Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico has been a territory of the United States since 1898 when Spain lost it to the US during the Spanish-American war. Keeping this history in mind, one of the coolest things you'll see in Old Town San Juan (the capital) is the Castillo San Felipe del Morro, an ocean-facing 16th century fort with super-thick walls (as thick as 18 feet / 5.5 meters) and cannons for defence against seabourn attackers.

We also got our ATVs on in the rainforest, which was not very far at all from San Juan. Really most of the Island has rainforest-like topography so this is not too difficult to find.

We had rented a car which made moving around the Island all the easier, and we recommend doing this because it's relatively cheap, the roads and traffic are easily navigable and it affords you flexibility that is especially precious on short trips (4-5 days in our case).

A rental car was especially useful to make it to the famous bioluminescent lagoon which is in Fajardo, nearly 40 miles from San Juan. We kayaked in the lagoon which is full of dinoflagellates, tiny plankton that emit light when the water around them is disturbed. This meant the water around your kayak oar appeared to be full of glittering diamonds as you rowed through the lagoon. It also meant you could see fish swimming through the water even in pitch darkness! I'm a fisherman so when I saw these submarine comets flying all around our kayak, I was ready to fish! Alas, no rod rental facility was available so maybe next time. You could even tell the size of the fish based on the size of the underwater comet! Sigh! On another note, kayaking is hard! Definitely requiring better synchronization than canoeing.

All through the trip, we sampled pretty decent food at the more-hyped restaurants of San Juan and did alot of strolling. I brought fins and a snorkle so took in some snorkling, launching from the beach in front of our hotel. With the exception of a lone stingray, I didn't see anything exciting but at least there were fish. Puerto Rico receives strong and consistent Northeastery trade winds so I got my basic Kitesurfing certification over two days, issued by IKO. We also took a tour of the Bacardi factory.

US Virgin Islands

I went to the US Virgin Islands to get my American Sailing Association 101, 103 and 104 certifications that would enable me to bareboat charter a up to 50 foot yacht in coastal waters. We mainly sailed between St John, St Thomas and Culebra, Puerto Rico, learning all the required skills over 9 days on board a 46 foot Island Packet bermuda-rigged cutter, although we sailed it like a sloop, never using the staysail (second headsail).

I was at the helm for 14+ foot high waves which was quite a ride - enough to make me reconsider my aspirations to do an Atlantic crossing. But who knows? Maybe some day.

Thailand and Cambodia

Phuket - beachy stuff, scuba diving and underwater photography. I got to do my first wreck dive on the King Cruiser wreck. That's me jumping in the water below.


Fair warning. Lionfish may not let you use the restroom on King Cruiser!


Bangkok - Jarisara and Tsvetan's wedding, Wat-hopping and other touristy stuff.




Siem Riep - Fun times of Pub Street. I also walked into a Buddhist temple's attached dormitory and helped some young monks with their English homework.



Angkor Wat - A spectacular ruin of one of the largest pre-industrial cities in the world. That's me at the bottom of the first image.

Pacific Coast Highway (PCH)

This was a 10 day road trip along California's famous coastal highway in a convertible.

San Francisco - Met up with old Capital One friends, Tsvetan and Jarisara, for lunch, took my cousin Alizeh, a freshman at UC Berkeley, to dinner, and did some tourist stuff again.

Carmel - I love the vibe of this town, relaxed and happy, a great place for the low-key kind of Dolce Vita.

Hearst Castle - This may be the coolest building I've seen in the US. The beauty and opulence of this mega-mansion is something to behold and crown jewel for m was the pool, maybe the most iconic in the world.

Pismo Beach - Just a stopover, nothing special, although it was close to Pebble Beach, which was cool to see.

Los Angeles - LA is a fairly known quantity so not much to say. At Colleen's behest, we took a TMZ bus tour, which was the corny guilty-pleasure type fun you'd expect it to be. I also rode a mechanical bull for the first time and did miserably.

San Diego - Nice city by the bay. Highlight here was a shore dive into the kelp forest off La Jolla. It was my first cold water dive so I was wearing a 7-9mm wetsuit with hood, gloves and shoes. The hood confused a playful seal (photo below) who initally though I was a giant awkward seal, but even after he figured out we weren't seals, he still hung out with with us for several minutes. But the oddest thing was being 40-50 feet under water and seeing birds swimming by you like rockets. Cormorants seem remarkably at home under water for a flying species, and the amazing thing is some Cormorants can dive to three times that depth!

Australia - Sydney, Melbourne, Cairns and Port Douglas

While Sydney and Melbourne were great cities, the highlighs of the trip for me were all experienced in Cairns and Port Douglas, namely:

- Eating kangaroo, crocodile and barramundi
- Diving and doing underwater photography on the Great Barrier Reef

- Catching a magnificent 92cm long Barramundi

- Driving the twisty road between Cairns and Port Douglas and back. Our Vauxhall hatchback may have not had much horsepower but it was lightweight, the wheels were close to the corners and it had a stick-shift, all of which added up to a ton of fun barreling into corners along this beautiful coastal road. To top it all, any time we turned off the road towards the ocean, we had a beautiful stretch of beach all to ourselves! Only problem being you couldn't go into the water because saltwater crocs were supposedly everywhere.

Sri Lanka

What a gem of a country Sri Lanka is! Natural beauty aside, it has the highest literacy rate in South Asia (92%), and breathtaking religious harmony (for the time being - knock on wood). More than once did I spy a Hindu or Buddhist temple sharing a wall with a church or a masjid. With the civil war over, tourists are flocking to the island - over 40% of the travellers I saw at the airport both when coming and going were caucasian tourists - and construction of new resorts is booming. Sri Lanka is beginning to cash its peace dividend and the checks are only going to get larger as the tourism infrastructure develops.

I was in Sri Lanka for work, facilitating a regional conference on grid interactive utility scale wind power for South Asia. Delegates from 8 countries as well as numerous turbine vendors, banks and engineering consultants attended. All in all it was a big success and several sizeable deals were struck.

However, that didn't leave much time to do tourism-type stuff. I basically was only able to see Columbo and Puttalam (because we toured a wind farm near there), both on the Western coast. In the future I'd like to go to Kandy and see both the Southern and Northern coasts.

When I went, the war against the LTTE had ended within the last year. Security was still very high. My car from the airport to the hotel was stopped at 4 seperate checkposts by what looked like military police. Even once inside Colombo, I saw far more armed uniformed men than I'm accustomed to.

Kabul, Afghanistan (Background)

Afghanistan is a strangely beautiful and haunting place. Much of its beauty comes from its barrenness and desolation, similar to Balochistan, where I spent a lot of time growing up. Standing in the wide open plains between mountain and desert, it is easy to feel at peace. You’ll also run into interesting and colorfully dressed characters everywhere, all with interesting stories, many of them very tragic. And yet they are quick to smile and laugh with you.

I hope these people get what they want, what they’ve always wanted, an Afghanistan where they can lead normal lives. Where they have food, water, healthcare, education, dignity and above all, peace. I hope the 2014 transition will be relatively peaceful but to be honest I'm a little bearish on that prediction.

 

I was in Kabul to work on Afghanistan's energy sector, primarily with the national electric utility. I found Kabul to be strikingly similar to Quetta, Pakistan. While my personal security detail didn't allow me alot of freedom of movement, I took advantage of every opportunity to talk to Afghans about their lives and get their opinions on the war. I had expected some negative treatment for being Pakistani but the opposite wound up happening, I received exceptionally warm treatment because of it. It turns out many Afghans feel Pakistan treated them very well when millions of their refugees streamed across the border during the war with the Soviets. Many received their educations in Pakistan and expressed feelings of gratitude towards a country that treated them like their own to the point they almost forgot they were refugees.

My compound was in the Shash Darak area near the main ISAF base. I went out to dinner to several of the well-known restaurants that cater to international workers like myself. Dinner often ran over $50 per person including one or two drinks, which initially surprised me. But then war profiteering often works out like that. America basically dropped a large container of money on Kabul when it invaded it and it shows. Suitcases of $100 bills make their way around the city in armoured Landcruisers like Dominos pizza deliveries. Guns, contracts, narcotics, political favors - they all have a price.