When you went to the zoo as a kid, which animals were you most excited to see? Monkeys? Lions? How about dogs? Or a pig? If you visit the small zoo attached to the Guanlan Mountain & Lake Garden Farm in Shenzhen, China, you won’t find the first two, but you’ll find plenty of dogs, […]
Drinking Yak Sewage in Ngawal
A majestic yak with fuzzy red earrings greeted us at the entrance to Ngawal. We had seen a few yaks already, but from this point on they were everywhere—their meat even started popping up on guesthouse menus. We were mostly happy about this. Yak meat is delicious and the living animals make great photography subjects. They are little more than [read more…]
Chame to Pisang: Just Takin’ the Goat for a Walk
The next day on our trek around the Annapurna circuit was dominated by a humongous slab of rock. At least that’s the main thing I remember. That and the fact that we actually passed someone! Yes, it’s true! But more on that later. The day was actually fairly long and for the first time, we [read more…]
An Elephant Gets Revenge
I recently wrote a post about the mistreatment of elephants in Thailand, so I thought I’d balance that out by recalling a time an elephant got a bit of revenge on us humans. Apart from the ones that work in logging and those forced to carry tourists around a little loop in the jungle all […]
A Good Day in Hsipaw Spent With Kids, Cows and Trash
If you spend a reasonable amount of time in any country, visiting that country’s top tourist attraction will never be the most memorable thing you do while there and in many cases, it will actually be quite disappointing. Instead, the best moments are unplanned and generally come when you least expect them. Knowing this, I’ve […]
Bargain Prices on Elephant Torture in Chiang Mai
Most visitors to Thailand have a good-sized list of things they want to experience in the country and riding an elephant is usually one of them, but if they knew the treatment those elephants are forced to endure, most would probably make a new list. The problem isn’t the riding itself, though. Unless, you top […]
Just Hanging Out and Chewing Some Watermelon
Apparently bats don’t just suck blood. Maybe it’s simply the red color, but this bat in the hills of Kintamani, Bali in Indonesia really seems to be enjoying that piece of watermelon. It also seems huge (the bat, not the watermelon), so maybe the locals feed it fruit to keep it full and keep its […]
Jagat to Tal: Our First Real Day of Trekking
When I left off last time we had just checked into our guesthouse in Jagat and were looking forward to a solar heated shower. Getting one would turn out to be a little more difficult than you might think. The little shower room looked like the boiler room of an aircraft carrier, with a maze of [read more…]
Funny Photo Shows How to Kill a Dance Craze
This funny sign from Gibraltar is warning visitors not to mock the monkeys, because apparently their feelings get hurt. And when their feelings get hurt they bite. I’ve written about the thieving monkeys in Thailand in the past and am fully aware that our simian friends can possess the same annoying traits found in us […]
Food Photography for Sharks
In general, a photo like this one from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia would be more at home on a shark’s food blog than my funny photos section, but in this case, the food got away. No one wants a photo of food they didn’t get to eat and the happy ending for us […]