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Saturday, December 03, 2011 - 5:32 PM
The Travels of Dane Hodges
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| Dane Hodges in the land of Lora Craft, Siem Reap, Cambodia | This blog details the travels of a young Micronesian boy, five year old Dane Hodges, and his exploits around the islands, from his home on the Northern Marianas Island of Saipan, and around the Pacific Rim and his East Asian neighborhood. Inspired by “Saipan: The World’s Greatest place to be a little boy” and expanded on 2011 adventures that included Korea, Japan, China, Palau, Yap, Chuuk, Rota, Tinian, Pompeii, Borneo, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Guam, Thailand, America, and the Philippines.
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| Where to next? Dane Hodges Thailand | Dane was exposed to both rural tranquility and urban expansion of the Far East, witnessing the poverty of crowded cities and opulence of past kingdoms. Dane made change with a every currency in dozens of markets, modeling tribal clothing and sampling food from afar including such delicacies as insects and raw seafood while watching food vendors market snake, spiders, beatles, centipedes, and a wide assortment of other insects.
The traveler's favorite is animals, and he got to see quite a few in 2011. He saw some in the wild, including a tiger in Thailand, a pygmy elephant in Borneo, and dolphins and rays in Micronesia. He saw many others in nine zoos including a panda, and sealife in multiple aquariums.
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| Dane Hodges somewhere in SE Asia | Dane may now qualify as a young expert in comparing restaurants, pools, souvenirs, tourist sites, and ice cream shops in SE Asia and the Pacific Rim.
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Dane Hodges in the Borneo rainforest
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Some of Dane's favorite activities during the 2011 travels were riding the bable car up to the Great Wall at Mutianyu outside Beijing, China, hiking the trails of the Mt. Kinabaloo rainforest, and finding little animals from the Great Wall to the Angkor Wat ruins in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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| Lets roll, Dane Hodges in Thailand |
Of course we had to drag Mom around, which slowed us down some, and was probably the reason we cut Nepal and Tibet out of the trip. But still he sojourned on through rice fields, walking dusty roads, and marched through jungle that backpackers wouldn't dream.
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| Dane Hodges and daddy ride tuk-tuk |
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| Dane Hodges plays in the surf |
The modes of travel were quite interesting as well, from 27 flights, ferries, and multiple subways, LRTs, monorails, and trains including the Chinese bullet, to every local mode from man drawn rickshaws and peddle trikes, to jeepnies, tuk-tuks, baht buses, romos, carriages, ponys, and even an elephant
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| Dane Hodges races brother Josh on Great Wall, China |
This blogs chapters are Micronesia, Philippines, Borneo, Malaysia & Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Loas & Burma, China, Korea & Japan, and the Marianas Islands.
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