TravelingStones

Having lived in China for three years, we have seen all of the major cities and taken many tours. We have moved our travels to other countries in Asia thinking we have seen the best of China. I was at an Expat coffee one morning and picked up a brochure for Weekend Gataways in China. The one called “Finding Avatar” promising to explore the real “Pandora” looked extremely interesting. Our weekend trip ended up beginning on Sunday night and ending on Tuesday night due to work conflicts but it was well worth the effort in scheduling and traveling during the week. The Zhangjiajie area is known for producing mushrooms so our dinner Sunday night was at a mushroom restaurant. We love most Asian food and this was no exception. The meal was delicious and was a ... read more

On our second day in Bangkok, we got up early and took a two hour drive to Kanchanaburi. This is the location of the famous Bridge over the River Kwae that was built by the Japanese during WWII. They transported 60,000 POWs to build the bridge, mostly from Singapore. The POWs were mostly Australians, British and Dutch but there were other nationalities including Americans. We first visited the war museum that took us through the process of building the railroad and bridge. The railroad was being built to link Thailand and Burma to support the Japanese troops. They pushed the POWs to finish a five year project in just one year. Next we visited one of the many cemeteries dedicated to these POWs. It was then time to move on to the railroad and the famous ... read more

Another Christmas, another country to visit in Asia. This year we choose to visit Thailand for a full week. Our first stop was Chiang Mai. In the two days here we have seen many wonderful things and have learned how to make several Thai food dishes in cooking class. So little time, but so much fun. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and after getting settled, we asked the concierge for a recommendation for dinner. We had some suggestions from the travel agent but being Christmas Eve they were already booked for the night. We had the concierge make a reservation for Christmas dinner and then we headed out on foot to one of the local recommendations “The Good View”. It is located on the river and did have a wonderful view. We had our first Thai ... read more

I made it to Cebu with no problems. Not that I thought there would be problems but I was quite nervous about traveling alone in Asia. It was great to see the guy with my name on his sign at the airport and to have a safe ride to the resort. Although once there they said that the taxis are all safe too. That’s OK, I felt better having a car waiting for me. I got settled and around 10:30 headed to bed. Soon I discovered the pack of dogs next to the resort barking like crazy. I must have been tired because they didn’t keep me up too long and it is good that I got some sleep because there are several very early rising roosters next to the building. Not only did they wake ... read more

After touring the city of Hanoi we headed to Halong Bay the next morning. It was a long drive but we were in for a relaxing treat on the Halong Ginger for the next twenty-four hours. After reaching the bay we were taken to our boat and given cool towels and sweet tea as a welcome aboard. A few announcements and we were given our room keys. We were given a very nice room (Thanks Classic Travel) and then headed to the deck to visit with the other passengers. There were only sixteen of us and six English speakers so we had our group to hang out with. First we cruised through the islands while having our lunch and then after relaxing for a while we took our dingy to the fishing museum. From the museum ... read more