Travel with Art

San Diego has lived up to its reputation for wonderful weather. Over the 8 days I spent here 6 of them were all sunny, 1 a bit overcast and chilly in the morning but sunny in the afternoon, and the last had some rain in the morning but then turned to slightly cloudy but lots of sun. This city is spread out but has a great mass transit system (busses, trolleys, trains) to get you around. I stayed in Downtown near the Gaslamp Quarter with its easy access to the shipping and cruiseline piers, great restaurants and pubs and shopping. I explored there but also went quite a bit further a field, as well as out on boat tours of the North and South bays. The major attraction, Seaworld, is on a set of islands in a secluded bay area just off of Oldtown, and just off of the beautiful ocean boardwalk that starts at Mission Beach and carries on to Pacific Beach. Outwards from there and I explored La Jolla. Closer to Downtown is the huge Balboa Park that has its own free trolley to get people ar...

I had a few great days in San Diego prior to boarding the Celebrity Century for the cruise to Hawai'i and back to San Diego. During that time I wandered the Gaslamp Quarter and spent time with Neil, Gayle and Abigayle who were luxuriating at the Paradise Point Resort and actively visiting the local attractions like Seaworld. We hung out together, had dinner a couple of times and headed out to Mission Beach Boardwalk. Great times - but the ship called... Here are the photos from San Diego: The Celebrity Century is one of the smaller in the Celebrity fleet with 1,800 passengers. The pools were smaller but loads of deck chairs around it and on the upper deck. As for other ships I had use of a fully equipped gym (and I actually used it a fair bit); as well as many bars and of course the casino (which I did not use at all). Our sub-group was 35 strong but it seem to split right away into 2 camps. Of well, best not to push if some people are more clique'ish. It our main g...

So normally I would only start my travel blog after I had visited places I wanted to see and had things to share about family, friends, other people and things I had done or seen. BUUUTTTT this had been such a journey that I am posting early at the start of travels for the 2013 summer time. Mom and I headed out on Thursday 11:00 from Phuket to go to Bangkok to stay overnight at the Novotel Airport hotel to have an easy time to get to Mom's 8:25 Friday flight. So far so good. We got to the airport checkin counter at 6:10 on Friday but the ANA people could not find the reservation. over an hour later it was discovered that Air Canada had changed the flights from ANA to United and emailed the WRONG email address so we were never informed. A call to Ivan to let him know and to see what he could find out on his end. And I finally got a hold of the booking Travel Agent, Josh, to whom I talked for an hour as he had Air Canada and Air Alaska on the other end to re-book Mom. Back to the ...

Taj Mahal, Agra (from across the river) For a slideshow of my photos scroll to the bottom of this entry (you can click on the slideshow there to open in Picasa for a larger sized view) Road to Udaipur 30 minutes to descend from the mountains and back on to main highways to head to Udaipur. The temperature seems to have warmed up a bit from the previous chill - and that is quite nice. Our route continued for the most part as the drive into Mt Abu. Then we started to head into and through other mountain ranges that rose from the flats that also became more noticeably farmland. Udaipur itself is set nestled into several hills built around three lakes and dominated by the hill containing the massive City Palace. Udaipur After checking into the fort like Ramada Resort we headed out with our driver for our first views of Udaipur.  And then came the central streets… I should actually say alleys as it was unbelievable how our driver was able to get through these streets ...

I will be covering my tour of India in 2 parts. Please enjoy! Part 1 - A: Delhi | B: Mandawa | C: Bikaner | D: Jaisalmer | E: Jodhpur | F: Mt Abu Part 2 - G: Udaipur | H: Pushkar | I: Jaipur | J: Agra | K: Varanasi | A: Delhi For a slideshow of my photos scroll to the bottom of this entry (you can click on the slideshow there to open in Picasa for a larger sized view) Delhi Air India is a pretty basic service with nothing to recommend its business class except for having front of the plane and larger seats. Service was mostly one of ignorance!  Anyway we did have wheelchair assist for Mom so were able to bypass the enormous immigrations queues and that was worth a great deal. Our driver and a tour company rep were waiting for us on arrival and then it was into Delhi traffic to go to the tour office to settle the balance and get the hotel and travel vouchers for the remainder of our tour. First hotel was Le Meridien (part of the Starwoods Group) and ful...

6 days. Great weather. Full fledged resort. Large swimming pools. Private beach. We had a very nice time in Langkawi, Malaysia staying at the Westin Resort. As indicated in my 2013 itinerary I was supposed to be racing on Freewind. Unfortunately she experienced difficulties on the attempt to get her from Phuket to Langkawi so did not make it. Mom and I went anyway and used it to see more of the island that I had previously and simply rested as tourists.  A bit of shopping (especially with the very cheap booze prices). A day cruise around several Langkawi islands with a stop at a private beach for BBQ and swimming. Lazing and reading at the pools and out on the private beach. A rental car and drive around the island to the wonderful Bird Paradise, some of the waterfalls, and other more touristy beach towns. We felt for the sailors as the weather for us was perfect (almost no winds, hot and sunny) - which of course was not great for them. A slideshow for your amusement: ...

Mom and I headed to Bangkok on December 23 to spend Christmas there with several friends from Phuket: Steve Marshall, Steve's son Chris and Chris' girlfriend Stacy, John Hassall and Uie, John Young, Russel Martin, and Jude and Steve. We all stayed near or on Sukhumvit Soi 11 but in a few different hotels. Still, with the sky train, it was easy to gather - as we did over the next 3 days. First up was drinks at an Irish Bar as the people started to arrive. The next day Mom went out with Steve to do a bit of shopping and I headed to the Indian Embassy to collect my passport with the visa for my travel in January to India. Then Christmas Eve Dinner at the wonderful Italian restaurant, Lemoncello. Christmas Day we headed over to the Intercontinental Hotel for a multi-hour buffet dinner (some of use took the free-flowing champagne and wine package; a few were not imbibing). Boxing Day we headed out to the Chao Pray river and boarded a longtail boat to traverse sections of the river...