We know many of you think it strange that strangers take us into their homes. But if you met the hip,urbane Gulla (who waited up until 1a.m. for our arrival) who regale us with stories of trolls, elves, politicians, musicians and Vikings, you wouldn’t it was strange anymore. Then theres my fav chess genius,Bobby Fischer. […]
Wayne Ng
We brought longjohns, gloves n toques and havent needed them so far…and only now, on our 6th and last full day in Iceland have we met significant rain. It’s a good day to peck away at this blog. While we’ve seen glaciers and snow, we wonder if they have anymore than we do. And with […]
You know how tourists come to North America and go crazy over squirrels? Well Icelanders must chuckle as we marvel over the hundreds of waterfalls (foss) surrounding us. It’s gottten so common that Trish and I have becomes foss snobs. Quietude and crowd-free are a must, and of course size doesnt matter. I say that […]
After the savoury sights, sounds and craziness of the past four or five months, I may have come to the Antarctic with the least expectations of anybody on this expedition cruise. It’s hard to top the splash of a saffron robed monk collecting alms at six in the morning in Luang Prabang, or scaling the […]
This final leg of this travel is the most bizarre. Bizarre in that we’ve gone from the heat of Asia to the heat of Buenos Aires, on the way to the Antartic. Bizarre in that people look at me like I’m a money-bag when I tell them where I’m going. And bizarre to be going […]
After five months, the final leg of this travel starts in Buenos Aires with a 36 hour sprint spread over bits of 3 days, and ends the same way after the Antarctic. It’d be easy to mistake the capital of Argentina for continental Europe. After two walking tours led by opinionated and highly politicized locals […]
Jan 11-15, 2010 For most of the past four months, Trish was often the only white folk around. And I could almost blend in well enough to get the occasional local price. All this came to a screeching halt in the chaos and dusty mayhem they call, Cairo. The largest city in Africa, 20 million […]
The overnight VIP bus from Chiang Mai to Bangkok is anything but VIP. We see passengers on other buses passing us with blankets,trays,water, and night lights. Our smiling travel agent who booked this no doubt pocketed most of our fare and schlepped us on this backpacker delight. On the road Trish lays a bombshell and […]
Dec 28-Jan 3, 2010 Yet another lame jungle ‘elephant trek.’ These elephants spend most of their time foraging for grass and drinking. This only goes to prove that the bigger you are, the bigger pile of shXX you will produce. As we stumble to the finish line of this magnificient Asia leg, we continually see […]
For those Laos purists who are scoffing at us for barely having left Luang Prabang, let us reassure you we did venture out into the stunning countryside for day trips. This included day treks, river cruising, kayaking and a disappointing elephant ‘trek’. Tours in Asia rarely live up to their billing. Customer safety and satisfaction […]