Bejing is an amazing place - the sheer size, all the culture, and history. Tianamen Square (11 football fields large) and the Forbidden city are amazint!. This was an organized tour however, on a couple days we left the group, took the subways and taxis to visit more sites and be on our own time schedule. Maybe no more organized tours? We saw the Pandas at the zoo. They were so playful and so many of them because of the on coming olympics. The Olympic grounds were not open to the public, still putting on the finishing touches, However, we did see from the outside on the tour bus, the Birds Nest and the aquatic center were impressive. Albert, our tour guide, told us China likes to have everything bigger and better!... read more

Shanghai is a large industrial city - not our favorite. The bund, which is the banks of the river flowing thru the center, is full of street vendors. We viewed many large, modern buildings while walking along the bund dodging agrresive vendors! The French Quarter was a fun part of Shanhai to stroll through and have lunch. One evening we had a great dinner at a Tibetan Restaurant with another couple on the tour whose son was living and working in Shanghai. This place was complete with the wait staff in Monks Robes - a very fun and memorable evening. The other highlight was riding the Meg Lev Train - 20 miles in 7 minutes!!! It takes you from the city center to the airport. When the 2 trains pass, each traveling at 250+ MPH, everything ... read more

We arrived in Hanoi, a fast paced, urban city. The highlight in this area was spending time on Halong Bay. We had a relaxing and beautiful scenic time cruising around the bay on a Chinese junk. At one point we got off board and spent a couple hours hiking through Awsome caves. The weather was great, big plus since we had so much rain in Hoi An and Natrang. Hanoi is large and noisy like Saigon but there is a different feel. There are more cars and there is more infrastrure work and not as many factories being built. The traffic here is just as crazy with the roads being shared by ox pulled carts to Mercedes Benz SUV's. The wealth is more in the north and there is more Government and Military. We never felt ... read more

We toured Vietnam with a local group from Vancouver, WA., Feb. 2009. This was our tour guide's first tour in this country. There were a few mix-ups and bumps along the way! However, the beautiful country of Vietnam, the friendly Vietnamese people, and our fun traveling group more than made up for this. We started in Ho Chi Mingh City (Saigon) and finished in Hanoi. The floating market on the Mekong River is the real commerce of this region of the country. Mary had visited Thailand with this same group two years earlier and the floating markets there were staged for the tourists. Not so in Vietnam! This was the real thing. Notice something hanging from the flag pole? This is the way they advertise what they are selling. How simple and efficient is that!... read more

In 2006 Mary spent two weeks at a yoga retreat in Hawaii. ... read more