a travel blog
After every country we visit, Vikram writes about our overall experiences and highlights. Here’s his take on Vietnam! Vietnam rivals Colombia as our favorite country of the trip thus far. The wide range of activities available in the relatively small country, the friendly people, and the phenomenal food will likely make it our top recommendation for anyone considering a trip […]
I ended up really enjoying our time in Hoi An—but not because of its famed and historic Old Quarter. Don’t get me wrong, the Old Quarter was beautiful. It’s full of traditional homes, assembly halls, and shophouses built around 300 years ago when Hoi An was a main trading port in the area. Most buildings are a deep yellow with […]
One of our trip’s highlights had rather inauspicious beginnings: a restless sleep on an overnight train, an unexpected 5 am wake up call, almost being whisked away by a souvenir hawker instead of our guide, and pouring rain—when we were about to go trekking for 10 kilometers. We were in Sapa, a town in the far north of Vietnam, and we […]
I was so excited to get to Hanoi because we were meeting up with our friends Margaret and Jessica! It was great to explore the lively Vietnamese capital with them—from simply catching up in local cafes to brainstorming Hanoi-related puns (e.g., bringin’ “ha-noise”) while taking in the sights and sounds the Old Quarter. The city’s Old Quarter is always on the […]
After every country we visit, Vikram writes about our overall experiences and highlights. Here’s his take on Cambodia! Angkor Wat was one of the places that inspired this trip, and for us, it lived up to the hype. But as we learned during our three weeks in Cambodia, the country has much more to offer than the temples of Angkor. […]
Cambodia has awesome temples, but it also has beautiful countrysides—and one of our favorite activities in Cambodia ended up being a bike tour through the green and verdant countryside around Battambang. Battambang is the country’s second biggest city after Phnom Penh, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it upon arrival. It has a very small town feel, and we could traverse the city center in […]
Before coming to Cambodia, I thought Angkor Wat was just that—Angkor Wat. But it’s actually just one temple of dozens in the area where the ancient Khmer city of Angkor use to exist. We were glad that we purchased the $40 three-day pass to allow us plenty of time to explore many different sites. And we happily did this exploring […]
The killing fields of Cambodia are a blunt reminder that humans can commit atrocious, unimaginable deeds. Vikram and I both knew woefully little about the killing fields and this terrible part of Cambodia’s recent history—before this year, the names “Khmer Rouge” and “Pol Pot” would perhaps ring a bell in my mind, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell you […]