Southeast Asia Blog

    When well meaning friends ask me how my vacation to Southeast Asia went, and I have to remember that they don’t realize that our tour was a test of endurance as much as it was a vacation.  For example, on our return trip to get back home, we left the ship at 3:00 am on Friday morning and didn’t arrive at our condo until 1:30 am on Saturday.  If that doesn’t sound too bad to you then you may have forgotten that there is a thirteen hour time difference between Singapore and Louisville.  A quick back of the envelope calculation suggests that we spent about thirty six hours traveling back from Southeast Asia.  And yet the pleasure was with the pain as we were able to experience things that we would never have done or seen in the West.  I have written a short itinerary of our trip and have kept it in a day by day format so that our journey is easier to follow. 

Saturday, December 23, 2023: Ko Samui 
    We spent our only day in Thailand by touring three temples.  The first one that we visited was the Temple of the Mummy Monk (Wat Khunaram). The Thai people believe that death is an opportunity to to be reborn into a next, and better, life.  And since I don’t want to be reincarnated as a Dung Beetle, I am going to be a good person in this life.  Loung Pordaeng is the name of the dead  monk who is on display in an upright glass casket so that he may be worshipped.  The site was disturbing for me, especially since sunglasses were put on the monks’ head in order to hide his cavernous eye sockets, but it looked like the dilapidated body was being mocked.  
    The second temple that we visited was the Big Buddha Temple (Wat Phra Yai) and it is the home to a 39 foot gold plated statue of Buddha.  It was built in 1972 and is so big that it can be seen from several miles away and can be easily spotted from an airplane.  Tracey decided to go native as she put on a sarong to receive a blessing from a local monk at the foot of the statue.
   The Temple of the Happy Buddha (Wat Plai Laem) was our third and final temple for the day.  It is a 98 foot high statue of a fat Buddha and it was completed in 2004.  A fat Buddha represents wealth and prosperity while the long ears on the statue represents a long life.  The Buddhists believe that if you give alms to the gods then you will receive happiness in return.  Wat Plai Laem is a temple complex that houses many gods and many versions of Buddha.

Monday, December 25, 2023: Phu My, Vietnam
   The Golden Buddha Temple is an extensive monastery and temple complex which acts as an educational and religious center.  Monks are invited to use the complex as a retreat.  The main temple has a huge statue of Buddha and it is surrounded by beautifully manicured gardens.  I saw a monk who was determined to study his books while trying to ignore the tourists who were taking his picture.  Another monk was wandering around the complex in contemplative silence.
   If this had been our only stop in Vietnam then I would have been bitterly disappointed, which is why a seasoned traveler has to view these trips in the aggregate.  We flew half way around the world to visit Southeast Asia and I wanted to get the most out of this trip.  The temple was great but the rest of our tour was a long drive, a visit to a “typical” house of Vietnam where they tried to sell us orchids and motorcycle helmets, and we were invited to shop at a local market.  Calling it a market gives it a glory that it does not deserve.  The Dollar General Store was like the Mall of America as compared to this public market.  Still, you take the good with the bad on these excursions and we looked upon our experiences in the aggregate as opposed to any singular attraction.
   The thing that I love about travel is that you never know what is going to make an impression on you.  In Vietnam, it was the motorcycles.  They were everywhere, buzzing in and out of traffic, even on the sidewalks, ignoring all of the laws of self preservation.  Cars are very expensive to own and motorcycles can be bought for $1,000, so everybody had them.  I saw young teenagers driving them, and mothers with their children propped up front, merchants carrying their wares, and couples obviously on a date.  Vietnam has a population of 94 million people, and 35 of those people are killed on these motorcycles every day, and that adds up to about 10,000 people every year.  It is statistics such as this which make me appreciate my life in the U.S.

Tuesday, December 26, 2023: Saigon, Vietnam
   I really didn’t know what to expect for our trip to Saigon but I could feel the excitement well up in me as we approached what was the capital of South Vietnam.  When we were still a couple of miles away from the city, I could see the skyscrapers from a distance and yet there were rice fields within a stone’s throw of the luxury apartments.  Tai was our guide and he took us on a ride in the canal that flows through Saigon where a traditional Vietnamese woman sang to us and we were allowed to free a bucket full of catfish into the water.  While we were on our drive to the market and the post office that Eifle built, Tai gave us a history of the Vietnam War from his country’s perspective.
   The Presidential Palace is where the Republic of Vietnam made its last stand.  It is a complex of buildings but the main one held the governments offices and meeting rooms.  We passed by the old American embassy, where the helicopters took away the last of our ambassadors and staff via helicopters in 1975.  Our tour brought back a lot of memories of the end of the Vietnam War, not because I was there, for I was only thirteen at the time, but because I had seen so many documentaries on the war.  Seventy percent of the Vietnamese weren’t even born at the time of the war, so the tank which crashed through the gates of the Palace, which is still on the grounds, meant little to them.  Instead, it was a holiday in Saigon and many young girls took the opportunity of a beautiful day to have their pictures taken in the Palace with orchids.  They wore traditional dresses and were busy reapplying their make up as we passed by them on our tour.  It was weird to see our symbol of a lost war festooned with the promise of a new generation.
   The problem with Saigon is that it is over-populated.  The French built the city in the late 1800s and intended that it hold about 250,000 people.  Today it holds about 10 million people.  If you looked closely you could see traces of the old boulevards, based on the Champs Elysees in Paris, but small markets and apartment buildings have crowded out what was once a well laid out city.  The French architecture is everywhere but the builders would not recognize it for what it has become.  For example, two of the old apartment complexes have been turned into a museum and a market.  Signs of decay, and those pesky motorcycles, where everywhere.  Even the canal system was filthy with trash floating on top of the water.  I think that if a Vietnam veteran were to come to Saigon today then he must think to himself, “Is this what we were fighting for?”  

Wednesday, December 27, 2023: Vung Tau, Vietnam
   The Buddhist Temple (Thich Ca Phat Dai) was completed in 1963 and it includes a monastery at the foot of a large hill and a huge white statue of Buddha at the top.  It is an expansive complex and, while it was beautiful, it was almost impossible for a blind person to navigate.  The stone staircases did not have a handrail so Tracey had to place her hand on my shoulder to get up and down the steps.  The stairs were decorated with statues of white dragons, and there were several gardens to make the place look peaceful, but we were not able to get past how inaccessible the grounds were for the handicapped.  We left the temple a little overwhelmed by our climb.
   The White Palace was constructed as a retreat for the French governor in 1898 and it was built on the slope of a large mountain.  There is always a breeze coming in from the beach which allowed the governor some relief from the heat of Vietnam.  The building is three stories high and includes fabulous art and architecture.  Our tour guide for the day was a man named Phi and he told us that the White Palace was used by the French officers as a retreat.  They could get a weekend pass for some rest and relaxation at this glorious compound.  

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday: At Sea
   The “at sea” days were a trial.  The excursion to Nha Trang, Vietnam had been cancelled due to the rough waters and we decided not to get off of the ship at Celukan Bawang, Indonesia, because we had arrived at the port late, the excursion was six hours long, and I wanted to pace myself for the next three days of touring.  As it turned out, I was right about Celukan Bawang in that it was just an industrial city with nothing to see.  If you didn’t book an excursion, there were not enough taxis to give the tourists a ride, so there were 2,000 people, with their pockets bulging with money, stuck at the dock with no way to spend it.
   So now I had three days at sea to deal with.  A buddy of mine from the gym said that he didn’t like the cruise ships because he found them so confining.  Well, they are, but the thing to do is to stay out of your room.  The gym opened at 6:00 am and I was there every morning to lift weights.  Tracey and I would then go to breakfast and, while she laid out in the morning sun, I enjoyed my first daiquiri of the day.  I need to be around people so when I read my book I sat in the main lounge area.  When I needed a break I walked to the casino and watched the poker tournament, or I would go to the theater to watch the dance class.  I don’t like to spend much time at the pool because it was so hot and there are a lot of old people wearing next to nothing and it was disgusting.

Sunday, December 31, 2023: Lombok, Indonesia
   We spent much of the morning at the Sasak House.  The native people of Lombok are known as Sasaks and we visited their village.  The tour included watching a fight between young men who used a stick and shield in combat.  We were also treated to a recital of drums, which the locals beat while dancing.  We saw the traditional dwellings, where the roofs are still made with palms, and then a community building that was in the process of being covered in cow dung to help with its preservation.    One lady allowed me to take her picture while she cooked her rice dinner and posed in front of her bamboo wall.  It was all pure schtick but we enjoyed it thoroughly.  
   In a study on contrasts, we left to Sasak House to visit the Pullman Beach Resort.  It is a first rate hotel built on the beach and included all of the amenities, like suites with private pools, and was meant to compete with the properties in Phuket.  We were invited to use the running trails or spend some time on the beach.  However, there were only seven people on this tour and the minimum was supposed to be eighteen to make it worthwhile to the Pullman.  The end result was that the resort served us enough food for more than twice our number.  I thought that the rice and noodles and beef were our meal but then the servers kept on bringing out new courses including pizza, soup and salad, and then four different desserts.  After witnessing the poverty of Indonesia, it was hard to not feel guilty about eating so much, and wasting a lot of it, in a land that has so little.   

Monday, January 1, 2024: Benoa, Bali, Indonesia
   The Mengwi Royal Temple was built as a place to worship the ancestral spirits of the kings and was named a UNESCO world cultural heritage site in 2012.  It is a royal family temple, built on flat land with a fish pond surrounding it, so it looks like it is drifting on water.  We saw statues of the Buddhist gods like Vasudhara (goddess with six arms who represents compassion), Ganesha (god with the head of an elephant which symbolizes strength) and Sun Wukong (the monkey god who represents devotion).  I love to take pictures of the places that we have been to on our tours, and then write about them, but neither pictures nor the written word can describe the beauty of the Mengwi Royal Temple.  As always, my only criticism of being at places like this temple is that I wish that we could have spent more time there.  Many of the sites that we have visited are tourist traps and are cheap imitations but this was the real deal.  I would have liked the opportunity to just be present for awhile to take in the beauty of the architecture and landscaping of the place.
   Tanah Lot means “Land by the Sea” and it is a temple that sits on a large offshore rock which has been shaped continuously over the years by the ocean tide.  In fact, when the tide comes in, one of the temples is inaccessible because it is literally surrounded by water.  The complex is purportedly protected by a giant sea snake.  Since it was the first day of the new year, a lot of locals were at the temple because the grounds are so pretty and there is plenty of shade which makes it nice for leisure time.  Our tour began, and ended, early so that we could avoid the afternoon heat and the traffic.  While that makes a lot of logistical sense, I felt rushed and, just like at Mengwi, I would have liked to have spent more time taking in the greatness of this special place.  
   
Tuesday, January 2, 2024: Benoa, Bali, Indonesia
   Our first stop was at a traditional family compound, which was a large lot surrounded by a stone wall.  It was filled with several small structures, some of which held mini-temples for their gods.  We also went to the Bali Cultural Center to watch a play but I couldn’t figure out the plot and since I had no idea what was going on, I couldn’t describe it to my wife.  The beautiful dancers and the amazing costumes made this side trip worthwhile, however.  Finally, we went to the aviary where we had birds perched themselves on our arms.  It made for a nice moment and I have several great pictures of us interacting with the birds.
     Indonesia is 80 percent Muslim.  Benoa is a city on the large island of Bali and the majority of the people on Bali are Hindu.  Because of their strong religious faith, there is an elaborate Spirit House in front of major establishments, like a hospital or a condominium building, while lesser Houses are in front of residences and small businesses.  The Balinese believe that their gods reside in the Spirit Houses and that is why they are everywhere.  They also have huge Hindu statues of their gods at major intersections and in the middle of the roundabouts on the busy streets.

Thursday, January 4, 2024: Singapore
   Our final excursion was in Singapore, the setting for the movie “Crazy Rich Asians,” and we saw some of the locations from where the film was shot.  The pictures that I took of us in front of the Marina Bay Harbor look like they were professionally made for a postcard.  The marquee building is a casino and hotel combined but it is three buildings standing together and it looks like someone had laid a giant surfboard across all three to connect them together.  The bay also includes skyscrapers, a mall, and the giant Merlion Park statue, which has a lions’ head on top, a fish body on the bottom, and it spews out water from its mouth.  The whole scene was so beautiful that is hard to describe.  
   At the center of Singapore is Harmony Street, which earned its name by being a home to a Methodist Church, a Hindu Temple, a Buddhist Temple, and a Jewish synagogue.  We took a brief bus tour of Singapore that included Harmony Street, Little India, Chinatown, and a Muslim neighborhood.  Our guide let us off the bus for awhile so Tracey and I visited a couple of shops which allowed her to feel the mini statues of the numerous Hindu gods.  Another thing that I noticed is that since cars are so expensive is Singapore, there was comparatively light traffic, and I didn’t see a single motorcycle of the road the whole time that we were in the city.

   We have been back from our cruise to Southeast Asia for a week and we are feeling really good about having completed it.  At the very least, this cruise has given us bragging rights because we have done things, and been to places, that most people can only dream about.  Sure, it was difficult, but anything worth doing is, and I think that the pleasure was worth the pain.  If someone were to ask me if I would do it all over again, my fast answer would be, “Yes!  In fact, we just signed up to do a similarly grueling trip in the Baltic for the summer of 2025!”  Life is worth living.  Let’s go live some of it!



The Guides
   Oye Oye was our guide in Ko Sumui and she could not have been sweeter.  For example, she sang to us at the end of our tour and it was a nice moment for everyone on the bus.  It is natural for the tourists to ask personal questions to the guides, which they usually deflect, but Oye Oye was just a kid and didn’t mind sharing.  She works six days a week; two at Ko Samui and four at Phuket, which is a six hour bus ride for her.  Life is hard and Oye Oye turned to alcohol for relief but gave it up when she blacked out and couldn’t remember how she had driven her car home.  Since then she obtained the Buddhist philosophy of B.C.D., which stands for Born Choose Die.  You decide whether you are going to be happy or not and Oye Oye decided to choose happiness.  She was just so open and honest that I gave her one of our U. Of L. coasters with the cardinal bird on it and Oye Oye seemed truly honored to receive it.  
   Bin was our guide in Phu My and he was only concerned with getting a large tip.  We didn’t learn anything about Vietnam because he wanted to give us a comedy routine.  He hoped that we would give him more than a five dollar tip because he wanted to feed his family and to buy a new car.  The tip should be in Vietnamese currency because he didn’t want to have to spend all afternoon in line at the bank to exchange our money.  To help out with this process, he offered to exchange our money, but he didn’t explain the rate of transfer so I am sure that he made a tidy profit from the transaction.  He took some of the tourists to a restaurant in the market where I am sure that he received a kickback for bringing in customers.  His comedy routine turned weird when Bin mentioned that the Vietnamese Viagra is snake oil, or rice wine, which is 45 proof when you drink it.  In spite of all of this, I gave Bin a tip, which he immediately counted right in front of me, something that a tour guide should never do.

Quotes
• I dressed up in a native crown from Indonesia.  I leaned over and told Tracey, “If I begin to die please remove this from my head!”
• In the same scene I was made to wear a sarong.  I told Tracey that “the last time that I wore a dress was at a Bachelors party and that was a wild night!”
• I had 65,000 people view my TikTok on retirement.  “If I do this a couple more times then I can claim to be an influencer!”  Marcia is a friend that Tracey made on the cruise and she asked that if I became an influencer, would I still talk to her. I said, “No, I won’t. I’ll put on airs!”
• “Who is blind?” Said the guy from Cuba.  He had talked to us for ten minutes but never suspected that Tracey cannot see.
• Cindy asked our guide how she managed to look so young.  “I lather on the coconut cream when I get out of the shower,” our guide replied.  Cindy said “I’ll have to try that when I get home.”  Cindy’s father said “It’s too late for you.”
• “I’m going swimming, aren’t I Daddy!” Said the little girl on the way to the pool.  “Yes, everybody!  She is going swimming” said the amused but beleaguered father who was taking his daughter to the pool to give his wife a break.  The little girl was so cute in her little pink hat and the bright purple floaties on her arms.  

The Problem with Old People
• I am beginning to lose faith in my fellow man, especially old people.  They are at their worst when they travel.  At least, I hope that they are not like this when they are home
• They were complaining all of the time: about the stops on excursion, waiting in line, not being told to bring a passport even after it was announced and it was in the bulletin.  They always want to eat or drink but so overweight that they can hardly move. They talk during the presentation and then ask questions about what the guide had just covered. 
• When asked him nicely to get out of the handicapped spot, the old man declared himself handicapped and refused to move.  He called me an asshole under his breath and I later saw him sprint up a flight of stairs so that he could be first on the bus.
• One old lady was upset because the guide stated that we were going to swing by a famous hotel and we didn’t do it.  She said, “I’m going to tell the cruise director” in such a way that she sounded like a moody teenager who had been deprived of her iPhone.
• We had just finished a grueling day at Ko Samui and the tender line to get back to the ship was so long that it would have taken us an hour and a half to get back.  Fortunately, a member of the crew saw Tracey’s cane and took us out of line and sent us on the next tender.  An old woman, who was on the same tender, instead of being appreciative for the extra service, said “That was a waste of time.” She either didn’t understand, or didn’t care, that we had just been rescued and took the absolute wrong attitude about being saved.   

Good Things about travel.
• As an experienced traveler, I find that I have developed the patience of an older man in that I take the good with the bad and appreciate our good fortune to be able to travel at all.
• It was such a relief when it was over.  I couldn’t wait to get there and then I couldn’t wait to get back.  Travel makes me appreciate my life in Louisville.

Bad Things about Travel.
• The ship was rocking so badly that our excursion to Naha Trang, Vietnam, was cancelled and the ship put barf bags at the top of all of the stairs in case there was an emergency
• Internet doesn’t work on the ship
• Rude passengers who treat the staff like dirt
• I eat too much and drink too much and am filled with self loathing 
• Visiting these places that I have dreamed about takes away their power and their magic.  I no longer want to visit Australia and Japan, for example.

The Empire Builder

         “What would you do if you had all of the time in the world and money wasn’t as issue?  You would travel, right?”  That is the line that I used to give my students and I said it so often because I really meant it.  Now that I am retired, these trips mean even more to me because they take up so much emotional energy and they give me a reason to keep myself in shape.  They give me something to look forward to as I allow myself to become truly excited about travel.  And besides, I can hear the clock ticking in the back of my brain and it is telling me that I only have so much time to do these trips so I had better go while I am still young enough, and strong enough, to endure them.

Monday. November 20: Vancouver
        You just have to appreciate it when everything goes right when you travel and I was firing on all cylinders on my first day.  The Uber arrived at 4:00 am, my flight took off at 6:50, and I was on the light rail to Vancouver’s waterfront area before noon.  Like Baudelaire’s flaneur, a bourgeois who walked the streets of Paris for pleasure, I walked to the harbor, to Gastown, and to Granville Island in one afternoon.  It was a six mile walk and I was carrying a full backpack but I didn’t mind because the weather was perfect and there was so much to look at.  Still, at the age of 61, I was very proud of my vigor because this had been a long, hard day.

Tuesday. November 21: Capilano Bridge
        Our tour guide for the day was Byron and he led us around the major attractions in the area for eight hours.  Our first stop was Stanley Park, which overlooks Vancouver, and contains over 1,000 acres of open space.  It also includes over five miles of sidewalks for bikes and walkers.  After lunch on Granville Island, a tourist area known for its boutiques and restaurants, we drove to the Capilano Bridge.  The bridge and the cliff walk overlook a deep canyon and Christmas lights were strung up everywhere for the season.  It starts getting dark at about 3:30 in Vancouver so we got to see the lights in all of their glory.  Our luck held out in that it didn’t start to rain until our tour was finished and I was thankful for a great day with a really good tour guide.

Wednesday. November 22: Seattle
        I ran out of things to do so I walked part of the sea wall, or the seventeen mile long sidewalk that encircles Vancouver, before getting on the bus to Seattle.  After a five hour bus ride, which took a lot longer than usual because of traffic and long lines at immigration, I boarded “The Empire Builder,” or Amtraks’ line between Seattle and Minneapolis, where I relaxed in my private compartment before going to the restaurant car for dinner.
        Because there is only a limited staff with a limited amount of tables in the dining car, passengers are expected to share a table and I had three dinner companions.  Michelle was from Guangzhou and studied public relations in Boston.  She was traveling by herself so we bonded over that experience.  There was a man named Friday who was an engineer from Nigeria and currently works for Boeing.  Both Friday and Michelle had such thick accents that I could barely understand what they were saying.  Dr. Jocelyn is married to Friday and is a university teacher and a therapist for people who have experienced trauma in their lives.  The conversation centered on young people and the isolation that they feel because they spend too much time on their iPhones.  Our conversation took a bad turn when I mentioned that my only goals are to take care of myself so that I could continue to travel.  Dr. Jocelyn said that she “didn’t know what to make of a person who didn’t have any goals.”  I tried to explain that I had been a teacher for 35 years and participated in eleven Ironman competitions so I was pretty much done with setting high goals for myself.

Thursday. November 23: Thanksgiving on “The Empire Builder”
        I am embarrassed that I have to continually relearn the same lesson of “do not judge a book by its cover.”  When Mark and Jana sat down next to me for breakfast they were both wearing old sweatshirts and looked like they had just finished doing their morning chores on the farm.  My first impressions were totally wrong.  As it turns out, Mark is a news anchor and producer for a television station in Spokane and Jana is a conservator who manages the personal and financial affairs of old people who can no longer fend for themselves.  We spent an hour together talking about travel, our children, and our jobs.  It was wonderful to have such bright and engaging people to share my breakfast with.
        On the other hand, Thanksgiving dinner didn’t go well at all.  I shared it with a family of three; Kirby and her two children, Chris and Ari.  They claimed that they had driven twenty hours to Spokane to spend the holiday with their extended family but things went so badly that they abandoned their weekend and took a train back to Fort Wayne.  No one wanted to talk about what happened and, while the kids seemed indifferent to the disastrous Thanksgiving, the mother was clearly still angry.  When I tried to engage them in conversation, Kirby quietly seethed, Chris was thirteen years old and could only mumble a reply, and ten year old Ari was too concerned with her iPhone to look up and talk to me.  She did make it a point to burp loudly throughout the meal.  My thought was that this family of three will always remember the Thanksgiving dinner that they shared with a complete stranger on an Amtrak train.

Friday. November 24: Saint Paul 
        I shared my last meal on the train with James, an obviously gay young man who resides in Alaska.  He was gifted a thirty day pass on Amtrak and was determined to see the country by riding the rails.  James was genuinely interested when I told him about my many travels on the train and he took notes in his iPad when I said that the Salt Lake trip was the best because it was so pretty.  The conversation was going well when suddenly James said that he had enjoyed talking with me and then abruptly left.  He was an introvert and he wanted to go back to his cabin to do some crafting.  Amtrak is perfect for people like James because they don’t have to talk to anyone, if they don’t want to, and they can retreat into their private space any time that they want to be alone.
        I got off of the train after breakfast and started to walk; anxious to shrug off my two days on “The Empire Builder” but fully recovered from the Vancouver part of my trip.  This will be my last ride on Amtrak.  I enjoyed watching the snow fall on the mountains of Montana and the gentle rocking of my compartment as we logged the miles through the northwest part of America.  However, I have done all of the interesting lines that Amtrak has to offer and since I don’t believe in repeating any vacation experience, it is time to branch out and try some new things.
        I had to improvise because I thought that the train was letting me off in Minneapolis but in reality the station is in Saint Paul.  The capitol of Minnesota and the history museum were not on my list of things to do, but they were an easy walk from where I was let off, so I decided to take a risk and visit these two places.  Half of the fun of taking these trips is to post about them on Facebook so I took a lot of pictures of the statues outside of the capitol and of the exhibits in the history museum.  After I finished my morning in Saint Paul I took the light rail to Minneapolis where I toured the Mill City Museum and the famous sculpture garden.  All of the major attractions in the Twin Cities, like the Stone Arch Bridge, are outside and it was freezing outside.  When I checked in at the front desk at my hotel I told the clerk that I couldn’t feel my fingers because they were so cold.  They had literally turned blue.  I just couldn’t get warm so when I went to bed I piled all of my clothes and extra pillows on top of me to provide some extra warmth.  I wish that I could say that I am exaggerating but the cold really was that bad.

Saturday. November 25: Minneapolis
        I hadn’t showered or changes clothes in two days because I had been on the train.  Feeling like a new man after some serious self-care, I boarded the light rail and was ready to visit some new attractions.  Minnehaha Falls was beautiful because it was most frozen over and only a trickle of water was coming out.  The whole of the falls was covered in ice.  Fort Snelling was nothing more than a stone wall with a turret in the middle.  To call it a fort is to give it a glory that it does not deserve because it was really just a muster station during the world wars and the area is known now as a “park and ride” station for the train.  To help break up the day, I signed up for a “Pedal Pub Tour” of the downtown area but it was cancelled with absolutely no notice.  Suddenly, I had the whole afternoon free.  The only major attraction that I had not seen was “The Mall of America” but I didn’t want to go there because I had such good memories of taking the kids to the mall when they where young.  Since I didn’t see any options, I took the light rail for a half hour ride out to the mall.  The thing is, if you take away the indoor amusement park, “The Mall of America” is just a mall and, after a brief visit, I took the light rail back to downtown Minneapolis.
        A word on the light rail.  I thought that it would be a cheap way for me to ride to the local attractions, which it was, but it also draws the worst elements of society.  The homeless made me feel uncomfortable, but there was also a group of young men playing their music on a boom box as loudly as possible in the back of the train.  It was if they were trying to convince everyone that they were having a great time at an impromptu party.  Another man became defiant when told by the conductor told him to stop smoking his JUUL.  Instead of putting the vaping device away, the man angrily and dramatically continued to blow smoke.  I saw young men and old men trying to hustle each other but what left a lasting impression was the mentally handicapped man who suddenly wanted off of the train.  He started to howl like a wolf and then flung himself on his back, arms and legs flailing, until he could crawl out of the door at the next stop.  When I feel threatened, as I most certainly did on the light rail, I have a few simple rules that I follow: do not engage, do not make eye contact, do not smile, and get up and move if there is anything that makes me feel uncomfortable.  I followed all of those rules when I rode the Minneapolis METRO light rail system for two days.  

Sunday. November 26: 4836 12th Avenue South
        I lingered in the hotel breakfast room for four hours because I couldn’t face the thought of walking around outside in the freezing cold again.  To kill some time, I made a TikTok about how Minneapolis was a complete disappointment and how scary the light rail system was to me.  All of the attractions in the city were outside and it was twenty degrees outside so no one should vacation in the Twin Cities if it were not summer.  Apparently, being bitter sells because my video had over 4,500 views.  I checked out of the hotel, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and met with Dan, my guide for a three hour tour of the downtown area.  It was a really good tour and afterwards I went to visit my grandparents’ house.  I had arranged a tour with the current owners, Mark and Jill, and I asked my cousin, Kathy, to join me because she had grown up in the house.  Mark brightened up when I told him that my sole purpose in coming to Minneapolis was to see the house, which was true, and he spent three hours showing off the changes that he had made.  I think that he really enjoyed hearing Kathy and reminisce over our fond memories of the house.  It was a nice way to end my trip.


        Was it worth it?  I put a lot of time into planning this trip and a lot of emotional energy into anticipating my time on the road.  I understand why some people don’t travel because it is such a pain in the neck to do.  And while no single part of the trip, Vancouver or Amtrak or Minneapolis, was worth it, in the aggregate it was a really good vacation.  Besides, there are tangential benefits.  I have gained a lot of confidence by having a plan come through and have learned how to improvise when the plan fails me.  Also, being on a hard trip makes me appreciate my wife even more and our marriage has been strengthened because I have come to realize what a great life I have.  Finally, one of the reasons as to why I love doing these trips is because there is always the possibility that something could go wrong.  Who knew, for example, that my most vivid memory would be of the crazy homeless man who threw himself on his back and began to howl, all the while flailing his arms and legs.  I will never forget him.   

Addendum
• I love being a chameleon on these trips, meaning that I can fit in anywhere.  I can be at a five star hotel in Vancouver one night and then be sleeping on the top bunk in a compartment on an Amtrak train on the next night.
• I love it when the people that I meet have a bad first impression of me.  Because I always wear jeans and a sweatshirt, and when I as carrying my backpack on a walking trip, people underestimate me.  But when I mention that I did the Ironman eleven times, have written three books, taught for thirty five years, and have been to Egypt and South Africa; their opinion of me quickly changes.
• I like to tip well, especially for the guides who work so hard to make a tour interesting even though they have been to the same sites many times before.  (Byron in Vancouver, Dan in Minneapolis)
• Tracey and I have the time, money, and desire to do these trips.  Out of these three things, it will probably be our desire which leaves us first.
• I cannot help but feel that my time is limited to do these trips, that I should do as much as possible as soon as possible.  I have no basis for this feeling but am probably remembering the early deaths of Tod Knight and Mike Triebsch.
• “Watch while no one else is looking!”  This means that I am an older man whom nobody is going to notice so I can fade in the background, observe other people and places, then take notes so that I can journal about them later.
• I prefer to take the walking trips alone because they are so hard but I do get tired of people asking me why I am alone and where is my wife?  There is always a mixture of judgement and pity when other people ask me these questions
• I must continue to make new memories because, if I don’t, I give my old memories too much space in my head.

12th Avenue South

         The house at 12th Avenue South is important to me because it contains my very first memory.  While the rest of the family went to Aunt Jean’s wedding reception, I was packed away in the second floor bedroom because I was too young to go out.  I remember that the room was almost magical, which is why I remember it, because it was filled with wedding presents and one wall held fish netting that Jean had sown seashells into.  I slept on the floor that night but usually the Frazier kids sacked out in the basement together and I remember playing with Jean’s guitar until the strings broke off of it.

        My only strong memory of my grandmother is when we were alone in her kitchen and she made me a peanut butter and honey sandwich.  It was the best sandwich that I have ever had because Grandma made it just for me and, while I ate it, she gave me her full and undivided attention as she talked to me at the dining room table.  It made me feel special because I was a shy boy and I don’t think that I said a word during this whole interchange.  After I finished my lunch, Grandma put me in front of the television in the living room to watch “Bob Terry and His Pirates” while she cleaned up.  I don’t remember why we were at the house by ourselves but our brief time together makes for a nice memory for me.  My eyes tear up a little when I think back on my lunch with Grandma.

        There are so many memories of the house because we used to visit Grandma and Grandpa there about once a year when I was very young.  I remember the entryway into the living room because that is where the David Frazier family stood awkwardly, all five of them, as we met our cousins for the first time.  It felt a little forced because I think that our parents were expecting us to immediately embrace each other but instead we spent the first few minutes sizing each other up.  It was in that exact same entrance where my cousin, Kathy, mistook Chris Wagoner for me when we rode our bicycles through Minneapolis on our cross country trip in 1978.  It was in the living room where Grandpa kept his pipes on the table in front of the fireplace.  Kathy said that Grandpa had three telephones and a teletype machine in the basement so that he could work from home as a dispatcher for American Commercial Barge Lines.  When he needed a break from work he would grab a pipe from the stand and then go outside to pull some weeds while smoking it.

        The house on 12th Avenue is owned by a couple named Mark and Jill.  I had written them to ask if I could drop by to take some pictures and they not only agreed but they ended up giving us a three hour tour.  Kathy, who had grown up in the house, joined me for the visit.  It was so nice to know that the house had been bought by a responsible owner who has taken good care of it.  Mark has done a lot of remodeling, including an addition to the second floor and putting French doors in the dining room that open up to a new patio.  These changes make the place look a lot bigger and brighter than I remember it.  The sidewalk, where we had set our creations made out of the clay that we had dug up from the creek bed, had been replaced and all of the landscaping had been redone.  Only the basement had remained unchanged and Kathy pointed to the jars that Grandpa had nailed to the ceiling to have a convenient place to store his nuts and bolts.  Finally, Kathy was proud that Mark and Jill had taken some of her artwork that had been stored in the attic and had displayed it in the office and the living room.

Bordeaux Trip

         The reason why Tracey and I took a tour of the chateaus of Bordeaux was to prove to ourselves that there is more to France than Versailles and the Louvre.  There is plenty of culture, especially art and architecture, in the cities outside of Paris.  Besides, the U of L Travel Group always took the scenic route to enjoy the beautiful vineyards and other landscape features of Southwest France.  We drove by a lot of chateaus and sometimes we got off of the bus to visit them.  I am writing a little bit about each chateau in order to describe what makes them unique so that I can better remember the experience.

        The Chateau de Blois is located in the city center of Blois and its most remarkable feature is a monumental spiral staircase.  The massive Chateau de Chambord was constructed by Francis I in 1519 and is owned by the state to use as a tourist attraction..  The Chateau de Nitray, which contains a castle that was built during the Renaissance and whose owner works hands-on for the tourists, is where we had candle lit dinner.  The Chateau de Chenonceau spans over the Cher River and was the favorite residence of Catherine de Medici in the 16th century. The Chateau Royal de Cazeneuve includes a medieval castle and the owner met us at the gate to give us a quick lecture about the grounds and the buildings.  The Citadelle de Blaye includes a castle, fort, and parade grounds.  This is a lot of information about the chateaus but my thought was that even if we didn’t visit a single French country houses then the trip would have still been worth it because of all of the other things that we did.

        Examples of the good things that we did include our bus tour of Paris that ended with a dinner cruise on the Seine as we watched the sun set on the Eifle Tower.  We visited the cathedrals in Orleans and Bordeaux and, because these are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, they included three dimensional maps for Tracey to feel.  One of the many reasons as to why we do these trips is because we always have a good tour guide who will give my blind wife a running narrative of what the rest of us are looking at.  We saw the house where Joan of Arc stayed in Orleans and we explored Saint Emilion, a museum city that had a church carved into a mountain.  We drove on the Route de la Corniche, a street which was built into the cliffs overlooking the Gironde River.  It is where sea captains, returning from their voyages, built charming 19th century stone houses.

        It wasn’t always about the art and architecture of France.  On the two weekends when we were in the country we went to the Farmer’s Market in Libourne and Blois where venders sold fish and vegetables and craft goods.  Corinne and Laurent invited us into their “Maison de Mulatto” where they let us smell the perfume that they were selling and let Tracey feel all of their tchotchkes and other decorative objects.  It is called “Mulatto” because the mixed couple that runs the bed and breakfast is mixed.  We drove through Bordeaux on a motorcycle with a sidecar with Retro Tour.  The French pointed and laughed at us while we waved enthusiastically and yelled out “Bon Jour” to anyone who gave us any attention.  All the while we sang the theme song from “The Great Escape” to ourselves. 

        These trips aren’t for everyone and it was not a perfect vacation.  For example, the World Rugby Finals were being played in Paris so the traffic was horrible.  A trip from the airport to the hotel should have taken about twenty minutes but it cost us two hours.  Even then, however, my thought was that I was happy to people watch and look at the beautiful French buildings as we drove by them.  Overseas travel is horrible but it is the price that you pay for going to Europe.  That price was very high.  For example, on the return trip from Bordeaux, I got up at the equivalent of 9:30 pm on Saturday and didn’t go to bed until 11:30 on Sunday night.  I was up for 26 straight hours.  “Why do we do this to ourselves?”  I asked myself as I was so tired that I didn’t want to talk to anyone or doing anything except sleep in my own bed.

        Even when the trip was difficult, however, my thought was “who could want to be anywhere else but in France, sailing on a luxury ship, sitting on the upper deck to watch the vineyards roll by, and drinking wine with friends who like to travel.”  Tracey and I keep signing up for these trips because they are a guaranteed good time.  The staff on the ships treat us like royalty and Carmine has already arranged everything for us so that the only planning that we have to do is to show up at the airport on time.  Besides, we are traveling with an older crowd so we all look out for each other and protect each other.  This is important considering that Tracey is handicapped.  Also, it is very satisfying to travel with older people because they show us, through role modeling, that we can still have fun and go on adventures well into our 70s and 80s.  In fact, we enjoyed Bordeaux so much that we signed up to go to Burgandy in 2024 and we have been wait listed for the U of L trip to Vietnam.  

                        Quotes
• ”Those are for the troglobites.”  We saw windows built into the steep cliffs and our guide said that people dug homes into the hills
• “It is all natural,” Corinne explained to us as she let us smell the perfume that she was selling.  “That is what my friends said when they introduced me to weed in college.”
• “We are just so lucky,” is what I said to Tracey as we reviewed out trip by looking at the pictures that I had posted on Facebook.  “All we have to do is to relax and enjoy the experience.”
• I tried to pretend that I was French at the local cafe.  I pointed through the glass case and told the waitress, “Chocolat eclair.  Meringue. Merci Beaucoup.”  The waitress immediately saw through my ruse and laughed at my attempts to pass as French.   
• Patti didn’t tell the waiter that she wanted her hamburger well done.  She told him to “cremate it.”

Mike Triebsch

 The first time that I met Mike Triebsch was at “The Bristol” restaurant in Louisville.   Ann Feldkamp, Tracey’s friend since their Centre College days, had told my wife that she was “in like” with Mike and wanted us to meet him.  Shortly thereafter, Mike decided to propose to Ann but he wanted to make the moment special by combining it with another one of his passions, which was sailing.  The idea was to take Ann out on the water and raise the sail.  He had written on the sail, “will you marry me?”  But it was a windy day and he couldn’t get the sail up.  Not to be deterred,  Mike proposed to Ann on the dock.  We were at their wedding and it is gratifying to know that the two had just celebrated their thirtieth anniversary.  We have known each other for so long that Ann was Tracey’s maid of honor and they were both the godparents to our youngest daughter.  I always thought of Mike as being the big brother that I never had.

In retirement, Mike became a part time handyman.  He believed that you could do anything that you wanted if you had a lot of self confidence and a little common sense.  For example, Mike removed that load bearing walls from his basement on Cowling Avenue and installed new support beams that he had bought from the hardware store.  The idea was to dig up the old floor, cart out the dirt through the back door, and make more head room in the basement.  Mike said that he spent a sleepless night listening to every creak and groan that the house made, half expecting it to collapse of itself.  It didn’t.  The support beams held and Mike earned a lot of respect for completing this demanding project.  He was always doing things like building a picnic table for use in his back yard, or a ramp for his son, or a play set or my children when they were young.  Mike dove right in on these projects with gusto.

The last time that I saw Mike was at Adam’s graduation party.  He had surgery for a blood clot that morning and he couldn’t get up from his chair.  He had such a big personality that he wouldn’t let his health stand in on a good time.   He smiled through the pain and just seemed glad to be there.

The tragedy of Mike’s early death is that he was finally able to retire after a long and distinguished career.  He had worked at the Louisville Zoo, Louisville Public Media, Olmsted Parks Conservancy, and, for 23 years, he worked in Internal Communications for Toyota.  When his job moved to Dallas, Mike had to move with it and his last years at Toyota meant commuting from Louisville.  Further, Mike had earned his Masters from Bellarmine University, saw his son get his Masters from the University of Louisville, and saw his daughter become a sophomore at Centre College.  It is patently unfair that, just when it was his time to relax and enjoy an easeful retirement, Mike was plagued with the health problems that ultimately took his life.

Mike was proud of the fact that he was a native born Pennsylvanian.  In a casual conversation he would bring up Frank Lloyd Wriight’s “Falling Waters” or talk about how General Braddock was defeated at the Battle of the Monongahela in French and Indian war.  We went skiing together at Seven Springs, Pennsylvania because that is where he went when he was a teenager.  He wasn’t a very good skier when he was young but preferred to sneak in some whiskey and drink on the slopes.  More than anything, however, Mike loved his Pittsburgh Steelers.  I had never been to an NFL game and I decided that I wanted to share the experience with Mike so, two years ago, we drove to Cincinnati to see the Bengals play the Steelers.  In fact, in my last text to Mike, I had written “Go Steelers, Beat the Browns!”  He gave me a “thumbs up” emoji on that one.  

His other interests included hunting, fishing, skiing, and Rock and Roll music.  He was so passionate about hunting that he travelled for over twenty hours to get to Nova Scotia to fulfill his life long dream in of shooting a moose.  It was such a long and desperate trip that David Feldkamp, his brother in law, exclaimed, “You must have hated that moose!”  Mike took me fishing in the back woods of Kentucky one weekend, but we were skunked in that we didn’t catch a single fish.  He said that it was alright because he had been fishing a couple of months before.  He shared a makeshift cabin with a friend.  Arriving late in the evening, he saw that his cabin mate had broken into his foot locker and stolen his bottle of whiskey.  The guy was sitting on the floor, drunk as a monkey, when Mike walked in on him.  Rather than get angry at the theft, like most people would have done, Mike sat down and shared whatever was left in the bottle.  The lesson is that he refused to let a little thing like stolen whiskey get in the way of a good time.  

In conclusion, the image that I like to have of Mike in retirement was of him and his dog, Washburn, driving around the neighborhood to go to the hardware store.  One time, when he saw me sitting in front of my condo building, he stopped to say hello.  Both man and dog looked so happy just to be out and about.  That is the kind of guy that Mike was; full of personality and the kind of guy with whom you would like to share a beer with.  And, almost as if it were scripted, the Steelers defeated their hated rivals, the Raiders, the Sunday following his death.

Four Stages of Retirement

 I heard a TED Talk by Dr. Riley Moynes about “The Four Stages of Retirement” and it really hit home because I can identify with a lot of what the doctor was telling me.  My problem with the four stages is that it sounds like they are complete and separate stages but I think that they overlap quite a bit.  In spite of that, the four stages inspired me to write my thoughts, and check in with myself, on how I am doing since I left the working world.  

My “Vacation” stage of retirement began two years ago when Tracey and I sailed up the Danube River with the U of L Travel Group.  We have taken several trips since then, to places as disparate as Germany, France, Egypt, Israel, and Spain.  Tracey retired a year before I did and, now that we have all of the time in the world and the means to do whatever we want, we decided that we want to travel.  We are planning to visit Southeast Asia, Ireland, and France in the next year and a half.   

One tangential benefit is that we have made several friends from the U of L Travel Group and have even hosted parties for them.  This is important because when I lost my job I also lost all of my friends where I used to work.  They dropped me like a hot potato with spiders on it.  Literally, I didn’t receive a call or a text or an email from anyone from where I used to work.  I didn’t take offense because I knew that once I was out of sight then my old friends would forget about me.  So now I depend on the U of L Travel Group for my social life.  Research suggests that retirement brings a feeling of loneliness and isolation but Tracey and I have found a new tribe to belong to and we can build on our new friendships.

My “Lost and Loss” stage began when I stepped back from being a traditional history teacher to becoming the permanent substitute teacher.  Eventually, I had to give up on my job as a substitute for several reasons.  First of all, I was afraid of falling asleep in front of the kids.  Although this would have been bad, an even worse fear was that I would pee myself in class because I would sometimes work three to four hours without a break.  This scenario never happened because I learned to limit my intake of fluids before the school day began.  My final reason for giving up my job as a substitute was that I had run out of things to do to fill the time.  More and more, I found myself playing games on my iPad and I began to lose respect for myself.  It was time to leave the working world.

Another aspect of the “Lost and Loss” stage was when I lost my career, and self image, as an athlete.  I ran my last half marathon two years ago.  The reason as to why I had to stop running was because whenever I exerted myself, it felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest.  The palpitations began within the first two blocks of the thirteen mile race and it took me about four hours to finish.  It was pure misery and I decided that my racing days are over.  Don’t get me wrong; I had a good career as an athlete, participating in eleven Ironman competitions and over twenty half marathons and felt lucky to walk away unscathed.

Barbara Walters was once asked what it was like to grow old and she replied that “you have to get used to a sense of loss.”  She meant that as you get older you will lose family, friends, and even some of your physical abilities.  I know what she meant because in the last three years my two best friends (Tod Knight and Mike Triebsch) and my sister (Cheryl Burnett) have died.  In sum, I have lost my career, my best friends, and my identity as an athlete.  The “Lost and Loss” stage has been tough but I can take solace in the fact that other people my age are going through the exact same feelings during this stage of life.  

My “Trial and Error” stage began two years ago when I was fired from being the permanent substitute to becoming a substitute on a per diem basis.  I reinvented myself by reading the Bible, writing three books, and reading fiction, something that I would have regarded as a waste of time before I retired.  But, suddenly, I had the time to waste.  I gave up the Bible after working my way through most of the Old Testament because it was repetitive and boring and I wasn’t getting anything out of it.  I don’t write books anymore because no one will read them, so what would be the point, but still keep up a journal and a blog.  I remain an avid reader, however, and subscribe to three newspapers and read a lot of books.  Just because I am retired doesn’t mean that I have to stop learning and I still enjoy the written word.

The “Trial and Error” stage was difficult for my because I failed to develop a  began “Plan B” in my career choice.  IfI had to do it all over again I would have gone back to school to become a counselor or would have picked up a side job to have something to fall back upon.  Instead, I chose a career that gave me no room for advancement or personal growth.  When the principal called me into her office to tell me that the school could no longer afford to keep me around as a permanent substitute, I knew that I was too young to retire but too old to start all over again.  I had to start all over from scratch and am still trying to figure out how to fill the days and nights in retirement.


During the “Rewire and Reinvent” stage, retired people often describe themselves as feeling useless or worthless.  I understand the sentiment but I don’t feel that way.  The thing to do is to avoid the trap of isolationism and depression that often comes with retirement.  Many people find purpose by working part time or volunteering but I don’t want to do that for the same reason as to why I didn’t switch carriers when teaching didn’t pan out; I couldn’t find anything else that I wanted to do.  For now I can satisfy myself with my daily trips to the gym.  These trips keep me socially active and, tangentially, keep me in shape for our next river cruise.  My job is to keep myself up for the long term so that I can be ready for whatever comes next, whether that means grandchildren, buying a dog, or volunteering.

I could not have lived like this ten years ago, just in the same way that I could not do the hard years in my present frame of mind.  It used to be that every minute of every day was scheduled but now I have become used to having ambiguity in my day.  My typical day is to get up early to read and write.  Next, I drive to the gym at 5:00 am to swim for an hour and a half.  This strenuous exercise wipes me so I can calm down, relax, and enjoy the rest of my day.  I’ll drive back to the condo, eat and nap and read the newspaper, and prepare myself for my second work out for the day.  The Louisville Zoo is about a six mile round trip and, when I walk it, the trip takes me about two and a half hours.  That means that four hours of every day is made up of exercise.  Tracey and I go out to eat and then we watch television and that is about it.  But we are both happy.

My “Rewire and Reinvent” stage will be successful if I can suppress my controlling personality and stop worrying about what other people think of me.  I am lucky in that I still have my health and my mind is still sharp.  Where I used to be driven and had to fill each minute of every day with being productive, I can now lose myself in this limbo that I have created for myself.  I have no purpose or direction and I am learning to be fine with that way of life.  Being driven and living a life full of stress almost gave me a heart attack so now I can satisfy myself with taking care of myself and my wife.  My only job is to relax and enjoy my life for as long as the good Lord allows me to live.  Hopefully I will have another 30 years

In conclusion, I have learned to accept my new life and to separate myself from what I like to call “The Hard Years.”  These years were when the kids were young and needy, when we had to put my mother into the nursing home against her will, and when I was going through the process of being fired from a job that I enjoyed.

Finally, I read an article that stated that once retirees get to be 70 then they are over talking about the end of their careers and death.  Old people simply want to enjoy their remaining time on this earth.  I think that Mel Brooks put it the best when he was asked in a recent interview how he spends his time.  Brooks is in his nineties and his succinct reply was “I still enjoy eggs and toast for breakfast and roast beef for dinner.”  That’s it.  That was all that it took to make Mel Brooks happy.  The lesson to be learned from his response is that we don’t need a lot of things in retirement and our attitude should be to appreciate the simple act of living.  And maybe to share our joy with a friend or two.