Southeast Asia, Here We Come!!

The countdown is on for our trip to Southeast Asia!  Our family room is full of books about Vietnam and Cambodia, the kitchen table has check lists full of things to do and pack in the next few days, and our bathroom is full of piles of items to carefully organize into one very small suitcase.  Throughout the last few months we have made multiple trips to the doctors to get the appropriate shots and medications and our Visas are all securely pasted into our Passports ready to take us on a new adventure.

Many people have asked us why we have chosen Vietnam as our next destination.  It’s not like we have a special heritage or extraordinary appreciation of the food or culture.  It really comes down to our curiosity about wanting to learn and experience a culture that is very different than the United States and other Western cultures.  We do have a little history with Vietnam; Brad’s father was a rescue helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War, my Aunt Barbara made several trips to Vietnam after the war to work for peace in the region, and Amanda loved visiting Vietnam while she was on “Semester at Sea”.  Other than hearing about those three’s experiences, we are going into this trip with a pretty blank slate and are ready to learn, absorb, experience everything Vietnam has to offer (except for maybe some of the “Bizarre Foods” that Andrew Zimmern eats on the Travel Channel like snake blood or shredded pig’s ear!)

If you would like to learn about Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia along with us, you can follow our blog.  We will do our best to inform and entertain you about the experiences we encounter on our two week trip.  Brad will undoubtedly take hundreds of pictures and I will try to weed through a few of the very best each day and publish them on the blog.  You can bookmark or click on this link  https://lisablackwell.wordpress.com/  and you will be able to read our blog.

You can also click on the “Follow” link below on the right and you will get an email each time we update our blog.  Of course, many of you know how much we love Facebook and Twitter so we will make sure to post our updates on Facebook and Twitter as well.

If you have been to this region and have any travel tips, please send them to us.  You can make a comment on the blog or let us know via Facebook or email.  We would love to hear from you!

P.S.  Thanks to my tutor, Chris Dittmore, for taking time out of his busy schedule  to help me set up this blog on WordPress.  He became a Master Blogger while he and his friend Matt Swinnerton cycled across America this summer!