Sam Clark

The travel section of the Guardian last Saturday published an excellent article by travel journalist Ben Tarring about his family visit to Sri Lanka. I thought it was an excellent piece and we were proud to have been involved in suggesting and planning the trip.

Yes: it’s true. Finally there will be a direct flight from UK to Vietnam –…

The dates are in and the England Cricket Team are playing Test Matches against Sri Lanka in Galle between 26th and 30th March and in Colombo 2nd and 6th April.

We can pretty much guarantee now that there will not be a room free within an hour of Galle during those dates. There are just not enough rooms to accommodate all the people who will want to watch cricket in one of the world’s most exotic Test match venues. It’s going to be good – but please get in touch with us NOW if you want to get one of our tours booked.

Vietnam is a funny place for hotels. There is nothing like the variety of Thailand or even Cambodia and the vestiges of state ownership still affect the feel and design of many hotels. A sort of undynamic fustiness still pervades some of Vietnam’s more venerable institutions!
Like everything in Vietnam though, the quality of hotels is changing fast and there are some very dynamic and really great hotels around now. There are more on the way too. Here are 5 of the best that I saw on my recent (very busy) fact finding mission!
In no particular order, these 5 deserve a mention!

Word reaches of two interesting sounding restaurant openings in Hoi An/Danang – already something of a foodie mecca.

The Alila Hotel and Resorts Group are opening a new hotel in Luang Prabang: the Alila Luang Prabang.

Listening to the Today Programme on the BBC this morning I heard an interesting snippet…

The legend that is Muttiah ‘Murali’ Muralitharan plays his last test this weekend – at…

The villa concept in Sri Lanka is much misunderstood and so it’s a theme I…

We constantly get asked to reccommend our favourite restaurants to clients and this worries us as it seems to change so quickly. What suits Peter, seems to annoy Paul, in much more pronounced a way than hotels or more general hotel experiences.

We have been asked alot recently about Sri Lankan Airlines new economy plus cabin. Sri…

Sad news today that Netherbyres Bungalow, near Bandarawela, is no longer available for paying customers.

Our main concern is for smaller places and in particular smaller places that are trying to be different. The point the CEO of Trip Advisor made in the programme was that problems can rectified and then the weight of positive reviews outweigh the negative.

Exciting news that on January 15th 2010 you will be able to experience a solar eclipse from Galle in southern Sri Lanka. Apparently it will be an annular eclipse, so the Sun and Moon are exactly in line, but the Sun will appear as a very bright ring, or annulus, surrounding the outline of the Moon.

Rick Stein did us a massive favour by doing a programme that focused, almost exclusively, on the area that we specialise in. Apart from Laos, all our bases were covered – Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia and of course, Thailand. A big ‘thank you’ to Rick then, as we saw a definite increase in inquiries from the sort of people keen to do something a little different and sample the true flavours of the region – something which we can deliver!

Sitting in our office in Wandsworth putting together tours for people in Vietnam is a decent way to make a living. My thoughts do wander sometimes though, to the places I am working on, and where i would like to go next.

I’m in on way to New Zealand via Singapore and I have a 24 hour stopover. Keen to remind myself od the flavours I remember, I asked a friend who was brought up in Singapore and returns often to tell me what to eat given 24 hours in Singapore.

some even better specials given to us by Singapore Airlines….

his year we have had some fantastic special offers from The Maldives.

A few years ago I was asked by a certain well known ‘responsible’ travel company to provide suggestions for ‘responsible’ product in the Maldives that we could market through their site. It was totally impossible.

For years intrepid backpackers (our co-founder Tom Armstrong among them) have raved about the quality of Beer Lao, the locally brewed beer served throughout Loas but rarely found elsewhere.

Great post from harry and Ben in Vietnam there – tales of random street food…

The Sri Lankan Government today announced that the 25 year civil year that has blighted the country was over