Browsing all posts in Around-the-World.

A Short Jaunt Back to London

Since Evan and I left London, I’ve wanted to go back. Luckily, we had tickets waiting for us (the last leg of the around-the-world trip plus our original return tickets). We thought we’d be using them over Thanksgiving, but since we’re still unemployed, we decided to move up the date and head out the first [...]

Packing for an Around-the-World Trip

When we decided to go on our around-the-world trip, we knew we wanted to pack light. We didn’t know how much we would need to carry our bags and we didn’t know where we’d be staying each night, but we knew we didn’t want to be weighed down by unnecessary items. We went completely basic [...]

Maui: Island Paradise

Our last stop was Hawaii. We arrived in Kona, on the big Island, and we had a flight booked on Pacific Wings to Kahului in Maui. We started looking for the Pacific Wings sign, and we made it all the way to the end of the airport without seeing it, so we asked a baggage handler where it was. He pointed down the road and said, about a quarter mile that way.

Touring Tokyo

On August 14, we took the Shinkansen to Tokyo. We had reserved seats, but they turned out to be in a smoking car — and at the very front of the train. We decided to look for new seats, but all the unreserved calls are at the back of the train. I walked from car [...]

6 Days in Kyoto

Getting to Kyoto from Bangkok involved a very long day of traveling, which seems to be a recurring theme on this trip. First we took a 5-hour flight to Tokyo, then had to hop on an hour-long train to get to the 3-hour-long Shinkansen — where we had to stand in the unreserved smoking car [...]

3 Days in Bangkok

On the night of August 4, we took the sleeper train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok because we’d heard it would be a fun way to travel. In retrospect, we probably should have just spent the money on booking a flight. We rode in a second-class car, and I had an upper bunk while Evan had a lower one. The food was inedible, and there were no veggie options, though we had the good sense to bring some snacks. The car seemed to be infested with what looked like baby cockroaches — I squished quite a few, and saw many more scurrying about under our seats and on the walls. And sleeping on a train is no real substitute for sleeping in a bed, especially when there’s some anxiety about vermin, so we arrived in Bangkok exhausted.

Zip-Lining Through the Thai Treetops

Today Evan and I went on the Flight of the Gibbon treetop zip-line adventure. We got picked up at 8:30 a.m. and driven out of Chiang Mai, up a windy mountain road. We got outfitted with harnesses, helmets and “brakes” — V-shaped pieces of bamboo. Then our group of 8 was driven to our starting point — a platform by a tree on one side of a gorge.

Learning to Cook Thai Food

Evan’s ready to cook!
One thing Evan and I have wanted to do for a long time is take a cooking class, and we heard that Chiang Mai was the place to do it. We signed up for a day-long course at the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School, and were picked up in the morning and [...]

A Temple Tour of Chiang Mai

We left Ko Samui on July 31 from its adorable, superbly landscaped, hut-based airport. It’s really very charming. We flew through Bangkok to Chiang Mai, where we rode in the back of a pickup truck, also known as a songthaew here, to our hotel — Your House Guest House — where we got a nice, [...]

Relaxing on the Beach in Ko Samui

Sunset on Bophut Beach
Our first stop in Thailand was an island in the gulf called Ko Samui. We stayed at the Smile House for the first two days on Bophut Beach at the north end of the island, which was a nice place, set back a bit from the beach, then we moved a bit [...]

12 Days in Istanbul

Sorry I haven’t written in a while — the keyboards in Istanbul are a bit hard to type on because some of the letters and punctuation marks are in different places, and I just haven’t spent too much time in front of the computer lately. Good thing I’ve been writing about my days in a [...]

‘Happy Bearthday’ in Petra

Yup, that sand-bottle says “Happy Bearthday”
July 7 we drove down to Petra on the windy, hilly and at times very scenic King’s Highway to stay at the Movenpick resort and celebrate our joint birthdays July 8 (yup, we share the day… Evan’s 5 hours older than me).
We got up early on the 8th to try [...]

Hammamat Ma’in and the Dead Sea

July 6, we went to Hammamat Ma’in and the Dead Sea.

Going under the hot waterfall at Hammamat Ma’in
Hammamat Ma’in is a hot spring complex off a windy road with views of the Dead Sea. We got past the gates, where there’s a hotel and spa (which are both closed and apparently everything by them is [...]

2 Days in Jordan: Madaba, Jerash and Ajloun

Flying to Jordan on Royal Jordanian (very nice!)
We arrived in Jordan yesterday afternoon and immediately felt more at home than in Cairo. The visa process was a snap, the passport control lines were short and we had our bags and a rental car pretty quickly. Our hotel in Madaba, a small town not far from [...]

We’ve Finally Posted Some Photos!

Thanks for being patient with us — it’s taken a while to get a decent combination of USB ports and internet access for us to upload our photos. Evan put most of our Egypt ones up on Facebook, and he’ll be uploading them on his site soon, too, when he can. You may have also [...]