Travel stories made for sharing

I remember he asked me, "What are ya thinking? " and I don’t remember what I said as he handed me a towel. Without much more thought I very quickly covered the pelican in the heavy beach towel and in a quick movement he was swaddled and only his head stuck out from the towel as I picked him up while keeping g him at arms extended length my face with his body and feet wrapped in the towel and his head and beak pretty much shut tight because of the fishing hook and nylon fishing line that was visible tightly wrapped all around his neck and beak and body. He didn’t seem wounded anywhere. I assumed he was too worn out to resist and I was surprised at how easily he went into the back of the jeep and wrapped up as he was he fit in there and stayed without protest when we closed the hatchback. I thought he'd be flapping and struggling the whole drive home but it was an easy drive with him quiet and trapped swathed in the beach towel with Tommy looking in on him the whole way home to Casa Delfin Sonriente. When we arrived at the house compound three of us held him down on the picnic table in the front yard while I took a pair of plyers and removed the fishing hook from his beak and carefully removed the nylon line. When he was free off all that we gently hosed him down trying to rid him of all the annoying little bugs that had taken up residence in his large feathered body. He seemed quiet and content next to a big bowl of water and a plate of bread and pieces of fish. We locked him in for his own protection and there he spent a quiet night safe from attackers of all kinds.

The next morning we woke up and as breakfast was being served I started telling our guests about how we came to have a pelican in the tool lock up. After breakfast we gathered around as I carefully balled him up in another big towel and gently carried him over to the pool.

He stayed in the pool swimming about while we all watched him from the central area of the house. He seemed comfortable and relaxed and I was beginning to think he might stick around and maybe I'll have a pet pelican hanging around as a new member of the family when suddenly we heard the whoosh and flap of his wings and saw him lift from the pool and glide above the garden and gently bank to north and out to sea. And there flies out an ending worthy to a story of a big bird saved and back into the wildlife with the wind and sea to see to all his needs.

Vietnam is one of the most loved tourist destinations in the world. Whether you are a solo traveler, moving out with family or it is a tour with friends, you will always be able to create wonderful memories at this stunning place. Indeed, it is the best destination to recharge your mind, body, and soul.

However, some of you might be eager to know the best ways to explore this vibrant city in minimum time. Well, it is good to follow these amazing ways to Explore one Vietnam and load your tour with loads of fun and adventure:

Lighting lantern in Hoi An:

They follow a unique trend to celebrate Vietnamese New Year, and you can also join the colorful festival by lighting a lantern at Hoi An. This celebration stays on for almost 7 days, and you will find the entire Hoi An bridge loaded with lovely, attractive lanterns. Along with the festive vibes, here you will find numbers of food stalls and shopping corners with a spontaneous singing sound all around. Note that, Vietnamese New Year is celebrated on 5th February; book your tour to be a part of this amazing tradition.

Visit Mekong Delta:

You might be aware of the fact that the Mekong runs from the Tibetan Himalaya and after covering a huge distance of 4000 kilometers, it reaches Vietnam with a languid flow. Tourists love to enjoy a ride to this calm water with a cargo boat; indeed, it is a unique way to enjoy a picnic with kids. There are numbers of commercial cruises that can help you experience a wonderful time in the river.

Feel excited at world’s largest cave:

When you are out with friends, you might be eager to make your tour loaded with adventure and thrill. Well, the best idea is to explore World’s Largest Cave, named as Hang Son Doong. Here you can find several guides and special gears to get inside the deep caves. People also find it the best area for trekking while capturing wonderful moments at stunning waterfalls in the arms of nature.

Spare some time to explore Halong Bay:

The 1600 limestone towers, rising creatively from the turquoise waters make Halong Bay one of the most astonishing visiting spot of Vietnam. It caters millions of tourists every year who love to take special cruise trips in the area. The Bai Tu Long Bay is also a few miles away from this site with jaw-dropping scenery and superior blessings of nature. If you are looking for information about Vietnam travel - Ha Long Bay for your journey. Visit Explore One Vietnam now to get helpful advice.

Have been to Ninh Binh for more than 3 times, this time I decided to set all the famous tourist attractions aside. Renting a motorbike then find my own way to discover Ninh Binh.
I found so many beautiful corners along the road. peaceful and chill. And I found this untouched place. Mountains, river, glass and fresh air. All I need to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city and daily workload.
I'm on my way to share all my experience in this beautiful Ninh Binh to travelers. Hope you can have the best experience and find your own way to explore the place!
Or seeking for advice from local experts at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://originalhoalutamcoc.com/">http://originalhoalutamcoc.com/</a>

Wanted to go somewhere to test out my new passport, so I booked a ticket to Georgia (the country).

Within an hour driving around, I got pulled over by an angry officer who handed me a little tube in plastic wrapper and asked me to open it. I had no idea what to do with it, so he took it back and forced it into my mouth. Then he attached a little handheld device and asked me to blow. It finally hit me that this was a breathalyzer test!

The device made a few beeps, then the officer walked back into his car and drove away. Few minutes later, I got pulled over again. Different officer, but same process. No words were exchanged.

It’s like the Georgian police were trying to preempt an accident. But that wasn’t enough since I still managed to crash into one of their cars after I lost traction on a snowy highway.

Turned out I hit the car of a Police Major. Pretty quickly there were five police cars, two criminal investigators and a translator trying to analyze the scene. They took me to the police station, where officers took turns shaking their heads at my flip-flops, as if that was responsible for the accident.

Aside from that, Tbilisi lived up to its tagline of being “the city that loves you.” Though the attendant at the naturally heated sulfur baths did try to kick me out because I wore a swimsuit; nudity turned out to be not optional!

But maybe my favorite part was climbing up the walls of this castle at dawn to catch a sunrise over this beautiful city! It made me wonder the purpose of this fortification if a lousy climber like me can easily ascend its walls with flip-flops.

Goodbye Venezuela!

Thank you for reminding me that generosity and kindness transcend economic crises and currency devaluation; that even in the midst of a dire situation, people are capable of staying beautiful.

The origami frog and butterfly were made by my taxi driver using Venezuelan bills. The value of money has depreciated so much that the only thing these bills are useful for is an arts and crafts project!

Depending on the day and black market, the frog (2 Bolívars) is worth approximately 5% of one US cent, which is more than enough to fill up an empty tank with gasoline, but it takes 1,000 frogs to buy a loaf of bread!

But there is so much more to Venezuela than its worthless currency or political unrest. In the words of Ray Viloria Yoga Teacher, this country is more than the sum of its circumstances; it’s the gentleness of its people and their love for their country.

Like the high schooler who told me about her dreams of using nanotechnology to better the lives of others. Or the owner of a food joint who smiled greatly as he kept putting on my table more food and drinks than I paid for. Or the yoga teacher I met on Instagram who invited me for lunch at his house and put himself and his friends and family at my disposal whenever I needed help with translation, or finding a car, or getting to the airport, or booking an alternative flight when I missed my connection.

In a country where scarcity is so extreme that a person is lucky if they eat twice a day, generosity hasn't subsided! Until today, I continue to receive several messages a day from people inviting me to their homes in different parts of the country.

Traveling across South America for the last month has taken me on exciting adventures, but visiting Venezuela has easily been the most precious part of this journey!

I was becoming increasingly nervous about visiting Venezuela, since every single person who heard about my plan to visit the country was extremely discouraging; some people bluntly told me I was pretty stupid to go.

So instead of showing up without a plan like I usually do, I actually booked a hotel in advance, which I thought was pretty smart. Until I arrived there and found out the place had been permanently closed for years.

I started scrambling for an alternative and realized I should probably also find a rental car to help me move around more freely. It wasn’t straightforward to get a car on Margarita Island, but eventually managed to find a clunky little Chevy for $40/day.

Driving around Venezuela reminded me of Baghdad a bit. The traffic lights are just a suggestion and street signs are almost nonexistent. I picked up a hitchhiker who helped me understand why drivers were sometimes honking at me randomly: I was going the wrong way on one-way streets.

But the car was most useful when I came back to the $10 room I’d booked in a pinch and realized it didn’t have water or power, which I thought I could live. But then I woke up in the middle of the night startled by the little insects crawling all over my body.

So I ditched the room and went searching for a safe spot to park my car so I could sleep in it. I figured the safest area in town was the mayor’s house, a building surrounded by guards and situated next to a police station. So I drove my car there and got to enjoy the mayor’s security detail for the night while I slept peacefully.

That wasn’t too bad as I woke up to this amazing unobstructed view of the sun rising above the horizon, something I’ve always wanted to see!

Not having learned the lesson that some basic planning can spare me difficult situations, I arrived in Patagonia without a plan or a place to sleep. After knocking on few hostel doors, I quickly learned the small town of El Chaltén was entirely sold out.

I decided that sleeping is overrated anyway and that I‘d do a sunrise hike instead. So I grabbed dinner at a local restaurant and sat there until they closed at midnight, which seemed like a good time to start hiking.

After the first few steps on the trail, my flip flops broke. Thankfully, I had enough foresight to pack shoes, and although I didn’t have a headlamp, my iPhone provided enough light to show me the way on the moonless night.

Much to my surprise, the hike was quite easy and only took an hour. As soon as I sat down at the lookout point, I heard some movement in the bushes and panicked that it might be one of the pumas the locals warned me about. Sunrise was still 4 hours away and the temperature had already dropped to -5°C, so I thought I should just go back to the town. Then I noticed my phone’s battery had already depleted pretty quickly from the cold and it was too dark to walk the trail without light.

I sat there realizing that I really messed up. The only way to survive the freezing night was to keep warm, and my thin jacket wasn’t going to do that. So I spent the remaining hours of the night alternating between push-ups and jumping jacks for 10 minutes, followed by 20-minute naps.

That was enough to keep me alive until the sun rose and created this incredible view of Mount Fitz Roy!

When I went to India with a friend a few years ago, we were at this small restaurant in New Delhi that I can't even recall its name now, we were just looking to get some snacks and take a break from all the walking we had done that day. We sat down, browsed the menu, waved at the the waiter to come over so we could order.

Me: Hi, do you have free Wifi here?
Waiter: Yes.
Me: What's the password?
Waiter: You need to buy a drink first.
Me: Sure, I'll have a coke.
Waiter: Is Pepsi ok?
Me: Yea, how much is it?
Waiter: $1, Miss.
Me: There you go. So, what's the Wifi password?
Waiter: You need to buy a drink first. All lower case, no spaces.

My friend and I bursted into laughter. It was the most refreshing Pepsi I've ever had.

South East Asia is well known for it’s sometimes difficult to border crossings, especially by land. My experience travelling from Dien Bien Phi, Vietnam to Luang Prabang, Laos didn’t have any controversial payments to authorities (the temperature “health check” was something encountered leaving Laos) but it did have its memorable moments – like a slow boat taking on water and almost sinking!

Leaving Dien Bien Phu in the wee hours of the morning gave beautiful sunrise views of the surrounding mountains, it wasn’t too long of a ride until the border checkpoint. After applying for the visa on arrival and swapping money over the border (surprisingly a decent exchange rate) we learnt two of our fellow passengers hard been denied exiting Vietnam, apparently due to them having an E-Visa.

From here, a four-hour slow boat ride gets you within a couple hours by another bus away from Luang Prabang. Boarding this narrow longtail boat were 9 tourists with large packs and about the same number of locals with household appliances – think TVs and blenders. But we shared a boat and made impromptu stops at the side of an overgrown jungle none the less to let people disembark and pick up new passengers.

You know there’s a real issue when locals have a sense of danger in their voice. When all locals began shouting at the driver in Lao, something was visibly wrong. The boat had begun to take on water and quickly. With the locals bailing the water out from beneath our feet the vibe turned into nervous stares around the boat, trying to spot any leak.

Around 3 hours into the cramped conditions of this boat, not being able to have a bathroom break or even walk around, the sun’s rays began to wear us all down, and my group of three decided to stop off at one of the smallest towns I’ve ever visited – Muang Ngoy. Before continuing on to Luang Prabang by another boat and bus.

Click here for the full story of Vietnam to Laos! https://horizonunknown.com/travel-vietnam-to-laos/

Most people traveling to Cuba choose popular destinations such as
Varadero or Havana. They stay in 5 star hotels, they go on some city
tours and drink mojitos all day long. Cuba is not exactly a backpacker
paradise, and that’s why I knew that backpacking Cuba on a budget, from
end to end of the island, would be a great experience.

If you are a tourist, you’re not allowed to take local buses to travel
between cities. Instead, you are supposed to take the tourist-oriented,
AC, super expensive buses. However, there is another option: you can
also travel around the country by truck (this means 100% guaranteed
adventure).

These Cubans took hundreds of old trucks and turned them into something
similar to buses. Sometimes there are no seats but metallic bars to sit
on, also there might be standing passengers, potato sacs, chickens and
other animals. I remember once, the back entrance was open and one of
the passengers dropped his goat over the road! Of course he didn’t do it
on purpose, but his goat was still alive, laying on the road. The bus
driver had to stop in the middle of the highway, and wait for the guy to
pick up his goat and get back in the truck. These kinds of crazy things
can only happen in Cuba.

For more information, check out Backpacking Cuba on a budget