Over the course of the trip, I put together nearly 100 panoramas, using the Pentax Optio WP (which has a panorama setting) and Panorama Factory software. Here is a collection of our favorites.  The country names link to all posts from that country.

Bay of Islands, North Island, New Zealand 

 Peka Peka Beach, South Island, New Zealand with Maitland.

Franz Josef Glacier, South Island, New Zealand 

 Doubtful Sound, Fiordlands, South Island, New Zealand

Suncorp Rugby Stadium, Brisbane, Australia 

 Long Beach, Great Keppel Island, Queensland, Australia

 Singapore Rooftop

 Sri Lanka, Negombo Beach

 Sri Lanka Elephant Safari

 Kandy, Sri Lanka, from Hotel Topaz

 The Taj Mahal, Agra, India

  Mt. Kanchenjunga at Dawn, Tiger Hil, near Darjeeling, India

 Rai Lay Beach, Thailand

 East Coast of Koh Lanta, Thailand

 Koh Lanta Beach, Thailand

 Pimalai Resort Pool, Koh Lanta, Thailand

 Koh Phi Phi Thailand

Loh Dalam Bay, Koh Phi Phi Thailand

Matsumoto Castle, Japan

 Vang Vieng Mountains, Laos

 Angkor Wat, Cambodia

 Hong Kong Harbour Peak

Three Gorges Dam, China

 Henningsvaer, Lofoten Islands, Arctic Circle, Norway

 Lofoten Islands, Norway

 Lofoten Islands, Norway

 Nyhavn, Copenhagen, Denmark

 Siena, Italy from the Duomo 

 The Barrio, Lisbon, Portugal

 Cadaques, Spain

 La Seu Gothic Cathedral, Barcelona, Spain

 Grand Canyon, South Rim, Arizona, USA

 Grand Canyon, South Rim, Arizona, USA

 Zion National Park, Utah, USA

 Lake Powell, Utah, USA

 And finally, I shot this panorama from Myrtle Edwards Park in Seattle just days before we left.  During the trip we would look at it sometimes to remember home.

The Flintstones and the Grand Canyon, originally uploaded by LeeLeFever_TwinF.

A first for both of us. Better than we expected. Breathtaking.

Do you remember the episode of The Flintstones where they went to the Grand Canyon and it was only a few inches deep? Sachi just said "Do you remember that Flintst-" I had to interrupt with "Meee tooo!" We are the Flintstones generation.

Early on the trip, I got an email from a person calling himself JFG and saying that he was working on a new project related to travel and was a fan of TwinF.  Further, he said that if we were ever near the French-Swiss border to let him know – that we had a place to stay.

Over the last couple of days we took him up on his offer and spent a couple of days with him, Jean François Groff, his wife wonderful Masumi and their sons August and James (and lovable dog Yu). Coincidentally, we were married on the exact same day and the women of both couples are Japanese (Sachi being half).

Apart from staying in a charming French house in the French Alps and eating delicious food with the family, I got a chance to geek out with someone who I learned is a true Internet pioneer.  In short, JF was a member of Tim Berners Lee’s team at CERN that originated the World Wide Web that we all use today.  He was there at the very, very beginning when Tim worked at the office beside his.  Today he is the CTO of Netvibes – a handy web site that brings together all sorts of information from the web in one place.  So, it was a pleasure to speak geek with someone who has seen it all happen and is into exciting things now.

Apart from the geeking out, our time with them also made us a bit envious.  Not because of their house or cars or anything material.  We were envious because they have a warm and lively home – something that we have been without for 328 days now.  Seeing their everyday life made us miss home a bit more and look forward to our arrival by the end of the year. 

We owe the Groffs a big thanks for their hospitality and hope we can return the favor in Seattle some day. 

Here are some photos from a walk we took just outside their home in Savoie…

This was shot from their front porch...

 These are from the charming town of Annecy, France...

Put simply, Norway's Lofoten Islands are surely the most stunning mountain scenery we've ever experienced. I'll let the pictures and a few anecdotes tell the story...

We stayed in a tiny fishing village called Henningsvaer,or Henningsvær, if you want to be accurate.  Our lodging for three nights was a "rorbu", which is a fisherman's cabin redone for visitors.  It was low season, so we got it for half price for three nights (USD$80 per night). It had a kitchen, a view over the water, four beds and low doorways - as my head would tell you.  Our expectations were exceeded from the start.

 Having a kitchen was nice because Norway is obscenely expensive: $8 dollars to rent a DVD, $10 for a pint of beer at a restaurant.  We ate meatballs and noodles at "home".  Speaking of home, this was the view out of the back.

 and from the side...

 The little town of Henningsvær, is called "the Venice of the Lofotens". I think every country has a "Venice of" and "Paris of".  It is an incredibly charming place.

Here's a closer look at the mountains in the back...

However, the real sights, the real drama and the reason we took two days to arrive were the mountains that seemed to go on and on and provide a perfect backdrop for quaint arctic dioramas.

The Lofotens only get about 280,000 tourists a year, likey thanks to being so far out of the way. When we were there, it was low season and the place was empty - closed for the season and preparing for weeks of darkness. We would both like to experience an arctic winter some day.  We've done an Asian summer - why not an arctic winter?

 Did you know?  Fjords are fjords because they are by the sea and are formed by glaciers.  That is why you find them in places like Norway and New Zealand - places where giant glaciers existed.

 Despite all the focus on sealife and catching cod - we saw little wildlife, but I made friends with a jellyfish that liked to pose for the camera in the unbelievably crystal clear water...

 In the end though, it was the glaciar-carved mountains in the rural artic settings that really peeled our scalp back, as our friend Tom would say.

 

It's funny how things tend to work out. Sometimes a tiny bit of information can turn into something wonderful. Without this helpful post, it's likely that we would have made other plans and not gone north at all. As it turned out, our decision to keep moving northward turned into a highlight of the whole trip. Thank you Internet!

Our overland trip across Scandinavia...

This video is from two days of exploring the Lofoten Islands via car. Despite being a couple of hundred miles into the Arctic Circle, it is quite mild thanks to the gulf stream current. A stunningly beautiful place our jaws are still on the floor. Pictures and more info coming soon...

Being out there in the middle of miles of rolling grass covered hills in Mongolia, there is little to do but ride horses- small but tough Mongolian horses.

Lots more coming soon- the connections have been few and far between... I just uploaded a load of pictures of Mongolia to Flickr as well.

By all accounts, the Yangtze cruise was an amazing experience and one that exceeded our expectations.  It also reminded us how much we value our independence as travelers.

We’ve often witnessed large groups of people being led around popular tourist sites by someone holding a colored flag and possibly a loudspeaker slung across their shoulder.  These are usually groups that arrive by bus and travel together as part of a package tour. For the first time on the trip, we became part of one of these groups, and it sometimes made us want to scream.

China is the sort of place that is often best explored with a tour group, as sites are set up to manage groups and not the independent traveler.  After all, we heard it was only 20 years ago that each tour group had a “government spy” that would submit a report to the central government about the sights seen and questions asked.  I suppose we should feel lucky to have access at all.

At least once each day, we would be led off the boat and onto a bus where a government-employed tour guide for the day would provide information about the sites and answer questions. Upon arriving at a destination, we would disembark the bus and follow the flag to a meeting spot, where more details would follow.  Sometimes, you could break away, other times you had to stay with the group, all being herded through the tourist area as if we might get lost or hurt ourselves without the flag being in sight at all times. 

After traveling independently for so long we came to resent the flag and all for which it stands.  We mocked the flag and joked about how we wish we had a flag in all parts of our lives.  We called ourselves The Fellowship of the Flag. The flag became the symbol for all the things that we eschew about dependent travel.  Once, upon being told where and when to meet the group Sachi looked at me and said “There is something about being told when and where to be that makes me sick.”  I know how she felt.

The flag does offer some security I suppose and the flag bearer is often a knowledgeable and friendly person.  However, as we discovered at Yellow Mountain, the flag bearer can ruin a day.  I had been looking forward to Yellow Mountain for many months as it is the place of classic Chinese mountain scenery, with steep misty and craggy cliffs. 

Unfortunately, our flag bearer was a control freak.  All we wanted to do was be on our own and return at a specified time to catch the bus – but this guy would not let us.  I asked him for information so we could leave the group and he would blatantly ignore me and only say “it is a highlight, I’ll take you there”.  Then as Sachi asked “Can you show it to us on the map?” He just stared at her defiantly in the face and puffed away on his cigarette.  You could almost hear him saying to himself “independence in NOT a virtue”.

We and a few other Western couples attempted a break-away while waiting for the geezers in the group to ascend the steps but he stopped us in our tracks saying that he needed to “make an important announcement" – more waiting.  In the end, we spent about two-thirds of our time waiting around with the flag Nazi and one-third actually exploring the scenery.  He made us feel as if we were 5 years old and he was the sage grandfather who held the sacred knowledge of the mountain.  This grandfather never uttered a word of wisdom, except where to go to catch the next cablecar.

Somehow we have made it through over 12 countries just fine without a flag leading the way and if we have a choice, the next twelve will be flag-less as well.

There may be fewer places in the world that are sparking more environmental controversy that the Three Gorges section of China's Yangtze River, where the world's largest dam project is almost complete. More on that soon. Despite the dam, the gorges before the dam remain a beautiful place and this video (hopefully) captures some of the beauty that, as of October of this year, will be further underwater.

As a child, I remember seeing pictures of a magical place where the earth seemed to have burst right out of it's shell and created giant rounded stone mounds, set amongst rice paddies, rivers and farms. I said then that I was going to see that place one day. Much to my enjoyment, we found this place in Guilin, China.

 The mounds are actually called karsts and are made of limstone.  200 million years ago this part of China was under the sea and limestone was thrust upward from the earth's crust and then eroded into the shapes we see today. 

The karsts are best viewed from a boat on the Li River and as most things in China, it is done as part of a package tour, complete with flag waving guide.  Our guide was the delightfully geeky "Jack". The tour included lunch and costs about US$58 per person.

 We learned today that English teachers in China often suggest western names for their students.  The person who told us was given the name "Norman" but didn't like it - so he chose "Steven" instead.

Jack led us on a 4 hour trip down the Li River, accompanied by a very long line of similar boats, each holding about 100 sweating people.

 The whole trip was narrated by a women with English skills far inferior to Jack's.  She told us how the Li River "winds through the grotesque peaks exactly like a blue silk ribbon" and how we should watch out for the peaks that "look exactly like 9 oxen".  Most aboard looked around in a confused state, amazed at the scenery nonetheless.  And the scenery was amazing.  There is surely no other place in the world like the karsts near Guilin - it's the stuff of poetry and paintings.  In fact, the area appears on the back of the 20 RMB (chinese currency) note.

I sometimes feel like we're talking a bit too much about our activities and not so much about our experience, if you know what I mean.  We aim to change that a bit, but for now, an experience we had yesterday deserves a little publication.

Don is a friendly Irish ex-pat that runs Coaster's Bungalows where we're staying in Sihanoukville.  Yesterday, Don saw me on our balcony and said, in his Irish accent "Hey! Are you leaving today?  We're going out to the waterfall, if you wanna go, meet us at the bar in 30."  Waterfall?  We had not heard about the waterfall!  Upon looking at the guidebooks (Footprint and Rough Guide), no waterfall is mentioned.

As it turned out, we got to follow along on a waterfall trip with Don and his family (wife Carrie and daughter Anna).  After driving for about 30 minutes (including a "shortcut" through barely passable roads") we went down a long dirt road that ended at some shacks and a washed out bridge.  After being ferried over the river we came upon a waterfall, or actually a set of waterfalls that were certainly among the best I've ever seen. Given a little more care and infrastructure, the falls have the potential to become a national landmark- they are that impressive.  

 Situated at the convergence of two rivers, the water falls fall into a basin that appears to have dropped about 10 meters all at once, creating a valley where you are surrounded by waterfalls from two rivers.  Stunning.

The highlight is a set of falls that flow off an outcropping, enabling people to climb behind it in short ledges. What a weird feeling.  It's a bit like the first time you snorkle and your body has to learn that it can, indeed, breathe underwater.  With water flowing over your eyes and mouth and crashing over your head, threatening to grab you and slam you on the rocks below, the experience is a more than a bit breathtaking.

 Water rushing by overhead...

 Don, our guide for the day...

If you want to visit the Kabal Chai falls, ask about it at the guesthouses in Sihanoukville.  It is best in the rainy season for obvious reasons and the rivers dwindle to a trickle in the dry season.