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Articles Tagged ‘Best Places’

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Bang Phra Fishing Village

Thursday, March 27th, 2008

This week I went to Bang Phra fishing village near Chonburi on the Gulf of Thailand with my friend Jiraporn, Professor of Fisheries at Kasetsart University in Bangkok, who, with some of her students, are conducting a population study of the Swimming Crab, a small crab used mostly in soups and salads. There is a concern about the diminishing supply of crab. The students are temporarily living in the village for the duration of the study with a local university fisheries department contributing oversight.

I was blown away by the sense of community here…children playing with their families and each other…vendors bringing around food. I didn’t want to leave. I am now considering a month in this peaceful slow place when I return to Thailand. But I can assure you I won’t be wearing a jacket or a sweatshirt in the 95 degree weather like many of the Thais do!
Gulf of Thailand
Gulf of Thailand

Using Propane To Cook Crab
how-to-cook.JPG

Cooked Crab
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Fisher Family
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Young Fisherman With His Child
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Repairing Nets
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Buying Lunch
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Motorcyclists In Front of Typical Shophouse Opposite the Beach
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Vendor
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Soups And Other Items
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Building A New Boat
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Jiraporn With Students
jiraporn-with-students.JPG

Oaxaca Open Art Studios

Monday, July 24th, 2006

Today, friends Sharon and Sueki, a woman visiting from Tucson Texas who we met at Pachote Oganic Market, and I joined a tour of Mexican artist’s homes in San Agustin Etla…about half an hour north of the city. Many of these artists are famous in Mexico and beyond and their art was striking…one a ceramicist who has develped a new process mixing clay with polyester that burns out in the firing…leaving air tunnels in the tile so his gigantic wall hangings are lighter.

One…a hand-made paper artist…gave us a history of paper and an ecological perspective. We also visited a jaw-dropping art museum that is located in an old huge thread factory that has recently been restored under the tutelage of the famous Mexican artist Toledo. The four colors of clay found in Oaxaca…orange, green, yellow and red…combine to create a beautiful setting for a gallery and paper factory overlooking the San Augustin valley.

Then we join photographer, Marietta Bernstarff, (born in Mexico but educated in the U.S. and who also led the tour through the thread factory) in her beautiful home overlooking the mountains and valleys of San Augustin. http://www.laluztalleres.com/about.htm. She remarked that most of the people in this valley are not Oaxacans but descendents of the workers imported here from all over Mexico to build the original factory.

After stopping at a small open-air restaurant for Comida Corrida (midday meal) where we had chicken mole and a beer, we stopped by the home of a Dutch couple that have lived in San Augustin about 15 years. Ineke Granstadts is a jewelry-maker whose daughter markets her jewelry all over the U.S. including Manhattan. We wanted to see her studio she made by hand out of straw bales and stucco.

Then we circled through some other valleys..a beautiful day in a monsoon rain…taking pictures along the way….ending the day with hot chocolate in Oaxaca City.

Our Brooklyn Neighborhood

Sunday, October 23rd, 2005
Video We are sub letting a pleasant newly refurbished two bedroom apartment on Pacific St in a multi-ethnic, gentrified Brooklyn neighborhood called Boerum Hill. Bob and I enjoy exploring New York opportunities and other sites via the ... [Continue reading this entry]

Great Days Great Wall

Sunday, October 17th, 2004
East China.gif Video E found the website (www.wildwall.com) and the adventure offered intriguing potential...off the beaten track, away from the Chinese tourist groups that follow a guide with a microphone and colored flag held high ... [Continue reading this entry]

Hutongs in Beijing

Saturday, October 16th, 2004
East China.gif Quin-dynasty Beijing was redesigned with mazes of mud and brick walled courtyards after Genghis Khan's army reduced the city to rubble and is "now the stomping ground of a quarter of Beijing's residents. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Far East Youth Hostel

Friday, October 15th, 2004
East China.gif The last time I was in China it was freezing cold in January 2003. The weather is fantastic this October day in 2004. After slogging it out across Russia and Mongolia, we soak ... [Continue reading this entry]

Reflections on the Steppe

Tuesday, October 12th, 2004
GyTjn0QZP9l6Qu21TubskM-2006198062551304.gif We are lucky...days are brisk but sunny...the sun glints off bare hills covered in golden fall grass. This feels like fall in southeast Oregon where I grew up. I soak it all in ... [Continue reading this entry]

Hanging Out On Olkhon Island

Sunday, September 26th, 2004
Urr0g6ZfQ7ttYL19duYJfg-2006170133924757.gif After hanging out a couple days...glad to be off the train...Gregory, a former University teacher of German, drove Bob and I, three Germans and a Pole on a half-day excursion to the north of ... [Continue reading this entry]

Five Hours to Olkhon Island

Saturday, September 25th, 2004
7yBXvp82X2gVlMeZe25DiM-2006198051115673.gif The next morning we are picked up at our homestay in Irkutsk by a sullen driver who drives us five hours over pot-holes, through the taiga and across a bay of the beautiful blue ... [Continue reading this entry]

Free-Wheeling Moscow

Saturday, September 18th, 2004
7yBXvp82X2gVlMeZe25DiM-2006198051115673.gif Video 2004-09 Like in the big Central European cities we visited, there are cranes everywhere... old soviet buildings built during the Stalin era are scheduled to be razed and new one modern ones put up. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Forest Mushrooms and Vodka

Friday, September 10th, 2004
7yBXvp82X2gVlMeZe25DiM-2006198051115673.gif The night before we leave St. Petersburg, Elena and her childhood friend, Dula, breathlessly excited, bring home bags and boxes of forest mushrooms. Bob and I haven't eaten and we hope the ... [Continue reading this entry]

Panda Research Base

Wednesday, January 1st, 2003
YUqE3FCf1Hd9CjfG1qqmt0-2006171132705308.gif An early morning one-hour ride on Sam's Guesthouse bus took us south of Chengdu to the Panda Research Base where China is trying to keep the Giant Pandas from disappearing into extinction. It ... [Continue reading this entry]

Christmas At Re Hai Hot Springs 2002

Tuesday, December 24th, 2002
YUqE3FCf1Hd9CjfG1qqmt0-2006171132705308.gif We went to Re Hai Hot Springs..a short half-hour bus ride from Tengchong. The Asian and European continental shift also resulted in over 80 crystalline hot springs...grand Boiling Hot Cauldron...age-old Toad-Mout Hot Spring...Drunk Bird Hot ... [Continue reading this entry]

Naxi Old Town-Lijiang

Monday, December 9th, 2002
jWLtBzsBGHTUmbHjYHypj0-2006185073225366.gif Lijiang has been designated a World Cultural Heritage Site by the United Nations. There are two kinds of Naxi dwellings built with wood, clay tiles, earth bricks and hard work...one is a courtyard ... [Continue reading this entry]

Zhondian to Baishuitai

Friday, December 6th, 2002
jWLtBzsBGHTUmbHjYHypj0-2006185073225366.gif Friday Dec 6 2002 There were no street lights so we walked the equivalent of several blocks to the Zhongdian bus station in the dark to catch the 7:50am bus for Baishuitai. While waiting for ... [Continue reading this entry]

Zhondian aka Shangri-La

Thursday, December 5th, 2002
YUqE3FCf1Hd9CjfG1qqmt0-2006171132705308.gif Bob took a flight south from Kunming to Mangshi and then on by bus to Ruili near the Burma border. Jana and I left Kunming on a Yunnan Airlines flight to the village of Zhongdian, ... [Continue reading this entry]

Hanoi

Wednesday, September 25th, 2002
KtJTxGv4eiozwJxI0Lb6qM-2006216170118412.gif September 24 2002 Bob left Hanoi right away on the train for Sapa near the Chinese border to do some trekking among the colorful minority villages and then to spend three days in Halang Bay ... [Continue reading this entry]

Talad Nam Lam-Paya Floating Market

Tuesday, August 6th, 2002
Our friend, Jiraporn, who lived in the U.S. ten years and has a doctorate from Oregon State University in Fisheries and is now a lecurer in the Department of Fishery Management of Kasetsart University, generously drove us to the weekend ... [Continue reading this entry]

Shimla India

Wednesday, July 31st, 2002
July 31-August 4 2002 The last few days I have been fighting some sort of strange malady...raging sore throat, red spots on the tops of my feet and the underside pads of my fingers red, sore and sensitive. Want to risk ... [Continue reading this entry]

Table Mountain & District 6

Tuesday, June 25th, 2002
S12J2pKbmw6zVZyRvmb7L0-2006193181305721.gif The geographical configuration of the city of Cape Town at the foot of Table Mountain is as beautiful as everyone has said it is. We took the cable car to the top of ... [Continue reading this entry]

Robben Island

Monday, June 17th, 2002
S12J2pKbmw6zVZyRvmb7L0-2006193181305721.gif June 16 to July 13, 2002 Standing bunched shoulder-to-shoulder in the small anteroom of the prison on Robben Island where Mandela and others were political prisoners, our half of the ferry load of visitors impatiently ... [Continue reading this entry]

Bo Kaap or Cape Malay Quarter

Monday, June 17th, 2002
The next day we take a minibus for 3 rand each (10 rand to a dollar) to look for an apartment. The buses are many and frequent with no schedule-you just wave one down when you need it-very ... [Continue reading this entry]

Cape Town!

Sunday, June 16th, 2002
S12J2pKbmw6zVZyRvmb7L0-2006193181305721.gif June 15, 16, 2002 James make an unbelievable maneuver with the truck into the Lion's Head Lodge & Backpacker Compound around a corner and in between parked cars on both sides of the street. We ... [Continue reading this entry]

Okavango Delta By Makoro

Wednesday, May 29th, 2002
The Makoro Trip through the Delta By the time the 1300 km long Okavango, southern Africa's third largest river, enters Botswana from Angola, through the Caprivi Strip in Namibia, it begins to spread and sprawl as it is absorbed by the ... [Continue reading this entry]

Dinner & Dancing On A Mat in Malawi

Saturday, May 18th, 2002
PZmR20gwby0cg19rXgklIw-2006197131657399.gif That night Rod has arranged for us to have dinner at the home of a local family. We each take a bowl and spoon from the truck and are led down a series ... [Continue reading this entry]

Pleasuring In Zanzibar

Wednesday, May 15th, 2002
PZmR20gwby0cg19rXgklIw-2006197125025738.gif We spent evenings on the deck of the Mercury Bar watching the sun set over the Indian Ocean full of fishing boats and beautiful lean bodies swimming in the water. The Mercury Bar is ... [Continue reading this entry]

Stone Town Zanzibar

Wednesday, May 15th, 2002
PZmR20gwby0cg19rXgklIw-2006197125025738.gif May 11-15 2002 City of Stone Town Island of Zanzibar The tropical island of Zanzibar has a more cosmopolitan and warm and open ambiance than other African countries we have been in-more like the islands ... [Continue reading this entry]

Ngorongora Crater

Friday, May 10th, 2002
Firstviewofcrater.JPG The Ngorongora Crater is a conservation area and National Heritage Site. After breaking camp in the Sarangeti, we drive another two hours up to the Crater rim where we set up camp so ... [Continue reading this entry]

Animal Spotting The Big 5 In The Sarengeti

Thursday, May 9th, 2002
I love the remnants of the Swahili cadence in Victor's English. Giraffe: "It is raining and he is very happy there-he is getting a shower." Bob watching elephants: "This makes you feel badly there are zoos. Topi: lives up to 20 ... [Continue reading this entry]

A Felluca Ride Up The Nile

Tuesday, April 30th, 2002
gvSQ2vhpltKkixr9PjGld0-2006186175750571.gif In Aswan, a felluca, an ancient sailboat of the Nile, is a common means of transport up and down the Nile River. It has a broad canvas sail and the boat itself has ... [Continue reading this entry]

Santorini & Sifnos

Friday, April 12th, 2002
pjSwKsKjPzr5gOYYAx9PKM-2006172105305371.gif 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 brilliant-white buildings with blue trim ... [Continue reading this entry]

Cinque Terre

Monday, April 1st, 2002
k08zEG1a840cNznVAe7p30-2006172142756225.gif Took a train to the Cinque Terre (Five Lands..or villages) area on the northern Italian Riviera. The Ligurian coast between Cinque Terre and Portovenere is a cultural landscape of great scenic and cultural value. The ... [Continue reading this entry]

Salamanca Spain

Saturday, March 2nd, 2002
I just walked out of the jaw-dropping Cathedral in the beautiful old city of Salamanca a few minutes ago. Made Notre Dame in Paris look pretty tame. And there are several cathedrals in Salamanca! The city, named ... [Continue reading this entry]

Bayonne & Biarritz

Friday, March 1st, 2002
knQlFSdvbI6pWFyrlGKiaM-2006172134815236.gif Bayonne is a beautiful Basque town in the south of France. I would not be surprised if the movie "Chocolat" was made here. We were told that Bayonne had almost a hundred chocolate ... [Continue reading this entry]

A Dacha In Samarkand

Saturday, September 30th, 1995
7Z3XBdt3hLmJjqkmk2I6k0-2006190121351559.gif After coming off the Kyrgyzstan trek, Peter, our trip leader, had arranged for us to go to Samarkand in Uzbekistan before continuing on up to Tashkent for the flight home via a week in ... [Continue reading this entry]

Trekking in Kyrgyzstan

Monday, September 18th, 1995
7Z3XBdt3hLmJjqkmk2I6k0-2006190120654814.gif The fall of 1995 Bob and I joined an REI adventure tour company based in Seattle Washington on an 18 day trek in the highest and most dramatic part of the central Tian Shan ... [Continue reading this entry]