travel journals - 1 to 20

Luang Prabang is the old French administrative capital in Laos, and I'd heard from scores of people that it is an amazing place to relax for a while -- good food, good strolling, good everything. And I love Marguerite Duras' "The Lover," a story set in 19th century French Indochina that was strikingly beautiful. So I was looking forward to spending some time here. I'll admit, it's stunning -- they did a great job of preserving the old French colonial architecture, and the crumbling buildings set amidst all the overgrown foliage are so romantic. The evenings here are warm and humid and seduc...

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I've really been missing NYC, but I have to admit, Thailand is probably one of the best places on earth to forget your woes and distract yourself by means of delicious food. Think of your favorite thai restaurant, then imagine a world where you can find your favorite dishes on every corner, steaming hot and made fresh in about 3 minutes, for about $1. and the best part is that there's great hygiene here, so you're probably not going to get sick (ahem, India). seriously, everytime I think about hopping on a plane back home, I pass a noodle stall and, well, obviously I'm still here.I swear,...

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Long-term backpackers are a really cool, interesting bunch. in the same way that I started seeing NYC from a new perspective after being away for so long, I think that being jolted back into the travelling world after a month in my old routine has gotten me thinking about what the common denominator is. I've had the "travelling conversation" (ie where are you from? where have you been? where are you going? why did you leave? etc) with hundreds of people, and the number of stories out there is staggering. but everyone left family, friends and everything else they love and are familiar with, ...

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During my time in europe, I have been so careful about not spending too much money, since I still have 4 months of travel ahead of me and europe is unbelievably expensive -- I pretty much live on street food like doner kebabs, dunplings, pierogies, etc., and I couchsurfed in cities where I´d be spending more than 2 days so I could cut down on costs. I've bought a couple of souvenirs for Michael, but that's it. I decided not to go to the taj mahal because it was $25 to get in; similarly, I bypassed the kremlin in moscow because I deemed it too expensive. not to mention the tv tower and jewis...

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I was in Krakow for a couple of days, and I initially thought that I would try to avoid Auschwitz, which is only an hour and a half away. I've been to the Holocaust Museum in DC, so I know what happened and I've seen all of the sad family photographs and personal effects of people who died. and I wasn't sure I'd want to see an actual concentration camp and retrace the footsteps of so many people who suffered - does it get any more depressing than that? but in the end, I was convinced by my roommates at the hostel that, really, it's my duty to go once in life. so I went, and even though I'm ...

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I grew up in Chicago, land of slaughterhouses, polish sausages and deep-dish pizzas so unhealthy they will make you cry uncle. and I was raised in a Filipino household, which is all about meat, meat and more meat, with rice to weigh it down in your stomach and vegetables served sort of as an overstewed afterthought. and I love to bake, so much so that I often bake too much and keep the leftovers in the freezer to eat for breakfast. so I like to think that I can hold my own when it comes to fatty, carb-heavy cuisines that lead to obesity and heart disease. however, Lithuanian cuisine has hum...

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I broke up my trans-siberian journey into 3 different legs -- Beijing:UB, UB:Irkutsk, Irkutsk:Moscow -- and the first 2 trains were pretty tame, as I had expected from reading up on my trusted Lonely Planet. Maybe that's because there's only 1 express train/wk right now that stops off in UB between Beijing-Russia, so naturally it will be filled with westerners, and UB:Irkutsk is relatively short at 28 hours so perhaps that's not enough time to get into the full swing of train dynamics. But my journey from Irkutsk to Moscow was a 3-night/4-day slog through Russia, which afforded me plenty of...

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the train journey from Irkutsk to Moscow takes 4 days, 3 nights. part of the fun is the grocery shopping -- at the main supermarket in Irkutsk, you usually see other travellers and debate which bread looks less stale, whether you'll get hepatitis from the apples, how long cheese will last without a refrigerator, etc. but considering the limited selection in siberian supermarkets, in the end, there's really no way to avoid a total junk food binge. this is my booty for the 4 days (and this assumes I'll be eating russian train platform food like dumplings, blintzes, etc.!).in case you couldn...

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I haven't had a toilet post in over a month (gasp!), but central mongolia's, uh, "toilets" certainly deserve a mention. I'm no stranger to squat toilets (see any number of posts on this), and I've definitely used some outhouses before, but the thing I loved about Mongolian outhouses was the combination of sheer-drop-to-the-bottom and wind velocity that combined for a unique bathroom experience. I never understood why guys liked pissing off cliffs so much until I was pissing into a 20ft. deep hole and the wind was causing a sort of arc-ing effect I'd never had the joy of seeing before. folks...

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it takes a notoriously long time to get anywhere in the philippines, esp during typhoon season -- you're already talking about buses to ferries to more buses, and delays throw everything off. Michael and I had to go to Marinduque, the island where my grandmother is from, for a family reunion and both legs of the journey were pretty legendary, and apparently, fairly typical. Getting to Marinduque went something like this: 1) my parents arranged a door-to-door service that picks you up from your house in Manila, takes you to the pier, gets you on the boat, then drives you to wherever you ...

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Balut is probably the philippines' most infamous dish -- it is a half-hatched duck embryo that is boiled at an early stage of development and then eaten with salt. I've heard comparisons to everything from soft-shell crab (since there is a beak and feet) to "it tastes just like chicken and egg, together," but since I was too scared to try it while growing up, I could never verify these claims. however, last night my aunt was kind enough to buy 6 balut for michael and I to try. I made the foolish mistake of trying to dissect mine first (as opposed to closing my eyes and downing it like a ...

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Pamilacan Island is right off the coast of Bohol, the #2 tourist destination in the philippines, so it is pretty amazing how tourism has been so slow to develop here -- in the middle of high season, Michael and I were the only foreigners staying on the island. Pamilacan has everything your typical deserted island has to offer -- beautiful skies and seas, no roads (so no loud jeepneys or tricycles), no restaurants (you eat with local families), and not much to do (bring a few books). but the thing I really loved most was how seamlessly we integrated into the local community while we were t...

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I love street food, but I've been a bit lukewarm to what I'd found in China so far; apart from dumplings and pork buns, everything is a little greasy for my taste and I don't really care either way for the flavors... but that ended today, when I found these amazing crepes of awesomeness in the French Concession. here's the basic recipe, from what I could gather:make a large crepe. while it's cooking, crack an egg on top and smear it around. throw on some chopped scallions, as well as hoisin sauce and chili sauce. fold the crepe in half, and put two plain churros (i.e. fried dough usu...

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the Oriental Pearl tower is probably the most striking building in Shanghai's skyline -- it's the one that sort of looks like a giant, unnecessary phallus meets the Jetsons. the best place to see it is on the Bund side of the river, and walking along you eventually get to a stretch of sidewalk that is just clogged with tourists. why? because the building in front of the oriental pearl has two spherical ends to it, and at this point on the sidewalk, they look like . . .well, you know what I'm getting at, we're all adults here. though "adults" might be a stretch, judging from some of the ...

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I've been in Beijing for about a week now, and yeah the forbidden city is great and there are a lot of cool temples around, but what I've been really enjoying is eating at all the bougie restaurants I otherwise can't afford in NYC.I'm not really sure what is going on -- most places we've eaten at have been maybe 1/3 full, usually not even that. perhaps with all the western business in the area, entrepreneurs are jumping the gun and supply is exceeding demand? maybe they're getting ready for the influx of foreigners during the olympics? maybe we're going on off-nights? perhaps chinese peop...

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according to the World Bank, 16 of the world's 20 smoggiest cities are in China -- so I figured Beijing would be bad, but since the olympics is happening in a mere 3 months, it must be getting better by the day, right? not really.apparently all the coal power plants have been shut down and polluting trucks have been banned in the past couple of months, and soon all construction will be stopped. and locals have been telling us that it used to be so much worse -- doctors used to advise residents not to go outside and sometimes you couldn't see a skyscraper across the street. but even with a...

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I know that poking fun at chinese interpretations of english is a pretty cheap shot, but I felt this should be a special exception. this is a wet towelette that Air China gave me after my meal -- Air China is part of the star alliance that also includes United, Lufthansa, etc., so it's not like they don't have contact with the western world. but perhaps they don't have much contact with middle eastern patrons?

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I've been on the chinese mainland for about 4 days now, and I grossly underestimated how necessary a working knowledge of mandarin is. today, I went cycling in the countryside with 2 friends, Sara and Cameron, and at one point I needed to find a bathroom. I walked over to a little chinese roadside eatery and asked if there was a toilet. she obviously didn't understand. here's the rest of the, uh, conversation --me: toilet . . .uh, bathroom? woman: (looks at me blankly) me: [thinks to self, shit, how do I gesture this?] uh okay. toilet? [mimes squatting down on toilet, on pavement in front...

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my friend Bjorn is learning Hindi and as I was flipping through his lesson book, I noticed this. man, I definitely would have paid more attention in french if we had anything half this interesting to translate.

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during my time in india, I've had to defend myself against a fair amount of anti-americanism -- there aren't very many americans travelling in this region, so the few americans who are here end up being a sort of whipping post for frustrated europeans, australians, and other folk. after explaining to them that more than half of americans actually disagree with bush and that I myself worked for 5 years against his domestic policy, they usually let up a little. then we inevitably talk about obama v. hillary, and everyone is excited to see what happens. weirdly, all these conversations have so...

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