In my quest to visit different cafes in Saigon I’m always looking out for new places in my wanders. One day I found a sign pointing down an alley that stopped my in my tracks. It was for Cafe Saigon 1975. There are some years in history that are indelibly linked to a city; 1066 […]
Kanchanaburi to Hua Hin by train (with a bonus stop at the tallest stupa in the world)
August 3, 2017 By 4 Comments
Kanchanaburi is west of Bangkok on the Nam Tok railway line, separate from the main north and south lines. This line formed what was part of the Death Railway, which connected Thailand to Burma by rail. There has been proposals to connect Thailand and Myanmar by rail via this route, but for now it remains […]
Dusit Thani Bangkok – The iconic modernist hotel that will soon be demolished
July 27, 2017 By 2 Comments
One of the most iconic hotels in Southeast Asia will soon be no more. The Dusit Thani is a landmark of the Silom area, but it now has a date with the wrecking ball to make way for a new mall and hotel development. The hotel was founded by Bangkok-born businesswoman Chanut Piyaoui, who brought […]
Notes on Seoul – the orderly megacity of South Korea
July 20, 2017 By 7 Comments
Seoul was a glaring omission in my visited cities of Asia list. I had long been saving Seoul as a stop-over city as Incheon Airport is a popular hub between Asia and North America. I wasn’t planning to go until I found a good flight deal from Hanoi, which coincided with a visa run from […]
Urban regeneration projects of Seoul that other cities should copy
July 11, 2017 By 2 Comments
Every city makes planning and development mistakes in the course of its history. No city is perfect, but a good city will at least try to rectify the err of its urban planning ways. The city of Seoul is a modern city that has razed most of its heritage buildings. The highlight for most visitors […]
Bun Cha Obama – visiting the restaurant that Obama and Bourdain ate at in Hanoi
June 29, 2017 By 4 Comments
During the 2016 Presidential visit to Vietnam, Barack Obama went to a bun cha restaurant in Hanoi with Anthony Bourdain. If you didn’t see what happened check out the video and this interview with Bourdain on meeting Obama in Hanoi. I wasn’t planning to visit Bun Cha Obama on my visit to Hanoi. There is […]
Thao Dien – the coolest neighbourhood in Saigon
June 19, 2017 By 4 Comments
Even though Ho Chi Minh City is approaching the status of megacity, there aren’t distinct neighbourhoods compared to cities of a similar size. Apart from the colonial-era inner city, most of the city has the same uniform mayhem to it. There is a Japantown in District 1, and a couple of Korean enclaves. Cholon is […]
Cool cafes in Kuala Lumpur
June 18, 2017 By 18 Comments
Kuala Lumpur is a major hub for travel in Southeast Asia and is a great city to make a stop-over. While I’ve always enjoyed coming here for the food and to go shopping at familiar stores, the cafe scene has consisted mostly of the big chains (Starbucks, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf et al). The […]
Visiting the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur
June 7, 2017 By
Even though I’ve visited Kuala Lumpur over 20 times in the last ten years, I had never been up the Petronas Twin Towers. My frequent visits fell into a familiar pattern of visit favourites restaurants and finding cafes to work from. When my dad was visiting KL I took this as a good excuse to […]
The regeneration of Kuala Lumpur Old City
May 31, 2017 By 6 Comments
The first time I visited Kuala Lumpur was when I was overlanding my way down the Malay Peninsula in 2006. Like most backpackers I ended up in a cheap guesthouse in the Chinatown area of KL. I was amazed that there were so many heritage buildings that had not been restored. There are sections of […]
Hi, I’m James - welcome to Nomadic Notes. I've been a long-term traveller/digital nomad since 2003. Nomadic Notes is a travel resource featuring travel guides and notes from my travels. 
