Like Scotland's Loch Ness Monster, Vietnam has its very own sea serpent legend-one which resembles a prehistoric escapee from "Here There Be Dragons" on the edges of Age of Exploration mappa mundi. Trapped in lovely Ha Long Bay ("Where the Dragon Descends into the Sea"), "The Tarasque" is not only a version of Nessie but purportedly just as camera-shy. Featured in the 1997 James Bond film "Tomorrow Never Knows," Ha Long Bay is now a UNESCO … [Read more...]
Mad Scientists at Raymond Winery
My first impression of Raymond Winery when I arrive for my "Winemaker for a Day" blending experience with my fiance, Tom, is that we are at a traditional Napa winery. The "Winemaker for Day" experience involves creating my own wine blend and bottling the wine to take home with my own label - which I am currently designing with a happy employee named Casey at the tasting room counter. The tasting room has beige walls and white counter-tops with a … [Read more...]
Travel Writer’s Toys and Technology
The benefit of being a travel writer is that you can mix pleasure and work. If you love traveling and writing and moving - then your work is not really "work". In today's travel writing world - there are many technological trappings to ensure that one can maintain a certain type of nomadic lifestyle. Merely fifteen years ago nearly all of these items and services did not even exist! When shopping for items, I look for the following … [Read more...]
JetSet Extra Social Los Angeles
It is always fun to catch up with other LA Travel writers and the perfect venue for this was Union Station downtown at the Jet Set Extra social. I caught the metro from its furthest west side reach - Western & Wilshire so didn't have to worry about traffic on this Oscar Awards night. While the networking part of this event was obvious - the speaker's panel was the highlight. Trends in social media were discussed. It was interesting to hear … [Read more...]
Giant Prawns & Birthdays
Syy got up at 330am this morning to drive an hour to pick up some huge prawns from local farmers. The government provides the baby prawns and then these farmers raise the prawns until they are full grown. The "prawn" market is only in a certain town and each farmer apparently only has a limited supply. Oh and for some reason the market is only open in the wee hours of the morning! Anyway, tonight we celebrated several family birthdays by … [Read more...]
Back to Thailand
We landed back in our home base of Thailand after an amazing time in Africa - enjoying such a variety of activities and experiences that only this continent can deliver. This was in my top 5 best trips taken so far. My heart is still in Africa while my body is in Thailand enjoying the Thai spices of life which include the food and the 5+ hour spa's in Bangkok. We arrived back in Bangkok mid day from Ethiopia. Lucky we had our yellow fever cards … [Read more...]
Exhausted in South Africa
We arrived in South Africa with no plans. A quick scan of the airport revealed a number of name brand car rental companies - so we bee-lined for the only Internet Cafe we could find and used one of the online car reservation companies. Within 40 minutes of making our reservation we had signed countless forms and were sitting in our almost brand new Nissan Sentra. This was the only "automatic" transmission vehicle we could find at the entire … [Read more...]
Changes in the Village
I've been coming to our village in Eastern Thailand every at least once a year for the past 10 years (we own property next to the village). Things change so fast here. In the last 4 years we now have land line service and a 10mb Internet connection (that's 4x as fast as we have at our place in California). Oh and we have 24/7 running water. Prior to this we had to walk 5 minutes to the local pond, turn on the pump for water and then walk back … [Read more...]
Village Updates
Our niece Puk Boong shows up promptly every afternoon around 4pm dressed in her school uniform. She is attending a private school where English is taught at a younger age than a public school. The scope of her English so far is in song - she can vaguely sing the words to a number of songs - and has perfect tone. Today, the 29th of December apparently was Christmas Day at her school. She had to wear the "Christmas" uniform and happily performed a … [Read more...]
Village Life, Eastern Thailand
Back in the village in Eastern Thailand - 90 minutes from Poipet on the Cambodia border - nice to have some pleasant weather - two days ago hot with fans needed at night - now blankets needed! Village is only 2 homes (used to be about 6 homes) but population swelled dramatically the past few days when friends moved in along with all their tents! Enjoying home made coconut ice cream along with lots of fried insets we are catching with the blue … [Read more...]
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