Hi Stuart. Love the Couchfish series. It helps make up a little for the travel I am missing.
My wife and I always walk wherever we go. As well, we usually try and plan for a trek of 3 or 4 days whenever we go anywhere. Our most memorable trek was in northern Laos, out of Phongsali. We hiked with a guide up into the hills. We totally lucked out our first night and were invited to a wedding in the village we were staying in. It was amazing, we were the only nonlocals in the village and we crowded into the smoke filled hut for the meal and the party. As guests we were given a couple of small plastic stools while everyone else crowded in on the floor. The food was brought in on big trays and plonked on the floor - lots of small communal bowls to dig into with your chopsticks and spoon. I tried everything except for the fresh pigs blood. Also, the lao lao flowed freely. Our guide was completely hammered by about 8pm. As we crawled off to bed he mumbled something about seeing the sunrise in the morning. As we are early risers we crawled out of bed in the morning to catch the sunrise. The village was high in the hills and we were above the clouds. We could see the hill tops in the distance above the clouds as the sun came up. It was totally magical - I told my wife that it looked like what I imagine heaven might look like.
Keep going with the articles. I will keep dreaming of travel. I have my next 6 trips in the planning stage!
Bangkok is probably my favorite city to walk in. I often just pick a random neighborhood and spend the whole day walking around and exploring. Back in 2004 I was traveling with a couple of friends and we were spending our last day in Bangkok before heading to Ko Phi Phi for some beach time. I decided to take a random walk around the neighborhood. I ended up at this Wat that appeared to be having some kind of festival, an old Thai man came up to me and started chatting to me in English. During our conversation I shared our travel plans, which was a loop of SE Asia starting in the South of Thailand on Ko Phi Phi. The man recommended that we do the loop in the opposite direction than we had planned, starting with Laos because he thought the weather would be better. When I got back to the guesthouse I shared his advice with my friends and we decided to take his advice, change our plans, and head to Laos. Four days later the tsunami hit, Ko Phi Phi was decimated. I often wonder how different my life would be if I hadn’t taken that walk. So yeah, always walk always talk.
Hi Stuart. Love the Couchfish series. It helps make up a little for the travel I am missing.
My wife and I always walk wherever we go. As well, we usually try and plan for a trek of 3 or 4 days whenever we go anywhere. Our most memorable trek was in northern Laos, out of Phongsali. We hiked with a guide up into the hills. We totally lucked out our first night and were invited to a wedding in the village we were staying in. It was amazing, we were the only nonlocals in the village and we crowded into the smoke filled hut for the meal and the party. As guests we were given a couple of small plastic stools while everyone else crowded in on the floor. The food was brought in on big trays and plonked on the floor - lots of small communal bowls to dig into with your chopsticks and spoon. I tried everything except for the fresh pigs blood. Also, the lao lao flowed freely. Our guide was completely hammered by about 8pm. As we crawled off to bed he mumbled something about seeing the sunrise in the morning. As we are early risers we crawled out of bed in the morning to catch the sunrise. The village was high in the hills and we were above the clouds. We could see the hill tops in the distance above the clouds as the sun came up. It was totally magical - I told my wife that it looked like what I imagine heaven might look like.
Keep going with the articles. I will keep dreaming of travel. I have my next 6 trips in the planning stage!
Bangkok is probably my favorite city to walk in. I often just pick a random neighborhood and spend the whole day walking around and exploring. Back in 2004 I was traveling with a couple of friends and we were spending our last day in Bangkok before heading to Ko Phi Phi for some beach time. I decided to take a random walk around the neighborhood. I ended up at this Wat that appeared to be having some kind of festival, an old Thai man came up to me and started chatting to me in English. During our conversation I shared our travel plans, which was a loop of SE Asia starting in the South of Thailand on Ko Phi Phi. The man recommended that we do the loop in the opposite direction than we had planned, starting with Laos because he thought the weather would be better. When I got back to the guesthouse I shared his advice with my friends and we decided to take his advice, change our plans, and head to Laos. Four days later the tsunami hit, Ko Phi Phi was decimated. I often wonder how different my life would be if I hadn’t taken that walk. So yeah, always walk always talk.