I stepped off a plane on February 6th, 2003, and everything changed. Big time…  Since then, February 6th is a special date in my head. It’s not like anything extraordinary happens on this day, but I get a repeat of that flashbulb memory first shocker of arriving in a completely up-side-down place, the feeling of not knowing W.T.F. is going on, [...]

This was a piece I wrote on my Facebook page a few years ago…It is actually quite relevant to Monkeetime.com because I get a regular dose of hate mail from people who don’t appreciate my stupid Nazi jokes in my videos.  Written day after Halloween… ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Every year at about this time (Halloween, for those of you living in Saudi [...]

“Free Tibet!!!” – who hasn’t heard this? Unless you have been living in a dungeon for most of your life or you get your news from bar coasters you should have heard of Tibet and its various independence organizations… Often portrayed as one of the biggest struggles for freedom in the 20th (and 21st) century, liberation of Tibet is a [...]

“Your snide remarks and sarcasm seem to be poking fun at North Korea rather than expressing warmth and sympathy for the people struggling there.” blizzardman59   My horribly inappropriate reply: @blizzardman59 I really don’t think too many North Koreans are watching this… And the ones that do probably need to be gassed and disposed of in a mass grave, because they [...]

St. Petersburg photos

This page is for those who just cannot let go of North Korea… This country continues to fascinate, continues to pop up in the media, and ever week/month something amazing happens. I love it. In addition to launching a “washing machine wrapped in aluminium foil” (as their satellite was described by American diplomats) – into the sea, here is a [...]

These are my photos from the Vladivostok-Irkutsk segment of the Tran-Siberian Railway in Russia.  Mouse over each photo for a short description.

This is an old blog/journal writeup of mine from my adventure on the Trans-Siberian railway.  Between the end of May and the end of June 2003 myself and a friend (Ed, of the China blog fame) traversed the full length of Russia on a train.  Starting in the far-eastern city of Vladivostok, we spent 3 weeks getting to St. Petersburg, [...]

While trying to leave China during the SARS outbreak, myself and Ed got a little bit stuck in Beijing.  We actually made a run for the Russian border, but were not successful, and had to come back. While waiting for the shit-storm to clear up a bit, we teamed up with some other backpackers and visited the Great Wall at Badaling: [...]

This is a collection of photos from my trip to Shanhaiguan in Hebei Province of China.  Shanhaiguan is where the Great Wall of China hits the Pacific Ocean (at the Bohai Sea).   For details of this trip, go to the China blog.

Taiwan is a mid-size island off the coast of China, half-way between Hongkong and Shanghai.  It is home to the Republic of China, the nowadays seldom heard of “other” China. Run by the Chinese nationalists since they were chased off the mainland by the communists in 1949, it has been enjoying a very strong economic growth and a high standard [...]

This is a collection of photos from a hike on a stretch of the Great Wall of China between the village of Jinshanling and Simatai.  We did it when it was still snow covered and frozen, but the temperatures resulted in a general lack of tourists and an awesome, empty wall!  Normally, this place is crawling with camera-wielding hordes, but [...]