Category: Travel

We had a delayed start today due to an issue with the car (low tire pressure, and all the air hoses at the four gas stations in the nearby town were frozen solid!). However, our intrepid guide Ingólfr got us on the road in plenty of time to make it to all of our destinations. Waiting in the hotel restaurant for the start of our day We drove north along a river to Þingvellir (pronounced THING-vet-leer) National Park. This amazing place was the site of Iceland’s first national assembly in 930 CE. The park straddles the Mid-Atlantic Rift, where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates are pulling apart by about an inch every year. You can walk through the rift, and it’s quite a strange feeling to do so. One of our group refused to enter the rift, as she said it just didn’t feel safe for her to do so. The only thing that didn’t feel quite safe to us...

Today saw us taking Highway 1 along the south coast of Iceland. Fog and low clouds covered much of the landscape, but thankfully they burned off as we headed east toward our first stop, the Lava Centre. Hekla, Iceland’s most active volcano The Lava Centre opened about three years ago to educate the public on Iceland’s volcanic past and present. Interactive exhibits, creative use of multimedia, and real-time data made for a very informative visit. You could see the location and magnitude of the dozens(!) of earthquakes in Iceland in the past 48 hours, including graphs of how many millimeters the crust has risen or fallen in the past several years at various places around the island. One room contained a large hemisphere with a projected view of the area where Iceland now exists. Everyone stood around in a circle and collectively rotated a giant ring, which advanced the time from hundreds of millions of years ago to the present and...

“Pristine Iceland - February 24, 2020” During our Viking ocean cruise in 2018, Jane and I booked another trip, “In Search of the Northern Lights” for this month and into March. We also booked a short pre-cruise extension with Viking, “Pristine Iceland,” which highlights some of the natural wonders of the southwest side of the island. A year an a half later, and it was finally time for us to make the trip! We left Greensboro yesterday and flew into Reykjavik this afternoon (Iceland time), just short of 24 hours since we left home. I watched out the window during our final approach to Keflavik Airport, and saw this massive rectangular mountain plateau just east of Reykjavik. I learned from our driver that it is Ingólfsfjall, named after Ingólfr Arnarson, the first documented settler of Iceland, who legend has it is also buried on the mountain. The weather was cold but not bitterly so, at right around freezing. We drove through a few snow...

After they’ve seen Angkor Wat, how’re you gonna keep ‘em on the farm? After we left the temple complex, sopping wet with sweat and tired in every bone, we had one more stop to make before lunch, at Theam's House in Siem Reap. This is a home and gallery of a local artisan who commissions and trains young artists in traditional Cambodian handicrafts and art. It’s an attempt to sustain local culture that was badly decimated during the Khmer Rouge period, and also to give opportunities for disadvantaged but talented Cambodian youth to develop their skills. Our last souvenir shopping completed, and the local economy duly supported, we moved on to an invigorating and delicious Cambodian lunch at Palate Restaurant. Pomelo salad with shrimp, sour fish soup, grilled marinated beef skewer, tamarind chicken, baby bok chow with oyster sauce, and a selection of Khmer custards, accompanied by Angkor beer. A can of beer: $2.58. Change back from a $5 bill was $2 in...

We were ready for the capstone event of the trip! This was the fitting way to end a journey that included the Parthenon, Delphi, Agamemnon’s palace, the Wailing Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Pyramids of Giza, Luxor and the Valley of the Kings, Petra, the Royal City of Bangkok, and so many points in between. I need to mention that we became very worried about two weeks ago, when Viking dropped off in our ship's stateroom the updated itinerary for the Cambodia portion of the trip. It was now entitled the “Siem Reap Extension” instead of the “Angkor Wat Extension,” and all mention of Angkor Wat by name had been removed from the day-by-day activity descriptions. We were prepared to raise holy hell if we didn’t get to Angkor Wat one way or another. Our guide Mr. Muy reassured us that we had a lot of time set aside to explore the temple complex on Wednesday. Angkor Wat We set...

I think with my stomach. I was waiting to find out what the included breakfast at our hotel would look like. Man, was I not disappointed! Dim sum!! It was a great start to the day. Angkor Thom Our first stop of the morning was the ancient Khmer capital city, Angkor Thom. We approached the city gates from the south, walking over the moat along a bridge lined with statues of the many faces of Buddha. Angkor Thom was a huge city, which was founded in the late 12th century. The city walls are roughly 3 km long on each side, and at one time it’s estimated that somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 people lived there. All the people—even the king—lived in wooden buildings. Only gods could live in stone buildings (the temples). All the wooden structures have long since disappeared. We proceeded to the Bayon Temple, perhaps the most widely-seen structure in the complex. It’s famous for the smiling faces of Buddha on...

Wow, it’s been an intense several days! No time for blogging, so I’ll have to catch up over the course of the next several days. We got up at 3:30 a.m. Sunday to depart the Orion for the last time. After confirming that we had the right suitcases in the port terminal, we boarded the bus and headed for Bangkok’s international airport at 4:45. Viking handled everything for us at the airport, and it was a smooth flight on a turboprop to Siem Reap airport in Cambodia. We flew in over a vast lake surrounded by flooded rice paddies stretching as far as we could see. The airport at Siem Reap was modern and uncrowded, and the customs and immigration process was amazingly fast. Soon we were on the bus to our hotel, the Park Hyatt Siem Reap—a beautiful hotel!--to drop off our bags and head out immediately for lunch. Lunch was at Mahob Khmer restaurant, a converted old wooden house. We’d...

Just a quick blog update - we have to finish packing and get our bags ready for pickup! We leave the ship at 0430 tomorrow…ugh. What a glorious, warm day in Bangkok! My dad and my brother visited here many times during the Vietnam War era, but I’d never been here other than to pass through the airport in 1983. In case you didn't know, Bangkok's official name is "Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit." That translates as, "The city of angels, the great city, the residence of the Emerald Buddha, the impregnable city of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn." The highlight of the tour today was a trip to the Royal...

We had a change in plans today when we heard that our original excursion (to ride elephants at the Koh Samui Elephant Preserve) was going to involve a lot of off-road travel in the back of a pickup truck. We opted to save our spines and instead go for a dip at Chaweng Beach. The Orion anchored offshore and we tendered in aboard local boats. After a 45-minute van ride, we arrived at the beach town of Chaweng. After a bit of confusion with how to rent beach chairs (our excursions manager reminded us beforehand that “English is widely understood but not necessarily widely spoken”), we had a relaxing float in the warm and calm South China Sea with our cruise friends Gary and Chris Terbeek, whom we’ve been with since Athens. We could see the good stupa of the Wat Khao Hua Jook Buddhist temple on a hill in the distance. Smaller Buddhist shrines are almost everywhere you look in Koh...

For those of you who are taking or planning to take cruises, it might be worth your while to stop by Guest Services on the ship and inquire as to whether they offer a tour of the ship’s bridge. They don’t advertise these tours, but they’re often available. Today I got a chance to see the bridge of a latest-generation ocean liner. I went to Deck 6 of the Viking Orion whilst we were in the middle of the Gulf of Thailand, off the east coast of Malaysia. My first impression was how sparse it is! Of course, most things are computer-controlled these days. The Captain leaves the day-to-day driving to his helmsmen. He takes over the controls only when the ship is docking. I wasn’t prepared to see that the Captain uses a trackball and a joystick for fine control of the ship during docking! Of course, he has control over the thrusters and the engines during this process. There are parallel control stations on...