“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” - Bill Bryson Malaysia wasn't on our original itinerary, it just seemed a logical crossing from Indonesia to Thailand. We'd have to hurry through, we thought, because Ramadan was in full swing. Ramadan is a month long religious holiday where practicing Muslims are forbidden to eat during the daytime in order to remind themselves that there are less fortunate [View Full Entry]

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“When you travel, remember that a country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” - Clifton Fadiman Southern Thailand! The Gem of the Banana Pancake Trail. I had heard so many great things about this country while in South America that I was subconsciously pulling at the reins to get here. Every country we've 'had a feeling about' ended up being great, most notable Argentina and Turkey. My birthday was coming up, 2nd in a row while traveling. I was excited to spend it in Thailand. The only question was, which [View Full Entry]

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“Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by.” - Robert Frost The island directly east of Java is probably the most well known part of Indonesia. In fact, over 80% of travelers to Indonesia visit Bali only, and not without reason. Unlike the Javanese, the people of Bali are predominately Hindu, not Muslim. But unlike the Technicolor statues of gods favored by Indian Hindus, Balinese shrines are stone thrones and statues covered with bright green moss, usually containing a variety of daily food offerings on leaf plates with incense, all to [View Full Entry]

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“What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do - especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” - William Least Heat Moon Here are a few random facts I didn't know about Indonesia before arriving that I think are interesting: 1) They execute drug smugglers here. KILL! DEAD! GAME OVER, MAN! A nice, friendly sign at the airport is there to remind you just in case you forgot. Ammi and I would [View Full Entry]

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“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain Cappadocia is a place that Ammi and I had been dreaming about since we started planning this trip. The Cappadocia region is largely composed of sedimentary rocks formed in lakes and streams, and deposits erupted from ancient volcanoes approximately 9 to 3 million years ago. The rocks of Cappadocia near Göreme eroded into [View Full Entry]

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“Not all those who wander are lost.” - J. R. R. Tolkien Pamukkale (Cotton Castle) contains natural travertine shelves and pools with cascading calcium rich water. The Romans took advantage of the waters' curative powers and built the city of Hierapolis nearby, which remains surprisingly intact. We decided to have a look-see, 1) to avoid paying to see Ephesus, which is another Roman city on the Aegean coast and 2) to see a natural phenomenon that may not exist anywhere else. We made our way to the travertines and took off our shoes (there's a lot of shoe removal in [View Full Entry]

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“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe" - Anatole France Some of the most interesting traveler's stories start with, “A greasy guy approached us in a bus station with the words 'Have I got a deal for you!' dripping from his lips. Of course it was a deal we could not refuse.” Now if someone comes to you with a story like that then dig in and enjoy. Any story that starts like that has to be at least a little interesting, right? No worries, everything turns out the way it is supposed to. [View Full Entry]

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“Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” - Seneca At first I thought, along with most people I'm sure, that Mt. Olympos was in Greece. It was, after all, where Zeus and the rest of the gods supposedly resided according to Greek mythology. But it turns out there's one in Turkey as well, just spelled differently. The sleepy town of Olympos lies nestled in a forested mountain region a few miles from the ocean. While there are plenty of opportunities to mountain climb, swim, or explore Roman ruins we were more interested in two other things. [View Full Entry]

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“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” - Cesare Pavese Every so often we come across a city that takes our breath away. Istanbul is one of those cities that contain a certain mixture of elements that you just know don't exist anywhere else. Imagine if you will: You're on top of [View Full Entry]

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“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” - Robert Louis Stevenson We were both excited and scared to enter Israel. We were excited because it meant leaving a difficult week in Egypt and also because Ammi's sister has been studying in Jerusalem for the past year and she was going to show us the wonders of Israel. We haven't seen Syd in a year, except over Skype, and we were looking forward to catching up. Scared because while traveling though South America we had numerous run-ins with young Israelis behaving badly—acting insensitive t [View Full Entry]

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