Category Archives: Travel

A DUSTY ROAD by Peter Nolan Smith

June 11, 2016 – 9:55 am

Thailand was a different world in 1990. The klongs of Bangkok led to the Chao Phyra River. Barges brought rice from up-country. After a short stay at the Malaysia Hotel I was ready to head north to Chiang Mai. The train from Hualamphong Station left at 6pm. I booked a 2nd Class AC sleeper. The […]

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Zroom Ferrari Zroom

May 24, 2016 – 12:18 am

My mother deteriorated rapidly in her bed at MGH. She was in the final stages of her battle with cancer. It was not a pretty fight, but her beauty remained intact to the end. On Christmas Eve my mother held my hand and said, “I’m so happy I made Christmas.” “Me too.” I thought about […]

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Happy Sabaii Sabaii Happy by Peter Nolan Smith

April 16, 2016 – 11:58 am

In 1972 Bhutan’s King Jigme Singye Wangchuck attempted to reform his country’s feudal economy on a Buddhist spiritual level rather than a capitalistic model. To best judge his efforts the king created a Gross Domestic Happiness Index based on life satisfaction, life expectancy at birth, and ecological footprint per capita. The Happy Planet Index placed […]

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BACK AND FORTH Chapter 1 A Novel About Hitchhiking

April 16, 2016 – 11:01 am

CHAPTER 1 – THE FIRST TEN MILES The morning sky stretched a cloudless blue from east to west over Boston. Two long-haired men and a young blonde woman stood on the sidewalk, as the trees wavered with the warm spring wind. May 24, 1974 was a good day to begin a trip and the three […]

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Three of the World’s Worst Roads

March 7, 2016 – 12:34 pm

The Cambodian government announced the completion of over 1,082 kilometers of road in the year 2009. The fragile infrastructure improvement came thanks to Chinese and South Korean investments. The road from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville remains the showpeice for internal travel, however the important connection between Siem reap and the Thailand border is a national […]

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