Vagabonding in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, without plan or destination.

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…

The regular bus to Pakse in southern Laos would have taken 18 hours, and the VIP bus runs at night only, so I figured I might as well fly. In Pakse I connected to a songthaew (a brightly colored flatbed truck with benches and a roof) to Chamnpasak, which promptly left after waiting for an…

Wat Si Saket is Vientiane’s oldest temple. Arcades along the outer walls of the compound have hundreds of sitting buddha statues, and thousands of little ones in niches in the wall. The walls of the central wat with the buddha shrine are covered with murals, but they are crumbling and chipping, and in some places…

Vientiane, Laos’ capital, runs along the Mekong river. The height of the river varies, and large sections of Vientiane’s riverfront get flooded seasonally. A dam, freshly reinforced with sandbags, protects the city; children play soccer at the shore. The Mekong also divides Laos from Thailand. Late in the afternoon, I watched the sun set over…

The minibus took six hours to Vang Vieng, a small town at the foot of the northern mountains. The bus was packed but I snagged the front seat. We went over two passes at 1000 and 1400 meters with views above the clouds. The mountain scenery is beautiful – craggy karst peaks all around us,…

Early in the morning, the monks from the temple went through the village chantin g and collecting alms. Returned to Luang Prabang by boat, minibus, and songthaew. The minibus managed to run out of gas 250m before the gas station. This time I didn’t bother to reserve a room in Luang Prabang, I just went…

In the morning I was woken by roosters. I was planning to stay only one night in Muang Ngoi, but I decided to enjoy the quiet village life one more day before returning to the cities. Late in thge morning I went with ba few others up the river to Sopjam, a native village that…

It takes three hours by minibus to the village of Nong Khiaw northeast of Luang Prabang, and another hour in one of the narrow, long Laotian boats up the Nam Ou river, to reach Muang Ngoi. The river is winding its way through densely forested mountains with steep rock faces. Muang Ngoi is a small…

Luang Prabang’s small old town has a large number of Buddhist temples, all of which are active with many orange-robed monks about. Most are small, but Wat Xieng Thong is an impressive large complex with not only the usual large hall that houses the Buddha shrine, but also a smaller hall with a huge golden…

I have visited almost all countries in southeast Asia, but not Lao, until now. Luang Prabang is Lao’s cultural center. As much as I liked Australia, it’s good to be back in Asia, away from the perfectly organized affluence and “slippery when wet” signs. Luang Prabang is rather touristy, I saw almost as many Western…

Last day in Sydney, mopping up a few sights before my flight leaves in the evening. I picked a ferryboat at random and went out to the western suburbs, passing under the Harbour Bridge. The area becomes scenic very quickly, small houses perched on the hills around the western bay with numerous little coves and…