A Day in Zion

We have two days off... where should we go? Zion National Park is only six hours away. Sweet, we should go there. We can drive for half a day and then have a full afternoon and morning of adventure. Okay, let's start packing. And that's how we ended up on a short but exhilarating trip to Zion last fall. How we convinced two friends to accompany us for twelve hours of driving for a day of fun I don't now, but we did. I guess we have some pretty cool friends. 

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Passport Photos: The Real Story

One of the first concrete steps in planning an international trip is obtaining a passport. That is assuming you want to avoid time spent in a cramped cell somewhere. Filling out the form and paying a small fortune are the easy two steps of the trifecta needed to be successful in obtaining your passport. The third step, providing a passport photo, seems easy enough at first but upon further investigation becomes a challenge like unto stepping foot on the moon. When you've mastered it you'll feel as if a giant leap for mankind has just occurred.

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Visiting the Asaro Mudmen

Towards the end of our time living in Papua New Guinea, it became evident that we could not leave without having made a visit to the notorious Asaro Mudmen. A small tribe from a village just outside Goroka in the Eastern Highlands Province, they rose to fame by defeating other tribes by smearing their bodies in mud and wearing terrifying clay masks when at war. The story goes that they were once attacked by another tribe and hid by the Asaro River until evening. At dusk they decided to make a run for it and hope for survival. But when the other tribe saw them rising from the river banks glowing pale from the white mud they'd come in contact with, they fled in terror believing the Asaro tribe to be spirits. Therefore, they decided - with great success - to play up this image.

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A Day and a Half in Jaipur

We headed to India with only one solid plan: to see the Taj Mahal. India is a vast and incredible place that we could probably spend months exploring, but the real focus of this trip was Nepal and as such, concrete plans for India fell by the wayside. Either by way of providence or disaster (depending on if you're a glass half full or half empty kind of person), we ended up not being able to get to our hotel in Delhi and so at one o'clock in the morning ended up embarking on a three day tour of the "golden triangle" with a personal driver. 

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Thinking of Visiting Papua New Guinea? Read This First.

Papua New Guinea - commonly known as PNG - is a large island off the coast of Australia that I had both the privilege and misfortune of living on for three years. I say privilege because it was an extremely beautiful and fascinating place, but also misfortune because of the violence of the culture and high crime rates. PNG is regarded as one of the least explored places in the world, with over 800 languages and head hunting and cannibilism that persisted into the 70's (and though now illegal still occurs intermittently even today). So how in the world did I end up there?

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Calmest Shopping in Delhi?

I've shopped in a lot of places but India has to take the cake for overall craziness. I was stoked to head to the markets when we got to India. I'd been dreaming of lavish textiles, jewelry, and knick knacks for the house long before the trip started. Sadly, after my first foray into the markets in Jaipur, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to bring myself to go back to the markets again. I'm used to being hassled to come into shops and bargaining for things without fixed items. But being grabbed by the arm and pulled into stores was new to me, as was being followed around the market by a swarm of venders who didn't stop peddling their items to you no matter how many times you stated you weren't interested.

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