from a to be

Asia Crossed!

West Asia FOOD

900km (500 miles), 50 Degrees (120F), 10 Liters of Water (2.5 Gallons), Lots of Camels

Those were the numbers that described the next week and a half of my life. From Kungrad I took off into the Karakalpakstan Desert along th...

Eye Candy Made of Sheep’s Wool

One carpet vendor told me that carpet-making originated in what is now Iran and spread from there.

Blue Tiles Galore! Rest Days in the Museum Cities of Bukhara and Khiva

For all its empty space and arid landscapes, several of Uzbekistan’s cities have thousands of years of history. In fact were once independe...

Ahoy, Cap’n! Chris Takes a Detour to the Edge of the Aral Sea

Below is the view of the vast expanse of the Aral Sea, seen from the bow of a fishing boat.

Panorama-rama

Ah the panorama, modern photography’s attempt to escape its own limitations, to break free of its borders, its frame. There are many ways ...

Pamir Highway II: Osh to Murgab

Osh is hot and arid, and it’s the last real sizeable town until maybe Khorog. Here I ate like a fiend and enjoyed the company of other hum...

Post-Soviet Bus Stops

I started

Descent from Heaven to Hell: My 1000km Journey from the Himalayas to Delhi

I left Pokhara on the most beautiful day imaginable. With the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas towering over me, I mounted the bike and ...

Chris goes to Central Asia! From A to Be Part II

Now I’m writing from Delhi. Lots to do. Gotta get new pages put in my passport, get some new bike parts, and do some shopping before head...

Welcome to the Hotel Cali-Pokhara: You Can Check Out, But You Can Never Leeeeeeave

Ah, Pokhara. The traveler’s hub nestled between beautiful Lake Pewa and the Annapurna mountains. Look one way and you see people paddling...

Chris Gets All Equanimous at the Birthplace of Buddha

I rode my bike to this place, in the flat part of Nepal, near the border with India, where, in 623 B.C., Buddha was born at a place called...

Volunteering with the Babus and Nanis at Maya Universe Academy

There are a LOT of volunteer opportunities across Asia, everything ranging from bona fide hippie communes to large-scale government-run pro...

POOOOOOP, Or: How to Drop the Kiddies off at the Pool in the East

Oh poop. Everybody does it, except that one Joseon Dynasty-era Korean prince who, unlike Kim Jong Eun, really was born without a butt hole...

EBC and Beyond Part IV: MANLY MEN IN THE MOUNTAINS!

The month I spent ambulating around the Mt. Everest region of Nepal was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Even though I was...

Everest Base Camp Part III: Flora and Fauna

Between 1800m (6000ft) and 5600m (18500ft), the environment can change a lot, and nature threw just about everything she had our way during...

My Early Christmas Present to YOU–123 Photos of ME!

Below are basically ALL the photos of me from this past year. The vast majority of the images that are not obvious selfies were taken by M...

Home at Last (But not for Long)

I'm not completely excommunicado on the road; I have Whatsapp, Line, and Kakao Talk to keep me in touch with family and friends. I e...

2014 Year in Review

I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, I’ve already been on the road for a year (I started this trip in Chiang Mai, Thailand in October, 201...

FOOD – India

All the food on my blog was crashing my 'puter, so I decided to split up future food updates by country. Check out all the grub in In...

Trashscapes

Usually, I try to bring out the best in a place and its people through my photography. I don’t want to show you how crappy a place is whe...

India Outtakes

Well my time in India is nearing to an end, for now anyway. Soon I’ll be in Nepal, scooting around Annapurna, or hoofing it up to Everest ...

Tea Country and the (other) Foothills of the Himalayas

The woman with two fistfuls of tea leaves below lives in Makaibari, India, just south of Darjeeling, in the middle of India’s world-famous ...

Umbrella-less in the Rainiest Place on Earth

Miraculously, and although the sky looked like it was going to collapse on top of our heads, mother nature took pity on us, at least until ...

What’s Going Down in a Random Mid-sized Indian City?

This kinda stuff (These photos were all taken in and around Shillong, a city in Meghalaya, India):

August 2014 Report

Statistics time is here yet again! In August, I did pretty well as far as budgeting. August began with my departure from Guwahati, took m...

Google Image Search “Nagaland” Before Reading…

That’s what I did months before arriving to this land of contradictions and surprise. If you’ve just done what you were told, you’ve seen ...

Northeast India – Photos of Awesome People!

So many incredible people, met in the randomest of places, and the most serendipitous of ways…All in my first three months in India, and al...

Things Seen, Snapped

There seem to be more and more photos lately that I feel are worth sharing, but don’t necessarily fit into a story arch of any sort. Just...

July 2014 Stats and Graphs!

We entered Arunachal Pradesh, gateway to the eastern Himalayas, a province not even officially recognized by neighboring China as being In...

Cool Story BRO, Tell it Again

The government entity tasked with maintaining all the remote backroads in India is called the (B)order (R)oads (O)rganization, and they gen...

Loktak Lake

Just a few days after crossing over the Tamu/Moreh border into Manipur, India, the shaky crew was invited to attend a World Environment Day...

Statistics Time! June 2014

As you can see from the chart below, June was a slow month. After racing through Myanmar, and what with our India visas for six months an...

Myanmar’s Secret Crater of Spirulina

Below: Minsung stare’s through the microscope in horror at the little spirally algae that he is expected to ingest for his health.

FOOD – Myanmar

All the grub I chowed down on in Burma. The food was amazing. Salads, pickles, stews, nuts, everything in ingenius and healthy combinat...

Myanmar – Environmental Portraits

I love taking photos of people just doing what they're doing, or sitting around doing nothing wherever they happen to be. I found ever...

Myanmar – Serendipity on the Road

Here are the photo B-sides from my month in Myanmar, without any particular theme to hold them together. Hope you enjoy the randomness.

Beertastic Myanmar

Who'd a thunk? Myanmar has hands-down the best beers in Southeast Asia. Maybe all of Asia. Where most of its equally hot and transp...

Myanmar – Families

Everywhere I went in Myanmar, the people had their kids with them. Moms, dads, grandparents, they all had a child or three within arm'...

Cross-Myanmar Bicycle DIY (+Budget and Riding Stats)!

It's been over a month since I've posted anything on the blog, but there's good reason for this. Myanmar is an internet black ...

Beard...Less?

Before I started this trip, I made a resolution not to trim my beard until it was all over. I told myself that I wanted to grow a super co...

One Word: BURMA (Er....Myanmar?)

After months of research, making connections, and verifying sketchy information, it's really happening. The shaky parade and I are goi...

Where Has Chris Been?

Haven't heard from me in a while, huh? i bet you thought I was done with all this bicycle business. Not to fear, I'm still here! ...

Second LiNK Screening!

You probably thought I gave up on disseminating all that good info about our North Korean brethren in need. Not so! Actually, opportuniti...

Bat and Gui's Modern Green Living Paradise

My first night riding out of Bangkok, I stopped in Amphawa to couchsurf with a Thai couple named Bat and Gui. Little did I know that we wo...

Portrait of a Korean Backpacker

Chai's Guesthouse...My humble abode for the two weeks I spent sweltering in Bangkok. What an unexpectedly great time. First, Chai'...

BKK Protests!

Riding in to Bangkok, I was a little apprehensive because I'd read that they were getting a little crazy, and several people had been k...

BKK Street Scenes

Bangkok – Mammoth beast of a city, massive spread of concrete, cars, people darting to and fro. It's crowded, muggy, a center of cons...

Cambodian Markets

In Southeast Asia, most people still get all their shopping done at their local outdoor market, which in some places is an early-morning o...

Kids! Cute Ones!

This post has been a long time coming. And now that I'm in Thailand, and out of the land of adorable children, I thought it would be a...

February 2014 Statistics Time!

It's halfway through March by the time I'm posting this. I have to admit, I've been losing a bit of fervor for trip statistic...

January Stats: A Bit Dear for My Liking

January has been quite a different month altogether. I separated from the shakies just after we entered Cambodia on January 3rd, and so I&...

Can't Wait to Get Back on the Road Again...

Man, thinking of catchy blog post titles is really hard. I'm on the road again, now heading south towards Cambodia's relatively mi...

Vacation from my Vacation

One of the joys/woes of cycling is that you can't move around very fast, and you never know what's going to happen, so you can'...

THE FOOD POST

A catalogue of everything I've been ingesting! From the mundane to the extreme, fried rice to fried cockroaches, check back often for ...

Four Thousand Islands – Sleeping in a Hammock for a Week

After Highway 18A, we decided that we needed a few days off the bike, and since the New Year was coming up, we booked it another 150km down...

December Stats!

Once again, it's time for my favorite type of post – statistics, with accompanying charts and graphs! December was a good month; I ma...

Christmas in the Jungle!

Crossing over from Vietnam into Laos, the changes were abrupt. The weather got warmer and sunnier, the people friendlier and fewer and fur...

Hoi An to the Vietnam/Laos Border

From Hoi An, we had to book it to the border to get out of Vietnam before our visas expired. Our convoy of seven shakies all took off toge...

Hoi An

Hoi An is a historical city on the coast of central Vietnam. The other 6 shakies and I stopped there for a couple days, and met up with ou...

Vinh Moc Vietnam War Tunnels

Traveling through Vietnam, it's easy to forget just how much war and strife that country has suffered until fairly recently. Hundreds ...

Paradise Cave

On our way down the length of Vietnam, we stopped at the Paradise Cave, inside of Phuong Nga National Park. If you ever go to Vietnam, thi...

Down Down Down...

not quite into a burning ring of fire, after Cuc Phuong National Park, we headed down the length of Vietnam, hoping to make it all the way...

Cuc Phuong National Park

After leaving Hanoi (which turned out to be a half-day slog dodging buses and scooters on intensely pot-holed roads), and a mechanical setb...

Creative Writing Contest

In the comments, write a narrative for this sequence of photos, and create a story about what you see below. No length requirement or con...

Artsy-Fartsy Fotos

Textures, formal compositions, negative space, etc. You've been warned; proceed no further unless you're into FINE ART PHOTOGRAPH...

November Stats and Budget Report!

It's that time again (Can you believe it? Already the end of the second month on the road.) I began the month of November in Luang P...

Accordion Spotting

Ran into this cool dude, Hoa, randomly while cycling around Hanoi with the Shakies. Heard accordion music coming from a cafe, and thought ...

LiNK Screening @ The Hanoi Bicycle Collective!

A HUMUNGOUS thanks to Guim, owner of the Hanoi Bicycle Collective , for hooking me up with my first screenings of The People's Crisis ...

Hanoi Women's Museum

The last museum I went to visit paid homage to all the women who worked and fought hard for Vietnam. One of the pluses of living in commun...

Hanoi Fine Art Museum

Hanoi's fine art museum was the second museum I visited. It was almost all Vietnamese lacquer work of some sort or another. Everythin...

Hanoi

It's been so long since I left Hanoi, so long ago that it seems like a distant memory. Nevertheless, a lot of important events happene...

Livin' in a Socialist Paradise

Although North Vietnam won the war and V-land is still ostensibly a communist nation, Vietnam was never as thoroughly communist as some ot...

Now Dat's Hospitality

We try to camp a lot because it saves money, is fun, and we usually end up meeting some interesting characters. There's something...

To Prison with Pooh

If you've never tried Couch Surfing , I'd highly recommend it. You get on their website, make a profile, find people who are also...

The Road to Hanoi is Alllll Down Hill

Well, mostly anyway. There were still quite a few big climbs, but each day closer to Hanoi, the smaller the hills became. The jagged, ...

Shaky Takes a Spill

The first few days after entering Vietnam were full of a lot of muddy, slippery, heavily-trafficked downhill roads. Sooner or later, it...

Luang Prabang: Traditional Arts & Ethnology Centre

Meet my good friend and former UW Jackson School MAIS classmate, Alicia Akins. She's been living in Luang Prabang, Laos, for the last y...

Boat Ride to the Border: Nong Kiew to Vietnam

Our K-Brethren, Mingyu/seong, have this awesome political deal with most of Southeast Asia. Since Korea is part of ASEAN (Association of S...

Extra Extra! Random Moments from Laos

Pantless kiddos wave at me as I pass by!

October Financial Report and Riding Statistics

As of October 31st, I've been on the road for exactly 20 days, and ridden approximately 800km, or 480 miles. Overall, the going has been...

Dang Laos, You Purty

Laos is so pristine and untouched and endearingly beautiful, I won't even try to explain it. Just look at these photos and tell me I...

Luang Prabang: A Break from the Road

After the remote, intensely mountainous route from the Thai/Laos border, Luang Prabang seems like an Oasis in the desert. A beautiful town...

Muang Nguen (Thai/Laos Border) to Luang Prabang

I thought maybe we'd be in for a bit of a break after how difficult the last couple days in Thailand were, but things only got more diff...

The Once-A-Day 셀카 (Selfie) Post

Imma take a photo of myself every day and put it here. Then after a while I'll make them all into a cool stop-motion video so you can se...

Shakies Luck Out: Free Homestay in Longsheng

So, after about 60 brutal kilometers (that's 36 miles) of rough terrain that left our quads aching and bikes muddy, we still had 20 mor...

I've Become Quite the Restauranteur

In case you've been wondering what it's like eating lunch in tiny villages in Thailand, here are a few photos of what you might exp...

Mick and the Drunk Vegetarians

October 14th was the end of the Thai vegetarian festival, and it just so happened that our ride intersected with a tiny village between Ph...

Moments from the Road: Chiang Mai to Huai Kon (Thai/Laos Border)

All those little one-offs that don't really warrant a blog post of their own, but which, when combined, convey the serendipity of travel...

Camping!

I love camping! Always have, since I was a Cub Scout. Camping is great because you bring most of your own infrastructure with you in the f...

Shakies Unite : Impending Departure

Shaky, the English mispronunciation of the Korean word 새끼, or son of a gun, seems to be the most appropriate appellation for a group of Kore...

Pre-Bike Ride Photo Shoot

You'll probably never see me this clean or well color coordinated again, so relish this moment now.

New Tent!

My nomadic partner in crime, the Original Shaky (a.k.a. one M. Roy of 3RR fame) and I had a dramatic stroke of good fortune very earl...

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Where is Chris?

From A to Be| What is This?| Where is Chris? [Map]|Return to Chris Amidst Us||Cycle Touring Resources

{ 18,331km / 11,365m of road pedaled! }

Asia Crossed!

Aya Sofia

Final Frontier: Turkey

Turkish Breakfast

Turkish Grub

Zen and the Art of Bicycle Maintenance

West Asia FOOD

Whirlwind through West…Asia…

As soon as I cross the Caspian…

FOOD: Central Asia

The Non-Cycling Purgatory that is the Caspian Sea

900km (500 miles), 50 Degrees (120F), 10 Liters of Water (2.5 Gallons), Lots of Camels

Eye Candy Made of Sheep’s Wool

Blue Tiles Galore! Rest Days in the Museum Cities of Bukhara and Khiva

Ahoy, Cap’n! Chris Takes a Detour to the Edge of the Aral Sea

Panorama-rama

Coming Down Off the High: The Long Slog Through Uzbekistan

Shaved Dome

Pamir Highway IV: Out of the Woods and Home Free

Pamir Highway III: Over the Hill and through the Wakhan Valley We Go

Pamir Highway II: Osh to Murgab

Pamir Highway I: What’s the Pamir Highway?

Central Asian Landscapes in B&W

Post-Soviet Bus Stops

Business as Usual in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Ways to get Water

Descent from Heaven to Hell: My 1000km Journey from the Himalayas to Delhi

Chris goes to Central Asia! From A to Be Part II

Welcome to the Hotel Cali-Pokhara: You Can Check Out, But You Can Never Leeeeeeave

Chris Gets All Equanimous at the Birthplace of Buddha

Volunteering with the Babus and Nanis at Maya Universe Academy

POOOOOOP, Or: How to Drop the Kiddies off at the Pool in the East

EBC and Beyond Part IV: MANLY MEN IN THE MOUNTAINS!

Everest Base Camp Part III: Flora and Fauna

EBC Trek Part II: Local Folks

To Everest Base Camp and Beyond! Part I–The Logistics

My Early Christmas Present to YOU–123 Photos of ME!

Home at Last (But not for Long)

2014 Year in Review

FOOD – India

Trashscapes

I Done Rode Up Into Bhutan, Son!

Extra Extra, Read All About It: Shakies in the News

India Outtakes

Tea Country and the (other) Foothills of the Himalayas

Umbrella-less in the Rainiest Place on Earth

What’s Going Down in a Random Mid-sized Indian City?

August 2014 Report

Arunachal Pradesh: Journey to the Center of the World, Part IV

Arunachal Pradesh: Journey to the Center of the World, Part III

Arunachal Pradesh: Journey to the Center of the World, Part II

Arunachal Pradesh: Journey to the Center of the World, Part I

Google Image Search “Nagaland” Before Reading…

Northeast India – Photos of Awesome People!

Things Seen, Snapped

July 2014 Stats and Graphs!

Cool Story BRO, Tell it Again

Loktak Lake

Statistics Time! June 2014

Myanmar’s Secret Crater of Spirulina

FOOD – Myanmar

Myanmar – Environmental Portraits

Myanmar – Serendipity on the Road

Beertastic Myanmar

Myanmar – Building a Better Buddha

Myanmar - The Land

Oxcarts

Myanmar – Group Photos

Myanmar – Families

Cross-Myanmar Bicycle DIY (+Budget and Riding Stats)!

Beard...Less?

One Word: BURMA (Er....Myanmar?)

Where Has Chris Been?

Second LiNK Screening!

Koh Phangan

Din Dang Natural Building Center

Bat and Gui's Modern Green Living Paradise

From A to Be | What is This? | Where is Chris? [Map] | Return to Chris Amidst Us | | Cycle Touring Resources