2000
OCEANIA & ASIA: February-November 2000
OCEANIA
NEW ZEALAND (1 month) North Island: Auckland: visit with Kiwi friend; America's Cup yacht races; South Island: trekking on Milford, Routeburn and Banks Peninsula Tracks; home-stay on sheep ranch; home-stay in Christchurch; yellow-eyed penguin colony; sea kayaking/camping in Abel Tasman Park
AUSTRALIA (1 month) Sydney: home-stay, zoo, harbor cruise, Sydney Harbor Bridge climb; shipwreck coast near Melbourne; indigenous wildlife preserve; Outback: Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), hiking in King's Canyon and the MacDonnell Range; North coast: sailing in Darwin; crocodiles and aboriginal cave art in Kakadu National Park
SOUTHEAST ASIA
IRIAN JAYA (3 weeks) Into the jungles and swamps of New Guinea to visit "Stone Age" tribes in Irian Jaya , a province of Indonesia
BALI & JAVA (Indonesia - 3.5 weeks) Bali: Monkeys, music, dance & folk art; Java: home-stay in Jogjakarta; ancient temples of Borobudur (Buddhist) and Prambanan (Hindu)
THAILAND (7 weeks) Bangkok: home-stay, temples, markets, museums, shopping, "hub" for travel arrangements to nearby countries; ancient temple ruins of Sukothai, Si Satchanalai and Chaliang; Chiang Mai: Thai cooking school, shopping for handicrafts & antique artifacts; one-week trek through northern hill-tribe villages; three-day side trip to Singapore and home-stay
VIETNAM (2 weeks) Riding pedi-cabs through the crowded streets of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon); drinking snake wine in the Mekong Delta; Viet Cong tunnels and DMZ battle sites; custom-made clothes in Hoi An; charming Hanoi; "Uncle Ho"
CAMBODIA (3 weeks) Ancient Khymer temple complex of Angkor: Angkor Wat, Bantey Srei, Ta Prohm; history of Pol Pot & Khymer Rouge; floating fishing village; teaching English in Buddhist temple school
LAOS (1.5 weeks - Lou only; Joan continued teaching in Siem Reap) Vientiane; reunion with University of Hawaii graduate student; inner-tubing on Song River; Buddha caves; Ken the monk
MYANMAR (2 weeks) Yangon; Schwedagon Temple; Mandalay: Moustache Brothers Pwe Troupe; 10-hour ferry down Ayeyarwady River to magnificent temple ruins of Old Bagan; Inle Lake: thatched hotel on stilts, water buffalo, temples & markets
CENTRAL & SOUTH ASIA
OLD SILK ROAD (3.5 weeks) PAKISTAN: Islamabad; Khyber Pass under armed guard; Peshawar; Karakorum Highway; Swat and Hunza Valleys; Gilgit; CHINA: Khunjerab Pass; Kashgar: famed Sunday market, Uyghur wedding; Torugart Pass; KYRGYZSTAN: yurts and lakes; Bishkek UZBEKISTAN: blue-domed mosques in ancient cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva
INDIA (1 week) Delhi: sacred cows, markets, forts, temples; pink city of Jaipur; fabled Taj Mahal in Agra
NEPAL (3 weeks) Kathmandu: prayer flags, ancient wooden temples; Pokhara: staging area for treks; fourteen-day Jomsom trek; visit to holy site of Muktinath; Bhaktapur temples
MIDDLE EAST & GREECE (2001)
Joan and Lou Rose joanandlou@ramblingroses.net