[My brother Joe lives in Guam and travels all over that part of the world whenever he gets vacation. Right now he’s off to China, and he’s letting me post some of the travelogue notes he’s sending out. Pretty interesting stuff.]
Post 2, Thailand:
“Wrapping up Thaiworld part one. Saw a 5 ton solid gold Budda, the ancient city of Ahuttaya, every temple wthin 2 hours of Bangkok, and scoured the streets studying the art of knock off retailing. Rolex fakes are getting better by the year and fake t-shirts, luggage, purses, shoes, … you name it… Amazing the level of technology. Thailand, the only country never colonized in Asia. hmmmm.
Getting my Visa to PRC was a song and dance. I hope I don’t hit a big shim sham actually getting in tonight. I’ll be hitting Dali right away, a village in the mountains at the base of the Himalayas in Southern China. The to Tibet for a few days (its 5000M so that will be plenty…I’m not crazy about AMS these days). Then to Chengdu (named after Dave Cheng), Leshan (largest budda in the world…you can camp out a family of five on a toenail), Chonqing (Yangzee river cruise), Wuhan and Beijing (Great Wall, Forbidden City etc…). I’ll stop at the Shaolin temple on the way and see if I can snatch the pebbles from the hand of the master. 🙂
If all goes well I’ll be back in Thailand in 4 weeks. Then it will be up north to Chang Mai, then Laos, Burma and Cambodia. Plan B is to go to Vietnam, then Singapore and back to Manila. depending on how much time third world traveling has taken by then. Without fail, I will come back after two months in the third world and come home to Guam and it will be blacked out and without water…”