In Korea!

We are rounding the end of our trip ... Seoul is a great way to do it!!! We are spending our time with brother Chris and wife Nicole. We have been all over town with the two best tour guides! - exploring different neighborhoods (walking the sidewalks here is a contact sport), shopping thru great deals, eating fabulous Korean foods, went on a sail, visited the DMZ ... Seoul is a friendly and clean city - perfect way to acclimate ourselves back into civilization. The weather is awesome (70F)- cool and sunny. More to come!!!!

a few days in Vietnam

We are exploring only the north on our travels ... starting in Hanoi. Hanoi is a huge city - motorbikes every-which-way and street after street of products to buy !!! Each street specializes in something ... silk, shoes, bakery - anything you want - they have it. We explored the Old Quarter and had a great time - a lot to see in one day.
We will do the French Quarter area when we return.

We caught the overnight train to Sapa - WOW - what a beautiful place!!!!
The first day there was raining - we saw some great sights even thru the thick fog ... treked to near by Cat Cat Village.
Next day overcast, but dryer, we did a 10k guided hike thru 3 villages and to see a waterfall. All of it was very beautiful and quite an eye opening about life and it's luxuries ... the villagers follow you on the trail (as far as their village limits) with baskets of things to buy. "You buy from me mister?" they all know english enough to chat and sell (cute). Was a little muddy - we sliped and slided our way along.
Last day SUNSHINE ! Yea - what a difference it made ... we could see all of the surrounding mountains (AMAZING). We did a short hike to Sapa's highest point (heavens gate) and rode to a few waterfalls in the north ... really wish we had a few more days to see things more. Loved it !!!

A skip in time ... Cambodia

It has been a while since I had time to log into internet ...
we made it thru Thailand only to wish we had more time there !
We will fill you in with the details later.

We are now in Cambodia.
Since we had to cut our Thailand part short (due to 15 day visa) we got to Cambodia sooner than we had planned.

We started in Phnom Penh - along our travels we were told that the trip up the river to Siem Reap was very lovely to see and experience.

Phnom Penh was very nice the first day - we walked around town seeing the sights and enjoying the surroundings (except for feeling a little guilty about being from the USA - and the notes about us causing the overtaking of and genocides initated by by Poll Pot). We saw great memorials and parks - interesting neighborhoods and ate a great $1. lunch at the Russian Market. The temples were run down not too interesting, beu we had a lot to look forward to about Angkor Wat.
The second day we went to the north side of the city and had a frightening day - full of beggars/homeless and actually being scared about people and our safety!

We did take the boat trip out to Siem Reap 7 a.m.- found a great place to stay - $15. which seems to be our basic amount for a nice room (although we got as low as $7 in Phenom Pen).
We have really been enjoying getting out and seeing the ruin/temples ... hired a tuk-tuk driver for approx. $12. a day to take us here and there. Can't explain how amazing the architecture is - details, size ... every one is different and special in some way ... Saving the best for last (Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom).
Tomorrow we head out to Vietnam, but we have a full day planned before getting to the airport.