Wow! What a day! The drive from Byron Bay to the Gold Coast was a meandering, unexpected, triple beach kinda day, and we can’t imagine how life gets any better than this. After a night of near constant rain in Byron Bay, we awoke to sunshine and the sounds of kookaburras and wild turkeys, apparently … More Australia road trip part III: Byron Bay to The Gold Coast
It’s going to be hard to top Port Mac, as I’ve come to affectionately call Port Macquarie in just two days time. This small to mid-sized little working class town in New South Wales was just small enough to be interesting and just big enough to be convenient. No Starbucks on Main Street that we … More Australia road trip part II: Chasing the sun from Port Macquarie to Byron Bay
In a throwback to the first six months of our sabbatical, when we spent a good portion of our time on various camping adventures and road trips through North America with our Freedom Machine, we opted to tackle the eastern coast of Australia in a camper van. Our ultimate destination is Cairns, a jumping off … More Australia road trip part I: Sydney to Port Macquarie
It was here in Sydney that Trent finally perfected the Trent’s Beer Index, or TBI as we call it. It’s pretty simple. The TBI is a score that a country receives based on the cost of a draft beer. It’s obviously important, so you’ll read more about it in a future blog post. Let’s just … More G’day from Sydney!
Before arriving in Singapore, the sum total of my knowledge of the city was based solely on 1) spare snippets shared by my husband from his time working on assignment there ~13 years ago, 2) the recent commentary by a young Singaporean couple with whom we dined during a cruise through Vietnam’s Halong Bay a … More Singapore, you captured my imagination. And my wallet.
On our 8th day in Cambodia, we visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh. It was important to us to learn more about the disturbing history of the Khmer Rouge in this country. I am embarrassed to say how little I really understood before coming here. If you don’t know much, please google … More Reflections on the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh
When you think of Siem Reap, you probably think of Angkor Wat and temples, temples, temples. And you’d be right. We spent the better part of two days exploring the temples of Angkor Wat Archaeological Park (we could have spent many more days). But when we weren’t playing amateur archaeologists, we were spending our brief … More Top Three Cultural Experiences in Siem Reap
Words will fail me as I try to describe the beauty and the magnificence of the thousand year old ruins of Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia. But I will try anyway. And hopefully the pictures will fill in some gaps. The three day passes to the Angkor Archaeological Park, a World Heritage Site, were … More The Ancient Ruins of Angkor Wat
On the 304th day of our sabbatical (hard to believe we are closing in on the final weeks), we flew from Chiang Rai to Bangkok to meet up with our friend Zeph, who flew in from Denver to vacation with us for a few weeks. We were both very excited to see a familiar face. … More Sabbatical days 304-308: Bangkok Take 2
Chiang Rai is the northernmost “big” city in Thailand, up near the border with Laos and Burma (aka Myanmar). The population is around 200K. It is a beautiful mountainous area, flanked by rivers and home to people from many cultures, including ethnic hill tribes. Thailand in the foreground, Myanmar in the center, Laos on the … More Four days in Chiang Rai
The Found Year 