Here’s another travel quote I like: We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again - to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more. - Pico Iyer (whoever that is; guess I better look it up) Friday, April [View Full Entry]

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Whoever designed my wonderful lightweight shorts with the multitude of zippered pockets must not have considered that those pockets, zippers and all, are exactly at eye level of curious 5-year-old children who are quick to determine that you probably have paper money wadded into afore-mentioned pockets. I made a number of young friends today, and we had a grand time together, but they never gave up on their gentle pursuit of my money! The ship pulled up to the riverbank this morning and a long gangplank was laid to the shore. Because this is the end of the dry season [View Full Entry]

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Another early morning sipping coffee on the sundeck as the boat cast off from Phnom Penh, another extravagant breakfast buffet, and another day of adventure lay before us! After a couple of hours underway, we pulled ashore at Chong Keh village, famous for its weaving. We visited an elaborate monastery with its interior walls and ceiling completed covered in colorful artwork portraying the life of Buddha in dozens of tableaus. We walked past and greeted the elder monk of the village, and walked through part of the village itself, where many of the stilted houses have large l [View Full Entry]

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This morning we boarded busses for a morning city tour which included the Royal Palace, the Silver Pagoda, and the National Museum. We met our new guides for the Cambodian portion of this cruise, and our guide is a woman of about 40, named Phali. She has excellent English, and repeats herself just often enough that we can grasp what she’s saying through the accent and may actually remember some of the details that she’s sharing with us. The Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda were beautiful buildings, surrounded by lush trees and flowering bushes and topiary. We had to re [View Full Entry]

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We are generally sleeping well, not able to keep our eyes open past 10:00 pm, and then waking up by 5:30 or 6:00 to go up on the sundeck for coffee and a look around. We're often the first ones there, and it's a pretty lovely way to start the day. Off we went at 8:00 this morning on another small boat trip south along the lower Mekong River. This part of the river is full of floating fish farms - floating buildings, some as big as perhaps 60 feet long and 30 feet wide which serve as people’s homes and [View Full Entry]

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First, let me ask your forgiveness for the ridiculously long blog entry for yesterday. I was having so much fun re-living the day in my head as I was writing that I got a bit carried away, but I trust that if you got bored somewhere in the middle, you gave up and went off to do something more productive. It will be easy to be briefer today. Themes of the day included: Heat and humidity Delicious food Fascinating views of life along the small canals of the Mekong Delta Interesting conversation with Australians and New Zealanders Many photographs A [View Full Entry]

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We woke up early (around 5:30) on Saturday and looked outside to see the city was already roaring to life. In the park across the street from our hotel, people were walking, stretching, playing badminton, and looking like the day had begun in earnest. The haze was prominent, as it had been yesterday morning, but as we had another delightful breakfast at the rooftop restaurant of our hotel, the sky began to clear somewhat. It was fun to look down at the traffic from the angle of the 12th floor, and while it was already hot, there was enough of [View Full Entry]

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First, my apologies for the serious lack of photos on the blog, and for what is about to be a brief entry, and thirdly, for the week of blog silence that is about to follow. I’m flattered by all your lovely comments and hate to disappoint anyone who is looking forward to daily reading here, but tomorrow we get on a boat on the Mekong River and there will be no internet access for a week. I will be writing, however, and hope to post many details when we rejoin the modern world…in Cambodia. (Who would have guessed that one [View Full Entry]

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We had a lazy half-day in Bangkok where we did nothing more than eat a big breakfast, lounge in our room reading, pack our bags and head to the airport to fly to Ho Chi Minh City. We arrived at the airport earlier than necessary, but spent some time marveling at the upscale-mall flavor of the shops in the departure lounge. Then we settled in at our gate, which was tucked away in one corner of Terminal C with no screen announcing flights and status. Instead, a paper sign announced that the next flight was leaving for Guangzhou at 3:30. [View Full Entry]

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By the way, this from today's Bangkok Post: King Voices Concern About Haze His Majesty the King has voiced concern over the haze situation in the North...His Majesty has instructed that reports on the haze situation be sent to the Royal Household Bureau every day...If the situation does not improve, the King would order artificial rain-making to help relieve air pollution in the haze-hit provinces. Since we will be in the northern province of Chiang Mai toward the end of this trip, we are very grateful for his Majesty's concern about air quality in the regions we wi [View Full Entry]

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