When you travel, you meet a lot of annoying people, but one tops them all: the person who won't stop bragging about how little they've been spending. Now, the bragging itself is annoying, no question, but the way these people go about saving money is far worse. An example could explain this better than I. As luck would have it, I ran into the perfect example at the Tilicho Base … [Read more...]
I Love Chinese Repairmen!
When you live in a Chinese apartment, something will stop working. Actually, most things will stop working. The majority can be fixed using duct tape, paper clips, newspapers, rubber bands, chewing gum and/or various other items laying around the house. Occasionally none of those will work and you have to call a repairman. That's when the fun starts. I've previously written … [Read more...]
A Well-Deserved Day Off in Upper Pisang
When we arrived in Pisang, we had the option of staying in Lower Pisang at the base of the valley or hiking a hundred to two hundred meters up the valley wall to Upper Pisang. The choice was easy. The higher location means better views and the absence of modern structures makes it more atmospheric. On the other hand, it's much smaller and we knew there were only three … [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 day, there are also elephants who are marched up and down the busy streets of touristy … [Read more...]
Barcelona Hides Its Bus Stations Well
When the bus pulled over in a pitch black residential area on the outskirts of Barcelona and the driver practically shoved us out the door, we knew for sure we had missed our stop. We had tickets on a night bus to Madrid and had decided to take a city bus to the long distance bus station, because we didn't want to pay for taxi and getting to the station by bus seemed easy … [Read more...]