Seemingly engulfed by the metropolis, Patan nonetheless best preserves the ambience of a medieval city, with a minimum of artifice. Temples or traditional Newari brick houses with elaborately carved eaves, doorways and window boxes appear at every turn, even away from the main square. Men and women appear dwarfed by the loads on their backs. People pause to clasp hands in prayer as they pass yet another shrine, walking down the street. Sometimes a single gateway facing into a narrow street opens into the courtyard enclosing a back-street temple.

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Not only those who served – and their families – will gain from visiting this sprawling collection; so will anyone who lived through those tumultuous years from 1962 through to 1972. 

The Museum soon outgrew its first premises and ranges from documents – letters home, diaries, photos, maps and personal effects – to a Huey Cobra helicopter gunship, a Centurion tank and a Canberra bomber.  Especially poignant are the tributes received from the Vietnamese-Australian community.  And there’s even a café and a souvenir shop, so you can take home a teddy bear soldier or a model F4 Phantom fighter jet.  

At the station in downtown Trieste, we find ourselves a stone's throw from the Serbian Orthodox church, the old synagogue and much else to remind us that this was once a most cosmopolitan port, the only sea port for the sprawling Austro-Hungarian empire, dismembered after the First World War.  Veteran travel writer Jan Morris enthuses over this somewhat cryptic city, not quite Italian, no longer Austro-Hungarian, and now tucked into a pocket of Italian territory almost encircled by Slovenia.

Trieste lacks the must-sees of other cities in northern Italy, in spite of a history extending back to Roman times, but in some ways that is part of its charm.  Launches bob at anchor in the Grand Canal whilst café patrons nibble cicheti appetisers and sip Campari spritzes on the nearby Piazza dell’Unita d’Italia, an imposing town square laid out by Austrian town planners.

Image gallery online at www.pbase.com/travelgame/trieste

Belém is not on everyone’s wish list when visiting the Amazon region.  Most head straight for the jugular city of Manaus, 1400kms northwest on the junction of the Amazon and Rio Negro, but for those who do make the detour, the rewards can be surprising. The city’s beautiful buildings include the famous Opera House modeled on La Scala in Milan, the Basilica of Nazaré built after the style of St Peter’s in Rome, and the fresh fruit and produce market, Ver-O-Peso, with its decorative wrought-iron turret that was transported in sections from Britain and is now an icon of the city.

     Battembang street                                                   Fishing boat on Lake Tonle Sap

Don’t wait for the movie to reach a cinema near you… experience the reality now, with a spell of self-indulgence in a villa set amongst the emerald-green rice paddies around Ubud. In the village of Bentuyung one Australian couple owns Castello Jasper, a coolly-elegant four-bedroom villa boasting a 16-metre pool.

At Bentuyung, where the movie’s Balinese scenes were recently filmed, have pocketed the location fees and gone back to what they do best: rice farming and ritual. Your progress up the main street might be blocked by white-turbaned men and kebaya-clad women escorting the fearsome Barong into the temple.

Self-contained villa accommodation is leading Bali’s renaissance as a top-end destination. Spa treatments, shopping and fine dining all tempt visitors at a fraction of the costs back home, whilst villas provide privacy, exclusivity and independence. And those who would like to share a little love around, could consider supporting the stray dog refuge which has adopted the slogan Feed, Spay, Love. More images

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If Koh Samui’s powder sand beaches and secluded bays dotted with sun-bleached rock formations are not enough then there are jungle covered mountains concealing waterfalls and cool rock pools, exotic butterflies, wild orchids and gigantic ferns. Millions of swaying coconut palms are indeed a cordial greeting, but the centrepiece of this 80-island archipelago in the Gulf of Thailand offers much more. 

The allure of the pocket-sized island of Koh Samui is strong, but more temptations await in Thailand's far north west, in the province of Chiang Rai. This highly fertile area has a history as a leading opium producer. The Thai Government, in a concerted move to  stop the practice, has curtailed poppy cultivation and instituted programs to teach hill tribe people new ways to earn their livelihoods  The scheme has worked well. An increasing number of tourists arrive each year, lured by the legacy of the region’s notorious past, its true scenic beauty and the distinct hill tribes of northern Thailand. 

Standing on the Thai soil of a steep hill overlooking this small outpost at the very apex of the Golden Triangle I gazed out and over the mighty Mekong.  On my left was mysterious Myanmar.  On my right was even more enigmatic Laos.  I had finally reached the edge of the Kingdom.

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