You would think that Thailand would be a safe enough place to go to escape the relentless commercialization of all things Christmas, but you would be wrong.  Malls, banks, restaurants, even the guesthouses we stay in each have their very own loudly decorated tree.  Christmas songs are played over loudspeakers and sung by Thai acoustic guitarists at ( Read more... )

A tour guide in Kratie was showing us around hotel rooms and asked Natalie to repeat her name several times.  Finally he exclaimed "Ah!  NEZREEN!  Such a beautiful name!"  We had a little laugh about this; it happens sometimes and surely we mispronounce unfamiliar Cambodian names wrong 99% of the time too.  Later Natalie went to reception for one ( Read more... )

is how quickly everything can fall apart. but if you really stop and look you'll see that you've been falling for a while- you just didn't notice until you hit the ground.

Saigon was the same; familiar, but not a place to find any sort of peace. We always seem to spend most of our time there at Bobby Brewer's, a coffeehouse/cafe/cinema that is ( Read more... )

If I haven't written anything here pretty much all summer, it hasn't been for lack of activity.  We have been busy working our asses off up in Winter Harbor up until the past few weeks, when, in short succession, I:

• spent many, many hours getting reacquainted with my nephew/brother/sister-in-law, who just bought a new house!  well, the baby didn't ( Read more... )

flight changed to october 25th.

an update ( Read more... )

it's pouring rain

http://www.explorenewengland.com/travel?article=/maine/articles/2007/04/22/quirky_winter_harbor_a_secluded_maine_gem/

It seems that it's been a long time since I had anything worth reporting here.

My life since returning to the states has been uneventful in the best possible sense of the word.  The days in my little corner of Maine are slowly warming, but the nights remain cool and crisp.  I had forgotten how on a clear night, when I step outside, there is no ( Read more... )

We are now drawing near to the two-week mark in Vietnam, and all I can say is this: it's not enough.

After the obligatory three days in Hanoi we headed up into the mountains of the northwest, accompanied with the warning (from our travel agent) that it was a Vietnamese five-day holiday weekend & would be difficult to book return tickets.

We left ( Read more... )