Visiting the The Great Wall of China on a Beijing Stopover

If you want to head for somewhere in South East Asia, there’s a good chance your cheapest route will take you through Beijing, or to be more precise Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK). For some reason, our experience here is that arrival isn’t very well coordinated with your onward flight. We’ve been through this airport a number of times, with delays before the next flight of between 5 and 15 hours.  So what to do in these circumstances? Just wait it out, or make time to squeeze in another adventure in your limited travel opportunities?

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Spending 72 hours in Bangkok

We had travelled through Bangkok a few times en route to other places including Cambodia and Phuket but never actually spent any time there.  Our schedule did allow for a few days on our return leg so we thought why not! We left Ho Chi Minh City and travelled with Air Asia back to DMK Airport (Don Mueang).  This was the most uncomfortable journey thus far with a very cramped plane.  Upon arrival, we were unable to book a transfer to the accommodation with them directly and therefore used the Taxify App to book a transfer from the airport.

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Things to Do in Ho Chi Minh City – Vietnam

Our Vietjet flight was quite pleasant, ran on time and the transfer organised by the accommodation was there upon arrival (which is always a relief!).  We got to our accommodation Cozy House and checked in.  The location was down an alleyway and despite outside appearances, it was, well, cosy!

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Things to Do in Da Nang – Vietnam

Our travel to Da Nang went as planned; the flights to Bangkok ran to schedule with a decent stopover in Beijing and our accommodation in Thailand was just the job for a nights rest before heading to Da Nang.  We did realise that we arrived in one Bangkok airport and departed from another (arrived at Suvarnabhumi – BKK and departed from Don Mueang – DMK) but were able to get a taxi to take us to DMK for our Air Asia flight in plenty of time.  Despite a slightly delayed departure for our flight, we arrived in Da Nang just before 7pm.  It is a small airport and was pretty painless collecting our bags and getting through passport control, we told them we intended to stay for a week, and they gave us a visa for 10 days.

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Planning a Visit to Vietnam, Thailand and China

Da Nang is somewhere we had never heard of let alone thought of visiting; however given the fact Nigel’s daughter had moved there between Christmas and New Year we wanted to take the opportunity to visit her, check out where she was living and experience some Vietnamese culture.  We hadn’t had the chance to visit Vietnam whilst in nearby Cambodia previously and with a couple of weeks off work, we took to researching the best and most affordable way to get there. Continue reading “Planning a Visit to Vietnam, Thailand and China”

Riga, Latvia.

The bus trip from Tallinn was actually quite comfortable; the journey took 4hr 40 minutes but unlike any other bus trip like this we had been on, it had in-coach entertainment! We were able to watch a couple of films which made the journey go quicker and they had free tea and coffee and a toilet if required! We encountered a blizzard on the way,  but unlike the UK the roads were adequately prepared and there were no delays.  There is no hard border between Estonia or Latvia we just had to present our passport before we boarded.  We had a couple of stops on the way including Parnu and arrived at Riga bus station at 5pm.

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Tallinn, Estonia.

For New Year and birthday celebrations we struggled to decide where to go; there are certain destinations which we think of as winter destinations and our mission to explore as much of Europe as possible led us to consider Estonia and Latvia.  Due to the fact it was over New Year, flights were unfortunately not our £10 bargains however as we had a week we thought a dual city break would be a good option.  The flights were £120 each return which is way more than we would usually feel comfortable with but was expected because of the time of year.  When the time came we moved on to Riga by coach which was a 4-5 hour trip each way but only cost 30 euros each return back to Tallinn to fly home from there. There was a substantial saving by flying home from Tallinn as opposed to from Riga.

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A Week in Malta.

Malta was somewhere on our list of European countries we hadn’t been to and looking for a warm break in October is no easy feat! After ruling out Cyprus due to the cost and looking at a map we decided to check out Malta.  With average temperatures of low to mid 20 degrees Celsius, it seemed a comfortable option although we were aware there was also a possibility of rain at that time of year.  We had arranged to go away with Caitlin and a friend, and with Malta as the agreed destination (having ruled out Croatia on grounds of lower temperature), we managed to find reasonable flights with Air Malta from a new airport for us,  Southend.  We had dropped someone off there previously and had a good run so didn’t discount it from future travel and here was our opportunity!

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Sopot, Gdansk and Hel! Poland.

We decided to have a ladies short break away in September and knowing how much we all enjoyed Krakow for the sights, food and affordability we decided to have another trip away in Poland, this time heading to the Gdansk region.  There was some planning involved but we decided that a Wednesday to Saturday trip was more affordable and convenient for us all.  With flights and accommodation costing just over £100 each for a 3 night trip for 7 of us we decided to go for it!

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Ambitions, aka The Bucket List

I’d like to see the whole world, but I don’t think that’s achievable in my lifetime. What is more realistic is;

  • To visit each of the 51 countries in Europe (2/3rds of the way there, 17 to go)
  • To visit each of the 7 continents (5/7 on that score, South America and Antarctica to go)
  • To see, and hopefully join in a Tango in Buenos Aires (and maybe try my first ever steak. If you’re going to do that once in your lifetime, that’s the place to do it surely?)
  • To cage dive with Great Whites (happy to do this anywhere, but South Africa is looking favourite)
  • To see the big (and small) 5 in southern Africa.

What’s on your bucket list?

Nigel