Asia Travel Information Blog

Travelling to Myanmar presents an ethical decision - Should you go?

With a bustling modern city, emerging beach destinations and more temples than tourists, Myanmar’s rich and thrilling culture - of dozens of languages and peoples - is naturally a drawcard. But going to Myanmar is more complicated than just buying a ticket.

Myanmar - When to Go

Climate wise, the best season for visiting Myanmar is from November to February, when it rains least and isn’t too hot. Read the rest

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. Read the rest

Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, or Bandar as it’s known locally, is the capital of Brunei and the sultanate’s only settlement of any real size. Straddling the northern bank of a twist in the Sungei Brunei, the city is characterized by its unlikely juxtaposition of striking modern buildings (the latest and most impressive being the twin malls of the Yayasan Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah shopping complex) and traditional stilt houses. These stilt houses make up the water village, or Kampung Ayer, Brunei’s original seat of power and still home to half the city’s population. Read the rest

Ho Chi Minh City

Washed ashore above the Mekong Delta, some 40km north of the South China Sea, HO CHI MINH CITY is a city on the march, a boomtown where the rule of the dollar is absolute. Fuelled by the sweeping economic changes wrought by doi moi, this effervescent city, perched on the west bank of the Saigon River, now boasts fine restaurants, immaculate hotels, and glitzy bars among its colonial villas, venerable pagodas and austere, Soviet-style housing-blocks. Read the rest

Amazing Thailand

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. Read the rest

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. Read the rest

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! Read the rest

How to describe KATHMANDU? A medieval time capsule? An environmental disaster area? A pleasure dome? A tourist trap? A holy city? A dump? All of the above. There are a thousand Kathmandus, all layered and dovetailed and piled on top of one another in an extravagant morass of chaos and sophistication. Though its population barely tops 700,000, Nepal’s capital is far and away its biggest and most cosmopolitan city: a melting pot of a dozen ethnic groups, and the home town of the Newars, Nepal’s master craftsmen and traders extraordinaire. Trade, indeed, created Kathmandu – for at least a thousand years it controlled the most important caravan route between Tibet and India – and trade has always funded its Newar artisans. Little wonder, perhaps, that the city has so deftly embraced the tourist business. Read the rest

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. Read the rest