It’s good to have a routine. It gives us comfort. It fills in the guesswork. Doe Bay Fest gave us routine. Every morning, we would wake up to Bloody Marys made by Kevin. Kevin lived next door to us. We were on his turf, actually….
I revel in the queue these days. Lines speak to me. New driver’s license, new medicare card, wait for a flight to arrive, wait to exchange my krone back to dollars. I get to go through it all over again, as slowly as possible. I…
It was a heated duel. Truth be told, I was losing. I forgot how many times the computer had beat me in Connect Four (3 in a row). I lost track of the number of headlines that included corruption or Charbonneau as I read from…
The motorbike. The symbol of Vietnam. The country's utmost point of pride. “90 million people live in Vietnam today, and we have 55 million motorbikes,” one tour operator exclaims. “9 million people live in Saigon. And can you guess the number of motorbikes? Nearly 7…
Where typical Vietnamese conical hats – woven from reeds to offer airy shade – are worn by rice farmers in the paddies, vendors in the city, and tourists in the departures line at the airport. Where unemployment is virtually nonexistent (much to the communist government's…
I've been having vivid dreams in Vietnam. Which makes sense, since they're colored by the strange reality that is Vietnam. I dreamt of rats, porcupines and deer chasing me through Hanoi – an angry stampede through the streets, where the hunted indeed became the hunter….
Ko Phi Phi’s beauty is more than emerald water deep – the endless mid afternoom procession that color the back streets of the tourist ghetto highlight this party isle’s fascinating diversity: A man pushing a cart filled with garbage bags. Another pushes backpacks and…
Travelling for many months is a long and winding road: You deliberate at the forks and savour the turns, cross and re-cross paths with fellow wanderers and (sometimes when you least expect it) come out at spectacular views. And, more often than you'd like, as…
A quick update before we hit the Thai Isles, where Internet may be limited and sand in over abundance: We spent five nights in the Cameron Highlands. The air was cool, the hikes ranged from gentle to not so gentle, the tea estates were magnificent,…
