So far, I have traveled to 59 countries on all six inhabited continents. In some countries, I feel very much at home. In some, I feel like I am on another planet.
Panama is among the most familiar and easiest to be in. The plugs are just as in the US. No adapters. There is local currency, but US dollars work everywhere. The countryside is tropical. It seems very much like the Everglades and other tropical parts of Florida, but without rednecks and their ridiculous Trump and Rebel flags.
Also, there is a Mormon Temple near the canal:
And a cemetery that has many US military graves:
On my second day here in Panama, I bought a bike and rode up to the first lock of the Panama Canal.
Traffic laws seem much like the US. And the cars are left drive like the US. Of course, the official language of Panama is Spanish, but I can speak a little Spanish and understand a lot from so much Spanish culture in the US.
The Contrast
When I first went to China in the 1990s, I really knew I was in a foreign country and culture. I took a train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou. It had a uniformed Chinese Communist crew. Two hours later I was in the smoggiest place I had ever seen. Brown haze everywhere.
A van took us from the train station to the hotel. The driver hit a bicyclist and kept going. The bicyclist was supposed to get out of the way of the van. There is no tradition of chivalry I would later learn riding in Beijing, Shanghai and near the Great Wall.
So Panama is just like home--if it rained every day.
