Namaste from NepalI postponed my visit to Nepal for years because of The 7 year Maoist peoples' War.I waited until things quieted down and tourists started to come again feeling it was safer. Well miscalculated big time I landed one day unaware there was trouble brewing already with the Maoists massively already in town from the countryside in the schools ready for a massive protest the v

Das Staedtchen Rurrenabaque noerdlich von La Paz ist ein guter Ausgangspunkt um den bolivianischen Urwald zu entdecken. Da die Anreise mit dem Bus langwierig und nicht ganz ungefaehrlich ist goennen wir uns zum ersten Mal auf dieser Reise einen Inlandflug. Der Anflug mit dem 19plaetzigen Propellerflugzeug ist ungewohnt aber aeusserst interessant da wir direkten Blick ins offene Cockpit haben.

Entry by ReadeHave finally left Rosebud and have made it Tidal River and it's freakin' wet and cold...why oh why Anyhoo we'll be heading north after this and chasing the warmer weather. Had a fantastic weekend away up at the Eildon Ranges 4 wheel driving and camping with Denise Ali Kazu and Stewart met him at the Landcruisers Club 4WD training weekend.I left Michael at Rosebud as he wasn't

La Paz amazes me.I have never seen a city like this before and it is not possible to compare it to any other city I have seen so far.Some things that amaze me hereThe city centre lies in a valley on the high plateau and all the surrounding mountains are covered with brick houses that have not been painted yet and will never be painted. The density of these houses is enormous.The traffic is a chao

Even though the Sunday market in the village of Tarabuco is quite a touristic experience it is still used by the locals of the pueblos to come together buy and barter and stock up their food supply for the next weeks. Some people leave their villages before dawn in order to walk or ride their mules and donkeys to the market. On Tarabuco market you can buy everything from locally produced food

Sorry about the lack of updates lately we were having a few internet issues and then got busy but here it is...Since we were in the region and Brett was now drinking and actually enjoying wine we decided to go on one of the bus tours that take you to several different wineries. We ended up calling Bushtucker Tours at 10am to book one and the guy said No worries will be there to pick you up

Saturday May 1 2010It is Saturday morning and our great adventure is coming to an end. All too soon but it would be really nice to get home and see Cathy and the boys and share with them the wonders of Egypt. The plan was to get up early about 530 AM catch a bus provided by Trafalgar to the airport and spend the next 11 hours winging our way home. From Cairo we are to head to NY and JFK air

I'll just begin by saying I really honestly do not like the smell of rice liquor sour mash. However I suppose it's not actually that much worse than any other mash because there's not much that truly smells good about fermenting grain product is there Few will argue that the end result is in global demand though.Today we visited both the Pujiang and Quan Xin rice liquor factories the prima

Hello again everyone Irsquom in a town in the Bay of Islands area called Paihia. It may be fall in the southern hemisphere but they apparently forgot to tell that to people here itrsquos still 25 degrees out and I had to buy sun screen or risk looking like a Hussmann lobster. Irsquom doing a little job hunting in the area here there are a ton of hostels here but many are winding down as

This morning we spent our time in lecture with a man Chef Cheng taught two and a half decades ago who is now one of the top instructors at the Sichuan Higher Institute of of Cuisine. Not only was our demolecture period a great look into how to make the food we've been eating for the past few days it was also really nice to be back in a kitchen setting for a few hours.Chef Chen Ju Min and his as

So itrsquos been a while since my last posthellip sorry about that. Magnetic Island was absolutely stunning the weather was perfect and I made a bunch of new friends to hang out with. The first night we had a pub quiz and we came a very respectable 5th out of 20 or so. We agreed to rent a couple of cars the following day and explore the island. The next day not quite as bright and early

Rather than write a short blog entry for each day I'll just recap our entire trip for you. The overall gist We had an incredible time ate delicious food and could really see ourselves living in Taiwan someday. The city was just that great. Either we were REALLY tired everyday or our bodies just don't know what to do in super dark basement rooms. We slept in until 10am each morning something w

Two weeks in and I haven't swung for Philip yet who would of thought it. We went to Floreat beach with Louis and Jayne today we got a message that Bobby had been a bit wobbly in the night so we were very worried he's ok now and went school phew. anyway Philip was bathing his feet in the sea fully clothed thinking of bobster. when a big wave came along and completely covered him from head to

Lost in TranslationhelliphellipIs a BitchOn a recent journey to Cuba I found myself in the downtrodden plaza of an inland village surrounded by adolescents politely requesting Chiclets. Had I imagined that Chiclets were a rare delicacy to Cubans I might have smuggled in a few cartons from the ThriftyEMart back home. As it was however I lacked both Chiclets and as it turned out the

Wednesday was our least active day. We went to the Picasso museum in the morning and i'm glad we did. We almost skipped it because we had heard it was not as nice as the one in Paris which we have already been to. But I read it had his renditions of Las Meninas and our Spanish book talks about how Picasso did his own versions of that masterpiece so I thought it would be cool to go and check it

Seeing as we didn't have to leave until 11 for lunch before the flight today started on a nice note sleeping in Now obviously we're all having a really great time but last night was our final night in Chengdu so most everyone had a big night on the town and needed the extra few hours to get ready for the plane to Xi'an. For the record seeing twentysix tired half asleep people try to fit t

Tuesday 4.5.2010 day 202Niagara FallsNiagara Falls was so exciting. To get there we drove along some fantastic country roads and alongside Lake Ontario.From the first minute that I first saw the falls they made me feel energised it was very cool having all the spray wash over me. It is the second largest waterfall in the world. I would love to see the largest now. I cannot believe that the fall fr