http://eurosatemydollars.com travel around the world, budget travel Fri, 09 May 2008 00:55:25 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Shiny. Shiny and new and big. That’s America. Driving home from the airport, I was amazed at how wide the roads are. How you actually have room to drive on them. How clean and new everything seems. How open and spacious it all is. There are things I appreciated immediately after landing ... http://eurosatemydollars.com/2008/05/08/the-mo-problems-we-see/ Wow! We've been back home for four days now, and although we didn't mean to go that long without posting an update, my defense is that we've spent fewer than 24 hours awake. Because as fun as flying from Bangkok to Tokyo to San Francisco to New York to Virginia ... http://eurosatemydollars.com/2008/05/05/back-on-the-ground/ It's almost over. Sigh. We reluctantly left our beach paradise, boarded our very last overnight bus, and arrived in Bangkok (for the third time) this morning. Today, we've done some last minute shopping, indulged in our favorite Thai street foods, and kept each other from flipping out as best we ... http://eurosatemydollars.com/2008/04/28/homeward-bound/ Finding your perfect Thai beach is a balancing act. Tip too far in one direction, end up in a place indistinguishable from Myrtle Beach save for the fact that two-thirds of the bars are named Same Same But Different. Too far in the other direction, and you’re acquiring dengue fever ... http://eurosatemydollars.com/2008/04/26/finding-our-perfect-thai-beach/ Our only stipulation was that we didn’t want to do anything. We didn’t want to learn or visit or experience. We wanted to sit and read and write and swim and eat and relax. Where was unimportant. Our decision to go to Krabi was kind of random: we wanted to start ... http://eurosatemydollars.com/2008/04/25/krabi-ropes-and-water-guns/ Back to Bangkok! Three magical words. As much of a relief as it was to LEAVE Bangkok after our first visit, the idea of returning to the City of Chaos now lightened both our spirits. After spending these last five weeks traversing Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, we'd both gained a ... http://eurosatemydollars.com/2008/04/24/back-to-bangkok/ As the bus pulled out onto the bumpy road from Kampong Cham, a guy came around handing plastic bags to all its passengers. “Are these supposed to be barf bags?” Ben asked me. “This is so not a good sign,” I replied. We were headed for Siem Reap, home of the mighty temples ... http://eurosatemydollars.com/2008/04/23/cambodian-finale-angkor-what/ Cambodia's tourist trail looks like this: Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. The end. Siem Reap is home to the monumental Angkor Wat (which is what everyone really comes to see) and getting to Siem Reap generally involves passing through Phnom Penh. Our visit to Cambodia was shaping up to look ... http://eurosatemydollars.com/2008/04/22/things-i-learned-during-my-cambodian-village-homestay/ You are sitting in your apartment, making breakfast and reading the newspaper, about to head to your office. Suddenly, screaming armed soldiers storm in your front door. They force you to abandon your home and join the swarming crowds of people on the street. Everyone is forced to march. Where, ... http://eurosatemydollars.com/2008/04/21/the-killing-fields/ We have (finally) added restaurant reviews to our Trip Planning section! It is incomplete, like most of the other sections, but thanks to the expense and irregularity of internet access around here, we've reluctantly realized we're going to have to wait until we're back home to update the sections completely. ... http://eurosatemydollars.com/2008/04/20/announcements/