Welcome To The Jungle
The last of my tour-based day trips around Bangkok took me to Erawan National Park, home to Erawan Falls, seven delicious tiers of waterfalls and pools. This was truly a day trip: I left home…
All Market, No Flea
My grand tour of the highlights surrounding Bangkok continues. Today’s edition is all about markets, the Maeklong Railway Market and the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market. Both of these markets were interesting not because of the…
Beach Blanket Christmas
Well, this is new. This is the first trip we’ve taken out of spite. Specifically, spite at obtuse airline restrictions designed to keep you from using your travel credits. We had to cancel our scheduled…
Beach Blanket Java
Having discovered in Bali that Dorothy is actually a mermaid, it became incumbent upon us to make sure she stayed moist. Apparently, a couple of weeks is as long as she can go out of…
Temples & Textiles
Once again, fabric beckoned. After our visit to Tenganan to see their double ikat geringsing, we planned a visit to Sidemen to see songket brocades being made. The Besakih Temple was close enough to Sidemen…
Day Tripper
As lovely as it is to bob in the water, you just knew we couldn’t go a full month with nothing but ocean for entertainment. To what I’m sure will be absolutely no one’s surprise,…
They Call Him Flipper…
I’m of two minds regarding writing about snorkeling. On the one hand, swimming with the fishes is objectively amazing. It’s as close to visiting another planet as we’ll get. Maybe not you. You’re young. But…
Splish Splash
While many of our trips have been focused almost exclusively on culture, we’ve been careful on our Southeast Asia tour to make sure we visit places with natural splendor. And water. I think we’re both…
Hill Country
After our visit to Cát Bà and Hạ Long Bay, we took one more excursion from Hà Nội. We visited the mountainous northern region of Sa Pa, home to the Mountain Hmong, with a side…
Cát Bà: So Long, Hạ Long Bay
You know Hạ Long Bay. Maybe not by name, but by iconic representation. It’s like Bayon Temple in Cambodia. The name probably causes a puzzled look, but once you see a picture of those massive…