The living room’s bright blue concrete walls glow under the fluorescent light. The air is full of cigarette smoke and the smell of coffee beans roasting. It’s Ramadan, Islam’s holy month. The old color TV transmits hypnotic praying live from Mecca. I’m in Harar, a historic Muslim town in Ethiopia, about 130 miles from the …
In a tired haze the previous night — after a sauna and mineral baths combo following a day of hiking in the mountains — I had made a ridiculous plan to travel in one day from the Northeastern edge of South Korea to the southwest corner to the port town of Mokpo. I made the …
Read more “Lunch and Dinner at Opposite Ends of South Korea”
Always bring a watermelon. Well, when in season of course, but if they are, don’t hesitate. At a picnic spot, you can just cut the top of, cut a crisscross with a knife and dig in with forks. Afterwards, just put the “lid” back on, pack in the back of the car, and continue eating …
Traveling solo, friends of friends often come in handy. I’ve had the best of times through such recommendations in Addis Ababa, Moscow, Istanbul, to name a few. Most recently I had friends of a friend to thank for an excellent time in Yazd, Iran. This particular friend-to-be, Mansurah, proved the famous Iranian hospitality true even …
When I tell people I meet about the wine trips we organize to Georgia, I’ve heard may times the comment — “Georgian wines, really?” – with the accompanying tone of suspicion or ridicule. For sure Georgian wines still don’t have the same reputation as French, Napa Valley or Chilean wines, but from what I’ve seen, …
Sweating in a tiny sauna, by the Baltic Sea in Southwestern Finland the other night, I was thinking about the meaning of home. I used to use the word to describe New York City, where I lived about as long as I ever lived in Finland, until moving to Shanghai. Traveling the world, I often …
The car goes down a small hill just 45 minutes south of Amman and in front of us opens a view of an open field with hundreds of tents. The site is desolate: it’s dusty, windy, in shades of brown and grey with no vegetation. This is one of the many Syrian refugee camps in …
I woke up in the middle of the night by a pressing need to go to the bathroom. But the problem was that I couldn’t see anything, and by anything I mean absolutely nothing. I blinked and realized that it made no difference whether I had my eyes open or shut. I had left my …
“Chilling in Zanzibar” was a phrase I used already years ago, dreaming about the place with a friend, who lived in Uganda at the time and was planning a trip there. Looking back, I didn’t know much about the island and I’m not sure what I imagined Zanzibar would be like and why I associated …
I remember having heard about the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates, and the land between them called Mesopotamia, endless times at school, but, when I finally visited the region in 2011, I had no idea it would make such an impression. Glued to the bus window, I took in the scenery along the river Tigris, running …