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Took a taxi to Ollantaytambo. The taxi costs 20 times as much as local buses but saves hours of time in diesel-filled sardine cans, so we’ll file this under rich Europeans supporting the local economy. Ollantaytambo has its own Inca ruins hanging impossibly from the hillsides that box in the town. We’ll explore those tomorrow.…

We are in the Inca Sacred Valley, and there are Inca ruins all over the place. After visiting the main ones near Cusco yesterday, we took a local business to Pisaq, hired a taxi, and went up the hills to follow the trail there. The trail hugs the edge of the hill, and the views…

Cusco in Peru’s sacred valley was the center of the Inca kingdom. They fought against Pizarro here, and lost. Today Cusco shows almost no trace of its Inca heritage, apart from some foundations here and some walls there. The city was rebuilt by the Spaniards, often by tearing down Inca monuments to build their own…

Perurail runs a luxury train from Puno to Cusco in the holy valley of the Inkas. It feels like a 1920s Orient Express: everything is paneled with dark wood, there are comfortable big chairs, tablecloths, brass lamps, and vases with real roses. Got an excellent three-course lunch and afternoon tea. The next car was a…

This will be the last country in South America before this blog returns to its mission, promise. We spent a little time in Copacabana’s markets, marveling at cubic-meter sized bags of popcorn, and trying Inca Kola, à pale yellow soda that tastes like children’s bubble gum balls. Getting from Copacabana in Bolivia to Puno in…

There’s just a few scheduled boats to and from Isla del Sol and they are not convenient. So we hired our private boat to take us to the north of the island, and from there to the ruins of Chincana, which is said to be the birthplace of the Inkas. Chincana is a maze of…

Titicaca is said to be the highest navigable lake in the world, at 3800 meters. Its largest island is Isla del Sol, reachable by a very very slow boat. There is no way to go from the harbor but up a very long stairway. At the top is another very long stairway. Followed by another.…

La Paz, Bolivia’s seat of government, stretches from an altitude of 3200 to 4000 meters. The center follows a narrow valley, with avenue Prado in the middle. The various neighborhoods climb up steeply on both sides, without much regard for the terrain. Downtown isn’t much to write home about, it’s incredibly congested and mostly built…

Potosi is the world’s highest city at 4070 meters, in the Bolivian Andes. Having visited places in Tibet at up to 5400 meters without difficulty, I underestimated the altitude a little – you need to breathe a lot faster, heartbeat accelerates, and you feel an urge to do everything very slowly. The city spreads out…

Sucre continues to enchant. No amount of white paint was spared to turn this city 2800 meters up in the Andes into a shining colonial architecture monument. UNESCO thinks so too. The Museo de la Recoleta, an old convent built in 1600 on a hill, offers a great view over the city and the surrounding…

What a surprise. Sucre is everything Santa Cruz de la Sierra isn’t. It’s elegant, spotless, affluent, and full of interesting colonial architecture. It’s a joy to explore after seedy Santa Cruz. Our hotel is spacious, has vaulted ceilings and attentive staff, and definitely doesn’t smell of mothballs. And the food in Sucre is excellent as…

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It’s not easy to go north from Santiago. Our plane made a stop in Antofagasta, and a longer one in Iquique. That’s a town mostly known for its 142-hectare duty free shop. The airport boasts five gates and a very desolate location (I took the picture just outside the departure door). As apparently always in…

Santiago is the capital of Chile. One third of population lives here. It has a similar vibe as the other two capitals we have visited – it feels European, but with less polish and more grit. Of the three, Santiago has the least touristic interest. Downtown is centered on Plaza de Armas, which looks great…

The hillsides are extremely steep in Valparaiso, so the houses seem to cling to the hillsides rather than being built on a level foundation. Some are brightly colored, others are rusty corrugated metal. A maze of twisty little stairways connects them all. Just two days ago they had an earthquake here, it’s a miracle that…

Other side of the continent: Valparaiso is a coastal town not far from Santiago, with an old town perched on a very steep hill, criss-crossed by ancient steep stairways and cobblestoned streets that are often so steep that the sidewalks are stairs too. It’s the ultimate wheelchair-unfriendly place. It’s an UNESCO world heritage site. On…

Montevideo is Uruguay’s only large city. It’s about three hours from Colonia del Sacramento by bus. The city lacks Buenos Aires’ monster streets but feels nicer – at least downtown, we didn’t have time for the suburbs. We mostly explored the old town with its grid of quiet and partially pedestrianized streets. The old town…

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Colonia is a very quiet little town with simple old whitewashed houses on cobblestoned streets, shaded by large old trees. Very pleasant, especially after the chaos and smog of downtown Buenos Aires. Colonial sleepiness ends when the ferries from Buenos Aires arrive, spilling crowds armed with cellphone cameras into this little town. We decided to…

<p>As boring as the downtown of Buenos Aires is, as interesting are the suburbs. Palermo is another shady and quiet neighborhood with restaurants, cobblestoned streets, and the huge old trees that give Buenos Aires its charm. La Boca has an artist community with associated tourist hell that reminded me of Copenhagen. </p><p>In the evening we…

In 2009, I wrote this blog when traveling in Asia. After two years in Marseille I am on the road again. From a strictly geographical point of view, Buenos Aires is not in Asia, but bear with me, I’ll be in Asia soon… Anyway, Buenos Aires is surprisingly European. Downtown, ugly concrete buildings crowd out…

On the 6th of December, I got up at three in the morning and went to the international airport. Christmas is coming up and I want to be home. So this blog is going into hibernation again. As before, I am going to edit my notes, organize my thousands of pictures, and post a polished…

Wat Saket, the Golden Mount, is a steep and tall artificial hill north of the old town, with whitewashed staircases all the way up and a golden Chedi on top. A procession of monks in bright orange robes were marching up, beating a gong and chatting for a while, and then back down. The views…

This is my fifth visit to Bangkok and I have done all the usual sights before, most several times (see here and here). So I decided to visit the modern parts of Bangkok, like Silom and Sukhumvit where few tourists go, to see how the city works. It’s quite modern and clean, lots of malls,…

A travel day in a long parade of buses. First a minibus to the Old Market bus stop in Siem Reap, then another minibus around the bloock to the VIP bus stop, then a big bus towards Poipet at the Thai border. Its brakes failed, and after rummaging around under the bus with very large…

I rented a tuk-tuk for the day and went out to Angkor, the old Khmer temples. I focused on temples that I had missed on my previous visit in 2006. The circular temple in the northeast in the middle of a pool, surrounded by four smaller pools, was dry in 2006 but now the pools…

Yesterday, when swimming, I could see Cambodia on the other side of the Mekong, so I decided to swing by Angkor on my way to Bangkok. A boat brought me to Ban Nakasang, and to a 14-hour bus to Siem Reap in Cambodia. The bus passed within 1km of Vietnam, and within 70km of Phnom…

Rented one of those impractical bicycles and rode south to Don Khon island, across the French bridge. They built the bridge for the only railway ever operating in Laos; the remains of one engine are still rusting away at the bridge. Rode a narrow footpath through a wat and bamboo, palm, and banyan forests to…

My guesthouse runs a ferry down the Mekong river. It takes 90 minutes to reach Don Det, another inhabited island of Si Phan Don. many fishermen are squatting on the tails of their little boats, casting their nets. Despite its width, the river flows quite quickly. The village of Don Det is supremely laid back,…

A tuk tuk brought me back to the ferry landing in the morning, and I crossed to the other side of the Mekong in a long-tail boat. Long-tail boats are long narrow wooden boats with a sunroof, and an exposed car motor that drives a propeller at the end of a long drive shaft, which…