We landed in Newark, New Jersey on the afternoon of May 24th. After six months of traveling, Alex and I were very tired, and very broke. Both of us were looking forward to some serious couch time. We spent the next month or so relying on the excellent hospitality of Alex's dad Dean, and his wonderful wife Jennifer, eating their food, drinking their wine, and sleeping in their basement. We could not have asked for better hosts. While we were there, we took a family trip into New York City. We spent an afternoon in Central Park taking in the sites, I would also note that while we were staying in NJ, I had the fortune of eating a hot dog in front of the Statue of Liberty. We had originally planned to buy a car ... read more

OK, OK. So we've been back in the US for what, 2 months already now. It's finally time to tell you about Morocco. We started our time in Morocco in Casablanca. We did nothing spectacular, though we did manage to find some amazing street food--chicken kebab sandwiches in French bread with tomatoes, onions, and olives served with french fries and hot mustard eaten while standing from a plastic plate resting on a tiny metal ledge. Yum. Happily someone had ordered one as we were casting about for food so we could point at what he was having, grunt, and hold up two fingers to get our own. However, we hadn't come all the way to Morocco just to sit in our hotel and eat amazing sandwiches. We had bought a tour months in advance and it ... read more

We were a little travel weary by the time we got to Egypt, and Cairo was the perfect place to sit an relax for a while. We checked into the Nubian Hostel downtown and chilled out pretty agressively for a couple of days. We sat at the sidewalk cafe positioned directly under our window, chowed down at the Egyptian fast food joint on the corner and milled around in surprisingly cool weather. A SNAFU meant that our pre-organized tour was no more, but no worries. Our hostel guys whipped up a tour for us in a matter of minutes that was essentially identical to the one we found online for about a third the cost. I suspect that just about everyone in Egypt can hook you up with a tour if pressed. Our guys did not ... read more

We left Kathmandu and headed for Pokhara, the jumping off point for Annapurna treks, via tourist bus. Tourist buses in Nepal are not the fancy, comfortable, air-conditioned luxury liners that they are in Taiwan. They're not even the intensely uncomfortable, new, air-conditioned budget mobiles of Japan. They are squeaking, shuddering, cramped, dusty affairs that hurtle along ill-maintained mountain roads passing and being passed with abandon. On the up side, they do only cost $6 for a 6 hour ride, and we got serenaded by some village boys who knew almost all the words to an unending folk song. We spent half a day in Pokhara poking around, watching cows and buffalo stop traffic, and reorganizing our packs before heading out the next day on our trekking adventure. The adventure began when we boarded yet another bus--a ... read more

If I had to choose one word to characterize our time at Koh Jum it would have to be--lounge. In our entire eight day stay we probably strayed no farther than 300 meters from our little bungalow. Bungalow--food hut--lounge hut--beach--food hut--lounge hut--food hut--bungalow. Perfect. Koh Jum was exactly what we wanted. Good food. Decent beach. Warm water. Fun animals. No commitments. No worries. Plenty of time. So it rained--more time to read. So the tide was out--more tide pools and beach combing. Koh Jum is bursting with animal life. Monkeys chattered next to our bungalow. We coaxed hermit crabs out of their shells on the beach. Songbirds serenaded us by day and frogs by night. I could have done without the rat that climbed up on my leg in the middle of the night, but Chris ... read more