Ben and Heather

We had originally booked train transport from Surat Thani (in the south) to Chiang Mai (in the north)....again on a 3rd class night train. Third class seats were all that was available due to holiday travel around the Thai New Year festival, Songkran. While in the lounging on the beach in southern Thailand, we debated whether to splurge on a flight or cram ourselves into a "cattle car" for 24+ hours to get to Chiang Mai. We thought we'd check it out and went to find internet to research flights and cost. By the way....traveling has really made us aware of our dependency on the internet. It is simply amazing. I think about posting blogs, monitoring our banking, paying bills, booking flights and lodging, getting maps, finding referrals, etc. and I realize how much it is ... read more

On to Ein Gedi and the Dead Sea and Desert... We realized that it'd be much easier to rent a car for 3 days and return it in Eliat than to take a tour to Ein Gedi and taxi to Eliat. A rental car is the way to go in Israel. Flexibility is so nice and the tours are pretty rigid. We drove down to the Dead Sea thinking that we might camp on the beach there because lodging seemed booked. When we got there (it was HOT) we tried once more at the field school and they had many rooms available. The rooms weren't much to speak of but the grounds were great. It is more of a mini nature preserve than a lodging facility. There were Ibex (small dear with long curved, ridged antlers) ... read more

We laughed when first arriving here in Thailand....the pilot said the temperature was 86F! It was funny because just less than a week prior we were non-stop shivering up at High Camp, wanting desperately to get warm and dreaming of our arrival in Thailand. Well, here we are and we sure are sweating! As most of you know, Ben and I don't "thrive" in the hot, humid weather but we are actually doing pretty well. Our health has returned as well, and we are so grateful to be feeling well again. Bangkok is another big city...full of lots of people, cars, and buildings. We arrived in the evening to our inn in the Sukhumvit neighborhood, a more modern area of the city. It's a great place to stay, tucked away in a side alley off the ... read more

It's been awhile since we were in Jordan but we'll do our best to fill in the details. We crossed the border from Israel into Jordan without difficulty...we had heard that it could take several hours when in fact it only took us less than 30 minutes! Our first impression of Jordan was great: the people at the border were all very friendly and seemed genuinely interested in us, and the weather was warm...ok, it was HOT! Soon, our pre-arranged taxi arrived at the border and took us up to Petra to our hotel, a 2-3 hour ride. The taxi driver was nice, although he wanted to stop a few times and try to take us to more "unknown sights" or his friend's souvenir shop that would give us a "good deal" or his other friend's ... read more