Nowhere has history come alive for us more than Cambodia. Just forty years ago, the Khmer Rouge swept in, ostensibly as the “Peace Party,” after the wars of Southeast Asia, and proceeded to exterminate two million of their own people. A generation was literally wiped out. The Khmer Rouge regime executed almost the entire professional […]
THE STORY OF RUBBER
Back in the 70’s, we grew up loving “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” especially the regularly featured short films showing, say, the process of how peanut butter gets manufactured or how blankets are woven and stitched. So drawing significant inspiration from the late great Fred Rogers (who left this mortal coil in 2003), we decided to make […]
THE SMALL GUIDES
As soon as we arrived at Odong, an ornate temple dedicated to the past kings and queens of Cambodia built high atop a mountain about forty kilometers from Phnom Penh, a handful of local schoolboys approached us. We didn’t realize it at that time but we were about to have one of the most unexpected and significant […]
QUESTION: WHAT IS THIS?
On a hike through the jungle in Laos, we were introduced to a curious object. What do you think this is? (Get your guesses in now. We’ll be posting the answer tomorrow.)
SIX HOUR BUS RIDE
We could have flown from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh. The flight is less than an hour, but by the time you get to the airport, check in, wait, fly, land, collect your luggage, go through immigrations, customs, it’s much more than an hour. And we’d already flown 27 times. Besides the flight […]
SAY YES
Every now and then, the simplest lessons about life and travel and happiness and adventure can be boiled down to just a couple tiny words. For example:
ROAD MATH: TEST YOUR TRAVEL I.Q.
Behold the price of gas in Thailand. Here’s today’s assignment: Tell us the cost for a gallon of gas in Thailand in US dollars. Keep in mind, the prices you are looking at are for a liter. Use your currency convertor to find out how many Thai Baht you get for a US dollar. Then […]
THE RISKY MARKET
In a village in Thailand, about fifty kilometers from Bangkok, there is a daily outdoor market the locals have dubbed “The Risky Market.” Come along with us and check out how this place got its well-deserved moniker.The music is Harry Belafonte singing about Jamaica, but the images are pure Thailand. It’s interesting to see how […]
REFLECTIONS FROM THE ROAD: OVERCOMING FEAR
One of the goals of our journey has been to overcome our fears. We’re not referring to any specific fears necessarily, but heading blindly across the planet is an experiment in confronting our fear of the unknown (and the unknown is the source of almost all fear it turns out.) Our family has grown much […]