Chris Backe's Blog, page 109

How to avoid getting ripped off in Thailand

So I recently read this post from the Asia Pundits about the “Bangkok Shuffle” – and few things ruin a vacation faster than losing your passport and getting your stuff stolen from you. Ben and his girlfriend Kyeonghwa got in a tuk-tuk…

Maybe it was the adrenaline, but the next few moments passed in slowmotion. I looked up and saw two guys on a motorbike cruising by the side of the vehicle. The back seat passenger held on to Kyeonghwa’s rucksack while she, holding onto the straps, was in danger...

5 places to try glamping – and why you should try

2014′s world of travel features more options for accommodation than ever before.Want to stay in an igloo? Norway, Finland, and Canada all offer chances to do just that. An authentic Mongolian yurt? Yep, that’s available in a few places across Mongolia. Glamping, however, is a whole new thing altogether.

When I first heard of glamping – glamorous camping -it came off as sounding a bit pretentious. Camping, of course, has long been arustic retreat from reality – the sort of thing urbanites do to...

Life as a Nomad: Canberra, Australia

This ‘Life as a Nomad‘ guest post comes your way fromNikole Rene Souza of Sometimes I Go Places.

So, tell me about Canberra.

It’s a fairly small city that’s super spread out. Even though it’s the country capital, there’s a shockingly small number of people. It’s difficult to go out with my boyfriend without him running into an old classmate. The theater scene is much better than I thought it would be, though! I’m an actor and I assumed I wouldn’t have manyopportunities, but I’ve been pretty con...

Dealing with a broken arm: the Thailand edition

Every so often, real life gets in the way of traveling/blogging. Last Tuesday night (19 August) was one of those times, and it happened after coming home from a quiz night, of all things…

To get some of the obvious questions out-of-the-way, yes, I am mostly fine. It’s been nearly a week since the accident as I type this (actually, using Siri on the Mac) and even though my armis not 100%, it’s a lot better than it was.

So what happened, Chris?

It happened around 11pm last Tuesday night. I jumped...

Random pictures, part 14

I love me some light reading. Found at a bookshop in Vientiane, Laos.

As always, random pictures are those fun pictures that don’t fit in other posts. You might have some of them on myFacebookorTwitterpage – go follow those if you aren’t already! Also from a bookstore in Vientiane – an attempt to translate jokes from Lao to English… I love themed trash cans. Seen at theSirindhorn Museum full of dinosaurs. I think the problem with your bike is… everything. Even geckos love some wine! (In ca...

Thailish, part 10

So nice to see popular TV shows making an appearance on Thai t-shirts…

Thailish is the weird, odd English sometimes seen throughout. See the rest of the posts in the series!

BROS MOVIE

LEARING MAKES A GOOD

The world will nerer stanve for wonders

SUR ONLV FOR WANT OF WONDER.

Work and love – these are the bosic. Wothout

in the last anal ysis. Ability is commonlu found to

consist mainly in a high degree of solemmity

I… got nothing.

Maybe not technically Thailish, but a questionable use of English in Thail...

Hotel Review: Centra Central Station Bangkok

Stayingin Bangkok often means paying a premium price for a super-fancy hotel or a high price for a place possibly described as a ‘hovel’. I’m happy to report I’ve found thebest of both worlds – a reasonably-priced hotel offering plenty of comforts, while being a three-minute walk from Hua Lamphong train station and the Bangkok MRT subway system.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary stay and services at the Centra. All opinions remain my own.

Opened July 2013, Centra shouldn’t be confused with...

Review: 80 Days – my favorite iOS game of the year

As a kid, I grew up reading two things for fun: action / fantasy books like those by Jules Verne, andChoose Your Own Adventure books. I even diagrammed the structure of some of the latter for fun – whether it led to a good ending, a bad ending, or looped back around to another part of the book. Yeah, I was a weird kid.

I first heard about 80 Days ($4.99, iOS only) on the iTunes Featured / Front page – something I like to check out about once a week to see what’s new. The descriptions informs y...

Life as a Nomad: Panama City, Panama

This ‘Life as a Nomad’ about Panama City is a guest post by Penny de Vine over attravellingpenster.com.

Panama City is the capital ofPanama in Central America (not Panama City, Florida in the US, which often comes up in your Google searches!). It has a population of almost 900,000, and a metro population of around 1.2million. The City is relatively small, but quite spread out; much to many people’s surprise, has no ‘downtown’ area.

But why Panama City?

My boyfriend and I were living in Antigua,...

Destination: Wat Pa Lak Roy – one of the weirdest hell temples thus far (NSFW)

When was the last time you saw monkeys that were every color of the rainbow? Or saw animalsdancing while wearing human clothes? This may sound like a psychedelic trip, but I assure you – it’s real. No drugs or alcohol needed.

This latest entry to the WTF Weird categoryis about a 1/2 hour northeast of Nakhon Ratchasima, which is about a 3 hour bus ride from Bangkok. At 77,000 square meters large, this is also one of the largest temples I’ve been to in awhile.

I’ll note this post is NSFW, so scro...