I REALLY want to do some village hopping through the Stans. I wanna sleep in a yurt. Probably past the time to accomplish it though. My stay in Turkey was too short and relegated to Istanbul to have any appreciation. Lucky you.
Japan was a trip. I was hitch hiking. People wanted to feed me things I couldn't afford. Not that killer fish. Fruit. Individually wrapped pears. I guess they wrap them on the tree. You had those? Largest grapes I've ever seen. I did get to try that Kobe but really don't have the taste buds to appreciate I think.
On a rural hike by myself (stupid in it's own right) in New Guinea some little boy sidled up, was going to protect me as is custom and responsibility. He shinnied up a tree, hacked open a coconut. My first taste of baby coconut. Oh my. That was the first desert war. I think I still have the newspaper announcing the end with the headline, "ol iraki army runaway."
Hitched a ride on an Indonesian cargo ship through the South China Sea. They had lines dragging and actually caught a tuna. They were shocked as they never really caught anything. (bone breaker too if not careful unhooking). They shared out. THAT's the stuff the Japanese pay fortune for. I admit, if I was rich enough that cost was to me like going to McDonalds, I might lose my sense of economy. Besides that meal it was five days of rice and roaches. Roaches weren't part of the menu, just frequent guests on the plate.
That's another place I want to get to but probably past time. I had two shots at Eastern Africa. When in the Middle East and when in Western Africa. Medical cut both out of the game just before I was to have a leave. Morocco, Senegal, the Nile and what was supposed to be my original posting but the war happened the week I was supposed to get on the plane, Ruanda. Really would like to see those. Uh, on topic, i hear they have great filet mignon in Ruanda... tastes like snake.