THE ARDENT ENTHUSIAST

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Itoigawa City– Niigata Prefecture – Japan Golden Week; May 3rd-7th gave me five days to go south and hunt for Japanese jadeite. I’d tried to get down to Itoigawa twice last year, but the weather was against me. I’d planned on camping, and was washed out the previous occasions. This time the weather was sunny, so, after an eight hour drive to the southwest along a quite scenic coast highway, I reached… Read More

Koh Phayam

In early January 2017 I traveled to Koh Phayam again. It was still one of my favorite obscure islands in Thailand, and it hadn’t changed much in the intervening nine months. No cars allowed and I stayed at PP Land once more. It’s quite isolated, even by Koh Phayam standards, and I appreciated it even more after I had a chance to see the more populated beaches. READ MORE…

March 2016 Recently some of my friends in Nepal have been going to a small, little-known island in the Andaman Sea called Koh Phayam. Very little development, no paved roads or cars, just bicycles and scooters allowed. It sounded like my kind of place. READ MORE…