AW Travel Blog

The State of Utah lays claim to five of America’s most spectacular national parks. Zion National Park is easily Utah’s most popular national park, with it’s river carving through native sandstone to create the incredible scenery of Zion Canyon, dominated by the impressive rock monoliths of The Great White Throne, Angels Landing and Weeping Rock. With the river acting as a natural corridor for discovering the park…

visitors can choose between sweating it out on any of the switch back trails - climbing to lofty view points high above the valley floor - or venturing deep into any of the side tributaries, including the famous Narrows.

When looking for a holiday that visits all or some of Utah’s National Parks, make sure it allows plenty of time for hiking, and pick a tour that offers a variety of hiking levels for the leisurely walker or the more active - as sometimes you may just want to hike for only a few hours.

After a day of exploring the temples, it was time to head out into the night. Dinner in town and time to wander the streets that come alive at night. Pub Street is the place to be and there a literally tons of restaurants. Pick one down an alley -they are very safe and there will be 10 restaurants there too – just the main street can be rowdy.

A pre-dinner snack perhaps????

The night markets kick off at 8pm till midnight and is reasonably priced – but still haggle. Most of the stalls sell the same stuff – so go for the best price you want to pay and remember – if they let you walk, you have met their lowest price. They won’t sell at a loss.

From Angkor Wat we travelled two minutes up the road to the walled city of Angkor Thom and the Banyon within - this was a cool temple. As it is small, I suggest an early arrival, like 8am - 8.30am. The rest of the group took off on elephants and these guys were flat out. With something like 8 elephants, they still couldn’t meet demand.

 
Next we boarded a bus and headed for Ta Prohm - very busy and as it is not a huge temple you really noticed the people.

Afterwards, we visited the sister site, Preah Khan. The ‘Temple of the Sacred Sword’ has been largely restored under the auspices of the World Monument Fund, but its crumbling stone corridors and vine clad walls still make for a place charged with atmosphere. Here the roots of the trees growing through the walls are really noticeable and make for great photos.

I love the hawkers at all the temples – but a very useful tip from our guide was never make eye-contact or say – ‘maybe later’. Cause these two things make you the magnet. After you return from visiting the temples – they swarm you and say – “remember me – you said you will buy later”. Brilliant – so if you don’t want to buy – and no matter how hard it is for us – never make contact or speak and they will leave you alone. And it works. But then they sometimes have pretty things that make good presents.

Our Siem Reap, adventure began with a 5am departure by Tuk Tuk to the entrance of the Angkor complex. The formalities involved having a very stunning photo taken for our 3-day pass, paying the US$40 fee, then waiting five minutes for the offending ID (definitely not one you want to show the friends back home!).

We were the only people to use the eastern gate and wandered into Angkor Wat under a diminishing moonlight. Felt like quite an adventure and you wouldn’t want to wander off as there are troops of baboons living in the surrounding trees.

Waiting around for about 40 minutes we happened upon a lovely stall holder selling coffee – with free chair while you wait, for $1 – best buy. Tourist are fun to watch and the couple dressed in camo gear brought back Rambo/tomb raider visions.

So 6am came and no sunrise as to speak of - wrong time of the year – but great fun.

We had a packed breakfast from the hotel and went to a local cafe to eat and down the welcome coffee.

Wandering around Angkor Wat at 6.30am was very special and we appreciated the very few people at this hour. Come 8am – the masses start to arrive – we were gone and onto the next temple. Our guide took us throughout the complex and explained why all the stairs were roped off – two reasons really. First damage – the stairs were eroding and secondly a tourist tripped and fell down some and died. We all learnt to tread very carefully after that.

Point to note – there is a feeling that the Cambodian government will stop tourists going inside Angkor Wat within the next few years – this will leave it just to be viewed from the outside – or unless you can afford the expensive exclusive tours inside. Food for thought.

Our temple journey continues shortly…….

It is all about the palmed fringed beaches, beautiful weather and just relaxing after some long driving on bumpy roads through East Africa. There are 48 islands in total but the mainland of Zanzibar and Pemba are the main ones with a total population of a million.

Heading to Zanzibar for four nights after an overland safari through Kenya and Tanzania was the best decision I ever made on the trip. The idea of staying in one place and doing absolutely nothing but swim and unwind was my idea of the perfect end to my African holiday.

I spent a few hours walking around Stone Town, did a spot of shopping, and found out you can even swim with the dolphins. In the end I decided to do a Spice Tour and learnt quite a bit about the history of the island as a trading post so many moons ago.

A tip, take loads of US$ and Shillings as you sure can shop up a storm, as those swim-up bars at resort pools are amazing!

Yes, you can call it Saigon as that is the name of the central city or District 1. Ho Chi Minh City is the city encompassed and is very fast paced with more cars and even more motorbikes and pushbikes. A walking tour of the centre of Saigon is an easy half hour. We started at Notre Dame Cathedral and strolled down the main street of Dong Khoi to the Town Hall, along the way passing some fabulous buildings of history and importance.

Transport yourself back to the early 70’s and imagine the journalists in the American war congregating at the Rex and Caravelle hotels at 5pm everyday to file their stories and have a drink at the roof bars. Both hotels have withstood the ravages of war and are popular places to stay.

The Reunification Palace is quite interesting. Remember satellite pictures of tanks crashing through the gates in to the palace grounds back in 1975 and the Vietnamese raising their flag of independence. Apparently the person who captured all that on film was an Aussie who was hiding up a tree! A guide comes in handy in this place. We saw it from the top – living quarters in true retro style right down to the bomb proof basement where all the old phones and telex machines are still sitting.

In the War Remnants Museum we were left to wander through ourselves. A guide is not necessary but a box of tissues is. The photography in here leaves you feeling so shattered.

I particularly liked the Thien Hau Pagoda which is where a lot of boat people came to pray to the Goddess of the Sea before they set off to countries unknown. The ones that made it have sent back money to this pagoda so it is very well kept. Hundreds of spiral incense burning from the roof and colours that capture your heart.

The tunnels at Cu Chi are amazing. Imagine digging 250kms of tunnels by hand! They had ingenious methods of letting smoke out without alerting the enemy to where they were. Also ingenious were the entrance/exit ways slightly larger than A4 paper. The tunnels have now been widened to allow Westerners to get down in them for a look!

Tomorrow I am heading to the Ben Tranh Markets for some shopping and of course my camera will be whirring non-stop. Love those markets!

Hanoi is surprisingly small and very easy to get around, especially if your hotel is in the centre of town. The first thing that struck me as different from other Asian cities I have visited is the wide tree-lined streets. The other thing is the architecture - a strong French colonial flavour with colours mainly off-white or sand-yellow.

There are loads of pushbikes and motorbikes with drivers who permanently hold their hand on a bell or horn. The traffic is quite an eye opener, as is crossing the road. The trick is to just keep walking slowly and steadily in a straight line – don’t run or stop. This way the traffic knows what you are doing and will just go round you. Traffic lights and pedestrian crossings don’t really mean too much in terms of rules and regulations!

We visited Ho Chi Minh on a Sunday along with thousands of other people. After a bit of a wait we finally reached the entrance to HCM’s mausoleum, he died in 1969. Still in line with armed guards to give you a tap should you step out of line, we shuffle past HCM who is lying in state in all his waxed glory.  Every year he gets taken away to be “touched up”, so if you really want to see him, make sure he is there.

Outside of the mausoleum is Ba Dinh Square, an absolutely enormous block of concrete, and behind is the house where he ruled from. The house he lived in is a very simple small house on stilts and the queue carried on shuffling through the house and around a pretty little lake to One Pillar Pagoda (the only one of its kind where you should pray for a boy).

We stopped for refreshments at one of the many French patisseries. Not a patisserie as you would imagine! It turned out to be a small shop with a few pastries in a glass cabinet – but the pastry I had was really nice.  Anyway the shop turned out to be quite famous, in that Catherine Deneuve used to hang out here when she was filming Indochine. There are pictures on her on the walls with the owner.

The Old Quarter is just fantastic - street after street all selling different things, ie Silk Street, Cotton Street, Gold Street. A great place to shop, but also a very easy place to waylaid. I spent two hours just in Shoe Street!

On our way to the historical town of Nizwa we did some dune bashing in the desert sand and went to visit a Bedouin family. Passing some incredible Wadi’s (water holes) with crystal clear water and palm trees - we got to taste some local dates straight from the tree.

The town of Nizwa had an ancient souk where the locals still buy their spices, nuts and condiments. It is situated just below the Nizwa fort which was built in the 1600’s and shows the different strategies they employed to defend the town and the fort itself.

The people of Oman were friendly and the majority of younger ones spoke English. They were very happy to have us visiting their country and to share their culture and answer our questions. The food was amazing and we ate mostly at small local restaurants.

I will definitely be going back for another visit.

We flew to the capital, Muscat, where we saw the official palace of the Sultan of Oman and the beautiful waterfront Corniche. There we shopped at the busy Muttrah Souk which was like being in something from Lawrence of Arabia. The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Muscat is the third largest mosque in the world and boasts the worlds largest hand woven Persian carpet in the men’s prayer room. We did have to cover our arms, legs and hair to be allowed to enter the mosque.

The Turtle sanctuary at Ras Al Had, a small seaside town south of Muscat, was well worth a visit. There were turtles laying eggs all over the beach and we were lucky enough to be able to get quite close and even to hold a baby turtle.

Next Nizwa bound……

From the rugged mountains and crystal clear water of Musandam to the 17th Century fort and nearby souk in Nizwa, Oman has something to offer everyone. After arriving in Musandam we went on a 4WD mountain safari to their highest mountain, Jebel Harim, with amazing views, fossils and small caves housing Bedouin families. The rugged terrain was as scenic as the Grand Canyon, but so close to the coast and the Strait of Hormuz.

The following morning we did a dhow cruise out through the ‘Norway of the Middle East’. The fjords were stunning and we were surrounded by dolphins playing around the dhow.  When we arrived at Telegraph Island there was snorkelling with hundreds of colourful tropical fish and the clearest water you could hope for.

Next we head for Muscat…..