Busy, bustling, chaotic, with a swarm of motorbikes at every turn that you’re convinced are out to get you – that’s Hanoi in a nutshell. Like in any big city, those who live here complain about the traffic, the pollution etc. but everyone admits that Hanoi possesses a unique charm that draws people to visit, [...]

Spooky, dark and with a river running through it, Kong Lor cave in Laos is definitely one that’s hard to forget! A 7 kilometre long boat ride takes you all the way through the cave, across the mountain to the other side. During the ride, sometimes the water level is quite low so part of [...]

Traditional Buddhist prayer wheels or Mani wheels are different-size cylinders placed on a spindle, usually engraved with religious texts (mantras). According to those texts, prayer wheels are used to accumulate wisdom and merit (good karma) and to purify negativity (bad karma). The believer usually spins the wheel clockwise, repetitively saying prayers, either aloud or only [...]

A slow boat ride on the meandering waters of the river Mekong is just what we needed after the rush of a motorbike ride from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) to Vinh Long in southern Vietnam. We’d heard great things about the experience of staying in a home stay on one of the tiny river [...]

The monumental building in the photo below is the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, one of the modern icons of Singapore’s Chinatown. Though at first glance it may seem like an old structure, it’s actually very new. After a 2 year-long and S$62 million-worth construction, it was opened as recently as 2007. The temple is considered [...]

Despite the early morning hours, our little bamboo hut in the pristine island of Malapascua in the Philippines was hot. I was tossing and turning in the bed, half-asleep and not really sure what woke me up in the first place. A few minutes passed when it occurred to me that it wasn’t the heat [...]

The Merlion in Singapore is as iconic to it as the Eiffel Tower in Paris.  The half mermaid half lion creature is a well recognised symbol of the tiny island country. The lion head apparently referring to the lion spotted by Prince Sang Nila Utama when he re-discovered Singapura in 11 AD and the fish [...]

Having a chance to visit a foreign country during one of its festivals is for many people something not to be missed – whether it’s Holi in India, Songkran in Thailand or even Octoberfest in Germany. In our case it has recently been Galungan in Bali, Indonesia. When we first found out that one of [...]

The Borobudur monument located on the island of Java is the single most visited tourist attraction in Indonesia and not without reason. Built in the 9th century it remains an important place of pilgrimage for Buddhists to this date, especially during the occasion of Vesaka commemorating the birth, enlightenment and death of Gautam Buddha. The [...]

Hinduism in Bali is quite different from that practiced in India. Though they do share the practices of rituals and ceremonies for every major event, the Balinese tend to take them many steps further. They have ceremonies for every possible and imaginable event in a person’s life whether its pregnancy, birth and especially death.   [...]