week with what must be one of the most beautiful and famous train journeys in the world: the route from Kandy to Ella. We had high hopes, but it did not start well. The train was so busy that we could barely fit in […]

After leaving Luang Prabang, I headed to Sri Lanka. I sat next to three glamorous young Thai women on the flight, who were on a girls’ trip and took a shine to me because they decided that I looked like a Thai singer called Palmy. In celebration of this, they insisted on playing her songs […]

I visited Laos seven years ago, but spent most of my time in Vientiane and Vang Vieng, which was the party capital of Laos at the time. Many people had raved about Luang Prabang, but I didn’t have time to make it there during my previous trip. It has always been in the back of […]

The next stop in Cambodia with my Mum was Koh Rong Samloem, which is a small island off the coast. Although the country is not known for its beaches, we decided to take a chance, and fortunately it paid off. Koh Rong Samloem, which can be spelled a number of different ways, is a relaxed […]

I’d been debating whether to go to either Cambodia or Vietnam for months, when I went for a drink with a friend in London who had been to both. He suggested going to Cambodia and I always trust his advice, so off I went to Cambodia from Japan, via Bangkok with a nine-hour overnight layover. […]

I opted for a coach to Tokyo instead of taking the much more famous Shinkansen bullet train (saving over £70). The journey did take eight hours rather than two and a half hours, but I figured I’ve got a whole year to kill, so what’s an extra few hours here and there. The coach company […]

Numerous people had mentioned that Japan can be challenging to navigate, partly because it has not just its own language, but also three different alphabets. Nonetheless, it was still a shock jumping off the plane, now travelling solo and very keen for lunch, but not being able to understand a single menu or food label […]

My journey to The Philippines started on a plane sitting next to an ex-convict who proudly told me he had been in jail six times, worked as a private investigator, pressed me multiple times to show him my passport/driving licence, talked incessantly for eight hours and tried to insist that I sleep on his shoulder. […]