The experience that we were most looking forward to on our trip to Myanmar was a hot air balloon ride over Bagan. But sadly our flight was cancelled at the last minute, due to poor weather conditions on the day. We tried to find a spot on the next morning’s flight, but because it’s the most popular experience to do in Bagan, it was fully booked for the length of our...
After six days of temple hopping, we were keen to experience something a little bit different. Luckily our next stop was Inle Lake. This lake is Myanmar’s second largest, measuring twenty-two kilometres long by ten kilometres wide. This picturesque lake sits in a valley between two mountain ranges, in the Western Shan State. While the scenery is spectacular...
After spending an awesome three days in Bagan, we headed off to Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city and its last royal capital. Mandalay is often overlooked by travellers, which is odd because it has so much to offer. We had planned two days there, but we left feeling that it really wasn’t long enough. Mandalay is a cultural and religious centre of...
One of the highlights of any trip to Myanmar is a visit to Bagan. Bagan is an ancient city built on the banks of the Ayeyarwady River, in the heart of Myanmar. A long time ago it was the capital of a powerful ancient kingdom. Nowadays, its archeological zone is home to the largest concentration of Buddhist temple ruins in the world. It’s also one of the most visited...
It had been a long time since we’d set foot in a hostel. After months of backpacking around Australia in my twenties and many bad experiences, I’d kind of put the hostel world behind me. But after our recent stay at the 5FootWay.Inn Project Boat Quay, my opinion of hostels has definitely changed. It turns out that they’ve come a long way in the last ten years. My...
As we began our descent into Yangon, we gazed out the plane’s windows and were amazed at Myanmar even before touching down. The first thing that we noticed was the huge number of golden pagodas scattered around the landscape. Some were small, some big, but they all shone so much in the bright sunshine that they were easily visible from up above. This definitely...
No visit to Sri Lanka is complete without a visit to the Sigiriya Rock Fortress. Sigiriya Rock is one of Sri Lanka’s wonders, and it’s a must-see attraction on any visitor’s itinerary. Sigiriya, meaning Lion Rock in Singalese, is an ancient city in the central Matale district of Sri Lanka. It’s easy to spot this two hundred meters high rock as you drive through the...
Sri Lanka is one of the best places in South Asia to see wildlife. In fact, that was a key reason we wanted to go there. Being animal lovers, we’ve always wanted take a safari to see wild animals in their natural environment. We haven’t yet made it to Africa, so Udawalawe seemed like a great alternative. We were keen to see elephants, but we wanted to avoid the...
Osaka was the last stop of our two week trip to Japan, and we had originally planned to spend two full days there. However, we made a last minute decision to stop off in Himeji along the way, to check out the newly restored castle. We ended up spending a good part of the day in Himeji, arriving in Osaka late afternoon. That only gave us a single day to explore the...
After our visit to Hiroshima, our Japanese trip was sadly coming to an end. We had to make our way to Osaka for our final two days, before flying home from Kansai Airport. But there was one final place to tick off the bucket list, Himeji Castle. After five years of intensive restoration work, Himeji Castle had finally re-opened its doors to the public. The castle is...