An American Abroad
From the craziness of Bangkok, I took a quick discount flight to Phuket, an island off the Malay Peninsula in the Andaman Sea. I made the town of Patong my home base and checked into the Casa Jip Guesthouse, a laid-back place run by an Italian named … [Continue reading]
From the laid-back hospitality of Sri Lanka, I hop across the Bay of Bengal to Bangkok, a city that seems designed to overwhelm all five senses. It's loud, dirty, corrupt, sensual, ugly, beautiful, frenetic, crazy, and delightful. After less than a … [Continue reading]
As Sri Lanka prepared to celebrate its independence day, I wandered around the central city near a large public park. Sri Lanka is a multicultural country, a fact that was hard to miss. There were Hindu families dressed in bright pinks and greens, … [Continue reading]
I'm not a big science fiction reader. I average one sci-fi novel a year. But since I was in Colombo, I decided to make it my mission to find Arthur C. Clarke's house. Clarke was the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Childhood's End, and other hugely … [Continue reading]
In the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo, I stayed at a hostel near Mount Lavinia Beach. During my time there, I made the café at La Voile Blanche my home base. From its cool white interior I ate and drank and watched the ferocious swells of the … [Continue reading]
I took a four-hour train trip upcountry to the city of Anuradhapura, the ancient capital of Sri Lanka from the 4th Century BCE to the 11th Century CE. The Buddhist shrines, temples, monasteries, and other religious sites there comprise a … [Continue reading]
I was wandering around a park near a Buddhist temple in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. Suddenly I sensed I was being watched. I looked around and saw nothing. Then I looked up. The first thought to crackle across my synapses was something like, "He … [Continue reading]
During a recent daytrip to Tunis, I finally got to see the National Bardo Museum. As Lonely Planet notes, the Bardo is "[t]he country's top museum [and] has a magnificent, must-see collection that provides a vibrant vision of ancient North African … [Continue reading]
I saw this billboard opposite the Tunis train station today. It's a proclamation of support for Sofiene Chourabi and Nadhir Ktari, two Tunisian journalists who disappeared in Libya. ISIS subsequently reported that it had executed them, but … [Continue reading]
One of Sousse's minor weirdnesses is that souk samedi actually starts on vendredi. I've been there several times, but always felt too self-conscious to take a camera. Today I got over that. The souk sprouts up every week inside and around a walled … [Continue reading]
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