Discovering Sustainability Worldwide
From the monthly archives:
One of the amazing traditions in Luang Prabang, Laos is the early morning procession of the monks to collect alms, which they will later eat for breakfast. We managed to get up around 6 am three of the mornings we were there to witness the procession. The pictures below are some of our favorites.
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In Vang Vieng, Laos, Keith and I had the happy coincidence of running into Gillian and Jason from one-giant-step.com. We spent the next few days together exploring caves, kayaking down the Nam Song River and just hanging out enjoying the sunsets behind the karsts. Perhaps our greatest adventure was learning how to ride a scooter and going out on our own to explore some of the caves and waterholes off the beaten tourist path.
Having never really ridden on a scooter before, Keith and I jumped at the chance to learn from people with experience. While Jason gave Keith a lesson on how to drive the bike, I suited up in my jeans, facemask and bubblegum pink helmet. Not exactly the most stylish outfit, but I enjoy keeping the skin on my body intact and my lungs dust-free.
It didn’t take long for Keith to get the hang of the bike and soon the four of us were off on the quiet dirt roads that branch out to the west of town. The roads were bumpy and dusty, but with almost no other traffic. And while the fact that no one drives faster than 30 or 40 kilometers per hour can be incredibly frustrating on long, hot bus rides, the slow speeds make riding a scooter an easy experience even when we had to share the road.
The most amazing part of learning to ride a scooter is the new found freedom we have to just jump on a bike and take off, without having to find public transportation (which is often quite limited) or join a tour group (which are often too big or too expensive). For the first time in five months on the road, we were completely on our own schedule, able to spend as much or as little time as we wanted at the different sites around town. Having this freedom will transform how we travel through the rural parts of northern Laos and Thailand. Those sites that once seemed too obscure or difficult to get to are now easily within our reach.
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Back in August we had a post about what lists we should keep along the way. Two of these lists, books and beer (beer was suggested in the comments of that post by my brother-in-law Jeff), have been the most active in the first 6 months on the road. I wanted to write about this now because throughout Vietnam there were many local brews, and these numerous lagers have recently caused my beer list to exceed my book list in length. As of today I have read 28 books, which is pretty much on track with my 1 book a week goal. However my beer list is at a robust 31. And while I do not have a beer goal for this year, I am pretty astounded at the variety of beers I have sampled despite spending the first 2.5 months in Muslim countries.
Below is a cool Amazon widget that displays my 10 favorite books I have read so far. They are a mix of fiction and non-fiction, with even a couple of business books thrown in for good measure.
And here is a picture album of some of the beers I have had along the way. The asterisk captions are my 1-5 star rating of the beer pictured, one (*) being reminiscent of a warm can of Natural Light and five (*****) being a perfectly poured Belgian ale. As you can see, while I have had a good representative sampling, the majority of the beer in the Middle East and Southeast Asia leaves something to be desired. Enjoy the pictures and if you disagree with my rankings lets hear it in the comments below. Here is to better beer in the next 6 months!
*If you click on any of the links above and purchase something from Amazon, we will get a tiny amount of money – hopefully enough to buy another paperback book from Amazon at the end of the year. I’m just telling you this because the FTC thinks you aren’t smart enough to figure this out for yourself.{ 9 comments }
