Orlando, Florida

First: I apologize for taking so long to finish posting about our trip. We got home and life got busy, and I kept intending to do it and... Well, here I am! My intention is to continue using this blog to post about our travels -- more on that when I've finished out the posts from the year.

On December 3 of 2013, we finally flew back to the US for the first time in over eight months. We flew from London nonstop to Orlando in order to visit the last of the Disney parks of the year.

Meaning, of course, that I have a picture of Carter in front of every Disney castle in the world! That is fairly extraordinary, and looking back eight months later, I'm amazed that we actually did it!

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

I think the first time I heard about Dubai was about ten years ago. One of seven emirate states of the UAE on the Persian Gulf, Dubai is the most populous by far - though the vast majority of the population are immigrants from other places in the world who've come to work.

Dubai is a city of excess in nearly every way. The wealth on display is unbelievable, jaw-dropping. We saw incredibly expensive cars, families with a nanny for each child, and new buildings and roads going up everywhere. There are huge construction cranes in nearly every direction you look, and everything seems designed to make you feel like you're surrounded by glamour and wealth. It's like Las Vegas without the vice.

And it has the (current) tallest building in the world: the Burj Khalifa.

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

On our first trip to Africa in 1997, Doug and I stopped in Victoria Falls. When the Zambezi River is high, this waterfall becomes the widest curtain of water on the planet. Even when the water isn't high, it's a spectacular sight. The falls lie on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia, and on our very first visit all those years ago, we started on the Zambian side. Livingstone was a very quiet town then; there was really one hotel set up for tourists coming to see the falls, and we were among just a handful of guests staying there. The Zimbabwe side, in contrast, felt like spring break. The town was full of backpackers there to party and go whitewater rafting and bungee jumping before they headed off on safaris. The streets were full of locals and tourists alike, all with big smiles on their faces.

Moorea and Tahiti

When you think of the South Pacific, one of the places you probably think about is Tahiti. It just sounds incredibly exotic, doesn't it? Tahiti. Like a place of incredible beauty and tradition and relaxation. And so, we decided we had to travel to Tahiti while we were in the area.      

The flight from New Zealand was around five hours long. The time change is only two hours, but since you cross the international date line, it's actually a 22 hour time difference. You arrive nearly a full day in the past, basically. 

New Zealand, part 3: Queenstown

The last place we visited in New Zealand was Queenstown, down at the bottom of the South Island. Queenstown is located in a stunning valley on the edge of a lake, surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

Fiji

A long time ago we looked into taking a cruise around the South Pacific. The idea of visiting such exotic-sounding destinations as Fiji and Tahiti was thrilling, and though we ultimately didn't book that cruise, the idea of visiting those places remained in our minds as a sort of ultimate beach trip. When we began planning this trip, we realized we had an opportunity to pick some island destinations in the South Pacific. Bali was the first of those exotic destinations, and the second was Fiji.

Bali, Indonesia

Bali was the third of five beach weeks we're spending during this year. Bali was a place I knew little about before we planned the trip, other than that it was a beach destination popular with Australians, and that there was a terrorist attack there several years ago. When we were choosing the exotic beach locales for the trip, Bali was a place we both mentioned almost immediately (along with Tahiti and Fiji, both of which are coming up soon).

We thought it might be a bit quick to go back to a beach resort so soon after Koh Samui, and in retrospect, I think it was. It was going to be hard to top Koh Samui, and it might have been better to have a few more weeks between the two. But of course, that doesn't mean we didn't enjoy it!

Koh Samui, Thailand

After our visit to Vietnam we headed back to Thailand for the second of five beach weeks during the trip. We'd had a fantastic time in Goa and we hoped our time on the island of Koh Samui would be at least as good as that week was. It exceeded our expectations in so many ways that it's hard to describe the experience. I'll have to let the pictures speak for themselves.

Siem Reap, Cambodia (part 1)

We've traveled a lot in the last two decades, and I can honestly say that there have been very few places that truly surprised me, that exceeded my expectations in almost every way. Siem Reap, Cambodia was one of those places. 

When I was a child in the 1970s and 1980s, I only knew of Cambodia as a place where refugees came from. The Khmer Rouge and the killing fields dominated my ideas about the place, and though I knew there were amazing temples and ruins to be seen, it was difficult to get past my preconceptions.  Add to that that we'd read we were going to be there at the absolute hottest time of the year (one guidebook described the heat as "hellish"), and I wasn't sure I was really going to enjoy our time there.

But from the moment we landed at the lovely airport in Siem Reap, everything about the city was picturesque and charming. It was hot, yes, but the air-conditioned hotel van was waiting for us (with cans of cold beer) to whisk us off to the Soujourn Hotel, a lovely little boutique hotel just outside the city.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Bangkok, Thailand (part 1)

Leaving Kathmandu was nearly as difficult as arriving. The line for passport control was an hour long, and there were maybe only 20 people ahead of us. Luckily, Carter has learned to wait patiently in lines (as long as he has my phone or the iPad to play with), which made it feel much less like torture than it might otherwise. The Kathnmandu international airport is rustic, perhaps one of the most rustic I've ever seen (including Iquitos, Peru). The domestic airport was even more rustic: the baggage claim area is a hut next to the parking lot!

And so I was completely caught off-guard by the incredibly modern, glittering international airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The contrast was stunning, especially considering that it wasn't a very long flight between the two places.

Agra, India

If I had to describe India in a single phrase, I think it would be "functional chaos." Everywhere I look, everything appears to be in a state of utter chaos, and yet, it works. I have no idea how.

Every mode of transport conceivable is used in India, everything from bicycles to pushcarts to motorbikes to motorbike taxis to bicycle rickshaws to trucks, cars, buses, ox-drawn carts, horse-drawn carts, elephants, and so on. All of these could be present on a single road at any time. Lanes are optional, and generally ignored. Horn honking is an art. Cows randomly block the road. I have no idea how people ever learn to drive here, because it looks pretty damn intimidating.

Goa, India

One of the things we decided to do this year was visit a handful of beach resort areas. Doug is not a beach person, and despite the fact that we've done so much traveling together, we've never been to a resort. When we were choosing our itinerary for this trip, there were several places that we wanted to go that are clearly beach destinations, and so we decided that we would visit some beach resorts. In all, we're spending a little more than five weeks on the beach this year. Carter and I are very excited!

Mumbai, India

The last time I was in India was 1999, and it was a trip that changed my attitude about travel. Prior to that trip, I enjoyed doing things the "hard way" when we traveled - taking public transportation, staying in local hotels, and trying all the foods I came across. In 1999, I learned that there are many places in the world where you just can't doing that without being prepared to experience some really bad things: food poisoning and robbery, among them. I have a photo of myself from that trip standing in front of the Taj Mahal, and right after that photo was taken, I threw up. In a trash can. And it only got worse from there. By the end of that trip, I'd learned that you just can't approach travel so naively.

So you can imagine that it was with a bit of trepidation that I headed into this part of the trip. Doug has spent quite a lot of time in India for business, and he's had much better luck than we had then -- but he's done it by staying in very nice hotels, arranging private transportation, and being extremely picky about what he eats. So obviously, this part of the trip would fall under the "spare no expense" category.

Cuzco and Machu Picchu

We arrived in Cuzco about a week ago, expecting a contrast from the Iquitos area. And wow, the areas are so different that it's stunning. The amount of cultural and geographic diversity in a country as small as Peru is simply amazing.

When you arrive in Cuzco, the first thing that hits you is the altitude. The city is at around 12,000 feet, and at first the simple act of walking around takes your breath away. It's completely bizarre to walk up a very slight incline and find yourself panting like you've just sprinted that distance instead. The locals have traditionally drunk mate de coca (tea made from coca leaves) or chewed the coca leaves to alleviate altitude sickness, and this remedy is definitely encouraged for visitors. It's a bit like caffeine in its effect when you drink the tea, though chewing the leaves will leave the side of your mouth feeling a little numb. Whether it actually helps with the altitude or not, I can't say. I drank a lot of it and Doug didn't, and I'm not sure if our experience was any different!

Still in Santiago

Per our original itinerary, we were supposed to check out of our hotel in Santiago on Friday morning, pick up our rental car, and drive down to Santa Cruz to spend a week in the wine region. Since Carter was sick for the entire first week we were in Santiago, we decided to adjust our schedule so that we could actually spend some time here. So on Friday morning, we checked out of the Ritz Carlton and headed a few blocks down the street to the W, which is our favorite hotel in Santiago.

Our room at the W has a balcony, which I am LOVING. Also, the air conditioning works, which makes Doug very happy. Our room at the Ritz was nearly 80 degrees for the entire week and a half we stayed there, and there was nothing to be done about it. Doug was miserable, and he's so much happier now.