Austin peeps should not be complaining about all of the new toll roads. France has a toll road every 10 miles. We paid $ 60 to drive through the highest mountain in Europe via the Mont Blanc Tunnel which goes thru the Alps connecting France to Italy. [Ed. Douglas’s ramblings, ‘time is the only real…
View MoreIf France is the gastronomical capital of the world, then Lyon is the gastronomical capital of France. It is also the third largest city in France. It is known as ground zero of French Nouvelle cuisine invented in the 60’s by Paul Bocuse- one of the greatest chefs in the world. Nouvelle cuisine was the…
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The year 1978 brought the Talking Heads’ album “More Songs About Buildings and Food.” This blog post is about more stories of city-harbors, beaches, art and food. St. Tropez is part of the French Riviera and has been immortalized in film and books– Brigitte Bardot, beach clubs, seafood, yachts and money (although of late, we…
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Sometimes you travel to a place because you read something about it, and sometimes you travel to a place because someone you met told you about it, and sometimes you travel to a place because you are damn lost. Alas, being ‘damned lost’ is getting harder and harder these days with road signs, tourist information…
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From watching cooking shows on the television, to reading travel articles in the newspaper, to walking into the local Asian or Mexican bakery or grocery, there is always something to learn. Food is central to all cultures, it brings families together, brings friends and lovers together– food is a medium of expression best shared with…
View MoreSo you may remember from a previous post, Lisa and I had signed up for a “pre-canned” tour of the temples close to town, but we adjusted this with short notice and instead rented a driver and a car for $35USD and a Tour Guide for $30USD through the hotel and started our day at…
View MoreAs they say, only “mad dogs and English men” go out in the hot noon day sun. Well, Lisa and I were feeling a bit English and went to this temple in the peak of the heat. On the bad side, its very hot, but on the good side many of the tourist and especially…
View MoreBanteay Srei temple is the exquisite “Women’s Citadel” about 32kms from Siem Reap. It was one of Cambodia’s last major Khmer temples to be found “again.” It is a small temple, but has some of the finest stone carvings of any of the temples. It has been partially restored, so there are some original carvings…
View MoreI arrived at the airport, went through immigration, and was on my way in the hotel van by 2pm. The hotel was the Tara Angkor that is out of downtown, but on the way to all of the temples. Lisa did an outstanding job choosing this place and arranging to have pick-up. It sure makes…
View MoreHere is a snap of our hotel. If eating at the hotel, you could dine inside or in this courtyard. In the background is the raised pool. Nice elephant, eh? While we were at Tara Angkor, three different tour groups rolled through the hotel, a French one, a Russian one and a USA one. I…
View MoreAs the Beatles song goes, “grabbed my, my hat, made the bus in seconds flat…” I like the HK airport, besides having a couple of Popeye’s Chicken restaurants and three or so tiffany’s, its easy to get around. To get to Siem Reap, I ended u p going through Bangkok with the first leg being…
View MoreThere are a lot of problems with blogging. A lot of folks don’t really know how much work it takes. Whilst in Australia and visiting new Zealand, I didn’t blog, but instead just posted a subset of photos on facebook and wrote captions. It seemed like a fair number of my friends liked this. But…
View MoreSo here I am sitting in the British Airways ‘special’ lounge in the SFO airport. “How did I get here?” Well, I was able to use miles to boost myself a free business class to Hong Kong and an economy back (due to availability ). Having abused my citi AA mileage credit card for the…
View MoreMrs Macquaries Chair is a famous attraction on Sydney Harbor. The story is that the wife of the first Governor was so homesick for England that she would sit on the edge of a peninsula and watch the ships. Her husband then had men carve a chair for her out of the sandstone there. Alas,…
View MoreLisa’s Sister had arrived on Friday morning from the states and Lisa and I had been keeping her busy for the next two days. She had had one request before heading over in that she wanted to do a walk about. Lisa eventually explained to her before her arrival that a walk about was a…
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