Thanks to the Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute, Bangkok is a great place to top up on your vaccinations for travelling further afield in Southeast Asia or for future trips to other parts of the world. Even Brits with access to the NHS can find bargain jabs, while Americans can save a small fortune getting their injections in this efficient medical centre.
A lot of our time in Kuala Lumpur was spent hanging out around the Central Market. The main reason was the food court on the first floor where we could try new Malay or Indonesian dishes, or hanker after familiar Thai or Chinese favourites, all under one roof.
One of the first apps we downloaded on our new iPod Touch is Prisma. This app that turns your photos into works of art and we have been doing exactly that with some of our own. Here are 24 of our favourites.
The previous night had been spent in the hostel garden with a chap called Rick experimenting with the effects of a bottle of SangSom ‘Thai Whisky’ on the brain and body. Rick had been travelling for seven years and had collected enough tales in that time to merit a second bottle and - once the shops had shut - a visit to the hostel bar.
I’ve moaned a bit already about Machu Picchu. Not in a ‘it’s a bit rubbish’ kind of a way because it certainly is not that. What I’ve whinged about is how hard the climb there is to an unfit, chain cigar smoking first time hiker who wouldn’t normally walk the length of himself.
Why couldn’t those bastard Incas have built at sea level, I thought, as I entered yet another hour of wheezing uphill, bitching about mountains, never ending steps and healthy young Canadians.
I didn’t sleep through every major festival in Cusco. The feast of Corpus Christi celebrates the body of Christ and events are held around the world by some Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran Churches.
Inti Raymi, the Festival of the Sun, was a celebration of the winter solstice and a way to greet the new year in the southern hemisphere. Dedicated to the sun god, Inti, the ceremony was the most important in the Incan calendar.
It can be a gamble whipping out your camera or phone during Songkran but these people were prepared to risk the ruination of their photography equipment to capture the watery madness that is New Year in Thailand. We in turn jeopardised damaging our third camera in Southeast Asia to photograph them doing so.
We have mixed feelings about Songkran, in that one of us loves charging about town squirting water into the faces of old women and children, while the other loathes it and won’t venture outside for the duration.
