This will be this journey’s last post from a non-US (foreign) land. In reality, it’s coming from the middle of the Pacific ocean. Tomorrow we land in Honolulu. We spent two days in Tahiti, the first on the island of Tahiti, and the second on Moorea, a neighboring island. Papeete Papeete (Pah-pee-ate-ay) is the capital, […]
Boating
Sydney
We are sorry we didn’t have more time in Sydney. We really liked it, at least the parts we saw. Given the timing of our ship arriving and leaving, we only had one full day. We stayed at the Marriott, (thank you Howard and Jody who gave us a Friends and Family certificate), that was […]
Trang An
We finally arrived at the Joy Libi Guesthouse in Ninh Binh starved at about 11:30 p.m. The hostess graciously offered us ChocoPies, which are exactly what one would expect from the name. We crashed quickly, and got up the next morning. I had my first salt coffee. It was pretty good, tasted like caramel. The […]
Thung Namh Bird Park
We slept well, and woke up to rain. The forecast suggested that chances of rain would diminish as the day went on. We decided to go to the Thung Namh Bird Park, as we’d heard it was kind of a hidden gem. I don’t know if it’s just that it was Sunday, but the place […]
Kompong Khleang
Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. It is very near Siem Reap, so there are a bunch of tours to various fishing villages. We’ve been told that the closest one is a tourist trap, full of scams. Kompong Khleang is the furthest from Siem Reap, and the most authentic. We signed […]
On the Water
Here we were on the coast of the Gulf of Thailand, longingly looking at the water. We signed up to go out on a boat, but it had been too windy as of late, and the skipper had vetoed several days. Finally, it was our time. There were seven of us, the Austrians, Peter and […]
Rolling on the (Mekong) River
Sunrise To an inveterate sunset junkie, it is forgivable to have forgotten that there are also things we call sunrises. When one’s hotel room looks out across the Mekong River to Laos, facing East, one is quickly reminded of sunrises. We got up early for breakfast so that we could make it to the immigration […]
Sabai Sabai LiveAboard
By the way, if you are seeing this in an email because you have subscribed, I remind you, you can view this post in stevenellen.com by clicking on the title, or the view on website link above. I know the picture is a bit of a bait and switch. We were lucky enough to see […]
Long-tail Boat Ride
We ended the tour with a iconic “long-tail” boat ride through some of Bangkok’s canals. For those who aren’t familiar, these boats have huge motors in the back with propellor shafts that extend about 8 feet past the stern of the boat. The area we toured is considered a poor neighborhood. A room starts at […]
On/In the Water with the Caveman
We had planned our snorkeling adventure with Caveman Tours (Caveman pictured above) on Tuesday. Tuesday and Wednesday had winds of 21 and 24 knots respectively. We opted for waiting until a calmer day. Our first stop was to feed the Tarpons. Next we were lucky enough to see a manatee. They can stay underwater for […]