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Which famous person’s tomb is Piggy visiting today?  Send your guesses to me at katherine@365saturdays.org!

We were speeding down the river towards the floating village.  The wind felt cool on my face but it didn’t smell very good.  The water looked like my mom’s coffee drink she used to get from Starbucks.  I saw lots of people in the river bathing and washing their laundry but I didn’t really think […]

We exit the van and are hit by a wave of aggravating smells and surprisingly dry heat. We smell animal and human sweat, among other indistinguishable odors. We all wrinkle our noses. Then we turn our attention to the people. Women who chew the betel nuts have red teeth, thanks to the red minerals that accumulate […]

Could one tourist site account for nearly 10% of a nation’s economy?  If the nation is Cambodia and the site is the extraordinary Angkor Wat, then by our admittedly rough calculations the answer is yes. Cambodia only has a national GDP of $11 billion, ranking 124th in the world.  Some 2.5 million people per year […]

Can you guess the name of the famous temple that Piggy is visiting today? Send your answer to katherine@365saturdays.org. Answers from February:  In Thailand, Piggy was at the Temple of the Reclining Buddha (called Wat Pho) in Bangkok.  In Southeast Asia, Piggy was in Singapore, about to cross the Malaysian border to board the Eastern […]

Hello, this is Reporter K doing an article on Thai cuisine. On my recent trip to Thailand I experienced some wonderful food, wonderful enough to write an article on. The first authentic dish I experienced was yes, at the airport food court. It was a delicious ramen-like soup, with clear broth. There were also various […]

Thailand is not the first nation we’ve visited with a large Buddhist population.  After all, Buddha himself came from India.  However, it is the first place that has felt distinctly Buddhist.  Perhaps it is the 30,000 temples which dot the country, or the bright saffron robes of the monks who are everywhere. Or maybe it […]

What’s there to do in Thailand outside of Bangkok?  Plenty!  Our favorite part of the trip was in North Thailand, a hilly area that was once the ancient Kingdom of Lanna, and is now a collection of nations and tribes split across the legal borders of Thailand, Laos and Burma.  This region is geographically midway […]

Today was my birthday and I was turning 13, finally a teenager! The car was waiting for us as we left the breakfast hall. We jumped in and began our ride to the elephant camp. After a one hour drive we reached the Thai Elephant Home. Accompanying us to the site today were two other […]

ประกอบด้วยแปลไทยด้านล่าง  (Thai translation at bottom) Rice has been eaten for thousands of years. For a while, people grew rice just like carrots; in a field of soil. Eventually, people found out that flooding the fields with water increased the quantity and quality of the rice. Farmers would plant seedlings in a non-flooded field, and when […]

Infamous and exotic, the Golden Triangle is situated at the intersection of northern Thailand, Laos, and Burma (Myanmar).  The mighty Mekong River flows through the heart of the Triangle and serves as a major trade thoroughfare and border between nations.  Just thirty years ago, up to 90% of the world’s opium supply poured out of […]

Our guide Suzy brought us to the Floating Market, about an hour and a half south of Bangkok.   This market had water canals instead of roads. We stepped into a “James Bond” boat and whizzed down a series of canals. As we sped along, water sprayed as high as the boat’s canopy; I nonchalantly munched […]

Piggy visited Thailand and looked at lots of temples. Can you guess what city this collection of temples is in?  Bonus question:  what is the name of the temple?  There is also an emerald Buddha here.

As part of Road School, the kids are reading a textbook comparing eight major world religions.  In the Hinduism unit we read about an ancient Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana which means Rama’s Journey. We had never heard about this story, but it is just as important in the East as the Odyssey or Gilgamesh.  When […]

Dedicated to my cousin Eleanor Wilcox, for getting me re-interested in Haikus The green and gold train Rolls into the hot station On clean oiled wheels Our passports get stamped We board the train in car D I’m so excited Our glasses wobble But not a single drop falls On the white table The train […]

Where can you find Hindu Indians, Buddhist Chinese, and Muslim and Christian Malays living side by side in an island leased from a Sultan and developed by the British?  The answer is George Town, a UNESCO World Heritage site and the capital city of Penang, one of the states of Malaysia.  On its first morning out of Singapore, […]

     Piggy is getting onto an ovenight train.  She is very excited.  Can you guess what train she is taking? Bonus question:  what country is she in? Send your guesses to me at katherine@365saturdays.org!

Eating in Singapore is a national pastime so compelling that more than 5 million tourists visit annually to participate. While some opt for the five-star tables, those in the know come for the street food. We were clueless and consequently delighted when we learned that the city was filled with “food courts” where hawkers selling […]

Here follows the account of Hurlock Pseudonym Bonde, in…..THE GROUP OF EIGHT I was sitting in my lovely office, smoking a burgundy pipe from Melbourne, when I got a call from “N”. “Hurlock, I need you in Rotorua, A.S.A.P.! A plane is booked for 3:45 today, your tickets and boarding pass will be waiting for […]

     Our friend Gordon told us that while we were in New Zealand, we better take a moment to enjoy the stars.  Not only does New Zealand have clear air and low light pollution, but it is so far south that you get a fabulous view of the southern celestial sky. Our eyes were drawn […]

Every evening a group of New Zealand’s Native tribesmen and woman called the Maori come together to perform. It seemed like a great way to better understand the culture, so we went there Saturday night. It began with a traditional Maori welcome, with Nick from Australia representing our tribe’s chief. He picked up the fern […]

This is the true story of an Englishman who made a New Zealander dig forty-one holes in a hill, sixty years in the future. The Englishman J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Africa and came back to live in England at the age of three.  His father and later his mother died of illnesses and he […]

Chop- chop- chop- chop- chop- chop- chop- chop- chop!  Our Helicopter lifted off and we were headed to White Island, home of a volcano that acted up every 10-15 years.  The last incident was in 2000.  We were in the zone. When we landed our pilot gave us each helmets and gas masks!  Then we […]

The folks at Treetops are fond of saying “Anything is possible here.”  That is a statement that begs to be tested.  Can you arrange for local Maori elders to greet us on arrival with a ritual welcoming ceremony?  Yes!  Can you schedule a helicopter to fly us to an offshore volcano?  Yes!  Could you make […]

     Piggy visited a set from the Lord of the Rings movies.  Can you guess where she is on Middle Earth?  Email your answer to me at katherine@365saturdays.org!

54New Zealand is a Mecca for outdoor lovers and, while I would never classify myself as a Nature gal, even I couldn’t help but be transported by the lushness and variety of the Great Outdoors quite literally outside my door. Russ, Giles, and I left the lodge at 11:00 am with the stated intention of […]