Asia Travel Information Blog

Sydney, New South Wales

The impact on the city was all-embracing, with fifty years’ worth of development compressed into four years under the pressure of intense international scrutiny. Transport infrastructure was greatly improved and a rash of luxury hotels and waterside apartments added themselves to the skyline. The City of Sydney Council spent $200 million to improve and beautify the city streets, public squares and parks, and licensing laws changed too, creating a European-style bar culture. Sydney now has all the vigour of a world-class city, with the reputation of its restaurants in particular turning the lingering cultural sneers to swoons.

Overview

Cambodia’s capital, PHNOM PENH, sprawls west from the confluence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers. At first glance, the city is a confusing mess with no obvious landmarks. The main boulevards are choked with motos and other traffic and lined with generic low-rise, concrete blocks. Despite initial impressions, however, the heart of Phnom Penh, immediately west of the river, has a strong appeal. The French influence is evident in the colonial shop-houses lining the boulevards, with here and there a majestic Khmer building animating the cityscape.

Introduction to Luang Prabang, Laos

Nestling in a slim valley shaped by lofty, green mountains and cut by the swift Mekong and Khan rivers, LOUANG PHABANG exudes tranquillity and grandeur. A tiny mountain kingdom for more than a thousand years and designated a World Heritage site in 1995, it is endowed with a legacy of ancient, red-roofed temples and French-Indochinese architecture, not to mention some of the country’s most refined cuisine, its richest culture and most sacred Buddha image.

Macau is small. That is an inescapable fact. Made up of a peninsula and two islands, the area covered by the territory is a mere 23.5 square kilometres. So do not blink or you might miss something!

Introduction to Krabi

The small fishing town of KRABI is the transport hub for the islands of Ko Phi Phi and Ko Lanta and makes a nice spot for a couple of nights. Although the town has no beaches of its own, it’s only a 45-minute boat ride to the stunning bays of Laem Phra Nang and about the same time in a songthaew to Ao Nang. Every Krabi travel agent sells sea-kayaking expeditions and snorkelling trips, and many also offer tours of Krabi’s mangrove swamps.

On the edge of the Orient, TOKYO – the last great conurbation before the yawning chasm of the Pacific Ocean – is one of the world’s most perplexing cities. On the one hand, gaudily hung about with eyeball-searing neon and messy overhead cables, plagued by seemingly incessant noise, often clogged with bumper-to-bumper traffic and packed with twelve million people squashed into minute apartments, it can seem like the stereotypical urban nightmare. Yet behind the barely ordered chaos lie remnants of a very different way of life.

The headlong pace and flawed modernity of BANGKOK (called “Krung Thep” in Thai) match few people’s visions of the capital of exotic Siam. Spiked with scores of highrise buildings of concrete and glass, it’s a vast flatness which holds a population of at least nine million, and feels even bigger. But under the shadow of the skyscrapers you’ll find a heady mix of frenetic markets and hushed golden temples, of glossy cutting-edge clubs and early-morning almsgiving ceremonies. Most budget travellers head for the Banglamphu district, which is just a short walk from the dazzling Grand Palace and Wat Po and the very worthwhile National Museum. For livelier scenes, explore the dark alleys of Chinatown’s bazaars or head for the water: the great Chao Phraya River is the backbone of a network of canals and a useful way of crossing the city.

Taipei, the political and financial center of Taiwan, is the island’s most populous city. Taipei originated as a small trading port over two hundred years ago before becoming the administrative capital under the Qing Dynasty. During the last few decades there has been tremendous growth in the city. Now a sprawling metropolis, Taipei is an ideal place to visit for those who love the hustle and bustle of the big city. Bei Tou (Peitou) Located in the northwest, Bei Tou is famous for its sulfur springs, spas and hotels. One of the more popular sulfur pits is Hell Valley. Bei Tou is in the middle of a small mountain range connected to Wellington Heights and Yang Ming Shan by public transport. Yang Ming Shan National Park is a great place to go hiking.

Hong Kong works as a useful gateway into Southeast Asia and into China. It is also an interesting place in its own right – an extraordinary, complex territory of seven million people that’s a repository of traditional Chinese culture, a recently relinquished British outpost, and one of the key economies of the Pacific Rim. The view of sky-scrapered Hong Kong Island, across the harbour from Kowloon, is one of the most stunning urban panoramas on earth, but Hong Kong also holds some surprises for the traveller – alongside the myriad shopping possibilities (not all of them such a bargain as they used to be), are a surprising number of inviting beaches, rewarding hiking trails and some surviving bastions of Chinese village life, most of them in the New Territories. An excellent infrastructure, an efficient underground system and all the other facilities of an international city make this an extremely soft entry into the Chinese world.

On first impressions, DELHI, with its jam-packed streets, tower blocks and temples, forts, mosques and colonial mansions, can be both disorienting and fascinating. It certainly takes a while to find your feet, as you attempt to weave a path through buses, trucks, nippy modern cars, mopeds, rickshaws, cows, bullock carts, hand-pulled trolleys and even the occasional elephant being ridden along with the flow of traffic. You’ll find unlikely juxtapositions are everywhere you look: suit-and-tie businessmen rub shoulders with traditionally dressed orthodox Hindus and Muslims; groups of young Levis-clad Delhi-ites pile into burger joints, bars and discos; turbaned snake charmers tease hypnotizing moans out of curved pipes; pundits pontificate while sadhus smoke their chillums; and ragged beggars clutching dusty children plead for a little help towards a meal.