marmot

As of Nov 2011:

I'm a 59 year old gringo (U.S.) with a BS in biology who retired from U.S. Federal law enforcement (National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management) after 28 years service which included 3 years in the military during Vietnam. I saved a bit of money and retired ASAP; I was 52. As I was recently divorced from a 21 year marriage, I left my 2 German Shepherds with friends and traveled to 16 third world countries over 3 years (Central & South America, China, Southeast Asia) and met my wife (Tippaya, nickname Pop) in Bangkok the 3rd day I was there. She's a wonderful young woman with a BS in computer engineering and an MS in information technology. We were together full time for several months, her family allowed me to stay in their house with her (!), and she gradually cut back on her working hours at CAT Telecom until we started traveling full time and she quit work (a big step for a Thai). We applied for her marriage visa to the U.S. after 4 months together, and for the next 11 1/2 months we traveled through Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia while waiting for the damned U.S. Govt (idiots generally-not me though-and I know cause I worked for them). Great time. Now we have arrived in the U.S., married, picked up my dogs, and she can get her U.S. citizenship in around 3 more months. We took my old German Shepherd back to Thailand for 6 months last year; great to snorkle over a coral reef while your dog swims circles around you! My dogs have now died of old age (12 years and 14+years old), and we will head back to the U.S. for Tippaya's accelerated BS in nursing in December 2012. She may never use it, but will have it for a back-up career when I kick the bucket at age 95. So for now its life all over the world, including Thailand, and get another German Shepherd (we miss my dogs terribly) to settle down with us for a few years in several different spots in the tropics.

It's now Nov 2011, and we are back in Asia for 14 months. Plan to see more of Thailand + Vietnam, Nepal, China, Mongolia, and hopefully Madagascar.