As the self-aggrandized old hand of the Southeast Asian urban landscape, you’ll peer about joyfully bewildered. You aren’t enveloped by partially peeled cement walls and blackened exhaust. Writhing, verdant walls of vegetation veil cyclone fences and railings. The scene outside the window of your cab… Read More
There are a lot of hills in Northern Sumatra. Some are functionally inaccessible and a few are just down a potholed highway from Medan. Being my first sojourn to the land of palm plantations, Orangutans, and horrible natural disasters, I settled for a realistic… Read More
Sometimes I question my sanity. Here I was, halfway around the world, standing next to fields of salt. I wasn’t lost, I intended on arriving here at some point. But did I really need to come to Thailand to feel desiccated? The answer in this… Read More
Yesterday I stood on top of Thailand. I made the steep trek and it was well worth it. Don’t leap to conclusions though, I rode a motorcycle. Doi Inthanon is the highest point in Thailand, as well as in most of mainland Southeast Asia east… Read More
Pai could easily be seen as just another town on the tourist track. It used to be a sleepy town in a valley in Mae Hong Song Province until recently, when a couple Thai movies were filmed here and tourism exploded for the wealthy Thai.… Read More
Culture shock can come in many forms. I’ve been struggling with something people keep repeating here: “they eat all the animals.” Deciphering whether this is Western racism or simple reality is complicated. I do know that the Thai sense of edibility is far more encompassing… Read More
“I wish our common birds were ridiculously colorful.” Ryan, Scott, and I were eating a “breakfast” of Pad Thai in Chaing Mai, on plastic seats in a street stall facing the river Pai. Opposite a Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus) and not far from a… Read More
Blogging follows a trend in immediacy. What’s interesting about this, in conjunction with what I intend to initiate with Wingtrip, is the dualism that arises. As fast paced as the natural world can be, careful, exacting observation is absolutely necessary to make satisfactory conclusions. Time… Read More
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