We are currently planning significant trip to United States later this year – and it’s interesting to note the differences as well as the similarities. On this trip, we are going to travel nearly 4500km by land – that’s the equivalent of a loop from my home city of Brisbane, via Sydney, down to Melbourne,…
Vietnam is an interesting place, to a visitor from a ‘liberal democracy’ like Australia. It is, strictly speaking, a communist country and yet many of the social welfare things that we have come to expect – like free schooling – don’t appear to be a part of the Vietnamese psyche. As Al Jazeera pointed out in…
If you go to Ho Chi Minh City (the former Saigon) in Vietnam, whether you book any day-tours around the city or just follow the guide-books, there are a number of places that are almost guaranteed to be on the itinerary. There’s the Notre Dame church, the Central Post Office (NOT designed by Gustave Eiffel,…
You may remember that I wrote, some months ago, about taking guided tours as opposed to self-guided travel trips. And I said that I would update the blog, after I undertook another guided tour, to Vietnam. Well, I’m sitting in the lobby of the Ruby River hotel in Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City, waiting…
Thursday is normally ‘commentary’ day here at Cairnscommunications – and today my comment comes in the form of a ‘picture study’. We spent two days at Sapa this week – and as part of that, visited the Hmong village in the valley below. The Hmong are an interesting people – they came from China around 400…
Have you ever had a vague holiday thought, only to see it become an all-singing all-dancing vacation extravaganza seemingly on its own? Some people just ‘wing it’ when they go on holidays – others like to plan everything down to the finest detail. As for Shirley & I? We’re somewhere in the middle, I guess.…
We’ve spoken before about eating on a cruise ship – but you may not have considered WHY some cruise-lines push all-inclusive, while others offer a-la-carte extras. The organization of amenities is an important area where the cruising industry has made changes in order to keep their ships running profitably. One of these areas is the way…
I received a media release this week from Carnival this week (on behalf of its eight cruise lines) proudly touting the official opening of Amber Cove, a purpose-built port at Puerto Plata, on the Northern coast of the Dominican Republic. And my immediate thought was to wonder how ‘real’ the experience would be, at a…
“It’s not travelling – it’s a mad dash through nine bloody countries in 18 bloody days, that’s what it is! And I have to be mother, and father, psychiatrist, host, teacher, interpreter, peacemaker and jokemaker to a silly crowd of Americans identical to my last silly crowd of Americans.” That was the view of tour-guide Charlie…
I recently had the good fortune to take a round-the-world trip with five middle-aged ladies. (Hmmm .. last time I said that, I got thwacked by my wife, and my sister – but how else am I gonna describe it? We are all well over 45, the dictionary definition of middle age …) Sigh. Take two…. I recently…
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