TRAVEL AND LIFESTYLE DIARIES

We pretty much had luck and managed to duck the typhoon in the Philippines (complete story soon!) and arrived on time in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in Vietnam. Here are a few plane views of the city that I was able to shoot before touching down. Song Sai Gon. Saigon River. Just before touchdown here. A few more as well before reaching the Saigon River: Ho Chi Minh Airport (Tan Son Nhat International Airport): The airport is not too far away from the city center. The parents and sisterJ. Outside of the airport is full of people waiting for their relatives. SisterJ with all our luggage =). We flew with PAL (Philippine Airlines) and their minimum baggage allowance per person is 30 kilos. The parents just landed in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We always get priority when we travel with them, those walking sticks can really do wonders.  If you need a taxi just walk outside the airport and go here. Prices to the city centre ra...

Last summer, the Dutchman, Dutch mother and I sailed with our rental car on the public ferry from our summer holiday base in Nydri, Lefkada Island to a smaller island not too far away – Meganisi. You can read our voyage here: Ferry ride from Nidri to Meganisi  -   Road trip itinerary and scenes   -   Photo essay of Vathi For our late lunch, we settled at the charming fish taverna on Vathi harbour called Porto-Vathi “Errikos” Taverna. It is right beside the water and has wonderful views of the surroundings. No one can miss this lovely of a restaurant. I made sure that we have a table at the water’s edge. Because it is already after lunch hours, it wasn’t that busy. Perfect. While waiting for our food to arrive, we were entertained by schools of fishes swimming past. A young kid a few tables from ours was having a go and was feeding the fishes with bread. It gave us the idea as well so we followed suit. A nice little entertainment I guess as we wait for the ...

I mentioned in a previous post that the majority of tourists the Dutch beaches get, and I am talking about Scheveningen and Zandvoort beaches, are Germans. For some reason, the Netherlands is a popular beach destination for neighbouring Germany. The back entrance of Kurhaus from the beach, on Strandweg. The main entrance of the Kurhaus on Gevers Deynootplein and Gevers Deynootweg. To further illustrate and I guess justify this fact, is the most impressive building, rather, the iconic symbol of Scheveningen beach – the Kurhaus (official name now is Grand Hotel Amrath Kurhaus ). This grandiose building was a creation by 2 German architects, Johann Friedrich Henkenhaf and Friedrich Ebert. Even the name, Kurhaus is in German. If it was in Dutch, it would have been spelled as Kuurhuis. The building was built between 1884 and 1885 as a hotel and concert hall. The stunning details on the ceiling in the Kurzaal (this is the concert hall which is in the main building of the Kurha...