Up in the north west of brazil is Manaus, the main entrance city to the Amazon Jungle. The city itself was once a self indulgent rubber funded place where the rich would be known to light their cigars with 20 pound notes. Today though the rubber supply has shifted to the far east, the city has been industrialised as a tax free factory attraction and, although inhabited by over two million people, it has unfortunately become a dilapidated and dirty version of it...

It's amazing that you can fly across the world and arrive in a completely different continent, country and city like Sao Paulo, Brazil only to feel like you've just flown into your own home town, Johannesburg, South Africa. It started as early as our arrival at the airport which felt exactly like walking through the old Jo'burg international airport. Let's hope they rebuild it or, at least, upgrade it for the world cup. Driving to our hostel felt like driving d...

Phnom Penh was a great entry to Cambodia. Its developed, modern and historical. Siem Reap, though, is the gem of the country. It's the home of the famous Angkor Wat with the hundreds of other ancient temples around it and it also has a quaint town that's developed around the tourist demand for the temples. Since everyone comes here for the temples, let's start with these. Our first experience of Angkor Wat was for sunset. Seeing it at sunset and sunrise ar...

By the time we decided to leave Vang Vieng and leave Laos, we were faced with another travel decision for getting to Cambodia. Our choices were: retrace our steps on the overnight train back to Bangkok and catch a bus from there to Siem Reap in Cambodia; take a 36 hour bus from Laos to Siem Reap or take a short flight to Phnom Penh. All of these options also required us to take the 4 hour bus ride back to Vientiane first. The train/bus is the usual backpacker r...

Vang Vieng. What a crazy place. The town is consumed predominantly by back packers of which there is a simple mix of wild partiers, mellowed druggies and drunken hooligans. Combine this with a serious lack of responsibility, authority and care and you can start to understand why it is such a crazy place. Yet, oddly, beyond all this misbehavior, the mix seems to work and everyone gets along. The main attraction here, beyond the lack of authority, is its beautifu...