I have been blessed with many wonderful life experiences, but our day with the elephants at Patara Elephant Farm in the mountains near Chiang Mai is undoubtedly one of the best. Hubby and I are still rhapsodizing about it two weeks later! As an ardent animal lover, spending time with these magnificent creatures was a […]
Organized Tours
A Luxurious Junk Boat Cruise of Halong Bay
Towards the end of our stay in Vietnam we took a 2 day/1 night cruise around the Bai Tu Long area of Halong Bay. While still part of the famous UNESCO World Heritage Site, this north-eastern section is less visited by tourists and proved to be the enchanting hideaway that we’d hoped for. We cruised aboard the Indochina […]
Going Inside Vietnam’s Cu Chi Tunnels
One of Ho Chi Minh City’s most famous sights is the Cu Chi Tunnels. First dug in the 1940s to help the local Vietnamese fight French forces, the tunnels played a pivotal role in the Viet Cong (VC) defeat of US and allied troops during the Vietnam-American War in the 1960s. When we arrived at […]
A Tour of Snail Street with Saigon Street Eats
In a happy coincidence of timing, a fellow blogger and her husband recently started their own tour company, Saigon Street Eats. Their focus is solely on the local street food of Ho Chi Minh City, and they have several tours to choose from. We opted for their “Seafood Trail,” billed as a nightime eating adventure. […]
Shanghai’s Notorious Past: A Gangster Tour of the French Concession
We recently had the pleasure of taking a Gangster Tour of the former French Concession, led by Daniel Newman and Christopher Pegg of Newman Tours. Daniel, a charismatic Brit, spent the entirety of the tour in character as a Cockney hustler, while affable Chris led us to believe he was once in the employ of Chicago’s […]