The Joy of Traveling

 Day 1 in Hanoi wiped us out.  After our morning tour and lunch, we returned to our hotel room and basically slept off our jet lag.  Sensing that we were not going to be up to going out for dinner, our guide Phil told us he'd drop off some Binh Mi sandwiches.  I've had Binh Mi before, but these were the best I've ever tasted, with the perfect French rolls with just the slightest amount of crackle when you bite in. With the all-afternoon nap, I woke up wide awake at 2 am, finally going back to sleep around 4. Our Tuesday agenda was adjusted from our original itinerary as Phil wanted to make sure we didn't have too much walking for Shirley.  We started at a 6th Century Buddhist temple.  Phil shared with us much more about the philosophy of Buddhism than we learned during our time in Thailand five years ago. He explained all the different "departments" of the temple, why people leave offerings of flowers, food and beverage for the gods and told us all about th...

 Our internal clocks are a little out of whack, but we were both up early this morning.  We had a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant,  They had a really cool buffet with an assortment of both western and Vietnamese foods.  I decided to go native and tried three different fruits I had never had before:  Rambutan, Dragon's Eye (Longan) and bonbon fruit (Langsat).  All were round, with a tough outer shell and a flesh that reminded me of kiwi, but not as tart.  My breakfast also featured a fresh spring roll, some stir-fried noodles and some Vietnamese ham. I washed it all down with passion fruit juice and hot tea. After breakfast, our guide and driver picked us up we drove to a small lake in the middle of down with remnants of a downed B-52 bomber.  We met Mr. Zhung at the lake and he spent the rest of the morning as our window into the war through the eyes of a North Vietnamese solder.  Mr. Zhung joined the infantry in 1972, stopping out aft...

 I've been on west-bound flights before that are in the air around sunrise or sunset.  Because of your direction of travel, you are treated to glorious extended light shows as you race in the same direction (albeit not as fast) as the sun. Yesterday was not one of those days.  We did see the sunrise as we pulled away from our gate at PDX shortly after 7 am.  But the first leg was due north and by the time we touched down in Seattle the sun was up - for what would turn out to be an extremely long time.   Our second leg, Seattle to Seoul, began shortly after 11 am.  The flight was mainly over water, but took a northerly path paralleling Alaska until we cross the Aleutians.  More open water, then across the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia, then more open water as we passed east of Japan until turning and crossing Japan and then on into Inchon.  After nearly 13 hours in the air, the time was now about 4 pm Sunday.  We had crossed the internati...

  Hanoi is a city of 10 million people.  Two thirds of the country's population was born after the end of the war with the US and half are under 35.  The population has sky rocketed from about 20 million in 1950 to about 100 million today.  Due to population density, the preferred method of transportation in Hanoi and across the country is the motor scooter.  In Hanoi, they are literally everywhere.  Driving is not something for the faint of heart.  According to our guide, the operating word for driving is to weave,  Traffic signals are ignored by roughly 10% of the driver, scooters will sometimes use oncoming lanes (or sidewalks), cross walks are "decorations" and not observed.  For the most part, nobody stops, they just keep moving slowly and weave about.  I took a video this morning of part of our drive.  I'll add it later to give you a sense of the traffic flow.

 Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a bit of a gadget junkie.  I have literally hundreds of apps on my phone, I travel with my laptop, I have my Fitbit watch to record my steps and --new for this trip - a GoPro video camara (thank you again Jessie). All these things are battery powered and for some stupid reason, everyone needs their own style of charging cords to keep the juice flowing.  For the trip, I bought this really cool foldable case that has all these pouches for the cords and their wall adapters.  I thought it would be a great way to both keep things organized and all together. And then I left it on the plane when we landed in Seoul.  Of course, I didn't discover that until several hours later.  I've filled out a lost and found form and hopefully I'll get them back some day. In the meantime, I am literally living on borrowed battery time.  I discovered the case missing last evening when my phone got down to 20%.  I shut it down for the f...

 I mentioned previously that Shirley has some health issues.  She has a genetic lung disease that lead to her having a double lung transplant in 2013.  Following her surgery, she suffered a post operative infection that nearly killed her.  She's fully recovered from the transplant, but has a list of medications as long as your arm that she needs to take daily.  She still sees her transplant team for follow-ups twice yearly and on our last visit her doctor told us "I'm no longer concerned about your lungs.  My job now is managing the side effects of all of your medications and infections." It looks like we'll be traveling with around 25 prescription meds - not counting about a dozen OTC medications and supplements.  This raises a litany of logistical questions: 1.      How do we keep the meds organized and easy to find what is needed?    Shirley has long relied on numbering the tops of her medicine bottles and keeping them toget...

 I really had intended to do several more pre-departure posts, but then we were both hit with Covid.  Talk about taking the wind out of our sails!  Fortunately, we were both able to get antivirals and were well enough on the mends to not have to rearrange our travel plans. It's now 9:30 am Pacific time and we're in the Sea-Tac international terminal waiting for our 11:35 flight to Seoul and then on to Hanoi.  The first leg from PDX to SEA was uneventful, other than a HUGE line at TSA (45 minutes to get through) and then the plane needing to be de-iced.  But we had a beautiful sunrise as we taxied away and the day is clear and crisp in Seattle. Thanks to my daughter, Chloe, for being our chauffer to the airport this morning and for holding down the fort and watching the pets while were away.  The critters were none-to-happy to see us leave this morning, but Chloe brought her two dogs over so there is a distraction that I think helped everyone deal with the l...

Just as the purchase of a new home often makes you look at your old furniture, taking a big trip can trigger that same urge to upgrade and replace some of your "stuff". First up for me was the need for a new phone .  I've been rocking an iPhone 8 plus for nearly six years.  Looking back, it was a purchase before our back-to-back trips to Europe for Christmas, 2017 and our first trip to Asia in February, 2018.  It's a great phone, but after making the decision to not lug around an SLR camera, I wanted to upgrade it to an iPhone 14 Pro Max. I wanted something with a better lens for distance shooting.  Being an iPhone user since they first came out, I'm too invested in the platform to make a switch.  I went with the Pro Max for the better camera and larger screen.   Next up:  Luggage .  I have no idea how old our current luggage is, but I'd guess at least 20 years.  As I reviewed our itinerary and realized we had 10 take-off and landings I ...

Ten years ago, when Shirley had her lung transplant, I started a blog as a means of keeping a diary for keeping family and friends informed of her journey.  As time went on, I realized that we had begun to attract a second audience of strangers -- friends of friends, other people waiting for transplants and the just curious. As I start this, I am thinking up front that I want to write for two audiences.  Of course, I want to create a means of keeping our friends and family informed of our adventure, but I also want to create a resource for other 60-somethings of what it is like to travel to SE Asia.  In my research, there were endless resources for traveling: what to pack, things to do, where to eat; but most were written by and for an audience a generation or more younger than us.  I wanted to create a resource that others interested in venturing to this part of the world can use to help plan their trips. So between now and when we depart, I plan to share some of th...

 With a pin in the date of November 18 needing to be in Bangkok for the wedding, we began looking at the options for where to go, what to see and how to get around.  I will confess that it was a bit overwhelming.  Shirley's daughter, a major traveler, had told us that Vietnam is one of her favorite countries on the planet, so we knew we wanted to include a stop there as part of our trip.   I should mention here that Shirley has some health issues and we wanted to make sure what we planned wouldn't overwhelm her.  The idea of a guided tour on a bus was quickly tossed out, as the rigidity of those trips simply didn't work for us.  I ended up Googling "traveling SE Asia with mobility issues" and among the hits was a link to a travel agency that could put together customized trips.  I filled out their web form... I got a call the next day from Nick, at Audley Travel.  Nick and I spoke for about an hour.  He asked a ton of questions and said ...

 Greetings readers. Three weeks and a day from the start of our SE Asia trip.  One of the tasks not yet checked off is to start a blog.  I guess that can officially be checked off now. So a little background on us, our trip and the name of this site. My name is Greg, and along with my partner, Shirley, we are heading for a nearly four-week trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.  This trip was inspired by a wedding invitation we received from our "extra daughter" Sawanya - who goes by "Joy."  Hence the blog name. Joy lived with us for the school years 2012-13 and 2013-14 while she attended high school.  After graduation, she stayed in the US and attended college. Our home was her home and she came back and stayed with us throughout her college years when she had breaks from school. Joy's family has twice traveled to the US and visited us.  Once for her high school graduation and again when she graduated from college.  During their second visit, he...