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.