News and Views From my kids accomplishments, to my heretical perspective of the world

Dale and I hiked 45 miles through the Superstition Mountains this weekend, in 71 hours, from near Superior to Roosevelt Lake. I hadn’t intended to hike it so fast, but water was scarce and we had to go long distances each day to get to the next reliable water source.

The first day we hiked from Picket Post trail head, near Superior. That day was all in the desert, but the sky was cloudy and temperatures mild. We hiked 12 miles, and just as we were getting worried about finding water, we found water. There was quite a bit of it in rocky pools. Not moving, but clear. Dale filtered it and it was good.

The next day was probably the nicest, though we had quite a climb. We climbed up to Roger’s Trough (where Richard, Dale and I set out on our backpacking hike a couple of years ago), and went up from there to over 5000 feet elevation. The vegetation slowly changed from desert to scrub oak, and then suddenly we went over a pass and found ourselves in a ponderosa pine forest.

It was unexpected and delightful. I didn’t realize that ponderosa pines grew in the Superstitions.

We hiked a few more miles (12 in all for the day) and found ourselves at Reavis Ranch, which Elisha Marcus Reavis established in 1872. We explored around a little, looking at the antiquated farm equipment, though Dale said some of it was newer than he had been using on the farm. I later found out that it had been redeveloped for tourism in the 20th century, but finally burned down and abandoned in 1991.

We found a nice campground near the ranch and close to running(!) water. I was surprised to find running water in the Superstitions after the drought we’ve been having, but there it was, cool, clear and tasty.

We had some excitement each day. Every day we were hiking except the last morning when we were off the trail before 10, we encountered a rattlesnake. Two of them were as large as I have ever seen in Arizona — around 4 feet long and 2 inches diameter. The other was a young one, maybe 8 inches long.

The third day was the hardest. We knew that the next reliable water was 15 miles away, and it turned out to be 15 very difficult miles with very steep climbs and steeper descents on loose rock. I fell 3 times coming down hills, while Dale barely managed to keep his feet. The trail has not been maintained, and there were prickly pears, catclaw acacia, cholla, agave, and mesquite overgrowing the trail that we had to push through. Both of us have severely scratched legs, and Dale bears the scars from a “Christmas cactus” (a kind of cholla). He was dodging a wicked agave that had spines sticking out at shin height, and swerved directly into the cactus which I then had to pull out with pliers. I’m surprised we both didn’t get stuck worse than we did, or even fall into one of the prickly pears we were swerving around.

It was a very long day, and we were beginning to worry about not finding water before dark, or worse running into another rattlesnake in the dark. We came across a couple of brackish pools but decided to push on and finally a little before dark found a stream flowing clear and cool. It wasn’t flowing fast, but fast enough. We camped on a grassy bank overlooking the stream.

The next morning was pretty easy as we got an early start and arrived at Dale’s car about 9:30. Tired and hot, but satisfied. It was a good hike.

We got home from Asia about 7:00 pm last night. Our clocks are still turned around and I can barely stay awake this afternoon, but I had no trouble getting up for basketball at 5:00 this morning. In fact I wouldn’t have had trouble getting up at 3:00 since I was awake anyway.

I realized that in the past three weeks we flew 11 times; 11 take offs and 11 landings, on 4 different airlines (Southwest, Eva, Vietnam, and Cambodia Airlines). Gisele’s ear was fine on these last two flights, after having her eardrum lanced. She is glad she did it.

In the past we have almost always flown United Airlines anywhere in the world. Back when I was with Intel it was a reasonable choice and we built up a lot of miles. Last year we used our remaining miles upgrading a trip to business class, so we are no longer tied to what has become a second-rate airline. This time we flew mostly on Eva, a Taiwan-based airline. The difference was significant. The United planes seem old, many of them don’t have individual TVs at each seat and they are cramped. You can pay extra for “Economy Plus” and get a few more inches of legroom, but nothing else.

On Eva every seat has a TV with DVR-like pause/resume capabilities, and a long list of movies to watch. On this trip I saw “Frozen”, “12 Years a Slave”, “Captain Phillips” and a documentary on Angkor Wat. Eva’s premium economy (called “Elite”) comes with several additional perks. Besides more legroom, the seats are wider and recline further with foot rests. Luggage is tagged priority and comes onto the carousel sooner. Elite passengers board early and get off early, and have their own check-in counter. Unfortunately the recline was not quite enough that I slept really comfortably, but it was better than vanilla economy. I wish we could afford to travel first or business class all the time, with the fully reclining beds, but it’s just too much.

Our flight out of Taipei was delayed almost an hour and our connection in Los Angeles was tight. I was really glad we participate in the “Global Entry” program. I’ve mentioned that program before. We got off the plane, walked past the long 30 – 40 minute lines at US Immigration directly to an open kiosk. Scanned our passports and fingerprints and were on our way in less than 5 minutes. We walked to the luggage carousel where we were the first ones from our flight, and within 5 more minutes our priority bags came out of the chute and we were on our way. We made the Southwest flight and got our luggage rechecked with little time to spare. We certainly wouldn’t have made it without Global Entry.

It was quite an adventure. Vietnam was not what I was expecting, especially around Da Nang. I’d like to go back there and spend a couple of weeks. Cambodia was closer to what I expected, though very different from the insanity of “The Killing Fields”. Everywhere we went in both countries people were friendly and welcomed us (and our US dollars of course). But it’s nice to be back home.

Gisele, not me. She has a middle ear infection, that was pretty painful when we landed in Taiwan a few days ago. She went to see a local ENT specialist on Monday and got some medicine. Today she went back and had her eardrum lanced.

It was less painful than she was afraid it would be. The doctor strongly recommended the procedure if she was planning to fly as soon as tomorrow. He said there was a risk of serious damage to the eardrum otherwise, but after the lancing the risk is almost zero. He said it should heal within a few days. Donna, I remember you had this done when you were a little girl. I don’t remember you saying that it hurt less than you expected.

Of course, since she is not a citizen it was “very expensive” — about $15 for each visit including antibiotics and the lancing.

We get on a plane on Thursday evening in less than 24 hours and will arrive home Thursday evening, gaining back the day we lost when we came.

Well, compared to Vietnam it seems like home to me. I speak the language, and am familiar with the customs.

We arrived last evening around 5 and had dinner with Devon and Xiang Xiang (Elena). Western food! Barbecued chicken cutlet, salad, soup, macaroni side. I love Chinese and Vietnamese food, but after two weeks my stomach was getting homesick.

I expected the airport yesterday to be buzzing with added security after the lost Malaysian airline which happened just a few hours before we took off, not far from where we were. But everything was normal. We didn’t even have to take our shoes off. Nobody seemed nervous.

As I write this it has just been reported that they believe they have sighted a door from the aircraft in the water. Though there was already little hope, that pretty much eliminates any. Interpol has just reported that nobody checked with them on the stolen passports, which points a finger at Malaysian Airlines not doing a thorough security check on its passengers. Cross them off my list for flying.

Anyway, back in Taiwan, blah blah blah, nothing else new to write about.

We explored some more ruins today that were very nice, but having seen Angkor Wat they were anticlimactic.

I thought instead of discussing the ruins I would show a little about life in “modern” Cambodia.

The only form of transportation we have used in the country are tuktuks. Tuktuk is a somewhat generic word for simple forms of transport in many third world countries from Africa through Asia, usually serving the function of a taxi. In Cambodia they take the form of a 2-wheeled cart pulled by a small motorcycle, usually about 100cc. Top speed is about 20 miles per hour (measured by my GPS app). The occupants are almost exclusively tourists.

Here Angela and Da Quan are getting into their tuktuk. Gisele and I rode another one.

Here are a couple of gas stations by the road, with an attendant standing by.

The attendant is adding a liter of gas to our tuktuk.

We drove for over an hour through the countryside today and saw lots of rural scenes.

Here is a typical house on stilts.

We are all really enjoying the fresh tropical fruits, including mangos, mangosteens, and many others I don’t know the names of. It’s common to get a fresh coconut for the drink with the meal. They cost about a dollar, and the milk (about a pint) is fresh, clear and sweet. Sometimes after drinking the milk we have them cut open so we can spoon out the soft flesh coating the inside. Nothing like the coconut we can get in the US.

This is my coconut, and across the table Angela is scooping out the flesh of hers.

Tomorrow we briefly visit a museum about Angkor, and then catch an early afternoon flight back to Saigon (HCM City).

I’m back in Saigon as I write this, getting ready to catch a plane to Siem Reap, the city near Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

We went on a boat ride in Ha Long Bay near Hanoi last week. The scenery is spectacular with sheer cliffs rising out of the water in hundreds of islands. Unfortunately there was heavy fog on the whole trip, so we couldn’t see the cliffs until we got within a quarter of a mile or less. Still worthwhile to see, but we missed the full grandeur. It was nice that our group of 14 had the whole 30 – 40 foot boat to ourselves, so in between seeing scenery there was lots of chatting and laughing.

Five people taking pictures of the others. No scenery, just sitting on the boat. In a minute several people will swap places to take more pictures. It’s an addiction!

So far my stomach has been behaving. It’s almost guaranteed that if you travel in South East Asia long enough you are going to get sick, but I’m hoping that long enough is longer than we stay. Gisele has had a little upset, but Imodium took care of it. One of our companions hasn’t been so lucky and has spent some sleepless nights. I’m being very careful, not eating ice, and limiting the raw vegetables.

One of the biggest dangers of Saigon is purse snatchers. They don’t limit themselves to purses either, happy to grab backpacks, phones, whatever is within reach. They roam the streets on motorcycles and as they come upon an unwary pedestrian they reach out and make a grab in passing, and then are gone before you can react. So far we have been lucky, but everyone warns us at least twice a day to watch your stuff. When Gisele was a teenager living here she had a gold necklace grabbed from around her neck. It seems like Saigon is the worst (and reportedly getting worse), and we didn’t hear warnings in the other parts of the country, though I’m sure the threat is real everywhere.

Speaking of motorcycles, the streets are full of them, maybe 50 motorcycles for every car. And crossing the street is something like playing Frogger. You slowly make your way into the stream of traffic while the motorcycles swerve around you, horns blaring. The secret is to not make any sudden moves. They see you from a long way away and as they approach they have already calculated how to pass you, but if you suddenly leap forward or stop you will upset their plans and you could be in danger. Traffic is an apparent chaos, but we have only seen one minor accident since we’ve been here. There are order and rules in the apparent anarchy, and everyone knows who has the right of way in a given situation. The one accident I know about was a motorcycle who obliviously pulled out in front of our bus. We swerved at the last moment, but clipped the bike. We stopped for a minute to make sure the driver was OK, and then proceeded on our way.

I think everyone on the tour agrees that the favorite place was central Vietnam around DaNang and Hue. Weather, scenery, hotels, everything was very nice.

I’ve mentioned before that we see a lot of Europeans, especially in the center of the country but there are also many in Saigon and Hanoi. There is the usual dichotomy; about half are scruffy young people in their 20s with backpacks out for adventure, and the other half are overweight, retired tourists. Probably more than half are from France; the French seem to love Vietnam and because of their earlier occupation there are many French speakers here, more than speak English. I rarely hear tourists speaking English, and when I do it is never with an American accent.

We flew back to Saigon last night and had a last dinner together with all the tour. Today four of us, Gisele, sister Angela, brother DaChuan and I fly to Cambodia to spend 3 days exploring Angkor Wat and surroundings.

When I think of Cambodia I can’t help but think of the movie “The Killing Fields”. An excellent, dramatic movie, if you haven’t seen it. I know things have changed a lot since then, but that’s the image in my mind. Even as my image of Hanoi has changed, I’m sure that will happen with Cambodia too.

Today we flew from Danang in central Vietnam to Hanoi in the north. Hanoi was the capital of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and is now the capital of the whole country.

After landing we rode in a bus for a few hours to the town of Ha Long on Ha Long Bay. I think we will spend a night back in Hanoi before we fly back to Saigon on Monday.

The north seems less developed than the south. Roads are rougher and drivers are crazier. I liked the food in the south better too, though tonight’s dinner was pretty good.

Hanoi brings back memories of the Vietnam War. Though I was not in Vietnam during the war, of course, Hanoi was talked about in the press as representing the Communist north, the Viet Cong. It seems a little strange to have flown in as a tourist.

Anyone who has ever visited a tourist destination knows that Asians love to take pictures. The group I am with is no exception. Sometimes it seems like the only reason to visit a site is to take a picture of the whole group lined up facing the camera in front of some beautiful scene or historic monument, with several different cameras each time. I get a little frustrated because I’d rather walk around and experience the area first hand instead of memorializing it for later. On the other hand, I do enjoy having pictures after I get home, so I can’t say it’s all bad.

Personally I prefer to take candid pictures of people actually enjoying the scenery or interacting with each other. I often take pictures of people taking pictures, because that is really recording typical events. To me these pictures are more likely to bring back memories of the event than standing in two lines smiling into the camera.

Tomorrow we are going on a boat into Ha Long Bay to view the amazing sheer mountains that stick up out of the water.

It really doesn’t seem fair, that here I am half way around the world in an exotic foreign country, and Dale down in southern Arizona has a more interesting blog. He must be a better writer.

Today we passed over the 17th parallel of latitude that used to divide North and South Vietnam. It is now a national monument. Nothing is really different north of the line, at least not any more. The countryside has been getting steadily more mountainous and it seems like we see more rice paddies and water buffalos, but that could just be an impression.

Yesterday we drove by the airport in Phu Bai where Richard was stationed for a couple of months in (?) 1969. After spending some time in the area I’m almost surprised that Richard didn’t re-up. I certainly want to come back and spend more time without the hassle of a tour guide waking us up at 5:30 or 6:00 each morning to hit the road.

It is turning out to be one of those tours, where each day is a struggle to fit all the sites in, going at it from 6 or 7 in the morning and finally only getting into a new hotel at 8 or 9 in the evening. Several of us wish things could be a little more leisurely, but I guess it can’t be changed now. Reservations have been made and tickets bought.

My earlier impression about the food has turned out to be a one-time thing. Since that first night with somewhat unusual items that I probably wouldn’t have ordered from a menu, the food has been excellent. That is to say, Don and Mom would probably enjoy it as much as me, though my other siblings would probably starve. In central and northern Vietnam the food is getting more like Chinese but done in different ways with unique seasonings, sauces and spices. Really delicious.

Speaking of food, there’s one thing I had to make clear from the start. It’s considered polite at a Chinese meal to put food in someone elses dish, especially for the host to do so for a guest. I remember one dinner in Taiwan where I had been invited into a home. As soon as I sat down, the hostess plopped a big spoonful of fatty pork into my bowl. I really wanted to eat some of the other dishes that looked a lot more edible, but I gritted my teeth and forced them through the fat. As I was finally finishing the last bite, I thought “Now I can eat some of that good looking chicken and snow peas” or whatever the other dish was. Just then, the hostess said, “I see you really like the pork since you ate it all up. Here’s some more.” And with that I had another spoonful of the disgusting stuff plopped into my bowl.

Since then I’ve learned some tactics to avoid this situation, but the most straightforward, and diplomatically touchy, is to cover my bowl with my hand when I see something coming and plead, “Please don’t put food in my bowl.”

On the first night of the trip Gisele explained to the table that Americans like to dish out their own food, and since tastes differ, what is a treat to them may not be to us. I haven’t had any problems since.

Today we went into one cave of the largest cave system in the world (over 150 km long), at the Thien Duong cave. That particular cave is not a record holder, and the walkways only go about 1 km (.62 miles) but it has only been open to the public since 2009 and is pristine and spectacular. There were only a few other people in there with us, and I was able to walk alone for several minutes enjoying the quiet and beauty.

By the way, we have confirmed that we are going to go into Cambodia after the Vietnam tour is finished next Monday. Angela has a friend who lives in Cambodia and has made some reservations for us. Our destination is Angkor Watt, one of the 10 man-made wonders of the world (according to Touropia). I will have seen half of them at that point (The Collesium in Rome, Teotihuacan in Mexico City, Macchu Pichu in Peru, the Great Wall of China, and now Ankgor Watt. I’m not sure I will ever get to all of them, considering the political problems in Egypt (Great Pyramid) and the unpleasantness of traveling in India (Taj Mahal). Easter Island might be neat, but it’s a long way to travel to see a few heads.

Of course, it’s an arbitrary list that doesn’t always include Angkor Watt. Some lists include Stonehenge (been there) and the leaning tower of Pisa (also). But Angkor Watt makes a lot of the lists.

We flew early this morning from Saigon to the city of Da Nang in central Vietnam. This is near where Richard was stationed during the war, and I’m sure he came through Da Nang on his way in and out. There’s a beautiful beach here that was the supposed setting of the TV show “China Beach”.

Richard, to answer your question on my previous post about how we are getting around here, we have our own mid-sized tourist bus that seats all 14 of us.Today we saw only Da Nang and the nearby town of Hoi An. Hoi An is a beautiful town or small city full of Europeans, in places more Europeans than Vietnamese. It’s understandable why they come here – the weather is perfect and the town is lovely.

The others are making a real effort to include me, and we spent an enjoyable dinner speaking much of the time in Mandarin so I could join in. I don’t want them to feel that they have to speak Mandarin all the time, since I’m afraid it will slightly reduce their own spontenaity, but part time is nice.

In Saigon I got SIM cards for both Gisele and me. I got unlimited phone calls, text and 4G data for $5 for the whole month. The data speed is only 6 MBPS or so, slower than I usually see at home, but it seems very reliable and ubiquitious. The cost was an amazing $5 per phone.

There has been a lot of inflation with the Vietnamese Dong. One US dollar is worth about 20,000 dong, and $100 is worth 2 million dong. When quoting prices people just leave off the thousands and ask for “$300” when they mean $300 thousand. The thousands is understood.

Jet lag — falling asleep. I better post this before my forhead starts typing.

This is my first trip to Vietnam, but I have been in other south east Asian countries before, including Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Singapore. So it’s new but not completely unfamiliar.

I’m here with Gisele who is on a kind of church reunion trip. Three of her siblings and about 10 other friends from her childhood in Vietnam are here, some of them back for the first time and some who have visited before. All of them except for a couple of spouses grew up here in the Saigon Chinatown and went to the same church together. I am the only caucasion, and the only one not fluent in Cantonese. I’m used to being left out of the conversation, and I can understand some of the Cantonese, but I definitely feel a little on my own. They are all very friendly and go out of their way to speak a few words of Mandarin or English to me occasionally, so that helps. I guess it’s all part of the experience.

Last night we all went out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. I’m used to eating Chinese food, but tastes differ. Last night the pigeon was pretty good, though not much meat and the deer tasted just like beef, so long with a few other dishes I was able to get full.

An easy restful day today, then we catch a plane tomorrow to central Vietnam, Hue and Da Nang, near where Richard was stationed during the war.

I have a Sling Box on my Dish DVR at home that is supposed to let me access my DVR from anywhere in the world. I hadn’t been able to use it much on previous trips, but I got a new router on my home network that lets me prioritize connections. I just watched the UA basketball game from my hotel room on my tablet computer, and except for a few minor glitches it worked very well. Nice to be able to stay in touch like that. What a world we live in.