It is not an every day occurrence that, a week before your scheduled departure, the country where you plan to spend the first week of your vacation has a military coup. It was, therefore, with a bit of trepidation that I boarded the plane at DIA for my flights to Los Angeles, connecting to Taipei (Taiwan) and the final flight to Bangkok, Thailand.

We landed at the new Bangkok airport, just opened the previous day. Had I expected tanks and uniformed military with drawn rifles, I was definitely disappointed - or is it relieved? While a coup had taken place a little over a week ago, there is virtually no sign of it in the streets of Bangkok: the tuk tuks are still polluting the air, the traffic is still at a standstill during rush hour and the shops are doing, it seems, their normal business. So far so good.

Over the next two-and-a-half months, I will be sending you, I hope on a weekly basis, a report of this trip. Allow me in this first segment to give you an idea of what will be happening, at least a broad outline. I stayed in Bangkok for two days, to get over jet-lag and then flew to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand (for all you travelers: The 70-minute flight here cost $37.50!).

Peter Franke, the well-known, long-time Vail resident and ex-chef at Pepi's Restaurant, joined me here yesterday, and we will be traveling together for about a month. We will ride elephants, see "long-neck" people, visit "Watts" (temples), before taking the bus to Chiang Rai and to the border crossing at Chiang Khong and into Laos at Houayxay. This where the real trip begins.

It is our goal to float down the Mekong River (of Vietnam repute) all the way through Laos and Cambodia into Vietnam and the Sea of China. We will spend time in LuangPrabang (this whole Laotian city being a World Heritage site), Vientiane, the capital of Laos and see the waterfalls at the Cambodian border. We plan to visit the only freshwater dolphins in the world in Cambodia, visit Phnom Penh and hopefully make it all the way to Ho Chi Min City (Saigon). However, if it turns out that there is too much to see on this float and the various side trips we will be making, we might just make it halfway and come back for the second half next year.

This is not a scheduled "tour." We will be floating on river barges, tourist boats and who knows what. We might even get stuck for shorter or longer periods of time before securing a ride for the next segment. As a good friend of mine said: "This is not a vacation, it is an adventure."

Along with the weekly write-up, I will be sending some photos and hopefully some insight into the things we will be seeing along the way.

I hope that you will enjoy this over the next months and should you have any comments (constructive ones are definitely preferred), please send them to lpols@aol.com.

Vail, Colorado