D in Asia

For my free weekend I decided to visit an area in South Africa called Drakensberg, and stay at the Cathedral Peak Hotel. The scenery here is easily the most beautiful I have ever seen and if you like the outdoors and activities such as hiking and mountain biking you have to come here at least once in your life. The Drakensberg mountain range is the highest in South Africa, and it has also been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage site. It's located in South Africa but some of the mountains extend into Lesotho, which is a country that's actually located totally within South Africa. The area has developed quite a bit in the past 10 years or so and now has several resorts and hotels in the region. I decided to stay at the ... read more

I'm going to start this blog with a warning - if you don't like seeing pictures of dead animal heads, carcasses or skins then please don't read any more. I don't agree with all of the animals that they had at this place, all I'm doing is reporting what I saw. One of my co-workers had spent a great deal of time in Africa and he asked if we wanted to see the Juju, or Fetish Market. Juju is another term for black magic, and it's practiced in West Africa, particularly in the neighbouring country of Benin. Practitioners believe that certain animal parts can cure a variety of ailments, and also help cast certain curses or spells. The juju market in Lome sells a variety of animal parts that locals purchase to cook up all of ... read more

It’s been a while since my last blog, mostly because I didn’t think I had anything that interesting to talk about. Now I think I do, because I’m in Africa. It’s always been my dream to come here but I never thought it would happen, and now it has. The journey even getting here was pretty interesting so I’ll start there. Because of the flood situation in Bangkok we got moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for about 5 days until things settled down. It’s quite interesting watching all of the news coverage, especially CNN because while it was somewhat accurate a lot of it was completely wrong. The flooding in northern Thailand was, and still is, very bad. Hundreds of people died and many more had their entire houses destroyed. The water was meters deep in ... read more

Welcome to another addition. It's been a little quiet lately but since I'm a little bored tonight and I feel like posting something I decided to complete an entry on my day today, which was fairly interesting (I hope). I started off with breakfast, and then while I was sitting around doing pretty much nothing a friend texted and asked if I wanted to work out with him in Lumphini Park. If you've read my previous blog you have an idea of what the park is all about, but the two gyms in there are pretty wild. A written description doesn't really do it justice so I attached a few photos, but they're basically Bangkok's version of muscle beach. One of them is quite small but the gym we used is the bigger of the two, ... read more

Well, my first visit to a red light district was interesting to say the least. No matter how much you read or how many stories people tell you nothing can really prepare you for that sort of experience. Soi cowboy has it all, from bright lights, to alcohol, to live music to sex and it really doesn't disappoint in any area. The group I went with were a bunch of co-workers and all of their wives and girlfriends, and we started off with dinner at an Irish pub called The Dubliner and had a fabulous burger. Then we went for drinks at a sports bar called Penalty Stop and then to a nightclub called Titanium. Most of the bars and nightclubs have live bands comprised mostly of Filipinos and they're unbelievable. Last night I heard Bryan ... read more