On New Years Day, I lie in bed reflecting on the past year in the life a traveler. In light of the global recession and economic downturn, 2008 was a very rough year for many people including your truly. There were far less travelers taking to the seas and the skies than in years gone by, and trips were a lot shorter in duration and closer to home.
But for this traveler, hard times wasn’t able to keep me grounded as exploring the world and traveling is what keeps me alive and defines me as a person - I AM A TRAVELER. That is MY LIFE and what I lack in monetary wealth, I make up in the richness and experience that travel brings.

In 2008, I consider myself fortunate to have made two trips....

In April, I returned to La Manzanilla aka My Secret Paradise on Mexico’s Costa Alegre. A relatively small and unpretentious beach town located 1 hour north of Manzanillo, not much had changed from a year ago but the economic downturn in the USA and Canada resulted in far less visitors. Looking down the two mile beach, I observed that there were far fewer Mexican tourists in the area over the popular All Saints Holidays compared to last year. Most of the Gringos I met were either snowbirders (winter residents) or were scouting the area to buy some property or start construction on their new vacation home. As usual, I had a quiet relaxing time - in the mornings, I would blog at El Girasol Café over breakfast and in the afternoons, take a siesta or read a book on the beach.

On November 11, I took off to Thailand and Malaysia in Southeast Asia for one month. I had a wonderful experience overall - I visited many new places and met a lot of interesting people. I was on the go the whole time and did not have more than 3-4 days of downtime. I have so many outstanding memories from this trip, it would be so very difficult to discuss all of them at this time. But if I had to choose the most memorable experience from my recent trip, it had to be witnessing a special memorial tribute by the Yao and Hmong Hilltribes to the recently departed Princess Galyani, the revered older sister of The King of Thailand. This tribute was staged on November 24 at a small community school near the village of Pong in Phayao Province, Northern Thailand, more than one week after an extravagant 4 day national tribute was held in Bangkok. This had to be the most heartwarming experience that I’ve had as a traveler.

In a more humorous vein, I was attacked by an invisible bamboo while hiking in the rainforests of the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia. This encounter resulted in a very nasty gash on the top of my left hand. As the wound was infected, I went to the local hospital at Tanah Ratah the following day to have it cleaned out and stitched up. Presiding over the minor surgical procedure was a young man by the name of Mr. Amri, who I later learned was just a medical assistant. As he performed the operation, he gave sort of a running commentary of the procedure in Malay language to the four young female interns who were in the operating room. Looking at their dog tags, I discovered that they were all from the same college in Kuala Lumpur. In the meantime, I alternately winked, grimaced and smiled at the young ladies who didn’t really know what to make of this strange foreign patient. The WOUND STORY didn’t end right there, as I had to go to a local hospital in Bangkok at the tail end of my trip (Dec. 9-12) for three consecutive days to have the stitches taken out, the wound recleaned and dressed.

On the day I arrived home in San Francisco safe and sound (December 12), I went to my local Kaiser Medical clinic to have a Doctor look at the wound. When I showed her a digital picture of my hand after the surgery was performed in Malaysia, she shook her head in dismay and said “The good news is that the infection is contained and you will live to die another day, but because of the poor stitching job you’ll be left with a permanent albeit small scar/souvenir”. Upon hearing this, I laughed and said “No problem - I can add this new souvenir to the ones that I have already collected from Thailand and Costa Rica.”

Happy Trails Everyone. Have a healthy and prosperous New Year

To all my readers, blog subscribers and fellow travelers, I would like to apologize for my absence in the last 12 days. Since arriving in Thailand from San Francisco on November 12, my schedule has been so hectic that I really haven’t had either the energy or the opportunity to sit down and blog about my experiences until now.

So here I am at Phu Lang Ka, a quiet and spartan mountain retreat in the Northern province of Phayao where I am doing nothing but resting, nurturing my spirits and blogging. Nobody here speaks much English and the nearest town of Chiang Kam is about 40 minutes away. My Thai cell phone does not pick up a signal and there is no internet, and I love it!!!. This morning when I go to town, I will stop at the nearest internet café and publish my first in a series of blogs about my ongoing adventure to Thailand and Malaysia. Once again, to all my readers, blog subscribers and fellow travelers, I would like to apologize for my absence.

Oh the weariness of the long distance traveler-blogger.

Just a little footnote: Nov 24 - I discovered much to my chagrin that my website was temporarily suspended because my hosting service failed to renew my domain with GoDaddy - I was billed by the hosting service for my domain up through Nov 2009! Thanx G_D, I ‘m back up again!!!