We’re off on another adventure – this time to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. There are 16 people on our trip and a few of them, like us, will be doing the pre-trip to Thailand as well as the post trip in Vietnam.

We’re flying from Newark to Los Angeles and then on to Bangkok, with a brief stop in Hong Kong to refuel, etc. It will be very long flight, but we have books to read on our paper-white and movies to enjoy, so we’ll be fine.

This is the dry season in South East Asia, and the weather should be pleasant, but hot with humidity. Mosquitos are the biggest worry, but we are taking malaria pills and we will be using insect repellent, so hoping for the best. We had similar weather in the Amazon so we know the drill.

The capital of Thailand, the first country we will be visiting, is Bangkok, which will be where we land on January 8. Thai and English are spoken in Thailand and the country is about the size of the state of Texas.

When our eldest son was a freshman in college, his roommate was from Thailand. His name was Suravid Paboontum (which I’m spelling phonetically as we were told it was the way it was pronounced). We practiced all summer so we would say his name correctly when we met him. We had a list of cultural taboos from the college to be aware of – one being…’never point your feet at his head’. I don’t know why anyone would do that to anyone actually, but we were grateful for the heads up. The day finally came and we greeted Suravid, proud to be able to say his name correctly…to which he responded “Call me Joe! I’ve lived in boarding schools in the US for years!!” Too funny!

Anyway, we have been apprised of cultural no no’s while visiting the countries in South East Asia by our travel company, so we are good to go… and yes… one is ‘don’t point your feet at anyone’s head’… but of course, we already knew that. 😂