About Adventures of a GoodMan
My name is Greg Goodman, and this is the magazine of my life.
. . . .Through it, I invite you to join me on a virtual photographic trip around the world, complimented by stories and multimedia from the road.
Think of the site as my answer to the age-old question: I traveled; now what?
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Latest Related Adventures
How I Snuck my Late Great Aunt Past Taj Mahal Security
The story of how I almost caused an international incident trying to bring the ashes of my late Aunt Donnie in for a tour of the Taj Mahal.
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FIRE! ^^ and How I Saved a Thai Bungalow Village at 3am
As a towering inferno billowed smoke, flames and sparks into the night sky, our bucket brigade was hard at work trying to save the bungalow village we were staying in.
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A History Lesson From a Hobo in Two Guns, Arizona
Imagine my surprise when I hear a voice saying, “Hello. How are you doing?” Well, after pretty much jumping out of my skin in shock, I took a look at my greeter: an old hobo complete with the tattered jacket, hole-filled gloves, socks coming out of the shoes and a smell to match.
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A Night on the Town Starts at 7-Eleven
Finding drinking in 7-Eleven highly amusing, we grabbed a few beers of our own and joined the fun. Within an hour of socializing, our group had added a pair Australians and a Hong Kong resident from Nigeria named James Later, we quickly looked around and realized that it was, in fact, a brothel. The quote of the night came from one of the Aussie guys who said, “um, we definitely need to leave here. Immediately.”
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Chasing a Naked Thai Thief into the River Kwai at 3am
“The thief is getting away! Go after him,” Carrie yelled. Pure instinct and adrenalin took control and I jumped over the banister into the waist high river chasing after him. I gave a good run, screaming on the top of my lungs the whole time. “Stop! Thief! Help!”
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The Craziest Traffic on Earth…and Learning to Ride a Motorcycle In It
Traffic in Vietnam is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Stop lights are few and far between and motorcycles outnumber everything else. Intersections are the craziest, with all modes of transportation converging together
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Avoiding Taxi Scams and Roaming the Streets of Ho Chi Min
Our bus arrived in Ho Chi Min (formerly Saigon) in the middle of a monsoon and quickly got into a cab to take us to our hotel. After a few blocks, we noticed that the meter was already very high. We told him to stop and asked what was going …
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A Motorcycle Ride Through Shin Deep Mud to the Flooded Forest of Kompong Pluk
By the time we passed the pool puddle the road was entirely mud. Still, our drivers pressed on: slipping and sliding the whole time. The bikes were all over the road and, despite his best efforts, my bike slid out and fell four times. Fortunately, falling off a bike in a mud pit is more funny than painful so it really wasn’t bad.
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Meditating in the Forest Monastery of Wat Umong: Chiang Mai
Wat Umong – Chiang Mai’s Forest Monastery The Wat Umong meditation retreat story begins with a quest for two plain white tee shirts from the Chang Mai, Thailand, night market, as requested by the monk who took our RSVP. Knowing that we would literally use them for one day then …
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Hello Pretty Lady…Boy. Are Those Your Flip Flops?
Thailand is filled with lady boys: men who either dress like women or who are in some stage of actually becoming a woman through surgery. Most times they are easy to pick out of a crowd, though some have had so much work done or had such a feminine physique …
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Leaving the Full Moon Party is an Adventure Too
We spent the night dancing and having a blast before going to bed at around 8am. Reuben returned. Karen came back. But where was Claire? This was the question we were still asking at 7pm when I hopped onto the back of a motorcycle driven by a Thai friend I …
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Sleep Tight. Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite.
They say be careful what you wish for. Carrie lived in Nicaragua for 27 months. I was there for seven. We’ve since traveled in Central America, Canada, Europe, India, Sri Lanka and a good portion of Southeast Asia. As of our bus ride out of Singapore, neither of us had …
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Celebrating Thai New Year With a Huge Water Fight
Thai New Year, known locally as Songkran, is celebrated grandly in Bangkok by dousing friends and strangers with water and wiping a mixture of chalk powder and water on people’s faces. Both are meant to be symbols for the substances used by monks to bless people and anyone who goes …
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Civil Unrest and Meeting the Red Shirts
Civil unrest seems to follow Carrie and I wherever we go. First we headed to India just after the 26/11 attacks. Then it was off to Sri Lanka where a 33 year old civil war was experiencing renewed fighting. Now we find ourselves in Bangkok, Thailand, where the people have …
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The Most Disgusting, Slummy and Awful Place I’ve Ever Stayed…for Five Days
A former whorehouse and home of at least two murders and one ghost, the Overstay featured shattered panes of glass in the hallways, toilets with no pipes, dozens of travelers sleeping on the floor and bedbugs galore. And I stayed there for five nights.
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Rodney. No Post Title Can Sum Up This Man
Our time in Kandy was also marked by our experience with Rodney, the owner of our guesthouse. Rodney first found us at the Colombo train station, fresh off the plane and looking to head to Kandy. He was very nice and helped us buy our tickets, explained what the local …
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Sending One Final Package Turns into an Ordeal in Chennai
After landing in Chennai from the Andaman Islands, our first priority was to send a package home from the main post office. We hopped on a local train and made it with what we thought was plenty of time to get a box and wrap up the parcel. When we …
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What I Did For Work. And Work I Did!
I know, I know. The idea of me doing any kind of manual labor is funny to you. Heck, it’s funny to me! I’ll be honest; the idea of coming to Sadhana Forest was all Carrie’s. She did the research, put in the time and decided that it was the …
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Communal Living and Reforestation in Sadhana Forest
Everything at Sadhana Forest is geared around the community. All meals are eaten together, sleeping is dorm style in thatch huts, volunteers put on workshops to share their knowledge, Wednesday is hummus night and everyone says something about their week during the Sunday meeting. Even the work is community based, …
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How Can I Possibly Sleep On This Bus?
Our bus from Kodaikanal to Puducherry was billed as an overnight semi-sleeper, which meant that the seats reclined more than usual but it did not have the sleeper compartments above. As Carrie and I both have long legs, we chose to take the two front seats to avoid another seat …
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Hangin’ With the Hippie Community in Hampi
India is full of small towns that hippies flock to and seem to get sucked into and stuck in. As a result, these feel more like Western communities than a local town. Sure, the shops are run by locals and there is never any doubt that you are in India, …
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Misadventures in Bangalore, Trying to Get to Cochin
Hampi – Bangalore ::: A Night on a Sleeper Bus After our time in Hampi, we set forth on an overnight sleeper bus…the first one of our traveling career. Essentially, it is a normal bus but above the seats are little compartments with beds in them. We thought we would …
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Beating the Rickshaw Commission Hotel Scam in Puna
For the final bit of fun after our 31 hour train journey, Carrie and I found ourselves with the unenviable task of finding cheap lodging near the world famous (who knew!) OSHO Meditation Resort in Puna during a festival. The first few guesthouses we saw were too expensive and we …
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Nanda: A Phony Baloney Guru
We originally chose to stay Puna both to break up a long journey and to take a tour of the OSHO Meditation resort. OSHO attracts a mix of those seeking answers, hippies and curious travelers, so at least the area that we fought so hard to stay in was filled …
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A Day As Zoo Animals With the Kindest Family in Bombay
We happened to be in Bombay during the Mumbai Festival and read about a free Buddha Festival with teachings on Buddha, live music, local food and more. After an hour long taxi ride in which our driver drove in circles to get the meter up (we didn’t pay the whole …
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A Trio of Crazy Train Stories: Each More Ridiculous Than the Last
The Only Train in India to Ever Leave Early If you go by the saying “when it rains it pours,” then Carrie and I have been stuck in a monsoon lately when it comes to our luck with the trains. It all started when our 9 hour express train from …
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A Camel Safari Through the Desert…With Delhi Belly
Jaisalmer, India One of the things Carrie and I were most excited about thus far was a camel safari through the desert next to Jaisalmer (a desert town in the far west corner of India, around 75 miles from the Pakistan border). The town itself is architecturally one of the …
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A Morning in the Emergency Room
The tail end of the camel safari tale found us getting into Jaipur at 4:30am, convinced that we had parasites in our system that were causing the Delhi Belly. As such, we wanted to get our poo tested and the man at the train station sent us to the emergency …
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A New Years Eve Party so Fun The Military Broke it Up
When we arrived in Udaipur, we were told by our hotel owner that all NewYear’s Eve parties across the country had been canceled due to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. After a few days in the city with no word of any parties, we began to think this just might …
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Hanging Out With Squatters in Amsterdam
In addition to our time in London, we also spent a few days in Amsterdam after our friend Damon (from NYC but has been living in the Dam for more than a month) convinced us to come get a taste of the local and non touristic culture. While most visitors …
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- How I Snuck my Late Great Aunt Past Taj Mahal Security
- FIRE! ^^ and How I Saved a Thai Bungalow Village at 3am
- A History Lesson From a Hobo in Two Guns, Arizona
- A Night on the Town Starts at 7-Eleven
- Chasing a Naked Thai Thief into the River Kwai at 3am
- The Craziest Traffic on Earth…and Learning to Ride a Motorcycle In It
- Avoiding Taxi Scams and Roaming the Streets of Ho Chi Min
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