Fun Galore in Bangalore

I learned today that the city of Bangalore has a population twice the size of the entire state of Oregon! That's slightly more than 6 million people squeezed into an area of 286 square miles, while the entire state of Oregon has 96 thousand square miles. I'll never complain about Oregon traffic again!

We have been getting oriented from Sara and Munier's lovely home since we arrived from Bangkok early Tuesday morning, running errands and taking Rohan to and from his preschool. Sara has encouraged me to adopt the dress style here which is very comfortable for travel and more modest than typical traveler attire so that has been part of the fun shopping. Here I am with Rohan in the spectacular Lelia Hotel http://www.theleela.com/hotel-bangalore.html Take look at the swiming pool where we went swimming yesterday.

And here are Bryan and his brother-in-law Dave Wiley at poolside enjoying a hefty beer.

We have been eating lovely Indian food every lunch and dinner. Sara has a cook who comes in each afternoon to prepare meals and he is gentle with his spices.








Today we leave for a 6 hour trip to to the east coast, although we are breaking it up into two 3-hour legs and spending the night at a hotel with a pool for Rohan. Here is a map of of where we plan to go; the little red triangle in the lower right is the route. All 7 of us are piling into their van; that includes the driver, Sara's dad and Rohan's car seat. Should be friendly.

Bryan and I intend to stay at the coast a few extra days and get back to Bangalore on our own. Stay tuned...

Bangkok: Turning the Clock Upside Down

Arriving in Thailand we "lost" a day and had to adjust our internal clocks to 8 hours difference. Since we checked in at 1:30 am we had to sleep immediately even though our bodies thought it was mid day in Portland. It has taken several days but I think we are now on Thai time and we will hopefully adjust to the 2.5 hour difference in India time tomorrow when we fly.

We have spent the last two days getting to know the area around our hotel and finding a place to purchase our air tickets to India. More important is we have been eating lovely Thai food and fresh fruit. Here is a fruit stand near our hotel. Our favorite is fresh pineapple thrown in the blender with ice.







We are staying in the backpackers area between Khao San Road and the river, which makes for great people watching and inviting little cafes. You can buy anything in this district, often from backpackers who have decided to lighten their loads.








This morning we took a tuk tuk to see some temples.















Here is a really tall standing Buddha.
We stopped at the Temple of Good Luck and burned some incense and candles in exchange for a wish.

I loved the floral offerings which lined the street in front of each temple. These are Lotus blossoms and other flowers I don't know the name for.We happened upon a lovely jazz festival in the park and an aerobics class outside in the high 80s; I didn't join in.



In the middle of the day we retreat to our cool, tile floor, air conditioned room to recover.

Bangkok: Obama Fans and Lunar Eclipses

We left our warm bed early Wed. morning and arrived in Bangkok, via Seattle and Tokyo, just after midnight Friday after 20 plus hours of air time. Our young taxi driver to our hotel zipped along the tollway happily chatting into his bluetooth with one eye on his music DVD on the dashboard video screen. At some point he asked us in almost unintelligible English if we liked Obama and raised his fist in solidarity when we said we did.

I hope the SMA eclipse party had a better view of the moon than Portland residents. As for us, we were zooming along in plane with the shades pulled down and the lights dimmed and no idea whether it was day or night. We missed Thursday entirely because of the International Dateline.On the plus side, we did see several movies, the best of which was Things We Lost in the Fire. The worst was The Jane Austin Book Club. (Sorry SMA book club members but it was just too soapy.)

Our hotel in Bangkok, the New Siam II, is comfortable, clean and air conditioned. When we checked in, the guest ledger page didn't have another US passport listed; our kind of hotel. We had a $4 breakfast buffet across the street at the sister hotel on the River.

Today's plan is to purchase a ticket for next week to Bangalore and to eat some real Thai food.

Our Cabo Adventure

Actually, Cabo didn't disappoint; it was all about enjoying the ocean, reading, eating and relaxing with friends. This photo of the view from our room says it all.

The resort we stayed in, Pueblo Bonito Los Cabos, was walking distance from town and grocery shopping. We were not used to having all the prices quoted in dollars and the menus reflecting US prices so we four cooked in the room some days to ease the sticker shock.

Our friends, Lynn and Phil, graciously provided us with a separate unit from their timeshare weeks so we all had plenty of space to spread out and watch the DVDs they brought and take our daily siestas.

After a week of lolling around, with a few walks on the beach thrown in for an attempt at exercise, we flew to Guadalajara and spent three days wandering around window shopping in the lovely shops. Now we are back in SMA preparing for our next big adventure which promises to be not as relaxing but very interesting. Stay tuned...