Travelling Vietnam North to South


As we are travelling Vietnam during their winter months we felt very at home when we landed in Hanoi to dark rainy air, however still around 20degrees so not all that bad really. We later realised that as soon as you head out of the city the cloud and fog clears and becomes much brighter. Hanoi international airport is around an hours drive into the Old quarter city centre.

I have to tell you about our hostel here in Hanoi (we know hostels aren’t for everyone) which was more like a hotel. The Little Charm Hostel Hanoi has a 24 hour reception, tour operators, a reasonably priced Italian restaurant, an indoor heated swimming pool, fresh towels, hot and powerful showers and many more luxuries that we’ve missed along our backpacking route and all for only £6 per night in a mixed 6 bed dorm. If you haven’t tried hostelling yet, somewhere like this would be a good break-in.

Exploring the Old Quarter

Take yourself to Ga Long Bien station and walk along Longbien Bridge noticing the recognisable architecture of the bridge which was designed by the same architect as the Eiffel tower. This bridge has a train track running through it and bike routes either way, taking you all the way to the city of Hue. Not one for the fainthearted, it’s a tad wobbly especially when the train goes by.

Of course we made our way to the  infamous train street. You would have seen photos, I’m sure, of people walking across the tracks getting their Instagram perfect photo amongst the hustle and bustle of the shops and cafes that lie right on the edge of the track. Unfortunately several cafes and bars were opening up without a license and the government have blocked the street off and the train only runs on a few days now. You can still get your photo but it’s definitely a trick of photography as you can’t really get onto the track anymore.

We took ourselves for a walk around the Old quarter to the main sights of Hanoi and found ourselves at the Hoan Kiem Lake which you can walk around in about 20 minutes, you can pay £1 to cross the small bridge into the middle of lake to see the small temple which is very pretty and filled with tourists and worshipers alike. The Lake itself I would say isn’t that spectacular but is a nice walk round and a great running route if you’re in needed of some exercise. Next stop was St Josephs Cathedral, a beautiful cathedral that reminded me very much of Notre Dame in Paris, Beautiful Gothic architecture with an enormous Christmas tree and nativity scene out the front at Christmas time. Naturally, as per everywhere in Asia, we headed to the night market (Only Fri, Sat, Sundays from 6:30pm) selling ‘same same but different’ designer gear for nothing at all and street food that will make you want to come back for more. Our last stop in Hanoi was the Water Puppet show, costing only £4 to attend a show lasting about an hour, the puppeteers give an insight to Vietnam history with traditional music played along side the water stage. I’ll let you decide if its worth the trip or not.

Exploring the famous Islets of Ha Long

Ha Long Bay is possibly one of the most famous places tourists try to head to in Vietnam and that’s why tourist boats are no longer allowed to drop anchor for the night anymore due to polution of the water and over population. Instead we cruised around Lan Ha bay (dropping into Ha Long Bay on route). Lan Ha Bay is home to one of the biggest floating village communities in Vietnam. People stay on their floating homes to farm fish and of course, for tourism. We hopped onto one of the floating settlements to take their kayaks out for a tour around the islets at a more intimate level. Paddling around the islands, under archways, into hidden caves and beaches was truly magical and if you’re in a small group extremely peaceful. Along the way you’ll be shown where many scenes from famous Hollywood films such as James bond and King Kong were filmed.

We hopped off our boat every now and then to explore. We took a short cycle ride through Cat Ba island to find a small village called Viet Hai, famous for its pearls, rice wine and homestays. Home to around 30 families it really was beautiful and like stepping into another world with no cars, only bikes and walking as a means of transport. We also took our kayaks to monkey beach where you could take a walk up to a view point and look over the bay or just sit in the café and enjoy the monkeys terrorising the tourists.

We decided a 2 night 3 day tour would be a great amount of time for us around Lan Ha bay, and we were right, 1 night wouldn’t have been enough to enjoy this remarkable place. We stayed on a cruise (more like a pirate ship) that had 5 bedrooms, a dining table for all guests to sit for family dinner and lounge chairs to enjoy the sun and views from. Each night we would moor up in the ‘sleeping area’ of the bay and try our hand at making Nem (spring rolls) in a short cooking class and squid fishing. We were very unsuccessful at this but we came close and was definitely entertaining to give it a go. Of course during the day jumping from the highest point of the boat into the water was a huge must do challenge and once facing that fear and landing successfully in the water it was so refreshing it was hard to get out! There were steps – don’t panic!

For our Vietnam trip we purchased an open bus ticket which allowed us to stop in 5 different destinations (you can pay for more stops) and pick and chose when we left each city. So from Hanoi we caught our first overnight bus to Hue.

The Imperial City

We only spent 2 nights here in Hue and that was plenty. We set out on our first full day to the old Citadel, The Imperial City built in 1803 in the Nguyen dynasty. It costs around £5 to enter the old city and you can spend as much time there as you please. You could spend all day here exploring the hidden gardens and old parts of the city buildings. It is truly magical and if you use your imagination (and help from some videos around the site) you can really picture what if used to be like way back then.

We made some other quick pit stops in Hue including Thien Mu Pagoda and The Royal Tomb of Khai Dinh King, both uniquely beautiful in their own right. However you don’t need long here and it is extremely busy filled with tourists on the same route of the city. The last site we explored, and I had been excited to see since the beginning of our travels, was the old abandoned water park. The park is closed to everyone and there are guards turning you away at every entrance point which at first was very disappointing. We then looked a little closer and there was loads of people inside the park, so as encouraged  by our wonderful host at our hostel its best to just walk in as the guards cannot turn you away. So, on that, we did! And it truly is the most haunting place, with old dragon statues, winding staircases and a few old slides. Its quite magical, so take the plunge and experience it for yourselves.

Biking the Hai Van Pass

Our next adventure was travelling the Hai Van Pass on the back of motorbikes. We used Easy Riders who are a very prestigious company throughout Asia, you can hire a bike yourself or, like us, hop on the back of an experienced riders bike with your luggage strapped to the back.

The Hai Van Pass takes you up over the mountains rather than through the tunnel to HoiAn, even on a cloudy day the views are spectacular and I would highly recommended taking this route by bike. Our drivers stopped frequently for us to take in the scenery and other pitstops along the way and once we reach HoiAn they dropped us right at the doorstep of our accommodation. It’s a must do!

The city of lights.

What can I say about HoiAn? The lanterns, the rivers, the people and the food were all just what I’d ever dreamt of! The City of lights is famously known for its lanterns and it did not disappoint. At night time the city streets are lined with lanterns hanging and shops selling their treasured lanterns. Street stalls selling candles and paper baskets for you to make a wish and see your lantern float away down the river were on every corner. We chose not to take part in this as the river was slowly building up with left over paper and candles leaving a horrid eye sore on such a beautiful city. We took part in a lantern making class for a very reasonable price where you see and learn how to make a lantern from start to finish.

I now own my very own home made lantern and it will be treasured forever.

We took a very short taxi ride to The coconut village to take a trip round the village in a traditional bamboo boat that I had read so much about. The boats themselves were wonderful unfortunately the experience was slightly tainted by the amount of tourists and the locals playing up to it by booming out karaoke music all in a quest to get tips. I would definitely recommend giving the boats a go but do not have high expectations of a peaceful boat ride as you will be bitterly disappointed.

Beach time

We arrived in Nha Trang in the early hours of the morning after another long sleeper bus (there are of course flights and trains if you don’t want to endure these long buses). Nha Trang is renowned for its beautiful beaches which after a while of exploring cities with not much rest was welcomed with open arms. If you are a sea swimmer just be warned the waves and the rip on Nha Trang beach are extremely strong and even as a strong swimmer I was tugged and bashed around so didn’t spend long in the water. Please take notice to the danger flags on the beach and if you are not a strong swimmer I would recommend maybe just a paddle. Nha Trang has now become a place for Russian tourist to come and this is noticed as soon as you arrive in the city, with signage, menus, supermarkets all in Russian or with Russian influences. Many Locals would no longer talk to or smile at us which was such a shame, but as soon as we started speaking to them soon enough those Vietnamese smiles came running back.

One of the main reasons we came to Nha Trang was to go to VinPearl Land (the inner children in us). Vin Pearl Land is an amusement park with a water park, seaside water sports including inflatable assault course, theme park, giant wheel, animal park, gardens and cable car to get you to the island.

Be warned the queues to get to the island via cable car are endless, we ended up taking a speed boat which got us there much quicker and avoided the queues. We started in the water park, not all the rides were open as some were closed for maintenance but the others that were open were great with minimal queues. The beach here at Vin Pearl was glorious and the seas so calm in complete contrast to the mainland. We spent most of the morning in the water park then we made our way up to the big Ferris wheel and animal park filled with animals that don’t necessarily belong on an Asian island and don’t look incredibly well looked after. Naturally we moved on from here quite quickly towards the amusement park with a few thrill seeker rides and some more tame rides for those less interested in being thrown upside down. If you’re one of those amusement park people that will happily queue for hours for that perfect ride then get comfy for the new ‘alpine rollercoaster’ taking you to the top of VinPearl and riding down solo on a toboggan style cart, we decided to give this a miss as the queue was so long. Their newest addition to the park is the zipline, again we missed this, as their system was to queue up for an hour and then they would essentially shuffle some cards and if you were 1 of the lucky 10 cards shuffled in you would get a chance to ride the zipline. Seemed a little strange to me.

Vin Pearl is very much the Disney of Vietnam albeit much smaller and less magical but they have done a great job here and even do a light and dancing water show and light up the magic castle at night before you head back to the cable car on your return journey back to the mainland.

VinPearl Land has its ups and downs like all theme parks do but as a day trip for adults and children alike it is well worth a visit.

The City of Lakes, Dalat.

Situated in the mountains a city build around these beautiful lakes has brought foreign and local tourists to visit. Dalat is also famous for its flowers and vegetables as you can see on entering the city with the endless fields of green houses, not a square foot of land is empty.

Take a cab to the South of the city for a cable car across the scenic views of the mountains and fir trees taking you to the Truc Lam Zen Monastery, one of the most well-known monastery’s in Vientam famous for being extremely tranquil and zen. Spend as much time here as you like and take some ‘you time’. From here we took a walk about 20 minutes down the road to the Alpine rollercoaster and Datanla waterfall. Finally we had our chance at going on an Alpine rollercoaster and it was so much fun! Whipping and winding down the hill however fast you please as the breaks are at your own control. The waterfall at the bottom was also beautiful and you can chose to go canyoning here as a day trip.

Dalat is home to one of the oldest railways stations and tracks now only 8km of the track is usable and runs only a few times a day for tourist to take a trip on the replica carriages to the Linh Phu Pagoda, a beautiful pagoda made from recycled materials. The train will stop for around half an hour before it returns back towards the city. If you’ve paid for a return ticket be sure to get back with plenty of time as it will not wait for you.

A few days here in Dalat was lovely and I can see how people would spend longer as it’s a very calm place to be, exploring or just relaxing by the lake (even if slightly more expensive). Enjoy the relax time.

Lets go to the Beach….again.

From one chilled out place to another we moved onto Mui Ne. We stayed here for 4 nights right on the beach and didn’t stray too far from there for the majority of the time. It truly was fantastic. The small time we did spend off the beach was for the sun set at the sand dunes. At the White Dunes you can pay to use the quad bikes which now looking back I would have paid the small fortune they were asking for as it was an extremely long and hot walk to the top of the dunes. The Red dunes, where we ended up for the sunset, were packed with tourist and in my opinion a lot less beautiful than the white. But still a great place to watch the sun go down.

There’s plenty of places to get local food here in Mui Ne, we found a great food court that had seating in the middle and around 20 different varieties of food and drink restaurants surrounding you to chose from. We ate there most days.

Our final stop.


Our final stop in Vietnam was the Capital City of Ho Chi Minh City, still known to most as Saigon. We spent as little time as here as possible to be honest it was your typical over-crowded, polluted dirty city. We really only stopped here for one reason. The Cu Chi Tunnels. Dug in the 1940s by soldiers to store weapons and hide from the enemy this site has now been taken over by large tourists groups. Its my understanding that a few years back it was a great site to see and you really experienced the nature of these tunnels. However when we went this time round we were in an extremely large tour group (only tours go there, no taxis’s) where we were rushed round the site with a very quick stop if you chose to go into the tunnels and then spent most of our time waiting for our group to go in the firing range. The site is still run by the military and they have worked out that charging people to shoot some rifles or automatic weapons makes them heaps of money. Unfortunately this now seems to be the main attraction not the history of the tunnels.

Good Night Vietnam!

And so we end our trip in Vietnam. We spent roughly a month in this beautiful country and we could have happily spent another month exploring the hidden beauties of this country. As you can see by my number of photos going up on my blogs, there were so many to chose from in this part of our trip so I hope you enjoy them all! Just gives us an excuse to come back eh!?

Why not look into it? Drop us a message or pop into the office today and see if Vietnam is the place for you.

Keep Adventuring. Stay Blue.

New Adventures, First stop Northern Thailand

Now we are heading around South East Asia we decided to give the backpacking lifestyle a go so we’re mainly planning to stay in hostels with the occasional hotel/homestay. Who Knows?

Flying into Chiang Mai we decided to head straight to The Elephant Nature park. Naturally there are hundreds of different Elephant sanctuary’s to visit in Asia but please make sure you chose carefully. – choosing an elephant park solely to ride them and wash them is not a good enough reason to go, this is not what elephants do in the wild so please don’t make them do this for your entertainment. The Elephant Nature park was also a dog and cat rescue centre run by volunteers. One afternoon we took several of the dogs out for walks which the volunteers highly appreciated as they are always looking for more volunteers to stay with them. 

The Hefflumps!

Back to the main reason we visited this Park however, these incredible animals are so breath-taking! They’ve all been rescued from horrid situations whether that be from logging farms, tourist attraction rides or landmine injuries. They are looked after and cared for by their Mahouts so well here and you can see how happy they are. It’s my understanding that compared to other sanctuary’s you don’t have as much interaction with the elephants here (how it should be eh?) but we had plenty enough time to walk with them, be with them and feed them. It’s an experience I will never forget.

After our Elephant experience we headed back to the City centre of Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is a beautiful city, almost village like with its small roads and street markets. It’s very easy to get lost here especially at night walking through the endless street markets where you can barter your way through souvenirs.


We took a short bus ride out of the city via a beautiful waterfall (naturally there are many of these to visit in Asia) to The Doi Ithanon National Park which holds the highest peak in Thailand and homes the King and Queens Pagodas. We made it there on a beautifully clear and sunny day and the scenes were utterly spectacular. Definitely one to make the trip for. On the way back into the city we stopped at a small village called Sobhad where the Karen people live. The village was made up of only 130 people and tourists can stop by to see how they produce their local coffee and colourful scarfs made by hand. The ladies in Sobhad will always wear white clothing until they are no longer single and then that’s is when the bright colours are worn. 

Never ending road to Pai..

Today ended our trip to Chiang Mai and we took a winding bus journey for 3 or so hours north to Pai. If you get travel sick please ensure you take your travel sickness pills for this ride there are over 762 hairpin bends on his road, beautiful scenery but not one for an icky tummy.

Pai is one of those places in Thailand that you plan to visit for a few days but end up staying for months. There something about it that draws everyone in. Being on a tight schedule we stayed 4 nights and manged to squeeze most of the big sights in.


When in Pai I recommend you hire a moped, it’s by far the easiest and cheapest way to get around (100baht a day to hire). Make sure you take it steady as some of the sandy/dusty roads are very windy and the amount of people we saw with road rash was absurd! Drive Safely!


On our first day we head to the Pai Land split which was opened as a tourist attraction by a farmer in 2008 after an earthquake split his land and was no longer able to grow crops safely. It is free to look around and the owners offer free snacks and drinks only asking for a small donation. They were happy to have you there and were truly welcoming. Just up the road from here was the Pam Bok waterfall, you take a short walk up to the pool of the falls and if you’re brave take a dip. We did – but I assure you it was not warm! It’s not one of the most beautiful waterfalls we’ve seen but it makes a nice stop over and only cost 40baht (£1).


Moving further up the same road, albeit now a little more sketchy with some very tight bends, we found our way to Pam Bok village where the bamboo bridge has been made. Here there is a lovely café which serves great food and drink before you take a stroll along the bamboo bridge. Be sure to wear respectable clothing when coming here as there is a temple at the end of the bridge which you should not enter without your knees or shoulders covered. These 3 sights you could spend all day looking around and relaxing and they’re all on one road and very easy to find.

Sun setting on Pai

Pai canyon is quite the spectacle. We headed here at sunset – along with the rest of Pai. Although its busy here at sunset you can still find a peaceful place to sit yourself ready to watch the sun go down over the mountains. Before walking up from the car park there are little shops you can buy drinks and snacks to take up with you. I would suggest you wear sensible footwear as there are a lot of ups and downs and craggy areas to walk to get to other areas of the canyon.

Other places in Pai you need to make a pit stop at are the many hot springs – we chose to go to Tha Pai Springs about 20 minute ride out of the centre of Pai and we went at around 8am (opening time) and we were the only people there. It was lovely to be on our own with no other tourists around to just relax here. There are plenty of other springs to choose from also. The White Buddha looks over the city and is a great place to visit and get your step count up. Walking to the top up hundreds of steps is so rewarding when you see the views of Pai at the summit. Another view point we went to was Noodle Hill, a dirt track ride away into the middle of nowhere lies a small café and a mesmerising view. We stayed here and had lunch – again no one else around so keep this place a secret! Shhhh!

The last place we headed to in Northern Thailand was Chiang Rai about a 7 hour bus ride from Pai. – The drivers take plenty of rest breaks and we even stopped at the stunning White Temple on the way. More of a pit stop for us on our way to Laos this city seems to be a very arty city with many museums, temples and galleries. We headed to the blue temple in the evening which was beautifully lit up and Wat Huay Pla Kang (a giant Buddha and pagoda). Both were free to look around and equally spectacular. One thing I would say about Chiang rai is, unless you book with a tour group to the sites, getting to and from is rather difficult as there was never any tuk tuks or taxis there to take you elsewhere. We ended up having to ask locals to book a cab for us and hope that someone turned up. Get a cab, ask them to wait for you is my suggestion.

Crossing the boarder to Laos from Chiang Rai.

We took the local bus to Chiang Khong (the Thai/loas boarder) which took roughly 3 hours, where we were dropped off at a tuk tuk stand. We paid 50baht each for him to take us and our rucksacks to the Thai boarder where we were stamped out of the country. All very simple. We then had to pay 25baht (5 extra than normal on weekends and after 4pm) to get a bus over the Mekong River to the Laos boarder. We paid 2100 baht (35 US Dollars) for our Laos Visa, filled out the paper work, including a passport photo of yourself (make sure you bring one with you on your travels) and then another 40baht for working over-time on the weekends. Finally we made it to Laos!

Flying through the trees.

HouayXai was a first stopping point in Laos, a small town with not a lot going on except for the reason we were there. The Gibbon experience. We spent 3 days and two nights hiking through the forests, zip lining across beautiful scenic routes and sleeping in treehouses, we even had some sightings of the gibbons which is, by the sounds of it not too common. This truly was the most amazing experience and I would recommend this to anyone coming to Laos. If youre looking for a dinner spot here I would recommend the Terrace, run by a Frenchman who moved to Laos, brings you a French/Laos fusion and its brilliant, also very cheap!


Our next adventure was a 2 day slow boat down the Mekong River to Luang Prabang. It really was incredibly slow and at times a little squished but the views were amazing and truly worthwhile. On this journey you stop over for a night in a small town called Pak Beng, again not much here but they accommodate the slow boat passengers with Whiskey and a bed to sleep in. What more could you want?


Finally after our two day boat ride we arrived in Luang Prabang, our final destination in Laos. A bustling city with a French undertone due to their history, with tourists all over using this city as a good stop over before their next adventure. There is plenty to do here including the standard night markets to pick up your souvenirs, plenty of temples and museums. We chose to take about an hours drive to the Kuansi Waterfalls. I have never seen anything like it. The water so blue and clear with cascading water flowing into several pools for swimmers! You have to stop here when you come to Laos. Be Brave, take a dip, its only cold for a few seconds.

Morning Alms

One extremely powerful tradition I attended her in Luang Prabang was Morning Alms. The monks from surrounding temples walk through the streets receiving food offerings from the locals. I took part in this and it truly was quite magical. We didn’t go to the tourist section of the road for this, we ‘set up camp’ at Wat May and the monks arrived to us around 5:30am. If you don’t with do participate you can observe from the other side of the road. Please be respectful, cover shoulders, be quiet and no flash on your cameras. This is an ancient tradition and so important to the Monks.

Last on our tour of Luang Prabang was Poussi Hill, renowned for its breath-taking views of Laos. The views were indeed breath-taking, however slightly over shadowed by the about of people pushing and shoving to get their perfect sunset shot. If you go here I can only advise not to go at sunset!

This concludes the first part of our guide to Asia, keep reading, keep connecting and travel safe!

Big Blue xx

Tips and Advice for India.

Must Haves on our Menu!

Kachori  – A roti filled with onions and veg, lentils, or a sweet one (the onion was our favourite) and then deep fried. We had our first taste of this and is special to Jaipur.

Water chestnuts seem to be sold in most market places. I’d never had these before and they are so delicious! We also had the experience of heading out on a boat in Bijaipur and saw them being harvested. If you see them black in the markets, don’t panic, they have been boiled. Still tasty but not as nice as the fresh ones.

In Udaipur we tried some extra special Samosas in a small restaurant suggested to us. Their specialty is samosas in a bowl with yogurt and chutneys. Super tasty and like nothing you’ve tasted at home.

Betha Sweets are made from condensed milk and boiled to make a solid almost coconut textured sweet treat. We had Betha with pistachio but naturally there are hundreds of flavours to choose from.

Kulfi is a milky ice cream and comes in various flavours, we sampled Kulfi in Mumbai at a street food market and not ashamed to say that we had several servings!

Whilst in a Goa you must try their local spirit (only in Goa) called Fenny. Its made from the fruit of a cashew nut. Be warned it has a kick. – We’ve been told there is also a coconut one but we didn’t get round to trying this.

When in Goa all I can say is, you are by the sea. Eat the fish, its Delish!

It is customary in India to eat with your right hand (possibly using you left had for a spoon to scoop up onto breads). We didn’t quite get the hang of tearing bread with one hand but we did get used to scooping sauces and dishes up with all the amazing assortments of bread on offer. Embrace eating with your hands, after a few days it feel quite normal!

Points to remember!

In most of our hotels there was a million light switches half of which we couldn’t for the life of us work out what they did. I swear I must have been turning on and off some poor old locals kitchen lights down the road.

Being tall and blonde and a woman in India was quite a challenge, more so in some of the rural areas as westerners are not a common sighting. In the villages just a smile and a happy wave was all people really wanted, However in the cities I found people much more aggressive to wanting photos with me or their family members. So just be prepared. It took a lot within my soul to remain patient and calmly say ‘no thank you’ towards the end of my trip.

ATM points all over where we travelled in India were reluctant to give us money. We travel with a monzo card which allows you to take money out with no bank charges abroad – I would highly recommend getting one of these, you can download the app and they will send you a card through the post within a few days. However some card machines here still did not allow us to take money out. Most places now are starting to use contactless and card machines more but just be aware if you need cash take a few transactions out at one time ( you can only take out 10,000Rupees(just over £100) out at one time)as you never know when you will be able to get to a cash point that works for you again.

Always carry toilet paper with you! There are a few ‘neat and clean’ toilets about when you’re on the road but they are few and far between and are unlikely to have toilet paper in them. Always be prepared eh!?

Embrace the difference and enjoy your trip!

Our Overnight train to Mumbai was 12 hours long and I surprisingly had a pretty decent nights sleep despite the loud train honks, people coming and going and a teenie bunk to sleep in. Hopping on board our train at 11:30pm had us arrive in Mumbai around midday the next day.

After an exhausting night arriving in Mumbai I didn’t have a very open mind and all I saw was an over-crowded city, millions of people and more car horns! However the next day once I’d had a good night sleep and some more time to explore my mind was changed. Despite there being over 24million people in this small city after being there for a few days it was quite picturesque. With the hustle and bustle of the city centre to the calming coastal promenade it was almost 2 different cities.

There was a definite change of culture here in Mumbai with multiple schools and universities meant the western culture has certainly been adopted for many locals. Clothing has changed and more and more people out and about eating and drinking in the city. This didn’t change the photo requests and stares I received throughout our stay however.

We only did a couple of tourist stops whilst in Mumbai as we didn’t have to long before we headed to our next destination. The main site was the biggest open air laundry called Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat.

I’ve never seen anything like it, troughs of water filled with either cold water or hot water heated by a big water tank set in the middle of the site. And then everywhere you looked, clothing being hung in clinical colour coordinated lines. It truly was a site!

The last stop on our visit to Mumbai was the India gate which was built for George V arrival. Yes a gate was literally built for his trip! The gate is set next the Taj hotel, a wonderfully ornate hotel built back in 1903 mainly for the English. Back when it was built an English architect designed it for Indian builders to complete. When he came back to view the grand hotel, only to find that it had in fact been built backwards with the front entrance at the rear and the back door in the front, What a shock that must have been. In 2008 this beautiful hotel was severely effected by the terrorist attacks and the building and was almost completely restored, you couldn’t tell however as it now looks back to its full glory.

From Mumbai we took a short flight to Goa. Be warned it seems not many internal flights leave on time so if you have a connecting flight ensure you leave enough time!

A few hours later we arrived in the almost tropical region of Goa! 

Goa is most definitely the tourist destination of India for both internationals and locals. It seems the best and cheapest way to get around is by hiring a mo-ped. We hired a moped for 350rupees per day. Be warned you may get pulled over by the police and asked to pay a fine for whatever they decide you’ve done wrong at that time – apparently this happens all the time for Indians and westerners alike however as a westerner you’re likely to get charged more. Just a lovely sign of the corruption here in India. We paid our small fine and went on our way.

There are plenty of bars and restaurants to chose from in Goa, on the beach or  inland. Generally nothing has been too expensive here and alcohol seems to be very cheap. This is very much the reason for so many Indian tourists as they come here for the nightclubs and casinos.

Try to get yourself a boat trip through a tour company. We headed out on a boat towards a couple of islands for some snorkelling and lunch on a lovely secluded beach. The snorkelling wasnt great, we saw a few fish but the water was very sandy/dusty so not all that clear. But the water was warm and refreshing after being on a boat for around an hour so no complaints here.

The beaches in Goa are lovely and didn’t seem too busy but I think we arrived just before peak season which was nice. Be warned, walking into the sea can be somewhat of a challenge as its very rocky in some areas.

Our time here in India has been amazing, the vast differences in culture between regions and especially to the western ways. The colours, the food, the landscape is truly remarkable.

If you haven’t travelled to India make sure to put it on your travel list. It’s a definite must! Give us a call here at big blue and we can help you to plan a trip of a lifetime to this colour world.

Sending colourful vibes to all. Big Blue Travel x

Jaipur - The Pink City.

Our first look into Jaipur was through one of the 7 magnificent city gates into the old town. Jaipur is known as the pink city and you can see why, all of the big buildings and structures made with the red sand stone and painted with the excess to give a pink hue across the city.

Sticking with the colour theme we head to the Amber Fort, a huge fort built for the King and his family, including his 12 wives and their families. The fort has the most beautiful and intricate rooms I have ever seen, my favourite being the mirror room. It is exactly what it says on the tin, the walls fully decorated with mirrors different shapes and sizes in the same state today as when it was built all those many years ago.

Getting to the fort nowadays you can either walk or get a jeep, the roads are cobbled and much smaller leading to the fort so buses can only get you so far. They are also still offering your journey to the fort on elephants. The environmentalists are trying desperately hard to ensure animal abuse is to be cut down and are working to get all the elephants as close to their natural environment as possible so a plea from us, do not take the elephants to the fort, they were not born to do this and should be treated with respect, they are not taxis for tourist.

Jaipur is famous for its precious stones and semi-precious stones, if you’ve set out for something special, Jaipur is the place to ensure you get the best of the best.

From Jaipur onto Bijaipur a smaller town about 4 hours from Jaipur we stayed in an old 17^th century castle, very ‘marigold hotel-esque’ in its look. An old castle now turned into a hotel for tour groups. Bijaipur is much more out in the country and takes us away from all the smog, so so beautiful, with the locals so happy to see you. A simple wave and a hello is all the children are wanting! The local people spend most of their days either at school or on the farms and then selling the crops they grow on their local stalls. Spending most of their time out in the field on their tractors means that they want them to feel like home, you can see this by the amount of decoration they put on their machinery, I’ve never taken so many pictures of tractors!

The Venice of India.

Udaipur is home to several beautiful lakes and is named the Venice of India, and you can see why, the beautifully intricate bridges that climb over the lakes and rooftop restaurants and bars on the lake. It truly is picturesque. I highly recommend heading to a rooftop restaurant for sunset! Quite a picture.

If you were to use the lunar calendar we would currently be in the year 2075. Every full moon in Udaipur home-made natural candles are released onto the lakes and wishes are sent out into the open. Naturally this has now become very touristy but its still lovely to go down and see the lights floating off into the distance.

Looking to follow the tourist route? Head to the city Palace, tourists from all over the world visit here to see where the beautiful palace where the 74^th generation of royals still live today. They have opened a large part of the palace to the public and closed off part for themselves to live. At one end of the palace is also a now very high end hotel. The views of the lakes for the top of the palace is spectacular. You can ‘rent a guide’ or rent a head set for your way round the palace, I would always suggest a local guide for more of a personal feel.

Holy Cow!

Some more culture and history for you. All over the buildings and temples in India are many types of animals but in particular the Elephant, The Horse and the Camel. Elephant for Luck, Horse for Strength and Camel for Love. Although not many paintings of them, India is not short of Cows, although I knew cows were sacred in India I wasn’t sure why. Cows in India only produce 4/5litres of milk twice a day, whereas in the UK they produce almost double. Milk, curd, cheese and butter are part of the staple diet in India therefore very precious to the locals. You’ll notice as you walk around lots of ‘land mines’, (cow dung) the locals dry them and use them for insulation in the homes as it keeps in the warmth for winter and keeps it nice and cool in the summer months. Cow dung also keeps the mosquitoes away! When a cow dies naturally the leather is taken and sold for shoes and bags and the meat left for the animals. Cows in India are very smart, they’ll sit in the middle of the roads as its much cooler for them but also knowing that they wont get hit by oncoming traffic as a hefty fine is given if you were to hit one and if you were to hit and cow and it died you’d spend a few nights behind bars!

Next we endure a 16 hour overnight train…. I’ll let you know how we get on in my next post.

Stay safe, speak soon!

From Delhi to Agra…

We hopped on board a pre booked train to Agra, all very civilised really, reserved seating, bottle of water, newspaper and even breakfast served to you. This I’m sure will changed on our next train journey we have planned. Be warned, the toilets are still not overly delightful.

A 3 hour train journey landed us in Agra, I have been dreaming of this place for years. The city itself seemed quite small and very touristy, unsurprisingly. The build up of familiar coffee houses and fast food chains makes Agra a very surreal place to be in. Only staying 1 night here meant that we (like most others) were only here to see one thing. One of the 7 wonders of the world.

Before we made our way to the main event we toured round Agra Fort also known as the Red Fort. Built by, and the home of the man who built the Taj Mahal for his wife. The beautiful red walls of this fort really are astonishing and the size is overwhelming and the intricate details of the wall carvings keep you intrigued for hours. As a visitor you only get to see 25% of the fort as the rest is used by the military nowadays.

What a Wonder

On to the main event, the Taj Mahal. As the locals are trying to keep pollution away from this magnificent structure you are taken to the gates by electric buses (abit like golf buggies) where you get your tickets and scramble amongst the other tourists awaiting this amazing building. As you walk through the gates and under the archway of the out building to the postcard image of the Taj Mahal it truly is a spectacular sight. You could wonder round the ground for hours and I would still be amazed by the whole thing. Naturally there are hundreds of people everywhere trying to get that perfect profile picture image but please don’t let that put you off going, it truly lives up to the name and is a complete  Wonder! Add it to your bucket list now!

From afar the Taj Mahal is huge but as you move closer and closer to the building it truly is overwhelming how enormous this building really is. Some might say a little over the top for a mausoleum - The Taj Mahal was built for one of the emperor’s wives (his favourite) when she passed away. She asked for only 3 things when she died, To bury her somewhere spectacular, to never marry again and to look after their children. He did all of these 3 things, he built the Taj Mahal, (his other wives were not so lucky, these ladies have a small grave each outside the Taj Mahal which no one visits), he never married again and he did indeed look after their children. His youngest son however didn’t return the favour, He killed is brothers and imprisoned his Father just so that he could become emperor.

I would highly recommend a tour guide for both of these sites, Our guide was so informative about the history of India and the buildings in it and we would have been slightly bewildered without him. 

Cooperative Business

Intrepid travel link up with local businesses called a cooperative business, they help keep family businesses running and keep people employed throughout the country. We were taken to the knotted carpet business today and saw how these exquisite pieces of home décor are made from scratch. The detail and hard work that goes into them is unbelievable. A 1cm line of hand knotted carpet will take a while day to complete! Well worth the money of you get a chance to visit.

We shared an evening meal with Kalyani in her home this evening. (Picture on the right, Kaylani wears the red dress, her Mother, Brother and Husband all work within the family business now). 5 years ago she decided to open her home up to tourist to offer cooking demonstrations of local food. Off the recommendation of her guests she then turned her home into a guest house and B&B. She was so welcoming and I would encourage anyone visiting the area to book (through Big Blue) yourself a demonstration of your own. The food was amazing!

Moving from Agra to Jaipur we took a private mini bus, the journey is quite long, around 5 ½ hours. We came across a slight delay when one of our tyres burst (practically ripped in half), which when you see some of the roads you can imagine happens quite regularly. But having a spare tyre meant that we weren’t hanging around on the road side too long before we were back on our way.

Good Karma

India has many religions and they all live peacefully amongst one another, however 70% of people are Hindu. In the Hindu religion there are millions of Gods, but they don’t necessarily go to the temples to pray to them. Most people take their children to the temples to give positive energy but its not part of their daily routine. They live by the understanding that everything that is useful to you is God. For example our bus driver would pray every morning to his bus and leave incense because the bus gives him a job, the bus helps him provide for his family, therefore the most important thing to him. I absolutely love this sentiment and definitely feel more people should be more gracious to the things around them that get them through daily life.

Do good things and good will come to you…. Speak soon.

Big Blue in the Big Smog


First Stop Delhi..

When you first land in Delhi after a long flight from home all you want to do is get to your hotel. However do make sure you are getting a pre booked cab or specific taxi service to ensure you are not getting over charged, in a state of jetlag and plane haze we just jumped in a cab which definitely wasn’t your standard cab fare.

I had heard the smog in India was bad, but having been to other similar countries I was aware of what it can be like, but the smog in Delhi is like nothing I have ever seen. Most locals and tourists alike wear facemasks and most travel operators advise is to stay inside. 


Beep Beep!


If you have experienced rush hour in a busy city before forget it all as Delhi roads are something else. The road lines might as well be non-existant and the horns on their vehicles are very well used, however I haven’t seen any accidents as everyone seems to be very relaxed and uses their horn as a helpful tool rather than out of anger. A true experience being on these roads. 


Aside from the pollution in the air, on days where the smog lifts and the sun bursts through, India’s capital has some beautiful places to visit. We stayed in two different hotels in Delhi, one very high end a little more out of the city which was beautiful, but as people who like to explore we found this quite difficult so were thankful to move more into the city for our last few days at a middle tier hotel. Spending a only week in the city we did a whistle stop around a few of the main sites including, Inida gate, Mahatma Gandhi’s grave (Raj Ghat) , The red fort, Jama Majid, and various markets.


Some temples in India seem to be closed on Mondays which was such a shame as two of the bigger forts looked stunning from the outside and can only imagine their interior to mirror the external glory. We did however manage to go to Jama Majid a 17^th century mosque, extremely busy but stunning! Most temples that you enter you must remove your shoes and socks out of respect and shoulders and knees to be covered. All women are given a shawl to wear in Jama Majid which will cost you a small sum of 300rupee. 

Raj Ghat was a beautiful park where the grounds have been exquisitely tended to, it is free to enter the park and free to leave your shoes outside the entrance to Gandhi’s grave. (if you wish there is an area you can pay to leave you shoes if you are a bit more wary – I didn’t do this and other tourists seemed okay leaving their shoes with the locals too). Leading to the grave are many spiritual quotes of Gandhi’s giving you an insight to the kind of man he was to the Indian community. The Black marble platform marks the spot of Mahatma Gandhis cremation where a flame burns at all times. It truly is beautiful, even if you don’t know the history, and a must see on your list.

We visited a Sikh temple in the city, of which there are many, again shoes and socks off and dipping your feet in water on entry is a must but once you arrive you are free to worship however you chose. There are musicians playing throughout the day and songs being sang, the floral decorations were like nothing I have every seen! We had lunch in the Sikh temple and all three main meals of the day are cooked buy volunteers for anyone who wishes to eat, no questions asked, it doesn’t matter what religion you are you have the right to come in, sit and enjoy a hot meal together.



Delhi Belly


Naturally I cant not talk about the food whilst I’m here, if you’re a curry ‘expert’ at home then think again when you come to India. The mix of sweet and spicy is amazing. India has a VERY sweet tooth, in every meal you have the mixture of Dahl, curry’s and breads and sugar thrown in their somewhere, are a staple. Although there is some spice in the curry’s tasted so far it’s nothing that’s blown your face off. (great news from me as I’m not a spicy food lover) Who knows that may change as we continue on…
As long as you are sensible, no drinking tap water, see what is being cooked, eat what the locals eat, you are sure to do well. Naturally your body isn’t used to such different food but generally no issues with illness if you are sensible… finger crossed…


First impressions of Delhi if I’m honest weren’t fantastic due to the smog and the dirt but the people have made up for that no end. Smiling faces in a hectic city is very unusual to a Brit and they are most welcome. Possibly the smile towards me are more curious, being very tall and blonde, but nonetheless the friendly faces are wonderful.

Many more adventures to come, so sit tight for more on this colourful world…