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Spider-Man In The Batcave

Posted: December 28, 2004

DAY 434: The roosters crowed and the pigs squealed as the sun illuminated my Tita Agie’s old room (who relocated to Texas) where I was sleeping. And then, there was a slight rumbling that mildly vibrated the bed.

Spider-sense tingling. Is that an earthquake?

Nice As Rice

Posted: December 31, 2004

DAY 435: Rice is the staple crop in the Philippines, as it is in many Asian nations. Rice production goes year round and is quite an on-going process of soil preparation, planting, maintenance, harvesting and drying, all before starting all over again. Not only has planting rice provided prosperity for countryside Filipinos, it inspired one Blogreader wheat to write the following ditty:

Planting rice is lots of fun
You must do it in the morning sun
I can’t stand it, I can’t sit
Planting rice is full of…

La la la la la la la la…

(Continue singing “la” until the laughter dies down from the omission of the “sh” word.)

From City Slicker To Backpacker

Posted: January 01, 2005

DAY 436: I have been backpacking for quite a while now and each day on the road I’ve gotten a little more wiser in the game, more so than the average person in the daily routine of sitting in a car and then at a desk and then on a couch in front of the boob tube. My relatives on my father’s side of which I was with, were sort of clueless on backpacker travel; the day before, I had to remind my uncle to not only lock his guest room door, but close his window to keep thieves from entering.

“Ah, you’re already used to [this,]” he told me.

Baguio Bakla

Posted: January 04, 2005

DAY 437: The city of Baguio is the “summer capital” of the Philippines, a place to retreat to even if it is technically winter in December. As the self-proclaimed “greenest” and “cleanest” city in the Philippines, it is a city nestled in the mountainous pine forest of northern Luzon, where the presidents of the Philippines go to get away from the smoggy air pollution of metro Manila — although from what I saw, there was still no escape from the brown haze of progress.

A Brief History Of The Philippines

Posted: January 04, 2005

DAY 438: December 30 is Rizal Day in the Philippines, a national holiday celebrating the death of Filipino revolutionary Jose Rizal, who, like Cuban rebel Che Guevarra, got his start in medicine. An optometrist-turned-national hero, Rizal led the rebellion against Spanish rule with his controversial eye-opening books like Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) crying for Filipino independence. For his insurrection he was sentenced to death and thus became a martyr of the Filipino patriots who continued the fight against the Spanish.

The Philippines, which were named after King Philip of Spain, has come a long way since the days of Jose Rizal. It being Rizal Day 2004, our goal in the beginning of the morning was to try and finish up the sites in the Baguio area and then head to Rizal Park back in Manila to catch the tail end of festivities if time allowed. However, with so much history in the Philippines, we barely had enough time to cover it all.

Peter Parker’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve

Posted: January 04, 2005

DAY 439: Back in June when I was on a tour in Morocco with Vancouverite Sebastian, we had a good laugh in the minivan talking about how funny it would be to travel around the world with a Spider-Man costume, so one could take photos of Spider-Man out of the context of New York City — Spider-Man riding a camel, Spider-Man in the jungle, etc. Little did I know at the time in Morocco that our idea would realized before the end of 2004.

Casual Saturday

Posted: January 04, 2005

DAY 440: On New Year’s Day 2004, I had a pretty hectic one trying to get from the bottom of Colca Canyon in southern Peru to the city of Arequipa with a Puerto Rican couple that simply had to get back in civilization right away since they were slated to be in a wedding in Lima the following day. It was a crazy day of trekking, waiting, and organizing any sort of transport we could on a day when the public buses weren’t running like people said they would.

New Year’s Day 2005 wouldn’t be half as chaotic, or even a third; it would be a casual and laid back one to rest and recuperate from the festivities the night before, and to visit more relatives.

Quoth The Cousin

Posted: January 04, 2005

DAY 441: I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m really into the genre of Hollywood stupid-but-funny movies, most of which star alumni of Saturday Night Live after their runs with producer Lorne Michaels. To my surprise, it runs in the family, all the way to the Philippines; I swear my cousins Joey, JayPee, Judiel and Jessica have seen all of them, and like me and many others, love quoting the stupid one-liners. My cousins are quite perceptive too; after just one screening of my bootleg DVD of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (starring SNL alumnus funnyman Will Ferrell), they seemed to pick out all the one-liners, even the obscure ones that took me multiple viewings to pick up on.

“See, this is how they learn English,” my uncle said with a slight sigh.

Erik Falls On Mount Pinatubo

Posted: January 05, 2005

DAY 442: As we’ve seen in recent history, natural disasters can strike at any time, especially earthquakes. Fourteen and a half years before the 8.9 quake that rocked the floor of the Indian Ocean, causing the Asian Tsunami of 2004 — the “largest natural disaster in recent history” according to many news outlets — there was a 7.8 that shook another part of Asia that had lasting effects for almost a decade. This quake in the Philippines in 1990 caused a geological chain reaction that was epitomized eleven months later with the eruption of Mount Pinatubo on June 15, 1991 — the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century — which spawned not a killer wave of ocean water, but a killer storm of fire, ash and dust in the sky of Biblical proportions.

While the death toll of the 1991 Pinatubo eruption (800 fatalities) was a mere fraction of the tragedy in South Asia 2004, it was tragic nonetheless; 100,000 people ended up homeless with an estimated half a billion dollars in damage. Geologically speaking, it was tragic as well; the emission of gases from the eruption was so great that it widened the hole in the ozone layer to a new level and further progressed the phenomenon of global warming.

Civilization

Posted: January 09, 2005

DAY 443: After practically a non-stop barrage of trekking, rafting, visiting relatives, meeting celebrities, and hanging out with my cousin Spider-Man, the course of action called for a day of rest. I spent this “day off” back in the comforts of civilization at my relatives’ in Greenhills, Manila.

The Guy Behind The Guy Behind The Blog

Posted: January 09, 2005

DAY 444: I will dedicate this entry to my brother, Blogreader/Blog Hog markyt who, behind the scenes, has become an indispensable member of the crew behind The Blog. He is the liaison between the writer, the producer, and the guys at the Bootsnall.com, gracious host provider of The Blog. I am dedicating this to him because it’s a tribute long overdue — and, to be honest, because I didn’t do much in the day, and I need something to up my word count.

Filipino-American, American-Filipino

Posted: January 10, 2005

DAY 445: Another day of inertia; I did more work on The Blog, more work on the DAY 503 trailer, all while I was “stuck” in the Greenhills house. My apologies for the lack of travel-related activity, but as I once stated in a previous comment, the Philippines has become a great challenge; with the Relatives Factor, where my schedule is at the whim of family members unaccustomed to spontaneous adventure travel, I wasn’t calling all the shots as I had in other countries, nor was I in a tourist-friendly neighborhood where it was easy to get around and do stuff independently.

A Mis-Match Made In Paradise

Posted: January 10, 2005

DAY 446: Up until this trip around the world, I never really saw the Philippines as a vacation destination in the “getaway” sense; it had always been the place of my heritage, the place where you go and see a lot of relatives that overfeed you. But to the non-Filipino, the Philippines is a great travelers’ destination, which Let’s Go called “a budget traveler’s paradise.”

Advanced Novice

Posted: January 14, 2005

DAY 447: “Hi, I’m Margo,” the slender young woman in a bikini top greeted me the afternoon before at the Aquarius dive shop on Boracay Island. Half-Spanish, half-Italian with a look and an accent that bordered on both, she immediately reminded of a girl I used to go out with back in the States.

“So where are you from?” I inquired, assuming any foreign-looking person was a tourist.

“Uh, I’m from here,” she answered. “[I’m the dive instructor.]”

I apologized for my faux pas, but the following morning she had reciprocated with presumptions of me. “So you are from Manila?”

“Uh, no, I’m from New York,” I answered. “I’m a freelance travel journalist,” I added when she asked what I did.

“Oh, that’s so cool! You could write about Boracay.”

Party By Day, Party By Night

Posted: January 14, 2005

DAY 448: During the third week of January, the streets of Kalibo on Panay Island come alive for the Ati-Atihan Festival, which celebrates the black natives of the Philippines, the Negritos, for their resilience in protecting and hiding the statue of baby Jesus from the imperialist aggressors — at least that’s how my Philippine-raised Tita Josie explained it to me. However, according to my American-published Let’s Go guidebook, the Catholic Church had altered the original meaning of the festival for its own gain; originally a pagan event that had nothing to do with statues of Jesus, Ati-Atihan celebrated the sale of Panay Island from the black tribespeople of Borneo.

Let’s Go Fly A Kite

Posted: January 14, 2005

DAY 449: Scuba diving has been around for decades, for so long that people have forgotten that technically it should be capitalized as “SCUBA” since it was originally an acronym for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.” (The same goes for “LASER,” Light Amplified by a Stimulated Emission of Radiation.) Nowadays, the acronym associated with the diving with the diving community is PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors), which some say stands for “Pay Another Dollar, Idiot” since it’s not a non-profit organization, but a lucrative moneymaking business banking on “certification.”

Where The Winds Take You

Posted: January 14, 2005

DAY 450: My presumption of kiteboarding was that it would be similar to snowboarding, only with no snow. From what I had seen of the pro kiteboarders of Boracay’s Bulabog Beach, riders strapped into a board like one would on a snowy mountain, and lean back and forth to maneuver and keep balance. Kiteboarding was a bit harder than snowboarding though, as I discovered on my second day of IKO certification class at Hangin.

Super-Size Me

Posted: January 20, 2005

DAY 451: I’ve ranted about this before, but I’ll say it again anyway as it becomes pertinent for this Blog entry: Filipinos will find just about any excuse to get together for a meal. That’s not to say that this isn’t true with other nationalities; I remember a Portuguese classmate once tell me in college that you’re not allowed to turn down food from a Portuguese mother when she offers it to you — as she will almost always do. I can totally relate to that; it’s often hard to turn down food when it’s offered to you in the Philippines, as it is almost always offered very frequently throughout the day.

Erik, stop complaining about being overfed, you may be thinking. There are starving children in this world. Yeah, tell that to the spare tire inflating around my waist. If this keeps up, I’ll need an upside-down periscope to see my penis soon.

The New Blue-Signed Tourist Trail

Posted: January 20, 2005

DAY 452: I caught a TV program in the suite back in Boracay about the state of tourism in the Philippines. To sum up, the program interviewed many officers of the Ministry of Tourism with their gripes about the lack of development in the tourism industry in the Philippines. They felt sort of embarrassed that almost every other southeast Asian nation is ahead of them, and can’t seem to figure out why. They blamed the government, and their lack of investment into the industry, which is most likely the major factor, but I think it’s also simply because of geography; the Philippines is “out of the way” from the standard tourist routes of Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. It may also be due to the fact that many people generalize all of the Philippines is dangerous, when in actuality, it is quite safe as long as you avoid the extremists-frequented areas of Mindanao in the south.

The TV program ended with a question: What will 2005 bring to Philippine tourism? They left the answer open with something to the effect of “We’ll wait and see.” While tourism hasn’t developed as fast as a place like Vietnam has, it is developing nonetheless, even in the small island of Guimaras as I saw throughout the day.

Black Baby Jesus

Posted: January 20, 2005

DAY 453: Of the numerous aliases of late Wu-Tang Clan rap artist Old Dirty Bastard, there is one significant to this entry, “Black Baby Jesus.” I figured he gave himself that name for laughs, but I wonder if he knew, before his unfortunate death in 2004, that there was actually an annual festival in honor of Black Baby Jesus in the Philippines.

Another Carnaval

Posted: January 20, 2005

DAY 454: In Carnaval 2004 in Rio de Janiero, fourteen teams representing the different barrios of the area danced and partied in a competition to a panel of judges and a huge international crowd of inebriated revelers. Each team had a theme, with costumes, music, and colorful floats.

The Philippines has a similar festival in the Visayas region, known in the city of Kalibo as Ati-atihan, where over forty teams representing the different tribes on the island of Panay dance and party in a competition, also to a panel of judges and an international crowd of inebriated revelers. Unlike the Brazilian Carnaval, which starts at 10 p.m. and goes until dawn, the self-proclaimed “Mother of All Festivals in the Philippines” started bright and early at 8 a.m. What better reason to start drinking so early in the morning?

Delusions Of Grandeur

Posted: January 21, 2005

DAY 455: Perhaps the “Relatives Factor” I had ranted about before was all just in my head, at least with my Tita Josie. As a savvy single woman, she knew the pros of independence and left it up to me whether or not to stay with her in Kalibo for the second half of the Ati-atihan festival, or venture back to Boracay on my own to complete my kiteboard Jedi training. Because of the downpour over Kalibo that morning and the fact that after two days of parades I was a little “paraded out,” I opted to go back to Boracay. Perhaps it was fate that led me to that decision; I had missed being in the middle of the crowd at the big public shooting that occurred that morning in Kalibo at the festival.

Like Luke Skywalker setting a new course back to the Dagobah system to complete his Jedi training with Master Yoda in Return of the Jedi, I packed my bag and departed the town of Kalibo on that rainy morning.

Waiting In Vain

Posted: January 21, 2005

DAY 456: I woke up in the Hangin House on Bulabog Beach with a slight hangover headache to a welcoming sound coming from behind my room’s window: the rustling of palm trees blowing in the ocean breeze. Wind. Soon, kiteboarders were inflating their kites on the beach, launching them, and venturing off into the surf — but not without some snags.

“It’s gusty,” Mars the German-Filipino reported.

Island Hopping

Posted: January 23, 2005

DAY 457: “Island hopping” is a term often used in the tourism circuit in the Philippines, and for good reason; there are 7,107 islands in the archipelago, why just stick to one? (Some of the smaller ones are even up for sale if you can afford it.) It isn’t necessarily needed to fly from island to island as there are many modes of transportation available, from big ferries to jet-powered catamarans. For the backpacker on the tightest budget, there is the Roro, an inter-island bus that travels on land by road and over water by vehicle transport ferry from island port to island port.

My goal of the day was to island hop from Boracay to Panay to Cebu to Bohol to Panglao, by air, land, and sea — all before nightfall.

Foreign Local

Posted: January 24, 2005

DAY 458: I remember Vietnamese-American Tony (Moshi, Tanzania) telling me he once went on vacation to Vietnam with some non-Vietnamese-American friends and all the local Vietnamese thought he was not a foreigner traveling with the others, but their guide. I was surprised the same phenomenon didn’t happen to me in the Philippines, until I went on a diving trip off the coast of Panglao Island that day.

Not So Chocolate

Posted: January 24, 2005

DAY 459: I had first heard about the island of Bohol not from my Philippine-born parents or any of my relatives living in the Philippines, but from the Globe Trekker travel show (formerly Lonely Planet). Host Shilpa Mehta turned me on to seeing the famous Chocolate Hills, Bohol’s signature attraction, which unfortunately for me and my chocolate-loving sweet tooth were not made of chocolate. Upon my own exploration of the island, I discovered that the not-so-Chocolate Hills were just one of many things that made Bohol unique, an island separate from the other islands in the archipelago.

Return To Normalcy

Posted: January 24, 2005

DAY 460: While island hopping with my Tito Mike and Tita Josie from beach resort to beach resort was nice, it wasn’t exactly my scene. Don’t get me wrong, beach resorts are nice and all, but they are inherently resorts, relaxing places to get away from the challenges of normal life. My days of resorts and island hopping in the Philippines were over and it was time for a return to normalcy.

Blog and Reality

Posted: January 26, 2005

DAY 461 (31 days since last Thailand entry): This here weBlog has become and integral part of my trip — more so than I originally thought. Maintaining it not only has given me a sense of purpose in my wanderings of the world (and given my brother an unneeded second job), it has raised funds and connected me to many people that I never knew before. (In fact, most of the commenters in recent months I’ve never met; you SBRs out there shouldn’t be afraid to “be a stranger” and break the silence.)

Same Same But Different

Posted: January 26, 2005

DAY 462: There is a phrase on t-shirts that many of the backpackers in southeast Asia wear: “Same same but different.” It is a phrase often uttered by tour agents and touts when trying to get a foreigner’s business. “Same same” as in “we’re just as good as the next guy;” “but different” as in “but we’re more special.”

Pretty Fly For A White Guy

Posted: January 28, 2005

DAY 463: One of Noelle’s first impressions and observations of Bangkok — specifically in the Khaosan and Patpong districts — was that, “There are a lot of white people here. I hardly see any Thai people.” True, Khaosan and Patpong are the tourist areas were real Thais wouldn’t have a need to go to — in fact, the Sawasdee House where I was staying still had its sign up saying, “NO Thai people permitted in the hotels rooms.”

White people have been coming to Bangkok for centuries (not that there’s anything wrong with it) way before the song “One Night In Bangkok” became a one hit wonder. One noteworthy white guy who came to Bangkok is one Jim Thompson, the American who came to Thailand and became famous revolutionizing the international hand-woven silk trade.

Supergirls

Posted: January 28, 2005

DAY 464: “We’re in Bangkok. We can’t not see one,” Oklahoman Ellen said to her husband Kevin the night before at dinner. She was of course referring to the famous sex shows of the red-lighted Patpong district, another one of Bangkok’s signature attractions even if you’re not a total perv. That night we went to go see one and discovered it was a rather interesting and enjoyable show that involved a lot extraction of items from a particular female body part.

The Two Backpacks

Posted: January 30, 2005

DAY 465: It was advised by numerous parties to travel overland from Bangkok, Thailand to Siem Reap, Cambodia with a transport service set up by a tour agency, in order to ease the transition at the border crossing. What I did not hear until after the fact that it was probably best to go via boat, but alas, the road trip that was supposed to be twelve hours ended up being close to twenty.

Red Pills, White Apples, and Blue Pumpkins

Posted: January 30, 2005

DAY 466: “I’m not going to be much fun tomorrow,” Noelle said the night before when we checked into the New Millennium guesthouse in Siem Reap at 2:30 a.m. after a long grueling journey from Bangkok.

The Smiles Of Angkor

Posted: February 02, 2005

DAY 467: “Are you just as awe-inspired as I am?” Noelle asked me as we stood in front of the Bayon, one of Angkor Park’s major temples. Her smile was wide with joy, even in the scorching hot and humid conditions of tropical Cambodia.

“Yeah, this pretty much kicks the pyramids’ ass,” was my response.

Where Life Imitates Video Games

Posted: February 02, 2005

DAY 468: “It looks like a movie set,” I overheard one British girl saying to her friends.

“It is a movie set,” her companion replied.

The raîson d’être in the former French-occupied Cambodia is Angkor Wat, the UNESCO World Heritage Site known the world over. The ancient grand Hindu temple is one of the world’s great wonders, so great that it was used as a location for the 2001 Hollywood blockbuster Lara Croft Tomb Raider (starring the beautiful bosomy, full-lipped Angelina Jolie), which as everyone knows (or should know) was based on a wildly popular adventure video game of the same name, which featured a bosomy, full-lipped virtual character named Lara Croft.

The DAY 503 Trailer

Posted: February 06, 2005

Click here to view the DAY 503 trailer. Make sure your volume is turned up.

(Flash plug-in required.)

The Ex-Pat Zone

Posted: February 07, 2005

DAY 469: To make up time and to keep ourselves from being oversaturated with temples, Noelle and I decided like many backpackers before us, to skip out on the third day of our three-day Angkor Park pass — it costs the same as two one-day passes anyway. With that said, you’d think we would have slept in, but no, we were up at “stupid o’clock” again, at 5:30 to get to our boat to Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city. We had heard that taking the cheaper bus option would involve another unpaved road — which might have led to another potential murder like that one time — so we splurged on the $23 fast ferry which would take us along the Tonle Sap river and lake system.

“The Trinidad Show” Live

Posted: February 07, 2005

DAY 470: It’s one thing to experience my life on the road via this Blog, but it’s another to experience it live, as it happens, as Noelle did that day. Since her first appearance on “The Trinidad Show,” she saw things in person that she had only read about on-line, like that blue clamp that holds the logic board of my laptop together tightly. “Ah, the famous clamp,” she said when she first saw it.

Ouch Was An Understatement

Posted: February 07, 2005

DAY 471: “Okay, make us cry,” I said to our tuk-tuk driver after negotiating a day rate for Noelle and me. We instructed him to take us to the darker side of Phnom Penh, the sites where the helpless cries of innocents were silenced, where people were tortured and killed by a ruthless, inhumane dictator — and within our lifetimes.

Staring Out The Window

Posted: February 08, 2005

DAY 472 (one week since last Thailand entry): “I think that one of my favorite things is staring out the window,” I said, staring out the window of a bus from Phnom Penh to the Cambodian port town of Sihanoukville. Sihanoukville was just one stop on a long two-day overland journey back to Bangkok that we managed to do in one long 18-hour day.

The Fifth And Final Time

Posted: February 08, 2005

DAY 473: Twelve days before, just two minutes before my introduction of Noelle as a “character” on the Blog in Bangkok, I ran into a recurring character one last time: Paul from Manchester, who I had met on the Everest Trail in Nepal (before my unfortunate near-fatal incident), and again, by chance, in Delhi International Airport en route back to Bangkok. Our third encounter was also by chance, but in a way it was no real surprise.

“All roads lead to Bangkok,” I told him.

Volunteer Work

Posted: February 08, 2005

DAY 474: “I’m in a Toyota pick-up truck in Thailand!” an excited Noelle said in a Toyota pick-up truck in Thailand. We had just arrived in Krabi’s bus terminal after a two-hour bus transport from Surat Thani — the hub town where the overnight train dropped us off earlier that morning — and were now headed to Krabi Town, the popular resort town where divers, rock climbers, sea kayakers, and plain old sunbathers came in droves — that is, before the catastrophic Asian Tsunami of December 26, 2004.

A New Homebase

Posted: February 11, 2005

DAY 475: “This is one case that Let’s Go let me down,” Noelle said. She had listened to my anti-Lonely Planet rants and brought over the latest Let’s Go guidebooks for Southeast Asia and Thailand, and was quite pleased with them — until she discovered that neither book had maps for Krabi Town or Ao Nang, nor did they really explain how far away they were from each other. Contrary to our thinking, the beach of Ao Nang was miles out from our guesthouse in Krabi Town.

The Cliffs Men

Posted: February 11, 2005

DAY 476: “Don’t you want to get good at [rock climbing]?” Blogreader/friend Cheryl once asked me in a New Jersey rock gym a couple of months before The Global Trip 2004 began.

“No. If I got any good at it, it wouldn’t be funny [to write about],” was my answer.

That was then, this is now. Sixteen months later, I really wanted to embrace rock climbing and get really into shape. Finally, an activity that works out your abdominals in a cool-looking, adventurous way instead of the ridiculous use of an Ab-Roller. Really, using the Ab-Roller just looks silly, like dry humping the carpet, don’t you think?

Hit And Miss

Posted: February 12, 2005

DAY 477: “I charred my back and need 1 day to rest it on a moto. ” Noelle wrote on a note for me to read the day before when she arrived at our room before I did. While I was off rock climbing, she had gone diving and sat out on the upper deck during her surface intervals for too long, and when I saw her I saw the result: her back had cooked red like lobster.

Superday

Posted: February 12, 2005

DAY 478: “The worst day of diving is better than the best day of working,” was the saying silk-screened onto a t-shirt that I saw some guy wearing that morning. We were on a boat off the coast of Ao Nang at the beginning of a three-dive day that was sure to be better than one sitting at a desk in a corporate cube farm, indeed.

Searching For A Third Nipple

Posted: February 12, 2005

DAY 479: Every tour office and guesthouse in the Krabi province has posters up for the “James Bond Tour,” a tour of Ao Phangnga National Park, filming location for scenes in 1974’s The Man With The Golden Gun, starring Roger Moore as Agent 007. Although I could have gone diving with Noelle, or rock climbing again, I signed up for these “James Bond Tour” in hopes of getting more interesting writing material for the Blog. (Besides, I’d already been to the location of Octopussy). However, as much as I thought the “James Bond Tour” would bring the region alive with tales of secret agents and the filming of actors playing them, it was a James Bond tour more shameful to Ian Fleming as the U.S. Olympic Basketball Team was to the Olympic Games of Athens 2004.

On Tap

Posted: February 13, 2005

DAY 480: Noelle had been taken in by a group of British divers that were on the ship during her two-day PADI Advanced Open Water certification course. The night before she had gone drinking with them for happy hour at nearby Bernie’s, while I stayed in and worked, the Blogwriting nerd I am. During happy hour, Noelle had befriended a British couple that invited her to share the cost of a private longtail boat to go snorkeling at some of the five islands off the coast of Ao Nang. I was invited as well, to split the cost four ways instead of three, and gladly accepted. We were to meet the British couple at The Irish Rover in the morning at eleven o’clock.

Back To The Future

Posted: February 13, 2005

DAY 481: “So I’ll see you in about a month,” Noelle said before boarding a shared songthaew that would take her back to Krabi Town so she could get to her morning northbound flight back to Bangkok to continue her travels with with her backpacking hippie mother.

“Yeah, see you on Five Oh Three,” I said, remaining on the sidewalk in Ao Nang. My transport southbound to Malaysia wouldn’t come for another hour.

Noelle and I parted ways, thus ending her appearance on “The Trinidad Show” — at least until the upcoming “one big night” back in New York City on March 5th (save the date and R.S.V.P.!). It wasn’t just the end of my travels with her, but with my travels in Thailand for that matter, for I would end my day on Penang Island, the island off the northwest coast of the continental Malaysia.

From All Over The World

Posted: February 13, 2005

DAY 482: Samuel L. Jackson once said in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, “Personality goes a long way.” Although the Olive Spring Hotel where I stayed for my first night in Georgetown, Penang’s main city, was colorful and clean, it had no personality — probably because most of the staff was off for the Chinese New Year long weekend like most of the businesses in town. After shopping around for a new place that morning, I found a place that, although not as colorful, had personality. Personality goes a long way (and so did my money since it was cheaper).

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SIXTEEN MONTHS AROUND THE WORLD (in chronological order):

PROLOGUE:

SOUTH AMERICA:

AFRICA:

EUROPE & RUSSIA:

ASIA:

NORTH AMERICA:

EPILOGUE:

PRAISE FOR THE GLOBAL TRIP BLOG

Praised and recommended by USA Today, RickSteves.com, and readers of BootsnAll and Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree, The Global Trip blog was selected by the editors of PC Magazine for the “Top 100 Sites You Didn’t Know You Couldn’t Live Without” (in the travel category) in 2005.

“Warning: If this site doesn’t give someone the travel bug, nothing will.”

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“We’ve scoured the web for helpful tips, travelogues and photographs and it is safe to say that your combination of humor, attention to detail, and artistry have made your page by far the most interesting and informative. You really manufactured a tremendous web page. As we have read more and more of your entries we have come to trust your perspective.”

- letter to Erik R. Trinidad from Roger M. Brown, Senior Legislative Assistant, Office of U.S. Senator Wayne Allard

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- Luke Kesterton, UK

“[Other travel blogs don’t] even come close to being as good as Erik Trinidad’s The Global Trip… It really is the best travel blog out there.”

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