Travels

We arrived "home" in Doha just after midnight last night. Spent the entire day (10 hours) in Mumbai between flights from Bangkok to Doha. We tried to "escape" the airport during the 10 hours, hoping we could at least hire a driver for a quick tour. No such luck. We were "prisoners" in the airport. Despite repeated attempts to obtain a reprieve from our confinement, we were told that a visa was necessary and the application process had to be started before arriving at the airport. Airports are not bad places really. Just rather uneventful places. After watching the sales clerks in the airport stores sit without a sale for 8 hours straight, I decided that I was glad I was not working as a sales clerk in an airport. The only real excitement was watching the pilgrims on their way to Jeddah, which is always an interesting drama. We have watched this in other airports, but it never ceases to amaze me. The Haj must be an amazing experience. Many are transported in wheelchairs or get around on crutches. Many are obviously in families and range from infants to the very old. For many, this trip probably represents a life's worth of savings. That being said, I would not recommend 10 hours in the Mumbai airport. I started at the end of our trip. This trip started 2 weeks ago. Bound for Hong Kong, we began this eventful advdenture with a delay in Sri Lanka. Our first stop after a short flight from Doha to Dubai was Colombo, Sri Lanka. We missed the flight from Sri Lanka to Bangkok, so the airlines put us up for the day in a resort on the Indian Ocean. Sri Lanka is a poor country, pretty third world. But ----The beach was gorgeous, the food was wonderful and the room was a welcome respite from the airport chairs. All in all, despite the 10 hour delay, the stay in Sri Lanka was pretty nice! We made it to Hong Kong a day late. Our hotel was very nice and well located on the causeway. We signed up for a tour of the island which proved to be very informative. We took a boat trip in Victoria Harbor and a bus ride around the island and to the top of the highest peak on the island. We had no time for shopping, but we saw the markets and spent some significant time walking in the Hong Kong public gardens in the middle of the financial district. We also took public transportation around the city and to and from the airport. Public transportation is great! From Hong Kong, we flew to Bangkok where we met Jonathan and his girlfriend Emily. They were easy travel companions and put up with our tours of the religious temples. We shopped at the local markets (which are too numerous to even count) and tasted plenty of local food. All was pretty good! Bangkok too has a great public transportation system and we used it every day we were there. We enjoyed the public ferry system along the major river in the old part of the city and took the ferry both days to visit more temples. These temples were really outstanding! The sights and smells of Bangkok are hard to describe and hard to forget. It is not a clean city. Our last night in Bangkok we went to a bar at the top of one of the "high class" hotels in Bangkok (not our hotel) and the view was amazing. This is a city of over 10 million people. It is overwhelming from high up! But, it's crowded and there are people living everywhere and in places I would not want to live. There is plenty of street "hustling" that can be rather bothersome at times. Prices for everything are negotiable. We even tried the street food, but we were careful to drink only bottled water. Our next stop was Chiang Mai. What a wonderful change from Bangkok. Not nearly as big and it is nestled in the mountains in northern Thailand. We walked to most temples and street markets from our hotel. Goods were cheaper than Bangkok and there did not seem to be as much hustling as in Bangkok. Although signs warned about pick pockets, I did not see signs warning about tourist hustlers that take you to tourist shops as detours rather than your requested destination. We were hustled in Bangkok (and I almost agreed to the hustle once!), but not in Chiang Mai. We attended a Thai cooking class one evening that was really informative and fun ( Yes, we are all now Thai cooking experts. Just ask us!) and spent another day touring outside the city --- including a log raft trip, an elephant ride, a visit to an orchid garden, an ox cart ride to a "village" in a beautiful and picturesque area outside Chiang Mai, and a chance to pet wild tigers! Emily and Jonathan also visited a snake "farm" and held venomous snakes. A thrill for them, but not on my "bucket" list. I managed to take the 4 of us on a walking tour of Chiang Mai and only got lost a few times. We ate good in Chiang Mai --especially when we cooked it ourselves! We ended our Thailand adventure at Phuket and Phi Phi Island. What a great contrast to the cities. In Phuket we booked a lovely resort hotel on a hill in a pretty decent part of the island. Phuket is pretty wild and is known as a hot spot for college age people. J. and I were a bit concerned as to whether this last leg of our trip would be enjoyable, but it turned out to be just perfect. I indulged in a wonderful Thai massage in Phuket. This was my third. I had one in Bangkok and one in Chiang Mai. The Phuket massage was the best! Perhaps I should write a book about massages in Thailand. I would not mind being an expert in this! We walked along the Phuket (Karon beach area) beach nearby, but mostly enjoyed the resort! Breakfast at a nearby outdoor restaurant was very nice. Then we took a 4 hour ferry trip to Phi Phi Island and a lovely resort on the most deserted part of the island. This was truly wonderful and relaxing and a great way to end our trip. Thanks to Jonathan. This was his idea! We watched the sunset each evening from the Sunset Bar on the resort property, which had a great view of the surrounding islands and the China Sea. Emily and Jonathan spent one whole day snorkeling around some islands close by and we just relaxed along the beach. We walked to a couple resorts within a mile or so of our resort and decided we were staying at the very best resort possible. One evening we ate at a restaurant outside the resort where the husband cooked the meal and his wife served us while his 2 year old tortured the family kitten in front of us. We were the only people in the "restaurant" and we had to climb stairs along the hill just to access the "restaurant". We agreed the food was great and (so far) no repercussions! We watched young men throw and twirling flaming sticks on the beach one evening ----and the last day we watched the sun rise. Then it was back to Phuket and Bangkok. From Bangkok, Emily and Jonathan flew back to Chicago and J. and I eventually made it back to Doha. The best part of the trip was spending time with Jonathan and his girlfriend. It didn't hurt that we spent that time in Thailand, which is a pretty exotic place to spend time. We took pretty many pictures between us, so the time is well documented. Except for the 3 massages I got. No pictures of those in case you were wondering.