Posted: December 19th, 2009 | Author: Shawn | Filed under: blah blah blah | 8 Comments »
Tomorrow I depart for a few weeks of holiday travel. Just cities in Canada and the USA for a mix of visiting friends and goofing off. Which means today I’m doing laundry and syncing up the trusty mp3 player. Which gives me time to slap together this little look back at stuff I have particularly enjoyed from the previous week in travel blogs and whatnot.
Last week I totally forgot this awesome post on Legal Nomads, so just pretend it isn’t two weeks old. All three of Jodi’s top travel secrets are bang on the money. It’s almost like she knows what she’s doing. Rob, also has 30 great safety tips for the traveler. Oh, and speaking of pro tips, always carry an umbrella because the dragon ladies hella swoon for a man with a sturdy brolly.
This one is only for people who eat and/or drink. So if you do neither of those, then skip ahead. Forks and Jets have been rocking my tummy’s imagination since I found their blog. Check out these pierogi‘s, and if you’re up for a drink, well then Na Zdrowie!
There’s still time to chip in to build a school in Cambodia and get your hands on some fabulous prizes over at Passports With Purpose. It’s just $10 and a super quick and easy payment system. Just don’t pick the damn ukulele.
Over on Vagabonding, this month’s featured BootsnAll forum question is by some ridiculous dork. I don’t know where they find these people. Am I right?
If you’re still thirsty for some weekly recap action, then clicky over to Two Go Round-The-World‘s far more in-depth summary. They have way more energy than I do for this sort of thing. Plus I can’t help but praise their impeccable taste since they said such nice things about me.
Still with me here? Those are all the posts I have the attention span to share, but if you want to see the pointless pics I pulled off my phone this morning, then keep on keeping on below. Otherwise, have a cool weekend. Peas.
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Posted: December 17th, 2009 | Author: Shawn | Filed under: blah blah blah | 11 Comments »
If you’ve spent even one lunch hour at your desk googling up the idea of quitting your job to travel around the world, then you’re familiar with the heap of anonymous internet people who love to tell you to quit. Most of them sound pretty convincing too. Except the ones that use the term, “free spirit” too often, they just sound like twats. They all love to charm you with tales of how they’ve never felt so alive. The saucier ones will even use clever analogies like how we’re all cubicle zombies slaving for the man until we die. Sheep hammering on keyboards because our herd says that is what we should do. Oh you get the idea. Is it really a good idea though? Or maybe they are trying to convince themselves? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: December 16th, 2009 | Author: Shawn | Filed under: blah blah blah | 2 Comments »
Yet again, until I get my next trip underway, I’ll have to dig into the archives and post an old travel photo. This one was taken in Chitwan National Park, Nepal in 1995. Chitwan was the final destination of a three day rafting trip down river I-forget-the-damn-name. In the park we had a real nice little setup right on the river with safari tents and loads of wildlife. We spent our days tracking rhinos and anticipating our certain death by crocodiles.
The treks into the bush used elephants as our mounts – which I was dubious about. I wasn’t doubting the elephant’s skills, don’t get me wrong. They flawlessly navigated muddy jungle in the fog with no path to speak of. I was dubious of the relationship between the elephants and their keepers. I’m no fan of captive animals at the best of times, but these ones were rather skinny and showed signs of rough use. The men who handled the elephants used fireplace poker style metal rods – you know the sort, with the point and hook. The elephants showed serious scarring around where the riding hardware was strapped to them. Also, they just looked miserable – it was in their eyes and the way they hung their heads. Watching these elephants was breaking my heart, but there really wasn’t anything to be done. Had I known this beforehand, I wouldn’t have gone there.
One afternoon, I was down by the water watching the handlers wash the elephants off in the river when I was offered the opportunity to help. Myself and another visitor were given an elephant to take into the river and scrub down. Like I somehow knew how to do that or something. I declined the metal rod, grabbed a huge pumice stone and followed my elephant into the river. I could lie and say “lead my elephant into the river” but who am I kidding. It was amazing to interact with such a great animal – and a huge one for that matter. I scrubbed up the spot she liked behind her ears with the pumice stone. For which she thanked me by dunking me into the river while I was on her back. She would lie in the water with only her trunk sticking out of the water just to mess with me. Elephants apparently have a strange sense of humour.
We stayed out in the river goofing around as long as they let us. On the way back in I figured out that she liked to scratch her head by bumping it into me. Trust me, you don’t miss that hint the first time. So this picture was taken as I was being pushed backwards out of the river while trying to scratch her. My feet were bruised all to hell from being smashed across the river bottom, but it was still worth it. She was lead away to her enclosure, and I went back to my tent. I fell asleep that night hoping like hell that this poor, sad animal had at least enjoyed her afternoon in the river.
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// shawn
Posted: December 12th, 2009 | Author: Shawn | Filed under: blah blah blah | 4 Comments »
Since I don’t have any of my own raucous travel tales to share with you this week, I figured I would talk a bit about other people’s tales. While I sit around the house in my pajamas waiting to start my next trip, these are the folks who kept me motivated and entertained this week. As Moses so famously said, “If thou aren’t currently traveling, then thou shouldst read and savour the tales of homies that are currently living la vida loca.”
My heart soared when Rob pointed out that you can live in Bali for $500 a month. I’m not much of a beach lounger, but I bet I could keep myself pretty happy there. Hell, I have $500 and his example budget meal sounds great! – “You can easily get by on $5 a day or less. For breakfast I just had a fried egg on some veg fried rice with side of cucumber and tomato along with a mixed fruit shake for ~$1.80US.”
This week I built a wee tiny piece of a school in Cambodia. Maybe like a pencil sharpener and some bricks. Passports With Purpose have a great fundraiser going on right now to get this school built and outfitted. Get over there if you haven’t already and check it out. Did I mention there is a huge list of sweet prizes for donators? Which do you like better, doing the right thing or prizes? Yea, it’s a tie for me too.
Some other gems are Lillie‘s Ko Phi Phi experience (her whole blog is great too, it’s like hearing travel stories from a friend over coffee!), and the beautiful Cuban car photos that T-roy has up on GoBackpacking. And finally, this weeks heart warmer was Sherry’s Travel Back in Time, which is a really beautiful story.
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// shawn
Posted: December 7th, 2009 | Author: Shawn | Filed under: blah blah blah | 3 Comments »
I moved to Montreal one year ago, and thought I would share my observations. I’m originally from British Columbia, but directly prior to Montreal I was living in San Francisco. Montreal was a perfect destination for my move as I was keen to return to Canada, but also wanted to try somewhere new. I quickly found that Quebec has some interesting differences from the rest of Canada. I considered writing a thought provoking essay on the cultural nuances of the various regions of Canada. However, I instead figured I should show some respect to the fifth graders of the world. So I made a simple like/dislike list.
Some of these would be true in general for most folks, and others are very specific to my preferences. Here is just one man’s opinion of living in Montreal for one year.
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Posted: December 3rd, 2009 | Author: Shawn | Filed under: blah blah blah | 5 Comments »
More than once in my life I have woken up, had a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, then randomly decided that I need to get rid of everything I own and leave the country. This post isn’t about the psychological issues that cause me to compulsively jettison all my cargo. Instead it’s my abridged, unsorted list of tips for effectively purging yourself of stuff. I got to thinking about possessions and how much we want them from a great post over on Chapter 37. So I next got to thinking about the business end of having stuff, and had started to write up a huge guide on getting rid of it. It kept putting me to sleep though as apparently how to throw something away just isn’t that interesting of a topic. I’m going to approach this brief list from the example of purging your stuff in preparation for a long backpacking trip.
Here are a few tips that help me to easily go through my belongings and get rid of them. Maybe some of them will be helpful for you.
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