I was lucky enough to go to Southeast Asia while I was in the service back in the early 80s..
(Okinawa,Mainland Japan,Guam,Tinian,Saipan,S.Korea)..of course in order to get there back then you had to first
go through Hawaii and comeback through Alaska.
In the 90s, my kids were young so I only traveled about the east coast states regularly.
In the 2000's I went on vacation a few times to Costa Rica.
Most recently,I had the privilage through working assignments to go to Brazil.
Not your Rio or Sao Paulo, but rather the North and Northeast.
Absolutely nothing like you see in the tourist commercials.
The Amazon basin is extremely hot, it rains alot,
if you don't like mosquitoes or weird bugs
and animals you never even seen before in a zoo...
The state of Para(Belem) is not the place for you.
Every fruit imaginable is there with different taste and they prepare this dish with the (filhote) fish
It is a big fish similar to a tuna and they use a gravy of (camaroes/shrimp) and other vegetables.
It tastes fantastic.
On the streets they have this fast food dish called (Tacaca)
It is a hot broth with shrimp and something that looks like spinach (Jambu),
it makes your mouth numb.
The streets are almst undriveable due to almost nobody abides by the rules and regs.
The good thing was that Br316 was the main drag, so it rolled through the center of Belem.
You can rent a car easily there with your American state driver's license and an international drivers
permit which can be obtained at your local AAA for 15 bucks and a passport photo.
You hear Madonna and Michael Jackson on the radio stations as if it's 1982
They love soccer(futebol) like we love the NFL.The people are very friendly and helpful.
High crime in certain areas at night.To my amazement you could see the kids breakdancing
on linoleum in the backstreets.Beside that the regional music is (Forro) which is way different from Samba.
Brazilian Portuguese is relatively easy to learn as to it is closer to english than it is Spanish,
although it incorporates words from both languages.
You'll see a few hotties,but unlike popular myth...Brazilian women from up north
are very tight with their families and many of them are staunch catholics.
As for the indigenous peoples who live out in the jungles,it's the saddest thing you would ever witness in your life.
How in 2012 there is still people on earth that get down like this was an awakening.
it's straight up out of a old Godzilla movie with the landscape,dark,lush,green and heavily vegetated.
Basic everyday things that we have and take for granted
they do not even know about.Water is carried around to and fro
The bathrooms are the equivalent to the old out houses of the 1930s.
they have no stoves, limited electricity.most of the time everyone is naked.
You take a bath in a tributary of the Amazon itself and your dinner is moving minutes before you eat it.
I had lost 25 pounds in a months time and got caught out there with the flu which put me on my back for a week.
Thank goodness for the Acai.
Peace.
