January 31
Off again, north up the coast trying to make some good time as we are told that the best part of the trip is up by Queensland. We stopped for lunch at a town called Grafton which looked like a town out of the America Wild West. Our lunch was at a tacky bar with indoor/outdoor plaid carpet which even ran up the side of the bar. There were 15 signs up that we counted saying no one under 18 would be served alchohol. Good lunch. I had hoped to see more of the beaches as we drove but we were mostly inland where there was mile after mile of sugar cane with banana groves also growing, then there were low rolling hills beautifully green. At some point we passed signs for Koala Bears although I never saw one in the trees. I did see a Kangaroo but it was inside a fenced in area. I imagine that the kangaroos cause as much damage to plants in yards as deer do.
We ended for the day at Byron Bay which is a funky little town put on the map by surfers who loved the long line of beaches. The beach we saw was very rough and overlooked by a hill called Byron Point named by Captain Cook after Lord Byron’s-the poet-grandfather. It is topped by a nice lighthouse which sits on the eastern most point of Australia. We we drove into the town we went, “This is more like it!” It was so much more lively and interesting than yesterday.
I am surprised at how difficult it is to understand the Australian accent. Once I had to have someone “translate” Australian for me spoken by someone on the phone. The further up the coast we go, the more trouble I have understanding the accent. Hard to believe that Australia and America both started from the same place.
It is interesting to be driving as the English do on the left side of the road with the steering wheel on the right. It takes alot of concentration for me to stay in the middle of a lane and not have my car bump along the edge of the highway. It is hard being a passenger as well and I spent so much time saying, “Ger Over!” to Maurice that I findally had to look either left or right but not straight ahead. I was sure he was going to have a wreck, epsecially on some narrow roads we were on and that the tires on the left side of the car would go into a ditch. It takes some getting used to.

The view from the hill where the lighthouse sits.

The lighthouse. It was a beautiful day-look at that blue sky.

The sign saying this was the most easterly part of Australia. First place the sun rises.

It is hard to see but there was a path that went all the way down to this area.

January 26th-29th
In Sydney, staying with a friend whose home is in a lovely area, very green and tropical although she says it seldom rains here. In the mornings you can hear all sorts of bird calls, including parakeets and parrots squaking.
Sydney is on the ocean with many bays and coves and she show us many little parks over-looking some of them. Her daughter and her boyfriend took us to Bondi Beach where Maurice tried surfing. It’s a great beach but very crowded and popular. We went into Sydney and wanted to climb the Harbor Bridge but balked at the price of $185 each so walked around the Opera House and took a couple of ferries out to see Sydney from the water. After walking around the area we then took a bus, ferry and another bus back to our friend’s place, feeling lucky to actually find it again. We didn’t have a cell phone or the address so I don’t know what we would have done if we had gotten lost. After talking to a friend we got some good ideas of what to see north of Sydney and decided to fly to New Zealand from Brisbane instead of driving all the way back to Sydney after going up the coast. This way we could see more of what should be really beautiful country.
January 30th
Rented a car and set off north up the coast. A friend gave us a good itinerary for 6 days, the time we have. We first drove through Hunter Valley, a wine growing region, and stopped at the Tyrrell Winery for a wine tasting. We were surprised to find that they were already harvesting the grapes due to the higher heat here. I tasted a good white wine but their Pinot Noir which has received many awards tasted too smoky to me. We had gone inland earlier on a tourist route and saw heavily forested land, mostly with eucalyptus trees but also passing banana plantations and macademia plantations. There was a very bad auto accident later and we had to go inland again which takes alot of time so decided not to see a couple of places that had been recommended but went on to Port Macquarie to our hotel. Most of the town is high above the ocean and there were beaches in beautiful setting but the town wasn’t at all lively. By 5:30 all the shops were closed. We did have a nice drink and dinner at a cafe on a harbor.

On the way to Bondi Beach to surf.

One of those pictures that you instantly know the location of.

A close-up to the tile. This building was apparantly a nightmare to build and there was so much disagreement on what to do and so many changes, that the archetect quit before it was finished.

A view of the beach below at Port Macquarie.

A sail boat reflected in the quiet waters of the harbor.

January 22nd and 23rd
We took the 14 hour flight to Melbourne starting in Langkawi, flying to KL then on to Hong Kong where we only had an hour to change planes but made it and finally landed in Melbourne at 7 AM.
Taking a bus and then a van to our hotel, we arrived at the Novotel-nothing fancy but in a great location. Melbourne is a lovely city with a river running through it. There are many exquisite buildings left from colonial days but most of it seems very new. We took the free tram to the Australian Open Tennis grounds after having dropped off our luggage at the hotel and watched tennis all day, feeling a little blurry with jet lag. The main stadium has a huge retractable roof in case of rain, which happens often during this time of year, and also in case of extreme heat but it wasn’t needed. In fact, it was rather cool. What a difference in food at the Australian Open when compared to the French Open. There are only sandwiches for the most part in France but here there was everything you could think of including some Chinese food, salads, great looking beef sandwiches, just a really great variety of food. Afterwards, we walked from our hotel to the very nice river side area and had a good Italian dinner. Early to bed after such a bad night before on the plane.
January 24th and 25th
Yesterday, more tennis. It is really well organized from the people helping everyone boarding the tram with someone on a loud speaker telling you where to go as you arrive, to very helpful people everywhere at the stadium and even on the street corners wearing red vests. We had a nice dinner at an old hotel. I’ve been drinking alot of Australian white wines which are very good. We discovered a neat little alley heading back to our hotel lined with little places to eat and had breakfast at one the next day much more cheaply than we could have at our hotel. Later, as we walked around, we saw many alleys set up the same way. It is a very nice city for walking around. The weather was on the cool side but the heat is back today and I think it will be very hot in Sydney. Melbourne, while very English, has a strong American feel. It is very casual and full of friendly, talkative people. Very expensive, though.

One of the alleys lined with places to eat.

The famous tennis court, just like on TV.

The giant retractable roof which takes about 30 minutes to close and open. The summers can be really hot in Australia and players need the shade to prevent heat exhaustion.

The Melbourne train station, very colonial in style.

Spring has arrived in Paris. There are the usual showers and blustery winds but the temperature has gotten up into the 50’s which makes it all bearable. Whether it will stay warmer is, of course, the question as the weather is always up and down in the Spring in Paris. Here are a few photos I took around the Marais and the Left Bank yesterday in between showers.

Some great looking bread in the window of a patisserie on Rue du Rosiers in the Marais. I always want to go in and try their desserts. These places also have great sandwiches.

Some boxwood trimmed in an wonderful shape. This is in the garden at the Carnavelet Museum in the Marais.

This dog is a resident on the Hotel Vieux Marais. Her joy in life is to eat, as I was told by the nice man at the desk. This seems like a nice hotel on a quiet street. The people I met there said they liked it.

You can tell that Easter is coming when you see all the fabulous chocolate animals and shapes in the windows of patisseries. They usually are hollow and contain smaller chocolate pieces inside.

There isn’t much to show that it is Spring in the parks yet. This fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens usually has flowers in the urns. None of the trees have their leaves. It looks a little bleak until:

You come upon some crocuses blooming in the grass-always a nice surprise that gives you the feeling that winter and cold weather are now behind us.

The view of our resort from the beach. Great looking location.

Langkawi

January 18th

Off to Langkowi, an island off of the coast of Malaysia. Our flight would have been on time but one person was missing a boarding pass when they did a head count. It turned out to be a child in a large family. Those with children boarded first and one family had only one child but all eleven relatives boarded with it. Asia Air doesn’t assign seats and they charge for luggage over their very low weight limit. We’ve decided that we wouldn’t use Air Asia again. Many flights aren’t on time, we don’t like paying extra for our luggage and not getting seat assignments. Their fares are usually cheaper than everyone else but the luggage charge put it almost up to the price of other airlines.
Langkawi was very tropical and caribbean-like. The taxi fare was very low to our hotel. To say we were dissapointed in our room is an understatement. It was very tired and tacky, although I liked the hotel lobby which was open and airy. The rooms are each seperate bungaloes up a hill in a forest not on a beach as I had hoped. I got an immediate deja vu feeling of being in a camp in junior high except the bathroom was in in the room, not across a campground. Our room was very rustic to say the least and badly needed renovation. We had lunch in a cafe over looking the ocean and decided to see if we could get a better room. Indeed we could at about $40 more a night. If we had only been going to stay for only one night we would have stayed but with four nights we didn’t want to “suffer” so we moved to a much nicer, newer room. It requires a drive in a cart every time to get to our room but we have an incredible view and a modern, clean room. As the sun set we saw many boats out fishing and when it got dark they all lit lights and it looked like a reflection of stars on the water.
January 19th
Today, after a buffet breakfast, we decided to just hang out at the pool. We saved our loungers by the pool with towels before we ate just like people we hate who do thaat. From our place at the pool we can see jungle leading up to volcanic looking mountains. It’s a great pool with a ledge that the water flows over, a pool for children, boulders and large rocks all over and a jacuzzi type pool that bubbles although it wasn’t heated. There is also one of those bars with seats in the pool under a cabana.
The hotel has a real probelm with monkies and if you don’t lock windows and doors before you leave, they will enter the rooms and make a mess and perhaps take things. Monkies are trained in this part of the world to climb coconut trees and twist off the coconut and throw them to the ground.
We ordered hamburgers for for lunch and they were horrible. After being cooked they were still red and had a strange taste. I’m thinking maybe they were sort of like spam. I noticed that no place in Malaysia served pork of any kind probably due to the Muslim population. The island is 85 % Muslim.
January 20th
We rented a car today to drive around the island. After we left we noticed that the car was totally on empty and they hadn’t bothered to tell us. Luckily, we found a gas station. The island had an almost African vegetation and it looked like it origins are volcanic. I was reminded of Tahiti here and there. It doesn’t seem very prosperous on the island. I was very disappointed in the capitol, Kuah City. It is known for its duty free shopping but I didn’t see much of interest and could have kicked myself for not buying more in Thailand. I was a little disappointed in Malaysia on the whole and wish we had spent the time here in Thailand. It’s either very heavily Muslim which has no religious culture to see or ultra modern like KL. The people are very nice but I just wasn’t touched or charmed by them as in Thailand. The capitol did become more prosperous as we left the other side and we passed some much nicer homes. Then we went to a dead end road to a beach called Tanjung Rhu and it was so much nicer than our with wonderful little islands right off shore. There was a resort there which I wish we had stayed at.
January 21st.
Another day by the pool. It is amazing to me that I can spend the whole day just sitting, reading, looking at the scenery, people watching or taking an occasional dip in the pool. I walked along the beach a little and got a good view of our resort. It is in a fantastic situation despite the desparate need for renovation.

The view from my seat by the pool.

View from our room during the day.

View from our room at sunset. My favorite picture, I think.

A couple of photos on the beach there at the resort.

January 17th
We went to the KL Twin Towers in the morning. The tickets are free but only 26 at a time are allowed up to the bridge on the 44th floor-so we had a two hour wait during which we went into the mall and had breakfast. The towers are the tallest twin towers in the world at 88 stories. There was a great view from the bridge, built as an escape route should there be some sort of reason needed to evacuate one of the towers,when we finally got up there. The towers were designed by an American, and built by the Japanese and South Koreans. It has become a huge tourist destination. Afterwards, we stayed in the mall and saw a movie and then checked our emails. An interesting experience at the movies-when we bought our tickets they asked us where we wanted to sit and gave us tickets for a specific seat. There were some advertisements before the movie, one giving tips on smart buying ,such as buy good quality. The movie had subtitles in both Malaysian and Chinese. The movie was Pride and Predjudice something I wouldn’t think many people in Asia would be interested in, but there were Malaysians there along with us.
After we cooled down in the pool, we went down a street near our hotel that we hadn’t been down before further than our internet cafe (we used this rather shabby place as it was much cheaper than our hotel). It was very lively, packed with restaurants and shops and many foot reflexologists. I’d like to try it sometime but passed it up this time. I bought five DVDs with one free for about $5. I hope they work when we get back home. They were pirated films and openly sold. Back to the hotel for another early night. We are really frustrated that we can’t find a TV anywhere with the Australian Tennis Open showing. We did finally find a British Bar showing the highlights.

The bridge from inside. Notice how few people there are. We had a guide as well. Interesting but I’m not that into modern buildings I guess.

This is the lake area behind the mall complex. The fountains aren’t working but you can see how huge it was.

January 15th.
Somehow breakfast was not included with our room this time but we had the buffet anyway. Then we took the elevated train to what was supposed to be an area with colonial archetecture but we didn’t find much. Nearby was Central Market which was air conditioned and felt great and which sold lots of tourist stuff that I enjoyed looking at. Petaling Street was another shopping area which they were smart enough to shade. I bought a pair of white Vans tennis shoes which cost $10 and which lasted only until the end of our trip. It was really hot so we came back to our hotel to sit by the pool. Sitting by the pool and looking at all of the buildings, I had the deja vu feeling of being in Las Calinas, a development in Texas near Irving as many of the buildings were in the same style.
When evening came we walked over to the famous nearby twin towers which soar high above. We discovered a huge mall underneath the tower packed with people. Dinner was actually from a Californa Pizza Kichen. Hard to believe how many American establishments are here. There was a wonderful area behind the twin towers complex with a lake, fountains and a light show with spouting water with steps around it to sit on.
Malaysia is very different from Thailand. I think the native people here originally came from Indonesia and so they don’t look like those from Thailand. There are many Indians and many women with head coverings being, I guess, hindu or muslim. We’ve seen some women all dressed in black robes with only their eyes showing.
January 16
We booked a tour to take us to some nearby caves. Inside are Hindu temples in which are wildly, brightly painted sculptures of hindu gods or fairy tale figures. The lime stone walls soar up to a hole up above. There were monkeys everywhere and it was very smelly in places as we climbed the 272 steps to get to the top. A huge giant yellow god is in the process of being built at the base of the stairs. The caves and stairs weren’t very clean which made us wonder why the holy men manning the temples didn’t spend some of their time cleaning up the place. Maurice thought it was a bad reflection on Hinduism and he really didn’t enjoy it although I found the brightly painted figures all around fascinating.
Our tour guide was a nice guy, a former banker who retired early and then got bored. We had to stop at several places, always parts of tours, where they expect tourists to buy things. I don’t like that part of it but I did like the Batik place and we bought a beautiful scarf to frame for a wall when we return. Our guide told us that he was Catholic-10% of Malaysia is, in fact. The Chinese were brought here by the English to work in the tin mines and the Indians to work on the rubber plantations which went out of business when synthetic rubber was invented. There seems to be a good relationship between the various nationalities although the paper told of some racial incidents. It is also a very religious society, much more in some ways than America. Any nudity on TV is not shown. I noticed this in a movie on TV we watched that I had seen before where a sex scene was cut out. There was a photo of a nude statue in the paper-from the back-and his bottom was shadowed over. It seems like Malaysia is about 20 years behind the States. I wonder if that will change in time?

Some of the lovely batik we saw, hand painted onto silk using wax outlines to control the flow.

The stairs we had to climb to get to the top where the temples were.

Some gods to great you on a gate at the entry to the cave.

The steps were numbered. I don’t know if this helped or not.

One of the colorful gods inside.

There were monkeys everywhere. They came for the food, mostly bananas and coconuts that were offered to the gods.

The twin towers from underneath showing the bridge between the two.

The Twin Towers at night all lit up in silver and gold.

January 13th
We spent a lazy morning walking a little, checking e-mail and then getting to the airport. I had heard that Air Asia could be late or cancel flights so when our flight was first delyaed, I wasn’t surprised. When it became three hours worth of delay, I was realy upset. It turned out that the Thai air force was practicing in Bangkok, our destination, for an air show and it closed the air space around the airport. Then, when we finally got on our way, we had to circle the Bangkok airport for thirty minutes because there was such a back log of planes waiting to land. So, there went our evening in Bangkok.
Our hotel, the Swissotel le Concorde (just taken over by Raffles) was huge and very grand. We had a buffet dinner downstairs that looked better than it tasted. We decided to never again eat a buffet meal, other than breakfast, as it is almost always disappointing. There is something about food sitting over heat for a long time that takes the taste out. After a drink in the bar with some music we were in bed for our six AM wake-up call. I didn’t see much of the area that the hotel was in but it looked rather industrial but there was a huge Carrefour down the street. There is usually a little security at hotels but this is the first one I’ve ever been to where the underneath of the car, even a taxi, is checked with a mirror.
January 14th
Up early to the airport. being a Saturday morning, we didn’t need to pay for the toll road as traffic was light. As we approached the airport the fog was very thick and low on the ground leading me to wonder if we will take off on time. Sure enough, I was right. We were about an hour late, probably because of the fog. We took a train into what is called Central Market in Kuala Lumpur (I will now call it KL), then a taxi to our hotel. KL looks very clean and very modern with skyscrapers everywhere although there are colonial style buildings left here from when it was an English colony. It got its independence in 1957. we are staying at the Crown Plaza which is very nice and we have a huge corner room. It started pouring rain in the afternoon and, being on the 23rd floor, we seemed to be close to the thunder and lightening. The temperatures are very high-90’s-as is the humidity. As it stopped raining, we headed for a lively part of the city with malls everywhere. In this heat it seems a good idea as they have a/c. We found in internet cafe, had a drink and were back to the hotel and in bed early.

The flag of Malaysia resembling the American flag, I thought.

One of the Colonial buildings left from English rule.

Malaysia is famous for these towers, once the highest in the world and seen in a movie where the hero and heroine in a bank heist, were hanging from the bridge connecting the two. Most on these towers later.

The gate to the China Town there which, in my opinion, was the most interesting, real, non-western place in the city. KL is so modern and western that it doesn’t have it’s own “feel”. The Muslims are in the majority here and they don’t build the type of temples that this tourist likes to see and visit as in Thailand. I was disappointed, on the whole, in Malaysia.

January 12th
Up early and found it too cool to eat outside. Chiang Mai is at a higher elevation so it cools down at night which is very refreshing. The days are still hot but not as hot and humid as Bangkok. We booked an all day tour that started at an elephant camp. We first saw a baby elephant just a few months old when we arrived. We fed it and some others bananas. The baby had to have its banana peeled and put in its nouth but the older ones ate the banana whole. They would even take a whole bunch in their mouths then use their trunk to delicately remove the string from their mouth. We watched them perform, one paint a picture and then some bathed in the river coming back with their trunks full of water blow on the tourists. Next we boarded them, a driver in front on the neck, Maurice and I in a little seat on the back. It was fairly smooth but lots of rocking. When the elephant started downhill it felt like we were going to slide off and the driver said in falsetto, “Oh my God!”. He must hear it alot. We went up to a village where the villagers had built elephant high huts to sell thing to us. Dismounting wer were then led to bamboo rafts and floated down the river to small carts fulled by zebus which was a very rough ride with wooden wheels and no shock system. Then a pretty good light buffet lunch although most was too hot for me. The total waste of time was going to a monkey farm to watch a very short performance. I was not impressed. A short stop then at an orchid/betterfly place which we finished in ten minutes so, really, it would have been best to end with lunch.
We spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool and even slept on the loungers a little. We walked back to the area around the night market and had hamburgers at a corner cafe called le Bistro. They tasted fabulous. I’m just not into Thai food-don’t like lemon grass. We then walked down the street and found a book store as my supply is getting low and stopped at an internet cafe, then bought some t-shirts for the kids.
Traffic here is incredibly heavy and there are few stop lights. Cars and cycles just sort of pull into the line of traffic as they will. There was an interesting pedestrian crossing at the gate of the entrance into the old city which gave you 11 seconds on a clock and it counted down the time making you nervously hurry across the street before it got down to zero. The cars speed across as soon as you are out of their way.
The gates and walls which are left in sections here and there are made of brick and I wonder if they were once covered with plaster like the wats. There is a moat all around the old city limits. I think it must be fed by the nearby river which I imagine led to flooding last year.
Thailand is such a great country called the land of smiles and it certainly seems to be. The people seem kind and gentle as does their language.

The sweet little baby with his mother. I can’t tell you how many photos I took of the elephants. Everything they did was cute and incredible.

An elephant painting a flower, with some help from his trainer.

This is what the elephant ride looked like.

A little tableau by a trio.

I was warned that the elephants were going to hose us down with water so couldn’t get a good photo as I didn’t want to get my camera wet.

A brightly colored orchid from the orchid/butterfly farm.

It is hard not to take photos when you see the Louvre. The pyramid can be a shock at first as it is so modern next to the Louvre but I like it now and love photographing it.

The fountains haven’t been working for about a year. It adds alot to photos.

Chiang Mai

January 11th
After a good buffet breakfast we walked into the old city to use an internet cafe then took a tuktuk to the river for a short cruise to a “farm”. It wasn’t really a total rip off but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. It was nice to get on the water but the shore wasn’t very pretty and they had dregged the river leaving big hills of dirt in many places. This area had a huge flood last year and you could see the dirty line left-mostly on homes-where the water level had risen. Some foundations had given away and I’m sure ground floors were flooded. The farm was really just a garden with various Thai plants and some old farm implements. We got a little plate of fruit and some juice and then came back. The boat lands at an interesting wat, very old and much visited. We had a good lunch at a place callled The Good Earth. It had a beautiful garden with giant trees giving welcome shade. We ate upstairs on a veranda make of teak and had to remove our shoes to go up. We went to the night market again where I met a friend who has been to Thailand before. She does tours there with women. She showed me some of what she considers good buys there.
Yesterday we walked by an old wat and saw a sign for massages, some of which would even help heat problems and arthritis. I went in and had a massage for one hour for the equivalent of a couple of dollars. An older man did the massage and it felt really wonderful. Maurice had one later at the market for his neck and shoulders but he wasn’t that impressed with it. The area is thick with massage places and mostly girls hanging out front like prostitutes to offer their services.

This was the entry lobby of our hotel. Very luxurious but not expensive. Once we left Thailand and Malaysia, the luxury ended and the prices went up.

A rather human looking buddha.

Me getting a massage fully clothed. I was having gall bladder pain from, I think, my malaria medicine and I asked for some sort of reflexology massage but wasn’t understood. At the end of an hour, the pain was gone and I felt great.

A photo of Sacre Coeur which sits atop Montmartre overlooking Paris. This photo was taken in the summer. If I had taken it today, the skies would have been gray.

Bangkok to Chiang Mai

We flew Thai Asia Air while in Thailand which is rather like the Southwest Airlines of this country, cheaper, lots of flights and packed with people carrying hand luggage. After paying for over-weight luggage each time, we understood why. Sometimes we were charged full price for over weight bags, sometimes part, once nothing. It just depended on the people checking us in.
While waiting for our flight-which would only take an hour-I jotted down some opinions about Bangkok.
It is almost impossible to get a taxi driver to turn on the meter. Even the one from the airport wouldn’t do it, he just gave us a flat fee. By the time we realized it wasn’t on we were out of the airport. The airport is supposed to be the one place the taxi will use the meter. The driver just laughed, gave us his fee and kept going. It wasn’t alot of money, just irritating. We couldn’t get the driver to turn on the meter on the way back to the airport either. I think part of it was lack of understanding of our English. We also had to pay a small fee to use the toll road which saves at least an hour of travel time.
Many people approached us, as warned, that a temple was closed when, in fact, it wasn’t. They wanted to take us to another temple or entry, for a fee. We also passed the many hawkers when getting on the river boat selling boat tours, making you think you had to buy tickets from them but, thanks to Trip Advisor, we walked right past them down to the boat and paid there.
Hint: Wear shoes easily removed and put back on as you will have to remove them anytime you enter a temple. My socks, btw, became filthy this way. I also had to remove my hat along with the men.
Not many people spoke English except in hotels or restaurants.
There are turkish toilets in public areas, usually without any toilet paper.
There were many american places to eat such as, McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Dairy Queen, 7-11 and more.
Our hotel, the Chiang Mai Plaze, had that “wow!” factor when you walked in the front door into the enormous lobby with a long rug leading up to the front desk, marble everywehre, silk covered couches and chairs and Tahi archetecture everywhere. Our room was fairly large and clean with a regular bathroom. The people working there were very nice and helpful.
Maurice made an interesting remark comparing the Chinese language that we saw and heard in Hong Kong with that in Thailand. The Chinese language sounds much harsher and the writing is sharp and angular while the Thai language sounded softer and rounder and their alphabet reflected this. The hard part is that the alphabet isn’t based on Latin so there was no way to guess what a word was as I can with French.
After lunch at the hotel we walked to the old walled city section of Chiang Mai. It was much larger than I expected. There are as many Wats here as there are in the much larger Bangkok. Chiang Mai is 700 years old and they know not only the day and year it was founded by a former ruler but the time of day. There were many huge photos around of the King looking age 30, not his real age of 76. The photos often had offerings of flowers and food in front of them. Chiang Mai semmed to be the “Austin” of Thailand, very funky with a college town feel. One million people live here and it seemed like everyone of them was on the roads roaring by on motorbikes, car or in the tuktuks, small 3 wheeled open vehicles. There were internet cafes everywhere and with very low rates. In Bangkok we couldn’t get into an internet cafe at night as they were all taken by young men playing computer video type games. We enjoyed walking around the city and then by night, the famous night market was open full of any type of item you could think of. It is huge and packed with people. It turned out to have the best buys of any place we would visit in the weeks to come-wish I had known that before.

Here is Maurice entering one of the gates into the old city of Chiang Mai.

A dragon guarding one of the stairways into a temple. I imagine it is similar to gargoyles on churches, keeping out evil spirits.

The King of Thailand.

A tuktuk. There were fun to ride in and very reasonable but I wouldn’t want to be stuck in traffic in one in the heavy afternoon heat. We only took one once in the cooler morning.

I am writing this from NYC, a city I truly love. We are on the last leg of our around the world trip, tired of living out of a suitcase and ready to go home tomorrow. We are seeing a Broadway play tonight, having a last taste of New York steak and getting that last taste of the States that will have to last me until I return, probably around Thanksgiving.

I like the shadows being cast as this man walks through Place des Vosges.

A Victory Angel in the Marais.

Love this door!

Here is a Segway with a crowd of people surrounding it wanting to know everything about it.

One of the most fun ways to do a tour is by Segway. Tours are offered in Paris and I tried one. There is a short lesson beforehand but it is amazing how you can turn on a dime, stop and speed along passing all of the other tourists on foot. I think it was initally made for older folk unable to get around well but it is so much fun, tours are now done on it. We started are tour near the Eiffel Tower and a college student led us on a tour of the area. We attracted so much attention that it was like being a movie star. As soon as we would stop somewhere, other tourists would surround us wanting to know what it was, how it worked, and where it could be rented. I often felt like what I’m sure Madonna must feel like when she gets out on the streets somewhere. One guy on the tour turned to me and said, “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done!” And it was. Towards the end of the tour my legs and feet ached from standing still in one spot for so long. There is a weight limit-you can’t be too light or too heavy and its not as cheap as a bike tour or walking tour, but it sure is fun.

Here was our guide. They are all American college students. The rental place was Mike’s Bike Tours.

Here is a Segway with a crowd of people surrounding it wanting to know everything about it.

One of the most fun ways to do a tour is by Segway. Tours are offered in Paris and I tried one. There is a short lesson beforehand but it is amazing how you can turn on a dime, stop and speed along passing all of the other tourists on foot. I think it was initally made for older folk unable to get around well but it is so much fun, tours are now done on it. We started are tour near the Eiffel Tower and a college student led us on a tour of the area. We attracted so much attention that it was like being a movie star. As soon as we would stop somewhere, other tourists would surround us wanting to know what it was, how it worked, and where it could be rented. I often felt like what I’m sure Madonna must feel like when she gets out on the streets somewhere. One guy on the tour turned to me and said, “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done!” And it was. Towards the end of the tour my legs and feet ached from standing still in one spot for so long. There is a weight limit-you can’t be too light or too heavy and its not as cheap as a bike tour or walking tour, but it sure is fun.

Here was our guide. They are all American college students. The rental place was Mike’s Bike Tours.

This photo is taken through the window so not too clear. This wonderful tea shop is selling special tea for the Japanese. The Japanese love this tea.
Mariages Freres is a sublime tea shop found in two great locations in Paris. They have been selling tea for centuries, often to French royalty.I always take guest inside just to inhale the fabulous fragrance of the teas and to see the old French ambience. Loose tea is sold in large containers and they let you take a wiff of any tea you would like to get an idea of the taste. You can also buy tea bags there, candles, incense and tea pots. My favorite tea sold there is Marco Polo and their Christmas tea. They also have a tea shop in each location but I find them very crowded and noisy although it is worth it all to get a taste of their desserts, especially their creme brule-the stuff of heaven.

A nearby painting on a wall looking like a waiter in a window.