Explore our travels around Asia on the map or check out our articles.
We get rather excited by small things here at Flying Fluskey and taking a short-haul flight on a long haul carrier is one of them! The chance to fly Turkish Airlines from London to Istanbul was just such a chance, and we jumped at it. Read on to see our full review of Turkish Airlines Boeing 777-300 economy from London Heathrow to Istanbul Airport.
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When we began our research into Israeli cuisine, we realised just what a confusing business it is. Israel has influences from its direct neighbours, and much further afield. The best way to get our heads around it was to explore the wonderful array of choices with the experts. Enter Delicious Israel and their Eat Jerusalem tour around the Machane Yehuda market.
During our trip to Taipei, Taiwan, we were lucky enough to try out not one, but two amba hotels. The second, amba’s flagship hotel in Songshan, was a masterclass in how to appeal to Flying Fluskey! To find out why, read our full amba Songshan review.
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Taipei is Taiwan’s capital city, intriguing in its mix of the old and new, the Chinese and a mixture of other worldwide influences. If you want a base that is as fun, functional and fabulous as the city through the window, then check out amba Zhongshan.
When you think of winter activities there are few that immediately spring to mind. I bet dog sledding is one of them! That is why it has always been on our bucket list and so dog sledding in Russia was must do for our Trans-Siberbian travels. After a little research we found out that the best place to try dogsledding in Russia was a small village called Listvyanka and we signed ourselves up to try Lake Baikal dog sledding.
Planning a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway can seem daunting. There is a lot to plan and lots of decisions to be made. To help you out, we wrote a whole blog on our Top Tips for planning a Trip on the Trans Siberian Railway One big hurdle that you cannot avoid are the visas required for travel in this part of the world. Thankfully the Real Russia Trans-Siberian visa service takes the stress out of this bureaucratic and annoyingly necessary stage of planning.
Taiwan is a foodie’s dream. There is a huge variety of cheap and ridiculously tasty street foods. Probably its most famous export, is Din Tai Fung. Din Tai Fung is a mild infatuation for us here at flying Fluskey. We ventured out to the Hong Kong branch of Din Tai Fung on our first visit there in 2012, and have thought/dreamed/obsessed about it ever since. That is why, when we visited Taiwan (the home of Din Tai Fung) we made a dumpling pilgrimage to the original Din Tai Fung to eat xiaolongbao.
(more…)Read all about the 7 top dim sum spots in Hong Kong
When I say the words “business hotel” what springs to mind? Dull rooms? An ageing computer centre? A fusty bar? Well, the Mergen Bator in Ulan-Ude is a business hotel with a difference. A bit of fun and a lot of class, the Mergen Bator surprised us at every turn.
“I want to be at the station by 2:30”. Mr Fluskey looked at me with exasperation, “The Trans-Siberian train doesn’t go until 3:55”! Well, it is better to be safe than sorry though right!? “If we miss this train, there isn’t another one for a week”, I quipped. Thus, our Tran-Siberian epic fail began.
I was going to name this post How Our Trans-Siberian Trip Went Off the Rails, but I thought it may alarm people unnecessarily.
Mr Fluskey and I had a booking on the K19 from Harbin to Irkutsk on 27th January 2019. This was the third leg of our Trans-Manchurian adventure, an expensive 2.5 day ride from China to Russia. I was paranoid that we would miss the train, and so we rose bright and early, ready to see the snow festival and make it back in plenty of time.
Read all about the more sucessful parts of our Trans-Siberian adventure
No matter where I looked on the internet, I couldn’t be sure whether or not Harbin station had a left luggage or locker room. I searched as well as could (being stuck behind the great Chinese firewall). I asked the reception at our hostel and they seemed to think there was…or at least the sweet chap behind the counter seemed more enthusiastic than when our poorly translated conversation began.
We hopped on a bus, slightly ahead of schedule and arrived at the station, full of beans and ready for the day without our bags.
There were no lockers, or luggage room.
We spent the next hour engaged in various pursuits:
It was a massive waste of time and we still had our bags. Our plan of dropping off our bags nice and early, getting a super cheap bus to the snow festival, and enjoying some time there before resuming our trip on the Trans-Siberian was rapidly dissipating.
So our only option, now that time was running away with us, was to get a taxi, keep it for the time we were in the snow festival and take it back to the station. We both knew that this wasn’t going to be the value option, but stuck with our backpacks, it was the only workable one.
Taxis in Harbin can be a bit of a nightmare to get. They are usually occupied, the drivers don’t use their green flags properly, and of course, hailing a taxi down is always risky. Taxis are so oversubscribed in Harbin, that you will most often be sharing with someone else. It took us a little while to get a taxi to take us. We had asked the hotel (that wouldn’t store our bags) to translate for us.
Please take us to the Sun Island Snow Expo, wait for us the there and then bring us back to the station.
A few drivers took a quick look and drove off, but eventually one guy agreed. He already had two ladies in the car and so we drove in the wrong direction for a while.
About five minutes into the journey, he asked for clarification. We had to use the translate app on my phone and communicate through the other passengers. He wasn’t happy but by this time we were much further away than when we had started so we had to convince him!
He drove us to a travel agent. Alarm bells were ringing at this point. Bad memories of being stuck in travel agencies in Delhi surfaced.
They sold us tickets to the festival for the same price as on the door (I can only imagine they were getting them cheaper) and told us the driver would only do it for ¥200 and would only wait for one hour. This was about double what it should cost but we had committed by then and were running short of time before we needed to get the Trans-Siberian. Screw it, let’s do it!
The woman from the agency came with us to the festival entrance and ran off to pick up the tickets. She obviously didn’t want us to see the process but considering we paid the same amount as an on the door ticket, and we aren’t that naive, I don’t know why she bothered.
The festival was amazing. I wish we’d had more time to linger over each sculpture or to try out the slides etc, but with the clock ticking, it was quick march around the huge site.
With the drivers tight deadline and my desire to get back to the station in good time, we arrived back there at 14:00. That gave us an exceedingly leisurely hour and fifty-five minutes to find some lunch and then get through security and on to the Trans-Siberian train.
We took a seat near the entrance to our platform and waited. I couldn’t keep my eyes open and although I didn’t quite nap, my brain wasn’t functioning fully.
And then it happened…
(A Little Background
Prior to this journey, we had taken two trains as part of our Trans-Siberian journey in China. We had boarded both of these as part of a huge queue/scrum. Ticket guards came out, the train went green on the departures board, the guards switched the ticket barriers on, started making loud speaker announcements and the mass swarmed forward to enter the platform.
You can’t see the platforms from the waiting area, just a corridor, escalator or wall in front of you so it is always a slight surprise once you reach the platform to see that there is actually a train there.
And so we return to the epic fail…)
As our Trans-Siberian train’s departure time approached we listened out for the announcement to tell us we could pass through the gates. We also watched to see if anyone was going through, which they weren’t. The minutes ticked by and we walked up the the gates, confused as to why nobody was there.
Slowly, a crowd gathered behind us. As this Trans-Siberian train was a slow sleeper from Beijing, we thought it must be late (how British is that!?). The announcement finally came over the loud speaker but still nobody moved. There were no guards either. We were a little puzzled but queued up politely. We needed a guard to let us through as we had a Russian-style paper ticket, and not the small scannable Chinese kind.
At the time our Trans-Siberian train was due to leave, a guard finally came up to the barriers. He scanned the crowd and then locked eyes on us with shock.
Our stomachs dropped.
He spoke to a lady next us who knew some English and she checked our ticket.
“It’s gone, your train is gone”.
We stared dumbfounded at the guard. How…HOW had we just stood there and missed our Trans-Siberian train!?
We have NEVER done anything like that! I mean, sure, we have missed trains but we ran like hell to try not to! This was a new level of stupidity.
Stunned, shocked and stupendously embarrassed we were taken to an information desk for some assistance. Two guards hopped onto the train system and started trying to work out how we could catch our train up. We had no data nor WiFi so we couldn’t do any research of our own. It was incredibly frustrating.
It took Mr Fluskey a while to recover. He was seriously frustrated. “What ifs” and “how coulds” weren’t any use though, so I told him that we just needed to be as nice and hopeless looking as possible so someone would take pity on us. It kind of worked.
One of the guards at Harbin Station, tried his absolute hardest to solve our dilemma. He searched trains, rang offices elsewhere and seemingly bent over backwards to try and sort us out.
There were two ideas:
Get a sleeper train to the China / Russia border and try to rush through to the Russian border station. Catch the K19 from there.
The issue with idea 1 was the time it would take to cross the border. It is an 18 mile crossing and we had read that going from China to Russia takes a very long time (up to five hours) as the customs guards spend a really long time searching for contraband. We would need all our wits about us and that was never going to happen as there were only hard seats left on the sleeper train. We didn’t stand a chance.
Get a fast train to somewhere further North in Manchuria and then take a taxi to the border station on the Chinese side. Catch the K19 from there.
The issue with idea 2 was the cost and uncertainty of getting a taxi. The trip was 300 miles, that’s a 600 miles round trip for the driver and that isn’t cheap anywhere in the world! Even if it was, convincing someone to drive through the night wasn’t going to be an easy feat. We could end up stuck somewhere random without any options.
After considering the options sitting with this lovely guy, we eventually decided that we needed to fly. It was the only way. He got us a cab back to Harbin Hash (the hostel we had checked out of that morning) and left us with his number. He was convinced that we were total idiots and even said he was afraid that wouldn’t be OK. We tried to tell him that we are normally quite good at travel but he was seriously unconvinced. I can see why.
Fly.
The issue with idea 3 was our complete lack of internet. Walking away from the train station and super friendly guard meant giving up our “phone a friend” lifeline. We hadn’t had a chance to see if there was a flight, how much it would be etc. The other options were so risky though that we exchanged all our cards and began again with a new hand.
Thankfully it paid off.
Back at our hostel, we got on the WiFi and found a flight the next morning from Harbin to Irkutsk. I had been very worried that the cost was going to be astronomical but it wasn’t horrific, just mildly painful. We said goodbye to luxuries further along the trip and booked it with IrAero
We were actually planning to disembark the train in Ulan-Ude, one stop before Irkutsk so we would miss that one out. However, I realised that if we went from the airport to the station, we could get a night train back east to Ulan-Ude, arriving a few hours before our original itinerary. It was only another £15 each. So that’s what we did, and we wrote about it; Ulan-Ude to Irkutsk by train along Lake Baikal
This has been a little painful to write. Nobody likes to admit that they have been an idiot, especially when they have reputation to uphold. However, as my buddy Kendra said “Your experiences become our entertainment and lessons”. So here it is:
Overall the whole trip was amazing. You can read our Trans-Siberian Reflections; The Good, The Bad and The Yummy
Rosie xx
Vang Vieng; the town that culture forgot. At least, that’s the way it was when we visited in November 2009 as part of a five month trip through Asia. We arrived from Luang Prabang. You can read all about in our blog; BBQs, Buddhas and Beautification in Luang Prabang.
(Here, again, our camera failed us so we have few photos, and they are mostly of us dancing in a bar, a little worse for wear.)
You know that scene in zombie or bodysnatcher films with brain-dead beings wandering shopping malls. You know the ones, they all look vacant and walk into things. Vang Vieng in Laos is a lot like that. Every morning happy, smiling backpackers would leave on 4x4s, clinging onto large tire inner tube’s, and every evening they would return soggy, grazed bruised and dazed. The rest of us sat, undead, in the video bars.
Dotted throughout the tourist town, you could hear familiar voices emanating from the cafes. Ross and Rachel got together and broke up, got together and broke up in one, Peter and Brian Griffin sang swing numbers in another, and abrupt shouts of “Doh!” erupted every so often from a third. Basically, these places specialised in cheap grub and comfy tables surrounded by cushions. Above hung screens, constantly replaying DVDs of popular American TV shows.
When all you have done all day is watch a whole season of Family Guy and inhale a bowl of cheap chicken super noodles, you have to wonder if you’re really making the most of your travelling experience.
This is the main reason people visit Vang Vieng. If you’ve never heard of tubing, let me try to explain. You take a giant rubber ring and get driven to a river, in this instance, the Nam Song river. Then you get really drunk in the bar that is next to the river. After an hour or so of imbibing your poison of choice (ours was Pimms and lemonade) out of a small plastic bucket, you make your way slowly down to the water and jump into your rubber ring. This carries you downstream.
Soon another bar comes into view and helpful staff toss out a rope to pull you in. You order another bucket of alcohol to swig on and play on the rope swing, slide or greasy pole that they have. Repeat this process again, and again, and again, moving along from bar to bar throughout the day.
Back in your rubber ring, further downstream, you start to realise that the sun is beginning to set and a huge number of mosquitoes are excitedly surrounding your unprotected flesh. You start to think that it is time to get out and take your 4×4 of shame back to town, soggy, grazed, bruised, dazed and with an arm full of colourful string. (More about that string later).
For a more normal river experience, check out The Slow Boat from Thailand to Laos – A Two Day Treat
Hating ourselves for wasting two whole days staring at a TV screen in the video bars, we decided to hire two bikes and pedal to a nearby cave. We whizzed through the zombie-filled streets and crossed a small bridge that leads straight into a field. The hills opened up in front of us. It was an immediate relief.
The path was bumpy and despite the bike’s soft seats, quite punishing on our backsides. Halfway to the cave, we stopped at a cafe for a cold drink. They kindly offered us a seat but we needed to give our battered bottoms a rest.
To be honest, I don’t really remember the cave and have no photos, but I do remember the joy of saying goodbye to the bicycles and climbing into the cool darkness of the cave beyond.
With such a concentration of backpackers, there was a party every night in Vang Vieng. Some bars/pubs adorned tubers arms with string during the day, which they could use to get free drinks in the evening. We visited a few bars during our time in Vang Vieng, some serving cheap local booze, and some claiming to serve “happy” products. A “happy” pizza, banana shake or toastie is something that contains magic mushrooms. Contrary to this seemingly relaxed stance on drug taking, Laos actually has very strict drug laws; you can lose your life if the charges are serious enough. There was no way we were going anywhere near that nonsense!!
Instead, we went for good old fashioned cheap, local, nasty booze!
The evening of our tubing experience, we hit the bars for our free drinks. It was hot and sticky, and the bar we chose had a slightly rank sheen to the walls, but the drinks were cheap and the music loud. We were up on the benches in no time, dancing and meeting new friends…like this even drunker lady.
On another evening, we saw something setting up on the defunct air strip. Our guesthouse backed onto the area so we were in prime position to check it out. There was a market going on and so we went to have a look. Secondhand clothes, shoes and trinkets were on sale. All things that locals might actually buy, and none of the tourist tat, or waterproof phone cases, that were on offer in every shop we had seen thus far.
We played a game that involved throwing a dart at a rack of balloons. Pop and balloon and win a can of Red Bull. A very simple game that wasn’t clearly rigged like most games in U.K. fairs…we still didn’t win though. I don’t think hand/eye coordination is our thing.
Vang Vieng has to be the strangest place we have ever visited, and yet, we didn’t even visit it. As our double decker, backpacker bus wove its way out of town, the cityscape changed dramatically. Gone were the perfectly maintained streets with their clean pavements and video bars. Instead were mud roads with no discernible pavements or markings. Ramshackle food stalls, and dwellings crowded the side of the road and local faces gazed after the bus, probably wondering why none of us had been to visit their side of town. I felt a horrible guilt that I had made no effort to go beyond the backpackers borders. It was somewhat of a learning curve and we vowed that we would try harder in future to leave the comfort of the easy and expected.
Check out all our travels on our five month adventure through Asia.
Apparently Vang Vieng was all but dismantled from the zombie-land we visited. The town took back its personality and started to rebuild its tourism industry from the ground up. Gone were the video bars, and the tubing and accompanying bars were regulated. It has reinvented itself as a place for adventure activities. You can raft the river, whizz down a zip-wire, rock climb or explore magical lagoons.
I hope that when you visit, you will find a place that speaks of its Laotian life, as well as throwing the occasional booze-fuelled party, just for old-time’s sake.
Rosie xx
Arriving in Luang Prabang, after our two day boat trip from Thailand to Laos (read all about our slow boat experience) we were a overwhelmed by the surge of touts, and underwhelmed by the weather. Two days of sunshine and no hassle quickly turned into lots of pestering and a drizzly day.
Happily, the town quickly changed our minds.
Luang Prabang is the most wonderful little town. There are wooden signs on the front of shops and restaurants so finding your way around it so be easy. We went for a hotpot called Lao Lao Garden on the first evening. Here you cook your own meat seafood and veg before plunging them into the moat of broth running around the outside. The grill rises up in a cone that is fitted over a ferocious bucket of coal. It was a really fun way to enjoy dinner.
We read, on a wooden board, that the whole town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is an amazing example of the blend between traditional Laotian architecture and French colonial style. It is obvious to see as you walk through the town and it really is a beautiful place compared to most of Laos.
Our favourite spot sat atop a hill looking over the town. As we took in the view we watched a small plane descending into the airport, the drone just reaching us through the drizzle-filled air. It was a lovely moment of calm. We discussed hopping into a tuktuk to go bowling (the only entertainment we had heard about) but decided to go for dinner in a restaurant with a real log fire instead. Oh yes, we know how to party.
Around Luang Prabang are temples galore. We spent a surprisingly chilly day slowly meandering between them. I think the slow pace of the slow boat had rubbed off on us. We took a slow walk up Phousi Hill. We head upwards, step by slow step, stopping regularly to take in the view and catch our breath. The hill reaches up to 100m above town. and we climbed over 300 steps up to the top. On the way up we found lots of shrines and Buddhas, all bedecked in gold. On the summit was the That Chomsi temple, reached by taking a stone bridge edged by two long dragon statues.
Having overspent a little in Chiang Mai and Pai on activities and cocktails, I was on a push to save money. This meant that during the day, for lunch and breakfast, I ate plain rice topped with the chilli sauce that was on every restaurant table. This worked out at about £0.15p a meal, well done me!
On our last evening we took a stroll through the night market. Here we found an abundance of cheap, very cheap, very delicious things on a stick. I think we had chicken, I know we had a fish, and both were surprisingly well kept. We took seats at communal table and chatted convivially with the other diners.
Then there was the pancake.
The popular route that backpackers take through SE Asia is often known as the “banana pancake trail”, but as I hate bananas, I mixed things up a little. In Laos, they make your crepes folded in a super crispy parcel and then cut it into squares. I tried a few variations of these but the one that I still think about was the Nutella and mango. Sweet, gooey, chocolatey….I tried and failed to find another pancake as good as this for the rest of our trip….I am still trying.
Bellies full and wallets fuller than expected, we decided to buy a souvenir lamp. We rarely buy anything on our travels but we were both taken by small wooden and paper lamps. They have been with us ever since (nine years and counting).
Something I almost forgot about!
Our trip was bound for the beaches of Vietnam so we thought we would get a little beauty day. It was super cheap and after two days on the slow boat, we needed a good rub down. As well as a full body massage, I was going for a bikini wax and Mr Fluskey was getting his back done.
We lay side by side, ready to be taken to a state of relaxation, but it wasn’t quite what we expected. The ladies pulled, pushed, bent, slapped and squeezed us. Bankers in London would pay thousands for this! I think it was mild torture. Mind you, if the massage was mild BDSM, then the waxing was extreme pleasure pain….without the pleasure.
The wax used at the salon was a cold, honey wax. This pulls painfully on your hair even as it applied, and then isn’t actually any good at removing hair! I managed one failed strip before I told them it wasn’t happening!! Mr Fluskey, however, already had it slathered across his back and so he endured 15 minutes of abuse as they tried to de-fluff him. He winced and whimpered whilst they all giggled at him. OK, I giggled too. He was left red, raw and with only a little less hair.
We left the salon limping and wondering what on earth had just happened to us.
Check out all our travels on our five month adventure through Asia.
Luang Prabang was undoubtably the highlight of our time in Laos. It is a very interesting and charmingly relaxed town. However, with the expansion of the airport (you can now fly into Luang Prabang from Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Cambodia and Vientiane) it is sure to be receiving many more tourists than when we visited, ten years ago. I suppose that what we are saying is go…go now…go quickly before it turns into a city ravaged by over-commercialisation. Luang Prabang is a pretty special place and it would be good to catch it while it retains that magic. Next on our travels we went to Vang Vieng, read all about it in Tubing, TV and Too Many Drinks
Rosie xx
