Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, the Caribbean. Visited on 19 March 2025. Stop 1. From the wintry chill of Madrid, I flew into the tropics at Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. I started this trip from Kuala Lumpur on 16…
San Juan, Puerto Rico. Visited on 28 March – 1 April 2025. Part 1. I left Santo Domingo and flew into San Juan, Puerto Rico’s capital, on the 27th of March – never been, often heard about, yet always wondering:…
Miami, Florida, United States. Visited on 3 – 5 April 2025. From San Juan, Puerto Rico, I flew to Miami in Florida, USA, drawn by its sun, style, and sea. I walked a short distance from where I stayed to…
14-16th February 2024 After 32 hours, I finally arrived in Panama City, the capital of Panama, from Kuala Lumpur. This is the start of the trip to Central America. Despite its negative reputation due to gangsterism and drug trafficking, I…
18-19 February 2024 After spending 3 days in Panama City enjoying the sea, I boarded a night bus bound for the mountainous town of Boquete near the border with Costa Rica. At an elevation of 1200m, Boquete is cooler. The little…
20-22 February 2024 From Boquete, I now made my way further north to the island of Bocas del Toro. The shuttle bus carried the bus load of us, Western tourists, plus one Asian, along the mostly single-lane mountain road. Light…
23-26 February 2024 After Bocas del Toro, I set my sights on Costa Rica. I boarded a boat to Almirante on the mainland, then proceeded to the border crossing at Guabito-Sixaoli. At the Costa Rica border control, I was asked…
27-28 February 2024 From the shore of Puerto Viejo of the Caribbean, I took a bus for 5 hours to the capital of Costa Rica – San Jose, in the heart of the country. The bus pulled into a quiet…
29 Feb – 2 March 2024 I was making my way towards Nicaragua. From San Jose I rode a bus heading for La Fortuna, in Spanish means The Fortune. Let’s see. Enormous and head and shoulders above everything else around here,…
4-6 March 2024 From La Fortuna, I attempted to cross into Nicaragua, via the Panas Blancas border crossing to Ometepe. Initially, I took a taxi to a small bus stop at El Tanque, where I caught a bus to Upala.…
7-9 March 2024 From Ometepe, I returned to the mainland of Nicaragua before taking a shared taxi to Granada, by Nicaragua Lake in the north. This is a small town of humble folks going about their daily lives. They welcome visitors…
10-13 March 2024 From Granada, I boarded a local bus to Managua, and from there, I caught a shared taxi straight to Leon. In many ways, Leon feels like Granada – a small Spanish colonial town characterized by mostly single-story…
16-17 March 2024 I wanted to cross into El Salvador at La Union from Potosi in Nicaragua by boat. Upon arriving at the crossing, there was no one except me. The border crossing was shuttered, and there was no boat…
18-20 March 2024 From El Tunco on the east coast of El Salvador, I made an ambitious attempt to reach Antigua in Guatemala on the same day. First I caught an early morning bus back to San Salvador, then a…
21 -22 March 2024 After spending 2 days in Antigua, I took a shuttle bus to Lake Atitlan, which is about 2 hours away. This is another very popular tourist destination, a lake formed by super volcanic eruptions thousands of…
26-27 March 2024 From Antigua, I took a chicken bus to Guatemala City, then another bus to Chiquimula. I stayed a night there, and at 8 am, I was on my way to the border town of El Florido in…
28-31 March 2024 From Copan Ruinas in Honduras, I returned to Guatemala at Chiquimula, to go to Tikal in the north. First I aimed for Ro Dulce to break from the long journey. I arrived late afternoon with no accommodation.…
10-13 I made this trip back in April 2015, starting in Cancun, Mexico, then to Havana, Cuba, The Bahamas, and finally Washington. D.C., USA. The memory is still sweet and beautiful today, English or Chinese. I wanted to see the…
1- 4th April 2024 After seeing the Mayan ruins in Tikal, my next move was to go across the border to San Ignacio in Belize. I arrived at a town shut down for the public holiday. Nothing much happened on…
8 New York is such a melting pot. It is easy to feel out of place if you come from a homogeneous country. Whatever shades or colors you come in, you can find your place here. Most speak one common…
3-8 It was going to be like going around the globe to reach South America from Kuala Lumpur. But I did not expect it to take 63 hours either. For some reason, the connection at Tehran was canceled. About 30…
9 From Bogotá, I flew into Medellín instead of taking the bus. It took only 45 minutes instead of 10 hours by bus, due to the mountainous roads. Besides, there was a lot more ground for me to cover in…
10 After Medellín, I made a day trip to see Guatape, a two-hour drive from Medellín. Guatape would prove to be the icing on the cake. The roads there were truly mountainous. Wow! Guatape was truly numbingly picturesque. It was…
5-6th April 2024 It wasn’t my plan to go to Mexico but here I was, on a boat from the island of Caye Caulker in Belize straight to Chetumal, a coastal town just across the border. I then walked for…
12-13 A couple of years ago, I met a super friendly young couple honeymooning in Cancún, Mexico. They told me I must go to Cartagena. I have not forgotten their friendliness down to this day. So, do not underestimate your…
14-17 After nine days in Colombia, I arrived in Lima, Peru. Peru conjures up images of mystique. Lima is a start. Let’s see. I excitedly came to this first landmark, Larcomar, in the Miraflores district. Shops and restaurants lined the…
18-20 I departed Lima on a luxurious bus. A pillow and blanket were provided, also a hot lunch and a dedicated video screen. My little luggage had to be checked in. I went through a security check where they did…
21 An hour’s drive from Paracas, the public bus arrived at Huacachina, South America’s only oasis. The place looked quite ridiculous. Bizarre, really, a little pond in the middle of nothing but sand and sand hills that almost arched over…
21-22/3/2017 I left Huacachina for Nazca the same day I arrived there. As I stood in the local bus looking down the aisle, I saw all these innocent big eyes staring at this yellow gringo with squirmy eyes who had…
22-26 From Nazca, I took the night bus with a bunch of European youths. Ten hours later, I arrived in Arequipa, Peru’s second largest city. I quickly went out for a quick tour of the city center. This is a…
27-30 A luxurious bus carried me from Arequipa to Cusco. The journey took 10 hours, arriving in Cusco early in the morning. I alighted the bus totally rested and fresh. This was the best and most comfortable long-distance bus ride…
28-29 There is a place in Peru every traveler touring Latin America makes a pilgrimage to wherever he/she is. From Cusco, I tried to get close to it, by finding my way first of all to Aguas Calientes. This was…
31 After seven hours, the tour bus arrived at Puno, still in Peru but now close to the Bolivian border. This was a little town with humble people. I took a casual walk around the square in the morning. A…
1-3 From Puno on the Peruvian side, I traveled by bus toward Bolivia along Lake Titicaca, to arrive at the border. I then walked about 200 meters to cross the border, arriving at the border town Copacabana, by the lake.…
5-7 I finally arrived in La Paz. The first few days in Bolivia were not easy. Few here accepted credit cards. Their ATMs did not take my China and Malaysian withdrawal cards. My dwindling US dollars were depleting alarmingly fast.…
8-9 After 10 hours of desperate escape from La Paz, I finally arrived in Chile’s northernmost coastal city of Arica. As I arrived on the coast, my eardrums popped, just like when a plane touches down. Today I slept like…
9-11 Chile is the longest country in the world, more than 4,000 kilometers long narrow strip of land facing the Pacific. Journeying south should provide a feast of beaches. Arica whets my appetite for more. Who can have too many…
11-13 At the end of seven hours of riding in the desert, after negotiating a few mountains, Antofagasta—a sizeable city of about 600,000 inhabitants—appeared before us. First thing in the morning, I went to the beach to have a peek.…
14-15 I took another night bus, proceeding southward along the Chile Pacific coast. After 10 hours, I arrived at La Serena. I hired a bicycle for the day for USD 10. This beach was wider than the beaches I had…
16-17 I was on the road again, leaving La Serena behind. I noticed more clouds in the sky and more vegetation on the mountains. This bus ride would take six to seven hours, eventually arriving at Santiago, Chile’s capital. Of…
18 One and a half hours away from Santiago on the Pacific coast was the port city of Valparaiso, made famous by its street art, a euphemism for graffiti. A few cable car stations connected the foothills to different parts…
19-20 I left the coast toward Argentina. The scenery on this stretch was yet another feast for the eyes. Today, the sun put on quite a show, flashing its glory with its utmost might in all directions. I felt young…
21-23 Last night I was treated like a king in this bus from Mendoza to Buenos Aires, at a price of USD 120. I was served red wine, champagne, and a hot dinner. I watched two movies on my personal…
24-25 From Buenos Aires, the next logical stop should be Iguazú in Argentina before moving into Brazil. But I had mistakenly booked the accommodation for Iguaçu in Brazil instead. So here I am in Iguaçu, Brazil. Wow! There was so…
26/4/2017 I broke my own record yet again, this time leaving Buenos Aires on a 20-hour bus ride. The rain had been dripping naggingly through the night, with thick vegetation starting to appear outside the bus windows. I opened my…
28-29 I touched down in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, in no time. The flight took an hour, but the taxi ride from the airport to my accommodation took about two hours, bogged down by the traffic. Today was my…
30 I left São Paulo behind and boarded a bus for a six-hour ride to Rio. Yes, this was the city of the last Olympics. Waking up in the morning, stepping out of my residence, which was in an unassuming…
I came to this country on business, but squeezed in some time to take a peek. Venezuela is no stranger to making international news in the past few decades. From the time of its former leader Hugo Chavez, it constantly…
30 I came to this Ipanema beach just before the sun set, to squeeze in one more beach for the day. This was another famous beach in Rio. The sun was about to retire for the day, shades of gray…
14-18 Cuba was the American playground decades ago. Then everything changed. Since the revolution in 1959, the country has been a constant thorn in the flesh of the people up north. In fact, a nuclear confrontation resulted when this little…
19-20 At the airport, a band dressed in bright colors played in the arrivals hall, welcoming tourists and getting us into the mood. I had little time in the Bahamas—to be precise, only a day and a half—but I wanted…
Caution: If you do not understand sarcasm or see compliments, you may not want to read further 注：内容含讽刺和隐喻，无意不敬 30 After Cancun, Havana, Cuba, and the Bahamas, I returned to Houston for a little business, then resumed my travel and came…