Well, I woke up this morning to find myself one year older. Yup, this will be the last one in my 50's, next January second I change decades. Sixty used to sound so old. My grandparents were 60. I don't feel or look like my grandparents did back then.............. or do I? Whatever, there's not much I can do about it now but deal with it. Chronologically I'm getting up there, but my mind believes otherwise. Enh! I'll just grin and bear it. The day started out wi...

When we were planning our visa run, we had to choose one destination from a plethora of options available to us from Chiang Mai. Travel within SE Asia is very inexpensive either by air, train or bus. Two hours in a plane can take you to Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia or Singapore. We picked Siem Reap, Cambodia so we could visit Angkor Wat, a Unesco world heritage site. Brenda had been here once before, about 16 years ago, but she was gracious enough t...

We entered Thailand on a sixty day tourist visa that was going to expire on December 29, as such, we had to leave the country to renew it. Rather than just do a quick out and in trip, we chose to visit Siem Reap, Cambodia where we'll celebrate the New Year and my birthday. We decided it would be fun to do a little "slow travel" so, instead of flying out of Bangkok, we went overland. We left Bangkok by train this morning at 6:00 for the border town of Aranyaprath...

Winter has finally arrived here in Chiang Mai with daytime temperatures just barely reaching 26 degrees and overnight lows of 13! Not only do we have to close the patio door at night to sleep, we've had to break out our long sleeve tops and even purchase hoodies for walking around in the evening. What we never expected were the low temperatures bringing several inches of snow to our neighborhood. It was so cold, Brenda was accosted by a polar bear no more than 2...

This morning Brenda was out of bed at 2:00 AM preparing for her 4:00 AM start time for the Chiang Mai Marathon. Since I was only running the half marathon that started at 5:00 AM, I got to sleep in until 2:30. The start times are early to ensure everyone finishes before it gets too hot and before there's too much traffic on the race route. After we showered and fueled up, we walked the 2.5 kms to the start line at the 3 Kings Monument in the middle of the old ci...