In Tucson

We are in Tucson, Arizona. We stopped here to visit Jim's high school friend Doug and his partner Gary. Jim performed the wedding ceremony for them when they were married in California before Proposition 8 outlawed such marriages.

In Alamogordo, New Mexico

Today we made it to Alamogordo, New Mexico, via Roswell, New Mexico. We went to Roswell to see the UFO Museum and had a great time. We also went to the well Museum and Art Center which was far better than we thought it would be. We drove through a lot of sparsely populated land, and beautiful scenery. From Dalhart, Texas, we went to Clovis, New Mexico, then to Roswell, up to Ruidoso and down to Alamogordo. A very pleasant day. We even bought a bottle of New Mexico wine to try later.

In Dalhart, Texas

After three days in Topeka we are on the road again. Saturday we picked up Laura's sister Susan in Wichita and started driving to San Diego, California for Jim's granddaughter's high school graduation. After the graduation we will go visit our kids in Las Vegas, Salt lake City, and Denver. Then we return to Topeka for a while. Jim is already missing SE Asia. Since we've been home Jim has had trouble adjusting to the American diet. He has had more stomach and bowel problems since we've been home than he had on the whole trip. Dalhart, Texas, is a small town in the Texas panhandle. When you step outside the car or the hotel room you smell the feed lots. Not as bad as the one time we drove through Hereford, Texas, but similar. One nice touch is that at the Days Inn where we spent the night the waffle maker made waffles in the shape of Texas.

At Home

After a twenty-four hour trip from Bangkok, we are home!

In Bangkok

We are back in Bangkok. Tuesday we fly home. Nice to be back here to relax and get ready to go home, even if we don't want to go home.

In Saigon

We took an eight hour bus ride from Da Lat to here. This is a city that Jim doesn't like. Although, that might be because the first time he was here he had Dengue Fever. Anyway, it was another long, uneventful bus ride. The pretty scenery was around Da lat, then we got out of the mountains and the ground became flat. Saigon is the economic engine that drives Vietnam and is one bustling city.

In Da Lat 2

May is the warmest month in Da Lot and it rains most afternoons, but today it has rained all day, making the weather cool. Da lot is the coolest town on our trip. Because of the rain everyone is riding around on their motorbikes and scooters wearing plastic rain coats. We are watching the women drive their scooters with spike heels or sit sidesaddle behind the driver. All over Asia there can be four or more people on one motorbike. The motorbikes are adapted for everything from carrying fish for your fish tank, to transporting a compressor.

Today in the rain we saw an advertisement for a scooter being photographed. It was raining and yet the camera crew wanted more rain for a good shot. For the advertisement a young woman is standing beside her broken down scooter in a skirt, blouse and of course spike heels, and a guy is supposed to rescue her with an umbrella. The cameraman had another man with a garden hose shooting an arc of water on to the woman. She instantly looked like a drowned rat in need of rescuing.

Jim got a haircut today in preparation for going home. The best thing about the haircut was as Jim got his haircut he looked directly at the bottom half of a 6Omm mortar shell that the man used to store items in on his counter.

We leave tomorrow on an eight hour bus trip to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. The name was changed but the use of the name Saigon goes on. I am even looking at Saigon Kleenex in our hotel room.

In Da Lat

After a four hour bus ride we are in Da Lat, in the highlands of Vietnam, at an elevation of 4,928 feet. We went from sea level to here in one short ride. It is considerably cooler here and seems to rain every afternoon.

It is so much nicer here. This is the honeymoon capitol of Vietnam. So there is a lot of young love here. This is a city of excellent French food and architecture. Most new hotels are in the French Colonial chalet style with a high peaked roof lines and are painted off white, cream, or yellow.

The French colors for their colonies was yellow and green, and the new mansions being built by wealthy Vietnamese can be painted any color even bright green. Our first trip to Da Lot was in 2008 and the town has grown a lot since. It is no longer a sleepy little village, but a busy city. There are hotels everywhere for honeymooners and tourists. Everyone seems to want a look at this quaint place. Yesterday we had coffee with rum at a restaurant on the shores of the lake in the center of town and we watched both young lovers and kids paddling in swan paddle boats.

We visited The Crazy House which is Da Lot's number one tourist attraction. I took a photo of the architect who is continuing to add on to the house and has now added more gift shops.

We are staying at the River Palace Hotel. This hotel is excellent and has a good breakfast and is in the center of town. We can walk in any direction and from our window we can see the Da Lat Easy Rider Headquarters. That is a motorcycle club with members all over Southeast Asia. We have seen some club rides as we travel. In Penang we saw a Muslim Harley Davidson riding club arriving at the hotel we were staying. All the women were seated behind their husbands and when the women took their helmets off, they were wearing Haley Davidson handkerchiefs as headscarves to cover their hair in proper Muslim fashion. The food here is also wonderful. After we arrived we ate our fist meal at the Art Cafe and I had fish in clay pot brown sauce served with brown almost red rice, which was an excellent combination. We now have eaten twice at the Long Hoa, Restaurant de Famille. Yesterday had barbecued beef wrapped in lot leaf, which is a pepper leaf. Today I had strips of chicken breasts served over lightly sautéed sweet onions instead of rice. I must do this at home. After lunch Jim bought a pomelo, which is thought to be the ancestor to the grapefruit but much larger and sweeter. He tried to cut it open and failed so I took it to the hotel kitchen and the chief chef took a cleaver out and cut the fruit into the shape of a square, and then shaped it into a ball. She then began peeling the sections. I then took it back to the room to eat. The chef said our pomelo was young and next time we should pick a fruit that is shiny green and then would have a thinner skin. I must talk about the Da Lot wine. We drink the Da Lat red wine that is made from cardinal grapes and mulberries. We are even buying dried mulberries in the market to eat as our snack. We like this city.

In Nha Trang

We are in Nha Trang, the diving capitol of Vietnam. We took a five hour bus ride from Quy Nhon on our bright green Mailinh bus. The bus company picked us up in a van at our hotel and took us to the bus station where we caught the "big" bus to Nha Trang. The trip ended at the Nha Trang bus terminal where we caught a taxi to our hotel. So, we are here.

In Quy Nhon

After spending four nights in Hoi An, we caught a taxi to Da Nang and then a train to Quy Nhon. The train ride was an uneventful six hours. this is a very pleasant non-touristy town on the coast of Vietnam, halfway between Da Nang and Nha Trang. We originally stopped here to break up the long trip between Nha Trang and Dan Nang/Hoi An and discovered we liked the city. So, we come back. We have a hotel, The Sunflowers, overlooking the beach where we can watch the fishermen in their round boats and enjoy the beach.

In Hoi An

We took the Green Train sleeper from Hanoi to Hoi An. The trip was uneventful. We had a four person cabin to the three of us. We only bought three berths but the fourth was empty the whole trip. There was a lady and her daughter that were assigned to it, but when they came to the cabin in Hanoi, she wanted to switch to a lower berth from the upper she had a ticket for, and we refused. Then her daughter threw up on the floor, and we never saw her in our cabin again. She found a lower berth in another cabin. Hoi An is the city that tourists most love. It's another UNESCO World Heritage site and is really pleasant. It's also the home for the "Want to buy a Suit? Dress? Pants?" tourist industry in Vietnam. This time Jim succumbed and ordered a cotton skirt, oops, kilt. So, we'll see how it looks.

Ha Long Bay

We booked a tour to Ha Long Bay for two days and one night. For the one night we stayed on a boat somewhere in Ha Long Bay. The bus ride from Hanoi to Ha Long City took four hours and then we boarded the boat. Because we booked a tour we were picked up at our hotel and traveled with fifteen other people, most of whom were young enough to be our grandchildren.

We were talking to one very enjoyable lady from London who mentioned her 67 year old grandmother. But, we all got along quite well. We even met with two of the group for drinks later in Hanoi.

Since we were here four years ago the government has decreed that all the tourist boats must be painted white, completely destroying the ambiance of the boats that were painted different colors. The trip itself was wonderful. Last time we spent a second night on Cat Ba Island, but this time we opted to go back to Hanoi. Ha long Bay is a UNESCO World heritage site and deserves it. The islands jutting up from the water are amazing. There is another bay further north that is just starting to get tourists and is where we will probably go to next time.

In Hanoi

We are in Hanoi, Vietnam. We took an Air Asia flight from Bangkok to here. We arrived an hour before Joyce's flight from the U.S. so we waited for an hour at the airport and met her. We all took a car provided by our hotel to the hotel. It is a lot cooler here than it was in Bangkok.

We are now in the land of good $2 bottles of wine, which Vang Da Lat, which is bottled in Da Lat, the honeymoon capitol of Vietnam.

We are staying in the old quarter, which is a crowded, chaotic area. We really enjoy hanoi, hope Joyce does also.

In Bangkok III

We are back in Bangkok. We took an eight hour bus ride from Udon Thani to Bangkok. The bus evvn provided a meal. it was a fast and easy trip on a bus that could have used new shock absorbers.

While In Bangkok we got our yellow fever shots to go to Africa. We also ended up getting two other shots that had expired. We went to the Thailand Red Cross and they were great. Almost painless shots.

Back in Udon Thani, Thailand

For our last meal in Vientiane we at at Ray's Grill. This time Laura ordered a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich on a baguette. It was delicious, and she was eating bread. Ray taught us how to ask for rice flour. We say "Bang Cow", at least that what it sounded like to Jim. With the Philly Cheese Steaks we had red wine, which Ray did not chill to cellar temperature. But, it was still a pretty good French Merlot.

This morning it was time to leave, so we caught a bus to Udon Thani. The trip took longer than it did getting there because the border crossings were jammed with Thais heading home after New Year. Anyway, we made it and checked into our hotel, @ Home At Udon, which is less than $20 per night and a bargain.

But, we did bring a few baguettes with us from Lao. At the bus station Jim said "Bang Cow" to a lady selling baguettes and she nodded and painted at the baguettes. So, Jim bought half a dozen which we have been eating all day. Here's a photo of one after it has been mangled in the trip from Lao to Thailand.

Couple of thoughts on Lao that we never posted.

At our hotel is a French couple and their twenty-something son. They are here to visit Vang Vieng where their other son died last year. Very nice couple and very sad. There is French woman and her two teenage children that are traveling around SE Asia for ten months. They came in September and go back to France in July. Their daughter goes off to college next year so she thought this would be her last chance to do something like this.

We had salted fish a couple of times. The fish is caught then the complete fresh fish is grilled over charcoal after dipping each side in salt. When we say complete fish, we mean it. The fish is served with its complete head, tail, and entrails, and stuffed with an onion in its mouth. The fish was quite good, but we left the entrails along with the bones and the head.

Ray From Seattle

There is a great small restaurant down the street from our hotel which is owned by Ray From Seattle, and his Laotian wife.

Funny thing about the restaurant is that Ray cooks mostly Middle Eastern food, felafel and the like.

We were talking and he informed us that in Lao most baguettes are made with rice flour, and not wheat. Laura was excited. She can eat the wonderful baguettes they have here. Mike said to be sure to buy the cheap ones because the expensive ones do contain wheat. Just like soy sauce, the cheap stuff Laura can eat, the expensive stuff has wheat added. And, he said, do not order any baguettes in a French restaurant or bakery because they will surely contain wheat.

Ray told us about the baguettes after we finished our meal so we bought a grilled baguette from him and took it back to our hotel to eat. Laura ate half the baguette and has not had any problems, so, it's pig out on baguettes time. Jim had ordered a burger which came on a baguette and he hadn't even noticed that it was made from rice flour. He thought it looked and tasted identical to a wheat baguette so he was very surprised.

A Wet and Crazy Time

Today we ventured forth, on the first day of the Lao New Year. There was music and water everywhere. People were drinking Beer Lao, singing, shouting and throwing water. There were pickups cruising the streets with people in the bed throwing water on people waiting along the side of the street to throw water on people driving or walking past.

Within a few minutes we, along with nearly everyone else, were soaked in the 99 degree weather. The main streets were like rivers. Water came at you from hoses, high powered squirt guns, buckets and pans. The entire town is like a beach party, without the beach.

We discovered that children’s swimming pools make excellent reservoirs for water to throw on people.

Amidst all this chaos the temple were full of people offering prayers, sprinkling and pouring water over the Buddhas. The temples were off limits to the craziness going on in the rest of the city, and were an oasis of calm.

It seemed like all the food sellers in town had pushed their carts to their favorite temple so the devotees would not go hungry in between wetting down the Buddhas.The temples often brought the Buddha statues outside the temple so people could pour water on them.

Pai Mai Lao 2555

This is now Buddhist year 2555. In Lao they practice Theravada Buddhism, which is one of the main types of Buddhism, and is the dominant type in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

In the English language Vientiane Times, which is published by the government, they had a couple of comments regarding Pai Mai Lao, or the Lao New Year:

"Everyone has the right to put soot on a person's face to indicate they had some deficiency or that their behavior was inappropriate in spirit and word. Instead of putting soot on another person's face they often use flour, which usually goes over the face, in the hair and on the clothes, mixing with the water which is usually already there.

"Visiting a temple over Pai Mao Lao helps to set people free from their daily worries and should bring them health, happiness and good fortune in the year to come. Laura heeded this advice at Wat Si Muang.

After going to Wat Si Muang, Laura was looking at cloth to buy and this salesman was particularly insistent.

Life In Lao

Yesterday during lunch at the Talad Sal Market we were watching an overhead TV and a television advertisement caught Laura’s attention. The advertisement showed a modernly dressed Laotian woman washing clothes in the backyard of her house in a large wash tub. She was scrubbing away, and her hands were becoming red and irritated. The hands suddenly became animated showing the pain she was feeling in them. Then her husband and two children appear from the house and they are smiling with an idea. Laura thinks that they are either going to help her wash the clothes, or buy her a washing machine. No! They are going to buy her a different brand of bar laundry soap. Such is life in Laos.

Songkan - Lao New Year

Lao new year is celebrated every year from April 13 to 15. This afternoon from our hotel room we could hear music and singing so Laura decided to investigate. After half an hour Laura came back to the hotel soaking wet. She had found the party. It was at the Lao National Theater and it was a party the afternoon before the staff headed home to their villages for New Year. The theater people played music,sung, drank and danced the afternoon away. The party ended at 5pm as the people left for their homes.

We only stayed for about an hour. But, it was long enough to be completely drenched.


As Wikipedia put it "Tourists that plan to travel to Laos during the New Year are advised to be prepared to be soaked. This has an important role in Laotian culture - they are not only wishing a long and healthy life for themselves, they are also wishing the same for others."

Pommes Frites

Yesterday we went to the U.S. Embassy to get pages added to Laura’s passport. When Jim did it in January, 2010, in Chaing Mai, Thailand, it was free. Now, it costs $82.00. We gagged over the price to tape a few new pages into the passport but it was cheaper than getting a new passport. So, we did it. You can no longer drop in on the U.S. Embassy, you have to go online and schedule an appointment to have them see you.

After the embassy we went to the National Museum, which extolled the fight for freedom in Lao, from the communist perspective.

Here, we bought some woven fabric to hang on the wall from around Xam Neua in Hua Phan province, and Laura bought a silk Laotian skirt. We went to the market after going to the U.S. Embassy to look for Fabric to get a skirt made, actually Laura did, while Jim stood around. But, at the museum, Laura determined that it was a better deal to buy the skirt already made. She bought a very nice silk skirt.

The market is next to the local bus station and there we saw these glorified golf carts that are used for city buses, complete with the route number on front. Jim really liked the open air version.

Last night we went to Dao Fa bar for happy hour. Wine during happy hour is only $1.25 per glass. The bar is owned by a Frenchman, and is quite nice. We sat in the open air bar, drinking our wine, eating fried potatoes, and staring at the Western Union sign across the street.

The red wine was served slightly chilled, like it is supposed to be served, and at which it is rarely served. Maybe the French do know something about wine. After the first glass of wine Laura ordered pommes freits thinking the french fries might be listed in French, but when she asked for pommes freits, the waiter replied ”You want an order of french-fries?”. So much for our foreign language skills.

That Dam Stupa

We found the hotel we stayed in sixteen years ago. It’s located on the other side of the main Rue (street in English, Lao being a former French colony, there are no streets, only Rues) running parallel to the Mekong River. Jim remembered where it was by the big radio antenna next to it. We went in the hotel and talked with an Australian professor who, when he comes to Vientiane stays in the hotel, and has been staying there for twenty years. The hotel is the Day Inn Lao Hotel, and is French owned. The restaurant where we found the Laotian woman whose family lived in Liberal, Kansas, is gone, and in its place is a big hotel. The Rues leading up to the hotel are now paved, sixteen years ago they were dirt.

On the way we stopped by a temple so Laura could photograph and met a monk who had lived in San Francisco, California. He was going to be a monk for a week so his parents could go to heaven. Apparently if you do not serve as a monk sometime during your life, your parents will not enter heaven. His father had recently died so he was making sure his father would go to heaven.

We also went to Patuxai, which is also known as "The Vertical Runway”. This monument was built by the Lao government using money and cement which the U.S. provided to build a runway, hence the name. When we were here before the area around the monument was dirt. Now, it is the most popular park in Vientiane.

This is a sign on the wall describing the building: "From a closer distance, it appears even less impressive, like a monster of concrete"..

The final stop was That Dam Stupa.

Here's the Wikipedia article on it: "The That Dam is a large stupa in Vientiane, Laos. Many Laotians believe it is inhabited by a seven headed nāga who tried to protect them from the armies of Siam, who invaded in 1827. It is also known as the Black Stupa, the English translation of the Lao name "That Dam"."

Jim likes the English pronunciation of the name, which seems to be his feeling toward seeing all these temples and stupas.

In Vientiane, Laos

We are in Vientiane, Laos. To get here we took a two hour bus ride from Udon Thani. The border crossing was a breeze thanks to us getting our Laos visa in Bangkok. We had to show our visa in order to buy the bus tickets from Udon to Vientiane, and then again at the border.

Vientiane has changed quite a bit since our last visit sixteen years ago. There are so many new buildings that we can’t figure out where we stayed before. Here there are a lot more female farangs than in Udon. In Udon whenever we saw an American, British or Australina man, he was either with his Thai wife (temporary or permanent variety), his Thai boy, or with other men. Here the men are quite often with European looking women. Laura doesn’t feel like such an oddity.

The first thing Laura did after arriving at the bus station in downtown Vientiane was to get her nails done by a woman walking around the station carrying her own water and supplies. It cost just over a dollar.

Last night we went to a free showing of the silent film "Chang", which had been filmed in Lao in 1927, back when Laos was part of French Indochina. A screen had been set up along the riverfront where they had also built coliseum type seating on the side of the river. This was all new since our last visit. The area is still under construction, having been started two years ago. There is also an active night market along the river. The movie was subtitled in both French and Laotian. The orchestra accompanying the movie played traditional Laotian instruments and Laotian music.

In Udon Thani

We took a ten hour train ride from Bangkok to Udon Thani. From here we are going to take a bus to Lao. We arrived after dark and as we walked out of the train station, the first sight was a huge night market, with a bright orange McDonald’s sign shining over it all. Naturally, we had to get an ice cream cone for 7 Baht (less than 25 cents). After we got off the train we saw people climbing all over the train, including the roof, with flashlights, checking it out and probably looking for bombs.

This town is the major commercial hub for NE Thailand and since the bombings in the Southern Thailand, the country has been on high alert. The paper is reporting that the explosion in Hat Yai was a car bomb parked in the Lee Plaza Hotel’s underground parking lot, which caused an even bigger gas explosion. We instantly recognized the area because it showed McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken neon signs next to the bombing. I’m sure the ATM which I used to get Thai Baht to go on our cruise suffered heavy damage as it was right next to the explosion.

During the Vietnam War, this town had U.S. air bases nearby. B-52s flew from this are to bomb North Vietnam. Our friend Doug was partially based here during the war, and Laura’s brother in law, George, flew in and out of here. The town still has a very large number of farangs here, who seem to be mostly pot-bellied men with their Thai wives. This is a booming economic area of Thailand. Our hotel is right next to the largest shopping center in town and is also on the street known as Soi Farang because of all the bars and sex tourism opportunities on it. The guidebook used the term “sex tourism opportunities”, which I thought was a great euphemism.

When you travel on the train in Thailand, at the stops people get on to sell you food. For supper on the train we bought a whole skewered chicken. It had been pressed flat and skewered on two flat sticks then cooked over charcoal. It was really good. Here, when you buy a cooked whole chicken, you get a whole chicken. The chicken came with both feet and the head attached.

For our last lunch in Bangkok we ate at Mos Burger, which labels itself as “Japanese Fine Burger & Coffee”. Their slogan is “Making People happy Through Food”. The best thing about Mos Burger is that they serve a lot of their burgers on buns made of pressed white rice, so Laura can eat the bun. This time they added Lettuce Burgers to their menu. These burgers are served between two large pieces of lettuce, with no bun at all. Laura was quite happy with her lettuce burger.

After the Mos Burger we went to Patty’s Fiesta for margaritas during happy hour. Laura had previously talked to the tall, deep-throated, short-skirted adam-appled, waitress named Fen about the cost of drinks during happy hour. So, this time we went. The restaurant has been on Silom Road for thirteen years and has nightly Mexican music performed by a Filipino band. And, like most Mexican restaurants, it has a religious statue in a corner of the bar, although this statue is a very garlanded Ganesh rather than Jesus, and Fen, lit joss sticks to place in front of it, rather than candles. This is Fen.

Benjamin and Dagmar were staying at our hotel. He is from London and she's from Austria.

"We Bought a Zoo" and Bombings

Yesterday we went to the movie “We bought a Zoo”, directed by Cameron Crowe. The best scene in the movie was when Matt Damon goes to pay for his purchase at home Depot with a Capitol Federal debit card. Capitol Federal is a bank with its headquarters in Topeka, and doesn’t do business in Southern California, where the movie is set. Also, it’s the bank we use.

The movie was enjoyable but not rememberable. Best part of the movie was watching the development of Cameron Crowe. He’s gone from writing “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” to writing and directing “Almost Famous”, both of which were about him, to writing and directing this movie, which was not about him. Watching his movies always makes us think of the Rolling Stones performance in Topeka, which he chronicled in “Almost Famous”, and which Laura was at! A San Diego boy makes good.

As we left the movie Bangkok had a huge thunderstorm. Thunder and lightning everywhere, so we headed back to the hotel. Once there we saw on the television that there had been three bomb explosions in Yala, in Southern Thailand, set off by Muslim extremist, who want the three southern Muslim state of Thailand to separate from Thailand. And, there had been a gas explosion in Hat Yai. We recognized the area of the gas explosion in the center of town. We had been in the area as recently as January. It was the same area where Muslim extremists had set of bombs in 2006. We had gone through Hat Yai on the train just a few days ago.

Lao Visa

Today we went to get a visa to visit Lao. It is possible to get a visa at at the border when you enter, which we did sixteen years ago, but Jim decided it would be better to go to their Bangkok embassy and get the visa before we got to the border. Jim found the embassy’s address and it turns out it is on a small Soi off the main street that we have stayed near before. Since Sois are usually short streets, Jim figured it couldn’t be too far to the embassy if we took the subway and then the bus to just past the JL Bangkok hotel where we have stayed a few times, the most recent being in December. After we got off the bus Jim had a problem finding the right Soi. The Sois run off the main street with the even numbered sois on one side and the odd numbered Also, there may be a street between two consecutive numbered odd or even Sois. Or, Sois running off the opposite side. Unfortunately, some Sois have names rather than Soi numbers. the Sois may be named rather than numbered. This happened with the Soi we were looking for. The street sign had a name for the Soi instead of a number, even though the Soi also had a number. So, we walked back and forth looking for a Soi number that was signposted. Naturally, Jim refused to ask for directions, so Laura asked and we found the Soi. We then had the address and started walking down the Soi. The problem was this Soi must have been the longest Soi in Bangkok. We kept walking, and walking and walking. Finally, Jim was about to give up and either quit or find a taxi, and Laura asked directions again. Turns out we had not walked far enough, so we trekked on. Finally we came to what looked like a huge open field. We debated whether to walk on so Laura went into the nearby Mercedes Benz dealership and asked directions. After getting directions we trekked on, finally coming to the Cambodian Embassy, which was near the Lao Embassy. We turned at the Cambodian embassy and walked another couple of hundred yards, and there, on something running off the Soi, we found the Lao Embassy.

We went in, filled out the application form and handed them in. They told us to come back in about an hour to pick up our passports, so we went to eat. We ate, then came back and picked up our passports. We then walked down to the Soi and flagged down a passenger carrying truck and took it back to the main street, where we could catch the bus to the subway. The fare for the truck was 6 Baht, which is about twenty cents. So, by walking for well over an hour in about 100 degree temperature, we saved twenty cents.

Here's a photo of Jim paying the truck driver the 12 Baht (40 cents) fare.

In Bangkok II

We are back in Bangkok. We took the overnight train from Butterworth, Malaysia, to here. The train left an hour and half late which gave us plenty of time to admire the E&O luxury train which pulled into Penang before our train arrived. For $8,000 we could have a luxury tour of Malaysia and Thailand, or we could pay $35 for the overnight sleeper. The E&O train was met by a band when it arrived.

We have never been met by a band.

Our train was fun because we met some interesting travelers. We sat across from a Basque man, Iosu Albizu, who had lived in Malta, among other places, and was busy wandering around the world for a few years. There was Richard, who was from Hollywood, and who traveled in SE Asia a few times a year, and there was Bunny, an English great grandmother who was traveling by herself because her friends had too many aches and pains to get out of their homes.

Here is a photo of Richard and Bunny.

Here is a photo of Iosu.

Bunny had traveled on the Trans-Siberian by herself a few years ago and convinced Laura that it was really a great trip. Laura has finally relented and agreed to go on the trip, from Hanoi to Beijing, then on to Moscow, which is actually the Trans-Mongolian Express, the Trans-Siberian Express going from Moscow to Vladivostok, Russia.

Sunkist Oranges

Tonight we are in our room at the PP Island hotel eating Sunkist navel oranges imported into Malaysia from the U.S. We bought them because they were the cheapest oranges in the grocery store. Is there something wrong with a fruit that originated in SE Asia, having been cultivated by the Chinese as early as 2500BC, being shipped and sold in Malaysia cheaper than the oranges grown around here?

Guess this is just the corollary to Jim's buying electronic parts on E-Bay and having them shipped via air mail from Hong Kong cheaper than he can buy them in Topeka.

Pontianak Riots

We didn't blog about the riots in Pontianak, Indonesia, while we were there. Apparently for two nights in a row, the Muslim Indonesians rioted. We did not find out why, nor did we see any information about the riots in the newspapers. We found out about the riots by people we traveled with on the bus to Kuching. They said that they had gone out to eat and photographed the riots while we were sitting in the hotel lounge listening to music. Apparently a few years ago the Muslims had also rioted and had chopped off a few heads, but this time there were no heads lying around.

Most of Indonesia is Muslim, being the largest Muslim country in the world. But the indigenous people of Kalimantan, the province where Pontianak is located, are mostly Christians, and mostly Catholics. The government has tried to get people to immigrate to Kalimantan from the other islands and other Muslim countries to work in in this sparsely populated country, but apparently there are problems.

In Penang

We are back in Penang, Malaysia for the third time on this trip. It feels like coming home. We took an Air Asia A320-200. This plane (9M-AHC)is less than five years old so it is still very nice inside. No Air France seat belts.

Since coming back to Penang we have seen both the "The Lady in Black" and "Starvation Games" and greatly enjoyed both. Laura got her hair done and really enjoyed the neck and back massage that came with the wash and dry. Jim bought a pair of red socks. These are the kind of things we do here.

Zigu Shen, Chinese Opera, Porcelain & John Carter

Yesterday we went on a search for a statue of Zigu Shen, aka Ceshen Tzu-Ku Shen, Keng San Gu Niang and Mao Gu Qi Furen, the goddess of the latrine and concubines. We don’t think we are ever going to find a statue of her. The people at the Chinese gods shop had never seen a statue of her. And, we found out that she is not a Buddhist, but is a Taoist goddess. But, from the shop we did find out that there was going to be a free Chinese Opera that night.

So, last night we went to the Chinese Opera. Couldn’t understand a word, but it was colorful and funny. We knew the plot was similar to a melodrama. The opera was loud and noisy because of the high pitched gongs, other instruments, and with loud high pitched Chinese voices. Chinese operas were originally acted by all men and in this opera the women actors had painted sideburns as if they were men. It was at the Kuching Hong San Si Temple, which is a Taoist temple. This temple’s host deity is Kong Teck Choon Ong, who is a transformation of the human being Kuo Chung Fook, who is worshiped in the Fujian province of China. The opera was part of his birthday week celebrations.

We are thinking that a lot of the Ming porcelain that we thought was from China was actually made by Chinese living in other countries, such as Indonesia. We went to an antique store here and the owner related an exhibit that had been at the Sarawak museum on Ming porcelain that said that the Chinese had established porcelain factories in SE Asia wherever they could find kaolin, which is a main ingredient in porcelain. The Chinese had porcelain factories throughout the area, and especially in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia where they exported the porcelain to other parts of the world, but mainly to Europe.

Because of this we have become interested in the town of Singkawang, near Pontianak, Indonesia. This town makes the Ming blue and white porcelain and has for centuries. We saw what was called a dragon kiln, which is a long narrow tunnel shaped kiln, at the ethnographic museum in Pontianak.

Earlier in the week we went to see the movie “John Carter”. We didn’t think it was that good. But the view from the cinema on the 9th floor of a parking garage is great. The building is confusing to us. In the basement is a food court, on the ground floor are a few shops, with more vacancies than occupied, and only the parking between the first floor shops and the ninth floor cinema.

Before the movie we stopped for drinks and met an American couple from Houston.

In Kuching, Island of Borneo, Malaysia

Kuching is the Malaysian word for Cat. So, the name of the town is Cat, which is why they have cat statues all over town and have a cat museum.

We took an 8 ½ hour bus ride from Pontianak to Kuching. The bus left at 6:30am, so were we up at 5, ate breakfast at the hotel at 5:30 and left for the bus at 6:15. After the bus left the station, its first stop was right back at our hotel to pick up others who were staying at our hotel and also going to Kuching. The bus company had given us the option of getting picked up at our hotel instead of the bus station, but Jim opted to walk the two blocks to the bus station so he could see the bus and be sure to catch it.

The bus took the “new road”, which was mostly paved, but which had parts washed out where the bus has to come to a complete stop before entering the “pot hole”. It was not very fast going for the first six hours. But, after the bus cleared the border into Malaysia, the road improved tremendously for the last two hours.

One interesting sight was that the Indonesian houses alongside the road generally had electricity and satellite dishes. The satellite dishes were universally pointing straight up. Guess that’s what you do when you live on the equator.

Somewhere in Indonesia a group of motorcycles came down the road from the Malaysian direction. These were not the usual 110cc bikes and mopeds everyone rides but were large BMW, Hondas and others. The riders were all decked out in leather riding gear and they were followed by a sag wagon to pick bikes that broke.

The day after we arrived in Kuching, we went to the Hilton Hotel to check out tours around Kuching and sitting behind the desks in the travel agency office inside the Hilton were two of our traveling companions on the bus. They were the people the bus returned to our hotel to pick up and who we had breakfast with at 5:30am, and they run the travel agency.

Last night we went to the GODOWN AMPITHEATRE WATERFFRONT KUCHING, (Pronounced Go Down) where there was free music and dance performances. Was great fun. We even got recognized because we were sitting next to two other Europeans, and all the Europeans were thanked for being there. The MCs also performed comedy routines, but jokes lose their effectiveness when you cannot understand the language.

The following photo of a group of dancers doing the traditional Borneo dance known as "The Twist", in synch.

There was also the more "traditional" performances.