
This is a shot of me at the ultra-touristy Victoria's Peak. Pretty cool view, but I'm not sure if it counts when (1) you take an escalator to get up there and (2) there's a Planet Hollywood (or something of the sort) at the top. |
 Peter at Victoria's Peak. See last comment. |

Hong Kong's skyline is really impressive - definitely more so than any US city. |
 Taken from a peak on Cheung Chau, one of Hong Kong's outlying islands. This island is pretty cool - no motor vehicles, pretty small, a lot more traditional and a lot cheaper than Hong Kong. The hike to get up to this point wasn't amazing, but it beat an escalator ride :) |
 Another view of Hong Kong's skyline - I think this was also from Victoria's Peak. |

The next couple of shots - plus a few of the tall ones - were taken from a bamboo raft which we took down the river. The rafts were made from scratch the night before our journey. Not wanting to be overly elaborate, we steered the boat down the river with only bamboo poles - none of that sissy oar stuff. When we reached our destination, the rafts paid for our lunch - our guide gave them to the local villagers to build a house, in exchange for our food. Personally, I thought they should have used PayPal, but when you're miles from any road, don't have electricity, and live in a bamboo hut... I guess PayPal hasn't quite penetrated that market yet :)
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This is what my back looked like while I was in Thailand. Although I was definitely a minimalist when it came to clothing (it was pretty friggin' hot), I somehow managed to not get burned at all. |

Peter and I, pretending to steer the boat with our long bamboo sticks. We're actually just posing for a picture (he says, as they crash into the giant rock). |

The group of people with whom we trekked. On this sort of trip, one of my goals is to hike for ten hours a day, so that when I get to the village and lay down at night, I'm too tired to notice the fact that it's forty degrees and I'm sleeping on a hard wooden floor. Unfortunately, this is difficult when a large part of the group would have trouble climbing a flight of stairs - much less a small mountain. I did what I could to explore as much as possible - but unfortunately, I occasionally suffer from an obsessive desire to not be lazy :) |
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This is the village where we stayed on the second night of our trek. Believe it or not, this village is definitely more technologically advanced than the place where we stayed the first night. The first night was in a Karen tribal village - among people who lead a traditional lifestyle, speak their own language (not Thai), are far removed from roads, electricity, phone lines, etc., and pretty much rely on subsistence farming. This village is also a farming community, but gets a bit of revenue from tourism, has locks on the doors, (minimal) mattresses on the floor, and has their own elephants. |
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Riding an elephant was a pretty cool thing to do. It gives one a different perspective on the world, and elephants themselves are for some reason just fascinating creatures. I wouldn't want to make a living of it - it's pretty uncomfortable - but it's nonetheless amazing to be on these massive creatures as they make their way through trails that many humans would consider narrow. |

Some pretty nice views in the hills of Northern Thailand... |

Is this picture funnier with or without a caption? This is not really a candid - I told Peter to do something funny in relation to the hot springs in front of him. Note (1) the skills of the photographer in capturing this action and (2) the intelligence of the photographer for not finding himself pictured in such a compromising position (On a slightly more crude/juvenile note, I think an even better shot would have featured Peter bending over, assuming "moon" posture, with steam strategically protruding...) |

A waterfall we encountered on our trek in Northern Thailand. Believe it or not, the water here is pretty darned cold, and it took some guts for me to brave it like this. Not only that, but the rocks around the waterfall were quite slippery - only a true fool would try to climb up them. |