Journey to Kuang Si on a bicycle

I have not known the meaning of true tiredness for a long time until today. But then bicycling 60km is not a joke. I even doubted if I was up to it. But K/G said we must give it a shot after our newer fitness levels and I thought yes we should. So we set...

Wats the magic

A good night’s sleep restored my tired limbs and muddled senses. Since we had not planned on anything concrete today we took bicycles again and went around town. Visited a couple of Wats or temples. The highlight of the day was cycling all the way to Ban Pho, which is a village of weavers. The...

Magic and mystery in Luang Prabang

Our bus tickets to Luang Prabang were booked. After a long wait, a van finally came to pick us up at our hotel. There was a further wait in the bus itself but at last it left around half an hour late. For the first time in my life I found myself not shivering in...

Bicycling it in Vientiane

The rain has finally tired itself out I think. Yesterday it poured the whole day with alternating strength. But I hired a bicycle for 10,000 kip (a little more than $1) for half a day and a blue poncho that says “Shower Attack.” After equipping myself with these items I had lunch at a vegetarian...

Vientiane: First Impressions

This latest trip was long due. Well, by my standards. Its been more than five months since I went anywhere and the travel bug had started biting badly. So here I am in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, which most people mistake for Lagos in Nigeria. A sleepy town, its hard to believe that its...

Hanoi and tombstones

Hanoi had many shops selling tombstone engravings. This was one of them. Wonder why I saw them only in Hanoi??

Coffee with condensed milk!

Vietnamese coffee was one of the best I ever tasted. They give two different concoctions – one with milk and one without milk. My favorite was the milky one sweetened with condensed milk, I gulped a lot of cups/glasses during my visit!

Yikes bikes!

This is how a crossing is in HCMC. And you are expected to somehow wriggle yourself through this to reach the other side. Initially I was petrified. Then I learnt to tag along behind the locals who would part the traffic easily like a Red Sea and these bikes would just swarm like fish in...

Aquarium on the move

Clusters of fish being transported for sale in aquarium stores. Nice way to supply them though I feel sad for the poor fish bunched in there in such a humiliating manner 🙁

Snazzy postbox

These bright yellow post boxes dot the city …

Markets and their colors

I managed to click a couple of pictures in the famous Ben Thanh market before I was shooed off by an irate shopkeeper. For some reason I was not welcome with my camera there. Here stacks of sauces and pickles and all sorts of condiments can be seen. Here on the right, heaps of seafood,...

Jumbled wires

Doesn’t it look mind boggling just to look at it? This is how electric wires are bunched up all over Vietnam. I have no idea how they maintain it or how anyone can rectify a small mistake in that huge expanse… Here he is now trying to repair something in that mass!