Today was the last day of our 30 day journey.  We have had an amazing trip and I am coming home with three Bronze medals !!! We have gained a greater appeciation for the lives that people live in this part of the world and feel fortunate that we live in such a wonderful country where life is pretty simple compared to the lives lived by the majority of the Balanese, Malay, and Vietnamese people.  Despite the hardships that many of these people face, where ever we went we were greeted with great smiles and hospitality. The food was delicious and we tried many new culinary dishes.  The landscape was spectacular and we ended our journey by spending the late afternoon on the beach in Hoian watching the sun go down over the mountains.  The sky was bright pink with great cloud formations. A full moon rose in the southeast as we walked along the shoreline of the South China Sea.  It was quite magical!!!  We dined on the beach with our friends Mary and Kay and laughed about the good times back home. There were no other tourists around, only a few local people eating next door.  A wonderful end to a fabulous journey with my father.  It was a real special one at that.  I want to thank everyone who signed our guest book.  It really added to our trip.  We looked forward to our daily trips to the internet cafes to see who sent new messages.  Your best wishes and encouragements made our journey a more memorable one!!!  I will post more pictures later this week.  Reality check will set in on Monday at 10:00 am as I return to work.  

Thanks again,

Ms Catherine and Mr. Larry!!!  

Our last hotel on our journey is beautiful.  It is called the Ancient House Resort and we have a great room with two canopy beds with a marble bathroom and a balcony that looks onto a courtyard. We were greeted with cold clothes  and athat had a mild lemon scent along with welcome drink of freshly squeezed papaya juice. The grounds are spectacular and we can see the ocean from our room although it is a 2.5 k bike ride from our hotel. We have a pool in the centre of the complex however the water is almost too.. warm.  This evening we went to the old quarters.  You can only take a taxi so far and then you have to go by foot.  No vehicles are permitted.   Our guide recommended a great restaurent called the "Cargo Restaurant" that overlooked the Hoi An river.   We had amazing seats that looked down on the river.  We could see the local people lighting candles that were placed in paper lotus flowers and then they would send them down the river.  Several young people would actually get in boats with their candles all light up.   Tonight was the last night of a two day celebration of the dead for the Budist faith.  The streets were also lit up with these beautiful silk lanterns of all shapes and sizes.  It was spectacular.....!  

We left Hue this morning to go to Hoian.  It is our last stop before we head home on Sunday am.  It is ~ 3 hour drive along the shore line and through a passage to Denang.  This stretch of land is bordered by the Laos/Cambodia border.  The mountain range divides the countries. We stopped at the top of the passage to take a panoramic view of the Denang city and China Beach down below.  Denang and the famous China Beach is the city where the US occupied Vietnam during the war.  There are currently 1.1 million people living here. When we got out of our van, we were swarmed by some local people wanting us to buy their goods.  We are getting pretty good at saying "No Thanks" and walking away. We now laugh at the poor people who have not mastered this skill and who are literally swarmed by the people pulling on them begging them to buy from their stand. We certainly feel their anxiey because we have been there!   We stopped briefly in Denang to visit the Champ Museum that houses many of the Champ's Hindu statues.  The Champ people owned what is currently the central part of Vietnam however currently there are only ~150,000 Champ people living in southern Vietnam.  The majority of them fled to Cambodia during the war.   We had a neat lunch with the local people.  It only cost the four of us altogether $7.00 US.   After lunch we hiked up the Marble Mountain and a cave that was used by the Vietnam gorilla's as a hospital during the war.  Inside there are beautiful Budda monuments.  We also visted a shop where the local people make enormous marble statues that they ship all over the world.  Beautiful workmanship but very labor intensive.  It is really sad to see how much these people are exploited!  They still only make ~ $2-5 US/day.  The rich are getting richer and the poor stay poor!!!   

We flew to Hue on Wednesday night and it is such a relief from the busy streets of HaNoi.  There is only 350,000 people here instead of the 6 million in Hanoi.  You can actually walk down the streets without a single vehicle or sound.  Hue used to be the capital city of Vietnam during the French occupation.  The architecture is very french colonial and many of the local and tourists speak french. The Perfume River runs through the city.  There is no longer any odor to the river but the water used to be fed by the mountains that had a lot of gingsing in it hense the name perfume.  This morning we took a boat ride up the perfume river to see a famous Pagoda's and the Citadel and Imperial City.  Our guides have been excellent and give us a lot of the historical background.  The poverty is still evident along the shores of the perfume river.   Some of the poorest families live on these tiny boats with 5 members in their families and the kids do not go to school.  Instead they help their family drudge the bottom of the Perfume River for sand for construction.  A sad site  indead but the children always wave to the tourists and have smiles.  In the afternoon visited more temples and mausoleums of former kings. One of the kings had 500 wives and 170.. children.  The gene pool must have been small!!   We ate in the Imperial city at this beautiful restaurant on an outdoor court yard.  This restaurant had a set menu for $10.00 US.  The presentation of the food was amazing.  Our first dish was tiny spring rolls stuck into the side of a pinapple with decorative carrots shaped resembling a peacock. We watched the sky light up with heat lightening and then 3/4 of the way through it started to pour rain so the staff lifted our table and brought it under their front entrace so that we were out of the rain.  The hospitality has been amaing!  and the food has been fabulous and cheep.  Our most expensive dinner was $15.00 US each including a glass of wine. 

On Tuesday we went to Mai Chau. It is a little tiny village where the Thai minority live in stilt houses.  It was about a 3 hour drove north west of Hanoi. The vistas along the way were gorgeous.  Lots of rice fields, sugar cane and green tea growing along the side of the hills and as we got closer to Mai Chau, there were high peaked mountains without the snow.  We even saw a beautiful golf course with many Vietnamese women working on the course with there conical hats.  Other interesting sites along the way included pigs in cages on the back of motorcycles I presume being brought to the market. A man holding a bill board on a motorbike and you could not even see the driver.  There were many water baffalo meadering in the middle of the road and one little boy was hitting one on the behind to move out of the road so he could pass on his bike.  There were open markets in villages with raw meat sitting out in the blazing sun all day. I wonder what microorganizisms were growing there.  There were live fish in plastic blow up pools.  It was quite the site!  We picked up Peter and the kids on the way home and went to the old quarters for good old pizza and ribs.  It was so..good to have western comfort food again.  Wednesday was a quiet day.  We walked around the markets and we got ourselves completely turned around.    The streets twist and turn and each cross section is a new name.  Each street is also lined with similar products ie.  A hardware section, a clothing section, a street full of baby parafanalia, a street full of shoes and etc.  It is completely chaotic.   As Kay said, it is a cacaphony of sounds. 

We went to Halong Bay yesterday and it was quite spectacular...We had our own private junk for the 10 of us. We felt pretty special!!   HaLong Bay is filled with large volcanic rocks coming out of the water.  We were so...happy to be out of the busy city.  We explored caves, kayaked in the bay, swam and had delicious meals.  All was great until this morning when Thomas, Louise and Peter's oldest son, felt sick/ nauseous and crampy.  We had a nice breakfast, and headed back for the city.  Thomas still was not well.  When we stopped for a tea/coffee break, we were wandering around looking at the pottery when Thomas fainted.   He was scooped up by the locals and sat in a chair,  Before we knew it he was surrounded by vietnamese women speaking very fast and putting smelly green liquid on his temples and under his nose. We got him back into the bus, and quickly headed back to Hanoi about 1 1/2 hours away.. We stopped at the SOS international clinic. I have never seen such great service and the hospital was beautiful.  The entrance way was all in Marble!!  He was greeted at our bus as soon as we pulled in by three nurses who picked him up out of the bus and brought right to ER.  We were seen by a French Physician immediately,who was amazing!!   He had blood work and an IV and within less than 20 minutes he was diagnosed with a bacterial infection and dehydration which they believe came from swimming in the waters of Halong Bay.  The doctor said it is not uncommon for people especially children to get ecoli from being at Halong Bay.  Apparently, they dump raw sewage into the bay...we were directly told it was safe to swim and so we all did.  Beware of jellyfish they said, they never mentioned the ecoli!!! He is feeling much better now and is back at the hotel with us.  We are off to the mountains tomorrow for a short day trip. Peter and Louise's mother is staying back with the kids.  They prefer to be near the pool and close to the hospital if needed.  Good news is that we were glad we never made it to Sapa because the physician told us that many people are stranded in the north and had to be air lifted out by helicopter.   Hopefully that is the end of that type of excitement!  Sorry for no pictures.  We will try tomorrow evening as this Hotel does not charge for internet use. 

Take care and see you all soon.

Cathy and Larry

Today we toured the city of Ha Noi.  We started our day by visiting the mosoleam of Ho Chi Min.  It was an experience.  We had to ensure that our shoulders were covered and if we did not we had to buy a shall.  Then we were put through a security check just like the airport.  We had to give up our camera's to our guide until after the visit.  We were filed in line two by two just like school kids and pushed along by the guards who were dressed all in white. White uniforms, hats and gloves.  The building houses their former president Ho Chi Min's actual body in a glass coffin who died in 1979. They actually have done a really amazing job and it is obvious that they pay great honor to their former president.  He was a real people person and lived a very simple life. We learned a lot about the history of Vietnam and the evolution of their independance.  Next we visited the museum of Ethnology and the museum of  Fine Art as well as the temple of Literature.  They history here in Vietnam is really facinating!!  We ended the afternoon with a cycle tour around the old quarters for 45 minutes followed by a water puppet show. Both were really neat cultural experiences.  We had dinner at another Yummy Vietnamese restaurant.  We have had a change in plans for the next few days.  We are not able to travel to Sapa by train which is really disappointing because there was a train derailment earlier today and several of the main roads to Sapa are closed due to land slides because of the heavy rains that they have had. I guess it is a blessing that we were not on that train when it derailed.  We are off to Ha Long Bay instead and then we need to decide what are plans are after that.  We will keep you posted.

Cathy and Larry

We arrived in Vietnam last evening and met up with Louise and Peter Markhauser and the kids along with Mary and Kay.  We are now travelling with a group of 10 people.  We have a minivan taking us all over.  Last evening we went to dinner at the most amazing restaurant. It was called the "Forest Restaurant" We went down these steep stairs lined with beautiful folliage and flowers.  The restaurant was beautifully done and set like an old logging building. Everything was made from the forest thus it's name.  The food was delicious!  We had a traditional Vietnamese 6 course meal.  Today we are off to see the sites of Ha Noi and visit several museums.  Tonight we see a waterpuppet show followed by an overnight train to Sapa (northern Vietnam).  We probably will not have internet access for a couple of days.  Until next time. Thanks for sending all the messages, we love to read about what is going on back home as well.

Cathy and Larry

Hi Everyone,  We just finished a two day trip deep in the Borneo Rainforest with Judy and Paul Mason and Sue and Andy Moore.  We had an amazing trip.  We started our journey by flying from KotoKinabalu to Sandakan on Wednesday am.  The skies were clear so we got a great view of Mt. Kinabalu which is ~ 4,086 meters above sea level.   The topography is very hilly with winding rivers throughout.  All the rivers are brown in colour due to the excessive logging that was done by the Russians years earlier. We arrived at Sandakan airport and was greated by a guide from Borneo Eco tour.  A minibus took a group of ~10 of us to the Sipilock OrangUtang Rehabilitation centre where they rescue OrangUtangs from the wild who are sick or who have been captured illegally a kept as pets.  We saw  5 OrangUtangs who were feeding along with Macac monkeys.  On the way back to the Info centre one stray Orang Utan came to check us out.  They are so human like it is unreal.  After the rehab centre we took a jetty for 2 1/2 hours upstream to our lodge. We passed many villages along the way who live in very simple huts.  After we settled into our new accomodations, a small wooden boat picked us up at the dock and took us for a ride down the river to see wildlife.  We cannot swim in the river because it is crocodile infested.  We saw lots of proboscis monkeys who are fairly big in size and have long noses and longtails.  They live in two groups.  A haram group where one male will live with several females and then the Bachelor group which are all the male monkeys who have been kicked out of the harum group who are looking for females.  They are amazing jumpers.  We also saw long tailed macac monkeys and a herd of 20 Pygmy elephants.  They were cool to watch and can be heard from our accomodation at night.  We saw several birds such as the hornbill, king fishers, oriental darters and white cranes.  We also saw a croc's head peaking from out of the river.  That evening we took another night cruise looking for nocturnal animals.  That was pretty eary listening to all the sounds of the jungle.  We saw baby crocs and more monkeys and elephants and an owl. lThe next day we got up early at 5:30 to cruise along the river again to see all the wildlife waking up.  We saw a baby Orang Utan high in the trees while its Mother was still in the nest.  They can travel miles a day and make up to 5 nests a day.  Next we took a trek through the jungle and learned about the flora and fauna of the Borneo rainforest. We spent the afternoon lounging before taking another cruise just before supper. We had great fun and the wildlife was amazing!