NEW YEAR 2019 – the crazy family tradition continues…

So my family has this crazy new year’s tradition where we welcome in the new year with a gourmet dinner, consisting of the number of courses of the new year. We have reached 19 now, and boy, it has become a bit of an epic cook-off. We are a bunch of amateurs that really enjoy […]

Safari in Madikwe, South Africa.

Going around the world just to come home and realize it’s the best place on earth! I had the absolute joy of going on safari in the Northwest Province of South Africa with a group of my best friends. Two of them have never been on safari, and it was a privilege to expose them […]

Himeji Castle

When we originally started planning our trip to Japan, the idea was never to spend our three weeks there in November. Our dates were set for October, but things turned out so beautifully with Japan putting on its autumn cloak in November. From the start, I never thought I would see a cherry blossom whilst […]

Best Fast Food Ever – Cambodian Fried Ice Cream.

I think something got lost in translation here because there’s nothing fried about this ice cream. Made in front of you while you wait, it is essentially a combination of fresh fruit and milk (could have been custard – was too fascinated to ask!), churned on a frozen flat surface. After being hand churned into […]

Cambodia – place of a thousand temples

We visited four temples in total, and there were many more. We slipped away from Angkor Wat just at the tour buses started to pile up, and also went to see Bayon with the serene smiling faces. We went to a temple where there ‘were no other tourists’ and played at Indiana Jones, and then […]

Cambodia – Angkor Wat

Getting up for sunrise is never a bad idea and somehow it never disappoints. This was more than true for us the morning we went to Angkor Wat, the Hindu/Buddist temple that stretches like a carpet over the jungle close to Siem Reap. Built towards the end of the 12th century the temple was either […]

The last thing I ever thought I’d eat in Hanoi.

Traveling with two kids (whose taste buds are at various stages of development) means that every now and again we need to find our way to a pizza/pasta place, or our kids would just fade away. Eating apps have become very useful during our travels and scouting child-friendly joints our specialty. Here we are in […]

Vietnam – Mai Chau Valley

Visiting rural Vietnam, when you are in the north of the country, invariably includes a stay in Mai Chau Valley, approximately 140km west into the mountains from Hanoi. Here it’s lovely to cycle past rice paddies, on neat cemented roads, or take a hike through some of the parts inaccessible by anything but a pair […]

Koyasan

When spending so much time as we did in Japan you tend to open yourself to a level of experience that wouldn’t be possible on a quick ‘highlights’ tour. This is how we found ourselves on a hill – Mount Koya – sleeping over in a Buddhist temple in the town of Koyasan, finally orbiting […]

Miyajima

Visiting Miyajima was one of the highlights of our trip, being such a diverse and interesting experience. It was like visiting a mini version of Japan, as this small island sums up all the things to enjoy in Japan in one go. There is the Toril Gate, standing like a bastion in the bay and […]