We spent a week out on Gili Trawangan in July. We arrived at around 6pm on the Perama boat, transferring off to a smaller transfer boat before arriving on the beach. Not calling ahead was a bad idea, and it seemed like most places were full. Feeling a little bit desperate, we took the first room we could find at a place called ABDI, which, in all my travels, was probably the nastiest dump I have ever stayed in (70,000 Rupiah's a night). Vowing to find new accommodation in the morning, we decided to drink off our misgivings about our rooms [View Full Entry]

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The latest edition of Lonely Planet Indonesia proclaims that "tourism in Lake Toba is almost dead." I think there's something like an 18-month delay between finishing off the editorial work and the book being printed and arriving at bookstores. During that time, someone pulled the plug on Toba's life support line and it is today a ghost town. This was evident even in July, peak travel season for Indonesia. I didn't think I would mind that too much, but the effect is saddening: locals hanging out in their empty shops talking to neighbors all day, no business, abandoned hotels, derelict lots [View Full Entry]

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"I, like, hate Medan," said my 17-year old brother of the capital of North Sumatra. I don't quite agree with him, but I don't love city either. The entire metropolis reminded me of the outskirts of Kathmandu -like, the area near Tribhuvan that's a run-down shamble old bricks, mangy monkeys and polluted rivers. I didn't see any wildlife in Medan itself, but I enjoyed having a beer at a pub on a small lane adjacent to the beautiful mosque on J.I. Raya. In fact, sipping a large Bintang and listening to the 'call to prayer' live just a few dozen meters [View Full Entry]

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The first thing I noticed upon entered the gates of Mt. Sibuyak Park on Sunday July 20th was the hunting party playing with their rifles, and their 3 dogs running doing laps around the pickup truck in anticipation of the hunt. I turned to our guide and asked, "what are these people doing?" He looked a little uncomfortable and answered a bit hesitantly, "uh...they are going hunting." I stopped. "Hunting here in this park?" "Yes, this is not a national park, so it's not protected." "But," I stammered, "but...we're going hiking in here right now, and surely there are other tourists [View Full Entry]

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These photos were taken at 7am in Caotun, Nantou County, Taiwan. 7am is nice almost anywhere -soft morning air, birds, light traffic, stillness, morning dew, all that good stuff. Not so in many areas of Taiwan. I have wondered for a long time why it is that Taiwan's buildings are so hideously ugly, and I finally came to conclusion that when it came time to "designing and planning" these structures, whatever was deemed the fastest, easiest, cheapest way possible to throw them up, that's how it was done. Fastest, easiest, cheapest. Cha-bu-doah. Enjoy. [View Full Entry]

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Took a nice weekend away from Taipei to Hong Kong with the wife, meeting up with Mike Pacifico and his younger brother Anthony in Hong Kong. It honestly reminded me of NYC's Chinatown. One major (positive) difference I noticed between Hong Kong and Taipei is that the former lacks scooters and street vendor stalls, which was a refreshing change. England must have implemented some strict regulations during its 99-year administration of the island. I hope that the Cantonese keep it up. [View Full Entry]

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Another awesome national park down south. The pix of the langur monkeys were taken at Ao Ton Sai beach in Krabi. Found a great place to stay in the hills of Krabi called Phanom Bencha Mountain Resort (www.phanombenchamountainresort.com, 075-660501) that had wonderful wooden fan bungalows for 800 baht a night with grand views of an epic pink/white/black limestone crag. The bungalows are set in a lush garden. The manager had to drag an 8-foot python away from the resort. He grabbed it with his hands, put it in a burlap bag, and walked away with it over his shoulder. The thing [View Full Entry]

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I intended to do a partial trek of the Annapurna Circuit, specifically, up to Manang and back down, but changed my mind when the views of the Himalayas disappeared completely soon after our arrival. We were awarded awesome views of the great snowy mountains as we approached Kathmandu on our flight, and we could still see some while we waited for our van in the airport parking lot, but by the time we arrived in town the cloud line had lowered and blocked them out. It was kind of like a strip tease; the dress -in the form of clouds- was [View Full Entry]

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This was our second trip to Seoul, and this time I was determined to get out of the metropolis and see the DMZ border zone and possibly a national park. Neither of those happened, for some reason. Regardless, it was a nice long weekend out of Taiwan, which is often needed. Speaking of Taiwan, this country (back in ROC now) is a sorry-looking backwater compared with South Korea these days. Once economic competitors, South Korea has left Taiwan -a.k.a. "Taibodia" in the dust. Formosa is literally out of the race. I fear that this place is going the way of the [View Full Entry]

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The Wanhua area of Taipei City has got to be one of the shadiest areas on the entire island. I was shouted at several times for taking photos, drunken taxi cab drivers were puking in front of their cars, and prostitutes were burning incense in front of temples asking the gods to please send more customers. [View Full Entry]

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