Steven Seaweed's
Ten top tenz Lists

10 FAVORITE COUNTRIES I'VE BEEN TO

10.) ITALY
I first discovered the awesomeness of Italy when a bad case of wanderlust took me on a little trip around the world. When I arrived in Rome on a spectacular Spring day in 1970 I had no idea I would actually be circumnavigating the globe. Italy was just the beginning and Rome was my introduction to dynamite eats, hot Italian women, and speedy Vespa's. I met up with my friend Dwayne (he was already over there) on the legendary Spanish Steps which is a traditional gathering place for foreigners. Oh my god I'm a Turista now! From there it was on to Athens then Istanbul and to a few places you'll read about below and then to that magical place called......

9.) THAILAND
Except that it wasn't exactly magical with a war going on. Still, my fellow travellers lounging around the hotel pool in Bangkok we're amazed at a tasty piece of Kashmiri hash that somehow found its way into my backpack. My older brother was in the Air Force, stationed a little ways away, so I hopped a bus heading to the big American airbase known as U-Tapao, home to many many B-52's and the start and finish of many thousands of bombing raids to Vietnam and Cambodia. Nice visit, except that the military brass didn't exactly care for long-haired Americans at the time, so I ended up staying off-base with my brother's friend. He and everybody else all had hot Thai girlfriends. Gorgeous country, too. And you know what? I never saw a Thai stick in Thailand. Crazy.

8.) ENGLAND
My first visit consisted of one night at London's Victoria Station, followed by a quick exit on the first train to Rome. The next two times (in the 70's), I actually lived in London for a spell. Bought platform shoes, saw Generation X at the Greyhound, ate fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, crossed Abbey Road like the barefoot Beatles did, hung out at the original Hard Rock Cafe alot, and generally pretended to party like an English rock star. Once, my friend Avril took me to her parents house in the country for lunch (we actually passed Keith Richard's "castle"). They were very nice. We had a traditional English meal consisting of roast beef,Yorkshire pudding, and two kinds of vegetables, one of which was potatoes.  Then her father took me into his study to listen to ..... are you ready for this? .....  HIS WINSTON CHURCHILL RECORDS!! Regardless, London is an awesome city. Love it.

7.) MEXICO
Oooooh ..... It's getting better. I'm crazy about this place too. My first trip to Mexico was in the trunk of a '57 T-Bird crossing the border into Tijuana. I was 17 years old and found out later that if they catch you, your parents have to come down and pick you up. Seven years later found me in route to a not-yet-touristy Mazatlan in an old Chevy Carryall (see Ten Favorite Cars of Mine). Other memorable excursions south of the border have included Baja, San Blas and Puerto Vallarta. PV is my favorite though, and I can personally verify that I have, in fact, spent many hours overlooking the mighty Pacific ocean in the very same swimming pool that you are looking at right now.

6.) KASHMIR
An arm of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush, spreads across Northern India and Pakistan into Afghanistan. If I ever had any luck betting, I'd place a few bucks on Osama Bin Laden being somewhere in the neighborhood. I swear I never saw him! In June of 1970, a ten dollar plane flight took me from New Delhi to Srinigar - right into the heart of Kashmir (would have been a 2-day bus ride, so student ID's were like gold). The people lived on houseboats, and we did too, for a month. A few years later, Robert Plant would sing, "My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon, I will return again, sure as the dust that floats high in June, when movin' through Kashmir."  Great time in my life. Hanging out in the Himalayas with fellow travellers of time and space, listening to tapes of Abbey Road, Electric Ladyland, Let It Bleed, enjoying the local delicacies......

5.) CANADA
My friend Dave had left the good old U.S.of A. to avoid the draft, and I went to visit him in Sechelt, on the "Sunshine Coast," just north of Vancouver. We ended up sailing around the San Juan Islands, stopping at a roadside cafe where Jack Nicholson hitch-hiked in Five Easy Pieces, lived on an island in Tofino with no electricity but plenty of bald eagles, and road-tripped in a '60 Corvair through the Okanagon to Banff and Calgary. Beauty, eh? And Canadian women are the sweetest. On subsequent trips to the Great White North i've been to dog shows, a Canucks hockey game, and bit halfway through my tongue doing something stupid like falling off a roof. Canadians - awesome people.

4.) INDIA
The Taj Mahal is beyond spectacular. Every month during the full moon they keep it open until one in the morning. Built exclusively out of white marble, this thing is huge, over 200 feet high. And it absolutely glows in the moonlight. I actually remember that trip to the Taj Mahal like it was yesterday - It was the fullest of full moons, walking around the reflecting ponds at midnight with fireflies everywhere. Positively psychedelic. Whoa, did I say that? Spent time in New Delhi and Calcutta as well. India was cheap for travelling, but way too hot in the summer. Luckily, the Himalayas were a short trip to the north, and another ten dollar plane ride took me to that magical, mystical land called....

3.) NEPAL
"Up to the mountain’s where I’m going to," sang Bob Seger in 1975. I beat him to it, landing in Katmandu, the rustic capitol of this spectacularly beautiful country, in July of 1970. This is where Everest resides, with its time-worn temples and some of the best walking trails on earth. Unfortunately I didn't get to do any "trekking" in Nepal because I spent 3 weeks in a Katmandu hospital with hepatitis-A, a victim of bad water in Kashmir. First hospital meal - jello, boullion soup, and tea. Yikes! Read six James Bond novels then, battered and weary, left the hospital with a bill for $300. When I got home I sent them $400. But i had to hang out in Katmandu for a spell, what with bookstores selling Chairman Mao's Little Red Book, marijuana and hashish storefronts aplenty, and some of the nicest people you will ever find. Nepal is the kind of country that lingers in your dreams long after you leave it. I'll be back one day.

2.) AFGHANISTAN
Unfortunately I won't be returning here for a while, but it was one of the most memorable countries on the Seaweed World Tour. This was way before the Russians invaded, so it was all peace and love and camels and hookah's. Seriously though, it was like night and day crossing the Iranian border into Afghanistan. Iran has shackles on the wall where they shoot the drug smugglers; the Afghani's will help package and mail it home for you. I remember hanging out in a hotel in downtown Kabul, listening to tapes of East West by the Butterfield Blues Band. I also remember many beautiful Afghani people, and I'm saddened by what they've been through. I left Afghanistan through the legendary Khyber Pass. Osama Bin Laden was 13 years old.

1.) FRANCE
This is probably #1 on my list because it seems like just yesterday that I watched Lance win his sixth Tour de France (check out my full TDF story here). I love France, especially Paris. There is nothing sweeter than sitting at an outdoor cafe on a warm Parisian night, spending three hours eating the best French food on the planet, and being forced to watch an endless parade of hot French women. My introduction to French coffee (espresso) was on a train in 1970 where a very nice old lady offered me some. Little did I know it would be thick and black and ICE COLD! Yikes again. That night in Paris I had two espresso's and nowadays you can't keep the stuff away from me (hot and black, of course). I'll say it again. French women - très magnifique!