Chamonix, France, It isn’t every day that a friend offers to sell you a Mercedes for next to nothing. In our case, it was a great looking beige 1992 Mercedes diesel–just the car to take us on a road trip through France and Spain. Our problems began well before we embarked on the trip. In France you need a control technique sticker (the equivalent of the car inspection in the US, or MOT in the UK), a Carte Grise (registration), and insurance.…
Landed in Cairo about an hour ago. Before you start to wonder if I’ve lost my mind, I did check out all the various travel warnings before booking the flight and it seems with a little common sense travel in Egypt should be fairly safe now. Or at least I hope.
I have a break from French class this week, so I started looking at flights from Geneva, and eventually settled on Egypt.…
I left the UK yesterday and am now in Amsterdam hanging out on the free wifi in the hostel lobby, waiting for check-in time (another hour or so to go).
Originally I was planning on flying to Amsterdam on one of Europe’s various discount airlines, but in the end I decided to take the ferry across the North Sea. The ferry to Amsterdam leaves from Newcastle, so it ended up being very convenient.…
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On Thursday (September, 16th) my dad and I piled into an minibus and headed out of Ulaanbaator (UB). Outside of UB there are few paved roads, and most people get around on Land Cruisers, old Russian Jeeps, minibuses, motorcycles, or horses.
After several hours of driving (still on mostly paved roads) we reached Oguun Hid (Old Man Monastery). Present day Oguun Hid is mainly in ruins, a legacy of both the Manchus and the Soviets, although efforts have been made since Mongolian independence in 1990 to build new monasteries and continue the Buddhist traditions of the area.…
After awhile all of the tour companies’ signs start to blend together, but these folks really found a way stand out from the crowd! I’ll let you know how much it costs to fire an RPG.
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I just got back from terrific day in the Mongolian countryside. My dad’s colleague Munkhbaatar took us on a day trip to visit his family. Munkhbaatar’s family are nomads, who live a life that is a mixture of old and new. Like most nomads, they live in a ger (a Mongolian tent) and spend their days tending to their livestock. Unlike nomads of decades past their ger is equipped with satellite television, and when it comes time to move to a new site, they load their possessions into a truck.…
I arrived in the capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbaator (UB), about a day and a half ago– the 12 hour time difference is messing with my sense of time– and I am just starting to get a feel for the city.
Overall, the city feels stuck sometime in the 1970s– what else could possibly explain the sheer number of discos? In addition to discos, pubs seem to be the main form of entertainment for locals.…
After six weeks of solo backpacking across India and endless rides on buses crammed beyond belief with people, livestock, and all manner of the unexpected, I thought I would never again venture more than ten feet (3 meters, to my Euro friends) from my couch.
Yet here I am, leaving in less than a week for Mongolia, Europe (a large part of Western and Eastern Europe, specifics to be determined later), Thailand, Vietnam, and New Zealand, where I will ultimately be living.…
