Day 14, Wednesday, Jan 6, 2010, Cu Chi Tunnel & Mekong Delta Tour... We woke up around 6:30 am this morning, had breakfast at our hotel and then met with our guide and our driver at 8:00 am. We started by visiting a Vietnamese Handy Craft shop which was a government shop which employed people with disabilities to make various crafts. I purchased a few items here. I think I am buying too much stuff. Not sure where I am going to fit all this stuff in our luggage. Anyway, after the Handy Craft shop, we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels. During the Vietnam war, the Viet Cong dug multi layer tunnels where they lived and fought Americans. It was very interesting how they built the tunnels and lived in them. There were meeting rooms, ... read more

Day 13 - Tuesday, Jan 5. We left Hanoi around 6:30 pm on Day 12 and we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City around 8:30 pm. We were greeted by our Hotel Driver to take us to the Hotel. It was very nice to have a ride setup because we did not have to figure out the taxi situation. We did not get to our hotel around 9:30 pm. First impression of Ho Chi Minh city was very modern and very neon. Perhaps that was due to the many New Years decorations, but it felt like we just flew into Vegas. Once we checked in, we went for a walk and had dinner at the restuarant close to our hotel. The next day, we woke up around 7:30 pm. Had breakfast at our hotel and set ... read more

Day 10 - Dec 2 & Day 11 - Dec 3. Day 9 evening, we went for a walk to the night market and I got more lao silk scarfs and a wood carving. We went to eat at the L'elephant restaurant. We ate at this restaurant every year for the past few years that we been here. The food was ok somehow. I remembered first time we ate there, the food was incredible. Day 10, we went on our treking tour yesterday. We visited lao ethnic villages and visited the Tad Se waterfall. On our tour, we met a diverse group of people from all over the world. There were 11 of us and 2 tour guides. Our group consists of a couple from Canada and Malaysia; second couple from US and Venazevela; 4 people ... read more

Ken's Blog Supplement - India Final Thoughts I just wanted to get down some final thoughts on India before moving on to our experience in Laos. India has definitely been a challenging country to travel through. Even the most basic trip to the market often turned into an adventure - often an unwanted adventure. Over the past few days, I've gone from finding India incredibley facinating, to counting the days before I could get out of this place. In the end though, I've managed to figure it out a little better - to make my peace with it. In out final day here, I found myself wishing we had a few more days to explore - something I wouldn't have imagined only the day before! There should be a class one takes before traveling to this ... read more

Day 5 - Dec 28. First of all, thank you all for all comments on our blog. I appreciated all the comments and it's nice to be in touch with all of you from home. Anyway, again we woke up around 4 am to catch our train to Agra for 6:15 am departure. We arrived at Agra around 8:30 am. Again, when we walked out from the train station, we got swamp with many people who were trying to make you use their taxi. They were very aggresive and wouldn't leave us alone. Ken & I were overwhelmed by this and very tired of the constant scamming here in India. We got to the Taj Mahal around 9:00 am. First look at Taj Mahal, I can only say, it's amazing and very beautiful. After Taj Mahal, ... read more