We’re back. Mitch and I still ask ourselves how this trip we planned for so long could be over already. But, we have so many pictures to look at and stories to remember that we will be busy for some time organizing and digesting all those experiences. Our initial re-entry was easy. We flew back to […]

Here’s a distillation of the best and worst of our trip around the world. We lots of fun putting this together during the final weeks of our trip. Most useful item we brought with us: Mitch’s swiss army knife. We used it for everything from extracting a sea urchin spine from Mitch’s foot at the Red Sea […]

Here is a blog that I wrote earlier in the trip and forgot to post. Perhaps I was was hoping my exercise routine would be more regular at some point. It was always sporadic at best. At any rate, here are some thoughts about exercise on the road. Those of you who know Mitch will not […]

For five years this trip loomed over the horizon. For nearly a year now it has been reality. Soon, it will be part of our family history. It has been a grand trip, a great trip, one never to be forgotten. Understanding what we have accomplished on this trip will be better understood as we […]

This was my first visit to China, if you do not count Hong Kong. Margit was in China in 1987, so she has some perspective on the changes in China. My observations on changes, though, have to be based on what I have read, and the small bit of China that we saw. That said, I […]

The Great Wall of China. One of the foreseen highlights of the trip. One of the greatest sights created, up there with the Taj Mahal and Great Pyramids, at least in my mind. So we did some research on it in the Lonely Planet Book our great hostel, The Red Lantern, lent to us. It was […]

We saved the best for the last couple of days of our foreign travels, or at least some of the best. It was not planned that way. We had originally planned to spend a month in China, but when we made some changes to our itinerary, we were unable to get a flight from Bali to […]

May 11 and 12 It was a whirlwind stop in Xian to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. We all knew before we got there that it wouldn’t be enough time and we regretted it the whole time we were there. There was only time to do one thing and the rest of the things we longed […]

We are now back in the US traveling up the Pacific Coast and as usual we are at least three weeks behind on our blog. We intend to continue posting until we are caught up. So stay tuned and continue to check for updates. -Margit Our first day in Yangshuo we hung out. That night we […]

We have been so long without posting anything! Yikes. Well, We’re almost to the end of the trip, so have a lot of catching up to do. I’ll start with our flight out of Bali, Indonesia. After arguing with Dad over the taxi prices, we finally hired a guy to drive us across the island. I […]

Amed, April 27 – May 5 After Ubud, we spent eight days on the beach in Amed on the northeastern coast of Bali. Other than Mitch’s battle with a meter-long, crazed, female triggerfish near the wreck of the USS Liberty, it was a very quiet week. That was perfect. We enjoyed the chance to explore […]

Our first day in Ubud we hung out. The next day we went to Monkey forest. There were tons of monkeys there. A little too many. There were monkeys eating bananas, and coconuts that the people who worked there gave to them. One monkey stole a huge bundle of bananas and was stuffing them in […]

Our first stop in Indonesia was Lembongan Island, a small island within sight of the island of Bali. We decided to go to Lembongan because it was reputed to be quiet, laid-back, scenic, and has good diving. The guide book describes Lembongan as the Bali you would have found 20 years ago. Not that the Bali […]

Long term traveling is an interesting psychological experiment. You go through different phases of feelings about your trip. Or at least, I did. Early on, the first few months, I was caught up in the excitement of being out of the states for the first time in memory. Even Mom and Dad had that feeling of […]

April 6 – 9 Kathmandu, Nepal airport is the only place we’ve encountered in the world so far where you truly need two full hours before your flight to get through all the lines before you finally arrive at the only gate. There is a large electronic sign with all the flights that everyone ignores. When […]

Nepal. The name brings so many wonderful, positive images. Most of these are a result of traveling there 33 years ago as a college student, but many simply come from its reputation as the rooftop of the world . We were there for 12 days, March 25-April 5. It was a great experience for all of […]

Let’s flash back in time to just before our trek. We recently left Katmandu, and took a bus down to Chitwan nature reserve. The ride was okay, really, if you could ignore the fact that the bus had square wheels. We had a nice, pre-prepared trip set out for us, so after getting off the bus […]

Day one After a day in Pokhara we took a mini van up to a small village where we started our trek. About half way into it I suddenly started up a story called “The Adventures of Timothy Mouse” which I had to stop at the end of the trek. The first day was pretty easy;mostly […]