Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

A couple of videos for our last vacation. This is a video taken aboard a river boat to the caves on the Mekong river. We embarked in Luang Prabang Laos --Dec 24, 2019 We stopped for a Milk Tea in a cafe and waited for the rain to stop. Great people watching at a normal intersection in Hanoi with no traffic control devices-- none. Dec 26, 2019

I haven't blogged in awhile. I guess I am still decompressing from our most excellent, but crazy vacation in SE Asia. Things really went as planned. We first started considering the trip and these counties over a year ago and bought the transpacific flights 6 months prior. We were making reservations up to the day before we left. We had 10 flight segments in 14 days. For clarification, we made no tight connections. We did have one long connection in Seoul (12 Hours). We didn't need a hotel since we landed at 5:00 AM and left at 6:00 PM. We had breakfast/brunch in the 4-seasons hotel downtown. I used their business center for some personal business. Never stayed in the hotel. Although the Royal Brunei ticket was to/from Brunei, it was not a layover, but still a a single ticket. Also, we had no morning flights. All flights were in the evening, so we could sleep, albeit in economy. Early morning flights were invented by the devil to totally "F" you up. The money you sav...

We are back from our most complex trip yet. This time in South East Asia. Some stats: 8 countries (not including the US) 10 flight segments 6 airlines 14 days 4 boats 1 elephant ride 1 scooter rental Countries: South Korea Thailand Cambodia Laos Vietnam Singapore Brunei Philippines Cambodia For Cambodia we concentrated on Siem Reap since that is the city closest to Angor Wat. The Angor Wat park complex is enormous. The active temples have oscillated between Buddhist and Hindu over the years. We were quite interested in a huge stone carving depicting a great battle. It is very similar to the Bayeux Tapestry. Interesting, the Bayeux Tapestry predates the Angor Wat carving by about 100 years (1066). We also liked Angor Thom best, the temples with the large faces. Good vibes there for sure. I haven't seen this type of pull-tab on a can for probably 30 years (or more). Apparently bamboo scaffolding is still used in Cambodia. Vietnam Vietnam is a photographer's...