I didn't actually fall off the face of the earth...

...I'm just lazy and inconsistent about keeping up with blogs. So here's my attempt to catch up.

After leaving the delta we flew commercial from Rach Gia to Ho Chi Minh City. HCM is a freaking cool place. It's huge and has everything you could ever ask for. Initially we were going to stay the night there at the Sofitel which I was very excited about but that plan fell through. We ended up only having a few hours of layover before we flew to DaNang, so we went to the most fabulous restaurant ever. It was a Brazillian restaurant that was just incredible. MMMmmm, big skewers of the finest quality meat and pineapples and deep fried bananas... oh I'm salivating right now. This is Bret and I outside the restaurant.


Well my birthday was super duper incredible. My team leader planned out this awesome party for me. We went to the New Phong Doong Club in DaNang. It was an impressively trendy club. The table was covered in beer and a wonderful cake. Vietnam doesn't do much in the way of baked goods except for a bread called "Bhang Mi" which is pronounced Bang Me...hehehehe. So the cake was a wonderful treat. The bar tenders were so awesome, everytime I took a drink of my glass of beer, they immediately filled it to the top again. They even had a techno happy birthday song for me. It was very cool. I think it may have repaired all of the crappy birthday memories from last year. This picture is just a cool statue in DaNang.

At the end of our stay in DaNang, we had a repatriation ceremony for the seven MIAs that our teams were able to find. It was really beautiful. On the DaNang flightline we gave full honors to each one. Of course the remains are very small so they fit in a box about twice the size of a shoe box. Each small box was placed in a casket and then was covered in an American flag. Each flag draped casket was then loaded onto the C-130 while all the American's saluted the fallen. It was just like the ceremony we do for those killed now. It was such an honor to be a part of all this. I'll try to get the pictures of our ceremony to post on here.

After Da Nang, we loaded up onto the C-130 and headed to Pattaya Beach Thailand. Originally, we were supposed to be out of Pattaya in no more than 24 hours... 5 days later we finally managed to find a way out. It was great to be there this time. This is the first glorious Guinness that I had.

Not only was there beer in Pattaya, but we showed up for Songkran which is the big celebration that marks the beginning of the rainy season in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. The way they celebrate is by having a massive, week long water fight in every public place. The moment you step onto a sidewalk or get into a taxi bus, you're immediately fair game for being slammed with water. I bought a water cannon which is actually illegal in Thailand but I managed to keep mine hidden from the Thai Fun Police. Annother part of Songkran is dumping baby powder or flour on people and vehicles. I have no idea what the significance of that is, but it sure was fun. Here's pics of Jayme, Bret, my new favorite Canadian - Frank, and myself.


So now I'm on my way home to Colorado. I'm actually sitting in the USO at LAX for my 5 hour layover. I hate air travel so much but it's certainly made better by free pizza, soda and cookies. My time in Hawaii was relaxing but I'm still so glad to be finally going home - yippeee!!