The Indian province of Goa has over 70 kilometers of beautiful beaches and excellent cheap food. That combination kept me in my beach hut two weeks longer than planned. India’s transportation network kept me there another two weeks. Flying in and out of Goa seems relatively simple, but leaving by land proved exceedingly difficult. When […]
Inle’s Floating Gardens and some Buddhist Hypocrisy
After visiting the temple, we got back on our boat and headed into another floating village. This one was even more photogenic than the first and I shot another 200 photos. By now the sun was at its hottest, but I still had no interest in holding an umbrella while trying to [read more…]
Village Life on Inle Lake…Yes, it Includes Souvenir Shops
After puttering down the lake for a while, we eventually arrived at the village of Ywama to visit a local market. Our driver parked our boat and dropped us off at a long, covered walkway lined with makeshift stalls manned by local vendors. The vendors might have been local, but [read more…]
Real and Fake Leg Rowing Fishermen on Inle Lake
“Skip it. It’s too touristy.” If you’ve done any traveling, you’ve probably heard this phrase. Some travelers shun any destination or activity seen as popular and will even go so far as to berate others for not doing the same. They don’t seem to understand that places become touristy for one simple reason: [read more…]
Oh no! Bangkok’s Grand Palace is Closed Again!?!
“The palace is closed.” If you’ve been anywhere near the Grand Palace in Bangkok, you’ve likely heard those words. No matter what day you heard them or who said them, I can guarantee one thing: the palace was not closed. You don’t even have to be near the palace to hear those words. On my […]
Even Indiana Jones Would Get Lost in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station
I recently learned that Japan boasts 45 of the world’s 50 busiest train stations, including the first 23 (source: rocketnews24.com) . The top three are all located in western Tokyo, a few stops apart on the Yamanote circle line. The busiest sits in the middle and sees almost 4 million visitors per day. Welcome to […]
No Foreigners Allowed in These Parts
They say that getting there is half the battle, but that was not often the case in China. Don’t get me wrong, getting anywhere in China is rarely easy—take my two attempts to make my way west to Sichuan province while I was living in Shanghai; once foiled by a snowstorm and once by an […]
Why Couldn’t My Train Just Derail Like Everyone Else’s?
Trains in Thailand have a hard time staying on the tracks and the route from Bangkok north to Chiang Mai seems especially prone to derailments, judging by news reports and even a few first-hand accounts on other blogs (like this one by That Backpacker, which actually sparked my memory of the incident in today’s post). […]
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 […]
The Hassle of Finding a Hotel in Rural China
I enjoy traveling in China overall, but that enjoyment does not generally extend to the accommodation search outside of popular destinations. Only hotels with the proper license are allowed to accept foreign guests and the Chinese government does not seem to hand out many of those licenses in less visited destinations. In many small towns […]
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