THE HOTELS!

            Might Lisa have said to hubbie, Oliver Wendell Douglas in contrasting Manhattan with Hooter[s]ville. We have stayed at marvelous hotels this trip whether visiting the fancy surroundings of Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur or the countryside of Vietnam and Cambodia, the latter being where one might actually see Arnold Ziffel roaming the land. Of course, Ho Chi Minh City, Phenom Penh and Siam Reap feature a great deal more than a single General Store and an inn called the Shady Rest. The smallest of them has nearly a million people, hence one would expect them to have decent digs for weary travelers. What has been impressive is not just the luxury of the lodgings but their diversity. Each creates a different atmosphere for a particular traveler. And that is by the design of Bill and Pamela Chalmers, the event directors.

            The Grand Hyatt Shanghai is pure opulence in the most modern of settings. The lowest floor of the hotel is the 54th. Every room has a marvelous view of the city since the gorgeous skyscrapers extend in any direction beyond the human eye. The food is fabulous. The Caravelle Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City is luxury to the tee, with high end restaurants and bars and a spectacular view from the ninth floor club where people dance until 2 a.m. every night. The Plantation in Phnom Penh is like a ski resort of wooden buildings, only in the jungle land of Cambodia rather than the snowy banks of Colorado. The entrances to the hotel are on sidewalks above bodies of water. There is a lovely pool and wonderful food yet again. And the Heritage Suites in Siem Reap are like individual cabins in the woods (though here, jungle), each with its own sauna, walk-in shower indoors, walk-in shower outdoors and giant, deep bathtub, all in different places of the room. The cabins are joined by a common area for swimming, eating and socializing. And now we're enjoying the Shangri-La in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Much like the Grand Hyatt, it is a luxury hotel catering to every modern need.

            I can't tell you (well, really Bill and Pamela) how much we appreciate the thought and effort that has gone into the planning of every minute detail of this trip. The scavenges appeal to every interest imaginable. Today, Casey and I (if I can ever wake Casey up after his jaunt through the nightlife of Kuala Lumpur last night--he's snoring up a storm as I type this--as you can tell, we ain't gonna be the grand prize winners) will alternatively gamble at a casino, ride and bathe with an elephant and visit the world's biggest piece of carved jade. There are always scavenges involving rounds of golf, karaoke, temple visits and other activities I know some of you like. There are generally amusement park scavenges as well. In this town, the scavenge involves visiting the world's largest indoor amusement park.

            I haven't said much about Cambodia. We thought it was interesting. It has some fascinating elements. I won't go back, though. And the main reason frankly is the heat. I felt as though I was melting (until the shorts I put on later that day turned out to be just as tight as the week before the trip began). I realize Malaysia isn't about to go arctic on me either, but it's modern enough here that there will always be an air conditioned cocktail lounge I can slither into. I didn't visit The Killing Fields while in Cambodia and thus did not see the collection of skulls of victims of the veritable genocide of the Pol Pot regime. Frankly, it took years to get the movie, "The Killing Fields" out of my mind and I didn't want to spend the rest of this trip thinking of skulls and matching them to hypothetical faces of men, women and children. Last year, a Pulitzer Prize winning photo made the Facebook rounds and featured a starting African toddler trying desperately to crawl to a food bank a kilometer away, as a vulture walked behind her, waiting for her to show enough evidence of weakness and collapse that it could pounce for the kill and devour her. That photo still lingers with me. Some of my female friends compliment me for being such a sensitive person. Some of my male friends suggest I'm a bit short of testosterone. Oh well, neither condition is likely to have a dramatic effect on my lifestyle.

            So, the cities are great, the countries are great, the hotels are mesmerizing. What do I have to criticize about the trip? Nothing really. But if I had to offer a drawback it would be the event's greatest strength. We're visiting 11 countries in 23 days. I want to visit 11 countries. And I don't have more than 23 days for vacation. So, the trip is in one sense ideal. But the time we get to spend in each place is too short. Perhaps that's the point. The trip is designed to let us evaluate multiple locales so we can decide where to return for a more extensive and leisurely visit, much as an introductory language survey course gives you a few weeks of several different foreign tongues so you can decide in which to try to become fluent. The goal is undoubtedly laudable. Nevertheless, I found myself this morning, kinda wishing I was Uncle Joe...just a-movin' kinda slow...at the junction.