We can highly recommend a trip to Syria in October - weather pleasant (not too hot), very few tourists. 8 days on a tour were not quite enough - 10-11 would have been preferable to cover the main sights -Damascus, Palmyra (Tadmur), Mari, Dura Europos, Deir ez-Zur, ar-Rusafa, the Assad dam, Aleppo (Halab), St. Simeon's monastery ruins, Hama, Krak des Chevaliers and Ma'alula. Not actually a place to take the kids (unless they are 30+) - it's history and culture al...

It's nearly time to leave this very likeable UNESCO World Heritage town and the Mekong, but it's one of those places that you really become attached to - so pretty, so atmospheric and such fun to be in. It seems like a mini-UN, with visitors from all over the world, and guesthouses (of very varying standard - some are as good as hotels: our German friends recommend a new one called "LOTUS", near the "Les 3 Nagas" hotel and run by 2 Australians...

Arrived in Luang Prabang comfortably by Lao Airlines today (one feels safe enough but the planes must be at least 20 yrs old and at Xieng Khouang airport there was no security check whatsoever ) and wondered how our Japanese travelling companion, Ogino-san, had actually managed to take the so-called, non-air-conditioned "VIP" bus for 8 hrs through the mountains on a very windy road, with the locals throwing up around him, the whole 200 or so km from he...

Have been so busy the past few days that it hasn't been possible to write. We spent a couple of fabulous days at Phonsavan (also known as Xieng Khouang, which is the name of the province too) and the Plain of Jars after flying up on Lao Airlines from Pakse in the south of Laos. I'd like to emphasise here to those who are not so familiar with travelling in this part of the world, that it is all relatively EASY compared with when I started my adventures in 1968 (Pe...

Sorry, no time to write anything much about Phnom Penh or Siem Reap/Angkor, except to say how wonderful the whole Angkor experience was and that we "survived" Phnom Penh quite happily (the days of 1975 and the Khmer rouge are well and truly over, although the international tribunal investigating their crimes is far from finished). The Royal Palace (home to the only Czech-speaking monarch in the world - King Norodom Sihamoni attended school in Prague and became a ...