One of the highlights of the trip for me was whale watching from Husavik, Iceland's whale watching capital. We saw at least a dozen whales, and many essentially swam right past the boat, which I haven't seen on prior trips. Grettislaug was also a highlight - a farm, campsite and set of hot pools at the end of a long bumpy road - it was really peaceful, and I had the hot pools to myself for a few hours in the morning.... read more

My drive through the East Fjords was fairly unexciting...and grey, given more rainy weather. There are some fishing villages, one of which is known for a lady's astounding rock collection and another of which features a fairly large and somewhat random piece of artwork based on the eggs of Iceland's different birds. I ended up in a town called Seydisfjordur which was a great surprise - you drive into it over the cross of a glacial mountain pass, and it sits in the bottom of a huge fjord with a 'waterfall alley' - it was little, still with an active fishing industry, but full of random art (that somehow appealed to me more than the bird eggs). I loved it, the sun came out (literally), and I did one of my favorite hikes of the trip ... read more

First impression - there are sheep everywhere in this country. Everywhere. Also horses - beautiful short, fat little horses. Second, from the minute I got off the plane it's been raining. It's really pretty...but really gray. Third, I'm a morning person in Iceland (who knew?). This is because there's not really any darkness... the first day my flight landed at 6am, and I hadn't really slept, so I fell asleep really early that night...and discovered mornings are less crowded so decided to stick with my 4-5am wake up hour. Fourth, in fantastic news, there are geothermically heated pools and hot tubs everywhere here that are very common to swim in - yippee. The Golden Circle itself is mainly three sites -the Gulfoss Waterfall (which is beautiful), the fields around Geysir (the original geyser which all other ... read more

My last stop in Indonesia was on Bunaken Island, off the northeast coast of Sulawesi. It's a tiny little island, surrounded by a huge wall/drop off and lots and lots of sea life. It's often pretty far up there on the list of top scuba dive spots in the world, and I was pleasantly surprised how mellow it is given this - there are no cars, most of the island is jungle, and "visitor life" is basically the hard decision of whether you want to 1) snorkel in front of the resort, 2) snorkel someplace else from a boat, 3) walk somewhere on the island, or 4) sleep. In addition to this, the place I stayed looked straight out at a neighboring volcano, facing west with fantastic sunsets every night. I loved it.... read more

From Labuan Bajo on Flores, I started a bit of a complicated journey to Nunukan Island off of Borneo. It involved a flight/nights in Bali, a flight to a city called Balikpapan on Borneo, followed by a flight to an island called Maratua and then boat ride to Nunukan. The best part of this journey was in Balikpapan...and I didn't take any pictures, except one of the band at the end. It was a Friday night, during Ramadan. My hotel hosted a huge celebration buffet for breaking the fast, and Friday night was definitely party night. There were hundreds of people celebrating, in huge groups of families, all dressed up for a night out. There was a band, and people would go up and join them singing. They mostly played traditional songs (I assumed...none were familiar), ... read more