Australia!

After our adventures in halong bay, Mark, Rich, Tony, and Mez headed off to the Hanoi airport for a  stultifying 72 hours of travel back to new York. I hear that the end of their flight was plagued by more delays that prevented them from landing and diverted them to Canada, but it sounds like they've all made it back safe and sound.

Meanwhile, Aseem headed off to India while Alex, Pramod, and I headed off to the Gold Coast of Australia by way of Kuala Lumpur. Our arrival in Australia can be described as nothing less than blissful. It was in the mid 60s. There was no humidity. Everything was in English! And best of all, we could drink the tap water! Before even clearing customs (which is quite intense and includes food-sniffing dogs) we headed off to the bathroom to brush our teeth and take a good long swig of modern convenience.

We stayed in Surfers Paradise, which has two main attractions: the beach and clubbing. In other words it was perfect, since our main goal was to rest up after quite a bit of traveling. Our first, second, and third days were spent lounging on the beach, watching movies, exploring Australian grocery stores, and generally enjoying being in a thoroughly developed country with a climate much like that of southern California.