Preparing for our next trip

We're getting ready for our next trip - this time to Vietnam and Cambodia for three weeks in March. We'll be bicycling with a small tour group, staying at some magnificent hotels, and visiting all the major sites.

The weather forecast looks favorable, but it's supposed to be HOT and HUMID. It can't be any worse than when we visited Singapore many years ago and actually tried to play golf. That was the absolute hottest I can recall.

We've made a few 25+ mile training rides, secured our travel visas, and are preparing to pack our bags. I've got my iPod nano loaded up for the long flights and am trying to decide which books to take along to read. Not sure whether to take light reading (golf fiction), something worldly (Tom Friedman's book "The World is Flat"), something about Vietnam history ("The Sacred Willow"), or the new Amy Tan book ("Saving Fish From Drowning").

"The boys" (Winston and Spencer) will miss us, but they'll be well taken care of. I don't think we'll see many English Springer Spaniels where we're going.

The birds could be an issue. Two of our cockatiels recently mated and we have four eggs. This has happened several times in recent months and the eggs weren't fertile. This time they could be and would be scheduled to hatch while we're away.

We'll post on this blog some of the pictures we take and upload the rest onto Flickr or Shutterfly. Stay tuned. I've got half a dozen SD cards for our digital cameras, and if need be, I can always find someplace to copy one of the cards to a blank CD.

I even got a mobile phone with local SIM card so we can conveniently make calls in Vietnam. Incoming calls are free, so I'll pass on the number to some of our friends. Just remember that Vietnam is 15 hours ahead of LA and 12 hours ahead of New York and Washington. Don't call us in the middle of the night in Vietnam.

Time to time on this blog, we'll also post some pictures and narrative describing our other recent trips to China, Thailand, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Ecuador (and the Galapagos Islands), Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Morocco, New Zealand, and Australia.