One of the stops on our tour of the island was Orient Beach, a popular beach along the “French Riviera” of St Martin. This was our version of beach hell, stuffed to the brim with parasailers, hawkers, and sunbathers.

Philipsburg is bordered by a beautiful beach with shallow, calm waters.  There are lots of restaurants, change facilities, and shops in the immediate area around.  This isn’t your idyllic tropical beach, but for those who fancy lunch at their choice of restaurants and then a quick walk to a beach, this is the place to ... (read more →)

The next day we checked out and left our bags at the hotel, and walked to the taxi stand close to the port, next to the market. There we arranged a 3 hour tour of the island with a taxi driver. She gave us a reasonable price of $40, after some pretty easy haggling. She ... (read more →)

We walked 5 minutes to the Marina Royale district, which is a very nice development of high-end restaurants and shops overlooking the yachts of the marina. It’s very pleasant – it was a different world to the area around our hotel. We had a very nice meal at La Main a la Pate – not ... (read more →)

We stayed at the Fantastic Guest House. It lived up to it’s name – it was relatively cheap, the location couldn’t be beat (right next to the Marina), the room was spotless, air conditioning was powerful, and from a corner of the shower stall in the bathroom, we even had free wi-fi from one of ... (read more →)

This came as a very big surprise to us – it turns out that as of 2008, US dollars and Euros are taken at par in St. Martin/Sint Maarten. Of course, this made for a 30% discount for everything with US Dollars. We’re not sure if we would have been able to take US Dollars ... (read more →)

Arriving in Sint Maarten, the Juliana airport is very clean and modern, and we were surprised to see our luggage again. (unlike the line-up of 50 or so people waiting in the lost luggage line-up, from another LIAT flight). We shared a taxi (which they arranged) to our backpacker hotel in St Martin for about ... (read more →)

Although the islands are not that far, flying between them requires patience, strength, and more patience. The only option for us to get from Dominica to St Martin was to fly on Liat Air, the worst airline we’ve ever flown on (ok – 2nd worse. Vietnam Air crashed the Airbus we were supposed to be ... (read more →)

Driving from Portsmouth to Melville Hall aiport took about 1 hour, and was a fairly easy drive, even in the rain. We only almost got lost once, but a friendly local directed us before we could even take out our map. Our car rental company let us drop off the car at the aiport without ... (read more →)

We arranged for a guide to take us up the Indian River. The Indian River is a river that empties into the ocean at the heart of Portsmouth, and rowboats and guides will take you up the river to a “Jungle Bar” where some delicious rum punch is served. Our guide was excellent (despite being ... (read more →)