Uzbekistan: It’s Not Just Plov
Food is a big reason why we travel. It’s certainly not the only reason to suffer through an international flight, and we have enjoyed plenty of places that didn’t have a distinct or memorable cuisine, but when the food is good, the day is always made just that much better. […]
Ka-ra-kal-pak-stan
This was a real tongue twister. Ka-ra-kal-pak-stan. Ka-ra-kal-pak-stan. Now say it faster. Ka-ra-pa-kal… Damn. After spending nearly a month in the ancient Silk Road cities, the Fergana Valley, and the Nuratau Mountains, we thought we were finally getting a grasp on Uzbekistan’s diversity and complexity. We were starting to understand […]
Night Trains
Years ago, when we were staying on an island in Cambodia in a little bungalow on the beach, Victor walked off the bed platform in the middle of the night and fell down a few feet. He wasn’t fully awake and somehow didn’t hurt himself. When his mom heard this […]
Next on the Bucket List: Oktoberfest in Munich
I was chatting with my cousin, who lives in Frankfurt, Germany, and telling her all about our 36-hour trip to Munich just to attend the opening of Oktoberfest. “Have you ever been?” I asked her. “Oh no!” she exclaimed. “We are not big drinkers at all!” “Neither are we!” I […]
People Live Here. Nuratau Mountains.
We were outside the Jizzakh train station, patiently waiting on our Yandex Go taxi driver, when another taxi pulled up. The driver, a tall lean man in his early seventies, leaned out the window, “Where are you heading?” We explained that we were waiting for another taxi and he nodded, […]
Guatemala – Strangest Place for the Best Coffee
Guatemala, a country where coffee is the number three export after bananas and raw sugar, where coffee plantations are crowded by volcano ranges, and where thousands of people subsist by growing coffee, happens to consume some of the worst coffee in the world. All of their flavorful coffee beans are […]
India – Food and Fast Food
Both of us love Indian food, and the trip to India only reinforced our shared love for Indian spices, vegetable curries, flatbreads, and fragrant rice. Friends warned us that we would tire of turmeric and cumin and coriander in every dish and that we would miss meat, but the only […]
McDonalds Everywhere
Almost every country we visit has a McDonald’s. And in every country we run towards it, as it beacons to us, weary travelers, with its golden arches and a free toilet. Our routine is almost always the same. We use the bathroom, I sneak in a picture of the menu […]
Cambodia and Thailand – Us vs. Monkeys of the World
Everywhere in Cambodia, whether it’s the temples of Angkor, the caves of Kampot, or the countryside of Battambang, if you see tourists gathering with cameras while the locals are rolling their eyes, it can only mean one thing – monkeys. Macaques are cute and photogenic. They are also vicious assholes […]
Cambodia – How to Cross the Street and Live
On our first morning in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, we were standing on the corner of a busy intersection, unsure of how to cross. The interweaving flow of scooters, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, tuk-tuks, and occasional trucks never slowed and never stopped. There were no marked lanes, they didn’t […]
Cambodia – Cooking Class, Insects, and Vegetarians
To avoid being “templed out”, we split our three-day Angkor Wat pass into four days. Two days of temple visits, one day of rest, and the last day of temple visits again. On the day of rest, we decided to take a Cambodian cooking class that included a market visit […]