On Florians b-day we happened to be back in Singapore and went to the beautiful zoo. Wow! It was very impressive and we had a great time. Thanks to our friends Kim and Brian, who so kindly let us stay in their apartment! We LOVE Singapore! Florian spent a few days in the Philippines being a beach bum while I visited friends in Hong Kong. We met up again in Macau, where we enjoyed basking in the Portuguese influence which you find in the architecture, food and language (though the vast majority speak Cantonese). It is an hour on the ferry [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to Vietnam -- at least Northern Vietnam -- where we spent a short, but happy week! We arrived in Hanoi at 2 am after leaving Laos on a bus at 6 am the morning before. We were happy to finally make it! Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam and is a fascinating blend of East and West, with Chinese influence from centuries of dominance, and French design from its colonial past. Hanoi retains much of its older colonial charm, and, if we can find one positive side effect of war, it has kept Hanoi largely free from ugly modern architecture. [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to lovely, lazy Laos, where it is easy to forget your troubles and be forgotten by the locals. It is probably the only tourist destination in Southeast Asia where you'll actually have to try to CONVINCE someone to do business with you! Some may find it frustrating, but we found it refreshing and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves there. We started in the far south in the "4000 island" area, where the Mekong River stretches out to its widest point and a rare freshwater dolphin is sometimes seen. We stayed on the island of Don Det, where we laid around in [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to Cambodia! It is a country with a split personality: it revels in the pride and majesty of a bygone era and still writhes from horrors of the regime under Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge. We started our travels reveling in the beauty of Angkor Wat, from the glory days of the Khmer empire. "Angkor" means "Capital City" or "Holy City" and "Wat" means "temple", so basically -- "Capital/Holy City of Temples". It is appropriately named. The temples are spread out over 400 square kilometers of jungle, and each felt grander than the previous temple. Dating back from the 9th [View Full Entry]

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Funny: There was a lovely Burmese chap who managed to get a passport and travel to India. He visited a dentist for treatment. "Why not wait until you're back home in Burma and visit a dentist there?", he was asked. "Don't you have dentists in Burma?" "Sure", said the Burmese visitor. "Problem is -- we can't open our mouths". Not Funny: The author of the joke is currently serving a 45-year prison sentence for sharing his perspective on the state of Burmese affairs. Welcome to Burma, also known as Myanmar, a cou [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to Thailand! For all who follow our trip and did not get a notification for the Indonesia blog, due to server distribution probs, check it out! It is one of our favorite blogs with lots of good pics, videos -- even some of man-eating dragons!!!!! Ok - now back to Thailand! We started our stay on the islands of Ko Samui and Ko Tao. In Ko Samui, we just had a nice few days swimming in the warm water, enjoying massages, eating dinner on the beach and riding around the island on a moped (which I finally got the hang [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to Malaysia! Our visit to Malaysia was short and sweet. After our two luxurious weeks in Singapore, we had to get back on track! Actually, I visited Malaysia twice - once in early March to visit some friends traveling there and once with Florian more recently. Both are on this blog. Florian and I limited our travels to Penang Island. On our first day we walked around Penang's capital, Georgetown, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Georgetown is a fun mixture of the Chinese, Malay, Indian, and European influences, which make up it's heritage. It has a lively mix [View Full Entry]

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Singapore - What a wonderful city! You've probably heard some of the stereotypes associated with Singapore: extremely clean (yup), chewing gum prohibited (not anymore!), constantly raining (that's an exaggeration), shop till you drop (that isn't!). But what you may not have heard is how beautifully green the city is, there is a really cool Chinatown and Little India minutes from the Financial District and it is extremely livable. We really liked Singapore! We stayed with my lovely friend Kim and her family. We were both nursing back (Florian) and foot (Heather) injuries and it was [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to Indonesia! Before starting, here a few technical details that might help out: -you can click on each picture to magnify it -if the picture doesn't appear (i.e. is black), try clicking on it -this blog has several short videos, including traditional Indonesian dances, Komodo dragons, and a panorama of some famous lakes. - And yes the videos. It took us really long to upload them and it takes really really long to download them to your computers, so read the block, look at all the pics, go for a cup of coffee and THEN watch the videos :). If [View Full Entry]

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Welcome to Australia! We were both VERY excited to get here -- it was my first trip back to OZ since I moved away over 10 years ago and Florian's first trip ever. I was so thrilled to see some of my old friends - and we did as soon as we got off the plane in Perth -- at 3 am! Jill and James, we can't thank you enough for coming out in the dead of night to fetch us. It was the perfect start to our time in Perth. Western Australia Some know WA as the biggest state in [View Full Entry]

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