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<title>Travel Blog | 54</title>
<link>http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/54/</link>
<description>Travel adventures in journals and photos from 54</description>
<language>en-us</language>
<pubDate>Sun, 26 May 2013 02:51:13 +0000</pubDate>
<lastBuildDate>Sun, 26 May 2013 02:51:13 +0000</lastBuildDate><item>
                    <title>In Search of Animism in Eastern Taiwan</title>
                    <description>Animism is the ancient belief that spirits reside in nearly all features of the natural landscape. Do latent traces of this religion still persist among the tribes of eastern Taiwan That is the question that I wanted to answer on a recent visit to Hualien County. A friend and I set out to meet members of the secretive Sakizaya tribe a group of just 10000 or so aborigines who from 18782007 merg</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/Hualien//blog-762038.html</link>
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                    <title>Virachey National Park up in terra incognita</title>
                    <description>This blog entry is about my 3rd trip to Virachey National Park in Ratanakiri Province Cambodia. I spent 8 days trekking in the park this time in an attempt to reach the sacred HalingHalang Mountain massif that straddles the border of Cambodia and Laos. Problems arose even before I left Taiwan when the guide who I have trekked with for the previous two years went down with malaria. This time an K</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/blog-697417.html</link>
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                    <title>Mondulkiri</title>
                    <description>I meant to blog about my week in Mondulkiri last year February 2010 but I39ve been too busy to get around to it. I arrived from Ban Lung via the old oxcart jungle trail with the help of a hired motorbike driver named John. I head this road was treacherous and while there were certainly enough sand pits to get stuck in we dumped it once and after that I just hopped off and jogged alongsi</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/East/Mondulkiri/blog-610579.html</link>
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                    <title>Journey to the "Green Corridor"</title>
                    <description>My friend and I originally had a goal with this trip to reach the summit of the sacred and powerful Haling Halang Mountains which straddle the border of Cambodia and Laos and have one foot in both countries. What happened was this there are 2 ways to get to Veal Thom Grasslands which is on the way to Haling Halang the normal tourist trail which while still challenging is nothing compared</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/East/Banlung/blog-564843.html</link>
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                    <title>7 Days in Virachey National Park</title>
                    <description>I had spent a lot of time staring at the big empty green spot in northeastern Cambodia on my large National Geographic map on the wall in my study. As a 3250 square kilometer national park bordered by large protected areas on the Laos and Vietnam sides of its borders this represented one of if not thelast wilderness in mainland Southeast Asia. I hadn39t been to Cambodia since December 2005</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/East/Banlung/blog-473629.html</link>
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                    <title>Beijing April 09</title>
                    <description>These photos were taken between April 15th  April 20th in Beijing China and the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall which I found spectacular despite the hazy atmosphere. Damn shame about the foggy air because there appeared to be some seriously huge granite mountains shooting up north of the Wall heading towards Mongolia. As far as Beijing the city goes I didn't really care for it. Too many </description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/Great-Wall-of-China/blog-395400.html</link>
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                    <title>Tawu Mountain Nature Reserve in search of clouded leopards</title>
                    <description>My primary motivation for traveling to Tawu Mountain Nature reserve in southern Taitung County was to visit a protected area set up with the help of legendary conservationist and wildlife hero  Alan Rabinowitz  and  George Schaller  . Two of the world's most proactive field biologists these two dudes met with former Taiwanese President Lee Tung Hui and in 1987 finalized work in the area to secure</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/Taitung/blog-364641.html</link>
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                    <title>Still good for snorkelling and diving</title>
                    <description>We spent a week out on Gili Trawangan in July. We arrived at around 6pm on the Perama boat transferring off to a smaller transfer boat before arriving on the beach. Not calling ahead was a bad idea and it seemed like most places were full. Feeling a little bit desperate we took the first room we could find at a place called ABDI which in all my travels was probably the nastiest dump I have e</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Lombok/Gilli-Trawangan/blog-323374.html</link>
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                    <title>Where have all the Batak smiles gone</title>
                    <description>The latest edition of Lonely Planet Indonesia proclaims that tourism in Lake Toba is almost dead. I think there's something like an 18month delay between finishing off the editorial work and the book being printed and arriving at bookstores. During that time someone pulled the plug on Toba's life support line and it is today a ghost town.This was evident even in July peak travel season for In</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Sumatra/Lake-Toba/blog-318953.html</link>
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                    <title>Sumatra kicked my brother's ass</title>
                    <description>I like hate Medan said my 17year old brother of the capital of North Sumatra. I don39t quite agree with him but I don39t love city either. The entire metropolis reminded me of the outskirts of Kathmandu like the area near Tribhuvan that39s a rundown shamble old bricks mangy monkeys and polluted rivers. I didn39t see any wildlife in Medan itself but I enjoyed having a beer a</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Sumatra/Bukit-Lawang/blog-317600.html</link>
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                    <title>Hiking Mt. Sibayak Berastagi</title>
                    <description>The first thing I noticed upon entering the gates of Mt. Sibuyak Park on Sunday July 20th was a hunting party playing with their rifles and their 3 dogs running doing laps around the pickup truck in anticipation of the hunt. I turned to our guide and asked what are these people doingHe looked a little uncomfortable and answered a bit hesitantly uh...they are going hunting.I stopped.  Hunt</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Indonesia/Sumatra/Berastagi/blog-314113.html</link>
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                    <title>Charmless morning</title>
                    <description>These photos were taken at 7am in Caotun Nantou County Taiwan. 7am is nice almost anywhere soft morning air birds light traffic stillness morning dew all that good stuff. Not so in many areas of Taiwan. I have wondered for a long time why it is that Taiwan's buildings are so hideously ugly and I finally came to conclusion that when it came time to designing and planning these structures</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/blog-261241.html</link>
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                    <title>weekend in Hong Kong</title>
                    <description>Took a nice weekend away from Taipei to Hong Kong with the wife meeting up with Mike Pacifico and his younger brother Anthony in Hong Kong. It honestly reminded me of NYC's Chinatown. One major positive difference I noticed between Hong Kong and Taipei is that the former lacks scooters and street vendor stalls which was a refreshing change. England must have implemented some strict regulations</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Hong-Kong/Kowloon/blog-259241.html</link>
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                    <title>Khao Phanom Bencha National Park</title>
                    <description>Another awesome national park down south. The pix of the langur monkeys were taken at Ao Ton Sai beach in Krabi. Found a great place to stay in the hills of Krabi called  Phanom Bencha Mountain Resort   075660501 that had wonderful wooden fan bungalows for 800 baht a night with grand views of an epic pinkwhiteblack limestone crag. The bungalows are set in a lush garden. The manager had to dra</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South-West-Thailand/Khao-Phanom-Bencha-NP/blog-245420.html</link>
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                    <title>Kathmandu Bandipur  Patan</title>
                    <description>I intended to do a partial trek of the Annapurna Circuit specifically up to Manang and back down but changed my mind when the views of the Himalayas disappeared completely soon after our arrival. We were awarded awesome views of the great snowy mountains as we approached Kathmandu on our flight and we could still see some while we waited for our van in the airport parking lot but by the time </description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Nepal/Kathmandu/blog-245136.html</link>
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                    <title>4 nights in Seoul</title>
                    <description>This was our second trip to Seoul and this time I was determined to get out of the metropolis and see the DMZ border zone and possibly a national park. Neither of those happened for some reason. Regardless it was a nice long weekend out of Taiwan which is often needed. Speaking of Taiwan this country back in ROC now is a sorrylooking backwater compared with South Korea these days. Once eco</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Seoul/Insadong/blog-217037.html</link>
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                    <title>Wanhua Taipei's old downattheheels district</title>
                    <description>The Wanhua area of Taipei City has got to be one of the shadiest areas on the entire island. I was shouted at several times for taking photos drunken taxi cab drivers were puking in front of their cars and prostitutes were burning incense in front of temples asking the gods to please send more customers. </description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/Taipei/LongShan-Temple/blog-208224.html</link>
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                    <title>Fukouka and Beppu</title>
                    <description>Sharon and I have just returned from a lastminute decision to relax in Japan for a few days. 3 nights4 days was not nearly enough of course but it was refreshing to get out of Taiwan for a bit. Literally from the moment I stepped onto the jet bridge the thing that connects the aircraft to the gate I had to look it up on Wikipedia I was floored with warm feelings of contentment indeed my e</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Fukuoka/blog-202310.html</link>
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                    <title>Laos and Thailand</title>
                    <description>I arrived in Thailand on August 1st and took a bus straight to Petchaburi an ancient temple town 2.5 hours from Bangkok and the most nontouristy place I have seen thus far in the Land of Smiles. This was an alteration on my original itinerary because I was now to meet up with my friend Paul also teaching English at a university in Taiwan on August 5th in Bangkok. Having been to Bangkok 4 time</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Laos/West/Vang-Vieng/blog-193161.html</link>
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                    <title>so far this summer</title>
                    <description>so far this summerAsia Taiwan Taipei By 54July 20th 2007Greg McCannHere are some pix taken since we returned from the States at the end of May. The first few are from the Ping Ding Old Canal Trail which is located in the foothills of Yangmingshan National Park in a nicely wooded corner I should add. The other photos are from Caotun Nantou where Sharon's family is from. Now it's on t</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/Taipei/blog-183521.html</link>
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