My favorite part of Thailand’s Loy Krathong festival wasn’t the enormous street market the first night, though the long rows of artwork, clothing, and sparkly souvenirs that filled the core of Chiang Mai’s… Continue reading
English teachers call it a “feedback sandwich.” A discouraged learner might disengage, so you wrap the hard part between two tastier layers. At the end of the first tourism year after two rough… Continue reading
After the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, the grasslands of Kazakhstan felt like another world. Snow and stone were remote memories, replaced by a deep vista of rolling hills and stretched plains painted with Van… Continue reading
My language acquisition usually begins on the menu. I don’t speak French but when it’s cold in Paris I look for a boisson chaude. I don’t speak Turkish but every morning in Istanbul… Continue reading
Walking those last hours of descent back to pavement and electrical outlets was a time of comfortable contradictions. Steps tentative with battered ligaments, but perhaps a tiny bit of swagger after traversing the… Continue reading
That first hot cup of tea was glorious after a long cold night, and when I tipped my tent to dry in the morning sun and panes of ice cracked and fell off,… Continue reading
It was the best of campsites, it was the worst of campsites, but first we had to get there. Day Four started in another perfect mountain valley, whose light green-blue river of melted… Continue reading
I awoke surrounded by monsters. Their growls, snarls, and roars made Jurassic Park sound like a petting zoo, and I was very aware that I could see no further than the fabric of… Continue reading
Sometime in the mid-1980’s my family went to Seaworld, in large part to see Shamu the killer whale. (We didn’t know any better.) My brother had recently been given one of those thin… Continue reading
On Day One of my 6-day hike in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, I had no idea what to expect. Apparently my guides were playing it by ear a bit too. The route normally… Continue reading
