Destination

Honourable mention: Cat Ba Island / Lan Ha Bay

Sukhothai was one of the most astonishing places we’ve ever visited. We both preferred it to the more famous and (admittedly impressive) Angkor Wat and Ayutthaya. Our late decision to take the train up to northwest Thailand led to a stop in each direction and on the way north, we hopped off at Phitsanulok and took a bus 70 km to the ancient city. It felt like our own personal playground as we spent two days cycling around the 13^th to 15^th century ruins of the Sukhothai Kingdom. An awesome little hotel and a lovely night market meant we had everything we could’ve wanted. We watched every sunrise and sunset whilst in town and they are some of our favourite memories of the trip.

Zhangjiajie is a natural attraction, Chinese style. The world’s tallest outdoor elevator takes you 326 metres up a sheer pillar of rock, emerging from the cliff to a stupendous view. Glass-bottomed bridges and cable cars link other pillars. My palms are sweating just typing this. Somehow, this doesn’t take away from the spectacular quartz sandstone needles, on which the landscape of the Avatar franchise was based. Three days of cable car hopping and hiking through valleys of giants alongside troops of macaques was the perfect tonic to megacities.

Yangshuo was our base for exploring the karst peaks of the Guilin area. Another dream come true, epitomised by one walk we took through fields away from the tourist buzz.

Wushan, in Chongqing province, is a new city replacing the old one now over 100 metres below the waters of the giant reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam. It was the only place in China where we had the police visit our hotel, however, they just seemed to just want to say hello. Foreign visitors are rare in these parts. The boat trip through the flooded gorges of the Little Three Gorges, including sing-a-longs from the otherwise entirely Chinese passengers, was another mind-boggling experience.

Lan Ha Bay is just south of the more famous Ha Long Bay and made up of the same karst landscape. Our boat trip on a mystically foggy day was a fitting way to end our trip.

Day Trip

Honourable mention: Leshan Giant Buddha; Vardzia; Qiantang tidal bore; Ushguli; Kuang Si Falls; First Bend on the Yangtze

The Great Wall of China lived up to the hype. We put in the effort to get up super early and took a local bus to the Jinshanling section of the wall, but, even out of season and in a supposedly less touristy spot, the crowds soon became ‘people mountain, people sea’. Still, it didn’t matter. The views of the wall stretching for tens of kilometres over mountains in both directions and the chance to walk a section on a perfect blue-sky day felt like a pinch-yourself kind of moment.

We paid a local driver to take us out of Mestia to the beginning of a trail and walked a few kilometres up a rock strewn valley to the foot of the Chalaadi Glacier. Mountains marking the border with Russia loomed above us and the crystal clear glacial outflow rushed past our feet. It was the highlight of the Svaneti region of Georgia and another lifelong ambition reached by seeing a glacier up close.

A theme here is long-term dreams being realised and visiting Tiger Leaping Gorge has been high on my personal list for two decades. Seeing the rushing waters of the upper Yangtze (or Jinsha) up close and then walking part of the old Tea Horse Road, from where both the river and the peak of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain almost 3,800 metres higher were visible, again met my lofty expectations.

A few other day trips worthy of mention were the giant buddha carved into cliffs above Leshan; the ancient cave city of Vardzia in southern Georgia; the world’s largest tidal bore on the Qiantang river in eastern China; another trip out from Mestia to the Svan towers of Ushguli; the azure Kuang Si Falls in the rainforest outside of Luang Prabang; and the first bend on the Yangtze, where geography has shaped Chinese and world history.

Activity

Honourable mention: Qobustan mud volcanoes; Quy Nhon football; Battambang bat caves

Our visit to Red Lotus Lake only came about as trains from Vientiane to Bangkok were more expensive than crossing the border ourselves and then heading south. We randomly discovered that we’d be in Udon Thani during the peak waterlily season and that it was possible to take a boat out at sunrise to see them. A crazily early start and taxi ride once again paid off as we were treated to a sea of millions of pink flowers opening with the rising sun.

The Thai and Akha cooking class we took in Chiang Mai was perfect. We’d thought about doing this a few times and definitely chose well in the end. Everything from the market tour in the morning through to the cooking itself felt well organised. We all had choice to make different dishes but cooked together in a communal setting. Of course, the best bit was trying everything we’d made!

Trying incredible high-altitude arabica coffees in the permaculture farm where they were grown, with an infectiously enthusiastic grower, was a trip highlight for me. I learnt so much about coffee!

Visiting the Giant Pandas Research Centre in Chengdu was a surreal experience. From people queuing before opening and crying at the sight of their favourite creatures, to the cute animals themselves falling around clumsily, it was a weird and wonderful day.

A day trip from Baku in Azerbaijan took us to the a few bizarre spots. One activity in Qobustan was jumping into ancient Ladas and being driven by maniacs across the desert to see mud bubbling from the ground.

I only went to a couple of football matches on the trip and both stadiums were cool. My favourite though was in Quy Nhon, where enthusiastic locals cheered on their team within a beautiful pastel-coloured bowl overlooked by temples.

In the aptly named Battambang in Cambodia, we took a tuk-tuk out of town late one afternoon to watch a daily spectacle. After waiting and waiting, millions of bats emerged from a cave, forming a river across the sky for more than half an hour.