Myanmar, like its neighbor China to the north, monitors and censors which sites that can be accessed from within the country. For us, it did come as a bit of surprise to learn that seatsofourpants.com is on the list of banned sites. Now, most internet joints do have work-arounds that bypass the censorship, but these [...]
Street food! Have we proclaimed our love for South-East Asian street cuisine enough on this site? I think not! The latest installment of our ongoing round-the-world street food sampling circus took us to Yangon’s Chinatown, where smoking barbeque stalls serve up scrumptious skewers with any and every protein and carb you can think of (and [...]
Call me a romantic, but I like pretty things. I especially like it when those things have meaning that’s beyond my comprehension. Take Myanmar’s script as an example. I’ve been running around like a crazy woman for two days now taking pictures of Yangon signs. What is probably banal in meaning, such as Johnny’s Paint [...]
It doesn’t happen often and we almost always suffer afterward, but sometimes it seems like a great idea to get rip roaring drunk with fellow travelers. Last night was one of those nights. We had just finished our walking tour of Yangon and would have used the late afternoon for writing blog posts. We hadn’t [...]
We touched down yesterday in Myanmar, which is just the third country on this trip, after India and Nepal, that neither of us have been to. Though there’s a certain comfort in returning to places you’ve been to before, seeing something for the first time is the really exciting, slightly scary part about travel that [...]
“We don’t come here for the ruins” is an oft-quoted adage of the seedier Thailand tourists. Well, we don’t come here so much for the ruins either, picturesque as they are. We came here for the food, because for us Ayutthaya is an overlooked Thai culinary gem. Between the two of us, [...]
If I had one suggestion to give someone going to Bangkok it would be this: don’t eat in their restaurants. Sure, they have great selection there. Their prices are also enticing but believe me, the real eating experience is had right on the street. You will pay a fraction of the price and it’s the [...]
Bangkok, just like Stockholm, is a city best viewed from the deck of a boat. The Chao Praya river makes a great ‘S’ as it snakes through its center, connecting a lot of the city’s main features. It is a scandal that it took me eight visits to figure this out, but I now realize [...]
Today, we handed in our visa applications to the Myanmar embassy here in Bangkok. There is a lot of misinformation out there about how this works, so we’re posting a quick how-to here. What to bring: you’ll need two passport photos, a copy of your passport’s main page, your passport and 810 Thai Bhat. [...]
This is a huge marketplace in Bangkok. The only thing they sell here are lottery tickets of all kinds. It’s a boring place, which makes for boring pictures and an incredibly boring blog post. Next!
Feeling that we have stomachs of steel, we’ve been making our way around the street vendors in Bangkok – trying a little bit of everything. That is, except for this thing. Dining is mostly a visual experience and this 10” pile of Evil, covered in stringy bits of Nasty just didn’t pass the test. Does [...]
Bacon slipped me last week’s allowance (a two rupee note) last night. If the door happened to open past our bedtime, I should ignore it. Martin’s a heavy sleeper so Bacon knew he had nothing to worry about on that front. I told him the payoff wasn’t necessary. He’s welcome to do what he wants. [...]
Diaper Pants! They’re alive and well in SE Asia, too. I know. I know. I’m obsessed with this subject, but I can’t help it. Why on earth would you want to wear something that looks like this? Why? Why? Why?
Figuring we’d gained a tolerance for spicy food in India and Nepal, we ordered a spicy pork dish yesterday. Three bites into the dish and my face looked like this. Not only are the spice levels different, we’re eating in1000% humidity. My dermatologist once called me a “nose sweater.” It’s random, but true. I sweat [...]
Pictured above is an image of Thailand’s Panda Channel – a TV channel exclusively dedicated to broadcasting the lives of a couple of confined Pandas. I kid you not – it’s Pandas 24/7 365 days per year. Sleeping pandas, playing pandas, eating pandas and I guess that’s pretty much all that pandas do. We [...]
You know the saying, “to fly by the seat of your pants?” Well, that's been our philosophy for most of our adult lives – before and after meeting, falling in love and marrying. We're now taking that idea on an extended round-the-world trip. Follow us as we share the good, the bad and the downright nasty of life on the road.
