Category: Travel
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The Great Indochina Expedition, Episode 6: Angkor at Last!
On New Year’s Day 2026 we tuktukked to the visitor center at Angkor Archaeological Part, got our three-day passes, admired the Christmas decorations, and then headed into the park for our first look at the ruins. The first day focused on Angkor Thom, the remains of the former capital city of the Khmer Empire. (Angkor…
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The Great Indochina Expedition, Episode 5: In and Around Siem Reap
December 30 was our first full day in Siem Reap. We kicked off the day with a visit to the Wat Bo temple (I’m being redundant here: “Wat” means “Temple,” but it does make the whole thing more clear), not far from the Rambutan hotel. Wat Bo is an active Buddhist monastery, and indeed we…
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The Great Indochina Expedition, Episode 4: Road Trip!
The original Lost Plate tour schedule included a day in Battambang, a city southwest of Tonle Sap lake. But because of the Recent Unpleasantness with Thailand, they dropped that from the schedule and routed us around the northeast shore of the lake instead. For the first time we did not travel by tuk-tuk: we had…
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The Great Indochina Expedition, Episode 3: Emotional Whiplash Day
Our tour set out again on the morning of December 28, aboard tuk-tuks once again. The first stop was not far from the Rambutan, at a restaurant where we tried a Cambodian breakfast specialty: a noodle soup called Kuy Teav. Suihong, the trainee guide, explained that it’s not the sort of thing one has every…
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The Great Indochina Expedition, Episode 2: Phnom Penh
On our first full day in Cambodia we woke up early — which was surprising as I had expected to be utterly wiped out after the flight. Apparently my body decided that sitting in a chair for 30 hours didn’t count as “real fatigue” so I didn’t deserve real sleep. At breakfast we met one…
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The Great Indochina Expedition, Episode 1: Background and Back Pain
When Dr. Kelly and I were planning the Great Australian Expedition of April-May 2025, one idea which came up early on was to include a side trip to southeast Asia. I’ve always wanted to visit Angkor Wat, and while Cambodia isn’t exactly close to Australia, it’s a lot closer to Australia than it is to…
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Australia, Part 7
From Warrnambool we drove west along the coast some more, but not far. Just a few miles away is Tower Hill, a fascinating environment well worth the stop. The southern part of the Australian state of Victoria is made of limestone. It's even called the "Limestone Coast." That's how you get cool formations like the…
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Australia, Part 6
On May 10 we checked out of our hotel in Melbourne, loaded all our gear into the rental car, and set out westward to the town of Torquay where we began our drive along the Great Ocean Road. The G.O.R. runs along the south coast of Victoria, and was a big public-works project intended to…
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Australia, Part 5
On May 8 we toured the State Library of Victoria, which is an impressive complex in the core of Melbourne. We admired some of the rare and unusual books on display, and went up to the walkway around the top of the rotunda for a view of the reading room below. Diane then had to…
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Australia, Part 4
In honor of Independence Day in the United States of America, I'm going to continue the narrative of our visit to Australia. On May 5 we started our day with brunch at the Sydney Seafood Market — some big raw oysters and an assortment of sushi. No clownfish. Then by foot to the Australian National…
The Cambias Digression 