Returning to Amerika?

From my 2nd to last eg, and perhaps the most scenic.

The Lao trip has been over for a while now, and I've finally gotten around to finishing up the video series. Scroll down to the bottom of the blog to see the latest videos. 

The end of one journey, for a perpetual traveler like me, means really just one thing: where to next?

My next holiday will be in December. the The 11th through the 31st. Three weeks! 

Where to go? Places I've never been before come first to mind. Vietnam. China. Sri Lanka. Maybe Nepal, Bhutan or Mongolia. These are all places that aren't that far from my home here in Burma. 

Having a beer over the river.
That kinda epitomizes my time in Lao

Then I read on Facebook that my sister and her family would be going to New Zealand for Xmas and New Years. Well, let's check out the prices to go to New Zealand. Relatively speaking, that's not that far away either. Less than $500?!? That's cheap! 

Thing was, there was a big offset in our vacation times. I was off two weeks before they'd be in NZ. What to do with that time? My first thought was to go to Indonesia again. I've been there 4 times in the last 3 years, but it's such a huge country, there's lots of it still to be

A gaggle of Chinese men in suits at 6:30 Am. Huh?

explored. I looked into it, and even though it's halfway to New Zealand, it would have been costly. 

Money is always an issue. 

Another thought. What about going home? Back to America? 

Trans-Pacific flights are a competitive business these days, and I was able to book a Bangkok-Los Angeles flight for less today than it cost me to come to Asia 5 years ago. What a deal! Yes, I'm going back home. 

 

A rough pic of my December itinerary. I'm going to spend a lot time on planes.

In 6 weeks, I'll be back in America for the first time in almost  years. Here's what I'm looking forward to, in no particular order:

1. Fast food... sure, you can get McDonald's, Burger King or Wendy's in a thousand places in SE Asia, but it's not the same. It tastes... different. 

2. Southern Californian Mexican Food. Again, Mexican food itself can be had all over the world, but there's nothing like a Roberto's carne asada burrito from San Diego. 

3. Being able to go into pretty much any clothing shop and finding something that fits. Sure, I'm a bit of "big and tall" shop guy, but the very idea of what "2XL" means in Asia is very different. 

4. Seeing the family. My nephews are on the verge of the adulthood. Mom and Dad are in their golden years.

5. DVR. This one's kinda strange, and I don't plan on spending a lot of time watching TV, but I got my first Tivo box back in 2002. I've had access to a VCR since the 80's. Here in Myanmar in the 2010's .why is it I have no ability to "pause" what I'm watching so I can go pee? I can't program a device to watch something later on TV. I suppose that nowadays, with on-demand streaming via the Inernet, this recording ability itsn't so important. I can watch, for a fee, lotsa stuff when I want to, but how is that recording technology isn't here? 

  

Hang on, I gotta go pee. 

So here's part 12 of the Lao journey. 

Part 13 was my first "final episode" edition that didn't have any airport footage.