Fantastic frog figurine from the Hong Kong Museum of Art | Photo by Lauren Girardin

The Ratings Explained:

• YEH – Like a hot, fresh baked egg tart. YEHs are as good as you can get, especially for your backpacker buck, although sometimes a YEH is only relative to the other worse options in town.
• MEH – Like lukewarm pork fat (lukewarm or not, it's still pork). An intense level of indifference best describes a MEH experience. Got time to kill? Hong Kong dollars to burn? Checked your email? Sure, fine, do it. Whatever.
• NAH – Like cold, leftover chicken feet. NAHs are worth avoiding at all costs. Likely to cause aggravation, frustration, or a need for Cipro.

Read on for the YEH-MEH-NAHs, our travel tips of where to (and not to) eat, drink, sleep, and visit in Hong Kong.

(Email and RSS readers, visit www.ephemerratic.com to read the travel tips from Hong Kong)

Sign at Angkor Park | Photo by Lauren Girardin

Before Todd and I left on our round-the-world trip, we debated whether or not we wanted to visit certain countries, concerned that money we spent would help support a repressive government or military. With the U.S. government's well-known evils, we certainly couldn't take a holier-than-thou approach, but we still wanted to minimize our traveling cash adding to the grief of anyone. We're hippies like that.

Places like Burma, China, Malaysia, and Turkey were all on the chopping block. Some countries made it onto our route. Others didn't. When it came to Cambodia however, we didn't even know enough to know to consider it. Now we do, so we want to share.

(Email and RSS readers, visit www.ephemerratic.com to read on for responsible travel tips)

If you're looking for that perfect something to get for anyone who travels – ever – after five months of round-the-world escapades, these are the seven items in our backpacks that Todd and I couldn't do without:

The wonders of our Eee PC | Photo by Todd Berman

• Kensington all in one plug adaptor - No snap on pieces to lose, it's almost a magic trick. You might want two.
• Silk sleep sacks - We thought we wouldn't need these, but Todd's mother insisted and was she ever right.
• Eee PC - Without this handy ultra-light laptop, we would probably have had a password or two stolen by now.
• Eagle Creek Pack It Cubes, full size, half size and the sac - How did we ever travel without these? Whether you use a backpack or rolling suitcase, these cubes are ridiculously helpful.
• Petzl LED Headlamp - The power's out? You're good. Want to stay up reading when your friends are all exhausted? No problem. The bathroom's a squat toilet outhouse? Well, maybe you're better off not knowing what you're getting into.
• Canon G9 Digital Camera - When every other traveler is struggling with their bulky, heavy D-SLR, you'll be clicking away on your 12 MP fancy G9.
• Creative Zen 8GB Portable Music Player - We're anti-iPod, so the Zen was the best alternative on the market. Great for backing up photos too since, if it isn't in two places, it doesn't exist.

Voting for Obama from overseas | Photo by Todd Berman

The California ballot for the November 2008 election is a doozie – seven pages long. As we mentioned a few months ago, we downloaded our ballots from the San Francisco Department of Elections website and will fax them from India (since they want 3.50USD per page here in Istanbul). Since we're making the complex effort to vote from the global road, we hope each and every one of you will vote on November 4.

> October 20 is the last day to register to vote in California! Slacker? Do it now.

We researched the candidates and issues online as best we could, relying mostly on the analysis presented in a variety of informed endorsement slates, including the San Francisco Bay Guardian, SPUR, and the San Francisco Chronicle (which we generally don't agree with on local propositions, but it's good to know both sides).

Over IM, one of our friends wrote "I want to hire someone smart to vote for me." Todd and I definitely dork out over politics. So, while we can't legally ask you to pay us for that service, we can share our opinion in case you would like to crib off our answer sheet. We certainly don't expect you to agree with each of our positions. To vote by fax, we had to give up our right to a private ballot, so we thought we'd really take the sharing to a whole new level.

Here's how we voted:

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