Originating high in the Tibetan Plateau, the Mekong River is the life-blood of activity throughout the history of southeast Asia. Locally known as the Mae Nam Khong, the literal translation is Mother of Water River. The river runs through China, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and over the centuries consistently remained an important focal point for locals, governments, and foreign countries.
Locals use the River to sustain life–food, transportation and local trade.
Governments dam and re-route the river in political power struggles between the nations sharing the Mekong River’s natural resources, and international political …

Murmurings from the large audience hushed as a clear and open darkness dropped over our outdoor theatre. The silence was far from absolute though as a breeze swept nearby leaves into a quiet song, a gentle lapping of water, and eventually the sweet notes of a string instrument drifting up from the distant water as the show began.
The boats paddled out from the edges of our riverside theatre and colored floodlights illuminated the distant limestone mountains in a myriad of primary colors accompanying the mood of the story. Back in 2008, I …

The wackiest ideas are often born from a single comment, an off-handed remark meant as a joke but then expanded into a full-fledged idea. This is precisely the case with my decision to jump around Jordan; my very first day in the country fellow travel blogger Jodi joked about my recent travels through China where I nailed a perfect jumping shot on the Great Wall of China.
And thus was born the self-proclaimed mission to jump at iconic, historic spots and wide open desert spaces around Jordan…pretty silly but it made …

I see a lot of gorgeous places when I travel, heaps and heaps in fact. About three months into traveling I decided I had to slow down because I was passing everything so quickly that waterfalls, monuments, temples? They all turned to mush in my brain. I couldn’t quite place some of the photos I was taking and that perturbed me…so I slowed down, paid more attention and stopped living through the lens of my camera ever single moment of my trip.
Okay, a bit of lie, I still photographed everything …

Solitude. Tranquility. Utter peacefulness. That’s what it’s like underwater; you become a part of a world outside of human society – we can go down there for a visit, but it’s not ours.

I learned scuba diving the summer before leaving on my travels; my first stop was Australia and I was bound and determined to be comfortable underwater before hitting what I considered the mac-daddy of all sites, the Great Barrier Reef.

The gentle vibrations from my iPhone slowly cut last clingy strings of dreams from my thoughts as I pulled myself awake. Looking at the gaps in the tent wall showed just the faintest tint of color lightening the morning sky. The dead silence surrounding me at the Desert Tent Camp in Wadi Rum invited me to curl back into my heavy blanket and claim another hour of sleep – 5:00am seems barely human for a wake up call.

My iPhone was on to me though, and just as my eyelids drifted closed the phone’s insistent buzzing woke me again. Oh yeah, a sunrise camel ride.

Arriving at the Dead Sea in Jordan earlier this month, I wasn’t prepared for the starkness of the landscape. Conjured up images of the Dead Sea in my mind were of two varieties:

an exotic, remote, and barren desert landscape with an inhospitable lake of water stretching out for miles.
a smiling and slightly accented vendor in any one of America’s super-sized malls rubbing dark brown Dead Sea mud onto the back of my hand, extolling it’s many virtues.

Neither version prepped me for the actuality of the Dead Sea – the region’s bare landscape was the very element lending beauty. And as far are remote is concerned…not so much – it’s a mere 45 minute drive from Amman, Jordan’s capital, and surrounded by a handful of significant religious biblical and Islamic pilgrimage sites.

Travel Memories:
Two of the 12 Apostles on the Great Ocean Road

Pretty picture! I’ll admit, that mostly inspired this post. The ocean reminds of blown Murano glass in Venice , Italy and nature purposefully highlighted the scene with a sizable dose of redish-orange limestone (two colors opposite on the color-wheel and therefore complimentary :). My tour guide on the Great Ocean Road shared all kinds of facts and stories, with a handful of local lore thrown in for good measure, but it was this drive’s likeness to the another beautiful road …