We continue to wend our way through Northern Europe, moving south from Estonia into Latvia to explore its capital city, Riga. Despite its close proximity to Estonia, the people of Latvia belong to a different ethnic group, the Balts. In antiquity there were roughly eleven Baltic tribes, who survived as farmers and amber gatherers; today…
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Winding cobblestone streets, pastel-coloured houses, fortified walls with gates and turrets – walking through the Old Quarter of Tallinn feels like you’ve been transported directly into the pages of a fairy tale. We loved Tallinn, though I have to say if we thought the people of Helsinki were stoic, the Estonians border on surly. I…
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For the sixth year in a row, according to the World Happiness Report, Finland is the happiest country in the world. Their joy must be internal because, to the casual observer, they are amongst the most stoic people we’ve ever met. Although the Finnish tribes traded extensively with their neighbours to the west, they were…
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We had originally planned to spend all of 2023 in Asia, primarily SE Asia. By early May we realized that our Canadian bodies, particularly my well-insulated physique, were not designed for heat and humidity; we were finding the temperatures quite unbearable. There were still places we wanted to see in the region, but decided to…
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After seven months in Asia we decided to make central Thailand our final destination, with stops in Bangkok and Hua Hin (Wha Hen), in particular because Bangkok is an airline hub, plus who doesn’t like a bit of beach time! Bangkok and Hua Hin are located in the area that was once part of the…
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Similar to neighbouring Laos, the area of northern Thailand was settled by Tai immigrants from China. In the mid-13th century CE several smaller kingdoms, scattered throughout the region that would later become Burma (Myanmar), Laos and the Thai highlands, were unified as the Kingdom of a Million Rice Fields, the Lan Na Kingdom. The royal…
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As we plotted out our travels through SE Asia, we decided to make Thailand our last destination. Cost-wise it wasn’t ideal to throw a few days in Laos in between our time in Bali and Thailand, but we’d heard it was a beautiful country and logistically it worked nicely to fly to Luang Prabang and…
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Indonesia is composed of more than 16,000 islands, of which only about 6,000 are actually inhabited. The islands sit on the “ring of fire,” a 40,000 km (25,000 mi) stretch of volcanic and seismic activity ringing the Pacific Ocean. Bali is home to two of the country’s more active mountains. In the northeast is Mount…
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Straddling the equator is the third-largest island in the world, Borneo. The tiny Kingdom of Brunei sandwiched between the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak (both of which historically belonged to the Sultanate of Brunei) combine to occupy about a quarter of the island situated in the Northern Hemisphere. The rest of the territory lying…
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Malaysia, and in particular the island of Penang off the NW coast of peninsular Malaysia, often pops up as a popular nomad/expat destination, so it has been on our radar for quite some time. As Canadians (along with the US and most European countries), we do not require a visa to enter the country and…
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