I’m safe on Tahiti. Its dark and I can’t see anything other than how bad I’m getting robbed. I’ll get to that in a second. The currency in French Polynesia and all French Pacific Territories is the Pacific Franc (XPF). The Euro is sort of on a 1-to-1 ratio with the dollar. By that I …
I’m currently in Adelaide, South Australia. The last state in my (long) tour of Australia. The weather the last few days has been overcast, cold and rainy. Nonetheless, I like the city of Adelaide. The area of town I’m staying is near Chinatown and it is loaded with tons of restaurants of all sorts. I …
I managed to salvage the missed Tonga flight. I went to the Air New Zealand office in Apia and got the ticket changed to July 11, which is when I should be arriving back from Tokelau. If the Tokelau boat can’t get fixed before then, I can move the date up a week. I also …
Before I leave Maui, I think I like to get down some random thoughts on life here on Maui. I paid $4.00 a gallon for gas this week. The very windy Hana coast road I wrote about earlier had only one gas station that I could find. It charged $4 per gallon. The price around …
I’m now officially a PADI certified open water diver. This means I can sign up at places to do basic SCUBA dives with compressed air. I still had issues going down in depth. Everyone else in my group could dive to 20 feet with no problem. I had to sink down a few feet at …
I’m staying in Cairns a bit longer than I had originally thought for a few reasons: 1) It is warm and sunny here. 2) There are lots of girls in bikinis walking around the beach. 3) I have an opportunity to take my camera in a super fancy water proof housing and go diving with …
I’ve finally arrived in Hawaii for my long-awaited work vacation. I have holed up in a hostel a block from Waikiki Beach where I plan on getting face cancer from my laptop over the next 10 days. It has been over three years since I was last in Hawaii. My previous trip was the interregnum …
I spent most of today just doing logistical stuff: getting my ransom ticket refunded and getting my tickets to Rarotonga and beyond, moving to the hostel, and taking care of some stuff online. Yes, that took most of the day. I assumed that I would be leaving French Polynesia on Friday, but I found there …
I intended to go to Hawaii first so i could get my travel bearings in a place I was familiar with. The last week has been very instructive in how to go about the day-to-day grind of traveling. Things I’ve learned: If you can find a place with free wireless internet access, stay there as …