Ana and I left the other tourists traveling on the slow boat down the Mekong River with their jaws agape when we nimbly jumped off the boat’s thin, rickety ramp onto a giant sand dune with just a small smattering of thatch-roofed houses sunk into the hillside several hundred meters beyond. The boat reached Tha Suang, a tiny blip of a town, and we were the sole tourists venturing into the more rural Sainyabuli province in Laos. Our target end-destination? Hongsa, a town I visited on my round the world …

Unrelenting Indian sun bounced off the yellow sand, sneaking under my hat and slowly tinting my skin red as I cautiously posed next to my camel for a photo-opportunity. Before my brain even registered the aggressive nip Krishna the camel aimed in my direction, my guide intercepted, creating a needed wall of safety between me and my camel. Minutes later, as I focused the camera and zoomed in on Krishna I caught a shot of the camel spitting and jutting his head at my cousin—clearly she had gotten to close.
The …

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.

Tucked away into a small corner of a local coffee shop, I’m watching you and you don’t even realize it. The curiously strong coffee clutched in my fist makes me look just like you, but instead I’m listening, assessing, judging, and filing away my observations.
You’re telling a story, and I’m watching the way you fling your hands into the air to emphasize your point. Then the quietly demure nod of the server when your Western sentimentalities embarrass her; she takes your order and scuttles away, now ensconced behind the safety …

Travel Memories:
The Time I Got Charged by a Cow in India

Today I’d like to share a bit snippet clip from my relaxing walk down the white sandy beach on the Ganges River in Rishikesh, India.
My cousin and I were amazed by the cows on the beaches so we went closer to snap some shots of these cows hanging out by the river – cows in India really just tend to generally ignore people and focus on their cow business so we didn’t think twice when the cow started trotting toward …

Travel Memories:
Camel Burb on Safari in Pushkar, India

It’s not like I was engaged in any form of camel abuse…but that camel just didn’t like me! My travel companion at the time got the calmer of the two camels and during the break in the middle of our camel safari in Pushkar, India’s desert my camel proceeded to burp, gurgle and emit a slew of other strange digestive noises before finishing off the little show with a spit in my direction and a nipped aimed at me (and intercepted by my …

In an effort to add some regularity here, I’d like to start a weekly post called “A Little Travel Memory.” A photo and mini story from current or past travels…perhaps a neat person I’ve met along the way, or a photo that has a bit of a story but not enough for a full blog post…or perhaps just a random memory.
Travel Memories:
The Sheep of Connemara, Ireland

Ireland is one of those countries that I just can’t help describing melodramatically; the country just speaks to my soul. On the …