The Importance of Giving Back

We have been very fortunate in our careers and believe that it is important to share our wealth with those in need throughout the world.

A couple of years ago, we set up a donor advised foundation through the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund. We have made numerous donations to organizations in the U.S. and other countries and will continue to do so as part of our charitable planning.

Here are a few of the organizations that we gave grants to in 2007:

Oxfam-America

Caring for Cambodia

Doctors Without Borders

Habitat for Humanity

Emily's List

Mount Kenya Wildlife Conservancy

Room to Read

World Bicycle Relief

Where We Have Traveled

As the end of 2007 approaches, we thought it would be interesting to post this map from TripAdvisor.com showing some of the places we've traveled to in the last 10+ years. We're sure that we'll be adding some new pins to the map in 2008. India? Argentina? Chile? Brazil?

Below the map is a list of some of our favorites. If you want to click on any of the links to read about the location on TripAdvisor, use your right mouse button to "Open In New Window" or "Open In New Tab".

1. Okavango Delta, Botswana
   
2. Bagan, Myanmar
   
3. Siem Reap, Cambodia
   
4. Machu Picchu, Peru
   
5. Fes, Morocco
   
6. Puebla, Mexico
   
7. Kiawah Island, SC, USA
   
8. Stanley, ID, USA
   
9. Kruger National Park, South Africa
   
10. Bangkok, Thailand
    

Caren the Mahout

As promised way back on November 7 (the first day of our Thailand to Laos Bicycling Expedition), we finally got around to editing the video of "Caren the Mahout."

For those of you who don't know what a mahout is, click on this link and read the article: Mahout

It turned out that when we got off the plane in Chiang Rai, then off the bicycles for lunch, then out of the vans in Chiang Saen, then out of the longboats on the Mekong River, we still needed to ride the elephants to arrive at our hotel, the Anantara Golden Triangle.

There weren't enough elephants because one of the herd was still recuperating from giving birth. So, they needed one person in our group to volunteer to ride where the mahout normally rides, on the head of the elephant. Caren leapt at the opportunity.

Here then is an exclusive - the world premiere engagement of the exciting video, "Caren the Mahout."

This is sure to win an Academy Award for Best Travel Documentary.

Trying to be Steven Spielberg

We're starting to go thru the hundreds of photos and many minutes of video we took on our trip to Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. We will put photo slideshows on the blog and in the right-hand sidebar. Videos will be uploaded to YouTube and we'll embed some of them in the blog.

Here is one short video we shot at Tad Kouang Si waterfall outside of Luang Prabang. It is one of our guides, Nathan, reliving his youth and swinging off a rope into a pool by the waterfall. No exotic SE Asian culture in this - just having fun.



Here is a short video we took on our last morning in Luang Prabang, Laos. We got up before dawn to watch the procession of Buddhist monks walking thru town gathering alms (their meal for the day). The women in our group participated in the ritual by joining in and distributing food to the monks. It wasn't all rice - Caren said their baskets had cookies, chocolate bars, snack foods, meat, fruit, and several types of rice.