Now! To tantalize your senses... a rough draft photo post.

Chuc Mung Nam Moi!! Happy Lunar New Year!
Year of the Cat in Vietnam; Year 4077, of the Rabbit, in China.

Very literally, the end of the line. Terminus of the main train system in Saigon, Vietnam.

Incense and offerings - recognition and deference to ancestors. Somewhat somber affairs in the West, here less so.

Early morning arrival to Hanoi, Vietnam.

Nearly 1 1/2 Billion people listen to Mao. So should you.

So we missed our train... Chris makes the best of our situation in full armament.
Appreciating the incredible photo op that is Beijing West Train Station.

Afternoon landscape and painter. Yangshuo, Guangxi Zhuang, China.

Yangshuo. Outskirts.

Main farmers market, Yangshuo. More on this later - and yes, dog really is a delicacy.

City streets, downtown Yangshuo. (We liked it here)

2 Feb 2011 - So it's bascially its the Lunar New Year's Eve here - only in this amazing part of the world this holiday takes on the significance of one's birthday, Christmas/Chanukah/Ramadan, and New Year's all combined. It's literally a mass celebration; most people have 2 weeks off from work, schools are out for longer, and special foods and festivities only prepared during this time are the norm. Travel logistics get tough, but the atmosphere and spirit abounds here. It's the perfect mixture to make a time- & money- budgeted traveler slow down and appreciate something so entirely unique...

That being the case, we're spending amazing days with the most incredible of families here in Saigon, Vietnam. A very good friend from Uni has connected me with his family and they are treating us like one of their own - in so many ways I feel direct parallels to the hospitality I expect of family in Colombia. I have not words to express how impactful it is to share our time together here, and during such a significant period of the year here.

That said, I won't even try! Without finding that blasted cable, some ingenious local proprietor devised something for me to get the digital photos off my camera and onto a computer. Following is just a rough draft of photos covering the first part of our trip - and 3 weeks still left in our Asian journey!! Chris will get online soon to update in text, and I'll work on uploading the best of our photos from gorgeous Southern China and the first part of our foray in amazing Vietnam.

Cheers.
Tim

The photos laid out heretofore are taken with an Olympus Stylus 1050 SW

 
These works by Tim Paez are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License