We stayed in the Red Sea town of Aqaba, just a few miles from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It is much cheaper here than Israel, and our hotel suite cost less than a shared Airbnb room in Jerusalem. I wish I could filter that I don't want to rent from a group of college students. …
This is the largest city on Earth and it goes on for miles in every direction with at least four separate downtowns. We started with day trips out of the city to slowly get our bearings. Our rail passes still had three remaining days of use. Mt. Fuji was high on the travel list but …
We got rail passes! Trains in Japan are expensive, so we bought a 7-day pass that allows unlimited train travel. First day: round trip to Kanazawa from Kyoto. The famous Kenroku-En garden is considered to be one of three "perfect gardens" and is the easiest to visit with our itinerary. It was peaceful and well …
We got off the train in Kyoto and it was snowing--our summers really are behind us. We stayed in the old geisha district of Gion. It is easy to imagine samurais and Geishas walking around the area because it is well preserved and because we saw tons of Geishas and samurais walking around. They don't …
Winter is coming...This is our first real stretch of winter weather. We successfully avoided the massive Australian heatwave, but the transition from 80F to 40F is making my eyeballs cold. I don't know how people in the Midwest handle -40F. I am doubting my own ability to handle future winters since we don't really get …
We are safely out of Vietnam, and I can now give my honest opinion. I hated Vietnam. We gave it eleven days, but it felt closer to enduring than exploring. Other countries have been difficult, crazy, or frustrating, but at least they had moments that made me say this is worth it. Vietnam, not so …
The scooter menace continues unabated. It was nice to get away from the sweltering heat in the south, but the scooters followed us here. They aren't trying to hit us, but they certainly won't make any effort to avoid hitting us either. We have divided our time among four cities to give the area a …
While waiting for our Vietnam visas to be approved, we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas in the capital city of Phnom Penh. It was nothing like Siem Reap but probably a truer representation of a Cambodian city. It takes an hour to drive six miles and non-tourist menus are filled with frog dishes and chicken …
I love it here. I had some reservations about what we were getting into as I navigated the visa requirements and read several blogs about crossing the border, but Siem Reap is wonderful. The roads are well maintained, the food is good, fruit smoothies are delicious, WiFi is decent, the tourism industry is well developed, …
We end our month in Thailand in the capital city of Bangkok. Thai recipes are now on the blog and I will be adding more in the next few days. We took a surprisingly comfortable overnight bus to get here, but we were zombies the next day. Bangkok isn't much of a sightseeing city though. …
We Won't Melt 