Well it has been 100 days since we began our trip. To say it has been a great adventure would be an under statement.  For those who are wondering how we are getting along, I think their have only been 3 or 4 days when we haven’t seen eye to eye.Pretty good for being together 24/7 except when Cathi got her hair cut (twice) and I went to the Cricket World Championship match. In fact, just yesterday we talked about how we have really hit our stride in moving from country to country, site to site, airport to airport and meal to meal. Every day brings some adventure,. Simple things like where to eat, doing laundry, or finding and using an ATM can be exciting. Obviously the language at times is a little challenging since we have been in Asia, although Cathi had a hard time understanding the English in N Z and Australia, but overall we have managed just fine. Cathi has been doing most of the research and figuring out what to see, and I get us there. Since leaving our camper vans, we have been staying in hotels that we would rate as good, very good and great. Especially for the prices. We are getting great value using Booking.Com. The food has been wonderful everywhere. We are especially enjoying the local fare in the street markets eating with the locals. Even during our trips in the jungle, the food has been fresh and high quality.

So far we have traveled by plane, train, boat, car, bus, scooter, taxi, subway, bike, and a lot on foot. We are getting better using public transportation in each city as we go.(no way would I drive in Bali,it’s crazy.) Most cities have Hop on Hop off bus tours that we have used to get a general feel of where things and sites are. From there we head off on our own to do some in depth exploring and site seeing.

The people have been really great, especially in Indonesia and Malaysia. Because of the language, we all work mutually hard to communicate our thoughts and words. We have made a number of “friends” along the way, from the college student in Jakarta we met at the mosque who became our personal tour guide, to Sarah – who we met in Borneo, but lives in Singapore. She is a married ,mother of two, executive with Reuters. We spent an evening on the Singapore riverfront having cocktails and conversation. On the bus from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, we met Faridah, a career woman, devout Muslim, married mother who has traveled extensively and shared with us her perspective of her religion and customs. Faridah, along with her husband and children, made their pilgrimage to Mecca after her daughter’s successful recovery from an operation to remove an invasive facial tumor. We were impressed with our Komodo guide, Kamil. He was intuitive, intelligent, detailed. We urged him to acknowledge his potential and start his own business. Cathi bonded with Wati, a warm,sweet young woman who greeted us in PangkolinBun . Wati took her own necklace off and put it on Cathi. And of course, the wonderful employees of the Ramada Encore Bali Hotel!  They drew a caricature of Cathi and I on a card and all the employees signed it. It was waiting for us as we checked out of the hotel at 5:30 am inorder to catch a flight. Very touching.
What has been the best so far? We can’t answer that question! Each experience has been unique and wonderful in it’s own special way.
I have to comment on the haggling! It’s accepted and prominent in Indonesia and Malaysia – primarily with taxi drivers and street stall vendors. As many of you would expect, this is right up my alley! My old partner, Phil, would say I just did it for sport.
I have always thought the best negotiating tool is being willing to walk away if you don’t get the price you want. In the markets the price can come down 50%. I like to bargain the taxi fares. There are many,many cabs and once I have a general idea of the value of the ride, I can really go back and forth. I also find it interesting and enjoyable talking to the drivers.

We are excited that Zach is going to meet us in Hong Kong on May 27 and travel to China with us. He is graduating from U of W with an MBA this coming Saturday. We are also looking forward to meeting Alexa and Matt in Turkey in September! It’s going to be a benefit for us to be with our children who both have such strong travel skills.
Although it goes without saying we miss all our friends and family dearly, we wouldn’t trade this opportunity to see the world for anything! We will come home better people than when we left. We hope you keep following us on and sending messages via ZWT.
We treasure your ZWT messages, emails, WhatsAp texts!
We want to thank Diana Farrell Taxel,our too-good-to-be-true niece,for setting up ZWT to begin with and our fabulous friend, John Robinson, who in his NOT so spare time is posting all the photos. We know it’s a lot of time-consuming work.
We can’t thank Alexa,our special special daughter, enough for managing our affairs and personal business while we are on this journey.
Finally, we hope to inspire some of you to consider meeting us along the way in the months to come!
263 days of ZWT to go!
Love to all,
Bobby and Cathi