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Vietnam & Surrounds Day 03

Day 03, Saturday, 3/15/25, Bangkok

It is now Saturday morning. Friday didn’t exist. We got on the plane on Thursday. We got to our hotel Saturday morning! We get up around 9 AM after arriving at 2. Our hotel is named ‘Chillax’, an appropriate name for the start of vacation! We have a complimentary breakfast in the hotel. Today we will seek out the Grand Palace, supposedly a ten minute walk from our hotel. By 10 AM it is already 33C (92 degrees F) and over 80% humidity. Street food is being prepared already by food carts parked at the curbs. Welcome to Southeast Asia! But here we are in another beautiful place in the world that we have yet to explore!

Turns out the Grand Palace is a mere 10 minutes walk. Even taking the wrong turn through Bangkok University doesn’t prevent us from finding it easily. It’s a huge complex of gorgeous temples. The currency here is the Thai Baht. One USD equals 33.5 Baht. We pay the 500 Baht (approximately 15 USD) each to enter. I also pay 200 Baht for a set of loose cover up pants as I am told that my shorts that come well past my knees are still not sufficiently long enough.

The attention to detail in this Palace/Temple complex is astounding! We even get to see a Changing of the Guard! Bright colors and golden alters and artifacts galore! After satiating our cameras inside the Palace, we find our way to the river a few blocks away. There we ride a river taxi as far as it goes and back again. I marvel at the motors I see on the small riverboats. They are 4 cylinder, 6 cylinder and even what appears to be a V-8 with an almost horizontal shaft 15 feet long to the propeller! The driver moves a bar attached to the motor so the entire motor swings from side to side to steer the craft! Turns out the end of the line for the river taxi is our stop, only two blocks from our hotel, the Chillax, where that is just what we do!

We have done all this in 35C plus degrees (95F plus degrees F). So we are tired and go back to our hotel and take naps for a couple of hours. I comment that I don’t know which I like less, 35C or -35C (-33F) that we had in Finland. The 95F here says it ‘feels like’ 107 with humidity. Just like in Singapore last year, Durian, the despised fruit, is a bigger no-no than smoking cigarettes! We are going to have to experience this at some point.

After our naps, we head out to find drinks and dinner. We find a fun street behind the hotel called, ‘Soi Ram Buttri’, that is full of street shops. Here you can buy food, clothing and drinks. The street goes for more than a mile in a ‘U’ shape.

We get a street side table and order beer and wine at a place called, ‘My House’. Their IPAs are good (and cold!). Cars and bikes drive through but are respectful of pedestrians, not like Egypt or Morocco. Fun signs assault our senses and another thing stands out. Something I first saw in South America seems to be prevalent here also. The overhead street wires are just complex jumbles that look impossible to sort out. I’d hate to be an electrician that is hired to repair a problem!

Modern busses drive through the streets carrying tourist to and fro. This is definitely a tourist destination. A lot of broken English is spoken here, even by many locals that want your tourist dollars!

We head back towards the hotel and stop at a restaurant, Hemlock, that was recommended to us by the front desk. It’s been here for over 30 years. We order authentic Indian food that includes Curried Crocodile! Nothing like we anticipated! It’s fabulous!

Then we go back to the hotel for the night. I do go up to the top floor where the hotel pool is and snap off a night shot overlooking the city!

See you tomorrow!

Vietnam and Surrounds Day 01

Day 01, Thursday, 3/13/25, Traveling

Here we are again. Time to go. Do we have everything we need? Do we have everything we want? We wanted to travel with only Carry-ons, but, alas, everything we need won’t fit! So we pack up medium sized Check-in luggage and have a little room to spare for acquisitions along the way. Our good friend, Tony, drives us to the airport! I’ll have to put his name on a couple bottles of wine! Our flight leaves on Thursday at Noon. My seatmate on plane, Ernest, is from Los Angeles and is traveling to Tokyo to watch the Dodgers play in Tokyo! Why? Because he can, of course! Our first flight is from LA to Hong Kong, 16 1/2 hours! Ugh. Well, it’s a good thing I brought sleeping pills and a neck pillow.

I watch a movie and eat the first meal they serve. Typical airline food. Probably recycled out of cardboard. We have also paid for extra leg room and that’s a blessing in disguise. I take a sleeping pill and lay back. I manage to sleep for 7 or 8 hours by the time left to fly when I awake. A couple more movies and some more recycled cardboard to digest and we are landing in Hong Kong.

We manage to find our next flight and trudge through the airport in time to board our 2nd flight to Bangkok, Thailand. Another uneventful flight and we land in BKK shortly after 11PM. We get through Security and Customs without any issues and our driver is waiting to pick us up. But first, I need to buy a Sim card for my phone. It is just comforting to know that I can use my phone for GPS and the Internet without incurring high rates from my home carrier. So, for $8 USD I have a Sim card good for a week. I’ll only need it for 3 days.

The ride to the hotel was just short of one hour. By the time we checked in, we got into bed about 2 AM, Saturday Morning. That’s right, we left on Thursday. Where did Friday go?

See you all when we wake up!

Northern Lights Tour Day 18

Day 18, Feb 15, 2025, The Trip Home

We arise at 6:30 AM for the trip home. One last breakfast in the hotel. I’ll miss the breakfast buffets! We take our bags to the train station, which happens to be right outside the hotel. A 25 minute train ride takes us right into the airport. We check our bags and walk to the gate. Soon we are on the first plane to Kopenhagn (Copenhagen) and it’s an uneventful flight. We have aisle and window seats. Our monkey in the middle friend is from Kopenhagn and heading home after cross country skiing for a week.

It’s snowing in Copenhagen. We have about an hour until boarding. By the time we board, it’s snowing harder. The top of the plane and the windows are covered in snow! We board and are delayed an hour at the gate. Suddenly there is something happening, something is pouring on the plane. Rusty red fluids run down over the windows. It turns out we are being de-iced. I guess that means we will be taking off soon. It’s a strange situation though.

Sure enough, we taxi and take off within minutes after the deicing. The 11 hours ticks away and I try to sleep, in vain. I chat with my seat mate who lives in Greenland. She is on her way to Santa Barbara to do some kind of Marine Research. I have paid extra for extra leg room. That leg room turns out to be a little bit of space in a high traffic area. I have to be constantly aware of all the Passengers AND Flight Attendants to avoid being stepped on! Be aware of paying for extra leg room, especially on SAS Airlines!

Several movies later and we arrive in Los Angeles. A shuttle ride home and we have a bite to eat before going to bed. Now it’s time for a new adventure! Stay tuned!

Northern Lights Tour Day 17

Day 17, Feb 14, 2025, Valentines Day in Oslo, Norway!

We sleep in to 7:45 AM. Breakfast in the Buffet and then out to visit the Munch Museum and see the painting, The Scream. Along with hundreds of paintings by Edvard Munch. The museum happens to be a block from our hotel! Those stainless steel tracks on the floor are what robots read and follow! Scandinavia is very big on robots!

A huge museum consisting of 13 floors. We see 2 of the 3 versions of The Scream available. They show one every half hour. Our time is limited so we leave before the 3rd version comes out. Edvard Munch is a very eclectic artist. He had varying points of view in his work that changed as his life changed. On the way back to the hotel, we walk over the Opera House, literally. Up a ramp to the roof and down the other side. Stunning views of the fjord harbor on the way keep our cameras healthy!

Back at the hotel we relax for half an hour. We go down to the lobby to wait for our next adventure. Soon, Lilibet (Helene) walks in and greets us. She was a High School classmate of Elee. She takes us through the railroad terminal outside of our hotel. We board a train to Frognerseteren at the top of a mountain. This is where we meet her husband Wilheim (Vilem) for lunch. Vilem has spent his morning skiing. In past years, I would have liked to join him. But all is well and Lilibet and Vilem are perfect hosts as we dine on delicious lunches.

They take us around parts of the city and drop us off at the Palace. From there we walk leisurely through the Palace Gardens on the way back toward our hotel. We are approached at one point by some college students with video equipment. They asked if we would pose for a video. We do it happily and I give them a Blog Card. They seem to be happy to contact me and we’ll see if they do!

We stop and spend time in a French Cafe for a glass of wine and go back to our hotel. We watch some TV. Then we head out to the train station where we familiarize ourselves with our route in the morning. We go into a gastropub for dinner where a local motorcycle club mostly fills the room!

Back in the hotel, we finalize our luggage for the morning and turn in. See you tomorrow!

Northern Lights Tour Day 16

Day 16, Feb 13, 2025, Oslo, Norway

We sleep in to 8:00 AM today. Down at the breakfast buffet, something is missing. Where are the Black Currants to put in my Yogurt? They must be here someplace. But, alas, they are nowhere to be found! Oh well, there’s some dried fruits to toss in so I settle for that. The coffee machine is one of the best though. Only a couple days left to get good European coffee so I enjoy 2 cups!

We board the bus at 10:00 AM. Mikael sits to the back of the bus as we have a local Tour Guide today. The local Guide speaks very good English and has a great sense of humor. She guides us around the city and describes everything we see.

She takes us to a park, Frognerparken Vigelandsparken, where a famous artist, Gustav Vigeland, carved thousands of sculptures, mostly of naked subjects. We are told that he never explained his subjects as he was telling a more esoteric story. He was basically unknown to the outside world because he refused to allow his sculptures to be outside of this specific park.

Then she takes us up a hill to a ski jump. It’s very impressive. Too bad we didn’t have enough time to ride the simulator at the top.

She shows us a beautiful building which started as an apartment building. What a grand place to live! But, like governments will, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took over the apartment building as their offices. Beautiful building.

We visit the Natural History Museum and see some interesting Viking memorabilia. Viking history is very violent yet interesting.

Then we stroll through the city leisurely and stop at Olivia’s Bar and have lunch. Comical trolls greet our cameras on the sidewalks. The waitress in Olivias Bar, Rikke, is amicable. It turns out that she was in the Norwegian Marines and worked with dogs. She was impressed with our story of dogsledding a week earlier.

We arrive at the Thon Hotel Opera around 4:00 PM and take a nap. On the way in, there is an interesting statue sitting on a bench and we just know he wants to chat! Inside, we find a naked lady hugging the Invisible Man! At 6:30 PM, we join our group for a farewell dinner and wish each other well. This is the end of the Tour for most. I’m sure we’ll stay in touch with some of the group. Hugs abound as we all bid farewell!

Then it’s off to our room for the evening. Finding English speaking TV is a challenge in the evenings. We settle on a Portugal/Romania soccer game where we don’t need sound. Romania seems to dominate the first half. But Portugal comes back to tie in the second half. It’s a 1-1 Match and it goes into Overtime. Alas, it’s almost Midnight and we can’t stay awake to see the end.

Off goes the TV and we go to sleep.