We watched a huge, heavy sun rise above Isla Carmen from our balcony on the next to last day in Loreto, Mexico. The abnormal line of clouds in the distance turned evil, showing almost neon shades of orange and red. The Sea of Cortez turned from its overnight steel color to beautiful cobalt. It was rougher than normal and showed orange tinted wave caps as the day quickly brightened. By afternoon the clouds had filled the sky and ominously darkened as they stalled on the Sierra de la Giganta Mountains that separate Loreto from the main Baja Peninsula. The clouds began to swirl slightly and by noon a steady downpour had begun. By night the sky had opened and was dumping huge quantities of water. Our cement block roof began to leak again despite the relatively ... read more

Rudyard Kipling wrote many years ago, “This is Burma, It is quite unlike any place you know about”. With the lack of accurate information available today, we wished that he had of been a little less vague. Myanmar is changing rapidly and nearly anything you read may no longer be accurate. Usually reliable Lonely Planet was last updated in 2011 and is hopelessly outdated. Prices seem to have doubled and many restaurants are no longer open. Making independent travel even more difficult is lack of access to the internet once you arrive in the country. Most all hotels have Wi-Fi access, but the speeds, which often reminded us of the dial-up days, are uniformly so slow that making reservations on airlines, future hotels or any transportation virtually useless. We spent four days in Bangkok planning our ... read more

Our week-long visit to Luang Prabang ended much as it began. Light rain falling throughout the day and occasional heavy rain showers that often forced us inside for long, leisurely lunches in one of the many delicious restaurants in town. I would like to blame the rain for our lack of adventurous spirit, but I think in reality we just wanted to relax and spend a non-touristy week in this attractive city. Throughout the week the skies remained overcast. The muted light made photography difficult but kept the heat manageable. The few times the sun came out and the breeze stopped the balmy air made sitting anywhere except under a fan uncomfortable and made us wish the clouds would return. The softer light added romance and intrigue to the many small alleyways that make up much ... read more

We finished up our 10 day visit to Chiang Mai in quite the good mood. Chiang Mai is an easy place to like. It’s pretty and easy on the budget. The food is good, plentiful and inexpensive. It’s easy to walk almost anywhere a tourist would want to go and there seemed to be something of interest going on every evening that was either free or inexpensive. The museums are excellent and the Wats are gorgeous. During our stay we had a few cloudy, overcast days but all they seemed to do was cool the day down and make Chiang Mai even more engaging. In general, I’m not a big fan of over-touristy towns. Travel to places that have lost their sense of self doesn’t interest me. Even though Chiang Mai has lots of visitors and ... read more

We are coming to the end of our month long visit to Indonesia and quickly approaching our 2nd anniversary of being on the road. We travelled throughout Mexico and Central America by car for the first year and a half, living in central cities for a month or two and visiting outlying areas often. We felt we were able to learn about culture, customs, cuisine and the history of the cities and countries we visited. It was challenging with language barriers and driving conditions but we found that by applying ourselves we were able to understand not only what things were, but why they were. We often struggled to define what our goal was in our travels. We found that foreigners came in 3 basic categories: expat, travelers and tourists. It was hard to define ourselves ... read more