August 05, 2006
Francisco
Francisco wears a red T-shirt and straw hat and sells books in Spanish on the sidewalk in the Zocalo. Yesterday I noticed that some of the books were by the...Read this update
July 25, 2006
Response To Associated Press Article
On July 21, an outrageously slanted AP article "Protesters Take Over Oaxaca Mexico," appeared all over the U.S. press. Copy & paste this url: http://www.topix.net/content/ap/3571852116376727780802906133932155632365?threadid=V7KHE66NQ1FFIJ1S People who live here, especially...Read this update
July 12, 2006
Day To Day In Oaxaca
For someone living in Oaxaca City, the experience is much different than the political headlines might indicate. The Asemblea, that meets now in the building pictured above, decided last week...Read this update
June 05, 2006
A Field Guide To Getting Lost
My son, Josh, the little weasel, asked me what it felt like to be living alone in Oaxaca. It got me to thinking. Then I picked up a book at...Read this update
March 15, 2006
"Letters From Thailand"
"Letters From Thailand" is a lovely novel wrtten in 1969 by "Botan", a pseudonym of the Chinese-born Thai female writer, Supa Sirisingh, and recently translated into English by Susan Fulop...Read this update
March 04, 2006
The World A Playground?
A friend recently emailed me asking what it is like to have all the world as my "playground." This was my very brief answer: Well, the best thing about traveling...Read this update
Chiang Mai
Flew from Koh Samui on Bangkok Air (the only airline off the island because Bangkok Air built the airport) and then on to Chiang Mai on budget Air Asia....Read this update
December 23, 2005
More On Mao
We are grounded by the subway strike so have been reading more of the biography of Mao by authors Jung Chang, the author of the wonderful three-generation epic "Wild Swans,"...Read this update
November 27, 2005
Deep Into Mao & China
It's cold and snowy outside and right now I am deep into the recently published biography of Mao Tse Tung by Jung Chang who also some years ago wrote the...Read this update
October 25, 2005
"An Uncommon Friendship"
After getting through Phil & Adri's New York Times and Wall Street Journal that arrive on our stoop every day it is difficult to find time for other reading. However,...Read this update
July 14, 2005
"11 Minutes" Outranks Mao
On my way to my BTS Skytrain station, I stop for lunch at The Emporium, an upscale indoor shopping mall where there is a variety of restaurants on the 5th...Read this update
June 12, 2005
Perfect Memories
What A Perfect Day...It's Such A Perfect Day...And Then We Go Home Have been re-reading a book that I have been dragging around with me for the last year....Read this update
October 02, 2004
End of a Disastrous Experiment
I want to emphatically state (and I think Bob would concur) that I have nothing but admiration for this proud and resilient people who have survived 70 years of...Read this update
August 30, 2004
Who Would Have Thought...?
Who would have thought that Poland in 1995 would have chosen the former communist bureaucrat, Aleksander Kwasniewski, over the former hero Lech Walesa, who, along with the Solidarity movement, led...Read this update
August 27, 2004
Oswiecim Poland
The Germans changed the name to Auschwitz but the Polish still call it Oswiecim. We hire an English speaking guide to drive us to Auschwitz and Birkenau for the...Read this update
August 18, 2004
Young Prime Minister
The Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Stanislav Gross, is 32 years old and looks 20! We are realizing how little information we have gotten in the US in...Read this update
August 06, 2004
Former East Berlin
When I was in Berlin in 1965 it had been 18 years since the end of WWII and Europe was still digging itself out of the ashes. Nearly 40 later, Europe is transformed and on it's way, through the European Union, to providing a balance of power to the United States.Read this update
January 08, 2003
Yichang & Yangtse Dam
As we were checking into our hotel, Joe Peng, 30-something young entrepreneur that was with us on our trip up the little gorges showed up with four of his...Read this update
December 31, 2002
Perspective On China
China is big. The population is staggering with a billion and a half people. It's a matter of getting perspective. Our home state of Oregon only has about 1.5 million...Read this update
December 16, 2002
Conversation With Roland
Had a final dinner at familiar and cozy Sekura's Cafe in Old Town Lijiang...splurging on Western food...sharing our beer with Roland, a 30 year old economics teacher in a...Read this update
December 03, 2002
End of the Burma Road
Sunday Dec 1-3 2002 Arrived at Kunming from Guilin after 23 hours on the train. We had gained considerable elevation throughout the night. We took a taxi to the...Read this update
November 26, 2002
Mobbed at Yangshuo
Southern China Yunnan Province Tuesday Nov 26, 2002 At Yangshuo we were mobbed by women selling hotel rooms. I stayed with the backpacks while Bob and Jana looked at...Read this update
November 21, 2002
Westerners Go In The Back
Thursday November 21 2002 Reading “The Coming Collapse of China,” a book written by a Chinese American economist...a dissenting opinion...he gives China five years to get their banking system...Read this update
November 20, 2002
Secrets I Will Never Know
Major Cities We Visited "The opening up of China is a stirring idea," Lonely Planet says. A foreigner traveling alone today is privileged to see more of China than...Read this update
October 24, 2002
Facing Cambodia's Past
We got our second wind and almost reluctantly mounted a motorcycle taxi to do what we (or at least I) came here to do and that is to see,...Read this update
October 20, 2002
The Communist Party
People everywhere in Viet Nam confided in me, as a foreigner who would not know who to tell anyway, that they hated the corrupt officials in the Communist Party that...Read this update
Catholics In Vietnam
Catholics have never had an easy time of it in Vietnam beginning with the Confucian elite who opposd the intrusions of missionaries among whom was Alexandre de Rhodes who devised...Read this update
'Peaceful Evolution'
In Viet Nam, the enemies of the Communist Party, in the absence of conflict, has become the democracy and human rights promoted by the forces of 'peaceful evolution.' Enemy jets...Read this update
October 17, 2002
The Myth of "Nam"
The male fantasy of Saigon that was nurtured in Graham Greene's "The Quiet American" written in the 1950's is recreated superficially in bars in Saigon with names like Apocalypse...Read this update
October 12, 2002
Making Friends in Lang Co
spent the night in a backpacker hotel before boarding an air conditioned tour bus the next morning for Danang. On the way to Danang though, we pass through Lang...Read this update
October 04, 2002
Dong Ha and the DMZ
October 4, 2002 Stumbled off the night train from Hanoi at 6am and found a seat at the outdoor railroad station cafe to dump my bags and have a...Read this update
August 22, 2002
Pagan's 2000 Stupas
August 22 2002 (Pagan was previously called Bagan) I really would have preferred the rickety and slow train north so we could see the countryside but to reserve the...Read this update
August 04, 2002
Sex In The City of Angels
August 6 2002 Bangkok Thailand The Indian pilot lovingly set the Air India wheels down on the Bangkok tarmac... Being in Thailand feels good even when you know Thais will...Read this update
July 18, 2002
Migrants & Beggars
Continuing our taxi tour with Asane, he takes us to a part of Mumbai where we will see many migrants and beggars...and the red light district. As is happening all...Read this update
June 11, 2002
Hobas & Fish River Canyon
June 11, 2002 On the way from Serus the topography is incredible--perfectly formed mesas and buttes-almost Utah-like. We stop in the tiny wide spot in the road called Bethanie....Read this update
May 27, 2002
Buffalo Fence & Planet Baobab
May 27, 2002 We see the 3000km of 1.5 meter high “Buffalo Fence” along side the road on the way to Okavango Delta in Botswana. It’s actually a series...Read this update
May 20, 2002
On The Road To Zambia
May 20, 2002 Up 5 am and out 6:30. Most of the day is spent traveling to Zambia. A bridge is out on the road south so we have...Read this update
April 12, 2002
Santorini & Sifnos
As the ferry approached the island through the caldera you see a red-brown black and pumice grey terraced cliff face that looms hundreds of feet above the water with...Read this update