Blog

2026 has been the year of travels to Laos. In mid-January we traveled via Singapore. We had not stopped in Singapore for quite a while so we stayed a couple of days to wander about. We had a morning out at Changi Chapel and joined a tour through the memorial there. For lunch we got on the bus and went out to the Changi Hawker food court It was interesting to see the variety of institutions around the peninsula from prisons and drug rehabilitation facilities, yacht and country clubs and military bases – it was the whole spectrum of life.

In town we dodged tropical rain, saw Indian religious festivals and admired the light displays during the festival

We also had a few days stay on Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam. Avoiding the touristy areas nearer the airport we we driven to the extreme edge of the island, to the Gold Coast Resort. It was quiet and absolute beachfront and we enjoyed the sea.

One day we took the resort bicycles and rode into the nearby village, Ấp Gành Dầu. Being a fishing village it wasn’t a surprise to see fish drying on racks in the sun. It was hot and we were hungry and we managed to communicate enough to get some Pho in a local restaurant. We do provide quite a bit of entertainment for people as we try order and not cause too much of a hassle. At the other end of the scale, I had to go into a electronics store and find a mouse as I had let mine in NZ. There i was served by a young man with perfect English, in a small fishing village.

Leaving Phu Quoc was not quite as entertaining as dining in the village. You can enter Phu Quoc without a Vietnamese visa as long as you fly in from a foreign country and leave to a foreign country. When we got to border control for our flight to Saigon, with a transit onward to Laos they stopped us, and said we couldn’t go on the flight as we didn’t have Vietnamese visas. The supervisor was called over, a small discussion happened and finally we communicated we were transiting in Saigon, not going to Saigon – the flight Phu Quoc to SGN is a domestic flight. The borders guards sent us back to the airline office so our boarding passes could be stamped and we were let through to our huge relief. At Saigon airport they waved us through and we wandered out of Domestic terminal and over to the International Terminal for the onward journey.

There was another trip into Vietnam in February, just couple of nights while on the way back to NZ. We had a day in Saigon and went on the new metro (new to us, but has been open since late 2024) out to District 2. There was definitely a French architectural influence and it was a really good time wandering around quieter streets – a strong contrast to the busy streets in the downtown areas.

and Andrew saw a boy-band playing near the hotel and decided to join the party atmosphere.