Feb. 19-23 - Saigon and Ha Long Bay

Saturday, Feb. 19th – Ho Chi Minh City
An early start to our day as we headed to our semi-air conditioned bus on a truly hot and humid day here in Viet Nam. Our tour was nicely called “Good Morning Viet Nam” and so while the war is history here, and is now called “The American War”, many Americans wanted to see the sites associated with the war.
Our guide was Kwok and as a 35 year old married to a British woman, these tours are interesting but he was too young to remember any of the war. We drove past the empty lot which once contained the American Embassy, and headed to the National War Museum. It has a distinct slant to its portrayal of the war, but in hindsight it was quite accurate as to America’s part in this war. The pictures were graphic, the rhetoric strong, and we left after fifty minutes to re-board the bus…working our way through the many street vendors who had ‘treasures’ galore. I became the proud owner of a brilliant red and royal blue “silk” robe, which delighted me. The bargaining took it from $20.00 to $8.00. I was pleased with the price. I’m sure it could have been less, but when you think of what it’s worth to you, and how much these people have to work to make any money, I tend to stop when I am satisfied and feel I’m getting value for my money. After you think of what we paid for the cruise, and the tour, arguing over a dollar or two seems downright petty.
We now took a long bus ride through the city and its suburbs…past Gen. Westmoreland’s former headquarters…past the former Ton Son Nut Air Base…through the jungle along the Saigon River that had been heavily “carpet-bombed “by B-52’s (now rubber plantations)…to our luncheon in an outdoor garden restaurant, where we sat in little gazebos which held eight patrons to a table. Sitting by a swift running stream we dined on wonderful Vietnamese food & beer, until we were stuffed. Then back to the bus for our main event – the Cu Chi Tunnels near the village of Cu Chi. These are tunnels built during the time of the French occupation, but reused to good purpose during the time when America was carpet bombing this area. The tunnels ran throughout the country, and at any one time over 16,000 Viet Cong lived in them.

 They were complete communities with seamstresses, kitchens, hospitals, munitions makers, sandal makers and a headquarters. There were three tiers to the tunnels and it allowed the people to go and remain underground to avoid being killed. The intricacies of how to cook without revealing any smoke; how to throw off the dogs by covering areas near the entrances with American shampoo and soup smells; how to make sandals out of old tires and how to re-make new mines & anti-tank weapons from American dud bombs & artillery rounds, all were demonstrated. To ensure that ‘the enemy’ couldn’t come down any of the tunnels, there were ’fake’ entrances which led nowhere, and which were booby-trapped with all manner of truly horrifying, primitive torture weapons…all of which were on graphic display. The tunnel entrances are very tiny, to match the size of your average Vietnamese. These were entirely too tiny for us well-fed, substantial Caucasians. So to allow tourists to have the experience of crawling through the tunnels, a few had been ‘widened’ to meet the more robust stature of the tourists. We had the opportunity to enter a tunnel and to crawl in a duck walk to another entry point. The closest was 10 meters, the furthest was 140 meters. With my bum knee, I chose to watch other braver souls. One gentleman, whom one might call very substantial, got himself pretty well stuck and came out very dirty, with bruises on legs and hands, as he forced his way out.
This tunnel area was hidden amidst what has become a new forest. During the war it was pretty much barren with bomb craters everywhere, but it is now a tourist destination , where the videos at the beginning of the tour once more describe the horrors of the “American War” and the heroism of the Viet Cong.

Thoroughly hot, sticky, and dusty, we gratefully headed back to the bus after two hours, for our ride back to the ship in afternoon rush hour. Unlike any rush hour I’ve ever seen, this one consisted of swarms of motorcyclists with nerves of steel. It was like swarms of mosquitoes at every intersection. Children sat in front of their parents totally oblivious to the fact that life could be very short. Why there aren’t more accidents, I don’t know. Four to Six MILLION cycles in the city, and that’s only a rough guess. Cars are too expensive in this country and so, on these cycles can be carried everything but the kitchen sink. In total awe, I kept snapping pictures out of the bus window. (For those of us who can’t drive a damn scooter, I was in awe).
Our last stop was the “Reunification Palace” of the South Vietnamese leaders who remained for two years, after the departure of the Americans, until in 1975 when the North Viet Nam forces claimed the whole of the country. Vietnam is run by a unified communist party, but the government has become openly sympathetic to capitalism, freedom of religion and private ownership. It is distinctly a one-party system, but there are enough young people to counter the old-style communism exemplified by Ho Chi Minh. The harbor where we are berthed is evidence enough of the slowly growing economy. Rice is the primary export here and dozens of sky scrapers dot the city sky line. The Rex, Continental, and Caravelle Hotels still thrive, but now house businessmen rather than journalists, and you sense that this country has moved on. We kept remarking that if an American soldier returned, he hardly would recognize the city.
Sunday, February 20th – Saigon
With no tours to drive us out early, after breakfast we took the shuttle bus to the Rex Hotel, and wandered the hot and steamy streets looking at the backstreet shops to see what ‘bargains’ we might scarf up. A few local quirks…pedestrians do not have the right-of-way…most major intersections do not have traffic signals, never mind Walk/Don’t Walk. To cross (in a striped crosswalk), you look for a gap in the racing cars, buses and mopeds…and run for your life. We were with 80-yr-old Doris, and she ran like a gazelle. We were all inspired by fear! It definitely gets the adrenaline going. Having concluded that there were no bargains we needed, we stopped at the Lion Brew Pub, near the Caravelle, for a 500mm schooner of beer before returning to the ship. The heat and humidity here can be almost debilitating, and does not leave one enthusiastic to wander. Our next port is Da Nang, which we’re hoping will be a wee bit cooler, but first we have a leisurely day at sea to relax, read and prepare for the next port.
Monday, Feruary 21 – At SeaLittle to report as we slowly sail to the port of Da Nang in the middle of the country. Lecturers on board inform us about what we will see upon arrival, and how to take the correct type of photographs of the memories we want to carry home. Bob and I spent the day reading on our Kindles, staring at the water and enjoying tea & sandwiches in the late afternoon, drinks in the Martini Bar with our friend Doris, and dinner in the Grand Dining room.

Tuesday February 22 – Da Nang
An early morning start as we board Bus Number 3 (of 11) going to Imperial Hue. Our Vietnamese guide is named Doh. The port where we are docked is in the midst of construction and seems to be located between nowhere and nowhere. Doh informed us that in a few years it will be the largest deep-water port in central Viet Nam. The city of Hue, located on the Perfume River about sixty-five kilometers from our pier, was originally the home of many of the early emperors of Viet Nam and while it now is mostly ruins, we thought we might be able to fill our heads with more historical data about this country. Our knowledge to this point, such as it was, had been focused on the “American war” and the towns we bombed or tried to occupy. During the war, Hue was occupied by the Marines, and it is remembered, by us, as the place where they were attacked in the Citadel during the 1968 “Tet Offensive” - the very place which we, now 35+ years later would be visiting as a tourist site, with only a passing mention of the 400 Marines who died here.
Our bus ride was ninety minutes through small villages which were lovely if poor. I was snapping pictures as fast as I could as we drove past brilliant green rice paddies, lagoons where fishing for oysters and shrimp occur, and small vegetable plots.

 

The government-owned farm land was interspersed with shops lined along the road where the shop faced the road while the back was the living quarters of the shop keeper. Because of the climate, life is lived outdoors and everything is on display from laundry, to women washing dishes, men smoking while repairing tires, building caskets, walking along chatting on their cell phones, soldering metal, or sitting with a coffee outside a small ‘café’. There were plenty of mongrel dogs which seemed to be associated’ with houses, but I couldn’t tell whether they were wild or pets; the water buffalo were primarily in the rice fields where they are used as beasts of burden (and never eaten), while chickens and goats were everywhere. Bicycles & Mopeds were the major mode of transportation, with Japanese scooters favored over Chinese which are deigned to be inferior, if cheaper. The women, many in their conical hats were busy shopping, hauling goods or watching children. While the children either were in school or in front yards following their parents around as they worked. All of life was there for us to observe as we drove slowly through the villages. It was made clear to us by our guide that the role of a woman is to prepare meals for the family, keep the home orderly and to stay home at night watching Korean TV, where they learn hints and tips about housekeeping. The men on the other hand work in the fields or in their shops during the day, and after dinner go out for beer with the boys. As our guide made quite equally clear the fate of the men is to be hen-pecked, while a good woman’s quality includes four key elements: Hard working; of good conduct; refined speech; and the last quality - beauty. I kept thinking about my favorite Vietnamese woman in San Francisco, a woman named Wing, and I wondered how life was for her in Viet Nam prior to her escape at the end of the war…she seems to be the antithesis of the stay-at-home woman now.
Doh, as a good guide, was a very supportive cheer leader of his country. He had joined the Communist party ; was quite clear that only in the last twenty-five years, since economic reforms have been in place, have the local small business men been successful; but was equally clear that the rich were getting richer, and the poor were getting poorer, when the annual income could be as little as $400.00 dollars. He thought that the one party system was just fine and that their form of Communism worked very well. The Chinese, on the other hand are firmly disliked for their oppressive controls on their citizenry.
Once we arrived in Hue, our first stop was a Happy Room where we all went to ‘sing a song’. The next stop was the Imperial Forbidden City. This entire area was bombed to smithereens during the war, but is slowly being restored as best they can. We learned the history of the emperor, his many concubines and mandarins who all lived within the walls of this city, and we admired the restoration work being done where buildings once built in wood are being reconstructed using a good deal of cement which is more durable in this very moist climate.
Once we ran the gauntlet of vendors who were sure we needed fans, lacquer boxes and jewelry, we headed to the Thien Mu Pagoda which is still in use by monks who live there. As in India we saw the sign that is very similar to a swastika but has a wholly different symbolism in the Buddhist faith. We had seen on the road to Hue, a Buddhist monk whose goal is to walk the entire length of Viet Nam from north to south on Highway One…’kowtowing’ every few feet on orange blankets which were being placed in front of him and then removed and advanced by his followers such that as he moved forward he was constantly walking or kneeling on the blankets. Wherever he stops along his route he is greeted and fed by the faithful who follow him for awhile on his journey. Once he reaches the southernmost point, he plans to immolate himself! We never got the rationale behind this, but it allowed our guide to inform us that all religions are tolerated now in Viet Nam.
And now on a lighter note…Lunch was a huge success, served at a local Hue hotel where we were greeted outside by four large dragon dancers, and inside by Viet musicians playing the unique music of this country. Our buffet was a medley of Viet dishes, one better than the next. Our plates seemed to be too small, so we simply refilled them numerous times. Especially good were individually made crispy pancakes, stuffed with shrimp & pork, and coated in a peanut sauce. Then, off we went to the last two sites: the tomb of Tu Duc, an emperor who served for thirty five years, and who was buried somewhere on the grounds of this area, but no one is clear where. The tomb exists, but as prior explorers discovered, there was no body beneath the tomb. At this point I had had a few too many stone stairs, so I camped by a small lake while the rest of our bus tour got the data, I sat with a lovely eighty-one year old gentleman from Sweden who has been everywhere, and while he moves a bit slower doesn’t want to miss any of this tour.
With a last stop for shopping at a stall making and selling conical hats and incense, we drove back to the ship past evening shopping areas, more goats, water buffalo, bicycles and scooters, arriving back at the ship in late afternoon.
My knowledge of Viet history was nil before we arrived, and it’s now a bit more than nil.

I’ve been writing this up in the Horizon Lounge overlooking the water as we sail past Haiphong, and enter Ha Long Bay… and all around there are discussions about grandchildren, hair styles, where people live and where people have been on prior cruises. It’s a gentle murmur behind me as I try to write this blog.

Thailand Feb.12-17,2011

Sunday, Feb. 13: Bangkok

We had a totally sybaritic, lazy day at the resort. I had my first Thai Sports Massage from a wonderful masseuse named Yo (probably named for my favorite cellist in the world). She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, and looked quite demure, but my god, I would not want to run into her in a dark alley. She had hands of steel. I had a ninety minute piece of heaven, or what was called a deep tissue massage. Never have I enjoyed anything as much, and if I hadn’t felt like a bowl of jelly, I would have done another ninety minutes. Instead I collapsed at the pool.
I don’t know if it’s the heat or the pleasure in having no to-do lists, but I have fallen into a state of torpor that leaves me feeling that the slightest activity requires entirely too much energy and should be put off for the time being until something pushes me to act. It is a fabulous feeling.

Monday, Feb. 14: Saint Valentine’s Day
I’m not quite sure why, but this very Buddhist country has gone out whole-hog for this very Christian saint and all that he represents. The daily paper listed all the places to dine for a romantic evening, the stores were advertising all manner of sexy garments to be worn and everyone was having ‘specials’ to honor the day. Our hotel was offering elegant dining in all its venues, and wherever you walked they were wishing you Happy Valentine’s Day. It is this merging of East and West which both gives comfort and frustrates me because of the blending of all holidays and events. It’s not like there are tons of Western residents here in Bangkok and it makes me wonder when we, in Vermont, will start celebrating Chinese New Year.
We hopped on our hotel’s shuttle boat, switched to a ‘local’ boat at Saphan Taksin, the central boat pier, and headed towards the Imperial Palace. The river is the most relaxing way to get between two points since it avoids traffic jams and gets one to critical points in a wonderfully leisurely manner. It is not unlike riding on trains in that from the river you see the ‘backside’ of most places, which isn’t always the most attractive. But it was the cooler way to travel and we were delighted to pay our 18 baht (six cents) to travel eight stops to the pier for the palace.

Through narrow stalls selling water and tourist trash we walked to the very well guarded palace, with an army of fellow tourists. With our audio tour glued to our ears, we wandered through the Wat Phra Kaew temple area, home of the Emerald Buddha, and through the ceremonial, and residential areas of the palace. The entire complex was built in the late 1700’s after the old capitol and its palace in Ayutthaya had been burned to the ground by the Burmese in 1767. This new palace complex was built in a similar layout to the old: surrounded by water; the public temple available to all; the residential area open only recently to tourists. “The King and I” was evident everywhere: the brilliant colors, the outrageously

 ornate costumes, the monkey statues; the glitter and gold. There is nothing subtle in the decoration.

The current king, very beloved by all Thai people, is Rama the IX. The king who hired Anna was Rama the IV, and his son, Rama V, trained by Anna and others is the one who brought much of modern-day western culture to Thailand. The story told by guides is that because Rama V bought his first car in England, all roads in Thailand are designed like England to be driven on the ‘wrong side’ of the road.
To be honest, neither Bob nor I could truly appreciate this temple area; so that once our walking tour ended we headed back to the boat and back to our hotel for a cool swim in the pool. Somehow visiting another Wat was not going to be in our future.
Some of the things that stood out to remind us that we were in a foreign land were: the signs along both sides of the river ferry boat, informing the citizenry in Thai and English that certain areas were ‘reserved for monks’; the many Wats that dot the skyline with their sharp peaked gold-painted roofs which blend in with the modern high rises; the colorful longtail boats which skim the water making as much noise as possible; the prayerful gesture of greeting among people; the signage which is totally unrecognizable to us and for which there often is no direct translation; and the clash among super modern, traditional, and ancient at every turn.
Bob crashed early and I took myself for a solo valentine’s dinner to the Benihana Restaurant in the hotel. My fellow teppanyaki table mates were two girls traveling from Hong Kong for a week of massages, and a young couple from Bangkok who spent the entire evening on their cell phones texting with their friends ,who were obviously dining in other locations. Cell phone culture can go just a wee bit too far, when a romantic evening dinner has the adoring couple staring at cell phone text messages through every course. The most amusing part was that our table chef was a woman – the only one in the restaurant. She threw knives, chopped with vigor and did all that is expected in the Benihana performance …and we enjoyed every minute.
And so ends our visit to Bangkok – the first of what I hope will be future visits.

Feb. 15: Boarding of the Oceania Nautica
The usual flurry of packing, checking out, finding a taxi and boarding the ship was done smoothly. Now we’re truly unpacked and ready for the next 25 days of new harbors, new cities and new experiences. We’ve caught up with Doris Litton in the Martini Bar, our fellow traveler from the last trip in late 2009, and shared our first round of cocktails. We are scoping out our fellow travelers trying to get a sense of the populace. I’d guess the number one difference from our last cruise on Nautica, is that this crowd seems old. Even Doris, at the young age of 80, thinks there are too many old people on board. Will we ever consider ourselves old? And how will we recognize that time when we’ve become ‘those’ people we’re trying to avoid? Here’s what we do know already: Americans represent less than a third of the guests, with the other two thirds being all nationalities. The staff is all new, except for a few faces including the cruise director, Dottie. But all in all it’s a familiar and comfortable ambience and there’s that pleasure in knowing your way around while others are still trying to figure out what’s where.

Feb. 16: Ayutthaya, Thailand

Very bright and early, we met our tour group at 7:00 a.m., hopped onto our air conditioned bus and headed out of Bangkok to visit the ruins of the first capitol of Thailand – Ayutthaya. Our guide with the Americanized name of Tee, filled our sleepy heads with data as we drove out of the city. The Thai take great pride in their country and very few leave it during their lifetimes. It is an amazingly peaceful place where bloodless coups occur to change the government, but the king, who is pretty much a figurehead as in England, remains in place and steps in only when things need to be calmed down. Having never been colonized by any foreign power and where border skirmishes are the only form of altercation, one begins to understand how the population is able to exude a quality of being a peaceful, gentle society.

 

Again, Bob and I could honor the depth of feeling people have for these temples and ruins, but for us it carried little significance …and so we dutifully followed Tee from site to site, ending our tour with an elephant ride around the temple areas we had just walked. Unlike my elephant rides in India, where we sat side-saddle, here we sat on a two-person ‘howda’ facing forward with the mahout sitting on the neck of the beast guiding it with gentle instructions.

We headed home in “lush hour’ (Tee did not have the ability to say the letter ‘r’), learning about tapioca ‘loot’, and waiting for our first ‘dink’ of the evening. One sad story showing the danger of internationalization was that many of the local food stands and markets which currently dot the landscape are all being replaced by 7-eleven and Tesco grocery stores. While people despair at the loss of historic floating markets, which are now completely gone from Bangkok, the modern day culture draws people to the convenience stores, and threatens to destroy another piece of old Thailand.
And what would this have looked like in 1927-1928. I can only imagine.

Feb. 17: Ko Samui, Thailand

Having left Bangkok, down the winding Chao Phraya River, our ship sailed south into the Gulf of Thailand heading to the resort island of Ko Samui. Until 1970 this was a quiet jungle island raising coconuts, rubber trees and rice. Now it is one long stretch of beach resorts, golf courses and beach bars. But we were here for an ‘Island Safari Adventure’ in 4-wheel drive Land Rovers: to see rubber plants being tapped; to see a monkey, Thai cooking, and elephant show; and to ride an elephant through the jungle. Let’s simply say that we did all this, under the guidance of our tour leader Sak, but that value for money was not returned. Having seen better rubber plantations last year in Phuket, and having ridden elephants before…this day of a Safari Adventure left a wee bit to be desired. We felt sad for the monkeys having to perform, sadder for the elephants, and in general, sad that we’d participated.

Probably the one amusing part was when various members of our tour group, braver than we, were prepared to be ‘massaged’ by an elephant. To see the large foot of an elephant rest gently upon the back (and then front) of a small human being makes one just a wee bit nervous. What if the gentle beast decided to put just a bit more weight on that foot? Hmmm…would travel insurance have covered that?

So, back to our ship to have a much needed Pina Colada, and a even more necessary shower. Today was an insult to man and animal alike.

And so ends our quick journey to Thailand …land of rice, tapioca, rubber trees, nice people and Wats.

Next stop: Good Morning Viet Nam!

Travel & Arrival in Bangkok

Friday - February 11, 2011 – Bangkok Thailand

OK, so we left home at noon on Monday, February 7th, and now it’s 7:00 pm on Friday February 11th – and what have we done? Traveled. An amazing set of uneventful days in which we were blessed with absolutely perfect weather, smooth connections and delightful rest stops along the way. But still…. the whole journey was a wee bit on the long side. Monday: having checked and double checked that we’d left nothing behind, we loaded up the Honda, kissed the cats, and left Vermont heading south to sleep in Darien with the kids. Tuesday: a limousine took us to a hotel near JFK to get a ‘good night’s sleep’. Wednesday: up bright and cheery at the ridiculous hour of 3:00 a.m. to begin one of the longest series of plane rides I’ve ever experienced: JFK to Los Angeles to Narita airport in Tokyo, Japan… to Bangkok, Thailand. A total of 36 hours of air travel! Let’s just say that for those of us unable to sleep on airplanes, those hours filled with movies, reading, Sudoku and crossword puzzles seemed endless.

What is somewhat sad about modern day travel is that for all that distance and all the hours spent getting between two places, all airports, all roads leading to and from airports, and all official signage seemed very similar be it in Thailand, Japan or Los Angeles. Our fellow travelers, be they Thai, Japanese, Chinese, American or other, all behaved the same: their mobile phones were an appendage to their ears; their wheelies never fit comfortably in the overhead compartments; their lap tops were in use at every possible moment, and the veneer of necessary civility made everyone ‘play nice’ as we flew to exotic places. Even EASY PASS existed at toll booths as we whisked our way to our hotel in Bangkok.

Unlike travel in 1927, the visible differences, which add to the romance of arriving in a new country, are almost non-existent. This might be considered a good thing in the world of globalization: that comfort of knowing that the signs will be clearly marked (in English along with the local national language); that check in and upgrades and security announcements will be handled identically, and that only the food courts in the airports will help to remind us that we are somewhere ‘different’. But I wanted more.

As we drove from the airport in Bangkok, I kept looking out the windows, through bleary eyes, trying to find those differences that would tell me I had traveled 5000 miles: advertisements for Compaq or HP gave no hint, and large office structures near the highway could have placed me anywhere. But there were small things that told me that we were not in Kansas anymore: little gold statuettes along the road placed along the cement guard rails; overpass structures designed to look like Thai temples; pictures of the revered King; others of the chief of police located at strategic places; lush and unique vegetation; and the climate - we were in the tropics and at midnight it was 76 degrees and balmy.

We were courteously taken to our room by a most obsequious and polite gentleman in a suit, and pretended that we actually were listening to him as he gave us information on hotel amenities, which buttons to push, or not ,for various purposes, where the coffee machine was located etc. Without a moment’s hesitation, we fell out of our clothes and into our bed, and awoke thirteen hours later at 3:00pm on Friday.

And here we are. We’ve read the local English language newspapers which remind us of the real world: the current conflict between Thailand and Cambodia; the imminent parting of Mubarak in Egypt; the drought in China, and nothing, absolutely nothing, about Lindsay Lohan or Charlie Sheen. Having read the hotel’s information booklet to be sure I knew what was what, I enjoyed a most curious note under the topic of ‘guest Courtesy’: “Various fruits and perishable food items that may create strong odors are not permitted in guest rooms, such as durian, jack fruit, etc.” I promise that once we figure out what these are, I will avoid these fine delicacies so as not offend the delicate noses of our fellow travelers.

Having scoped out the layout of the resort, we enjoyed a simple but satisfying dinner on a pier, and with the next wave of tiredness, headed back to bed. Twelve hours of difference between Vermont and Bangkok will take a few days to conquer.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

We thought we’d have a bundle of energy having slept entirely too many hours, so we joined our fellow travelers for a relatively early breakfast – a nice mélange of every possible food choice: Asian noodles; sushi; salad, fresh fruit – NO DURIAN - waffles and syrup, eggs and toast. You ask for it, and the buffet provided it. We sat outside on the patio enjoying the warmth, people-watching and trying to put a story around each grouping, and deciding out plan of attack for the day. Markets and Jim Thompson’s House were on the agenda.

We took the hotel’s courtesy boat - designed to look like an old Thai royal barge - and traveled down the Chao Phraya River along with colorful longtail boats available for tourists, tow boats hauling cement barges, and other hotel boats heading for the central dock closest to the Sky train. As we started toward the train, a young man who worked at our hotel suggested that the market today was probably not a great idea since there were to be Red Shirt demonstrations going on around the market area. So not wanting to get too involved with the politics of Thailand, we chose to head for the Jim Thompson House instead.

Thompson, an American working for the military and the OSS, fell in love with Bangkok and has been personally credited with reviving the Thai Silk market which was dying out with the loss of skilled craftsmen. He turned this passion and his love for Thailand into a thriving business which exists now in cities all over Southeast Asia. His home, a wonderful complex made up of five different houses which he restored and merged, represent traditional Thai architecture enhanced with American ingenuity. The mystery which surrounds him adds to the allure of the place – at the age of 61 (an inauspicious number according to his horoscope) he disappeared while visiting Malaysia and has never been found. But his non-profit foundation which he started, the silk production and sales which he encouraged, and the compound he so lovingly created speak to the power which one man can have on a country. It was well worth the visit. A delightful lunch of cooling Spring Rolls and Tiger Beer topped it off.

But that was pretty much it. Having conquered the sky train and the steamy hot streets, and having avoided demonstrations, we were exhausted. So back to the hotel by boat for a another cooling drink by the pool before another nap.
Part of me feels guilty that we’re not doing more, but the other half says, ‘hey, we’re on vacation and can do as much or as little as we want’. We still have enough days here in Bangkok to see the highlights, and maybe that’s all we really need to do. There were times in the past when I would have driven myself to do much more, conquer more geography, visit more sites, find new adventures…but today, all I really want to do is relax.
I do so love being in truly foreign places where the challenges of map-reading, communicating, and figuring out transportation while watching everything from people to buildings to signs makes the mind feel very acute: Is this the right place to find the train? Is that group of people sleeping on the road going to be ok? Are those stray dogs going to ignore us? Does that word mean Coke or Pepsi? Are we going in the right direction? But at the same time, I’m very glad to retreat to the familiar, and turn off the antenna for a while.

Preparation for next leg of the journey

The next leg of the journey is about to begin, and we're both in high states of excitement as we look forward to the adventure of new countries, new cities and new ports. Right now the final preparation has us into the minutia of travel: choosing the correct plugs and adaptors for our various pieces of electronic comforts (Kindle, computer, telephone, camera, shavers etc); remembering rain gear and appropriate cover-wear for entering temples and shrines; ensuring we have the right pharmaceuticals which would be complex to replace in countries where we don't speak the language; and all the ditsy minutia which takes on more importance once the grand plans are in place.


I've made a promise to a few friends that on this leg of the journey I will try to have the blog contain not only data, but thoughts and emotions as well. It's been hard for me (and my editor) to define our 'audience' and write to that audience with the right balance of content. But I'll try to to provide that balance. We'll see how it goes.

For those who love maps and charting courses, our ship's itinerary can be found at:

https://www.oceaniacruises.com/findcruise/asia/NAU110215/default.aspx

But in addition we are tacking on days at both the onset and the conclusion of the itinerary to catch our breath at the beginning in Bangkok, and to de-compress at the end in Beijing. The only parts I'm dreading at this point are the 25+ hour plane rides at both ends. For those of us who don't sleep on airplanes these are long slogs. But there's no other way except if we had done what daddy and Walter did which was to start at the beginning and keep moving until the end.

And THAT was not going to happen.