If you need a reprieve from the oppressive heat in Southeast Asia, may we suggest heading to the highlands of south-central Vietnam and the city of Da Lat. Nicknamed “The City of Eternal Spring,” average temperatures are between 14 and 23°C (57 to 73°F), although April, the hottest month, has occasionally seen daytime temperatures as…
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In case you were worried about us following our last post, wherein I alluded to a potential problem with overstaying our visas, we are not in a Cambodian prison, nor were we unceremoniously deported and barred from ever re-entering the country. We were fined – $10 US / $13.50 CAD each. Fortunately, Howard still had…
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Much of our time in Cambodia this year was retracing our steps from a trip seven years ago. Kampot was completely new for us. Roughly 5 km (3 miles) inland from the Gulf of Thailand lies the riverside community of Kampot, the capital of Kampot Province. During French colonial administration it had been the capital…
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Seven years ago we had a one-day whirlwind tour of the Angkor temples. Now, as full-time travelers, we’re back for a more in-depth exploration. In the first century CE, Indian culture began taking root in much of Southeast Asia as more and more Hindu and Buddhist traders settled in the region. While the term “kingdom”…
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Why, you might ask, are we back in Southeast Asia after we made such a big deal about the heat in several of our posts last year? Well, a too-good-to-pass-up opportunity for a cruise from Singapore to Athens (with stops in Sri Lanka, India, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and Israel) presented itself last summer; this…
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As we did last year, and what will continue to be a tradition for our family, we spent Christmas in the Palm Springs area staying with my parents, and flew our boys down from Calgary to join us. We stayed on after Christmas and enjoyed the month of January in sunny California – well perhaps…
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We left Canada at the end of July 2022. Now, 16 months later, we’re heading back for a short visit with family and friends by way of a 14-night transatlantic cruise onboard Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas. We’ve done thirteen cruises in the past but never more than seven days in length, and this…
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After 38 days of fairly quick travel through Northern Europe and the Baltic states we finished our time in Europe this year with a quiet month on the coast of Spain, capped by a few nights in Barcelona. We quite like Spain, particularly in autumn, and have spent a bit of time in that country…
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We continue to wend our way through Northern Europe, moving south from Estonia into Latvia to explore its capital city, Riga. Despite its close proximity to Estonia, the people of Latvia belong to a different ethnic group, the Balts. In antiquity there were roughly eleven Baltic tribes, who survived as farmers and amber gatherers; today…
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Winding cobblestone streets, pastel-coloured houses, fortified walls with gates and turrets – walking through the Old Quarter of Tallinn feels like you’ve been transported directly into the pages of a fairy tale. We loved Tallinn, though I have to say if we thought the people of Helsinki were stoic, the Estonians border on surly. I…
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