Responses to Comments
1. Snarky – Glad to hear you survived yet another scrape. Be glad you’re not in America right now, everyone acts as though the apocalypse is here. Obama is expected to be the saviour, snap his fingers and make American live long, prosper, and rule the world again.
Steve: Yea- it sounds pretty rough. Over here things seem to be pretty quiet as I don’t think the tourist level persons understand what is going on around the world and how it is going to affect them. Now is the beginning of high season but I don’t think the effects will be understood until the beginning of the New Year when people have not shown up like they expected. At the moment it is very light on the tourist trail (or at least I feel it is as I don’t know what it was like.) It may suck for the world, but for me it is fortunately good timing, the dollar is flying high so I got about a 25% raise in the last three months, there is plenty of competition for my business so bargaining is easy and I am getting upgrades for nothing. Costs are definitely low with me doing minimal tourist stuff, eating at my fav food carts, and having my own transportation. In regards to Obama, good luck. He was definitely the best candidate and his election has bumped the status of Americans again, but as usual he will start off strong but with peoples expectations and low attention span/understanding, they will turn on him as things won’t be golden within three months of his taking office. People would rather bitch and whine rather than affect change. I really don’t involve myself in politics as I don’t care who is in office as I am going to do what I need to do to get what I want. If you rely that much on other people to affect your livelihood then it is your fault for allowing others to rule/control your life.
2. Marisa – Certainly did sound like a story of Bad Luck, Good Luck, Bad Luck, Good Luck.
I truly think folks that travel have a type of Luck that bounces around like a rubber ball and they have to be flexible to catch it.
Steve: Yea- flexibility is a must although my conceded self would say skill rather than luck. One of the things that makes me successful in this traveling game is problem solving skills. That and luck. 
3. Dan – Yikes! Bad luck, good luck. Glad it all evened out for you. Just a note, though: you have duplicated the text. Make one more proof-reading pass. Hope you have a good holiday season, whatever that is where ever you might be at the end of the year.
Thanks Dan, good catch, although proper grammar on this site is a bit rough. My excuse is that I am “keeping it real” as traveling is not as refined (day 17 without washing the boxers).
4. Mel – Dear Steve, you have a wonderful site, great pictures and stories.
But this is to inform you that you identity has been stolen (probably from this very website, including the copy of your Cuban passport) and used by some con artists for an internet fraud. They use an e-mail address — nksteven@hotmail.com that I suppose is not yours. If you are interested what they were planning to do under your name please let me know and I can resend their mails to you.
Best regards,
Mel
Steve: Very interesting. I got your e-mails, cheeky bastards. Buying a house using a fake identity with a stolen fake identity. Thanks for the pass along and hope you sell your house (to someone that gives you real money).
5. Marisa – Cambodia sounds wonderful to me. Thanks for the food photos.
I really look forward to getting back to Cambodia as Thailand and Vietnam are pretty mainstream. Cambodia still has that bit of edge to it that I like. Food is fabulous and is the main thing keeping me moving.
6. Charlie Brazilian – Hey steve, how’s it going? So you’re arond thailand with a ‘new’ bike? it sounds cool, fucking cool.
Man, i was looking for your email address here but i couldn’t find it. I’m going on a trip through south america for 2,5 months. I have about half of it already worked out. Flying from sao paulo to lima, peru and going through ecuador to colombia to attend a wedding. Then comes the complicated bit for which i thought of asking you for some tips. I’ll get into venezuela from colombia and i’m thinking of going across through guyana, suriname and french guyana and back to brazil where the amazon river meets the sea. Question is, did you go across the borders or you flew into guyanas and suriname? Google maps doesn’t show any roads in those countries. I’m not flying cos i haven’t got much money, all gonna be done by bus. Do you reckon i’ll be able to go across by bus? Any tips? I have ordered the south america on a shoestring but it hasn’t arrived yet. Have just started going through the thorn tree forums. Gimme a hand please?!
Some more six months until you get home or gonna postpone it a bit?
Crack on mate.
Charlie
Steve: Charlie, thanks for the compliment on the bike (the first and only). I love South America. Would love to be there now. In regards to your plan, when I was there the border was being disputed between Ven and Guyana and therefore no crossing was allowed. What I had to do was go from Ven to Northern Brazil and then cross into Guyana. It was all very easy by public transport. I did it all by shared taxis. The other trouble area was getting from the west of Guyana to the east coast where the main road heading south is. There was a one a day bus but when I was there it had a broken axle. I ended up flying across instead. The bus was like a rough 14 hours but gets you right through the jungle. The rest is fairly basic as there is one main highway that heads through Suriname and French Guyana down to Brazil. French Guyana is very expensive so be prepared (more costly than visiting the French islands and uses Euros). The border of French Guyana to the first port town where you can catch a boat down to Belem was 14 hours of brutal hell in a four wheel drive truck. I would pray there is a new road. From there it was all river boat transport (fun/boring). The LP shoestring was pretty good but if you can pick up an old version of country specific guidebooks (doesn’t matter what company) they help because they include a lot more of the smaller towns as well as maps Also, the sights and majority of info doesn’t change even after 5+ years. I still do it that way now. The new one is important as it gives more up to date visa and cost info. Let me know if there is anything else you need. I really enjoyed all my SA adventures. Oh yea, you are going to spend a lot of time in hammocks so if you are into traveling light you might bring a compact high tech one from home, if not they sell woven local styles all over but they are a bit bulky and heavy (pretty though).
7. michael – steve we miss you a loooooooooooooooooooooot
we are back in israel traying to make a living after a long piriot of traveling (well compere to you it is not so long)
it is very very nice and butifull what you r doing here. i like it very much.
send us your e mail ( is it – snw2srf2stt@yahoo.com).
miss you very muche michael & edith.
p.s. if you have more pictures of us please send us.
Steve: Hey Michael and Edith. I sent you an e-mail but if you are not getting them that is my correct e-mail you listed. The pictures unfortunately are gone (frick). My hard drive crashed and I lost them all including my ride back to Manali. I am keeping the hard drive so when I get back home I can try and pull the pics off of it. Keep in touch and hope things are well in Israel.
8. Mulualem – I want to live in sudan I have BSc degree in computer science from Arbaminch University which is in Southern part of Ethiopia.I have no maney to get visa or any thing that I can travel though. so what shall I do pleace tell me.I Want to live in sudan.Give me suggestion.
Steve: Sorry, I don’t have much that I can help you with. My only suggestion would be to stick with Khartoum as the rest of the towns in Sudan would not have as much opportunity. If it were me I would head south to Kenya, South Africa. Other than that my knowledge of living in Africa is pretty much nil. Good luck.
9. JoeBoo
Hey, dingleberry, easy on the old white guys… Old white guys gotta get some luvin’ too, so why not from anorexic Asian chicks from the sticks of Thailand?
Steve: Dingleberry? I prefer to go by my porn name of Shuttlecock. No worries, I am all for prostitution. If a hot Russian babe wants to pay me lots of money to have sex with her, hell yea. Sold. For your info, the prostitution thing is pretty crap in Vietnam as all I get is propositions by moto taxi guys “Massage? Boom Boom?” I keep telling them that I am not interested in having sex with moto taxi guys.
Tags: 1, Vietnam