We're Home

The journey home was easy and our pets are happy to see us. (Brutus obviously did some emotional eating...) The trip was a fabulous experience so we thought a good way to wrap this up would be to recall the highlights (and a few low points as well).

Top 5 destinations were:
1) Luang Prabang (Laos)
2) Shanghai
3) Cameron Highlands (Malaysia)
4) Halong Bay (Vietnam)
5) Phu Quoc Island (Vietnam)

Top 10 sights/activities (couldn't rank these): Kuala Lumpur Bird Park, Cu Chi Tunnels (Saigon), Boh Tea Plantion (Cameron Highlands), Halong Bay cruise, Elephant-Owner-for-a-Day (Patara Elephant Farm; Chiang Mai), Red Bridge Cooking School (Hoi An), Killing Fields (Phnom Penh), Afternoon Tea at the Metropole Hanoi, Taikang Road shopping (Shanghai).

Best Hotel: Metropole Hanoi
Best restaurant: Tatonka (Phuket)
Other good ones: Peking(Hong Kong), The House (Chiang Mai), Red Piano (Siem Reap), Di Shui Dong (Shanghai), Utopia (Luang Prabang), Mango Rooms (Hoi An), Eco Valley Lodge (Pak Chong/Khao Yai)

Biggest Disappointment: Homestay experience on an island in the Mekong (Southern Laos). Nothing against the family--we never met them! Jungle trekking (aka Khao Yai Death March), Penang Island, and the Grand Palace (Bangkok) are other skip-ables for those planning a romp through SE Asia. In the interest of full disclosure, I will emphasize that heat was a major factor in all of these not-so-fun experiences.

Thanks for following us and giving us a good reason to document our adventure.
Rosemary and Melinda

Shanghai

Shanghai is a very exciting city where capitalism appears alive and well. The people were lovely (once you get past the spitting), and were very patient with our lack of Chinese language skills. They have gained many improvements in lifestyle over the last 20 years. This post is so late because there are no Internet cafes; I guess everybody has a computer.

Upon arrival we rode the MagLev speed train from the airport into town. It goes 430 km/h and felt like a ride at Disney. Our first dinner was an expensive, frightening, and generally disappointing ordeal at a place that served meat and seafood swimming in big bowls of duck blood. We were at a fancy mall and did not have time to make a better selection because it was getting late and we needed to buy coats. Subsequent meals were very tasty, particularly the General Tso's chicken at a Hunanese joint that played a lot of Peter Cetera and his cheesy brethren.

Our first full day was spent with Mira, a private guide our folks used during their visit to Shanghai several weeks prior to ours. She walked us through the Bund, Old Town (including Yu Garden and tea tasting), and the Shanghai history museum, and then showed us to Taikang Road, a network of small alleys in the French Concession filled with great shopping. She was awesome, and just about the only English speaker we encountered during our 5 days there. Other notable sites included the galleries of 50 Moganshan Road (met another bird), the Dong Tai Road Antique Market, and a huge model of the city at the Urban Planning Museum. We also went to a 3D IMAX theater to watch Avatar (with Chinese subtitles). Finally in a fit of "I-cant-go-home-like-this", R braved a hair salon. It had 60 chairs (59 of them working on Asian hair) and no one spoke English so she just pointed to a picture of Kimora Lee Simmons and actually got a decent cut. They shampoo you in your chair with a whole cup of shampoo and a few squirts of water, only rinsing at the sink. High marks for Shanghai.
Melinda

Kuala Lumpur Bird Park

We had to make an overnight stop in Kuala Lumpur in our journey from Penang to Shanghai so we went to the KL Bird Park, the largest walk-in aviary in the world--basically a birds-only zoo (ok they threw in a few monkeys) with a huge net over it. The pictures say it all. Big fun for critter-lovers.
Rosemary