Asian awards 2013

We spent a whole year in Asia, mostly south east but also Indonesia and the Philippines. So we thought after the South American awards last year we should also give awards for the things we liked the most in Asia.

We started in Hong Kong which we count as a country here. Then we went through China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and finally, Brunei Darussalam.

best food award

This was quite a debate. Thai food just won, Vietnamese getting a very close second place. It's fresh, tasty, healthy, often cheap and almost impossible to cook bad. If you can handle the spices, that is.

most exotic culture award







Definitely China. Basically no English anywhere. Cantonese (or Mandarin, sounds the same to us) is extremely hard to pronounce and let's not even start about the writing... The people are as different to us as it gets. But it is safe for tourists, and magically, things always work out somehow in the end.

best diving awards

Indonesia is a diver's dream. There's everything from the smallest to the biggest. Everything! And often it's very affordable.

best accomodation award

Often it's not dirt cheap but the quality was always good. Even the cheapest rooms have flat TV and hot water. Consistency won for Vietnam. It's always good.

best historical site award

Angkor Wat and the surrounding ruins in Cambodia. It's such a big area, you can spend weeks here if you're into this sort of thing. The work and money that went into the restauration is incredible. Also incredible is the bribes you need to pay to become a guide at this UNESCO world heritage site...

most relaxed award

In Laos you can just be, without being shouted at or without any big rip-offs. Outside Luang Prabang or Vang Vieng, that is. Sit down, grab a Beer Lao and just stare at all the green around you.

best airport award

Singapore's airport is just worldclass! You could be happy to spend a few days just exploring the parks, restaurants and cinemas here. Or you might never want to leave.

most adventurous travelling award

You get nowhere easily in the Philippines. 5 hours on the roof of a jeepney because there's no more space inside or being soaked in seawater for 9 hours on a bangka, every trip is exhausting. But more often than not, it is worth all the hassle.

friendliest people award

Cambodians love to joke, always smile and are extremly friendly. Never ever did we get a bad tempered answer just because we didn't feel like buying something. We always felt welcome in Cambodia. And all this after the hardship they had to go through in the past years, it's very moving. Just thinking of Cambodia and its people still brings a smile on our face.












best people watching award

Life happens on the street in Vietnam. We spent hours and hours drinking coffee and watching the life go by. And just to see for the first time children crossing the streets in Vietnamese traffic is stunning.

best beds award

There are some terrible beds out there, believe me. Cambodia though had some of the best and also best priced beds we've come across.

easiest travelling award

In Thailand you can get a ticket to anywhere and everywhere. Choose any agancy, tell them where you're heading and you get there. If it takes 3 buses and 3 boats through 3 countries you'll get it, on one ticket. Makes you lazy.











best big city award

We normally don't feel comfortable in big cities but Hong Kong was different. We spent a week here without getting bored! (For us, that IS long in a city!) It's easy to get around and very safe. It's chaotic in a nice way. Old and new often only one street apart. Good shopping too. Beaches, viewpoints, markets. What else do you need?













cheapest diving award

On Ko Tao we dived for 17€ per person. In Indonesia we paid at least 20. So, 17 wins.















least dangerous traffic award

Brunei Darussalam has clearly the most polite drivers. They stop even when you are not planning to cross the road. You could walk around blindfolded and not get a scratch. And that is worth an award in Asia.













best coffee award

Vietnam's very strong and very sweet coffee is just the best. Enjoy it hot or cold. After about three of them you can't sleep for two days. And still you want more of it.














most breathtaking landscape award

The views you get around Yangshuo and Xingping are the best we've ever seen. The river that runs through hundreds of high peaks is lined with bamboo and water buffalos. If you climb up a hill, you'll be alone. It's truly breathtaking.












most budget friendly award

Apart from Luang Prabang, Laos is very reasonable priced. A motorbike for 4€ a day and a whole ensuite bungalow for 3€ a night you get in busy places. Now imagine how little you pay far off the tourist trail.













best capital award

Hanoi is so busy and often hot that you forget everything else and just concentrate on the streets ahead of you. It's beautifully chaotic, but also colourful and full of flowers and trees. Amazing food everywhere, coffee shops and stylish boutiques, Hanoi is our all time favourite.












best national park award

The Komodo national park in Indonesia is stunning over and under water. For the small amount you pay they seem to do really well. The guides are friendly and full of information and are your only insurance when you encounter the dragons. Also the amount of fish around Komodo is incredible. Everything from sharks to manta rays frequent the reefs here. Also recommended: watching the sunset from the deck of a boat after a great day of diving.

pity award

 Malaysia was several times so close to win but there was always something wrong. It's hard understand what Malaysia is, or wants to be. It's a big collection of good and not so good. But they have orangutans and that's great. It's still worth a short visit.

(Forgotten) Do's and dont's of November

This month we recommend:

"Go crazy" on your birthday with massage and ice-cream and other expensive food in China and manage to spend about 15 euros per person

Chinese blind massage, if you have the balls for it

Being a millionaire in Laos style

Party town become a sleepy village - Vang Vieng

Experiencing authentic Thai life in Chiang Rai and eating like a local in the night market

Beerlao, Chang and Singha

Improving your Thai cooking skills with taking lessons

Taking the time to apply for a 2-month Thai visa

Toilets with a view

 

This month we do NOT recommend:

Bed bugs (Thank you Vientiane and Sukhothai)

Luang Namtha "jungle experience", a walk through farmers' fields, more like

Khao San Road

Bangkok's taxi drivers

VIP minivans, aircon minivans, deluxe minivans or basically anything that has mini and van anywhere near

Shopping in Bangkok's malls without winter clothes

Using plastic bottles as soup bowls for the chicken feet dish

 

Sabaidee!

The bus journey to Luang Namtha in Laos was everything but boring. Crossing the borders of China and Laos, frequent stops for local tourists and crowds of money changers made the trip interesting. As soon as we arrived in Luang Namtha we quickly saw that from now on we won't be the only white faces for a long time. So many tourists everywhere! For the first time in 6 months we joined the stream of thousands of tourists travelling north or south in Laos. And after a comment of a tourist who came to this place to "escape the crowds" we knew it won't get better further south.

Soon we started to enjoy the upsides of tourism, restaurants with English menus, English speaking locals, masses of guesthouses and hostels. "Sabaidee!", the greeting in Lao language together with a huge smile quickly made us feel very welcome in the new country. We were also happy to finally be able to exchange tips and stories with other travellers, too rare were those occasions so far.

One day we rented a motorbike and explored the area around the town, it was a beautiful day! The main reason that brought us to Luang Namtha though was the rainforest, the "Nam Tha national protected area" in particular which is supposed to be home to clouded leopards, tigers, elephants and birds. The main attraction for other travellers were the minority villages though. We checked out some travel agencies and searched for a tour WITHOUT visits or overnight stays in those villages. Harder than expected. We finally signed up for a 2 day, 1 night trekking tour. First we had to sign a form that released the agency, the town and the state of any responsibility. After arguing for about an hour we were allowed to exclude certain parts of the form. Not a good start.

We left the next day in the morning with a tuk-tuk. We drove for about an hour and stopped finally in a village next to a school. Our arrival made the round and soon we were surrounded by kids, curious but still a bit shy. They watched us fixing the backpacks for a last time, then we set off through the village and off into the surrounding rice fields. We walked quite a long time along a hill, rice fields beneath us and thick forest above. After a steep climb up a mountain we finally reached the rainforest or what they call rainforest. On this walk Anni asked the guide, an unexperienced, young receptionist (yes, that was his real job) what kind of animals we'll see over the next two days. "Animals? No animals. There are no animals." After that comment we were absolutely disappointed. There was no rainforest as we knew it from the Amazon (incomparable as we know by now) and no animals. The guide barely spoke english even if they said he will speak, there was barely enough vegetarian food for Anni even if they said there will be and his explanations were limited to comments like "there's a mushroom" or "look, bamboo". The overnight stop was in a house at a river, very nice setup but the house was in bad condition, no place to sit down, not enough material to fix the mosquito nets and no foam mattresses even if they said there will be. So we didn't see animals (except a green pit viper), we didn't eat good and we slept really bad. After all it was a big disappointment for us, we wouldn't do it again but everyone else seemed to enjoy it so we guess we were just spoiled by the amazing Amazon.

We then left for Luang Prabang in a minivan. 8 hours through the mountains with a driver that seemed to be in his own imaginary race, it wasn't fun. In Luang Prabang we found a hostel along the main road but a bit outside the main centre. We didn't do much mostly due to the incredible high temperatures and to stomach problems we were both suffering from after a day in town. Also is Luang Prabang quite expensive so we strolled around the town, visited a temple and read a lot. It is a very nice place with temples on every corner but also very touristy and therefore higher prices for everything. The main attraction for all the tourists is probably the night market. A whole street is closed from the evening on and hosts hundreds of tents with women selling everything a package tourist might want as a souvenir. Apart from useless dust collecting items they also sell all sorts of clothes, tea, coffee, bags and paintings.

Despite our original plan to skip it we then went to Vang Vieng. THE place in South East Asia they say. We heard more people telling us to stay away than encouraging us to go there. It's the place that was famous for the "tubing", to get drunk, high, and then float down the river in a black rubber tube. WAS famous. Now all the bars that were supplying the "tubers" with extra alcohol spiced up with opium and magic mushrooms on their journey had to close, their bars ripped down after over 20 tourists died in 2011. Now there's still a lot of party going on in town but now in town and not on the river as before. Also the tubing didn't stop and it's actually a nice idea if you do it with a clear head. There were some people leaving the river with their tube once in a while and not in masses like we saw on pictures, how it used to be. We stayed in a bungalow across the river for 40'000 kip/night (4€) and really enjoyed this place! It is famous for a reason and that reason is the beautiful landscape. The river, karst peaks, thick forest, everything green, it was a place to relax for us.

Next and last stop in Laos (for the moment) was Vientiane, the capital. It's relatively small for a capital and we liked it there. It was just unbelievably hot! Even just sitting in the shade made us sweat like never before. But we had a mission and that was to get 2 months visas for Thailand, our next destination. Together with an English friend we met on the bus we walked to the Thai consulate and applied for the visa. The next day we could already go back to pick the passports up and yes, we had the visa! It didn't say for how many days though and we couldn't get specific information about that. I asked a lady working there and she said that depends on the immigration officer on the border... So we hoped for the best.

We also sent once more clothes and souvenirs home, we decided to travel in "flip-flop countries" from now on so we got rid of some warm clothes we still carried around. Then we booked a bus straight to Chiang Rai in north Thailand but it soon turned out that it wasn't just a direct bus. First it was a huge kind of tuk-tuk that was overloaded with tourists to the bus terminal. There we then sat, waiting for the connecting bus with just a ticket to Udon Thani (we hoped) but nothing more. We didn't know which bus to take, where we were going now and how we could get on the next bus from Udon Thani to Chiang Rai. I've been to Thailand before and had these situations there before and it was never a problem, we still were nervous. Happily we met Peter, an older traveller from the states who had a note from the agency that said "Udon Thani, man with red shirt with number 16". That was already much more than we had! It all went well in the end. Got the bus to Udon Thani, crossed both borders without problems, and did find the guy in a red shirt and the number 16, holding tickets for all of us! The bus left 2.5 hours too late and the "first class" we booked looked like a random bus in Bolivia but all was good now. Soon we all fell silent, the bus noisily rattling us into sleep, everything so familiar to all the bus travels we've done before.