December 28, 2013
Burma’s Golden Kite
The Golden Kite of Burma (Myanmar): the trail connecting Rangoon (Yangon), Bagan, Mandalay, and Inle Lake.. These four locations form a common itinerary for visits to the country. Their golden stupas, fields of ancient Buddhist pagodas, floating villages, and royal palaces tell a story of place caught between its modern-day struggles and an underlying narrative of a bygone era. Bagan Mandalay Inle Lake Rangoon Google Map of Burma’s Golden Kite Practical Details: Accommodation, Food, Transport and Internet Bagan Bagan, Burma’s…
Posted in South Asia | By sevirw
December 19, 2013
Preparing for Tet, Vietnamese New Year
niel Noll and Audrey Scott We were fortunate to be in Southern Vietnam just prior to Tet, the Vietnamese lunar New Year (February 18, 2007). The Year of the Pig was being ushered in with an unassailable enthusiasm, as markets burst with flowers, sewing machines in tailor shops buzzed with the new year’s wardrobe and shops overflowed with green rolls of Bahn Tet (sticky rice, pork fat and soybean paste rolled in a banana leaf). Saigon’s Tet Flower Market Saigon’s Tet flower…
Posted in South Asia | By sevirw
November 16, 2013
Do You Ever Pinch Yourself? (Or, Best 13 Instagram Photos of 2013)
“Do you ever pinch yourselves and wonder if you’re just living in a dream world?” – One of our Facebook fans sounds off, lending us a little perspective on the world around us and the lives we lead The end of the year is near. A time for reflection. A time to take stock of one year’s passing before moving onto the next. I know, I know. Everyone is up to their ears in 2013 year-in-review posts at this point. We…
Posted in South Asia | By sevirw
October 18, 2013
What to Do in Singapore? Eat!
Singapore, an unexpected stop on our Southeast Asian itinerary thanks to a cheap flight from there to India. Our culinary expectations for this small city-state were low, particularly in the wake of our street food experiences in Thailand andMalaysia. Yet in the three days before our flight to India, it seemed like all we did was eat. Despite our original prejudice against street food stalls organized in indoor food courts, we have to admit that Singapore has done them well. Theirs feature…
Posted in South Asia | By sevirw
September 15, 2013
Multicultural Snacking in Malaysia
an ethnic Chinese Malaysian man sizes up the Malaysian appetite for street food Truth is, this quote applies to just about everyone in Malaysia. And why not? Like many of its neighbors in Southeast Asia, Malaysia is home to the holy trinity of street food enjoyment: availability, quality and price. From stink bean squid sambal to giant prawns in huge buckets of satay sauce, Malaysia delivers an experience of culinary and cultural diversity. Here’s a wee taste of the wide-ranging…
Posted in South Asia | By sevirw
August 12, 2013
Travel Snobbery and a Tour to Bali
Apparently, it’s easy to be a travel snob. Independent travelers can look down on tour groups as not being “hard core” or “authentic” enough. Luxury travelers can look down on backpackers as cheapskates one notch above street riffraff. Holiday-makers looking to relax with a cocktail on the beach are not “real” travelers while those who are trying to live on $5 a day are “escapists.” I could go on and on with the stereotypes and slurs that I’ve heard fly…
Posted in South Asia | By sevirw
July 23, 2013
Saying Goodbye to China: Top 10 Authentic Travel Experiences
43 posts and 16 photo sets later, we’ve reached the end of a long road of reflection on China, an on-the-fly addition to our around-the-world journey. The impetus to change our itinerary occurred while we were in Central Asia. Several seasoned travelers and experts, having just come from China, convinced us to seize the moment and visit before the Olympics. We’re glad we did. To anyone possessing even a remote interest in seeing traditional China, we offer similar advice: go soon…
Posted in South Asia | By sevirw
June 23, 2013
Cambodia
Understand Cambodia has had a pretty bad run of luck for the last half-millennium or so. Ever since the fall of Angkor in 1431, the once mighty Khmer Empire has been plundered by all its neighbours. It was colonized by the French in the 19th century, and during the 1970s suffered heavy carpet bombing by the USA. After a false dawn of independence in 1953, Cambodia promptly plunged back into the horrors of civil war in 1970 to suffer the Khmer Rouge’sincredibly brutal reign of…
Posted in South Asia | By sevirw
June 23, 2013
Japan’s Mount Fuji: Following the Path of Pilgrims
This is a story about how sometimes it’s a good thing to take the long way, to miss the bus, and to find the shrine. A torii, a broad vermillion gate, marks the entrance to the Fujiyoshida’s Sengen Shinto shrine at the very base of Mount Fuji on the northern side of the mountain. The light of a fog-muted dawn cuts through tall trees, casting the toriias a threshold separating the ancient world up the mountain where we aim to go from…
Posted in South Asia | By sevirw
April 13, 2013
Philippines
The Philippines(Filipino: Pilipinas) is an archipelago in South-East Asia of more than seven thousand islands located between the Philippine Sea and the South China Sea at the very eastern edge of Asia. Many wonderful beaches are just part of one of the world’s longest coastlines and it takes about three decades to visit and experience every island. Since Spanish colonial times, the country has beenAsia’s largest Catholic country. Over a hundred ethnic groups, a mixture of foreign influences and a fusion of culture and…
Posted in South Asia | By sevirw
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