Only four months behind Mike, Heather can check off her seventh continent. We had to track down a cold beer to celebrate the occasion. Being in a predominantly Muslim country, we didn’t have a lot of choices. We found an “Irish Pub” located inside the Hilton. Heather actually had wine and Mike tried a Luxor beer.
Our first day out we took it slow and meandered around the Egyptian Museum. The place is huge, more like a warehouse than a museum. The impression we got was that the first archaeologists to …

That was our first thought when we landed in Kolkata. The airport was built in the 1930s and it appears that little has changed. No computers at immigration, customs was a joke, no ATMs anywhere, and once you step outside you find a fleet of yellow taxis made circa 1950, lovingly called Ambassadors.
The drive to our hotel revealed the modern side, complete with neon lights. The whole city is an interesting mix of old and new. Many colonial buildings remain but most in dismal shape with vegetation growing from …

The great thing about low season is that it’s quiet and prices plummet. The bad thing, no one is around and it’s low season for a reason. On the Andaman Coast, this means storms which also means no diving. Had we elected to go to ultra-touristy islands like Phuket or Ko Samui we would have had the chance, but in Khao Lak there aren’t even boats in the water.

We spent the rest of our time in Thailand just relaxing and taking the short walk to town at least twice …

Chiang Mai is Thailand’s second largest city and we headed straight for it from Hong Kong. The flight to Bangkok served the best airplane food we’ve ever had, no joke. They also had quite the selection on board for Muslims, Hindus, Vegans, you name it, impressive Thai Airways!
The first night out we encountered the Thai tri-fecta. One – Friendly people. Despite not exactly knowing where he was going our cab driver got us to our destination, charged us less for getting lost and then walked us to the door of …

China is huge, so getting roughly to the middle takes a long time. High speed trains are reserved for the east coast so to get to Xi’an we split the trip into two overnight legs. Also, due to the Expo, tickets out of Shanghai are sold out quickly, unless of course you want to stand for 36 hours rather than getting a seat or bed on the train.
China has had multiple capitals and Kaifeng falls on the list of one of the Seven Ancient Capitals. But, like most other …

Even though we were outside of climbing season, we decided to spend a few days in one of the small towns at the base of Fuji-San (Mt Fuji). Kawaguchiko is a small town next to a lake, so we decided to relax and see what we could see before heading back Tokyo. We didn’t have very good luck with the weather and didn’t even get to see the mountain, which was shrouded in fog the entire time we were there. We did get a chance to walk around the lake, …

Narita International Airport outside of Tokyo was the quietest airport we have ever been in, eerily so. We guessed that we were among the few people actually staying in Japan instead of transiting across the Pacific, but still. There was no line for our baggage, immigration, or customs. We traded in our JR Passes immediately and zoomed into Tokyo, navigated the metro system with ease and made it to our hostel without any complications.
We had planned two days in Tokyo at both the beginning and of our …