KevinMartini
Kevin Martinico Joined: June 11th 2005
Logged in: August 4th 2011
Logged in: August 4th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
Our place the past few days
Kep is along the South Coast of Cambodia, about 30km from Vietnam, about 20km outside of Kampot and around 100km (and a million miles removed) from Sihanoukville. What used to be a 'rock star' vacation spot for Cambodia's elite, was abandoned in the 70's when the Khmer Rouge took over. Brutal fighting took place in and around Kep and afterward the villas of the rich and famous were left to the elements and became modern day ruins...like Angkor, they are shells of their former glory. Temples to what used to be. Nature, war and looters leaving nothing but skeletons of beautiful mansions. Last time I finished up my Cambodian leg of the trip on the beaches of Sihanoukville. Back then it was a quiet little town with guesthouses and a few beach bars. There were warnings ... read more
Smoking Monk
For the first time in all these years I am sitting down to write a travel blog with no notes, no journal and no plan to guide me. For the first time I am writing this because I feel like its expected of me. In the short time since I posted last, on that early morning in Koh Chang, I feel like I have experienced more than I did most months I was here last time. My theory is that when you have 6 months, you feel like you have all the time in the world, so you waste it. When you only have 2 weeks, you savor every minute. During the past 6 days in Cambodia every minute has been an adventure, every minute the equivalent of an hour in the real world. Last time ... read more
Grand Palace
The first rule of SE Asia is that YOU have to adapt to SE Asia, SE Asia does not adapt to YOU. This is why planning anything other than your flight in and your flight out is futile. This is a lesson I seem to learn every time I come out here, only to forget it as soon as my plane touches down on US soil. After 24 hours of travel, we were sitting on Khao San Rd...it was 1am and we were enjoying our green curry and jug of Singha much more than the bad techno music blasting out of every corner of Bangkok's famous strip. People watching through the reflection of Jamie's amazed eyes, I noticed a guy with a T-Shirt that said 'Losers Plan It'...it was a play on the Lonely Planet logo ... read more
My path last time
It's been 5 years since I stuffed a backpack full of crap, booked a one-way ticket to Bangkok and set off on a 6 month journey through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Australia, Malaysia and Myanmar. In the years since I've been back I started a new job, moved into the city of San Francisco, made a lot of new friends, met my wife and daughter, moved them to Denver, bought a house, adopted a couple dogs, started my own blog about music instead of travel and made a completely different life for myself and my family. A journey that has been just as interesting and even more rewarding than those days in SE Asia, but also quite a bit more limiting when it comes to jumping on a plane to some faraway land whenever the wind ... read more
KC
It's Monday morning. I am back at my desk in my home office. The trip is over and the weekend is over and it's time to start dealing with everything again. I am alright with that. I am just so happy that for 5 or 6 days I was actually able to turn it all off. The whole time on the road I did not let any of the negative thoughts about this house seep into my brain. I blasted them out with very loud music and thoughts of the past and future. Not much time to write now as I'm a little overwhelmed with real-life stuff but I did want to post the pics and make one last observation about the countryside I just drove through; a country that has been expressed in different ways ... read more
Ed K
The shows I have attended while on the road have really brought me back to my formative years. First, seeing Willie Nelson performing ‘Angel Too Close to the Ground’, ‘Whiskey for my Men, Beer for my Horses’, ‘Always on my Mind’ and of course, ‘On the Road Again’ under a picture perfect sky in Louisville, Kentucky brought me back to those years when we used to visit my grandfather and my mom's family in San Jose. That drive to San Jose from Auburn seemed like an entirety back then. The whole grueling 3 hours of it. Back then I thought San Jose was the end of the Earth. It was soooo different than Auburn and soooo far away. Funny to think about that now when I just drove 2500 miles in a few days and have ... read more
DSC08096
3 Days of driving, music and porn in the Heartland (with 44 pictures...pictures tell the story better than I can...so please scroll through the pics...they can be hidden on this site so you have to keep clicking next to see them all) …1600 miles later and I’m in Louisville, Kentucky. I’ve been through here before but like so many other cities in this country, I was in and out for work and didn’t really experience the area. It seems like a nice enough “small-town” type city but it’s not dark yet and like the song says ‘the freaks come out at night’. If I have learned one thing over the past 3 days driving through America’s heartland it’s that this country is no safer, no cleaner and definitely no less strange than most of the countries ... read more
On the road again...
I am on a mandatory furlough for the week of July 6th. Luckily I have enough vacation time to cover it and will not have to take any non-paid days. Some people are not so lucky. I have been going back and forth about what to do with this week. Jamie will be working, Nicolle will be in Y camp (I could keep her home, but she has more fun there with all the kids than she would be me) and everybody else I know will be working or out of town. I could do things around the house. But my house has some major problems right now. Some of those problems include flooding, mold, leaking faucets, and ripped up drywall and carpet. These problems have consumed me for the past four weeks. Hours and hours ... read more
url=http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=a22oxvx.3bl2acix&x=0&h=1&y=-s9lsha&localeid=en_US&cm_mmc=site_email-_-site_share-_-core-_-view_photos_album Lake Atitlan, Guatemala url=http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=a22oxvx.6clf7zxl&x=0&h=1&y=bbd1yk&localeid=en_US&cm_mmc=site_email-_-site_share-_-core-_-view_photos_album Antigua, Guatemala url=http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=a22oxvx.73t56sh5&x=0&h=1&y=-26qnww&localeid=en_US&cm_mmc=site_email-_-site_share-_-core-_-view_photos_album El Tunco, El Salvador url=http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=a22oxvx.ckjtx65l&x=0&h=1&y=pifoa9&localeid=en_US&cm_mmc=site_email-_-site_share-_-core-_-view_photos_album Esteli, Nicaragua url=http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=a22oxvx.cdv19u95&x=0&h=1&y=dnkl8d&localeid=en_US&cm_mmc=site_email-_... read more
San Juan Sunset
Jon is on his way to Tamarindo. Drew is sitting a couple aisles over listening to his iPod. The overhead voice is informing me we are going to experience turbulence and delays flying into Miami. I am on my way home from Central America. It’s been a good ride and now it’s come to an end. Drew and I are spending one night in South Beach on the way home. Sounded like a good plan when I booked it. Doesn’t feel like such a good plan now. Especially since it’s flooded with more rain on the way. Oh well, guess it’ll get me ready for my flooded house. Oh yeah, my house has been flooding since I’ve been gone. (I owe you honey!) It was a great ride though. Since the last blog we have done ... read more
