Hong Kong is a curious city – a high-rise mixture of Chinese and Britishness that somehow works. Most of the signs and menus are in both English and Cantonese and cafes sell quintessentially English drinks like Horlicks and Ovaltine. Coffees come complete with condensed milk as standard. On the other hand, it’s just as easy to get hold of some stewed pigs trotters and chicken knuckle soup with macaroni (we stuck to the Horlicks)! On our first day in Hong Kong, we met up with my lovely, ex-boss Fiona, who is now living and working in Hong Kong and very…

We’ve spent almost a week in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand – THE place for animal experiences. I’ve wanted to get up-close and personal with elephants for a long time and finally got the chance to do so a few days ago at Baan Chang Elephant Park. We were worried about encouraging unethical elephant camps and exploiting the animals, so we did quite a bit of research beforehand and learned that the elephants here are not made to do tricks like painting and playing football for tourists. They have either been rescued from elephant “camps”, or from owners who led them…

It’s hard to describe the way I felt at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and later at the Killing Fields just outside Phnom Phen city, Cambodia. Certainly I was incredibly sad, appalled, horrified and sickened. The hundreds of mug shots of now-dead people staring hopelessly out at us from the past were truly chilling. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot overthrew the pro-Western government of Cambodia and embarked on a process of agrarian social engineering, eliminating the middle and upper classes and forcing nearly everybody that remained into working in the rice fields. Money was abolished, as were…

“Where was the best place you visited?” This has to be the question most frequently asked of us since we landed back in London on Valentine’s Day. Inspired by this, teamGool have decided to do a round-up blog and include some awards for places and experiences that deserve to be awarded the teamGool trophy of fabulousness… Best City – nominees: – Melbourne (quirky boutiques, cool trams, great beach, better than Sydney) – Buenos Aires (tango lessons, shopping, horse-racing and gelato – like downtown NY, historic Paris, arty Barcelona and London’s lively Soho all rolled into one) – Rio (totally fabulous,…