ASIA

OCEANIA & ASIA

OCEANIA & ASIA February-December 2000

OCEANIA

NEW ZEALAND (1 month) North Island: Aukland: home-stay, America's Cup yacht races; South Island: trekking on Milford, Routeburn and Banks Peninsula Tracks; sea kayaking/camping in Abel Tasman Park; home-stay on sheep ranch; home-stay in Christchurch; yellow-eyed penguin colony

AUSTRALIA (1 month) Sydney: home-stay, zoo, harbor cruise, Sydney Harbor Bridge climb; Melbourne home-stay; Great Ocean Road and indigenous wildlife preserve. Outback: Uluru (Ayers Rock) and the Olgas, hiking in King's Canyon and the MacDonnell Range. The North: home-stay and sailing in Darwin; crocodiles and aboriginal cave art in Kakadu National Park

SOUTHEAST ASIA

IRIAN JAYA (Indonesia; 3 weeks) Into the jungles and swamps of New Guinea to visit "Stone Age" tribes

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), Mahabarata performance

THAILAND (7 weeks) Bangkok: home-stay, temples, markets, museums, shopping; Sukothai, Si Satchanalai and Chaliang temple ruins; Chiang Mai: shopping for handicrafts & antique artifacts, Thai cooking school; one-week trek through northern hill-tribe villages; (plus three-day side trip to Singapore)

VIETNAM (2 weeks) Ho Chi Minh City, Mekong Delta, DMZ battle sites, Hoi An, Hanoi

CAMBODIA (3 weeks) Ancient Khymer temple complex of Angkor: Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm, Bantey Srei; moto taxis, Pol Pot & Khymer Rouge, teaching English in Buddhist temple school

LAOS (1.5 weeks) Vietiane, inner-tubing on Song River, Buddha caves, a Laotian monk

MYANMAR (2 weeks) Military regime; Yangon: Shwedagon Pagoda; Mandalay: Moustache Brothers Pwe troupe; Pyin U Lwin: Candacraig chummery; ferry ride on Ayeyarwaddy River to 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; 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; fantastic 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

2001 (MIDDLE EAST & GREECE)

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Joan and Lou Rose joanandlou@ramblingroses.net