To begin to explain Timor Leste (East Timor) it is probably necessary to start at the beginning and give some background to the country. It is a place that most people are probably not familiar with and as countries go, it is relatively new. If you look at a map of this part of the …
The ankle is feeling better and I’m off to Bangkok in a few hours. It should be a big change from Phuket. I really have no desire to see many of the islands in the area around here, which is what most of the backpackers usually do. It has been raining (which sort of ruins …
The following question is for my non-Asian readers: Name something about Indonesia which does not involve a natural disaster. When do you think of Indonesia, what image comes to mind? Can you name an Indonesian movie? Any Indonesian outside of politics? Can you name any Indonesian food dish? I asked similar questions when I first …
I’ve had a jammed packed couple of days here in Singapore. I’m currently at a McDonald’s at the Singapore Harborfront waiting to take the ferry to Bintan Island, Indonesia. Bintan is like a 45 min ferry ride from Singapore and it, along with neighboring Batam island, are cheap, close tourists destinations for people in Singapore. …
One of the realities of running a travel blog is that you can’t update every day. The last 48 hours I’ve been incommunicado and it has been a pretty interesting 48 hours. I didn’t get a lot of sleep, managed to drive down the funeral route of a former president, saw a volcano and almost …
I just got back from my first visit to Angkor Wat. Wow. Traveling as long as I have, I think i tend to get jaded having seen so many things. I really wasn’t too sure what to expect at Angkor, but whatever my expectations were, they were exceeded. Angkor is a really special place. What …
I got up Easter morning to the sound of bagpipes (yes bagpipes) and headed off to the Church of the Holy Seplechure. While it is Easter for Western Christians, it is Palm Sunday for the Orthodox Churches, and it is the anniversary of the fight fight breaking out between the Greeks and Armenians last year. …
I made it to Saigon with little trouble (FYI, I’m going to call it Saigon, as most of the locals still do. It is my belief that at some point, it will revert back from Ho Chi Min City just like Lenningrad changed back to St. Petersburg). We took about a half hour to cross …
I’m now in Petra. I spent the last two nights in a bedouin camp in Wadi Rum. I spent all of yesterday there taking a camel through the desert taking photos, slept in a tent, and ate semi-traditional bedouin food with mini version of the UN: Italians, Koreans, Japanese, Sweeds, Malaysians, British, French, Germans, Jordanians, …