wanderingbri

I got back into Thailand, and met up with Nat. We immediately ventured forth to the Cambodia border. The magic casino bus Getting to Siam Reap turned out to be quite the adventure. First off, Nat wanted to take the "Casino Bus". Gambling is quite illegal in Thailand. Fortunately for the hard core, Cambodia (the SE Asian equivalent of the Wild West) is only a few short hours away. The big casinos run a shuttle bus from several locations in Bangkok to the border for practiaclly nothing. The only trick is that these buses are pseudo illegal. I think. In any case, it took us a long time to find the stop. We finally did, and managed to get to the border without incident. I think we were supposed to pretend like we were hard core ... read more

Just passing through, really. I had a brief stop-over in Dhoa on my way to Bangkok. To be honest, this entry is mostly just to give me "credit" for another country. Qatar airways is apparently one of the few "5-star" airlines in the world. Whatever that means... I had a decent time with them. I got a cheap flight from Istanbul, which for some reason included a hotel stay in Doha. Our flight was randomly delayed for an hour in Istanbul, but I didn't care because my connecting flight to BKK wasn't until the next day. I was supposed to stay in the airport Hotel, but due to the delay a bunch of peolpe missed connecting flights and the airline put them all in a 5-star Sheraton. I somehow got included in this group. In the ... read more

So this entry is sort of a grab-bag of stories from the last two weeks. It turns out that internet access in Europe isn't quite as cheap as in other places of the world. I am currently sitting in a cafe, using Pugner's laptop with a wireless connection. Technology is nice sometimes. Doctor Dinner in Istanbul So how do you freel about the whole pharamacutical industry bribing doctors with gifts and expensive dinners and what not, in hopes of the doctors perscribing more of their drugs? Pretty sleezy, eh? Totally opposed? Me too. Until. Always an until. The world is never as black and white as we would like. I was offered a chance to go to one of these dinners by a Turkish doctor that befriended me in Istanbul. The food was delish. And the ... read more

First off, a bit of history. Cyprus was a Brittish colony up through the mid sixties, when it became independent. Of course, the island has loads of history, but modern day Cyprus is basically ethnically split between the Greeks and the Turks, with the turks mostly in the North of the island, and the Greeks mostly in the South. I don't know all of the details, but apparently in 1974 the Greeks did something that the Turks didn't like so much. The Turkish government sent in the troops, and basically took over half the island. The troops are still there today. The Turks now call it the "Operation for Peace", while the Greeks call it an unlawful "invasion". You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe. Some of this might have been handy to know before arriving there. ... read more

So I met up with the (in)famous Erik Pugner in a dorm room of a hostel in Istanbul. After having not seen each other for almost a year, his greeting was a simple "hey", followed by a "hey" in response. That's what I love about guy friends - no matter how long you are appart, you can just instantaneously resume. I loved Istanbul from the get-go. It is a beautiful city, with water everywhere. It is big. Very big, but it doesn't feel like the teeming capital cities that I have visited in the past. Not mentioning cities by name or anything, but it feels nothing liek Cairo, for example. We stayed in a toursity area of Istanbul called SultanAhmet, which contains such landmarks as the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Safia. Both of which are ... read more

First off - sorry to the readers. This journal entry has taken me a long time to start. I also realize that many ofthe pictures will not really mesh with the words. The pictures will present a mostly rosy world, while the words will reflect how I actually felt. This entry is growing quite large. I'd suggest taking it in small chunks. Phuket with the gals After an "easy" journey, I arrived in Phuket from Koh Phi Phi. In this case, "easy" menas an 8 hour over-night ferry ride, followed by a 3 hour wait at some random travel agency, followed by a 6 hour bus ride that must have stopped at every house on the way. Sometimes we stopped to pick up / drop off passengers. Sometimes we stopped for...? Maybe there were too many ... read more