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Ethical Malaysian Wildlife: Visiting Turtle Island Borneo
I rolled my pen across the wooden linoleum, sliding it back and forth over the table top as I glanced over towards the clock. Everyone busied themselves with small talk, knitting, or writing as we patiently waited in the cafeteria after dinner for a ranger to run into the room alerting us of a turtle laying her eggs. Female Green or Hawksbill turtles can come up to lay at any time so the wait in the dining hall could be anywhere from right after dinner to twiddling our thumbs well into the night. Turtles will only lay eggs in the evening and can be choosey about the conditions of where…
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Nyepi: Celebrating a New Year in Bali with a Silent Day in Bali
 Only .7% of the American population practices Hinduism, so it is a religion that I had been pretty unfamiliar with. Before going to Indonesia, I knew that it was predominately a Muslim country, but the island of Bali is largely Hindu and I was intrigued to learn more. When one of my trips coincided with New Year in Bali, it was an opportunity to find out about the unique religion on the island and the traditions that coincide with the holiday. Balinese Culture and Hinduism Balinese Hinduism is a unique religion that is deeply rooted in their culture. Hindu is a deity religion, where there are different gods and spirits.…
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Monkey Business: Borneo and a day with the Orangutans
Borneo The region evokes images of sprawling jungle, dark forests with murky rivers running through them, exotic animals lurking in tall, towering trees.  I’ve always envisioned it to be a mysterious place full of wildlife and dense uninhabited rain forests, a place where you could explore the unknown. Borneo is about the size of Texas, and is comprised of three countries, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei and houses some of the world’s oldest rain forests.  This small island makes up about 1% of earth’s land but the tropical paradise is home to over 6% of all the world’s species making it a region with incredible biodiversity.  Here’s a couple of facts that…
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Elephant Nature Park: Pachyderm Paradise
She gracefully swings her trunk over along the thick, gray, wrinkled ear of another elephant. Â They stand next to each other in the field, tapping gently with their trunks, communicating through noises they send through their long noses. Â The elephant is talking to her friend in a way she can understand since she is unable to see. Â They lightly trumpet to one another, the calls are low pitched squeaks. Â Our group stands and quietly watches them as they chat over their lunch, like a couple of ladies at a cafe for brunch. Â It is such a treat to see elephant behaviors in a space that is more like their natural…
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Best of both worlds: Vacationing and Volunteering
Love the satisfaction and helpfulness you feel when you have completed a volunteer project? Craving some vacation time away from the office? Â Voluntourism, or volunteer travel, combines your need for a break away from the mundane to an exciting place while simultaneously filling that humanitarian instinct. Champion a Cause Do you have something that’s important to you? Â Show you care and find a group, a travel company or non profit that offers a program for you to be able to help build a house, help a sick or endangered animal or rebuild a community after a natural disaster. Â If nothing comes to mind right away, no problem! Â This may be…
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Race to the Flower: the quest to find the world’s largest flower
Completely drenched in sweat, I adjusted my back pack and wiped my forehead taking a quick break. Â The sun beat down through the trees and it’s increasing heat let me know that afternoon was approaching. Â Slowly I climbed up the last small hill, navigating over the protruding tree roots as I approached the rest of the group, huddled around something off to the right of the trail, everyone snapping photos and bending down to the ground. I immediately smiled, probably one of the few to grace my face over the past two hours of hiking. Â We were finally here, we get to see the flowers! Â I pulled my camera from…
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A Day in Old Phuket Town
Old Phuket Town Old Phuket Town has it is an intoxicating mix of cultural influences that will keep you lingering, envisioning when the streets were full of Arab, Malay and European traders coming into town to barter for local tin and rubber.  The tin trade brought in the Chinese immigrants who heavily influenced the classical European architecture and coupled together it creates the Sino-Colonial (Sino-Portuguese) surroundings that brings you back to old days in Siam. Sino-Portuguese Architecture Sino-Portuguese?  It’s that old world style architecture that you’ve always loved but didn’t know about.  The buildings exude a life of their own, their worn exteriors have years of stories and smog built…
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Don’t Worry Be Krabi
I ventured from the Gulf of Thailand to the Andaman Sea to check out Krabi, a province in the southwest of the country. Â Most of the region is devoted to tourism so there has been an influx of visitors to their beaches and national parks in recent years. Get out your geography books boys and girls! Â I’m constantly getting to brush up on my knowledge of land masses and this is no exception because Krabi is an archipelago. Â An archipelago, if you remember, is a group or chain of islands and the word is a mix of Latin and Greek translating to “chief sea”. Ao Nang I used Ao Nang…
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Celebrating Chinese New Year in Thailand
Lunar New Year I’ve been to many Chinatowns throughout my travels, but there is something a little more exciting being in an Asian country during an Asian holiday. In Thailand, the most noted Chinatown is in Bangkok, but I happened to be in Chiang Mai during the Chinese New Year and was delighted to be able to immerse myself in the sights, tastes and sounds celebrating the lunar new year, or spring festival. The streets in Chinatown were full of vendors selling all different types of foods and drink. Street food here is inexpensive so you want to come with some cash and an empty stomach so you can taste…
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Island Life
This is my second trip to Thailand so this time around I decided to go be a beach bum for a bit and do some island hopping before heading up north to Chiang Mai, taking in the easy, breezy island attitude. Koh v Ko As an American I think the Thai language sounds beautiful but trying to speak it myself is a whole other story. Â I sound like I’m choking on Pad Thai while native speakers seem to sing their way through their sentences. Â The Thai language, like Chinese is tonal, so it is how you say the word that matters making the Koh versus Ko debacle almost a non-issue…
