Since we no longer had to go south to get our visas we were free to head up to northeast Laos. With our unexpected recovered time, Plain of Jars seemed like a reasonable destination. In theory, the Plain of Jars is the top or second top attraction in Laos. It’s a series of sites across…

We love traveling with flexibility, and this trip has given us plenty of time to be flexible. So we get a little irritable when we have forced travel plans. That was the situation we faced when we thought we had to suffer through hours on a bus to the capital of Laos, Vientiane, to get…

We left Muang La and the lovely river with a plan – get to the village of Chong Ong and see their caves. We had stopped by the tourist information center in Udomxai two days earlier, and the guy there was really helpful, giving us some handouts about the caves and information about how we…

We’d read about the tiny picturesque village of Muang La in which there’s a charming and inexpensive guesthouse immediately adjacent to the river that cuts through town. Hot springs upped the ante further and we were sold. The promise of little to do but river gaze felt more and more intriguing as the number of…

Several times during the waterfall picnic we were asked by Mack to help out at the college he teaches at. We said as long as we didn’t have to speak any Lao we were in, as the few phrases we have learned have elicited more laughs than understanding. So this afternoon, like the good natured…

All we wanted to do was cool off. We had no intention of drinking for five hours. At the parking area at the bottom of the falls we ran into a German guy speaking Lao to the guy selling admission tickets to the Nam Dee waterfall. We felt a combination of envy for his fluent…

Mom Stratton reporting here as guest blogger. As mentioned in the previous posting, I bravely boarded the plane to Bangkok on April 20 despite learning that April is the hottest month in Thailand. But it was now or never. As Brad and Abbey reported, we successfully met up at the hotel and did some sightseeing…

Despite threats of distinctly unsavory weather in both Bangkok and Chiang Mai, being the sport we all know she is, Val came right along as planned(although she had, self admittedly, considered spending a week in New York rather than boarding the plane). The weather predictions being that of extreme heat, of course, an ongoing affliction…

Apart from the staged cries of the hired pleasure makers unnerving our auditory senses at 1am, we really have no complaints about Georgetown, Penang. Well, the heat, too. The whole town we found to be pleasing to the eyes, not only the fundamental requirements of clean streets and well kept buildings,  but also the infiltrative…

Leaving the beach is emotional business. It’s like saying goodbye to a good friend who is always happy and makes you tan.  We stayed a whole week at Bushman Chalets.  Bushman is one of those places from Travel + Leisure magazine with the palm tree out the front door and the beach and ocean just…

Stepping into the giant, beautiful airport in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia, we first were delighted by the conveniences and shiny new-ness.  Pretty quickly, though, our delight turned to despair as we realized what had happened.  Crap, we’re back in the first world. AirBnB runs rampant in KL.  Two days prior, we chose the apartment with…