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Traveling Afar to Djibouti
The camels and donkeys convoyed out without their humans together every morning into the desert only to come back home every evening before the hyenas came out for hunting. In a sense the domesticated animals represented me, leaving home for an adventure, only coming home when the proverbial jaws of danger were hot on my trail. That was what it was like to be a traveler in Djibouti. Flies harassed me to the point of rage as I arched my back in disgust after I pet a mangy kitty which turned its body to reveal a bad case of mange and a large open sore. I looked into the kitchen…
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So You’re In Seoul
I had some essential “THIS. IS. SEOUL.” thoughts when getting hit by grannies harder than a linebacker, chopsticking enormous dumplings into my face while trying to forget about “dog soup” for sale, and getting harassed by hawkers to come join their food stalls or buy their goods. Unreccomended for the novice traveler, but recommended nonetheless, here are a few tricks to get you through your trip to Seoul. CULTURAL NORMSThis is in no way meant to be stereotypical nor account for everyone in Korea: When out in public, loud behavior is considered rude. I’ve never heard quiet like a coffeehouse here. Subways and trains a quiet places where people walk…
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My Cheat Sheet Guide to the Parks of Wild Alaska
What to do in Alaska
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Singapore, Bewildered: Where Ancient Tradition Meets the Modern Cutting Edge
^ This is what I thought I’d see in Singapore. I was expecting to be immediately dumbfounded by modern technologies from the cutting edge of development. What I wasn’t expecting to see was how this place, Singapore, was rooted in ancient tradition. A walk through Singapore is an assault on the senses. The hawker stands and plazas are exotic. The climate? Scorching tropical. The food? Pretty bowls of spicy, sultry goodness, flavors you didn’t even know existed. The high rises? Full of flats with tenants that are [from what I imagine due to their rent value] untouchably, stupid rich . . . like walking their orangutans from the window of…
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NOT IRAQ, KURDISTAN (PART 2): The Peshmerga, Yazidis, Saddam’s Palace Ruins, and the City in the Sky
If you haven’t read Part 1 of this story, I would suggest starting there. Disclaimer: this story isn’t full of the cute narrative misadventures that I typically do. But nevertheless I was sure that there was a story here, somewhere buried beneath the facts, a considerably more important one. Some names have been altered to protect the identity of sources. “ کاروان.” reads as an insider guide who introduced me to his homeland. Peshmerga soldiers furrowed their brows in skepticism when we presented them with our passports. “Tourists? . . . In Kurdistan?” They seemed surprised but waved us through each checkpoint. This particular checkpoint sat at a Peshmerga training…
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Scenic Bear Viewing at Lake Clark, Alaska
Very rarely do I come home and immediately start writing– but I can’t contain myself . . . you won’t believe what I did today! All my life I have been an animal lover, fascinated by wildlife behavior on nature shows. I had never actually seen a brown bear in the wild. Today my inner seven year old girl squealed as I became that wildlife photographer. Now I just had to be brave enough to actually do it. My guide, Martin, from Scenic Bear Viewing in Homer, Alaska took me out in his plane to Lake Clark National Park where we photographed wild Alaskan Coastal Brown Bears in their natural…
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Dwam, Reverie in the Scottish Highlands
I had hoped yet hadn’t intended to visit The Highlands, but– there I was. I was at the bottom of a brown valley with waterfalls as far as the eye could see– more than thirty! I’d counted. Their tails cascaded down the slopes, digging thin trenches beneath them. Each ribbon traveled inward to this middle point, me. A pair of stags rose out of the tall grass on the valley floor; their antlers dripped. This valley was instantly burned into my mind forever as I became lost in a reverie. Do you like endless landscapes where the sunlight and rain create art in the sky? Then you’d love The Highlands.…
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Not Iraq, Kurdistan (Part 1): Preserving the Cultural Identity, Millennia Old History, and Natural Beauty of Disputed Kurdistan
This article was originally posted in The Mountain- Ear Newspaper, Nederland Colorado. The author lays claim to all original intellectual property here in thereof. Nomads Who Want A Home Our preconceived expectations of what northern Iraq might have been like couldn’t have been more wrong. Kurdistan, one of the most controversial “countries” in the world, lays in the heart of the Middle East, north of the Fertile Crescent, sandwiched between the hotbed of Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. The Kurds, 35 million strong, are an ethnically homogenous population dispersed throughout the four countries; the largest stateless group in the world. Neither the U.N. nor the U.S. recognize Kurdistan as a…
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An Ancient Ache in Ireland
What happens when you’re sick over wanting to be back in a place where you don’t belong? An ache. That’s what Ireland was to me. It wasn’t leprechauns, luck, pots of gold, or Guinness Beer. I avoided those things like the plague. I didn’t even kiss the Blarney Stone. Upon arriving in Dublin, after a bustling lively night on the low side of town amongst lively working class families in a kebab joint, we stayed a night in a tiny converted appartment. I wondered how many generations sqeezed between those wallpapered walls. We drove south. I didn’t know it at the time, but every morning would be like this one.…
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Kuala Lumpur: A Place of Many Firsts
Monsoon Season You have not experienced Southeast Asia until you have heard the sky open up on top of a market of corrugated metal roofs during monsoon season. That was the introduction that Kuala Lumpur yielded me. The mood of the Petaling street market changed, time to hunker down for an hour to keep you and your belongings dry on what was otherwise a hot sunny day. A man selling his wares used a stick to lift his tarp roof, dispelling water in every direction and wading through it. We stopped to sit in plastic lawn chairs. An open air buffet steamed beside us. A street person with what…
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8 Things that Travel Has Taught Me
I’m 50 countries in now, and to me that’s nothing. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to what I’d like to see, do, taste, hear, and feel. Folks keep telling me that I will be done soon. But what they don’t know is that it’s like drugs. I’m in too deep now, and there’s no going back. But I’ve been doing some reflecting. I had never even stepped foot on a plane until the ripe ole age of twenty-one. Here are the EIGHT things that travel has taught me in the last seven years. The Value of Informal Education Disclaimer, I work in education. And I like it. Clearly…
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Penang: A Food Paradise, Malaysia
The Journey My hips twisted to balance as I focused on keeping my feet planted, surfing with the movement of the train on the tracks. I was too intrigued to sit during the ride from Kuala Lumpur to Penang. I tried not to fumble my camera lenses as I switched them then held my camera up. I felt the tea harvesters pull me in. I gave myself over to the train, letting it have it’s way with me as I fought to stay upright. Giving myself over to the journey felt symbolic. Two Asian water buffalo wallowed in a hole. They chewed as they watched the train hurtle by. The…
