When I last wrote I was in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Phnom Penh was bewildering at first, as I hadn't been to a major city in over a month. But by the 2nd day I had mastered crossing 8 lanes of constant oncoming traffic, toured Wat Phnom, marveled at the Central Market and stumbled on a dim sum restaurant (tapas-style Chinese brunch). I have been addicted to dim sum since my first taste during a visit to Minneapolis with my friend Lindsay and her family. So finding a dim sum restaurant made my day. I had tamed the city. [View Full Entry]

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Vientiane, the capital of Laos, did not disappoint. My Indian dinner with Michael (former Peace Corps Volunteer) was great. And I met some awesome folks at my guesthouse: Lili, Patricia and Kieran. Somehow it came out that Kieran's birthday was coming up, and having spent some birthdays far from home, my heart went out to him. So we rented bicycles to go to the temple and have an herbal sauna and massages. We also sat in on a meditation session, before biking back to town and eating ice cream on the beach. I had heard there was a great 7km cave [View Full Entry]

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Laos is amazing and has thoroughly enchanted me. The pace of life is calm and peaceful. It strikes a balance between being tourist-friendly and not completely tourist-oriented. You get the impression that people are, for the most part, just living their lives. I started in Vientiane, the capital with a population of 200,000. The first day Wendy, a Peace Corps Volunteer from Madagascar that I met at the airport, and I headed to a temple 3km south of town that I heard offered a traditional sauna and massage. My glasses immediately fogged up when I stepped into the sauna. It was [View Full Entry]

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Kuala Lumpur (KL) was fantastic. The first 3 nights I stayed with Alvin, a Malaysian friend who I met in Ireland in 2000. And everyday he introduced me to more of his friends. We enjoyed great conversation over excellent food, including a very tender sting ray and delicate Japanese tofu. After a few days, I met up with Maya, a Malaysian friend from high school. She let me tag along to her night job as a DJ for Traxx FM, the only government-owned English language radio station. She played some great music for the Thursday night Alternative show and I even [View Full Entry]

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Yogyakarta (Yogya) and Kuala Lumpur (KL) After leaving Timor and one night in Bali, I arrived in Yogyakarta, a new city for me! Yogya is the heart of Javanese culture, known for its dance, puppets and batik, and I've been looking forward to visiting for a long time. Lucky for me, I also found a room for the very right price of 20,000 Rp (US $2.50) a night. The first day I headed to the Bird Market and saw, among birds, bats, geckos, bunnies, snakes, and ants with eggs for sale. I also checked out the Watercastle ruins and mosque. While [View Full Entry]

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This will be my last entry from Timor. The last couple weeks confirmed that I made the right decision in staying in Timor this long. The beach trip to Liquica for Annie's birthday was a blast. I rented a scooter to get out there. And more or less, I had no mishaps. There was a point where I almost drove off the road and this ambulance with heavily armed guys in camo stopped to "take control of the situation". They followed Asha and I with their lights flashing until they got bored and thankfully passed us, waving and smiling. Last Wednesday [View Full Entry]

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Dili is still treating me well. The curfew has been pushed back to 10pm, so there's a bit of going out at night. Things continue to be calm as suspects involved in the assassination attempts turn themselves in. One of the biggies, Salsinha, was thought to be turning himself in at the Government Palace the other night. Jesse received a call around 8pm that something was going on at the Palace and took off to do his journalist thing. I was left at home wondering what was happening. It turned out that Salsinha turned himself in to the Catholic Church in [View Full Entry]

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I am in East Timor and things are pretty good. A couple of weeks ago there were assassination attempts on the President and Prime Minister, but Dili is far from tense. It actually seems more relaxed and prosperous than any other time that I've been here. There are more stores and restaurants. And more foreigners to fill them, not the gun-toting military guys from Nov 2006, but UN and NGO people. I am staying with my friend from Peace Corps Jesse and I pay him back by translating articles from Tetun to English for the weekly newspaper where he works. As [View Full Entry]

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Dalton and I left Houston with bellies full of buffalo burgers on Sunday, Feb 10, 2008. Flying through Phoenix, we arrived without incident at LAX, where I ran into a friend from Brazil, Guilherme. I couldn't believe he recognized me from across the airport after 7 years. Guilherme was on his way to Australia and we promised to catch up via email. We arrived in Taipei to bad news and not even the free custard steam buns could lift my spirits. While we were flying, the President of East Timor, Jose Ramos-Horta, had been shot and was in critical condition. As [View Full Entry]

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