The journey to Po Lin Monastery is something of an experience, driving as you do through Lantau National Park. The position of the Big Buddha is such that it appears teasingly between hills at various points along the route, and then when it suddenly appears in all it's glory on the horizon there is a combined intake of breath from all the tourists on the bus, and a simultaneous raising of eyes and tutting from locals who have seen it a million times and wonder w...

No visit to Hong Kong is complete without a visit to the worlds largest outdoor seated bronze Buddha (The Tian Tan Buddha, named after the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, on which its base is modelled) at Po Lin Monastery on the Ngong Ping peninsula. Although fairly easy to get to by MTR - the Hong Kong underground train system - and taxi, by far the most satisfying way to reach the Monastery is to go at least part of the way by ferry, arriving at Mui Wo (Silvermine...

In 2003, Eloise and I embarked on a second world trip - this time taking in some of the places we had missed on our tour the previous year and adding New Zealand into the mix. This time our stopping off point on the way to the other side of the world was Hong Kong, and we wanted somewhere to stay which was close enough to the main islands to explore in the limited time we had available, and yet away from the bright lights of the city. Lamma seemed the perfect cho...

On our last day in Fiji, Eloise and I decided that we couldn't possibly leave without taking a day trip out to experience the famous perfect white sandy beaches of the outlying islands. Unfortunately, and I realise that this isn't what you want to hear, I have absolutely no idea which island it was that we ended up on since we chose it purely based on a photo in the reception of the Crow's Nest and didn't take too much notice of the name at the time. As you can i...

On our third day, we decided to take a trip to the city of Nadi, on the west coast of Viti Levu. Now, I ought to just clear something up at this point. When people talk about Fiji, they generally mean the Fijian island of Viti Levu, which is where the capital city of Suva can be found. Fiji is actually made up of 322 islands, of which about 100 are actually inhabited, but people seem to mysteriously forget this and refer to the island of Viti Levu as Fiji. During...