Day 24 We had an early morning flight to Bangkok so we’ll have almost a full day there. I love these flights when you are ready to go out and explore in a new city by 10 AM. When we landed we negotiated a deal with the guide who picked us up to take us to Wat Pho the oldest and largest Buddhist temple in Bangkok and the Royal Palace. These are #1 and #2 of the must-sees and they are sites where it really makes a huge difference if you have someone to explain what you are looking at. Wat Pho has a 151 foot long reclining Buddha covered in gold leaf except for the bottoms of his feet that are covered with mother-of-pearl in a pattern that shows 108 images of the true Buddha. ... read more

Today we split up so I can report on my day, but not Jack’s. Since Jack wanted to go back to Angkor Wat to photograph, I decided to go on a tour of Kamong Phluk, a village on stilts and Tonle Sap, the largest lake in SE Asia. The lake varies in size from 12,000 sq KM to 2,500 sq KM based on the season. Since it is the start of the dry season the lake was still very large. You start off in a motor boat and cruise through a large mangrove grove to reach the village. As advertized the houses are on stilts, but unlike the brochure, the village was “unperturbed by mass tourism.” There are about 800 families with an average of 6 children each so the place is swarming with unwashed, partially ... read more

Day 18 Today was a fabulous day with Oxfam. Darith arranged for us to be picked up by his driver from Oxfam at 7. By 7:30 we had picked up Darith and were having a quick Chinese/noodle breakfast in his neighborhood. We drove out to meet with a partner organization that works on the Rice Intensification program. It happened that their field organizers were in the office meeting with an Oxfam Communication specialist who was there to do a training assessment for a program that will be organized for them in December. The five field organizers all had a background in community organizing with other NGOs. We then headed out to meet with farmers who are participating in the program. The first group of farmers had planted their first crop using the new methodology. They found ... read more

We spent the morning with the Vietnam Cookery Center. We started in the market where they identified all the food products for sale. It turns out that other markets we had visited were pretty smelly and the reason was that we were there later in the day. At 8:30 you can walk down the fish aisle and if you close your eyes you wouldn’t know it since the fish are still swimming in large bowls or only recently killed. It was totally different are we learned to distinguish male from female crabs. It’s simple, the females are larger and on the underside they have a visible area for their ovaries. There were 3 other people in our class, a couple and friend of theirs from Australia. The man in the couple has worked for the government ... read more

We were picked up at 6:15 for a return to Danang and flight to Hanoi. The guide who picked up at the airport, told a similarly sad tale to that of the guide for the DMZ. He served in the air force for the South and at the end of the war did two sessions in “re-education camps”. Coming out he couldn’t find work and spent 3 years as a rickshaw driver. It wasn’t until the embargo was lifted that he was able to get better work. He explained that government keeps tabs on people like him and that there are real issues around freedom of speech. You can say what you like in a car, but you don’t want to say the same thing in a place where you could be overheard. In case anyone ... read more