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

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…

Took a ferry to Manly, a suburb that is part of Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Corso, the main street, is short and connects the bay ferry terminal on one side of town with the ocean on the other side. They have a former army reserve with a quarantine station at the North Head, which is opposite…

Checked out The Rock. It used to be a dangerous part of town a hundred years ago but its old brick warehouses got remodeled into expensive restaurants, cafes, and galleries. Some of its alleys are more modern redevelopments that pay less attention to the old style, but it’s still a very nice neighborhood in a…

Yesterday was mountains, today is beaches. Sydney has countless beaches. Started at Bronte Beach, one of Sydney’s Eastern Beaches facing the ocean, and walked to Bondi Beach, Sydney’s most famous beach. There is path that connects them all, and in November there is an event called Sculpture By The Sea where perhaps a hundred sculptures…

Blue Mountain National Park begins 60km west of Sydney. It’s very accessible: a six-lane highway, double train tracks, and lots of buses connect Sydney to the park. It can get quite busy. All the viewpoints and trails in the park are tamed – perfect roads lead there, there is parking, fences, guardrails, and stone steps.…

Ok, promise, Sydney will be the last distraction in this blog before the action returns to Asia. I arrived in the early afternoon and had time for a walk around Sydney Harbor. Sydney Opera’s roof is every bit as extravagant as it looks on the postcards. It’s different from every angle. The waterfront between the…

Took a tour to Mt. Field because there is no other good way of getting there. The driver proudly pointed out attractions on the way there: a zinc smelter, a paper mill, and most importantly, a Cadbury chocolate factory. The first stop in the Mt. Field National Park was Russell Falls, a large waterfall at…

Did Hobart’s museum circuit during the short time window when things open here. The Maritime Museum has all sorts of models and items used during Australia’s colonization; the Penitentiary Chapel is a church on the upper floor and solitary confinement cells – some only a little larger than coffins – for British convicts, and the…

The plane from Melbourne to Hobart on the island of Tasmania takes a little over an hour. I am staying at Battery Point Manor in a huge room with a view of the ocean. It’s in a quiet neighborhood where people frame their driveways with flower beds, right above Salamanca Square at Princes Wharf, a…

After a final look at the Twelve Apostels in the morning, we went to Otway, Australia's westernmost rain forest. They have a nature trail through the forest, dense with underbrush, huge ferns, tall trees covered in moss, and fire hoses. It’s so dense that it would be impossible to move away from the path. Birds…

The Great Ocean Road is Victoria’s main attraction. The coastline is very rugged and consists of steep limestone cliffs, washed out by the ocean so that a number of tiny islands and pillars have remained standing out in the ocean. The deep blue ocean and sky, the yellow limestone cliffs, the white surf, and the…