Traveling

Today I flew from Siem Reap back to Saigon.  Funny how it feels comfortable to come "home" to a place I have already been.  I could zip through the airport this time.  And in Saigon, they have the real thing - DP - and I don't have to settle for DC.  My hotel is nicer than any of the hotels in Cambodia with a great room, but I don't usually need to be told to take my clothes off when I shower.

I always say that I don't like traveling; I like being in a different place.  The travel part is the most problematic and least fun.   I try to make my flights in the late morning/early afternoon so I am not rushed in the morning and have the late afternoon and evening to walk around in my new place.  Today I had a leisurely breakfast in Siem Reap and had some time to talk on the phone before taking a tuk-tuk to the airport.  It was still light when I got settled into my hotel, so I had a nice walk around Saigon this afternoon.  I even felt comfortable enough here to go to Tokyo Deli and have sushi for dinner.  I would not trust anything raw in Cambodia.

Despite the best planning, there are always travel problems.  First, I am using a new technology (for me) - a Chrome book.  Joe helped me set up everything, and I had my computer at home spend two days uploading my music from Itunes to Google Music.  When I first got to Vietnam two weeks ago, I opened Google Music and was able to play my albums.  The next time I opened Google Music, all of my albums had disappeared.  I tried several times over a few days but there was nothing there.  So I gave up.  After all, Google Music could only record 20,000 songs, and I have my entire collection on my Ipod and my top 100 albums on my Iphone.  I guess I can manage.

Second, I have become positively OCD about checking my possessions.  Nonetheless, moving every day while touring was difficult.  On New Year's Eve I was texting with Steve about the problem I was having with comments on this blog.  He told me to call because he could explain it faster.  I looked all over and realized that my headset was missing.  The headset is crucial for turning my computer into a phone.  The next day I asked our guide, Binh, to check at our last hotel.  Sure enough, I had left it.  Binh said another group with his tour company would be coming from that hotel to Siem Reap in a few days and could bring it to me, or they could send it by public bus which would cost something.  I opted for the group because I had doubts about the public bus.  I asked him a couple of days later when it would come.  He made a few more phone calls and said they would send it that day by public bus since I seemed "nervous."  Et voila.  It arrived at the office of his tour company.  The agent there got on her motorcycle and brought it to me at the restaurant where our group was having our farewell dinner.  I just had to reimburse her for the bus cost ... $2.50.

The next day my kindle died.  This seemed like a real catastrophe to me.  I had uploaded a dozen books or so to read (plus the classics library of hundreds so I will never run out of books) and was in the middle of three of them.  I tried charging, rebooting ... nothing.  David Salem suggested the Kindle app on my Iphone but that seemed like a really unsatisfying way to read.  Amazon was surprisingly unhelpful.  I was hoping they could send a new Kindle to my next hotel in Vietnam, but they said they had to send it to my home address.   They mentioned apps, too, so I checked the Chrome app store et voila, there's an app for that.  I downloaded it to my Chrome book and magically, all of my books appeared, although I did have to find my place in each of the books.  I was also able to "pin" the books I wanted so I could read them off-line while waiting at the airport.  The chrome book isn't quite as easy to read at poolside as the Kindle but it works.

While trying to solve the Kindle problem, I opened Google Music for the first time in a week et voila, all of my albums are there.  My kids are sure this is user error, but this one is a complete mystery to me.  All I did was open Google Music.  The first time, my music was there; the next five times, there was no music; and now there is music again.  I'm not taking the rap for this one.  I think Google is messing with my mind.

A few pictures that I hadn't put in previous posts ...  While driving to Siem Reap, we stopped at Spider City where they serve fried spiders, cockroaches, and other delectables.  Our Cambodian guide, Som, said he wouldn't eat the spiders because you cannot tell if they are fresh.  Sometimes they put yesterday's back out.

The day I killed my knees climbing that little "hill," we took a few pictures as I held the setting sun in my hand and toasted it with a DC.

Finally, we visited a brick "factory" one day.  They dig up clay, mix it with water, run it through a machine to shape the bricks, and then bake them.  You apparently don't need shoes or shirts or motorized vehicles to perform this work.