Loganbilian Travel Diary

Havasupai, 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:37:00 +0000

Connected Traveling

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 04:02:00 +0000

Stay wired around the world

How It All Started

My wife and I had a life-long dream to travel the world. We gathered whatever wedding money we had after the wedding checks cleared and we put it down on two tickets that would ultimately get us around the world through 23 countries. Our travel itinerary started in Hawaii, through Fiji, through New Zealand and Australia, Japan, China, Southeast Asia, India, Africa, Eastern Europe and, finally, Western Europe.

As a passionate techno-maniac, I designed a plan that would allow us to stay connected to friends and family through the duration of our travel. Did it work? Surprisingly, there isinternet in corners of the world where I didn't expect to find it. However, the method of accessing it was not as I anticipated.

Internet Access

I was the one in the airport waving my cellphone around studying intently at an empty WiFi reception bar. We left the United States expecting that WiFi would be about as ubiquitous as it is here. At the very least, we'd be able to follow on the coattails of business travelers by gathering bandwidth from airports, hotels and Starbucks. In actuality,WiFi is pretty hard to come by. Most of the airports and hotels that had WiFi barred us from using it with exorbitant prices that take advantage of business travelers' expense accounts.

In most countries we visited, shops catered to tourists by offering lines of desktop computers for hourly fees. We found that many of these places were pretty steep in cost, almost equal to those paid in the United States. While discouraging at first, they were often the most convenient way to access the internet, as they were closest to our hotel. Less discouraging were the costs of internet phone calls also available. In many areas we were able to seek out internet shops that catered to gamers. These boutique dens offered the most affordable deals.

There are always risks involved. Internet security is always an issue on a computer shared by strangers. There were lesser risks too: I braved the bird flu by finding a live chicken tied to the sink in Vietnam in one Internet Station's cramped bathroom.

It is probably the most difficult to find Internet in East Africa. Internet was available in some scarce internet cafes in tourist areas and hotels. However, it wasn't nearly as easy as in other parts of the world. Connections were painfully slow. There are plans to connect East Africa to fiber-optic cable. In our experience,internet seekers were loathe to work off the barely adequate satellite bandwidth source.

A Laptop?

There is often debate as to whether to bring a laptop on vacation. On the surface, it makes sense. When not using it to connect with friends and family, my wife and I could conceivably watch movies during the various transports we were bound to take. Ultimately we made a wise decision to not bring one. Laptops are bulky, and like our digital camera, it would make us an obvious target for theft in many parts of the world. In addition, we only had one converter for charging electric appliances. To prevent theft, any items of value were stored away when we weren't around. This left evenings and those rare times when we hung around the hotel room as the most opportune time (however brief) to charge our electronic gadgets. We were more likely to charge our phone or electric shaver than we would a laptop. It was also very unlikely we would wake up in the middle of the night to transfer power to the next power-hungry device.

The Cellphone

A WiFi-equipped cellphone seemed to us like the perfect replacement for a laptop. There are limitations on the browser, but those limitations weren't substantial. The sites we would visit the most already had mobile versions of their page optimized for small screens. This is especially so after the release of the iPhone. Prepaid cellphone cards were all the rage and perfectly affordable. The phone would be priceless in case of an emergency. Plus, there were perks, like computer Solitaire and Skype internet VOiP available for Windows Mobile.

One of the first items we bought in preparation for the trip was a top-of-the-line 3-G phone with Internet Explorer. I equipped the phone with a Bluetooth GPS receiver. My plans were to keep a journal of my exact position in the world preferably using Google Maps for Windows Mobile. It was unlocked, so I could use any phone network's SIM card.

The cellphone came in handy when we would arrive in a country without a place to stay. In Thailand, we were able to buy a prepaid phone card and were helped by someone who could read the card. They dialed in the SIM card's password and we used the phone-card minutes to call local hotels on the cheap.

The reality of the cellphone was that while calls within countries were cheaper than using our United States carrier, long-distance calls weren't. Let's face it -- besides the occasional call to a local hotel, who else do vacationers call if not friends and family at home? The prepaid phones were convenient enough but we were rarely in a country long enough to use all the minutes we bought, and were unable to justify the cost. We relied on Internet VOIP calls, charged cheaply by the minute, in Internet stations instead. That said, I'm convinced that an unlocked phone and these prepaid cards would be beneficial for longer visits and in big groups.

We were surprised about the incompatibility of phone calls within the same cell network. In Egypt, we bought about $20US on a Vodafone phone card intending to share the minutes when we left for Greece only to find out Vodafone Egypt minutes does not translate to Vodafone Greece. We found that all calls made from a country outside of where the originating phone card was purchased were counted essentially as expensive long-distance phone calls.

The emergency aspect of the cellphone wasn't all too useful either as evidenced when my wife had a 104 degree fever in the middle of a Tanzanian safari. I had a cellphone, with a single bar of reception. I failed to prepare for the fact that other countries, including those in East Africa, had no version of 911. I had no embassy phone number, and no specific clue where I was in the middle of a vast savanna. Ultimately, my wife made it out alright after a visit to a regional doctor who was able to reduce her fever with aspirin and attack her stomach infection with penicillin. We nursed her to life the next day in one of the fancier hotels inArusha.

The best usage of our cellphone came from the Solitaire program. It came in very handy on long ferry rides and trains. We would pass the time by passing the phone back and forth in between games. In fact, we kept the phone on a lot of the time just for the solitaire game. We would turn off the phone,WiFi and Bluetooth functions as much as possible to minimize the drain on batteries. These phones take a lot of time recharging, particularly during hot weather when lithium batteries drain faster. We brought an extra battery which had a trade-off. Having two batteries often meant having to charge the phone twice.

The MP3 Player

We brought an iPod MP3 player for sanity's sake and it would often wrestle for charging time with the cellphone. The phone also came in very useful as an MP3 player until the 2 gigabytes of music grew tiresome after a week or so. TheiPod , whose music catalog was only 40 gigabytes, wore thin after a few months. We still consider it an essential. It put us at ease in less comfortable places. Along the longer stretches of travel, theiPod and accompanying travel speakers would make our small hotel room feel a little more like home and stave off homesickness for one more day.

Digital Camera

The digital camera is essential. We brought a 2-gigabyte card with us, which tended to get full.

On longer trips, it's highly advisable to bring multiple high-capacity memory cards. Clearing cards for space becomes a time-expensive chore that can take away valuable site-seeing time. Having a spare on hand eliminates the need to make trips to internet stations often. A spare card also comes in handy if one card gets damaged along the way.

Making Use of Web Applications

In this Web 2.0 world, more and more traditionally desktop applications are migrating online. This is a blessing for travelers. No web application was more useful to us than those available to offload our camera's memory to the internet. The most popular photo sharing web application is Flickr. We used Picasaweb. Picasaweb came with one gigabyte of free online storage. This can be upgraded to 10 gigabytes for $20US a year. Flickr offers 100 megabytes and unlimited storage for $24.95 per year.

Most of the internet shops we used were equipped with card readers to allow us to download photos from the digital memory cards to the computer. We made efficient use of the time it took to download pictures by checking email. However, uploading through the web interface became a challenge. Luckily, both web applications provide free tools that allow uploads to Picasaweb or Flickr servers.

To get around administrative restrictions on public computers, we installed picasaweb uploading programs and browser programs directly on a thumb-sized USB flash drive. Using a flash drive ensures that the installation is a safe one and free of suspicious spyware. Be particularly careful when navigating to bank websites to pay bills or check account balances.

Any travel website will recommend keeping the following documentation on-hand in a sealed waterproof bag:

Your itinerary (including reservation numbers)
Passport
Social Security Card
Health/Travel Insurance
Personal Medical Information

Get set up with an online e-mail application to keep in touch with friends and family members when away from a phone. Scan and send copies of this information to your online e-mail account in case the originals are lost or stolen.

Keep a third set of copies on the flash drive. Having this information on hand will help embassies replace lost passports, for instance.

My wife and I were both wary of social networks until we started meeting up with fellow travelers who would ask us for our Facebook names in lieu of contact information. When we informed them of our decision to stay off "the MySpace thing," our new friends would scoff. We made it all the way to Sarajevo before we started our surprisingly in-demand Facebook profiles.

Finally, set up a WordPress, MovableType or Blogger account to use as an online travel diary. Flickr and Picasaweb both have ways to embed your slide shows on blogs. It is a great way to keep track of funny stories, useful information, contacts and memories that will keep over a lifetime.

The Future of Connected Travelling

It may well be the calling of Web 2.0 to cater to mobile techies. As web applications get more streamlined, the function of the operating system relies heavily in the capabilities of a light and fast browser. With this in mind, travelers should keep a close eye on the following technologies.

The Browser
If the browser is your new OS, then the speed and standardization of new versions of Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3 are the next big thing.
WebOS or Webtop
Desktoptwo is a Flash based OS that opens up in your browser. Similarly, an EyeOS web server can be installed on your web host. Damn Small Linux is a minimized linux distribution that fits on a thumb drive.
The Portable and Personal Wiki
Tiddlywiki is a innovative little piece of HTML you can download to your thumb drive and use for notes and diary entries using a browser -- nointernet required.
A Portable Office
If you can't stay away from business suites on vacation, you might as well do it without packing a computer. Google Docs & Spreadsheets has the minimum you need to create pie charts and write your manifesto while away from your computer.

Euro Car Touring with the Varros

noreply@blogger.com (Dana K) — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:26:00 +0000

We also had photos that we didn't post yet of our trip with the Varros through Budapest, Croatia, Slovenia and an ill-fated night in Austria.

Vienna photos- and our first year anniversary

noreply@blogger.com (Dana K) — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:22:00 +0000

We recently uncovered even more photos (!) from our trip. Here are photos from Vienna, Austria which includes our first year wedding anniversary. For that night, we got a nice hotel room (no bunk beds!) and had a great chill evening. We had a bottle of champagne, then a local dinner followed by an English movie. We loved Austria! What a romantic city.

So good to be back here, folks. Is this thing on?

noreply@blogger.com (Dana K) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 02:39:00 +0000

Well, it's official: we're back. Late last night Scott and I arrived to LAX, rumpled, smelly, somewhat confused and intact. We're currently staying with Scott's parents and my parents, and will be back up in San Francisco later this week. We're looking forward to posting the rest of our pictures, posting some more amusing incidents on our blog, and eating all of the foods we missed. We devised a game to lull ourselves out of boredom on long train rides or in cramped hotel rooms. It goes something like this:

"OK, would you rather eat Islands chicken salad or sushi right now?"

"sushi."

"OK, would you rather eat sushi or a Chipotle burrito right now?"

"Chipotle."

"Hmmm.....how about Chipotle or turkey meatloaf sandwich?"

Stumped!

In any case, we're now looking for an apartment in SF. I've also got to find a job or another viable way to make money.

We're really looking forward to connecting with all of our friends and family and will keep you all posted on a get together. Scott's band has a gig in November, which we'll post about too.

noreply@blogger.com (Dana K) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 09:51:00 +0000

Hello all! We are currently in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, after spending about a week in Montenegro. Montenegro is officially the newest country on Earth, having just gained its independence in 2006 from Serbia.

We spent some time on the coast, in an old walled city called Kotor. Scott kept singing "Kotooorrrrr" in a heavy metal voice, since it does sound like a heavy metal band name. Kotor has an amazing old fortress wall that extends way the hell up the mountain its next to. We hiked up to the top one day and had a great view of the city, the bay and a surprise rainbow from the brief rainstorm we experienced. We stayed in the old city itself, which is actually quite small. I may or may not have experienced contact with a ghost in the old walled city. The apartment we were staying in was thousands of years old, and had the remnants of a carved stone door in it. One night, I awoke to a tap on my shoulder, a very distinct feeling. It was clearly not Scott since he was about a foot away. It scared the crap out of me, and I'm still not sure what it was. Perhaps my overactive imagination...

After Kotor, we took a bus up the windy mountain roads to Zabljak, near Durmitor National Park. The bus ride itself was an experience. Here, buses operate a bit differently. You can board at the bus station, or just stand by the side of the road and the bus will pull over and pick you up- your choice. The bus drivers all smoke while driving, and tend to answer their cell phones while turning the full bus around a hairpin curve. There are official bus stops, plus any passenger can stop the bus when its convenient for them and get off. This happened quite a bit in the countryside as passengers would randomly stand up and get dropped off in what appeared to us as the middle of nowhere.

On this specific bus trip, Scott was annoyed by a rather loud passenger behind him interrogating a fellow passenger. It was in another language so he was forced to imagine what they were talking about. It was one gruff deep voice, and one meek whispered voice. It kind of sounded like:

Deep voice: shmovish kantokosh?
whispered voice: dobro
Deep voice: cevapi danas ylrjo zelort?
whispered voice: nema

and then the Deep voice (dv) would do something to fill the uncomfortable space between lines of questioning that sounded a bit like "shooooshoooo shooooooo."

But Scott imagined they were saying something like:
Deep voice: Do you live nearby?
wv: maybe
...
DV: How far do you live in kilometers?
wv: not far
...
DV: Would you say it was greater than 10 kilometers?
wv: could be
...
DV: Would you say it was greater than 20 kilometers?
wv: I guess so
...
DV: How many steps do you think it would take to walk there?
wv: I don't know
DV: Shooo shoo shooooo shoooo

Anyway, we've been laughing about it ever since.

Durmitor National Park was lovely. We met a fellow traveller on the bus and teamed up with him to do a 30 kilometer hike the day after we arrived. We walked around the lake called Blake Lake there, and then walked up through the forest to the edge of Tara Canyon, the second biggest canyon only after the Grand Canyon. There is really no infrastructure, you just follow a road on the map, and end up stumbling upon the canyon when the road just ends. The walls of the canyon were incredibly steep. Scott and Colin (our new friend) walked all the way up to the edge, but I couldn't do it. We also laugh thinking that some day, it'll come up in casual conversation: "Hey, do you know what the second biggest canyon is after the Grand Canyon?" And we'll say, "But of course, it's Tara Canyon!" (Or the information guy was really enthusiastic and misled us).

On the first part of our hike that day, we were accompanied by a cute dog. He walked with us and kept us company for a good half hour. Then, as we walked deeper into the woods, we came upon a veritable pack of dogs- about 10 of them. They all immediately got up and started walking with us too. They were friendly- most likely some or all had been pets at some time. They walked with us for almost an hour- and we couldn't shake them. It was an experience we still laugh about.

We took the bus from Montenegro to Sarajevo yesterday, and it took about 8 hours. We arrived, took a tram to the city center, got a hotel and went out for dinner and a few drinks. We immediately loved Sarajevo. On the bus, we were befriended by a couple of teenagers who helped us navigate and practiced their English. They both had surprisingly good knowledge of Heavy Metal bands from the US. That night, we also met some Brits who are working at the embassy here and a nice Canadian guy who is working in a hospital.

We're excited to explore this city!

Dubrovnik

noreply@blogger.com (Dana K) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:18:00 +0000

Hallllo all. We´re currenly in Dubrovnik, Croatia. We arrived after a rather long journey that involved:

A flight from Santorini to Athens

A bus ride from Athens airport to Patras (about 2 hours)

A night in Patras since we had just missed ferry to Bari by an hour and had to wait til the next one left the next day

A 15 hour overnight ferry ride with seats on the deck of the ferry. Repeat: on the cold, windy, sooty deck of the ferry. We eventually laid down on the actual ferry deck to get some sleep and woke up damp and sooty. Ew.

Another ferry ride the day we arrived in Bari to Dubrovnik. While this ferry ride was only scheduled to take 8 hours, it left 2 hours late and took 10 hours. The sea was very choppy and everyone on the entire ferry was sick but us. It looked like a war zone: there were little (used) sea sickness bags everywhere and other passengers had simply laid down on the floor to get some relief. Dana went to the ladies restroom and came back shaken.

We arrived in Dubrovnik exhausted, and in dire need of a shower. We met a very nice Croatian couple at the ferry that rents out rooms and stayed with them that night. They were so warm and welcoming and gave us a glass of homemade wine on their terrace to welcome us. Turns out it was the exact same couple Dana had stayed with the first time she was in Croatia almost 6 years ago!

We rented an apartment here and a little scooter. Scott is a rockstar driver on the scooter and Dana enjoys being a passenger. We zoom around on it to the beach and to the old town for dinner. People think were Euro because of the scooter and will periodically ask us questions. We are amused.

The Adriatic sea is lovely, cool, refreshing and so clean. Except there are sometimes little balls of algae that look like small balls of poop. The first time we saw them, we were a bit taken aback, but upon closer inspection figured out what they were. Weve crafted a song that we will be glad to perform called the ˝Poop looking balls of Algae blues.˝

It goes something like this:

Ever since I was born
At least since I was 2
Been swimmin away from
algae looking balls of pooh

little brittle brown balls
just floatin around
oh how I wish
they would just sink down

I took a deep look
At the coral reef
And a poop looking ball of Algae
Got stuck in my teeth!

Aint no thing
for a poop fanatic
just dont you poop
in my Adriatic

Poop looking balls of algae
OH LORD
OH OH LORD...

We´ve also realized that perhaps we have too much time on our hands. Or, we´re behaving like 13 year olds. Or perhaps both.

So now we finish this post while seriously rocking out Eastern European style to Guns n Roses (November Rain got Scott headbanging). So until our next post, farewell from Paradise City. We'll be thinking of you, because everybody needs somebody. You're not the only one... YEAHHHH

Ahhh.....Greece

noreply@blogger.com (Dana K) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 17:17:00 +0000

Hello all! It's been so long since we've posted or uploaded pictures. We're currently in Santorini, Greece eating Gyros with abandon. In fact, Scott has declared today National Loganbill Gyro day.

Since we posted last, we've travelled through India, Tanzania, Kenya, and Egypt. We've had plenty of adventures and hundreds of pictures*. The pictures will be uploaded soon as soon as we get somewhere where we can upload photos more than 5 at a time. Our adventures included a safari- ooohh lions! A trip to an African doctor (we're OK), a Maasai tribe's camp, a foray to the tombs of the Valley of the Kings in Luxor in what had to have been heat well over 110 degrees and plenty more. We're now commencing the European portion of our trip and are excited to visit Croatia, Montenegro, Hungary and Italy**.

One of the most exciting things about being in Europe now is that there is very little bargaining. We realized that we had grown totally accustomed to making every transaction from a taxi ride, to renting a hotel into an exercise in bargaining. Don't want to pay $25 for your hotel room? Maybe we can work out a deal. Want to go to the museum? Find a taxi driver that will do it for your price, and not the "tourist price" of fivefold. It's nice and somewhat odd now to see price tags in stores and plainly posted rates for hotels.

We dearly miss all of our friends and family back home. You are all on our minds everyday and with us along every adventure.

* Pictures are mainly of elephants and monkeys. I mean, c'mon, monkeys!

**Itinerary subject to change, not valid with any other offer. Sorry Tennessee.

Camera Purge and Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 07:12:00 +0000

We're in Bangkok right now making use of the fairly cheap Internet to purge our digital camera memory and upload it to the people. Below are every single picture we've taken so far since we last uploaded. To that end, we apologize for the ultra long slide-shows and gratuitous monkey shots (They were adorable and managed to command most of our interest away from the ancient stone ruins of Ankhor Wat -- "Aww, look at the monkey clean the other monkey"). Perhaps we should edit more on the fly...

Also on the plus side, I made the slide-shows start only when you press the play button so the site doesn't take so long to load.

Dana also took the trouble of adding comments to several of the albums we've already uploaded. If you're so inclined, you might want to revisit these slide-shows:

Pictures from Thailand

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 06:29:00 +0000

Pictures from Cambodia

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 06:26:00 +0000

Pictures from Vietnam

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 06:25:00 +0000

Pictures from China

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 06:23:00 +0000

Pictures from Japan

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 06:23:00 +0000

Pictures from Hong Kong

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 06:20:00 +0000