Tom and I are almost ready for our five week trip to southeast Asia. We leave the evening of October 3oth from Sarasota via Atlanta and Seoul arriving in Hanoi on Nov 1st after lunch.  On November 2nd we’ll join eight other travelers and three leaders from the Archaeological Institute of America for a pre-tour of Hanoi and Ha Long Bay. The full trip is described here. We’ve been on other AIA tours (Greek Isles, Iran, Gulf States (like UAE and Oman)) and love them! Then on the 6th, we fly to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) to meet up with 8 more travelers to continue the trip. From the 8th to the 14th, we’ll be on board a 12-cabin boat on the Mekong and have no access to internet.

On the 18th, we’ll fly to Yangon, Myanmar (was Burma) for a personalized tour from Journeys Within, where a private guide will meet us in each city that we fly to.  We’ll spend two days in Yangon, two in Bagan (where a highlight is a hot air balloon trip at sunrise over the thousands of temples and stupas), two in Mandalay, and two in Inle Lake.

On the 26th, we’ll head to Bangkok to see some of the highlights from our trip there in 1987 – the Golden Palace and the Emerald Buddha. Finally, on the 29th, we’ll fly to Shanghai for our return flight to Sarasota on December 2nd.  We haven’t seen Shanghai since 2000, so we’re excited to see all the changes.

We have no idea how often we’ll be able to post to this blog, but except for the Mekong, we should have decent Wi-Fi. Stamina is another matter. You can either return to the home page or sign up to follow the blog at the lower right.

Ciao!
Cheryl

P.S. Here’s us from our last trip to Scotland.

At Dunrobin Castle in Scotland