Photos from my hike on the Hog Rock Train in Catoctin Mountain National Park, Maryland, USA. Overlapping trails include: wolf rock, chimney rock and Thurmont vista.
Alley Spring Mill Trail
I am very thankful my parents took me hiking as a kid. I enjoyed it when I was young (for example, this photo of a young me hiking at Fraser’s Hill in Malaysia) and I enjoy it now (my Mom and I visited Fraser’s Hill again a few years ago).
Recently I enjoyed visiting Alley Spring Mill and hiking the overlook trail (a 2 km loop trail) near Eminence, Missouri.
The Alley Spring Mill is in the Ozark National Scenic Riverway (part of the National Park system). The mill itself looks wonderful next to the pond and also has some interesting details inside.
Corn and wheat was loaded at the ground level of the building and moved up to the top via the tiny buckets driven by the water wheel. Then the grain was filtered and ground using the water wheel as the source of power (moving up via the mini bucket elevators and down shoots to the machines on the ground level in sequence).
Wonderful Jungle Hike at Mount Santubong, Borneo, Malaysia
My hike on Mount Santubong was an amazing experience. The hike was quite challenging; very step climbing for a long time.
The trail climbed like this for a long time. The ropes could help you climb (especially necessary if there had been rain recently as it is not only steep but slippery when went).
Quite frequently rope ladders were necessary to aid the climb.
Stone Forest, Yunnan, China
The Stone Forest in Yunnan, China is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The stone formations were created as the limestone eroded.
The Stone Forest (South China Karst) area was a shallow sea some 270 million years ago (the Permian period) when the sandstone and limestone deposits were formed. The entire Shilin National Scenic Area (昆明市石林风景区) covers an area of 400 square km.
Enjoying the Beach in Hoi An, Vietnam
I stayed a couple months in a house rental in Hoi An, Vietnam. I enjoyed it a great deal (follow the link for a map of my favorite spots in Hoi An). There isn’t much to do in Hoi An, but it is a quiet place with warm weather and good food and internet so that is enough to make me happy.
It was about a 15 minute bike ride from my house to the beach. The video shows the start in the small alley (where my house was) and onto the main road.
Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park
John Hunter at the Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, USA. The photos in this post show the Cliff Palace site (photos by John Hunter). You must take a ranger led tour to walk into the Cliff Palace. The overhead lookout doesn’t require joining a tour.
Recent studies reveal that Cliff Palace contained 150 rooms and 23 kivas and had a population of approximately 100 people. Out of the nearly 600 cliff dwellings concentrated within the boundaries of the park. Cliff Palace is an exceptionally large dwelling which may have had special significance. It is thought that Cliff Palace was a social, administrative site with high ceremonial usage.
Sometime during the late 1190s, after primarily living on the mesa top for 600 years, many Ancestral Pueblo people began living in pueblos they built beneath the overhanging cliffs. The structures ranged in size from one-room storage units to villages of more than 150 rooms. While still farming the mesa tops, they continued to reside in the alcoves, repairing, remodeling, and constructing new rooms for nearly a century.
View from the cliff palace, looking across the valley.
Photos of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Photos from a day I spent in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. All these photos are taken on a walk from the railway station.
Notice the train coaches reserved for Ladies Only.
Earlier in the day I visited Batu Caves and took the train back to downtown KL.
Kasturi Walk street market in Kuala Lumpur.
Roasting Chestnuts on Petaling Street.
Other sites I visited on the walk: National Mosque of Malaysia, Sri Mahamariamman Hindu Temple, Kuala Lumpur and Masjid Jamek, Kuala Lumpur.
The Railway Administration Building is on the left of the photo and the Railway station is the white building on the right.
Related: Jianshui Wet Market in Yunnan, China – Sunday Market, Chiang Mai Thailand – Curious Cat as a Celebrity in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Wisconsin
Photos from my visit to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in northern Wisconsin.
An interesting purple fungus on the point trail. The main island is Stockton Island which has several interesting trails (all are easy). The photos on this post are from there and our boat ride.
We took a sailboat ride on Lake Superior.
Duoyishu Village, Yunnan, China
Duoyishu Village is in Yuanyang County, Yunnan, China. I took a private tour for my travels through Yunnan to make things easy on me (China and Kenya are the only places I have done this – because they are more difficult to travel by yourself than most places are).
I took these photos on my visit to Duoyishu Village. I enjoyed my visit. I will post again with more photos from the many surrounding beautiful rice fields.
I think this is an interesting blue truck.
View of green rice fields from my guesthouse in Duoyishu Village. The other photos are from close by, but some may be from a different village.
Bayon Temple, Angkor, Cambodia
Bayon Temple is well know for the many (216 actually) smiling faces adorning the temple.
I was living in Siem Reap for a few months and took these photos during a bike trip from the city to visit the temples. It is a nice bike ride (very flat the entire time). You can also rent tuk-tuks or taxis to tour the sites (I have done that also). I most enjoyed biking myself around. If I remember right it is between 12 and 20 km journey depending on what you decide to see and where start from in Siem Reap.
Bayon temple was built in the late 12th or early 13th century as the official state temple of the Mahayana Buddhist King Jayavarman VII.
Bayon stands at the centre of Jayavarman’s capital, Angkor Thom. Following Jayavarman’s death, it was modified and augmented by later Hindu and Theravada Buddhist kings in accordance with their own religious preferences.
This photo I took on a separate visit.
Bayon was the last state temple to be built at Angkor, and the only Angkorian state temple to be built primarily as a Mahayana Buddhist shrine dedicated to the Buddha, though a great number of minor and local deities were also encompassed as representatives of the various districts and cities of the realm.
Related: Bayon on Wikipedia – Ta Prohm temple, Angkor – Angkor Wat – Neak Poan Temple, Siem Reap, Cambodia – Borobudur in Java, Indonesia (Buddhist temple built in the 9th century)