funtotravel.info PLACES: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Quite simply one of the most naturally beautiful and fun cities on the planet. Yes it has its problems with violent crime and drugs, but the world can prepare itself for one hell of a party when the Olympics and World Cup come to town during the next decade.

With so much to see and do and so many amazing things on offer, it's not called the cidade maravilhosa (marvellous city) for nothing. The best way to guide you through this simply fantastic city destination is to let you know what we'd do if we had a weekend to kill here. Note that we have recommended throughout that you take taxis - they are a safe and inexpensive way of getting around. We would normally recommend taking public transport, but for many of the sights in Rio it is just not very convenient.

Remember that if you are a sensible traveller and keep your wits about you, the worst thing that will happen to you in Rio is that you'll have a pretty bad hangover. Be aware that English is not very widely spoken (this may change with the Olympics and World Cup coming), so take a good phrasebook, smile, be polite and patient and you'll be fine!

The funtotravel.info guide to Brazil can be found here. Click here for the funtotravel.info members' guide to Rio de Janeiro.

Day 1
After a quick breakfast in your hotel/hostel (Brazilians don't seem to be big on breakfasts really, much like the rest of South America), take a taxi (plentiful and inexpensive in Rio) to Rua Cosme Vehlo 513: you are about to visit a wonder of the world. We know that we've put it first up on our itinerary, but we really don't think that a visit to see Christ the Redeemer on his lofty perch should be delayed by even a second. It's just a jaw-droppingly brilliant experience, though not cheap at around US$12 for the return cable car ride. Take your time at the top, as crowds are likely to be pretty big. The view needs to be seen to be believed:

View from Christ the Redeemer

Take in the sweeping view over Sugarloaf mountain, Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, Botafogo, Ipanema and Copacabana beaches and and if you have the time, pause for a coffee at the unsurprisingly expensive cafe at the top - it's well worth taking your time! Steel yourself for the bill and one last look up at Christ (literally), before taking the tram back down to earth. Don't be surprised if you're serenaded by a samba band on the way down - you should give them some of your change.

Jesus: big in Brazil.

Find yourself a cab and head down to Ipanema beach for a spot of lunch and some sun-bathing. Rio is chock full of excellent eating options, but being the gluttons we are suggest you head for one of the excellent 'por kilo' restaurants in Ipanema. These are buffet restaurants where you pay depending on the weight of food on your plate. Dismiss any sniffy thoughts you might have about buffet food: the fodder on offer is fresh, tasty and varied with great meats, pastas, fried foods, sushi, salad etc on offer. We would recommend the Frontera, which is slightly more upmarket than most, but with a great range of food. Prices are reasonable in what can be a very expensive city (about US$12-15 per kilo - a hell of a lot of sushi!).

Having stuffed yourself silly take the short walk to Ipanema beach and pick yourself a spot. We were reliably told by a number of cariocas (Rio locals) that Copacabana is for tourists and Ipanema is for locals. We think it's prettier and a bit less seedy. You are free to just find yourself a free stretch of sand and throw down your beach towel (harder than you think with huge crowds at weekends!), but you'd be well advised to keep an eye on your things as petty theft is rife. We'd recommend taking up one of the Godfather-like beach vendors on their offer of  a couple of deckchairs on their 'patch': spend the afternoon being waited on hand and foot (as well as feeling like your things were being watched for you) - well worth the slightly-inflated price for drinks and snacks as well as the charge for the chairs (around US$5). 

Ipanema beach: stunning. Speedos everywhere: not so stunning.

Having spent a few hours sunning yourself, indulging in some of the most fascinating people watching on the planet (speedos are just plain wrong wherever you are though!) and marvelling at the sheer range of goods being hawked by the beach sellers, it's time to head back to your hotel/hostel to get ready for a night on the tiles.

Before sunset, take a taxi to the bondinho (street car) station on Rua Profesor Lelio Gama and take the tram up to the beautiful district of Santa Teresa, a hillside area full of charm and colonial architecture, with a slightly rough and ready feel. The tram costs around US$0.40 and takes about 15-20 minutes, though expect a wait around at the station for departure as they only leave every half hour - find a guide here. Don't be alarmed if locals run alongside and get a free ride by hanging off the side - it's normal! Get off at Largo de Guimaraes, a square with some great cafes and restaurants.

The Bondinho tram in Santa Teresa

Find a restaurant that takes your fancy (we like Bar do Mineiro at Rua Pachoal Carlos Magno 99) and stay for some delicious and filling food as well as a few cachaça (cane sugar liquor) cocktails before taking a cab on to Lapa for dancing (don't walk - the neighbourhood isn't the safest after dark). Lapa is THE area of the city to head to if you fancy dancing the night away - getting your groove on to some samba beats is a must-do experience in Rio. We recommend checking out Carioca de Gama - our favourite of the samba venues in Lapa and a great place for first timers. If you don't fancy dancing then stay in Santa Teresa and check out the bars around Largo de Guimaraes and Largo das Neve for a good drink. Definitely take a cab home - there are hundreds around Lapa around kicking out time so you won't have a problem getting home safely!


Day 2 
Bit of a hangover? Start your day with brunch at the brilliant Caroline Cafe near the Botanical Gardens to help lift the fog around your head. If you can't face moving that far then we suggest trying one of the many amazing fresh juice bars around the city - try an acai juice if you want to be like a local. It's purple, blended with honey, sugar, banana or even nuts and it's quite delicious.


Having sated your appetite, do something that will get you under the skin of the 'real' Rio a little more. Rocinha is the first and biggest of Rio's favelas (shanty towns), and you can take a fascinating half-day tour around the neighbourhood with a local guide (do NOT go into any of the favelas on your own). You'll be safe, well-informed and looked after on your trip around this fascinating city within a city. We'd recommend Exotic Tours for their excellent attitude to sustainable tourism. An incredible way to spend half a day, and it will teach you something about how the city really works away from the glitz and glamour of Ipanema and Copacabana.


If day 2 happens to be a Sunday as we've planned, ask your guide to drop you near Copacabana beach, which is brilliant to explore on this particular day because the Avenida Atlantica (the beach road) is closed to traffic since it's Shopping Day! 

Sundays: No traffic on Copacabana beach

Drink some fresh coconut juice or a caipirinha if that takes your fancy, grab a snack from one of the roving food venders or cafe cabins on the beach then take a taxi to the cable car station for Pao de Acucar (Sugarloaf Mountain in English). A return ticket to the top costs about US$12, and not only are the views back over the city stunning, but it's an incredible place for sunset.

View from Sugarloaf Mountain

Come back down to street level on the cable car and make your way back to Ipanema, where for your last supper you will sample a Brazilian eating tradition: the churrascaria. If you're a vegetarian, this isn't for you (though there is a seafood version if that's your bag) - these are all you can eat barbecue restaurants. You pay a set price (not including drinks and sometimes desserts) and are seated at a table with a reversible red/green card. As long as you have the green side showing, the waiters will continue to bring you whatever delicious type of meat the kitchen grills up that second, which will then be carved at your table: gorge yourself on every cut of steak you can think of, sausage, chicken, pork etc until you take mercy on your stomach and show the red side of your card. At this point they will stop serving you meat. Help yourself to the delicious buffet of salads/potatoes/sushi etc, which is included in the price. If you get hungry again, just flip your card to green and let the orgy of eating continue! You'll find many of these restaurants all over Rio but our favourite was Carretao. We saw one woman there cry because she loved the meat so much but couldn't fit any more in. Honestly.


If you still have room in your stomach, head to the obligatory Irish Pub, Shenanigan's, which is popular with tourists and locals, and is a great place to watch sport. After this collapse exhausted following a fun-filled two days.


We hope you've enjoyed your brief virtual tour around this incredible city. We've barely scratched the surface and there is so much more on offer - go for yourselves, explore and report back to us! We haven't even mentioned carneval! We'll save that for another time....


To read the funtotravel.info guide to Brazil, click this link

funtotravel.info TOP 10: DRINKING SPOTS

We love to travel and we’re fond of a drink, so what better way to mesh two of our loves together than by listing ten of our favourite places worldwide to enjoy a drink. Some are at the ‘flashpacker’ end of the market, and some you could afford on the most meagre of budgets, but all have something very special about them. Let us know if you agree.

In no particular order:

1. Il Palazetto, Rome, Italy
This boutique hotel’s stunning terrace overlooks the Spanish Steps and Piazza di Spagna in one of Rome’s most beautiful spots. Drinks aren’t cheap, but the view is out of this world, the cocktails are delicious and the DJs spin funky, laid back tunes. Great people watching!

http://www.ilpalazettoroma.com/
Vicolo del Bottino, 8, 00187 Roma, Italy, 066 9202055

To read the funtotravel.info guide to Italy click here

2. Bia Hoi Corner, Hanoi, Vietnam

This crossroads in the Old Quarter of Hanoi has become a meeting point for travellers and expats from all over the world. Come here to drink freshly brewed and surprisingly light beers for 5000 Dong (about 15p UK) at any of the four little outdoor ‘bars’ . We say bars, but they’re more like tiny shop fronts with primary school sized plastic furniture outside. Chat to new friends as cyclos, cars, mopeds and hundreds of street vendors zoom past you. It’s a lot of fun! If you get hungry, there’s a great restaurant called ‘Little Hanoi’ just up the street.

Corner of Pho Ta Hien / Pho Luong Ngoc Quyen, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi, Vietnam

To read the funtotravel.info guide to Vietnam click here


3. Carioca de Gema, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

One of Rio’s most celebrated samba bars, Carioca de Gema is situated in the lively district of Lapa, an area famous for samba. Though Friday and Saturday are obviously the busiest nights, it’s one of the few places in Lapa that you can guarantee a good crowd on weeknights. It serves up great mojitos and caipirinhas as you’d imagine, as well as some decent snack food if all the samba makes you hungry. Head down here, grab a Bramha, SKOL or Bohemia beer and dance the night away!

http://barcariocadagema.com.br/bar.htm
Rua Mem de Sá, nº 79, Lapa, Rio de Janeiro, Tel.: 2221-0043

To read the funtotravel.info guide to Brazil click here

4. Lao Lao Garden, Luang Prabang, Laos

We love Luang Prabang and pretty much everything about this laid back and beautiful town on the banks of the Mekong in Laos is simply wonderful. Our favourite spot, especially on one of the cooler nights in the ‘winter’ months, is at Lao Lao Garden.

As the name suggests it’s a bar and restaurant set in a beautifully lit, terraced, multi-level tropical garden. At the bottom is a nightly bonfire, great for sitting around and meeting new people, while each of the 30 or so smaller stone tables on the higher levels comes with its own firepit in the centre. These fires are great for keeping your hands warm while you sip on budget cocktails (many of which are made from the infamous rice whisky lao lao) or on a truly delicious Beer Lao. Their main purpose though is to use to cook the house speciality – Laotian Barbecue. This tasty food is like a cross between a Chinese hot pot and a Korean barbecue, and is surprisingly light.

Beautiful lighting, chilled out music, a buzzing yet intimate atmosphere, warm fires and great drinks make this a must visit if you’re in Luang Prabang.

Tip: If you’re nursing a hangover try L’etranger on Ban Aphay (booksinlaos@yahoo.com), selling many different kinds of teas, shakes and smoothies. It stocks a small library with books that can be hired for a fee. Upstairs screens art house films most nights and its walls are covered with old copies of the National Geographic, which we love! Breakfasts are awesome.

Th Kingkitsarat Old Town, Luang Prabang

To read the funtotravel.info guide to Laos click here

5. KuDeTa, Seminyak, Bali, Indonesia

Of all of the venues listed here, this is without doubt the flashiest and most pretentious. This pretension does not however stop it from being an incredible place to go for a sunset drink (or even dinner – the food is fantastic).

Built on a prime beach-front location in upmarket Seminyak, it is stunningly designed and houses an open air restaurant, a few different and extremely stylish bars, a pool and some gorgeous beach side recliners.

It’s achingly hip, and prices and service reflect this. Take a look at their site and you’ll see what we mean. It’s a real experience going there, and we definitely think it is worth a splurge if you’re in Bali.

http://bali.kudeta.net/

Jalan Laksmana 9 Denpasar, Bali 80361, Indonesia, Tel: 62 361 736969

To read the funtotravel.info guide to Indonesia click here

6. KozyBar, Marrakech, Morocco

Hidden away in the medina of Marrakech, this gem of a bar is one of the most atmospheric places we have ever drunk. It’s one of the few places within the medina itself that has a licence, and we’d recommend that you head to the roof terrace for a sunset drink and watch the sky change over the storks' nests and rooftops of the old city. Be warned though, this is not a place to visit on a budget…

There’s a piano bar downstairs where some decent jazz is performed on certain nights, and Moroccan and Asian fusion food is served throughout the bar. It’s not cheap, but listen to the call to prayer echoing over the rooftops from the Koutoubia Mosque and you’ll realise why it’s so special. Oh, and Casablanca beer’s not half bad….

47 Place des Ferblantiers, Marrakech, Morocco

To read the funtotravel.info members’ guide to Morocco click here

7. Opera Bar, Sydney, Australia

Touristy, fairly expensive and a bit of a cliché, yes, but it’s a bar that just couldn’t be left off the list. Built into the lower concourse of the Opera House, it’s a truly spectacular setting, with stunning views of the Harbour Bridge, Circular Quay and the Opera House itself, along with everything in-between.

It’s an amazing, if expensive place to see in the New Year and enjoy a firework spectacular. The bar has a great range of beers, wines and spirits and also serves some great modern Australian dishes if you get peckish.

But even though the food and drink are both spectacular, the views will have you coming back time and time again.
http://www.operabar.com.au/
Lower Concourse Level, Sydney Opera House, Sydney 2000, Australia, 61 2 9247 1666

To read the funtotravel.info guide to Australia click here

8. Tubing, Vang Vieng, Laos

Not strictly a bar, per se, but a bar crawl with a twist that’s unrivalled in terms of fun. Love it or hate it, Vang Vieng is like Disneyland for backpackers and has become one of the 'it' destinations of South East Asia. For the uninitiated, tubing involves floating down the beautiful Nam Song river in a tractor tyre inner tube, stopping for numerous drinks and taking on some ridiculous rope swings.

After a lift on a tuk-tuk, you begin a few kilometres upstream of town with a strong cocktail at the organic farm (the profits from which help educate local kids), and then drift downriver. Expect to be pulled in (literally – they have ropes and sticks!) by the owners of various bars that have set-up on the banks. As well as areas for dancing and heavy drinking, the owners have set up increasingly ridiculous slides and rope swings for the brave/stupid/heavily intoxicated to try. Delicious Beer Lao runs at about $1.50 for a large bottle, cocktail buckets (yes, buckets) are about $3, and shots of rice whisky are dished out liberally. At last count there were ten-plus bars on the float back to town, and most people have a drink at each, as well as indulging in a bit of mud-wrestling/volleyball/swinging/dancing. It’s a very fun, very heavy, and pretty dangerous day all in all – health and safety isn’t big in Laos.

We don’t want to sound like your mother, but perforated eardrums, broken ribs and permanent hearing damage are common injuries resulting from tubing going wrong, so don’t go too hard too early – tubing is a marathon not a sprint!

It’s the must-do activity in this part of the world – yes it's shamelessly tacky and more than a little dangerous but for a lot of people it's the highlight of their trip. If you can't beat them, join them!

Tubing starts and ends in Vang Vieng, Laos.

To read the funtotravel.info guide to Laos click here

9. Sunset View Terrace, Fateh Prakash Palace Hotel, City Palace, Udaipur, India

In India’s most romantic city, head to the City Palace for a sundown gin and tonic and be treated to truly enchanting views across Lake Pichola towards the white marble Lake Palace Hotel. The other bonus is that you won’t be made to watch Octopussy for the 150th time like at every other restaurant in town!

Get here early for a prime table and prepare to pay steep prices (for India anyway) for your drink. It’s well worth it though - watching the sunset with such a stunning view and an ice-cold gin and tonic in hand is truly a magical experience.

City Palace, Udaipur 313001, India

To read the funtotravel.info guide to India click here

10. The Pawn, Wan Chai, Hong Kong

If you have the cash to splash, Hong Kong is a drinker’s paradise with many fantastic venues on offer. Despite the handover to China back in 1997, many parts of HK retain a colonial feel and perhaps that’s why we felt a hankering for a proper pub with real ale on our travels: this stylish and beautifully renovated pub ticked all the boxes.

Situated in a converted tenement house in buzzing Wan Chai, the stylish Pawn serves as a pub and restaurant serving British gastro-pub food with a great selection of beers and lagers on tap.

It’s not cheap (far from it in fact), but it has a fun yet laid-back atmosphere, great beers and decent food, all served in a beautiful old building. It also has good views along Johnston Street, and is in the centre of the Wan Chai action. Recommended.

http://www.thepawn.com.hk/
The Pawn, 62 Johnston Road, Hong Kong, China, 2866-3444

To read the funtotravel.info guide to Hong Kong click here