This year’s session of the UN General Assembly has been overshadowed by the worsening political crisis in Burma. It figured prominently in the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s opening speech. US President George Bush announced a tightening of US economic sanctions and a ministerial meeting involving the Americans and the 27 European Union countries called for UN Security Council action.

An informal gathering of the Security Council ensued. (Continue…)

Brussels has no less than 19 public (indoor) swimming pools, ranging from the very modern to very classic. Here’s an overview of my favorites and the main swimming pools, their prices and official websites. (Continue…)

There’s quite a number of praticalities to arrange before you set off on a long trip and finding a decent travel insurance is certainly one of the most important points. Usually, standard travel insurances do not cover long trips (longer than 3 months). That’s why you’ll have to gather a lot of informaton, read a lot of small prints and compare the different travel insurances.

To give you a head start, we’re happy to share our own investigation with you. Know that we are not affiliated in any way with any of the insurance companies and that our sheet is the result of our own reading from the general conditions (and that we might have missed some smaller points). So don’t rely solely on our sheet to chose what’s right for you! (Continue…)

The question i get asked most these days is “Have you decided yet where you’ll be going”? Of course, people are referring to our 6 month trip across Asia. It’s really surprising how some people think that we have planned everything day by day and others think that we’re leaving without any plan whatsoever. The truth of course, lies in the middle. Here are the plans so far… (Continue…)

Maybe you don’t like flying, or are concerned about air travel’s.  Or perhaps you just prefer real  travel by train or ship, where the journey is part of the adventure…  Either way, The Man in Seat Sixty-One will tell you how to travel overland comfortably & affordably where you might think that air was now the only option.

 Take a look at http://www.seat61.com/ to find out about train & boat timetables.

In 2 weeks we’re leaving for our Big Asia Trip and it seems that mother nature is trying to tell us something. Here’s a little press coverage from the last weeks.

Tsunami warning for the generals (from www.irrawaddy.org) (Continue…)

Leuven has the woods of Heverlee, Brussels has the Foret De Soignes and i have a mountainbike. So what’s the best thing to do on a sunny summers day? Right, you ask your girlfriend to drop you off in Haasrode (near Leuven) and try to get back to Brussels. Without any map, of course … it would be way too easy otherwise (Continue…)

All Belgians share a common link with Africa, all be it a distant one. Our king Leopold the first was the ruler of the african country named Congo from 1885 until 1960. Since, it has been ruled by Mobutu and Kabila, but back in the days many belgians travelled to Congo. Even today there is also a large african community living in Brussels, in a district called Matongue. The perfect place to get a taste of african living.

Today i’m going to make Chicken Moambe, the national dish in Congo. It’s a pretty simple dish and literally, Moambe means 8, refering to the 8 ingredients of the dish: Chicken, Pondu, Dried fish, Palm Oil, Peanuts, Banana’s, Rice and Pili Pili. (Continue…)

If you’ve been following our series on the GR 12, you’ll have noticed that we’ve started in Dworp and moved south from there. Today we’re heading out into the other direction and go from Dworp to Brussels.

As we imagined, the beginning is pure pleasure, going along small paths and woods. We start off with a steep climb to the top of the hills between Dworp and Beersel. The scenary is absolutely breathtaking. It’s quite amazing that one can be so close to the capital of Europe and still be surrounded by farms, fields and woodlands. The only downside is the ominous background noise, caused by the Brussels’ Ring. (Continue…)

One of the major issues we still have with our blog is of we nu enkel in het Engels of soms toch ook in het Nederlands gaan posten. The major advantage of posting in English is that (almost) everyone can understand it, maar het Nederlands blijft toch net iets makkelijker voor de Oma’s en de Opa’s en misschien ook wel voor de Mama’s en de Papa’s.

That’s why you should not be suprised wanneer je hier dus ook af en toe iets in het Nederlands tegenkomt.