“And the seasons they go round and round And the painted ponies go up and down We’re captive on a carousel of time.” ~Joni Mitchell, The Circle Game Every couple of months or so, Herb and I drive to the Bay Area to spend time with our two little grandsons. Making the journey by car instead of flying began in 2020, in the throes of the pandemic, when our first grandson was born. We think about taking a plane sometimes – it’s a one-hour flight from San Diego – but we end up opting for the road, a tradition that has woven itself into our travel routine. We head out early and stop at our son’s hou ..read more

I really wanted to see the Buddha face hidden in ancient tree roots. We had just returned to Bangkok from Angkor Wat and were settling in at the Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel for the final two nights of our travels. The following morning we would be heading out on a private tour to Ayutthaya, the old Thailand capital about an hour north of Bangkok, filled with fascinating temples, ruins and the aforementioned Buddha face. I was trying to simultaneously deal with and ignore the flaming sore throat that had paid me a visit just before leaving Cambodia. Herb and I had planned to explore the area ar ..read more

It’s 8 a.m. on our second day in Angkor Wat, and our tour guide Salon is adjusting our itinerary. “We are supposed to visit Angkor Thom first,” he tells us, “but I’d rather start at Ta Prohm. This is a very special temple, and if we go early, we’ll avoid the crowds. Everyone seems to start at Angkor Thom.” Our group is on board with Salon’s plan. In the short time we’ve known him, he has proven to be an exceptional guide, navigating crowds and maximizing our time to deal with the high temperatures and humidity. He is also extremely kind and considerate, spraying arms and ankles with mosquito r ..read more

“At [Angkor], there are ruins of such grandeur that, at the first view, one is filled with profound admiration, and cannot but ask what has become of this powerful race, so civilised, so enlightened, the authors of these gigantic works?” ~Henri Mouhot, French naturalist & explorer who first documented Angkor Wat to the Western world, Travels in Siam, Cambodia and Laos (published posthumously, 1863) A trace of feathery clouds hangs in a blue Bangkok sky as we wait in line to board our Bangkok Airways flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Herb and I are part of a group of 18 travelers who have ..read more

It’s a two-hour drive from the port city of Laem Chabang to Bangkok. The reason for the long trek isn’t so much the miles between the two cities as it is the traffic. “We have the worst traffic in the world!” our guide tells us as we reach the edge of the city. This is Herb’s and my first visit to Thailand’s capital, and we’ve signed on for a “Bangkok in a Day” tour – a famous temple, the Grand Palace and a boat ride on the Chao Phraya River. The scenes out my window reveal a modern, vertically sprawling city, with high-rise commercial and residential buildings lining both sides of the hi ..read more

Grassy shades of green drift past my window like colors from a box of Crayola 64 crayons. Workers appear in the distance, up to their knees and waists in the fields, their conical hats bobbing as they move. Deep green coconut palm trees and golden wispy plants partially submerged in marshy water frame the scene along this drive through the Mekong Delta. “This is the rice basket of Vietnam,” our guide Ken is quick to explain. “Farmers in the Mekong Delta produce more than half of the country’s rice and 90 percent of our rice exports.” And then he pauses. “There is something else these fields ar ..read more

“I’m going to quickly take you from the Stone Age to 1858, when the French took over control of Vietnam,” our tour guide Thang was telling us. We are standing outside Independence Palace in Ho Chi Minh City, site of the Fall of Saigon in 1975, when a North Vietnamese Army tank crashed through its gates, ending the Vietnam War. I knew our tour would be a bit of a deep dive into Vietnam War history, but I didn’t realize we’d also be gaining insight into the country’s years as a French colony. Thang explained that this coastal nation along the South China Sea had been a popular takeover target fo ..read more

The street vendors were out in force as our tour bus stopped to let us off at Po Nagar Cham Towers. I’d barely stepped onto the sidewalk when women carrying buckets of fans began waving them in my face, as if a small breeze would encourage me to buy one. Men hawking their various wares kept shouting, “One dollar, one dollar,” surrounding us as we walked to the entrance. We clearly weren’t in Japan any  more – or Taiwan, for that matter – and it seemed that Nha Trang and I weren’t getting off to a very good start. If I were going to come away with at least a kernel of understanding about t ..read more

“Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.” ~Anais Nin Shifen, Taiwan, reminded me of a town from an old American western movie set. Railroad tracks run down the center of its narrow main street, with wooden two-and three-story buildings lining both sides. At the end of the street stands the train station, once the heartbeat of this former coal mining town, in the days when the train transported coal from mines in the region. Mining ended here in the 1970s, and by the ’90s the town had transformed ..read more

At first glance, Naha, Okinawa, didn’t look much like the images of Japan that had been imprinted on my mind while exploring Tokyo, Kyoto and Kōchi. Japan’s smallest and southernmost island seemed a world away from its northern counterparts, with palm trees, a beachy vibe and a main street that shouts instead of whispers. Any minute, I half-expected a Japanese Jimmy Buffett to appear around a corner, singing Cheeseburger in Paradise. Kokusai dori Street……Naha’s main artery and busy tourist hub. But turning the corner away from Kokusai dori Street, I felt as if I had found Japan, or at least th ..read more