Our drive to Ubud began with a bit of a detour. We agreed to check out a temple or two on our way up, but the temple that was of most interest was pretty much in the opposite direction of Ubud. No worries though. We arrived at Pura Tanah Lot just as the biggest and darkest storm clouds were gathering. We got out, snapped a few photos of the attractive Hindu gateway, paid our entrance fee, and meandered through the laneways of tourist knickknacks before reaching ...

We pulled into Bali's Denpasar International Airport and were promptly met by a driver with a sign with our names who greeted us and promptly whisked us to the Villa Kresna Hotel where my parents were waiting for us. I was happy to see that they'd wasted no time in getting into the Holiday spirit...Mom had already lost track of what day of the week it was and Dad was on his way to grab some beers from the corner store. Perfect. We took their lead and slipped in...

We had to fly via Kuala Lumpur to get to Bali which was our next stop and the way the flights worked out we ended up with a day to kill. As luck would have it, our buddy Becky Reining who lives in Singapore and works as a very successful Sales Executive for the Asia-Pacific Region had some very important and potentially extremely lucrative business meetings in Kuala Lumpur that very Friday. Thus the 3 of us met for the 7th time so far during our 4 month SE Asia s...

Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei Darussalam. Say that 10 times fast...or you could just say what we did: "where the hell is that!?!". Brunei is a tiny little country contained in two little patches of land surrounded by ocean to the North and Malaysia everywhere else on the island of Borneo. We went there literally just because we could, as it is close and relatively cheap and easy to get to. Plus, G is chasing her 30th country before her 30th birthday...so we wil...

Any "Survivor" fans out there? We've never watched it, but we can now say we've been to the island where the very first ever season was filmed. Our good friend Lizzy Ryan recommended we check it out; she particularly raved about the mud bathes...it was doable in 2 days/1 night which is what we had so we figured we'd roll out. To get to Pulau Tiga you have to first get to Kuala Penyu Jetty which is roughly 2 hrs west of Kota Kinabalu. You take a bus headed in th...