Only a few more days left on the 'real'part of this trip. (The rest of St. Thomas and Austin ae not traveling in the same way). Ready to come home this time. Started to be a bit tired from traveling at the end of Spain. Castles and churches and museums start to blend into each other. At least need a change of scenary from Europe. I hopped over from Spain on a long bus ride to Oporto. After the lack of people who can speak English for conversations in Spain, I decided to stay in hostels in Oporto and Lisbon. In [View Full Entry]

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Spain is almost like a vacation from my vacation... First of all, I´m sitting in my hotel room with a computer connected to the internet. That itself is amazing (given that I didn´t bring a laptop). The room is also only 40 euros, if I heard them correctly of course. So I´m catching up on some blogging. I met Scott in the Madrid airport 3 weeks ago. The plan was to head to Toledo from the airport for some small(er) town relaxation first since he´s jetlagged and post-oral boards. First impression - Spain is like America. Remember that I´ve said everywhere [View Full Entry]

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...is difficult. The schedule of eating lunch at 3, dinner at 10 and bars and clubs not getting going until 12-1am is rather exhausting when you want to squeeze in some daytime sightseeing also (early too, given that many sights and museums close at 2pm). So finally got down a little time for some more blogging. Been in Greece for 3 weeks already. Slowly made my way through a few places - Chios from Turkey as in the last blog, Delphi, Meteora, Santorini, and now in Paros. My proudest moment in Greece - finding the Chinese consulate in Athens without a [View Full Entry]

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Stayed in Mesta for a few days, a medieval village on the island of Chios in Greece, just across from Turkey. The village has been in continual habitation since the 14th century and the castle like center of the town is still very much intact. There are only 300 permanent residents now, but it used to be a flourishing town of 2000 or so, profitting from trade of mastic, a resin from the mastic tree which apparently only grows well in the south of Chios and nowhere else. It was a great commodity with prices at its height similar to its [View Full Entry]

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This one is going to be short - I lost the long one just typed! So last day in Turkey - the ferry to Greece tonight was cancelled due to strong winds. Found a random hotel, not bad room or price, and I think I'm the only guest here, so no problem hoarding the one computer. March (at least this year) apparently isn't quite the perfect time for Turkey. Istanbul rained 4 out of 5 days. Cappadocia was freezing. Ephesus was warmer, but quite unpredictable with sun and rain and wind. In any case, Turkey was a bit harder to travel, [View Full Entry]

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Arrived in Europe yesterday morning. The flight from Bali itself was long with interesting stopovers. Did not imagine previously that one of the new experiences of this trip would be the flights themselves. Apparently air travel is still a luxury in Asia and the Asian airlines have much better service and food than US ones currently. Cathay Pacific to Thailand, Thai Air to Bali, and now Malaysian Air to Istanbul. After a 3-hour spa session to scrub away one month worth of sweat and deet and repaint my sand-chipped toe polish, I hopped onto a long overnight flight to Istanbul. Fir [View Full Entry]

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Last night in Bali. Apparently the tropical heat (not really all that hot actually, mid 80's for the high) and humidity (much like Houston) conspire to make me lazier and lazier. At the Denpasar airport, expect to stand in line for at least 45 minutes for visa on arrival, and this is low season too. Getting around to my first stop, Ubud, was extremely easy. "Hello? Taxi?" you hear this every 2 steps, from people soliciting busy to drive you to here and there. Overall, just negotiate and if the price sounds reasonable for you, just hop on and a short [View Full Entry]

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I woke up at 5am on Thursday, to catch the right bus to the Elephant Conservatory. Adam, the hotel owner at Tri Gong Residence, drove me himself to the bus station at 5:45am and made sure I bought the right ticket. After waiting to 7:10, the bus finally left for Lampang. The conservatory is on the way from Chiang Mai to Lampang and after a couple dozens of Thai pop karaoke videos and an unscheduled stop for reportedly a bad tire later, I was dropped off on the side of the highway next to the Conservatory. Somehow I did manage to [View Full Entry]

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First day getting into Bangkok, I tipped 100 Baht (just under $3) for a 450 B massage. (Which I thought was incredibly cheap given that it was 2 hours and they really crack your spine and so far no dissection symptoms). Today, I walked a mile to save 40 B (just over $1). And went to several different shops to save 5 B on ice cream. Didn't take long for the conversion by 35 times to not really matter, and 100 B, instead of being less than $3, seem like 100 again. So those brochures of pretty little fusion restaurants lie [View Full Entry]

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Day 1.5. The plane ride was smooth. Ambien and Cathay's in-seat screen made that 14 hour flight (that's only the SFO-HK part) seem almost not long enough. Bangkok airport was incredibly easy to navigate. Essentially no line through immigration. No one bothered to check my bags through customs. And they have this wonderful, cheapish (150 Baht, $5) express bus straight into the city - something that most US cities somehow still hadn't invented - a testament to how wonderfully our lobbists work, those taxi and aiport parking ones. In any case, despite my very fast realization (even [View Full Entry]

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