Departing Thailand and entering Cambodia was like stepping back 50 years in time. It’s a fascinating country full of charms but cloaked with melancholy. Among the smiling children, waving grannies, chatty vendors, meditating monks, you can’t help but feel a sadness. Cambodia lost 34% of its population to the Khmer Rouge genocide and with a…
Picture your most elegant image of Japan–-a woman in a floral kimono walking under the shade of her paper umbrella or a zen garden perfectly manicured in a courtyard of red maples–-this is Kyoto. Even in a country that was tragically razed in World War II, this former capital remained pristine. Having all their cultural…
We heard such mixed reviews on Shanghai that we almost didn’t come here. “It’s just another big city” some people scoffed while others raved, “It’s one of the most exciting cities of the 21st-century,” …so with that we had to see for ourselves. With more than 4,000 skyscrapers and plans for over 1,000 more in…
Stilt houses teeter over the winding river, boats are propelled by bamboo poles, stepping stones act as bridges, and the everyone is in a good mood in Fenghuang, China. Boasting a twelve-hundred-year old history with great Chinese leaders and artists claiming it as their home, Fenghuang is firmly on the Chinese tourist track (not the…
It’s hard to imagine amidst the crumbling coral walls and dirt streets that the mile-long Ilha de Mozambique was the capital of a Portuguese East Africa and their gateway to global trade. As a UNESCO world heritage site, we expected this little island off central Mozambique to be teeming with tourists but due its disrepair…
Spanning a distance of 850km, Route 62 is said to be the longest wine route in the world, stretching from Cape Town, Constantia, to Port Elizabeth. Seeing that we were already heading that direction to get to the Garden Route, we decided that visiting the wineries along the way was a necessary evil (touch of…
You don’t hear to too much about Uruguay, until you hit Buenos Aires. The town of Colonia del Sacramento is a mere hour boat ride from the Argentine capital and is a key player in its colonial history. Set up by the Portuguese in 1680 as port to smuggle in riches to BA, Colonia was…
In our three-week journey down the coast of Brazil we encountered some of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen, but none as chic as Trancoso, Bahia. Accessed by a semi-paved road an hour from the nearest city of Porto Seguro, we bumped along assuming this was going to be a ten-shack town but instead…
France is just ridiculously charming. The vine-covered houses, stone walls, chipping paint, corner bakeries, family chateaus, all of this unabashed cuteness can leave you in a blur–but with a good guide, all the delicious details start to come into focus. Throughout the five-day William Ethan Experiential Art tour (Part I here), Ethan took us to…