The Land of the Long White Cloud, or Aotearoa, is the name the indigenous Maori people gave to New Zealand when they landed there, sometime between 1200 and 1300 AD, about 500 years before Captain Cook “discovered” the islands. New Zealand has so much to offer – on the North Island, accompanied by my sister, … Continue reading On the North Island of New Zealand, the land of the long, white cloud →

We were fortunate enough to visit several of Australia’s great cities in our six weeks in the country, including Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. Sydney is the most famous of the three, with its iconic opera house and bay bridge, Melbourne is known for a great coffee culture and its livability, being ranked as the world’s … Continue reading A Tale of Three Cities: Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide →

John and I enjoy coffee but we are not coffee snobs. We rarely go to coffee shops and when we lived at home, back before we sold our house and most of our worldly goods, we bought good coffee beans, ground them daily, and made a pot of regular ol’ brewed coffee. When we were … Continue reading Drinking Coffee in Australia →

Australia’s Great Ocean Road goes south from Melbourne, starting at Torquay (pronounced Tor-key) and goes on for 243 kilometers/150 miles, ending somewhere around Port Fairy or Portland, depending on who you ask. Many people drive it in just a day or two or, worse yet, get on a tourist bus to see a few sights, … Continue reading Australia’s Great Ocean Road →

  Our Christmas was spent in the tropical north of Australia, Daintree National Park, to be specific. For John and me, having lived in the deep south of the United States all of our lives, warm Christmases are not that unusual, so a Christmas spent in shorts is no big deal. Daintree, however, is different … Continue reading I’m dreaming of a tropical Christmas →

Singapore was by far the most westernized of the places we visited in Southeast Asia and I will say that we were happy to be in a place where the water is safe to drink, the sidewalks are wide and intact, and cars actually stop at crosswalks. I visited Singapore 16 years ago when I … Continue reading Easing out of Southeast Asia in Singapore →

Following six months of travel through Europe earlier this year, we flew to Bangkok, our first destination in Southeast Asia. This was in early October. The heat, strong smells, and gritty, noisy chaos of the city was a shock to the system at first. Over time, we learned that the crowds, pavement kitchens, temples, and … Continue reading Coming full circle in Bangkok →

My daughter, Mary, arrived on December 6 to spend time with us in Chiang Mai, Bangkok, and Singapore, before returning to the U.S. just before Christmas. We’re very close and I hadn’t seen her since we left home on April 2 so, of course, there was lots of excitement around her visit. We had made … Continue reading Fun times in Chiang Mai →

We flew from Siem Reap to Bangkok and immediately grabbed a taxi for the one hour drive to Ayutthaya, followed by Sukhothai. This circuit of the temples exposed us to temples old and new, plus lots of local culture and history. The ethereally beautiful tree Buddha in Wat Maha That, Ayutthaya Ayutthaya Long before the … Continue reading Touring the Temple Towns, Part II: Ayutthaya and Sukhothai →