pohl position

On November 3 my around the world trip came to a finish. After 292 days, 27 flights, 20 World Heritage Sites, 12 countries (14 if you count Hong Kong and Macau), 35 tigers, 5 pairs of sunglasses, and too many bowls of rice to count, I was back where I started; my hometown of Marine in Illinois. I've regaled my mates back in London with many stories of my hometown over the years, so I thought it would be fitting to write an entry about it when I returned. Having thoroughly procrastinated, I figured the time was right. Melloncamp can sum up life in small Midwestern town in a song, but I'll try and shed some light on one town in particular. The first thing that might strike you as quite odd about Marine is its ... read more

I arrived at the Tiger Temple just as the day's activities had ended. The temple is located in Kanchanaburi province, which is about 2.5 hours west of Bangkok near the Burma (Myanmar) border. The local bus I had taken from Kanchanaburi had dropped me off along the highway and I was about halfway into the two kilometer walk to the temple entrance when one of the staff members spotted me and gave me a lift in his pickup truck. The volunteers were all tucking into their dinner when I arrived and I quickly made introductions. Robyn, whom I had first spoken to about the volunteer position, was there. She is an environmental law student from California who came to the temple after doing some coursework in Shanghai. She liked it so much that she is postponing ... read more

The hotel we were staying at in Phnom Penh had a partnership with a homestay in central Cambodia. It was on the way to Siem Reap, so we figured we would stay there for one night en-route to Siem Reap. After a few hours on the bus, we arrived at a small roadside town where we transferred to scooters and were shortly at the homestay. The homestay had maybe a dozen different units for people to sleep in. Each one was a wooden hut on stilts. There was no electricity other than a car bettery that we could connect a light and fan to. Shower and toilets were located nearby, but unless the generator was turned on, there was no light. Against the back of the grounds were rice paddies. After a quick lunch, our guide ... read more

Our arrival into Thailand began from Kuala Lumpur on an overnight coach. We were unlucky enough to get the back seats and felt every bump of the way. After crossing the border, we headed for Krabi where we booked a ferry for Ko Phi Phi, a popular trio of islands off of the Southwest coast of Thailand. Ko Phi Phi Don is the biggest of the three and the only one with overnight accommodation. The locals just refer to it as Pee Pee. By the time we finally arrived on shore, our travel time had come to 20 hours since leaving Kuala Lumpur. Thelma guarded the bags while I sought out a place for us. Most of the bungalows were concrete and not near the beach at all. I asked one British couple for a lay ... read more

I was sad to leave Boracay. It has probably been the best beach I have ever been to. However, we had a flight to catch. Next stop, Thelma's home town of Valencia on the island of Negros. We caught a small prop job airplane from Boracay to Cebu. This must have been the smallest commercial aircraft I have ever been on. I think there were maybe 15 passengers on board. There was sort of a partition between the passengers and the cockpit, but I could still see the left arm of the pilot as he guided us through the skies. The plane did not even have a toilet. The flight was less than an hour and we were in Cebu city before I knew it. Cebu city is the second biggest city in the Philippines. It ... read more