Medellín
Antioquia Department
Republic of Colombia
November 18, 2008,

Dear Family and Friends,

Now here's a unique travel adventure:

My Avianca flight from Cartegena to Medellín left on time at 08:00. Ten minutes into the flight the pilot made an announcement. Since my Spanish is improving day by day, little by little, poco a poco, I understood the pilot to say that the airplane had a technical problem and we had to return to Cartegena. We made a sweeping 180 degree turn and in a few minutes we were on the ground.

The gate agent estimated that our waiting time would be about an hour, mas or menos (more or less). "Mas or menos" I figured out is the Spanish equivalent of the Arabic "Inshallah."

Vientiane, Laos

January 12-16, 2009
Dear Family and Friends,
Sabai Dee,

Here's a good one:

"The reason I didn't recognize you, Jan, is because when we met six years ago, you were fat. Now you are slim and younger looking."

So said my friend Kia, a lovely Laotian woman, who with her husband Wisai, runs a small restaurant in Vientiane.

So what am I doing in Vientiane?

{C}

Hong Kong 香港
Special Administrative Region
April 13, 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

Their answers were always the same.

Whenever I asked other tourists what they liked best about Hong Kong, they responded heartily:

"Hong Kong is safe and clean. Transportation is excellent. Service is efficient. Shopping is supreme. The streets are buzzing. The food is good. The sights are impressive."

As one Aussie couple explained, "Hong Kong is lovely."

Macau 澳門

SAR

April 16, 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

I know what you are wondering. And the answer is "Não!"

I resisted the temptation to enter one of those grotesque monuments to avarice and addiction.

Don’t get me wrong. I'm no prude. I adore a hand of Blackjack. I savor the action of Craps. But with limited time, and a retiree’s budget, I just said "No!".

{C}

Bangkok
Thailand
July 7, 2008

Dear Friends and Photography Fiends,

Before I left Bangkok for Sumatra , I decided to take a peek, finally, at the Advanced User Guide to my digital camera.

I leafed through the pages and lit upon "Photo Stitch."

I focused on the directions but with only modest comprehension. I also needed to find the disk that came with the camera, two years ago! I found the disk. I loaded the program.

Here's the way it works: you shoot a series of photos of the same wide subject with each shot slightly overlapping the previous shot. Then you import the shots into your computer and the Photo Stitch program performs as you would expect. Your shots are stitched together, seamlessly.

It's a miracle.

Bukittinggi
West Sumatra
Republic of Indonesia

July 5, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

It would have been a long, bumpy ride so I opted for the short, uneventful flight from Medan, my base in North Sumatra, to Padang in West Sumatra.

Padang is the coastal gateway to the Mentawai Islands, an archipelago that draws a younger crowd for jungle trekking and surfing in the Indian Ocean. My own less vigorous route, however, was inland from the coast and into the mountains to Bukittinggi and the surrounding lakes and villages.