Marseille
My favorite city in France. Colorful, cosmopolitan, beautiful; 2600 years old and right on the Mediterranean sea. I used to live here for a few years and every year I return for a week. Read the rest
Home page
Vagabonding in Asia and elsewhere without plan or itinerary
Latest posts
Monasteries
In the mountains north and east of Chişinău are four exceedingly scenic monasteries: Capriăna, Condrița (who puts a diacritic on t ?), Curchi, and Orheiul Vechi. My favorite is the last one, it sits on the edge of a cliff and has a cave underneath that opens to the wall of the cliff. The weekend before Orthodox Easter is also a holiday, and people come and pray in large numbers during mass. Large…
Moldova
I am in Chișinău, the capital of Moldova. This country is sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine. It was one of tge Soviet republics, then named Moldavia, and today is a mix of a historical downtown, Soviet-style suburbs, and a few modern buildings. It s small, hilly, very pleasant and relaxed, and not choked with traffic. It has numerous beautiful parks, a university, and feels very young. It s…
Chennai
Back to the mainland, after two hours of flight across the Bay of Bengal. Back to the chaos and noise of Chennai, the city with too many cars and too few attractions. But I was pleasantly surprised by the neighborhood of Alwarpet with its many trees and quiet side roads. Still an Indian city but almost stylish, in a country that favors functionality over design and style. But I still got to…
Boats of Andaman
The islands are connected with sleek private ferries and with government ferries that look more like factory ships with a passenger cabin below deck, at 1/10 the cost. Port Blair s old harbor is mostly silted up so they moved all ferries to a new one further away. It appears that they forgot a few ships in the old harbor though, some dating back to the Japanese occupation in WWII, and now pitiful…
Quiet Havelock
The island is great for long hikes. The main beaches are busy, but walk a couple hundred meters in any direction and you have the beach all to yourself. There are stalls selling things to visitors. In Europe that would mean bright plastic beach toys, ice cream, and other junk. Here it s clothes, coconuts, and ornaments made from sea shells. Even cold water or maybe a soda are hard to find no…
I work well under pressure
More diving! It s a long dive boat trip to South Andama Island, to a reef with big fish and a forest of soft white branching corals. There is also a Japanese ship sunk here for the enjoyment of divers. Visibility wasn t great though at 25m. Read the rest
Germany, nice city!
Back in civilization, defined as having usable network access. So I ll post some pictures from the past few days on Neil Island, which is small and beautiful and cut off from the world. Geographical knowledge is not their strong point but everyone is happy and helpful. Some new critters I saw when diving, and I have walked almost every road on the island. I like how they don t have normal service…
Christmas
What did you do on Christmas? I went scuba diving near Neil Island. Read the rest
Tropical Christmas
After a couple of long ferry rides I am now on Neil Island, one of the smallest inhabited islands of the archipelago. Part of the point of this trip was escaping the shopping season, and so far it had worked well. But look what the Sea Shell resort, where I am staying for a few days, has cooked up Foiled again! Very sweet though, the present is a chocolate Christmas cake. There is a Christmas…