Seoul, South Korea

I arrived at Seoul Incheon airport just before 5am on a red-eye from Hong Kong.  I had bought my ticket with a built in fifteen hour layover in Seoul, just so I could pick up another country for my list.  I spent the first hour sitting in the arrival terminal in a daze, chugging coffee and trying to get enough motivation to figure out how to buy a train ticket into downtown Seoul.  I sat on the hour long train-ride that started before dawn half-filled with Koreans on their way to work.  Nearly all of them were asleep. 

 I finally arrived at Seoul Station, and exited to the near-freezing autumn air.  I walked and walked and walked and shivered, and looked at big buildings.  Then back into the station to ride over to Changdeokgung Palace

Changdeokgung Palace,  a World Heritage Site.

The World Heritage Site palace was an enjoyable diversion, though the guided tour seemed to go on about an hour longer than it needed to in the bitter cold.

Gangnam Style!

After the palace, I made a pilgrimage over to the Gangnam section of Seoul, made famous by Psy in 2012.  I had plans of asking some locals to do the horsey dance with me in front of the sign, while someone else took video.  But, every Korean looked really busy and serious and on their way to work in a hurry, so I chickened out.

 

In my 15 hours in Seoul, I didn't see anything of much interest to tourists.  It strikes me as a working mans city.

Hong Kong

 

Our hydrofoil ferry zipped past small islands covered in high-rise apartments, in ninety minutes we had arrived at the ferry terminal on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong.  Just across the harbor we could see Hong Kong island.  Above us dozens of skyscrapers loomed. We struggled with our bags across thick traffic to hail a cab to take us to our guest house on Nathan Road.  By now night had fallen and our cab ride was a kaleidoscope of neon lights right out of Blade Runner. 

This intersection in Kowloon is considered to be the most densely populated spot on earth.  I was worried that Aaron and I would get separated in the crowd and never find each other.  Aaron said, 'Naah, that wont be a problem, look around."  I realized that as we were both over six feet, we could find each other in any crowd in Hong Kong!

I've been lucky enough to have a couple friends come along on international trips every now and then.  On this one I hit the jackpot.  Derek happened to have business in Singapore, and flew in to meet us in Hong Kong.  I posted pictures of us on facebook, then get an email from Ted asking if we are really in Hong Kong?  Turns out he was in mainland China for work, and he flew in to HK for the weekend!  It is a small world when you have friends with global business.

Macau

Macau


Aaron and I arrived late in the evening to Macau's airport, and caught a shuttle van to the city center.  After the ramshackle chaos of the Phillipines, landing in Macau felt like travelling forward in time.  We drove the smooth highway and passed the bright lights of casinos, notably the City of Dreams and the Venetian, the #2 and #1 largest casinos in the world.  We checked into our downtown hotel with high hopes for fun in the "Vegas of Aisa".  It was not to be.  Macau has triple the annual gaming revenue of Las Vegas, but it has none of the fun.  We walked through the gigantic Grand Lisboa into the massive gaming area.  We saw baccarat card tables as far as the eye could see.  Each table was filled, mostly with Chinese men, all smoking up a grey cloud.  The room was practically silent.  No bands playing, no slot machines bleeping and clanging, no jubilant winners shouting and cheering.  Just chain-smoking Chinese hunched over their cards deep in concentration.  We found the single bar in the football field sized room.  It was empty.  The two bartenders looked nearly asleep.  We felt bad awakening them from their slumber for a couple glasses of Tsingtao.
We took a long lap around the room to see if we were missing some excitement, tucked away in an alcove, then bailed on this lame Chinese version of Vegas.
We walked towards the waterfront to the area of bars and restaurants known as "The Docks".  Reputed to be the nightlife area of Macau, we found only a couple places open, and nearly no one inside.  A tourism based city of a half million people, seemingly has nothing going on on a Thursday night.  We headed home early.  I've discovered that thus far in my travels, the absolute worst nightlife is to be found in Chinese cities.  Beijing brought boredom,  Shanghai was somnambulant,  Singapore seemed stodgy,   Taipei was too tame,  Macau, kinda monotonous.  I was now worried for our upcoming days in Hong Kong. Would they be humdrum?

The next morning we did an obligatory walk around the World Heritage Site historic center of Macau.  The mosaic tiles were very nice, and the old Portuguese architecture was pleasing.  Though the preponderance of Prada and Gucci and Versace stores seemed less historic.  After a couple hours sweating in the hot sun and randomly stumbling into an ice skating rink, we made our way to the hydrofoil ferry to Kowloon.

Bocas Del Toro, Panama

Bocas Del Toro, Panama is a like paradise after the noisy busy streets of Panama City.  The small town is located on an island just off the caribbean coast of northern Panama.  We reached it by prop plane in just over an hour.  We were able to walk our rolling luggage right to our condo from the airport. 

On day one we took a boat tour to some surrounding islands, went snorkeling in clear shallow water, and got dropped off at a "desert island" a small jungled interior surrounded by white sand.  Everyone else on the tour was a couple, and each pair wandered off on their romantic barefoot walk in the sand, while Josh and I found a stick and hit seeds into the ocean baseball style and drank beer for an hour.

Another day we took a boat taxi to Red Frog Beach.  We enjoyed the burger stand by the beach, body surfed in the waves.  Towards dusk we hiked back the mile to the dock for the boat taxi back.  Big mistake.  We missed the last boat.  We sat forlornly on the dock for what seemed like a long time listening to the frogs chirp in the rising moonlight.  Finally we found an occupied house and got the lady inside to call us a "cab:"  $20 got us back to town.

 

Bocas has pretty good nightlife for a small town.  If you've been here, no doubt you ended up at the Golden Grill at closing time.  

At one oceanside bar we saw multiple young local men come and make transactions in the shadows.  Suddenly, two of them jumped in a waiting outboard and zoomed a quartermile offshore and cut the lights.  A minute later a dozen policemen came into the bar, interrogated nearly every local guy , and hauled away a couple of them.  As soon as they left, the guys in the boat came back to the bar.

Mondo Taitu hostel might have the best happy hour of any hostel..  Atlas beer for 75 cents and live music.  But Aqua Lounge may be the best bar on the planet.  $1.50 beer, and they have swings and a trampoline, both of which can be used to launch yourself into the caribbean.  Which we did, over and over and over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZQHq8-Mpo

Panama City, Panama

 Panama is country #63 for me and #62 for Josh.  It's been a close battle for years now, though I think he'll be taking the lead soon. 

Josh and I landed first in Panama City.  Panama City is unlike any other city in Central America.  It has a tall, modern skyline.  There is clearly a lot of money flowing through the place.  It is relatively clean, people are nice enough.  No beaches here though.  Just mudflats and lots of trash floating up.

Day 2 we visited the old town, the "Casco Viejo".  It's pretty run down and unimpressive by Latin American "old town" standards.  We hung out in a couple nice parks, and had a decent lunch.

There are some quiet alleyways, and there is much construction going on.  Clearly the government and the tourism industry is investing some money in cleaning up the area.  I'll bet it looks great in 20 years.

Many of the oldest buildings are empty shells awaiting restoration.

On Day 3 we caught a cab to the Miraflores Locks of the Panama Canal, just a 20 minute ride from the center of the city.

We got to see a Panamax ship, the largest container ship that can fit through the locks, go through.  This ship was heading from New York to Shanghai.  It had only about 2 feet of clearance on each side of the lock.  It is pretty amazing that something built in 1914 is still functioning exactly as it was built and is so critical to world trade.  The Panamanian government is currently building two new locks that will allow much bigger ships through.

Arequipa, Peru

Our last stop in Peru was a flight from Cuzco to the southern city of Arequipa, Peru's 2nd largest city.  Arequipa is at 7,000ft, much lower than Cuzco, but it lies practically within the shadow of two massive mountains; El Misti, pictured above at 19,101ft and Chachani at 19,872ft.  We had made arrangements to hike to the summit of El Misti, and just the sight of the massive dome made me nervous.

Arequipa is known as "The White City" as its beautiful Spanish colonial buildings are made from white sillar stone.

 

Unfortunately Arequipa has one fatal flaw; taxi horns.  This sign is universally ignored.  Unlike lovely Cuzco, which enforces regulations prohibiting car horns, Arequipa is a hellscape of blaring horns at every intersection, at all hours of the day.  The otherwise attractive, modern and clean historical center has no stop signs, no stoplights, and every intersection is a battle where the loudest and boldest gets through first.  It makes for a miserable place to walk.

To top off the misery of the taxi noise, on our first night in Arequipa, I managed to get food poisoning form an undercooked Alpaca steak.  We had a two day tour of Colca Canyon scheduled for the next day, but I woke up with stomach churning and losing fluid rapidly.  I made an attempt to catch the bus for the tour, Lindsey and I raced across town in a taxi and caught it as it had already pulled away.  But after just moments onboard, I had to get off and collapse to hands and knees in the street puking my guts out.  End of tour.  Day 2 spent in bed.

On Day 3 I felt well enough that we walked around a bit and explored the wonderful Santa Catalina Monastery.  It is a colorful, peaceful escape from the city.

On Day 4 we attempted to climb 19,000ft El Misti.  Only my intestinal problems had returned!  Note to self; if you swallow antibiotics, and then puke your guts out 30 minutes later, you probably didn't get a chance to absorb much of the medicine.  Feeling awful again, we met with our guide, and loaded up a backpack with warm clothing, 5 liters of water, a tent, sleeping bag, 2 days of food, crampons, and a freakin ice ax!
We drove through the worst slums of Arequipa, past the stretch of road they use as a dump, and over a rutted dirt path for several miles until we reached the trailhead at 11,000ft.  I hauled my 50 pound backpack onto my shoulders and felt so weak I could barely stand.  And now I was going to walk uphill for two days??!!  I really, really, really, hate to be a quitter.  But a half hour into the hike, I did just that.  We turned back and and hailed our ride to come get us.  Ahh the agony of defeat.

Ollantaytambo, Peru

After Macchu Piccu we got off the train at Ollantaytambo station and spent two nights here in this magical Inca town.  We stayed at the comfortable Apu Lodge with views of inca ruins on both side of our room.

Ollantaytambo is the most well preserved Inca town in existence.  The cobblestone streets run through a grid of Inca walls built in the 1400s and still inhabited today!  This was our favorite stop in Peru.  Walking through these walls is like stepping back in time.  The countryside around Ollanata is breathtaking, partly because of the 9,000+ft elevation, but also for the forests and waterfalls and mountain views.

Most of the villagers here wear the bright red traditional Inca clothing.  This couple was waiting for the bus in the central square.

The local drink is Chicha, a fermented corn beer with a low alcohol content of about 2-3%.  It is sold out of private homes, who hang a red plastic bag out front to let people know they have a batch ready for sale.  I convinced Lindsey to go in and get a drink.  For 75cents I got a big glass of chicha ladled out of a barrel, and we hung out in this ladies inner courtyard.  We were soon joined by two locals and a couple more tourists.  The colorful guy in the corner spoke only Quechua, his buddy next to me spoke Quechua and Spanish, and the guy in the leather jacket spoke Spanish and English, so we had a convoluted train of translation going.

After two great days exploring in Ollanta, we hired a driver for a one day tour of the Sacred Valley, and a drop off back in Cuzco.  The sacred valley is stunningly beautiful.

We visited the interesting Salt pans of Maras

We passed through mountain viewpoints on back road shortcuts, and saw local folks walking and farming.

Concentric circles of stone terracing made impressive agricultural micro-climates created by the Incas to find the best climate for each of their crops.

The fortress at Pisac is one of the biggest Inca cities, but we had seen soooooooo much Inca stuff by this time that we were thinking "Uh huh.  Terracing.  Inca walls.  Ok, let's move on."

Finally we reached the Pisac Sunday Market which was outstanding!  The best native craft market I've been to.  We only had an hour here, but could have enjoyed 4 hours.  So many interesting things to buy for such cheap prices.  We could have don all our Christmas shopping here.

Inca Trail to Macchu Piccu, Peru