Odyssey 2000 Reports

By Larry and Joan Dolinski

THAILAND & MALAYSIA

In one hotel a staff of twenty to thirty hotel employees stationed themselves along the grand stairway, each wishing us a good meal. Also there were women in native costumes throwing a confetti-like substance at us, smiling, greeting, and making us feel like royalty.

Malaysia was yet one more exceedingly friendly country in the same spirit as Vietnam, China, and Thailand.

The citizens continue to greet us all along the routes in all the usual ways...and, as has been our consistent joy, the children stole the show with their excitement and spontaneity. The police were particularly attentive and watched over our safety every day while in Malaysia.

As we mentioned recently, it was our intention to bicycle into Singapore and fly home from there to attend to Dad's health issues. As it happens we were getting anxious about Dad having no family members present on a continuous basis and so we decided to leave for home three days before our scheduled arrival in Singapore. We were able to overcome some very challenging logistics and get ourselves from Kuantan, Malaysia to Kuala Lumpur, and then on to Los Angeles. Upon landing at Los Angeles we lucked out with a Southwest Airline flight leaving two hours after our arrival with available seats. The reason for our good luck was that it was Thanksgiving day, the one day when there is relatively low demand for air travel.

So we are at this moment on the very last leg of a journey that we will long remember and we return home to engage the challenges that await us.

We hope that our Odyssey 2000 updates were informative and pleasing to our readers and that somehow they conveyed images of an unusual undertaking that were enjoyed by all.

We are grateful to have received so many e-mail notes from family and friends throughout the year. It felt good to be connected to home. Now that we are back, the most convenient e-mail address to use to contact us is at ldolinsky@bentley.edu.

The two of us wish all of you a good and healthy holiday season...with our blessings.