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Jan

2019

Armenia, Colombia, Jan 23-26

We spent a few days in a medium sized, non-touristy town in the hart of the ‘coffee triangle’ called Armenia. This was a friendly town with a huge number of cafes and ice cream shops. We hired a guide and driver to take us to what turned out to be a very cheesy coffee plantation tour, and to a the nearby town of ‘Finlandia’ (see photos). We learned that Colombia is struggling to compete with Brazil and Vietnam for coffee production, and they barely make a profit. Don’t be surprised if Juan Valdez goes away.

Armenia was having an event commemorating the 20th anniversary of a large earthquake that killed over 1000 people. And we went to a fun Karaoke bar, where thankful no one butchered any songs we actually knew, and some of the singers were quite good.

Link to photos here.

Jan

2019

Bogotá, Columbia, Jan 17-23, 2019

After Medellín it was onto Bogotá to visit my good friend Karen, who is working here as a middle school counselor in a large bilingual/international school here. Karen lives in a great neighborhood on the north side of town called “Chapinero Alto”, which is near a great restaurant zone called “Zona G” (G for Gourmet). If you visit Bogota I recommend staying in this part of town, which is only a $2 taxi ride to the center of town. Its a very safe part of town, despite (or because of?) the fact that all apartment building have a 24/7 doorman to let you both in and out of the building.

Bogotá is at an elevation of 8500 ft, which took me about 1 day to adjust to after being in Medellín, which is at 5000 ft. The climate is basically a high of 65 and a low of 45F year round, so no one has or needs heat or air conditioning. For folks who don’t like the heat, you’d love it here. It was a bit chilly in the morning, but the climate is pretty ideal.

Bogotá and Medellín, the 1st and 2nd largest cities in Colombia, are definitely rivals. The best way I can think of to describe the difference between Bogotá and Medellín, is to think of San Francisco compared to Oakland back in 1990, before Oakland became hipster central and SF became dominated by tech bros.

Bogotá/San Francisco:

More art, music, high-end restaurants
More wealthy people
More cosmopolitan
More expensive

Medellín/Oakland:

More down to earth
A bit more friendly / accepting
A bit more dangerous
Warmer weather
Have a bit of an inferiority complex about their rival city

I joined a group of American teachers from Karen’s school to go to Theatron, the largest night club in South America. Wow! A total of 13 bars/dance floors that hold up to 5000 people. It costs $17 to get in, which includes free bottom-shelf rum/whiskey/vodka mixed drinks till 2am. Certainly not my scene, but a really fun/interesting night! Check out the videos in the photo link below.

I did 2 private tours, which provided a great opportunity to talk politics and philosophy with locals who where fluent in English. One of the tours was to the Salt Cathedral about 1 hr north of Bogotá, which was pretty cool, though not in the same league as the one in Krakow.

On Sunday mornings, Bogotá has a huge Ciclovía, where around 10% of the 10 million folks that live here get on a bike and ride around the 120km of roads that are closed to cars on Sunday 7am-2pm. Bogotá is located in a huge valley, and so the roads are mostly flat. Karen and I did a great 30km ride that included a mini adventure. The rear derailleur on my rental bike imploded when we were about 8km from our starting point. Luckily one of the 100 or so bike repair booths they set up along the route was 1/2 block away, had a spare derailleur that fit, and 1 hour and $9 (parts and labor!!) later we were on our way again.

Karen borrowed a car so we could do a great hike to the La Chorrera waterfall, which is about 1.5 from town, and which you’ll see in the photos.

Selection of photos from Bogotá and surrounding area are here.

Jan

2019

Medellín, Colombia: Jan 10-17, 2019

Our first stop in Colombia was Medellín, a town of 4 million at an elevation of 5000 ft, and near perfect weather (high 80, low 60 F) year round.

Many people still think Medellín is a dangerous place, because in the 1990s it had the highest murder rate in the world. But that has all changed, and in fact the crime stats for Colombia and the USA are pretty similar these days. (The US has 4 cities in the top 50, and Colombia has 2 cities, neither of which we are going to.) That being said, there are definitely neighborhoods to avoid here, just like in any large city.

We stayed in a fantastic AirBNB apartment with an amazing view, with a couple in their 30s. They own a small walking tour company, and I did 2 of their 3 walking tours, both of which were very interesting and highly recommended. One was of the city center, which is quite dense and chaotic, and other was of a poor neighborhood originally built on a trash dump. I really enjoyed discussing politics and philosophy with Pablo, our AirBNB host.

We also did an AirBNB experience to Comuna 13, and Christine of course did a Cooking Class, both of which we recommend. And we did a great day trip tour to Guatape through AirBNB experiences, one of the cutest towns anywhere, and El Peñón de Guatapé.

Our apartment was in the area called “Laureles”, which we definitely recommend over the more common tourist zone called “El Poblado”. El Poblado was far too touristy for our taste.

The metro, opened in 1994, is spotlessly clean and really nice. Rather than being covered with advertising the trains are full of signs pointing out all the great city sponsored social programs, encouraging folks to donate to charities, and generally be good people. Unfortunately I heard the most overplayed song on the planet, Hotel California, while waiting for a train on the platform.

The folks we met in Medellín are very proud of their city, and like to point out the ways they are better than Bogota (such as having a Metro, while Bogota does not). They seem quite optimistic about their future, and feel the past few mayors have taken the city in a good direction, and are hopeful that will continue.

Food in Medellín has been rather disappointing. Most everything is fried, its hard to get a typical meal that includes vegetables other than avocado and corn, and most everything has minimal spices. But food is pretty cheap, and portions are huge, so 2 people can easily share one item, making it easy to get a meal for 2 for under $10. We did find a good pizza restaurant near our place. As always we avoided tourist restaurants, so maybe they are better?

Music overall was also a bit disappointing, especially after Grenada, where music is everywhere. We did see a fantastic Cuban band at Son Havana, but beware that bands don’t start till midnight, and that ordering a rum and coke means a bottle of rum and a couple of cokes. But in general background music in restaurants and shops was pretty awful (smooth jazz versions of 70s pop), or Colombian reggaeton, most of which I found uninspiring.

But despite the disappointments, we really liked Medellín overall, and recommend checking it out. Next on to Bogota.

Full set of Medellín/Guatape photos are here.

Jan

2019

Grenada, Dec 26, 2018 – Jan 9, 2019

This is my first travel blog since April, so I need to get back in writing mode. We’ve done a number of short trips within the US since my last update, and also drove the new camper van to New Orleans, stopping at a number of places, including the Grand Canyon, along the way. But since we have now left the USA again it is time to start doing blog entries again.

It was much harder than expected to re-adjust to the heat and humidity on the island of Grenada. Its only been 82-85F, but it feels much hotter than that in the sun. The other thing that took a bit of getting used to was the constant noise from the neighborhood roosters and dogs. The roosters go non-stop 3am to 6pm, and there was a large chicken coop about 10ft from the bedroom window.

The first week we stayed with our great friends from San Francisco and their twin 11 year old girls. One of them grew up in Grenada and is still in touch with 20 or so cousins and old family friends. The second week they went back to San Francisco and we had the house to ourselves. Well, not quite to ourselves, as Georgy, the caretaker of the house, came by most every day from 4-7pm to check in on us and wait for a ride up the hill to his house.

The house is in a great location! It’s about 150ft off the main road, where buses (privately owned Toyota mini-vans) go by every few minutes. It’s a 5 minute walk to a great little beach where I went for a swim every morning at 8am. It’s also a 20 min walk to the main tourist beach, which is really nice when not swarmed with cruise ship tourists.

We spent most of our time reading books and staring out over the sea, watching the boats come and go. There were a number of really beautiful boats anchored in our bay while we were here.

We took the twins on their first snorkeling trip to an underwater sculpture garden. Unfortunately the conditions were not great: fairly choppy and the water was not very clear. But I think the girls liked it anyway, and the underwater sculptures were bueatiful in a creepy sort of way. (Photo)

We loved the local food (and rum). We got to help make “oil down“, the national dish, at one of the cousins house on New Years Day.

I took a boat to nearby Carriacou island, a small island with 6000 people that is 2 hrs away by boat. From there I went to ‘Sandy Island’, a tiny island with 0 people that had pretty good snorkeling.

The only touristy thing to visit on the island that I found really interesting was the rum distillery, where they have been using the same process since the later 1700s (ie: no electricity, just a big water wheel instead). Check out the photos. Pretty tasty rum too, and strong! (150 proof).

I loved listening to local radio. It’s a really fun and odd mix of 60-70s pop, calypso versions of 60-70s pop, and modern ‘Dancehall‘, mostly from Jamaica I think. Lots of Elvis, Tom Jones, and Neal Diamond in particular. We could also easily hear the music from a New Years Eve party from a club down the road, where the songs leading up to midnight included: Macarena, Dancing Queen, I’ll Take You There, Kung Fu Fighting, Oh What a Night, I’m Coming Up, Thriller, and a reggae version of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’. Then midnight till 3am was mostly Dancehall.

We had delicious fresh fruit every day. We got to try ‘soursop’, which everyone on the island says ‘cures cancer’. I’m not sure about that, but its really delicious!

On to Colombia (via Trinidad and Miami) next. Its surprisingly hard to get from Grenada to South America.

The full set of photos are here.

Dec

2017

Khao Sok National Park, Thailand

We spent a great, relaxing week at Khao Sok National Park. There are a cluster of resorts and restaurants near the park entrance, and all the resorts will book various activities. The main reason to go to Khao Sok is to do a overnight trip to Cheow Lan Lake (a reservoir) and stay in a bungalow on the water. Two day / one night trip including all meals, transport, guides, and bungalow was 2500 Baht/person. Our bungalow had a private bath, a fan, and generator power from 6pm till midnight. Not all tours included bungalows with a private bath, so be sure to ask.

We also visited the “Monkey Temple” (Wat Tham Phanthura) , which is a great place to watch monkey play. I did a ‘night safari’ guided hike thru the jungle, and got to see a bunch of cool spiders, lizards, and frogs.

We stayed at the Morning Mist Resort, and recommend it. They let us leave all our stuff in our room for free while we did the overnight trip to the lake. The best food in town was at Pawn’s Restaurant.

Some of our best photos of our entire trip so far are from our trip to the lake. The rest of our Khao Sok photos are here. We spent a lot more time in Khao Sok than necessary, but highly recommend the lake trip.

Our final night in Thailand was in Surat Thani, so we could experience the food at the fantastic night market (photos).

Dec

2017

Ko Phayam (not Phangam), Thailand

Every time we told someone we were heading to Koh Phayam, folks asked ‘are you going to the full moon party?’

Ko Phangam (on the east side of Thailand) is famous for its all night parties, something we had no interest in. Ko Phayam, on the west side, is the exact opposite. Very few travelers we met elsewhere had even heard of it.

Ko Phayam only has about 200 residents (about 1/2 of which are Burmese immigrants), and maybe another 100 tourists while we were there. At the peak of season there might be 300 tourists. Most of the island shuts down 6-8 months per year during the off season.

Ko Phayam currently has no cars, and no roads wide enough for cars. Instead there are nice, paved, scooter trails. For me, that was one of the main attractions to the island. Unfortunately they have plans to build the first road across the island. While this may increase tourism in the long run, it will certainly chase away folks like me.

If you think you might want to check out Ko Phayam, note that the main island web site claims that the season starts in November, but many things don’t actually start until sometime between Dec 1 and Dec 15th. Good Cell phone coverage, Wi-Fi, and electricity more that a few hours per day are all new this year. Electricity is still pretty flakey, and went out for a few minutes several times per day, and is not strong enough to run air conditioners, etc. They are building a new generator for the island, so probably there will be 24×7 electricity next year.

A surprising number of people we met on the island come back every year, and there is a great live music scene at Irie Islands Music Bar run by a cool Japanese guy. There were very few Americans here compared to other places we went in Thailand, and LOTS of Germans.

We stayed at JJ’s Beach Resort, but if I had it to do over, I might have preferred to stay next door at Bamboo Bungalows (which had kayaks, massage services, and better food) or Coconut Beach (which had really nice staff and better food).

Unfortunately there was a LOT of rain the week we were there (we came a bit too early in the season), and there were lots of mosquitos. But overall a very nice relaxing week.

The sand crabs made amazing art on the beach twice a day after every high tide (see photo below), and I discovered the snapseed photo editor app ‘grunge’ filter (also see photo below).

Selection of other photos is here.

Dec

2017

SE Asia Travel Advice

Now that we’ve been traveling for 3 months, I wanted to write up some general advice/insight.

Apps/websites

Booking.com: our favorite site for finding a wide range of lodging, and best search filter options
Airbnb.com: Best way to find a condo with a full kitchen, which is really nice once in a while
maps.me: Great offline maps app
Kayak: My favorite app for finding cheap flights
Google maps: Learn to use the ‘save for offline use’ and ‘starred locations’ features.
Uber/Grab: often cheaper than regular taxi’s, and you dont have to haggle. I prefer the Uber interface, as Grab sometimes got the locations wrong.
Google Translate
backstreetacademy.com: Several of our favorite tours/classes were booked thru this web site. They specialize in ‘unusual’ activities. Klook.com has some good tours too. Some cities also have good AirBNB ‘experiences’.

Depending on exactly where you plan to go, you don’t need warm clothes. The most important thing is a good pair of shoes that can get wet and dry quickly. I LOVE my Keen Newport sandals, which are perfect in SE Asia. Pharmacies are everywhere and seem to carry every thing, so don’t worry about stocking up on meds. Bring a spoon and a small food storage box for leftovers. Help cut down on plastic bottle use and bring a water filter! A small roller bag is all you need. Laundry is cheap and easy everywhere. Usually about $1 per kilo. A good day pack is very helpful, as well as a small shoulder bag. A small Bluetooth speaker is nice if you want to listen to music in your room from your phone.

Here is really all you need in terms of clothing: 4 shirts, 2 pair shorts, 1 long pants, 4 underwear, 2 pair socks (in general you wont be wearing socks), 1 light jacket, Sun hat.

How to not burn out on a long trip

Spend at least 1 day / week doing as little as possible. Just read, research your next destination, watch TV, etc.
Try to spend at least 5 days in each city. Travel days are the most tiring, so try not to have too many of those.
Try to get a place with a kitchen at least 1 week/month. Eating in restaurants all the time gets old. AirBNB is a good source for places with a kitchen.

Costs

In general here is what we have been spending in South East Asia:

Lodging: $20-30/night, mostly a room with AC in a small guesthouses, often includes breakfast
Local food: $1-$2 per meal
budget tourist food: $2-$4 per meal (places with English menu, and western options)
Taxi: $2 for 1-2 miles
Beer: $1-$2, cocktails: $3-5. (More in Malaysia, as taxes are higher. Less in Cambodia, where taxes are lower)
full day guided tours/trips: $20-$100, depending on on the tour
Flights: $50-$130 to get around within SE Asia. Anything over a 6 hour bus ride we flew instead.

Its also easy to spend $100 night for fancy 4-star lodging and $30-$50 for overpriced international cuisine if thats what you prefer, but why?

Mobile Data Options

Get a local SIM card: you can get a local SIM card with a reasonable data limit for $5-$10 everywhere, but then you have a new phone number in each country
Project Fi: works in 170 countries, $10/GB for data, unlimited text messages, $.20/min for voice calls
- Advantages: It ‘just works’ almost everywhere in theory. In Vietnam it did not work, and while it was supposed to work in Laos, it didn’t. We could send text messages, but no internet. They added Myanmar just before we arrived.
- Disadvantages: Must use one of 2 fairly expensive Android phones, and I really prefer IOS to Android.

We went with Project Fi, as we where going so many places and transiting thru Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur a couple times. It was really nice to not have to worry about getting/changing the SIM card all the time. Our monthly total cost for 2 people averaged around $70. But local SIMS are a lot cheaper. If you are just going to couple countries, I’d go with that option.

Nov

2017

Pai, Thailand

Pai in northern Thailand is my favorite place on our trip so far. I could easily spend a month there just hanging out, hiking, and exploring the countryside by scooter.

Pai has a really great relaxed vibe. Its touristy, but not too touristy (for now).

Every night the Pai ‘walking street’, which is really 2 streets with a total 4 blocks of vendors, comes to life with the most amazing assortment of both Thai and international food, all not too overpriced. We stuck with Thai food, but the hamburgers, lasagna, and Indian food all looked really good.

The traveler scooter culture is really interesting in Pai. Seems like about 90% of the tourists end up renting a scooter, and about 90% of them have never ridden a scooter/motorbike before. Hence you see many people with a “Pai Tattoo” (AKA road rash). But no one seems to get seriously hurt, as everyone drives very slow, and there are not many cars. The police set up road blocks everywhere to make sure tourists have an international drivers license, and make you pay 500 Baht ($15 USD) on the spot if you don’t. You are more likely to get stopped if you are not wearing a helmet (also illegal, but not really enforced ). Be sure to get an international drivers license if you plan to rent a scooter in Pai or Chiang Mai. For the record, I rented a scooter for 2 days, wore a helmet in town, and did not have an international drivers license. I got lucky.

Our hostel (Suandoi Backpacker Resort) was fantastic. Really nice people ran the place, which was a 15 min walk to town. We were the only ones over 35, but had some great conversations with folks. There are quite a few 19 yr old Germans doing a ‘gap year’ in SE Asia, and are actually quite fun to talk with.

I did a 2 day ‘trek’ to stay with a hill tribe village. We walked 12km the 1st day, and 10km the second day through some really beautiful country side. The village had no electricity, but small solar panels on most houses provided a least a bit of light in the evening. The villagers were not really all that friendly, but did not seems to mind us there.

Here is a blog on Pai that I found useful, and some info (somewhat dated but still interesting) by a long time expat.

Selection of photos.

Nov

2017

Motorbikes vs. Cars?

Being mostly in the land of motorbikes (aka scooters) for the last 2.5 months has made me think a lot about the advantages and disadvantages of cars vs. scooters. I think for the parts of the world that tend to be 60-90 degrees F (which is most of SE Asia, and even parts of the southern US and southern Europe), scooters are the clear winner. This will be even more true as electric scooters catch on.

People use scooters for most everything here, and you’ve probably seen some amazing photos of loaded down scooters. It’s also easy to turn a scooter into a taxi that can hold 2 passengers and their luggage (see below). There is secure parking for scooters everywhere, and you can buy gasoline in recycled water bottles everywhere. Many places you can even do an Uber on the back of a scooter.

In Vietnam, kids 12-16 can ride electric scooters, and so are a very popular ways for kids to get to school. Electric assist bicycles are also very popular. In Cambodia and Myanmar it’s coming to see kids 12 and up riding small scooters to school.

The only city on our trip so far where cars outnumbered scooters was Chiang Mai, Thailand, and the traffic was horrible there. In much bigger cities like Denang Vietnam where scooters still dominate, the traffic was way better.

I discussed this with several locals in all the countries we’ve been to so far, and they all have said that everyone wants a car as soon as they can afford one. Clearly this will be a big problem, as most cities here do not have the roads or parking infrastructure to handle it.

It would be great if all places in the world that have not made the scooter to car transition (or even the bike to scooter transition) to create large tax incentives for people to stick with scooters over cars. Maybe this could even work in places like San Diego too? Probably not….

Nov

2017

Chiang Mai, Thailand

After 2 months in Vietnam and Laos, our next stop was Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is the first place on this SE Asia trip that I had been to before (in 1987), so I was looking forward to seeing how it had changed. And wow has it changed.

After 2 months in Vietnam/Laos, it was a bit of a shock to be back on the world of Starbucks, 7-11, Macdonalds, Burger King, H&M, etc. The Maya Shopping Mall next to our AirBNB could have been anywhere in the world. But once I got over the initial shock of being back in the first world, I found Chiang Mai really nice! Great temples, food (the Panang Curry and Khao Soi is amazing), art, music clubs (including a really fantastic jazz club), and a cool ex-pat scene,

We learned a ton about local food on a morning market / street food tour, and Christine took a cooking class. She then made an incredible meal with the recipes from her class. I love being able to rent condo’s with a full kitchen on AirBNB!

I got quite scratched up riding through the jungle on a mountain bike tour.

I got to play a couple songs on drums at jam night at the North Gate Jazz Co-op. The level of musicians was every bit as good as you’d find at the open jams in San Francisco, and included Thai’s, expats, and travelers. I met a couple retired expat musicians that live here and do gigs 3-4 times/week. I may need to come back for a while….

Christine did a day trip to Chiang Rai to see the incredible ‘White Temple‘ and the crazy ‘Black House‘ while I recovered from a bout of food poisoning. She also visited a “long neck Karen’ village.

I was surprised to see that trekking trips are no longer a thing here. Trekking was the main reason people came to Chiang Mai in the 80’s, and trekking is currently huge in Sapa Vietnam, so I expected it to still be a thing in Chiang Mai, but no. All the treks in 1987 included a day of elephant riding (now politically incorrect) and optional opium smoking (now very illegal), so without those options I guess trekking is dying out.

It is also interesting to see the influence of Chinese tourism on the area, especially in the newer ‘Nimman Hill’ part of town. All the restaurants and hotels have signs and menus in Chinese, as well as English.

A selection of our photos from the week can be found here.

Apps/websites

How to not burn out on a long trip

Costs

Mobile Data Options

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