Hi all! I’ll bet you’ve been wondering what we’ve been up to here in Hanoi. It’s been quite some time since I last posted anything on the blog. My apologies. It seems I’ve gotten caught up in so many things and have had a hard time sitting down to write anything. Hanoi is a city of 3 million people much like the greater St. Louis area. Also like St. Louis, it straddles a great river, the Red River (Song Hong). Settling in Hanoi at the end of July, we moved into the house that we had found in May on our [View Full Entry]

---

---

Arriving back in Vietnam was sort of like coming home again. It is familiar, we know our way around the area, and I know the language. Crossing the border my Vietnamese ability came into some good use as we were steered around the “special fee” that others were paying to get their “health forms” issued. In reality, it was just a small amount of money milked from the non-Vietnamese at the border, but a bribe is a bribe and if you make a bit noise about they will let it slide. Ho Chi Minh City is a very bustling place with [View Full Entry]

---

---

After we arrived in PP and settled in for the night, there was a hard rain for most of the night. In the morning, I hired a motorbike taxi to take me out the Cheuong Ek “Killing Fields” memorial about 9 miles to the southwest of the city. It may be overprotective of me, but I didn’t want the kids to have to face the darker side of Cambodia’s history. I did tell them the story of what happened, but hearing it and seeing it close up are two different things. The trip out to the site where hundreds of bodies [View Full Entry]

---

---

After our first few days in Cambodia at Siem Reap we were eager to move on and see some more of the country, so it was off to Phnom Penh by bus. We are on a tight schedule because I have to be in Nha Trang, Vietnam at the end of the month to meet with some folks at a school there. The ride from Siem Reap to the capital took about 6 hours with our bus leaving around 7:30am. The bus company sent a smaller bus to pick us up at our guesthouse. We then had to transfer to a [View Full Entry]

---

---

In the morning I woke up early and headed out to some ruins north of Angkor Thom: Preah Khan a monastic complex from the late 12th century. It wasn’t so crowded in the morning and I had a chance to have a good look around. A funny thing happened while I was on my way into the structure, I met a young police officer who works in and around the temple complex. The funny part was that as we started talking, his English was quite good, he started giving me a guided tour and pointing out key features of the ruins. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well, we finally made it to Cambodia, and I must say that we are pleasantly surprised. We’ve fallen in love with what we have seen of the country, pretty much Siem Reap only at this point. The people are really friendly and have kind of graceful elegance about them. The downside is that it is such a poor country. Siem Reap is a fairly smallish town that is located just to the north of the Tonle Sap, the large lake/ river that dominates the center of any map of Cambodia, and it’s the home of the Angkor Wat temple complex. We [View Full Entry]

---

---

Today, all four of us had breakfast at the guesthouse and piled into the Tuktuk with Savin our driver. Tuktuks in Cambodia tend to be little trailers that are strapped on to the back portion of the motorbike’s seat. They have room for 4 people: two facing backwards and two forward. Top speed for one of these babies is about 40kph (about 25mph). It’s okay, because the Angkor complex is only about 4 miles north of town. The ride out is quite pleasant and breezy and heads past a hospital, cinema and “stadium” (really it’s just a field with some stands) [View Full Entry]

---

---

Our last two weeks in Malaysia have kept us busier than we have been in a long while; mind you it hasn’t been hard to do as we have been fairly slothful. We enjoyed our time visiting with Jo’s brother Chai and his daughter Kim, both in from Australia, as well Jo’s parents, brother Cheng Poh and sister Sue Ann. As you might imagine, lots of eating involved there. That along with trips to the beach, the shops, a friend’s batik shop/factory, and various other chores around town have kept us pretty busy. We celebrated Pa’s 76th birthday at a large [View Full Entry]

---

---

Imagine if you will, a place located high on a jungle mountain top that is part Las Vegas, part American shopping mall, and part low budget theme part. That would describe Genting Highlands resort in the highlands just north of Kuala Lumpur. It’s the popular vacation destination for lots of Malaysians with something for everybody gambling, shopping and rides for the kids. Exciting right? Well, sort of. I didn’t go of my own accord, Jo signed the kids and me up for a trip along with her brother Chai, who is visiting from Ausie with his daughter, Kim. She wanted a [View Full Entry]

---

---

I’ve been neglecting my running here in Malaysia and decided that I needed some help. I contacted the local chapter of the Hash House Harriers to see if I could meet up with them for a run. Now, hashing as they call it is no normal run. There is a long and storied history to it; coincidentally, it all began here in Malaysia back in 1938 with British troops stationed here. Hashing is basically a hare and hounds kind of run, where the hare runs off and sets a trail with tiny pieces of paper. The trail sometimes stops at junctions [View Full Entry]

---

---