April 24th Since I had an 8 hour layover in London I decided I would take the train into the city to meet my friend Paula for lunch in Mayfair. It was nice to see her and have a walk around London for a couple hours. It was actually quite easy to jump on the train since the tube station is located in terminal 5 which was where I arrived and was leaving from, 45 minutes later and I was at the Green Park station. There is a faster way to get there on the direct train but that would have required a bit more hunting around the airport to find this other train station. Back to the airport and I had a bit of a panic because I could not find the piece of paper ... read more

The plane was a prop plane and it was my first experience on one, very bumpy. Once we got there we checked into our hotel, the Angkor ST which was walking distace to the shops and restaurants. We had a few hours of free time to shop and eat and then meet at the Blue Pumpkin before taking tuk tuks out to the hot air ballon to take in an aerial view of Angkor Wat. This gave us an idea of what we were about to see tomorrow when we went on our temple tour. We awoke about 5am to get to Angkor Wat for the sunrise which was spectacular. It was crowded with others waiting to catch the sunrise over the temple. We were given a private tour of the temple but it was starting ... read more

Better late than never but I have finally downloaded pictures of my trip to Southeast Asia. I can't find my notes so this is from memory, guess that's what happens when you wait 6 months to post, argh. After spending the night in Hanoi we headed north to Halong Bay on the South China Sea. Our junk boat was one of the nicest on the bay and the food was outstanding. Wish I could remember the name of it. We went on a tour of Surprise Cave and climbed to the top of Cat Ba island. We did notice that the water in the bay was very polluted. This is a must do if you come to Vietnam. After returning to Hanoi it was time to get on the overnight train heading South to Hue. It ... read more

I'm still in LA but will be leaving for Vietnam in 7 days, arriving in Hanoi on China Airlines. I am curious to see what this airline is like, they say it has a better service record than most of our alirlines, between a 3 & 4 star. The planes are all pretty new too. Besides Hanoi, I'll also be hitting Halong Bay for a Cruise, Hue, Hoi An, Saigon, Cu Chi Tunnels & the Mekong Delta before heading into Cambodia on a river boat. In Cambodia I'll be hitting Phnom Phen, Siem Reap, Angkor Wat and then heading to Bangkok where I'll be staying 2 days before heading home. I'm still debating (well not really) whether taking a plane from Seim Reap to Bangkok. Let's see 10 hours on a bus over some of the ... read more