Plan B - Traveling the World

The End

2009-09-27T18:19:00.008-04:00

“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” - Pat Conroy

So this chapter has come to an end. In short, the trip was my dream of six years fulfilled. Through the ups and downs, victories and injuries, it was incredible. I have changed in ways I don't yet fully know and I have learned and seen things that only a few people can understand. I will miss being understood by people doing something similar to me, meeting people from all over the world and being able to talk about our experiences tubing in Vang Vien, the salt flats in Bolivia, riding camels in Egypt, or hiking that Franz Joseph glacier in New Zealand. Talking about that amazing restaurant or hostel or experience. On average most of the people I encountered were traveling for about six months, around my age, and just living their life to travel and see everything. Hostels are wonderful places. All you do is meet people from all over the world that are just like you, traveling with a backpack just trying to see the world and have a great time all the while doing it on a budget. Traveling alone was a challenge but also a wonderful thing for me. You are forced to reach out and meet people, learning about all them and spending hours with people you only met that day. Most hostels in South America were equipped with bars, internet, kitchens, tv rooms, and a very friendly environment. Although traveling alone is not something I had planned or really wanted to do I was grateful I did it.

I will miss my backpack and not having to think about what to wear that day and simple life free of possessions, cell phones (the iPhone, really?!?!), and anything material. I will miss waking up in a new city full of possibilities, great people to meet, new places to see, and new food to try. It was magical, the life of a backpacker, my life on the road. My list of places to see is longer then the list when I left, there is so much of the world left to see and I want to see it all. Next on the list is South Africa and Central America.

To answer the question on everyone's mind- Favorite country? Obviously I went to too many countries (29 countries in 370 days) to pick an absolute favorite so here are the tops. I loved Argentina: the culture, the people, the food and wine, the beauty, and the nightlife. Argentina has it all and they do it quite well. Other favorites were countries that I was surprised by - the generosity of the people, the untouched beauty of the landscape, the culture still evident in even the bustiest of cities. Cambodia had the majestic Angkor Wat Temples and to the beautiful beaches. Laos had the innocent curiosity of the people, that amazing three day trek to the small villages surrounding Luang Probang, and then the madness of tubing in Vang Vien. The kindness of the people of Jordan dissolved all stereotypes and seeing Petra, the city built into the mountain, and floating in the Dead Sea. Every turn of the road in New Zealand brought another breath taking view and the thrill of a glacier climbing at Franz Joseph. Bolivia provided me with the athletic achievement of hiking to Machu Picchu, climbing a 6,088 meter mountain on Huyana Potosi and wonderment of those incredible salt flats.

At this time I have been home about two months. It hasn't been as hard as I though it would be to assimilate back into this world. While cell phones still sit on tables during dinner and material focuses are everywhere I think I had prepared myself for that. While home I have been able to catch up with friends (many of which were loyal followers of this blog, thank you for that), spend time with family and my dog, Cheyenne, job search, and I created and finished six, count them, six photo albums. A couple weeks ago I got a job up in San Francisco and will be moving up there at the beginning of October to start life over again. I am back in online advertising working for an ad agency up in SF working on the Virgin America account. I am excited about it and do think it will be a good fit for me. It will be different this time and it will be time to come up with another dream. I will always be a traveler and the travel bug will never be gone, but I think I am OK with that. I could not be more grateful for my experiences and the support my parents and friends provided me during my travels. Yes there were hardships, sometimes I was homesick during the holidays or lonely while traveling alone but overall it was wonderful and I couldn't have asked for anything more. I wouldn't have done it any other way. I am so lucky and truly blessed. It was the best of times.

The End.

The Home Stretch

2009-09-25T17:51:00.000-04:00

During the last month of the trip I think I was always grieving that it was coming to an end. The trip had been my dream - I lived it and now it was almost over. For the final stretch I went down to the biggest city in Brazil of São Paulo to see a friend, Flavio, that I had met while in Chile. I had heard that São Paulo was just a big city and wasn't really worth the visit, but since I had a local to show me around I enjoyed my time there. São Paulo is the most imortaint financial center in South America and is the most populous city in the southern hemisphere. Flavio and I checked out a local market in one of the city squares where I bought a few gifts to take home. We also went around to see some of the city sights- Bandeirantes monument and the Metropolitan Sé Cathedral- and we went to a traditional Churrasio place, definitely locals only. Now São Paulo is a huge party city filled with people from all over the world. We went out with some of Flavio's friends to a bar/club on a Sunday night at 6pm and it was so packed you could hardly move.I then headed down south to Florinopolis to get in some more beach time before I headed home (granted home is gorgeous San Diego). Again I stayed at a wonderful hostel right near the beach with another amazing dog. I met a couple girls from Texas who I joined in sandboarding that day and going to one of the local beaches. We met a dog while sandboarding and he followed us around for the remainder of the day. The next day a bunch of people from the hostel rented a van and set out to a remote beach for a nice hike to the beach then a great fish lunch on the water. After three days in Florinpolis it was all over... I ended my year adventure by flying out of Rio de Janiero.

Isla of Paradise

2009-09-20T16:48:00.000-04:00

One place I had heard all about was Isla Grande. There are two hostels right on the beach that everyone stays at and they are a taste of paradise. Each hostel is always packed with backpackers and each contain BBQ dinners, a bar, dance floor, and live band every night. One thing to know about Brazil is their pluming is very old and no paper products can be flushed. Signs are posted everywhere, but apparently the people staying in our dorm room before us didn't obey. I had met up with the Swedish girls on the Isla and after moving into our room we went downstairs to grab our fresh fish BBQ. While we were eating our toilet overflowed and soaked all the Swedish girls clothes (thankfully my area was spared from the flood). I am talking clothes dripping with toilet water. So the girls had a huge bag of clothes to wash and we got a free BBQ dinner and free drinks, caprinias, for the next couple nights.
There are amazing beaches on the island and the most famous is Lopez Mendez. It takes a two hour hike through the center of the island to get to the other side and this wonderful beach. I was with the two Swedish girls, Sanna and Matis, and Ben and Kate, the two English mates I met in Rio. We enjoyed a glorious day at the beach and took a sunset boat ride back to our hostel. That night the owner of the hostels decided to get a DJ and turned the two packed hostels into a club. While we were there the island had a fair in the main part of town to celebrate the spring harvest festival. There were stalls selling any and all the treats then you could imagine, outdoor bars, live bands and it seemed all the people that lived on the small island were out to party.
We wanted to take advantage of the beautiful day so we grabbed some kayaks and paddled out to explore some of the more remote beaches on the island. While kayaking, Ben decided we needed some music so he set up his iPod speakers on his kayak and we paddled our way jamin' to good tunes. After ansuccessful attempt to find a waterfall we were told about we landed on a small deserted beach nearby what we thought was a hotel. We were all by ourselves and walked up to the hotel to buy a drink when we are told by one of the many workers that this place is not a hotel but a huge house. This resort had five employees running around, a grand buffet spread full of fresh fruit, drinks, and other snacks- where was the owner who lives in this amazing house??! After sometime we suddenly saw a helicopter flying over head and land on the yard of the house. Clearly the owner or the resort had arrived. We watched in awe as a young waiter sprinted out with a tray full of drinks and the owner showed someone around the property, spending about an hour at the place before getting into the helicopter and he was off on his way. Now that is the life for me.

After a couple more days on Isla Grande I was off to the south of Brazil to enjoy my last few days of this trip.

Rio... Rio... Rio...

2009-09-16T17:48:00.000-04:00

Rio de Janiero is everything you could hope for- beautiful beaches, beautiful people, a loco nightlife, great culture, and yummy food. I was nervous because I had heard stories about people being mugged while in Rio, but like during all of my travels it just came down to being safe, not carrying anything too valuable on you, and being smart. My photos while in Rio are limited because I simply didn't carry my camera with me all the time- not to the beach and especially not out at night. I stayed at a pretty lively hostel that had a huge bar and provided transportation to some of the attractions and nightlife in Rio. I met some great people while in Rio that I traveled with during most of my time in Brazil. I met Ben and Kate on my way to see Christ Redeemer, which is the immense statue of Christ that overlooks all of Rio. You can honestly see it from everywhere in the city and it is impressive to see it all closeup and personal. I was staying in Copacobana so I was just a quick walk to the beaches, both Copacobana and Ipanema beach. Both beaches are gorgeous, filled with women and men in barely there bathing suits (and it doesn't matter if you have the body or not), and people walking around selling bathing suits, towels, and all types of food.

The other main attractions in Rio are 'The Loaf' which is really named Pao de Azul and you take a tram up to the topis a great place to go see the sunset. There are also the botanical gardens, the Lapa steps, and lots of museums. We went to see a local futbol game- not as crazy as the ones in Argentina- and had a late night swim at the Copacobana Hotel. One important thing to do in Rio is to see the favelas, the slums of Rio. They are shanty towns crowded onto hillsides are units of irregular self-constructed housing that are typically unlicensed and occupied illegally. The poor-quality residences are built randomly, houses on top of houses though a network of stairways and alleyways that you have to squeeze though. Often the favelas are run by drug lords (the one who ran this one was 21 yrs old) who make millions of dollars which they use to pay off the cops so they don't raid the towns. 60% of the people in Rio live well below the poverty line. I feel it is important to see this side of Rio and get outside the tourist, wealthy areas of the city to see how most of the people live.

In Brazil on the street corners there are often fresh fruit smoothies and pastries grab and go stores. Acai is the fruit smoothie that all the locals get; it is chalkfull with tons of vitamins and protein and is a deep purple color. It is delicious (especially with granola, banana slices, and honey) and I think I got one everyday while in Brazil- it is going to be the next big thing. Additionally there are lots of Brazilian BBQ/steak places, called churrasios, where you sit at the restaurant and people walk around with meat on sticks. Additionally there are stalls with kebabs, corn on the cob, and churros filled with chocolate - covering all your basic food groups.

OK, lets get to the nightlife. Friday night is the lapa street party which is basically three streets packed with people. The streets are lined with stalls selling kebabs, women with trays full of tequila shots, bar stands that can make you any drink you desire- caipirinha is the traditional drink in Brazil, and lots and lots of people. There is an awesome drum band that plays under the bridge located at the end of one of the street. In addition to the street party there are lots of clubs that line the street offering you a place to party when the street gets too packed. Saturday night we wanted to go see how the locals party so we went to Casa Rosa, a Lapa club/bar located in a renovated house. One room had a live Brazilian band, another room had a DJ playing all the hot hits. When we arrived we noticed that in the court yard there was a mechanical bull and everyone was dressed up like farmers. After some investigation we learned that people were dressed up for the spring harvest festival- the time of year that farmers harvest crops. Anyway we had a great time mingling with all the locals, dancing some salsa, and yes I did dabel with the mechanical bull, not one of my finer moments. On Sunday night the Favela Funk Party which is a huge club- we are talking 10,000+ people- dancing samba (a crazy shaking everything you got dance).

And that about wraps up Rio... Rio... Rio...

Guest Blogger: Mom actually makes it to South America!

2009-09-12T00:10:00.000-04:00

I was overjoyed to have my mom come and see me during my travels. Not only was it wonderful to live the life of luxury, aka hotel rooms, it was very special to spend some quality time with her since it had been about 10 months since I had been home. She had been worried about me traveling, especially since I had been traveling alone, and it was reassuring for her to see South America and how safe it felt. She got a little taste of my life on the road and that is something that no amount of stories can really convey. She also got to check out a couple hostels I was staying in and meet some of the friends I had made along the way. Needless to say hostels had greatly improved since the 70s when she spent a year backpacking through Europe - yes you can blame my travel bug on her.
So mom has the task of writing this guest blog entry about our time in South America because I can't really be asked to write anymore. The highlights are:
Buenos Aires: city tour with Mariano, La Bomba de Tiempo drum show, tango show and steak dinner at La Cabrera with the Swedish girls
Uruguay: Montevideo, massive steak, and the futbol match
Iguazu Falls: sneaking into Brazil to see the Brazilan side of the falls, the Argentina side, and the Sheraton Luxury

I have a feeling she will never get around to this, but I am putting the pressure on. Stay tuned...

Buenos Dias Buenos Aires

2009-09-09T23:14:00.000-04:00

Buenos Aires only further completed my love for Argentina. However I was rather disappointed when I arrived because my mom had planned on meeting me in BA, but days before she was scheduled to leave she discovered an obstruction growing in her trachea which turned out to be scar tissue. She had to have emergency surgery and would not be able to fly out to see me. I had been really excited to explore this new city with her, but she was recovering from her successful surgery at home (FYI: she is completely fine now.) So I was left to tackle BA on my own, starting the first day exploring the Cemeterio de la Recoleta, home to Evita's grave. Then I went to the local markets in Recoleta where there were crafts to buy and some great tango dancers to watch. I walked around the city and just felt at home there, a similar feeling to the one I had in Spain. Next I ventured back to my hostel, Millhouse, where I met a great group of guys - English- that I spent the next several days with. The two Swedish girls, Sanna and Madis, came a met me a day later. The nightlife in BA is intense and the typical evening starts in the hostel bar and then around 2am everyone leaves for the clubs, which close at 6am. Needless to say we had a good time.
On my second day, my two roomies and I, Alex (English) and Jeremy (American) and took off to explore the houses and parks in Palmero, which is the wealthier area of the city. We spent the day at the zoo, parks, drinking mate, and eating empanadas. That night Alex and I went to a lovely local steak place in San Telmo that at 11pm the line was out the door. I got delicious Bife de Chorizo and wine we were all set for another late evening. The next day we went to the famous San Telmo markets which, for all the markets that I have been to- and there have been a lot, it may have been the best. Street after street were filled with stalls selling amazing jewelry, leather goods, and some random things like old clocks or bottles. Even better was all the live music- full bands and single singers, salsa and tango dancers, just made for a great time at the markets. That afternoon we went to see the famous Boca Juniors futbol team play. We had to do some bribery to get into the game after scalping some fake tickets (long story), but we got in and as we entered the stadium we realized we were in the popular section, aka hard core local fans. Although Boca was doing horrible that season the popular section- #12 fan- was full of the real fans who never stopped singing or dancing. The stadium was pretty empty except for our section. It was great to see one of the most famous teams in all of futbol and watch with the true fans, the ones who will support their team even when they are doing badly (San Diego fans should take note of this phenomenon).

Later that same evening I finally got around to checking my email and discovered that my mom had booked a last minute flight to BA and was coming out in two days. She was feeling really great a week after her surgery and was going to come out. I was so excited!

The next day our crew was all geared up to go to a huge futbol match, a semi final game, outside the city for a local team, The Estudiantes vs The Nationals (from Uruguay). Dare I say one of the coolest things I did while traveling was seeing this intense futbol game, it puts even the most dedicated sporting fans to shame. When we all arrived to this big deal game the stadium was electric with noise makers and chanting. We never sat down, stopped dancing or singing the entire game. Flairs, smoke bombs, and fireworks were going off all around us. Sometimes the smoke was so thick it was hard to even see the field and I have no idea how the players could even see the ball. It was just a big party. Because the game mattered so much people were screaming, cheering, booing, and cussing (puta) as they followed the game very closely. Suddenly there was a huge squrimish in the stands and the crowd opened up and we saw a guy literally getting the shit getting kicked out of him. Three huge guys were just kicking him because, as I later discovered, the guy had a flag from another team- a sister team- and that was why he was beat to a pulp. No big deal is what all the locals were saying to me, it happens every big game. Well as the guy was bloody and carried out on a stretcher I thought he probably thought otherwise. Despite the momentary interruption, the game was so much fun and the home team, The Estudiantes won. Even better, the next day my mom was coming....

Patagonia and the Asada

2009-09-05T19:33:00.000-04:00

I needed to get at least a taste of Patagonia while I was in Argentina. Because it was winter while I was there, many of the hiking trails down south were closed so I will have to settle for coming back to Argentina sometime and exploring the far south on another next trip. Seeing just a bit of Patagonia would make anyone want to come back and see more.

I first went to the very small town of El Bolston (located in the Lakes District in the northern part of Patagonia) where I heard you could go and stay with families. Staying in hostels is great, but getting the opportunity to stay with a family was an experience I didn't want to pass up. I got to stay with this adorable little family who had two little kids that were so fun and could play with you all day The kids always get so much attention because there are always backpackers staying with the family and that means there is someone new to play with.
At the family home there was another backpacker, Mariano, who I ended up spending the next few days with hiking with. Mariano was born and raised in Buenos Aires so I got to meet up with him again in that city a couple weeks later. We spent our next three days hiking. We hiked up to Pt Panoramico from there to Mirador del Azul and finally to Cabeza del Indio for beautiful views of the Rio Azul. Our next day we went to Lago Puelo and were hiking around and suddenly we sunk into the mud like quicksand. Mariano was stuck in mud up to ankles, which was quite funny to me as an innocent bystander.
One of my highlights of Argentina was going to the family asada party that the family threw for their friends and us backpackers staying with them. Asadas are very typical in Argentina and consists of a lot of meat, asada in this case, lots of wine, and lots of friends and family. The amount of meat that they prepared was immense, but when I asked if there was other food being prepared the answer was, nope just meat and some bread- sorry vegetarians. The meat and chimichurri sauce were so good and there was so much of it that I didn't need much else. It was just a special night to be allowed to participate in such a festive dinner that is so traditional in Argentina.

Next I headed up to Bariloche to meet up with the Swedish girls to do some more hiking. We stayed at a cute hostel with amazing views of Lago Nahuel Huapi surrounded by lofty mountain peaks. I had hoped to do some skiing while I was there because there are great ski resorts, but the snow had not yet come. On our first day we rented bikes to explore the lake areas. We hiked up to Llao Llao point and Lago Moreno Oeste before the huge rain storm began. It was raining so hard and we were almost being blown over by the intense wind. Lucky the guy from the bike rental shop drove by to get us because the storm was so fierce.

We also decided to do a little two day climb, staying at one refugio that was still open at this time of year. After stopping at the very helpful tourist information center we were off on our adventure. We took a bus over to the start of the trail and spent the next two days walking, enjoying nature and the amazing views. As we walked up the mountain it started to snow which made our task much more difficult. We had to abandon mission half way up because of the snow and the fact that we didn't have proper hiking equipment for the snowy weather. We did find a cute refugio near the bottom of the trail and stayed there for the night and headed back to Bariloche the next day.

"This Club Gets Really Good From 7am to 10am"

2009-09-01T21:01:00.000-04:00

I headed down to Cordoba with the two Swedish girls, Sanna and Madis, who I ended up traveling with off and on for the next several weeks. Cordoba is known as the cultural center of

Argentina

and everywhere you go you see signs for tango or salsa lessons, artistic cinemas, or literature readings. There were tons of plazas or parks within the city and there were also lots of people sitting on the grass, drinking their mate and studying. (Herbal mate is the national drink and served in a gourd with a metal straw. Hot water is stored in a thermos and is poured onto the herbs to be drunk. It has a very strong taste, a cross between green tea and coffee). It is also a big university town, seven in total, and the nightlife there represents that spirit. The city was comfortable to be in, not a lot of touristy things to do. It was here that I first saw the real Argentina... from sipping mate in the park, to the yummy pastry shops on every street corner, women and men practicing tango in parks at all hours of the day, clubs that are packed until 6am, and that reggaeton music and dancing.
The girls and I checked out the city, watched some tango, sipped quite a bit of mate, and danced to reggaeton (we loved Daddy Yankee) till all hours of the morning. We took a day trip to do some hiking at nearby waterfalls and saw a local independent film that was probably quite good if we were able to understand all of it. Without the pressures of being a tourist, we were able to take some time and just enjoy the city. They had an amazing local night market filled with independent artists work and we spent a couple hours prusing all the different art pieces available. On Saturday nights in the main plaza locals young and old come out to dance tango. Someone sets up speakers and plays music and the people just dance. I saw little kids dancing, instructors with their students, and elderly couples that you know wait all week to come out on Saturdays and show their stuff. No one is judged, no tourists, just people out having fun dancing the tango. It was beautiful.

We made friends with some people that worked at the hostel and they invited us to their home for a traditional Argentina dinner which was lots of fun. They brought us to lots of local clubs and bars where I was able to practice my spanish, (and they practiced their english), with some universtity students in the area. Now in Cordoba people head out to clubs at 2-3am and those clubs close at 6am, but a whole other group of clubs open at 6 and they are PACKED. It is at one of these clubs that the famous line was uttered to me "Don't worry, this club get really good from 7am to 10am." That says it all. Argentina put Brazil to shame in the way of nightlife.

"She'll Meet Us at the Bar Later"

2009-08-25T20:45:00.000-04:00

I think that

Argentina

was the country I was most looking forward to when starting this journey. And it did not disappoint. I get asked all the time what were my favorite countries and

Argentina

is always one of the top. I loved the culture, the people, the beauty, the food, the wine, and the nightlife.

Argentina

had it all and it did it all very well.

My first destination in Argentina was Salta. I was only there for a couple days and enjoyed exploring their outdoor market, watched the Champions League futbol championship game (it is like the Super Bowl except the whole world actually cares), and got my first taste of Argentina meat. For my first meal we made the mistake of looking for a restaurant at 8pm at night, forgetting that restaurants don’t open until around 10pm and don’t get crowded until around 11pm. We had to search out a locals place, whenever you ask someone for a recommendation they always point you to a tourist spot. We finally found one and took a seat for dinner at 9:30pm. We were the only ones in the restaurant. We decided that for my first meal I needed to get a taste of everything and ordered this popular mixed plate. By mixed I mean lots of meat from every part of the cow. True to my word I tried cow stomach, liver, heart, brain, intestine, unidentified something, and blood sausage. We also shared a filet steak and a Bife de Chorizo which became my staple choice for the rest of my time in Argentina.

I decided to go down to Cafayate with a group of three girls, Robyn, Sanna, and Madis, that I had met at the hostel in Salta. The group of us girls- Robyn (from London, also traveling alone), Sanna, and Madis (both from Sweden) had a terrific time together over the next four days. Cafayate is a very cute town consisting of a few quiet streets with restaurants and shops surrounding the main plaza. We stayed in a great hostel that had a huge patio and bonfire area and often served big BBQ dinners for the guests. Our first night there they had a BBQ (served at 11pm) with all you can eat delicious meat, salad, pasta, potatos, etc. We also grabbed a simple 5 liter bottle of wine for consumption. Everyone hung out by the bonfire before it was time to head out to the local salsa bar for the night. Everyone from the hostel set out for the bar, including this dog that I fell in love with, Ameria, and yes the dog came into the bar with us and chilled there like a local. It was at that bar that Madis and I fell in love with the locals drink- Fernet and coke. Fernet is a strong tasting alcohol, sort of but not at all like black licorice, that you will hate upon your first several attempts, but it grows on you.

The next day we were off on a hike to some nearby waterfalls. We are thinking this hike will be a basic 2.5 hour climb, it turns out not to be a hike but more of a rock climbing exhibition- pulling ourselves in and out of rock crevasses, jumping over rivers, and creating our own path because there was no real trail to follow. We actually made it successfully to the waterfall which we were very excited about. On our second day we decided to do some wine tasting and cheese eating. We went to Bodega La Banda where we drank their red and torrencea white wine. Then we went to Cabras de Cafayate which is a goat cheese factory where we saw and learned (OK it was all in Spanish so we didn’t really learn anything) about the goat cheese making world. That night was another BBQ and trip to the salsa bar. To got to the bar we got a ride in a van and mi amor, the dog Ameria, tried to follow us by running after the car. Her owner and the owner of the bar, Carlos, looks at me and says “Don’t worry, Ameria will meet us at the bar later.” Shortly after we get to the bar I see the door kick open and in strolls Ameria and she struts her way onto the dance floor. Blood brilliant.

On our final day we got a car and took off to see the famous Quebrada de Cafayate, which is a highway that goes through an insane rock landscape and formations. The true brilliance of the place were all the colors in the rocks. In one rock you could see layers of seven different colors ranging from a rich red to green to white. There was also an amphitheater where a few musicians were playing music for the tourists. I must say the acoustics were great for a rock formation.

Home Sweet Home

2009-08-20T17:24:00.001-04:00

So Mary and I have officially returned home (safely) from our journey around the world. Mary is home in New Jersey. She and Hari are happily together and are planning on making a life for themselves in New York. I am home in San Diego working on photo albums, looking for a job, and catching up with friends. Have no fear, I will be finishing up the blog not only for myself, but for all the blog followers and stalkers out there. I am glad to hear that so many people followed our journey.

So my transition home has been interesting, quite boring, but beneficial nonetheless. I can say that life is not as fun when you are not exploring new cities every three days. It has been great to see all my mates and they all seem to think that I have a British accent which is hilarious, but that is what happens traveling with the English for two months. I had my welcome back party last week (aka an excuse for my dads band to play) so life is moving on.

Stay tuned, the journey on this blog is not finished yet.

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” - Lin Yutang

Fancy a Board of Sand?

2009-08-18T18:51:00.000-04:00

My salt flat tour took me right to the border of

Chile

and many tours allow you to San Pedro,

Chile

rather then back to Uyuni,

Bolivia

. I had wanted to see this town so it worked out perfectly to just ‘pop into

Chile

for a few days’. On my bus to San Pedro I ran into two girls that I met in

Chile

, Lucy and Laura, and we all decided to room together. San Pedro de Atacama is a cute town of cobble stone streets, little restaurants, and sandboarding. Sandboarding is similar to snowboarding and was something that I had wanted to try for sometime. San Pedro is one of the best places for it. So we rented a bike and a board and headed for Valle de la Muerte (Death Valley). Everyone sandboards down, literally, a huge mountain of sand that is exhausting to climb up, but lots of fun to board down. I was a little hesitant at first, after the whole dislocating my shoulder snowboarding thing a few years ago, but after my first fall I realized that sand was much more forgiving then snow. I had a few mini rolls down the sand mountain and was finding sand for a couple days after (especially the ears), but it was great fun overall. After boarding we grabbed some beers and headed to a beautiful spot to watch the sunset overlooking the Valley de San Pedro.

Because San Pedro is in the middle of a vast desert it has amazing views of the stars. There is a wonderful observatory that conducts tours of the stars at night. The tour started at 10pm and took us out into the middle of the desert where the observatory was located. Our guide was a hilarious French guy making all kind of jokes like how to pick up a girl by talking to her about stars. With his powerful laser pointer he walked us through the galaxy, provided us with history and pointed out various stars explaining how many light years away they were, etc. Stars and the universe are quite amazing. The observatory had about 8 high powered telescopes that were focused on certain stars, star clusters, the southern cross, a star that is red in color, and different consolations. One of the telescopes was focused at Saturn and it was remarkable how clear it looked with its rings.

Salty

2009-08-12T18:18:00.000-04:00

One of the most incredible things I saw during my travels were the salt flats outside of Uyuni, Bolivia. There is no way to properly describe this pure white lake of salt and the salt formations on it. And it is SALT!?!? The way to see the salt flats is with a tour where the 4 wheel jeep, driver, food, and logging are all provided. I booked a four day, three night trip with the three English people I had met, James, Kyle, and Katherine and we were off. There were two other people in our group from London, Jane and Carlos. Our driver skillfully drove us across this gigantic lake of salt, stopping along to way to see a train cemetery and some of the salt mounds that are used for exporting. It is estimated that the salt flats contain about 10 billion tons of salt. The huge lake, Salar de Uyuni, is the worlds largest salt flat measuring 4,085 sq miles and it was a lake that dried up 40,000 years ago leaving behind the salt. The white lake goes on forever surrounded by mountains and desert terrain. We arrived at our salt hotel, yes the walls are made of salt bricks, and were able to go onto the flats and take some of the crazy optical illusion pictures that are so famous here (ie. jumping shots, walking into the Pringles can, holding people on your hand, etc). We also enjoyed the sunset. I don’t know that I will ever see anything like the sun setting on a bed of salt, glorious. That night we learned of a crazy stalker obsession that Jane once had for Michael Jackson (this is before he died). She would follow him everywhere, sleep outside his house, bribe her way backstage at concerts, hide in bathrooms, the list goes on. Needless to say, none of us could really top that one.
On day 2, we got up for an amazing sunrise of bright orange, purple and reds. Later we climbed up Volcano de Tunupa for an overall view of the lake. Then we were back in the jeep heading for Isla de Pescado, a random island in the middle of the salt lake filled with cactus. After a few more photo stops and a lame trip to the Galaxy Cavern we left the actual Salar de Uyuni lake and arrived at our salt hotel (this time even the bed frame and tables were made of salt bricks).
Day 3, we started to head south to see all the lagoons and mountains in this desert. At this time the road got really rough and several times we had to get out of the jeep so that it could get through safely. We got one flat tire on our first day and another one on our last day. Luckily our driver was used to getting flats and he was able to change them both quickly. It was a beautiful drive, stopping at different rock formations, lakes, and volcanoes along the way. At Laguna Ramaditas we saw wild flamingos, but there were not pink because there was no shrimp to eat.

Now, Jane and Carlos would take 100+ photos at every stop we made and by the end of the day (after we saw famous standing rock formation Arbol de Piedra), we were among the last groups of jeeps- there are 50 or more companies that conduct the same salt tour. The drive is very tough on the cars and the maintenance they get is questionable, remember Bolivia. Suddenly during the last hour of the day on the way to our lodging, our jeep dies and our driver cannot figure out how to fix it. A jeep passes, stops, and the drivers determine that it is an electrical problem, one that our driver cannot fix. Supposedly this jeep driver is going to drive his group to their hotel, get a car electrician, and drive back to us. Estimated time, 1 hour. Well one hour turns into two and although we are in a desert terrain, we are at an elevation of 4,260m. It is getting very very cold and the sun is setting. At night it will be below freezing in temperature. We have no way to communicate with the driver that went for help, remember Bolivia, so we need to face the fact that the other driver is not coming for us. It is a two hour walk into town and our driver says he is going to have to walk to town and dresses in some cold weather mechanic suit and is off. So we get our sleeping bags out for warmth and any snacks we might have left because it could be 3 or 4 hours before we are rescued. After about 30 min we see jeep lights and our driver is running down the hill towards up. We are saved!!! With the electrician our car is fixed in 10 min and we are driving towards our hotel, thankful we were alive- OK, it wasn’t that serious, but we were happy we had been rescued.

After a bitter cold night, I slept with 7 blankets on and was still cold, we set out on day 4. We drove to the geysers where we saw one huge geyser, it was great because it was blasting hot air, and the geyser basin where there were lots of bubbling baby geysers. From there we went to the thermal hot springs which was heaven after one endured the change from warm clothes to swimsuit to pool transition. It was so nice in the pool, but once you got out you froze in seconds. Even my bathing suit that I set on a rock while changing froze to the rock in minutes. Our last stops of the day were to see Laguna Verde and Laguna Blanca. Then I was off and on the road again, quick stop into Chile for a few days before finally making it to Argentina.

A Miners Life

2009-08-09T01:36:00.000-04:00

The hostel you stay in and the people you meet make a huge difference in how much you enjoy your time in a place, especially if you are traveling alone. And I stayed at a great place in Potosi, my next stop after leaving Sucre. When I arrived in Potosi there was a huge parade going on (still not sure why) so a bunch of us headed out to take in the scene. Elementary to high school age kids were all dressed up in different costumes either dancing or playing in a band. Some of these costumes the kids had on were out of this world with the sparkle and flair. That night we all decide to search out a real locals place, back alley style (meaning as soon as we walked in every patron in the place stopped eating and just watched us). We ate steak, rice and salad for less then a dollar. The food wasn’t that bad and there was no food poising that followed; a successful mission in my world.

Potosi is a mining town and most of the inhabitants work in the silver mines which has been a big source of income for the Bolivians since the early 1500s. Back then, the Spanish controlled the mines and its workers by making them work 45 hr days, using their dependence on the coca leaf against them. (Note: The coca leaf has been of immense importance in Bolivia since its existence and is fascinating to learn about- Wikipedia it). I decided to go on one of the tours that take you into the live working mines where you can see the miners and the conditions they must work in. After getting suited up in our mining attire, our first stop on the tour was to buy gifts for the miners- coca leaves, soda, and dynamite. Today the miners average 8 to 10 hour days inside the mines and cannot eat in there, the coca leaves help provide vitamins and energy to the miners.

We then entered The Candelaria Mines, one of the many mines in Potosi. Once inside you can see how dangerous the mining here is, crappy logs hold up the mine walls and without any technology just ‘general knowledge’ on how to mine along the mineral lines, sections are blown up with dynamite. The miners work in teams and there is a leader that directs the miners were to dig or what section to blow up. Every team works for themselves and gets paid not by hours but by the amount of minerals and silver they find. Realistically there are no strict regulations on the hours the miners work or the age they start. Inside the mine we met one man who works with his son, age 13. I asked him why his son was not in school and he said that in school his son doesn’t make money for the family, but in the mine he does. We crawled, slid, and shimmied our way down to the fourth level of the mine, there are about 10 levels in total. We were about 75m under ground and the conditions were horrible, with so much dust and whatever else was in the air made it was painful to breathe (most miners die at a young age from lung cancer). We presented our gifts to some of the miners we met and I realized how little it really was. One outside in the fresh air we were able to light one of the pieces of dynamite that we purchased, yes I got to hold the dynamite with the lighted fuse before our mining guide ran out into the field for it to explode.

Pour Some Sucre On Me

2009-08-05T01:30:00.000-04:00

After completing Huayna Potosi I got sick and my body needed a break from the high altitude. So I took a bus to the cute little city of Sucre, in the southern part of Bolivia. The city is actually the capital of Bolivia and celebrations were in full swing because it was the month of May and the 200th anniversary of their independence, 25 de Mayo. To celebrate there was a concert in the main plaza every night in May. There were many lovely plazas in the city and they were always filled with people and families just enjoying the day or the concerts at night. And I found it very interesting that during the concerts it seemed everyone was eating candy, but I didn’t see anyone drinking a beer or alcohol of any kind.

The city feels like a small bussing town with a wonderful fresh fruit and veggie market (if you can avoid the slaughterhouse section) and lots of small stalls line the street with people selling jewelry or other household goods. There are an abundance of chocolate, ice cream, and candy stores, law offices and universities… and the next most popular type of shop, dentists. At least they know the importance of dental hygiene.

On the last night I was in the town there was a huge free concert located in a large field outside the city. The most famous Bolivian band, The Caporales, was playing. And people from all around Sucre turned out, I would estimate over 15,000 people, to see this band play. They played traditional Bolivian music and had great cultural dancers joining them onstage. The crowd sang every word to every song and might have been louder then the band themselves. It was an amazing experience not just to see the band but to see the joy on the faces of the local people listening to them.

The Worlds Most Dangerous Road

2009-08-01T01:20:00.000-04:00

We arrived in La Paz for the final leg of our GAP Adventure and I was sad to say good-bye to the group I had spent the last two weeks with. We had a big good-bye dinner that night. We were the only people staying in our hotel, so the whole group came back and we played card games (those Aussies have some strange ones) into the early morning. Additionally Mary was very excited because she was reunited with Hari that day when we arrived in La Paz. After La Paz Mary and Hari continued their travels north and I went south.

The next day it was off again to the world of hostels and eight person dorm rooms. Luckily many people in our group were going to be staying in La Paz for a few days and we all went to the same place. At first La Paz struck me as a very congested and crowded city, but over my week stay I learned to love it. It is a city full of life. There are loads of great markets- the witches market selling remedies or spells to everything that might ale you, the black market where you can find many illegal things to buy, and the general street markets selling llama gear and jewelry. Plus La Paz is very very cheap.

One thing we really wanted to do was bike ‘The Worlds Most Dangerous Road’. There are many companies that offer the service, but we went with the safest one, Gravity. The company drove us up to the start of the road. At the top we received our bikes, which are valued at around $3,000 usd and are the top of the line for mountain bikes, and an orientation on the road and what we could expect during our ride. The bike ride down took about 6 hours to complete, allowing us a couple stops for pictures or snacks. We had an instructor with us that gave us warnings about an upcoming section of the road. We also had a van following us taking photos and there to help if anything should happen on the trip. Now this road is very dangerous and going off the road most likely means death as most of the drops are around 1,000m. Although it was fun, I never took my eye off the road and never forgot that this road was not something to take lightly. We celebrated our safe landing with some beers and a bottle of rum for our drive back into La Paz. A few days after our ride we found out that someone who was riding with another company did go off the road and did not survive.

Just Living on Floating Reeds

2009-07-24T01:05:00.000-04:00

From Cuzco we went to Puno, a city known for its traditional dances and their wooden flute instruments. There are over 100 different cultural dances and each of them have their own costumes. That night we enjoyed a show and I finally got to try ginny pig. It is a delicacy in Peru, but I wasn’t impressed by the lack of meat and how scary the thing looked when it was served.

That next day we headed to Lake Titicaca which is the highest lake in the world at 2,000m. Now on the lake there are floating islands made of floating reed. Yes the island, the homes, and we even saw some boats, were all make of reed. We went to visit one village of the Uros people. They began their existence on the islands to isolate themselves from the Colla and Inca Tribes centuries ago. About 300 people live on the island, but people are always moving off to live on the mainland, Puno. All the village people were wearing their traditional outfits which they let us try on, and they discussed their life living on reed. I love this part, when someone decides they want to move off the island, all they have to do is cut the reed around their house and float away to another village. Also, if someone doesn’t like you it is possible to wake up and your home has been cut off the island. Excellent example of conflict resolution.

From there we went to Taquile Island which was a proper island aka. made of land and dirt. It was a beautiful day and there happened to be a big festival that day. All the villagers were dressed in these impressive band costumes (some of the outfits cost more then the persons actual home), ready to compete in a day of music and dancing. Beer was flowing at the celebrations while groups would have a ‘band off’ and compete against each other with their costumes, band skills, and dancing. It was great fun just to watch and take in the local lives and festivals of these people.

Walking like an Inca to Machu Picchu

2009-07-20T10:33:00.000-04:00

The group arrived in Cuzco which is a beautiful colonial town with cobble stone streets and a very lively atmosphere. Most people will come to Cuzco to help them acclimate to the altitude before they embark on the Inca Trail, so there are lots of backpackers around the town. Coca leaves and coca tea are something that really helps with the altitude and we were frequent followers of ‘packing a chew’ during our trip. It is rather cold up at the altitude and there are lots of people selling alpaca and lama scarves, gloves, and sweaters. We stayed in Cuzco for a day to adjust to the altitude and to see the Scared Valley of the Incas. It is a lush green region that supplies produce to Cuzco. We do some hiking and you can really feel the altitude as we would get out of breath going up even the smallest hills. We also stopped at Ollantayambo, which is a fortress strategically situated over the valley helping the Incas guard the village. This was the first taste we got of the amazing planning and engineering that the Incas were capable of. Looking at the huge boulders that created the fortress, it was hard to believe that the Incas were able to get them from the mountain side to this area. We would be more impressed with the Incas as our adventure continued.

Early the next morning we began the four day hike on the Inca Trail that would lead us to Machu Picchu. We each had one duffel bag containing our clothes and toiletries for the next four days. There were ten of us in the group and we had 14 porters, 2 chefs, and one guide traveling with us. Our oldest porter was 55 years old and had been a porter for about 30 years. These porters would carry our bags, all our food, tents, tables, and everything else we would need on their backs. One porter was even responsible for carrying the propane tank on his back. Each day they would wake us up with breakfast prepared. We would head out on the trail and they would pack up our tents and run by us on the trail carrying all OUR stuff on their backs. When we arrive for the spot for lunch, it would already be prepared and waiting (and the food was yummy and there was lots of it). The same thing would happen in the evening, but our tents would be setup and snacks would be waiting for us before dinner was served. These men were our heros.

On our first day walking the Trail we were at an altitude of about 2,500m. All along the Inca trail we would walk by Inca ruins (destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors). On our first day we saw the ruins Llactapata and Wallabamba (the place where we camped our first night). When we thought there could not possible be any more stairs there always were. The trail was so tough because we were going up and down mountains at such a high altitude. The second day was one of the hardest because of Dead Woman Pass, it is called that because the side of the mountain looks like a woman. The Pass was at an altitude of 4,215m and was painful to get up. It was very hard to breathe, but at the same time amazing because you were struggling with all these people who felt the same way, pushing themselves with the same goal in mind, Machu Picchu. Mary and I did a little extra climbing at the top of the Pass, climbing the ‘boob’ as we referred to it. We also got to see Andrew's naked pose, which we would not be the last time we would see that naked bum shot. On the third day, the longest one walking 16k, we walked by several Inca ruins, some of them served as villages and others as fortresses. All of them were very impressive with the stone work and the sheer size of the boulders. We walked Runkuraqay Pass which was a beautiful stretch of jungle. Our last night was very cold because we were sleeping at 3,000m. We woke up at 4am to start our trek to Machu Picchu. We had a quick 2 hour hike to the Sun Gate that overlooks the peaks that surround Machu Picchu. Unfortunately it was quite cloudy and we couldn’t see much, but luckily the fog cleared later that morning.

Finally after four days we arrived at our destination… Machu Picchu. And it is truly an amazing archeological site. The site was not “discovered” until H. Bingham in 1911 put it on the map for all the world to see. There is not much known about the Village because it was never discovered (or destroyed) by the Spaniards. In the village there were areas where agriculture was grown, areas of prayer, temples, staircases, windows, and sections for the rich and sections for the poorer people. There was a sundial that counted the passing seasons and gutters to collect the rain water to distribute it throughout the village. There was also a sacred rock that if you hold your hand over you can feel heat come off it. We spent several hours just walking around this wonder.

From there we took a train back to Cuzco, although we were tired we had to accept the ’24 Hour Challenge’ which meant that we all had to stay up until 4am that night. Luckily, Cuzco has an amazing nightlife with lots of clubs and we partied until the early hours of the morning.

The Peruvian Amazon

2009-07-17T19:35:00.000-04:00

Months earlier, Sarah and I had signed up for a 14 day tour through Peru with GAP Adventures. In August of 2007, I had done a trip with them to Machu Picchu and was really pleased with GAP, so Sarah and I decided to give it another go. From my experiences, the tour is very well organized and the tour leaders are not only extremely knowledgeable about Peruvian history and culture, but very passionate about teaching. In my previous visit to Peru, I had hiked the Lares Trail and went to Machu Picchu, but I had always wanted to do the Inca Trail, plus there was so much more of Peru I wanted to see, so despite having already seen Machu Picchu, I was still really excited for the tour and to see more of Peru.

After our epic bus ride from Santiago to Arequipa and then Arequipa to Lima, we arrived in Lima to meet with the rest of the group. I won`t say much about Lima because there really isn`t much to say. In short, it is nothing special. I am not a fan at all. It was my second visit to Lima in 2 years - I have no desire to go back there anytime soon, and I really had no interest in seeing it again this time, but alas the tour began in Lima so I planned on arriving the same day the tour began to minimize my time there. We met up with our group and knew right away that we were in for a great 14 days - everyone was really outgoing, fun, friendly, and anxious to have a good time. The GAP tour leader, Walter, went through our itinerary and some other tour necessities before we all really introduced ourselves and started socializing. There were 8 other people in the group - Anita and Nadia (fun, sweet Uni students from UK), Una and Maria (hard-core hikers/rock climbers from Finland), Jan and Tara (mother-daughter team from Australia), and Andrew J and Andrew S (the staple lovable, crazy party animals from Australia). The Andrews were surrounded by 8 women. They were noticeably happy and schmoozing with all the ladies at our first dinner together!
After going through all the technical stuff with Walter we all headed to dinner and got to know each other a little bit, there was not one moment of silence as everyone was sharing travel stories. Sarah and I were excited to be with such nice, fun people for the next 2 weeks. We all went to bed early after dinner, as we had to be up at the crack of dawn the next day to start our journey.

We spent the first 3 days of the trip in the Peruvian Amazon and it was nothing short of incredible. We flew into a very small airport from Lima and hopped on a small riverboat that took us 3 hours to our jungle lodge...we were truly in the depths of the jungle. The lodge was actually really nice, basic as expected, but comfortable and cozy. There was a little hut with hammocks (screened in, thankfully, the bugs were evil) and a nice dining area. The place was owned by a crazy-Boho French woman who rescued a little spider monkey from the nearby jungle - its mother was killed by natives and she walked around with it wrapped around her all day. It was actually pretty to have this little monkey in a diaper running around the lodge and swinging from the wooden ceiling beams.

On our first day we did not arrive until about 4 in the afternoon, so we had some free time and then set off on our first jungle excursion - a night trek. It reminded me a little of my first night dive, I was a little nervous to walk into the creepy jungle in the dark but as soon as we got in there everyone was so excited and loving it. We armed with torches and the guides had machetes to clear paths for us. We were given knee-high rubber boots which were totally necessary - the entire jungle floor is 3 inch + deep mud. Our 2 guides were excellent, spoke very good English and clearly loved the jungle. They told us about all the different trees, plants, and their uses. We have always known this, but the rainforest truly has a cure for EVERYTHING - they showed us plants to cure asthma, arthritis, repel mosquitoes, etc. Truly amazing. Within minutes we encountered a tarantula that was easily the size of my entire hand, palm to finger tips, very creepy! One of the Aussie guys, Andrew S (nickname Strody) is terrified of spiders so he jumped back and kept his distance, but I must say that he handled being that close to a massive spider like a champ. The rest of us got pretty close for photos and to examine it. I had told the guides of my terrible fear of snakes and warned them that I was not joking - I told them that if they tried to be funny and stick a snake in my face that I would be truly furious, and luckily they took me seriously. We were walking along and one of the guides, Steban said ¨Mary, stay in the back¨. He came to the front of the group holding a foot long, skinny, white and brown striped snake. I actually remained quite calm but stayed at the back of the line. Gross, evil creatures. Luckily, that would be our only snake encounter in 2 days! After we survived our first night trek, we went back to our cozy rooms, enjoyed a nice cold shower (no one complained that there wasn`t hot water, who needs it in the scorching jungle?), and crawled up under our mosquito nets to rest up.

The next day we got up early and made our way back to the jungle for a full day trek. We were lucky to have no rain at all, dry season was approaching. We stayed dry, but again the jungle floor was all mud and there were times when we had to trudge nearly knee deep in rivers to get to the trail. So much fun. The jungle sounds were so peaceful and of course everything was GREEN. We saw tons of bugs (some with way too many legs), birds, lizards, and caimans (similar to crocs, but much larger - they can grow up to 5 meters long!). Strody bravely survived walking through spider webs and many encounters with ¨Jesus spiders¨ - they walk on water so even as we were trudging through streams they were all around us. It was HUMID and we were all covered in mud, sweat, bug spray, and sunscreen. It was an incredible adventure that I will never forget. We returned to the lodge for some relaxing and then a night boat tour of the river to try to find some caimans lurking along the shore. There were no clouds in the sky, and since it was so clear we saw tons of stars and heard nothing but crickets and birds all around. It was so nice to be away from cars, motorbikes, and other loud city noises. Unfortunately though, our mission to find caimans was unsuccessful. Oh well, at least we got to see some during the day.
I slept like a baby under my mosquito net that night. We were so lucky to be there. Our time in the Peruvian Amazon is something I will never forget. I just hope that we all do our part to keep the rainforest alive and thriving for future generations, it is the home to thousands of species of plants and animals that the world needs to survive. I was so impressed by how much our guides knew about the plants and animals living in the Amazon, but they were the first to say that there is so much more that they have not yet discovered...

Our group hopped a flight to Cusco where we would begin our Inca Trail trek, perhaps the leg of the whole trip that Sarah was most excited for.

At the Colca... Colca Canyon

2009-07-15T14:03:00.004-04:00

Mary and I had to endure a looong 32hr bus ride from Santiago to Peru. (And I remember when I thought the 2 hr drive up to my grandparents house was long.) We made it and dare I say it wasn´t that bad, but it better be the longest bus ride I ever have. Peru was vastly different from the clean and organized Chile that we just left. People sat on every street corner either selling stuff or begging, cars clogged up the dirty roads, and finally things were cheap again. We headed up to the town of Arequipa to do a two day hike in Colca Canyon. Arequipa is a very cute little town with restaurants lining the balconies overlooking the central plaza. Once we got there we booked our trek and went to relax and get some food. Finally I got to have the pisco sours that Mary had told me all about and yes they are delicious and addicting.

Early the next morning we loaded our bus taking us to Colca Canyon. We had a puker on the bus which is never a good thing on a 3 hr bus especially for Mary because this smelly puker guy ended up sitting right next to her. She soon was able to tactfully trade seats and sit next to me. On our journey to the Canyon we stopped at Cruz del Condor, the famous cross overlooking the valley. We were lucky enough to even have a Condor, a very important symbol for the Incas, flying in circles above us while we were there. Slowly, we were getting adjusted to the higher altitude as Arequipa is at 2300m and Cruz del Condor is at 3500m. We would be in and out of high altitude areas for the next 6 weeks.
On our first day we were trekking 16km and the second day was only 7 km, but all up hill. We were hiking with two people from Argentina, Marco and Anna, that were on a short holiday to see Peru. The first half of our day was mostly walking down hill which was so hard on our knees and created blisters all over my feet. At the bottom of the hill we went to a local family house for lunch. They had a nice house, clearly funded by the tour groups, and were currently adding additional rooms onto their property. After lunch we still had a good 4 more hours of hiking to do, but this was much more pleasant. We walked through a few small villages that dot the canyon side. Our guide told us all about the fruit trees in the areas and the different uses all the plants have and as is it often the case, everything has a use and is not wasted. Eventually we reached Sangalle, aka The Oasis, where we stayed in a bug filled hut and enjoyed our coca tea.

The next day we rose at 5am to start our 7 km uphill hike out of the canyon. We each found our own pace with Mary leading the pack. I figured this trek would help me get in shape for Inca Trail as I hadn´t seen the inside of a gym or any physical activity in over 8 months. Although marathon girl (yes she found it necessary to wear the whole outfit, all one inch of spandex) beat us all to the top, Mary and I both made it in great time. We then went to the small town of Cabanaconde for lunch. On our way back to Arequipa our group made another stop at another dusty town where there was nothing to do. Since we had 2 hr to kill, Mary and I grabbed a bottle of wine, which we always think is a good idea, and sat down in their beautiful plaza to just enjoy the sunny day.

Guest Blogger: Andrea meets us in Santiago

2009-07-12T20:48:00.001-04:00

Santiago was a special place, not only because Sarah and I would be meeting up again, but also because a close friend of mine from NY, Andrea, would be meeting us there for a week! My uncle is in the wine business and had put us in contact with a close friend of his, Pablo, who lives in Santiago and owns a vineyard about 3 hours south of the city. While we were in Santiago, Pablo took excellent care of us, constantly checking in to see if we needed anything and recommending places for us to see and of course, wines for us to taste...
Without further ado, here´s Andrea with a guest blog entry on Santiago, Chile:

Our first night in Santiago, we went to a college soccer game with a few guys from the hostel. It was so much fun! "Hinchada Hay Una Sola" The fans were PASSIONATE about their team! I thought Penn Staters were passionate about football, but this was a whole new level of intensity!

The next few days we were planning to do some wine tasting... The challenge was trying to taste as much as we could on a tight budget. Sadly, my tasting notes never made it to paper... and were a bit of a drunken blur by the end of the day, so I don't have much to offer in tasting notes.

Colchagua Valley, located three hours south of Santiago, is known for their Bordeaux reds. I wanted to visit Casa LaPostolle, but the tasting was too steep for our budget. Instead, we went to Viu on Pablo´s recommendation. The tour started with a lovely horse ride through the beautiful vineyards. With the cool, crisp fall air, we really enjoyed their warm tasting room that was heated by a wood burning stove. Our favorite wine was their Malbec Reserve. When our taxi driver picked us up, he was hosting a radio show (while driving us)! It was entertaining listening to him speak in the car and then hearing him on radio... We stopped at Estampa, and drank a bottle of their Malbec and Petit Syrah blend. It was delicious for the price! Finally, we made it to the last winery of the day, Bisquertt. Mary and Sarah loved the beautiful house filled with antique furniture and family pictures. Our favorite wine was the Casa La Joya 2007 Reserve, Carmenier. On the bus ride back to Santiago, the cute guy next to me starting talking to me. He didn't speak any English, and I don't speak Spanish. It was a funny conversation, and we all laughed. After a day of wine tasting, we were happy :)
The next day we went to Valparaiso, a cute, artsy tourist town two hours NW of Santiago. The town is located on steep hills by the sea... it felt a little strange... the streets were filled with dogs and graffiti... and everything was expensive. Some jewelry and clothing had 5th ave price tags! From Valparaiso, there was only one company that offered tours of Casablanca Valley, and they were rude and corrupt. Casablanca Valley is known for their white wines. Our tour started at Viña Mar. Sarah asked me about the strange looking riddling racks. So I explained how champagne was made, and the guide asked me to lead the rest of the tour in English! I really enjoyed Viña Mar's Sauvignon Blanc. citrius.. lemon... a fair amount of acidity.. muy bien! Next we stopped at Indomita. Their sommelier let me have a taste of the reserve chardonnay 2007, which was delicious, but the girls wanted to drink more Sauvignon Blanc. After the vineyards, we went had empanadas and went to the beach... what a great way to end the day :)
On my last night in Santiago, we cooked brinner (aka. breakfast for dinner), an old ritual we did often in NY. We started off with a bottle of Morande Sauvignon Blanc, and then opened up a cheap bottle of bubbly wine... and enjoyed huevos y queso. mmm!

Going South to North and to the NCAA Final Four

2009-07-08T14:26:00.001-04:00

I was luckily enough to watch the amazing NCAA game where Villanova beat Pittsburg advancing the team to the Final Four for the first time since 1985. Scotty Renyolds made an beautifu last second layup to win the game. I was in a bar jumping, screaming, and yes some tears were shed when we won. Amazing game, amazing team, amazing University.

With that I will get back to New Zealand... After Queenstown, I headed out to see Milford Sound with two of my favorite English gals from the trip, Hannah and Amy. I had grown quite close to them during the trip and we would continue our journey together to the north island. Milford Sound is known for its numerous waterfalls that come off the cliffs that surround the Sound. When it is rainy it is said to be spectacuar, but we had a sunny day, so there were still waterfalls just not as many. We were on a cruise type ship and our general path was seeing: Dale Pt (the entrance to MS), Bowen Falls (161 m), Sinbad Gally (steep slopes of mtn on each side surrounding the Sound), Mitre Peak (one of the highest mtn in the world to rise from the ocean floor), and the elephant rock. On the drive from the Sound, I got to fill up my waterbottle from a bubbling brook nearby, that was mountain spring water at it best.

We were then off to the North Island and our first stop was Wellington which is a great city with a fresh and young feel. There is a very young population in Wellington and that can be felt with all the artsty buildings and active nightlife. There they have an amazing museum, Te Papa Museum, which has a large focus on NZs enviorment and how it has been affected by immigration. Very interesting. That night we enjoyed some life music and dancing at one of the cities clubs before we left on our day long road trip up to Auckand.

In Auckland I was staying with my friend Jake, who Mary, Hari and I all met in Koh Tao. He goes to University of Auckland and I got to become a uni student again for a few days (laundry room, ID cards, even cleaning). That night we all went out in Auckland to this club that had an amazing freestyle group that was so good we didnt even know it was live until we saw the two singers in the corner of the room. The group was really really good, creating fresh and innovative beats. Really good music. That next day, unfortunately Jake and his roomates were taking off on their spring break so Jake was good enough to let me use his apartment for the next few days before my flight. We were pretty bummed that we only got to see eachother for one day, but I was excited to have an apartment to use. Over the next two days Amy, Hannah, and I explored the city which feels nothing like the rest of NZ with its big buildings, busy streets, contempory and high end shopping stores. We checked out the National Museum, a Maori culture dance performance, local markets, and the harbor.

I also did a two day roadtrip up to the Bay of Islands, on the very northern end of NZ. We got in a full day on a boat checking out some of the amazing islands that dot the end of NZ. We even got in some dolphin and penguin sightings, snorkeling, kayaking, and sun tanning over those two days. I wish I had more time to see the North Island, but that seems to be the case for each country we go to on this trip. So, I hopped on the plane and made my way to my personal unltimate destination, South America.

Mendoza

2009-07-06T17:17:00.001-04:00

Wine country. Hari and I had been enjoying the Argentine Malbecs in Buenos Aires and El Calafate and were excited to get to Mendoza so we could visit some vineyards. We took an overnight bus from BA to Mendoza and checked into one of the many of hospedajes in the main area near Plaza Independencia. Mendoza is a small city with wide cobblestone streets and lots of little parks. We planned on having about 4 days in Mendoza, which would give us plenty of time to check out some wineries, as well as drive along the PanAmerican Highway that goes all the way up through Central America to get some more views of the Andes.

Since we did not arrive in Mendoza until the early afternoon we spent our first day just walking around and figuring out our plan for the next few days. Our hospedaje was really close to the main park/plaza, Plaza Independencia. This plaza had so much charm and character, it is always bustling - there are artists oil painting the scenery, craftsmen making jewelery, musicians, and people just relaxing on the grass or in front of the fountains. We were lucky enough to be in Mendoza on a weekend when the craft market is on, so the Plaza was also lined with small booths of local handicrafts. We spent hours walking around and looking at the booths, and we stocked up on some souvenirs and gifts for friend and family.

Just a few hours away from Mendoza is Cerro Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in South America (one of the Seven Summits) and actually the tallest mountain outside the Himalayas. We would have loved to climb Aconcagua, but it is quite technically challenging and because you have to be properly acclimated, it takes 15 days to reach the 6,962 meter summit! We didn´t have enough time on this trip, but perhaps in the future we will venture back down to Argentina to tackle the summit...Despite the fact that we couldn´t climb the mountain didn´t mean that we couldn´t see it, so we decided to rent a car to drive along the PanAmerican highway. We got in our little 2 door coupe, hooked up the iPod speakers, and were on our way...almost. We were trying to get out of the city and onto the highway but were blocked by parked taxis on several of the main streets. There was some sort of taxi strike going on, so Hari had to maneuver through the hundreds of parked taxis and angry drivers to get onto the highway. It was an interesting experience, something like this wouldn´t have lasted 10 minutes in the US because the cops would be there threatening to arrest the taxi drivers if they did not move their cars. But in Argentina things are different and the cops didn´t do anything.

Our drive along the PanAmerican highway was nothing short of awesome...we were one of the few cars on the road and were surrounded by mountains. We only passed a few cars along the way, but we did pass a ton of bike riders - there was a bike race of some sorts going on so we passed hundreds of bike riders on the highway. We slowed down and cheered them on through our sunroof, I can´t imagine how tired they must have been! The road was windy, hilly, and LONG. Towards the end of the pack we saw a guy who was grabbing onto the side of a moving car to catch his breath, I probably wouldn´t have lasted one hour of that race. We made it to Aconcagua and stopped to walk around the area and of course take some photos. It was really windy, but thankfully not too cold. We could not get too close to the base of the mountain given where we were on the road, but we were still close enough to get an idea of its monstrosity. It was pretty remarkable to be that close to the tallest mountain in South America. We made the windy drive back to Mendoza and hit the sack early in preparation for our day of touring the vineyards.

From the center of Mendoza you can take a short 30 minute bus ride to the Ruta del Vino, or Wine Route. The most popular choice among backpackers upon arrival is to rent bicycles and bike along the 12k road to the many wineries. Hari and I decided that it would be wise to begin by biking the full 12ks to the beginning of the route, so as we drank more we would be getting closer to our ending point. The vineyards lining the road were unlike any vineyards I´d seen in Napa Valley, California, Austria, or Australia...the surrounded area was generally flat, but in the distance we could see the snow-capped Andes and 6000+ meter mountains. It was a clear, warm day, perfect for a bike ride. We made to the first vineyard, Carinae, where we did a tour of winery and tasted a lovely selection of their most well-known wines. Generally speaking, Mendoza is famous for its red wines, primarily Malbecs and Cabernet Savignons, but we did taste some nice Merlots and even some nice whites. We enjoyed our tasting in the vineyards, surrounded by grapes and toasted to Mendoza. Directly across the street from Carinae is an olive oil factory that offers tours to teach how olive oil is actually produced. We hopped onto a Spanish speaking tour (we were a little to impatient to wait for the English tour an hour later) and only really understood about 25% of what was said; however, at the end of the 5 peso tour ($1.25) we were presented with a huge tray of fresh baguettes, sundried tomatoes, olives, and of course, olive oil...so the tour was well worth it and pleasantly filled our tummies enough to get us down the wine road a few more kilometers before stopping for lunch.

We continued our ride and stopped off at a few more places just to take in the sights. We ate grapes right off the vines, and had a picnic lunch at El Cerno winery (Hari and I almost never went anywhere in Argentina without the necessary provisions in our daypacks: cheese, olives, and a fresh baguette). This vineyard is an excellent place to stop off for an hour or so, it has a beautiful garden and tons of bean bag chairs so you can purchase a bottle of wine and relax outside in the vineyard while enjoying it. Our last stop of the day was Tempus Alba, which was my favorite. We had an excellent tasting on the deck of the winery that overlooked the vineyards (the Malbec was especially great). Mendoza is a great place to kick back and enjoy some great wines at extremely reasonable prices - even at the vineyards you could buy a bottle for less than $15. Mendoza is a must stop place in Argentina, aside from the wines. I wish I could have spent a few more days there, but at the same time I was excited to move on...from Mendoza I´d take a bus to Santiago to meet up with Sarah again!

Extreem New Zealand

2009-07-01T14:24:00.000-04:00

New Zealand is where extreme sports happen and Queenstown is the mecca. If you have some crazy idea, you can probably find someone in NZ to do it, wearing clothing is always optional. I took advantage and got to do some crazy things that I always wanted to do or never considered. Sky diving has always been on the top of my extreme list and I fulfilled it in Abel Tasmin, over the national park. Although I honestly didn´t appreciate too much of the view as I was falling from an airplane to my potential death (not really), but the thrill and rush is unbelievable. I had an awesome instructor, Jason, who was just a few jumps away from his 10,000th sky dive. I decided to get my hair-raising experience on tape and had a video cameraman jumping with me too. I was pretty calm and confident until about 10 seconds before I was to fall from the plane 13,000 ft in the air. We did a quick spin from the plane and then were off, falling... the air is rushing past you so fast that your brain cannot comprehend how high up you are or how quickly you are falling. It is shocking and terrifying, then amazing and exhilarating, then peaceful and beautiful. All those emotions in just about 8 minutes. There were about 6 of us that all went for our first time jump that day and we all got to share the mixed emotions together.

Probably my highlight of NZ was doing the glacier climbing in Fraz Josef. I did a full day climb and spent about 6 hours on the glacier, going into crevices, between the glacier walls, and over the melting ravines. The ice got so so blue the deeper and further into the glacier we went. It was spectacular to see and unlike anything I had been so close to or inside before. It definitely beats your daily ice cube. The ice in the glacier is always changing and everyday the guides need to find new paths to take people on, often carving through the glacier walls with their ice picks to get to new openings in the ice. As we got further inside the glacier the walls started to get smaller and tighter, many times we had to twist our bodies to get through some archways. As we continued our hike suddenly things came to a stop and after awhile we found out that we were stuck in the glacier and the guides couldn't get us through it. That meant that we were going to have to climb out of it. It was so cold just standing between two giant ice cubes that Team Sweden put on some music that they had on their cell phone. We all started dancing to "Poker Face" and it will always remind me of being in the glacier and dancing to keep warm. Eventually a rope was secured and we had to climb with our crampons up this wall of ice. It was an amazing experience, you could even say it was chilling.

I had never had a huge desire to bungy jump, but when in Rome... so I decided to take the plunge while in Queenstown. I jumped, really you run off, from "The Ledge" which is a 47 m drop on a ledge that is 400 meters above Queenstown. I was pretty scared right before I jumped and had a few false starts. I was not nearly as brave as my friend Paul who went before me in just his underwear. He isn´t the only clothesless guy that does this. When I finally went, in full cartoon style, after going off the ledge my legs continued to move like I was still running. We lovingly referred to it as the chicken legs move. Once I jumped all I could see was that the ground was so so far away, although I knew I wasn´t going to be falling 400m it was still so scary. A few seconds later it is over and I could hear all the cheering from my friends that came to see us "go off the ledge". After the jump we all enjoyed the go-carts above the city and the amazing views around us.

Queenstown offers lots of other crazy sports and it seems that sky diving was an option at almost every town or city that we visited. The craziest thing there was to do was jumping from one of the highest bungees in the world, The Nevis, which is a 134m bungy. We watched all of our friends DVD tapes of this and it is one of the scariest things I have ever seen. 8 full seconds of free fall with just a rope attached to you. Way too extreme for me. Queenstown is also a huge party town, with lots of bars and clubs that go late into the night. For most of us this was our last stop together and we took full advantage of the nightlife most of us going late into the morning at World Bar. Additionally Queenstown is home of the Ferge Burger, an amazing burger place offering hamburgers big enough to feed multiple people or one guy for the entire day. Good times.

Patagonia - Torres del Paine

2009-06-19T15:30:00.000-04:00

Hari and I flew from BA down to El Calafate, a small town on the Argentine side of Patagonia. This town is a common starting point for trekkers who are interested in heading to the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares and the famous ¨W¨trek that leads to Torres del Paine in Chilean Patagonia. We spent a few days in El Calafate to see the Perito Moreno glacier and to prepare for our trek. Hari had been wanting to trek in Patagonia for years, he was especially interested in the "W" trail in Chile that leads to Torres del Paine. The trail itself takes 5 days to complete and is in the shape of a ¨W¨. It is lined by glacier capped mountains, crystal-clear blue lakes, and lush forests. This trail is very popular for trekkers, as it leads to the famous Torres del Paine sandstone mountains that hover 3000 meters above a lake. Unlike many other mountains in the area, they do not gradually ascend in a classic upside-down ¨V¨mountain shape - instead they shoot up out of the ground in 3 abrupt, spectacular points. The photos I had seen plastered throughout El Calafate blew me away, I could not wait to see them in person.

Before heading towards the trail, we stayed in El Calafate for a day to see the Perito Moreno glacier which we heard was a must. It did not disappoint...it is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life. The glacier itself covers 250 sq km, reaching nearly 60 meters high. As one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world, Perito Moreno moves a drastic 2 meters per day and these movements can easily be seen by eye. We arrived at the glacier and I was blown away at its size - of course I knew that 60 meters high is insane, but actually standing in front of it made it seem so much larger. The boats on the water near the glacier looked like ants. Within a few minutes of being at one of the lookout points along the water we witnessed our first calving, the breaking off of massive chunks of ice caused by the movement of the glacier. We always had warning that a calving was about to occur, as we could hear a crack in the ice as loud as thunder followed by pieces of the glacier as big as buildings crumbling into the water. These calvings happen about every 20-30 minutes. Some occur deep in the heart of the glacier and can only be heard, but when they happen along the shore the crowds at the lookout points go wild and try to quickly snap photos of the ice crashing into the water below. As the ice chunks hit the water they cause massive waves to dissipate to the shore line, it is really quite a show. We stayed at the glacier just watching and anxiously waiting for calvings for 4 hours, and neither of us were ever bored. We saw several calvings, one in particular was massive and Hari very excitedly caught the end of it on video. Like I said, it was one of the most beautiful and coolest things I have ever seen, so much more than I anticipated. It was an amazing afternoon, and the cherry on top - as we were heading back to El Calafate on our bus a rainbow formed over the glacier. Simply amazing.Now onto the trek. I guess you could say that we were a little bit unprepared for the weather. Having spent all of my trip in summer weather, I had only 2 long pants, shirts, and a fleece jacket. To this point, I had hardly used them but since we were now in the southern Andes, it was freezing. El Calafate is a tourist town, and since it is not exactly in a heavily trafficked area it is quite expensive. I picked up some gloves and a hat but skipped out on buying any other warm clothing - I figured that layering everything else remotely warm that I had with me would suffice. The 5-day "W" trek that leads to Torres del Paine does have some refugios along the way where you can sleep, but we wanted a true trekking experience so we decided to tough it out and camp. This meant that for the duration of our trek we would have to carry everything we needed on our backs - tent, sleeping bags/mats, clothes, and food. We rented the camping equipment and stocked up at the local supermarket on good trekking food: granola, energy bars, peanuts, instant soup packets, oatmeal, bread, cheese, apples, etc. We managed to fit all of our equipment into my large pack and Hari´s small backpack and were ready to go.

We took a bus to the Chilean border where we would go through customs and get to the starting point of the trek. I guess it slipped our minds that we were crossing a border and that you are often not allowed to bring fresh food from one country to another while Hari and I were stocking up at the supermarket. There were signs everywhere at the border stating that it was forbidden to bring any produce, or animal products/bi-products from Argentina into Chile. Oops, we had a bag of 14 apples, cheese, and salami in our big pack. At first we contemplated not declaring them but in the end our consciences told us to be honest on our customs forms. The result: all of our apples and salami were confiscated, but somehow the customs officer let the cheese go through. We were out about $10, no big deal, but this of course would mean that we would have to rush to another supermarket to replace the food we´d lost before we started our trek. Good thing we were honest, though...Sarah told us that when she flew into Chile from New Zealand that a guy on her flight had 2 apples in his backpack that he had forgotten about. He did not declare them, and was busted by customs officials and charged $100 per apple! Had Hari and I been busted, I would have had to cut my trip short, as the fine could have been thousands of dollars!

After the border incident, we made it to Chile and were ready to start our trek. We took a small boat across Lago Pehoe to the starting point of the trail and were already amazed at the scenery - we were surrounded by huge glacier capped mountains in every direction. We arrived at the camp late in the afternoon and would start trekking the next morning, so we pitched the tent and relaxed in the nice, warm refugio. The trail has refugios along the way, so even though we were camping we would luckily be able to defrost in the common areas of the refugios in the evening. We got to bed early, anticipating an early start for our first day of trekking. We woke up to the dreaded sound of rain on our tent. This was not a good sign. We put on all of our trekking gear and went outside to assess the situation - the rain was not that heavy, but if it held up all day we would inevitably be soaked. Being on a time schedule, we had no choice but to head out in the rain. Instead of packing up camp and taking all of our gear with us to the next campsite, we decided we would do the first part of the ¨W¨ as a day hike. We walked for 3.5 hours in the rain, so we were cold, wet, and pretty annoyed; however, when we reached Grey Glacier on Lago Grey we cheered up a bit - it´s pretty hard to be in a bad mood when you are standing in front of a brilliant, blue glacier. We snapped tons of photos, had our lunch, and headed back 3.5 hours to our camp. By the time we got there our socks and shoes were soaked through. We bolted to the refugio to warm up but knew in the back of our heads that there was no way our shoes would dry out overnight, so we´d have to wake up to wet shoes. Oh well, maybe the rain would stop and they´d dry as we were walking the next day...

The rain didn´t stop. Again we woke up to the sound of rain pouring down on our tent. We were not happy campers, but we tried to remind ourselves that we were in Patagonia and that things could be a lot worse. So we put on our wet shoes and headed out for another day hike, and luckily at this point the rain had slowed to a drizzle. While the surrounding views on the trail were beautiful, the trail itself was a wet, muddy mess. At some parts the mud was shin deep, so we had to try to find less traveled trails. Sometimes we were successful, sometimes we were not but our shoes were already soaking so a little mud wouldn´t hurt. This steep section of the trek went up the Valle Frances along a massive waterfall. Hari and I scrambled up the rocks and made the most of it - since we were already soaking wet from the knees down, we figured that we may as well have fun and slosh through the running glacier water...the water was freezing (obviously, it´s glacier water), but it is sparkling clean so at least our muddy shoes got a cleaning. On the top, we got some great photos of Hari faux hurling himself into the waterfall and on our descent, the clouds cleared and we saw our first hint of sunshine. The rest of the walk back to camp was dry, and the sight of the sun reflecting off the glaciers was incredible. The weather warmed up and our pants started to dry off, so things were looking up. The wind was so strong that I was able to lean my entire body weight into it and still be held up standing perfectly straight. In higher spirits, we got back to camp, hung out in the refugio, and hoped that the weather would hold up the next day.

On day 3 we did not wake up to the sound of rain on the tent, so we were excited to get up and get going. We got an early start to the next camp with the sunshine on our shoulders. This campsite was awesome, we could see the 3 Torres from our tent and the refugio was first-class - it had a really nice sitting area, bar, and wood stoves where we´d be able to set our (still) wet shoes in front of to dry. After our walk, we set up camp and relaxed in front of the nice, warm fire, as Hari wasn´t feeling too well. Being in the cold rain caused Hari to come down with a pretty bad cold, so when we woke up the next morning he didn´t have the energy to do a full day hike. Luckily despite the initial bad weather we kept a good pace and had a bit of extra time so Hari relaxed for most of the day and we just hiked around the area for a few hours. The next day we would complete the ¨W¨ and make it to the Torres, so we wanted to make sure Hari was well-rested and ready to go.

Thankfully we woke up on day 4 to a perfect day. There were no clouds in the sky and it was actually quite warm for Patagonia. We anxiously got ready and started our trek, which was the most physically challenging section of the trail. It was mostly uphill, but having the Torres in view made us keep our pace and we made it to the base of the Torres in great time. From the base you have to walk up a steep, rocky path for 30 minutes to reach the lake where the Torres begin. We raced up the trail and was breathless, the view was picture perfect. The Torres were 100x more beautiful in person than they were in all the photos I had seen. The sky was clear and the sun reflected off the blue-green lake. The lake is at 750 meters, and the Torres shoot up an additional 2000 meters into the sky. Hari and I were both speechless, we must have just stared at the perfect view for 15 minutes before we took one photo. Sitting in front of the Torres on this perfect day made it worth hiking in the rain for 2 days through muddy trails.

We sat for awhile, had lunch, and admired the views before we headed back to camp. As we made our way down the mountain, clouds started to roll in and we were very thankful that we made it to the top while the sun was still shining. We were both pretty quiet for the rest of the evening, as we were both reflecting on our adventure and the perfect views of the Torres. The next day we headed back to El Calafate where we indulged in a nice Italian dinner and a nice, hot shower at our Hospedaje. Patagonia was definitely a highlight of the trip for me, the air is clean and the whole area just feels so untouched. We flew back to Buenos Aires where we´d stay for one more day, then off to Mendoza.

Sweet As

2009-06-17T13:07:00.000-04:00

New Zealand is beautiful. It is a place where on every turn in the road the scenery can take your breath away. It was a different kind of beauty then the sunny beaches and ocean I had been surrounded by for the last several months (not that I am complaining). NZ is truly gorgeous and an outdoor enthusiast and thrill seekers dream. I decided to focus most of my time in NZ on the south island which is known to be more beautiful with more outdoor activities to offer travelers.

I arrived in Christchurch which is a cute little town with a great weekend market that is very welcoming and brought a completely different vibe then Australia did for me. Much more chill, outdoor focused, and backpacker focused I thought. Mary and I had originally planned on renting a car and driving around the south island exploring it for ourselves. Since plans had changed I spent my first day in Christchurch checking hostel message boards and posting my own notes looking for people that wanted to roadtrip the south island with me. I also began looking into other options for travel which focused on the various groups hop on hop off backpacker buses that circled New Zealand. I decided to book a two week tour with the Stray bus because they focused on getting off the tourist beaten track giving travelers a more alternative, NZ cultural focused experience. Most of the travelers were a bit older then the 18 year olds high school grads that are usually drawn to the ´green f--- bus´(as it is lovingly referred to) backpacker bus. All the bus does is bring us from place to place and the accommodations we book and activities we do in each town is our choice. Luckily I ended up with a really great group of people who I stayed with almost my entire journey of the south island. I really loved my experiences in New Zealand and it remains one of my favorite countries of this trip.

After two days in Christchurch I boarded the orange Stray bus and we were off to Kaikoura where I took a beautiful hike all along the sea cliffs checking out the seals (got a little too close to one) and just enjoyed my first of many beautiful NZ days. The next day we drove up to Picton and took a boat trip around the Marlborough Sounds. We got an AMAZING dolphin show while on the boat, all the dolphins jumping, playing and swimming with the boat. Then it was too a local Scottish bar to catch some March Madness games. My other main focus during the trip was to catch as many college NCAA tournament games I could- specifically Villanova games. With a 21 hour time difference it was pretty challenging and required some bribes with bartenders, 9am games, and complaints from locals that wanted to watch something else on TV. If you have met me you would expect nothing less. Let me just say March Madness doesn´t have the same following in NZ as it does in the States. In Picton we had some interesting 70 to 80 yr old guy roommates in our dorm who announced, in advanced, that they all snore very badly and even offered us the extra earplugs they carry around for people staying in the same dorm as they are. Note- great earplugs are an essential backpacking item (thanks Snugs). That night to help us get some sleep we went to a local Irish bar the carried the best Guinness in NZ. I have do doubt that it was, even TJ, our resident Irish bloke, gave it the thumbs up.
The next day we were to change buses and met the core travel group that I hung with over the next week. My bus was filled with mostly English backpackers, a few Canadians, Team Sweden, and TJ. I was the token American on the bus and was reminded of it often. Our driver was B.P. which stands for British Petroleum because of a streaking incident through the BP gas station during his Stray driver initiation. He filled our long drives with hilarious stories as well as loads of New Zealand facts and history. He also used the phrase ´sweet as´all the time, as do all NZers. Basically ´sweet as´is used to say almost anything like- sure, OK, it was great, amazing time, let´s go. You can really just say it at the end of any sentence if you want.
Abel Tasmin was one of the most beautiful stops on my NZ journey. It is a gorgeous national park (one of many) set along the beach and lakes. We camped for two nights here, enjoying the nightly bonfires, huge Kiwi BBQ, fresh mussels from the sea, and the silence of being in the middle of paradise. During the day a few of us decided to do a beautiful 12 km hike through the Park to Anchorage Beach. Once on the beach we had a catamaran (Straycat) waiting for us to take us back to our campsite. On our journey back I saw my one and only penguin, more seals, and the impressive cliffs over the magical blue water. Sweet As.

Buenos Aires - Mary lands in South America

2009-06-14T17:52:00.001-04:00

Before heading to Daintree and the Great Barrier Reef, we said our goodbyes to Brad and Esther and were not sure when we´d see them again...well as it turns out, we´d see them only about a week later. Hari and I both modified our travel plans for the coming months so we´d be able to spend more time together and with our changes we´d be flying out of Sydney to South America, so back to Brad and Esther´s apartment we went. We were only there for a day, but that gave us time to hang out some more, have yet another goodbye dinner, and say hasta luego for real this time...since they were back to work in Australia and we were off to South America, bumping into them again along the way would be extremely unlikely.

Hari and I hopped a cab and headed to the airport to catch our 14 hour long flight to Buenos Aires. We flew out of Sydney at 1pm on March 16th, and landed in Buenos Aires at 11am on March 16th. We crossed the International Date Line and magically gained an entire day. After some research in our Lonely Planet South America Books (Lonely Planet books are often referred to as the backpacker´s bible, everyone has it) we decided to stay in the San Telmo area of Buenos Aires - it is an older part of the city and therefore much less expensive than the chic Palermo area. We found a guesthouse on an old cobblestone road near a square that was lined with antique shops and restaurants and immediately hit the sack. The long flight was quite comfortable and painless, but we were both exhausted and spent our first 2 days in Buenos Aires sleeping and being totally lazy. Luckily, we were not in much of a time crunch and did not have to rush through Buenos Aires so we didn´t feel too guilty wasting 2 full days.

After adjusting to the time zone, we set out to explore the city. It had a very European feel and I quickly learned why so many people had told me that they could easily spend weeks just bumming around BA. We spent several entire afternoons just walking around and checking out the many plazas and squares. We also quickly became addicted to empanadas, which are available on literally every street corner. They are a delicious snack or meal, and they are extremely cheap, only about 50 cents per empanada. Buenos Aires certainly does not have any shortage of cafes, restaurants, or parrillas (steakhouses) - we had been told by friends who had traveled to BA that one of the highlights is the cheap steaks. Knowing that dinner does not even start until 10pm, we scoped out our neighborhood during the day and picked out a few places that we wanted to check out for dinner much later in the evening. We arrived at our first parrilla just after 10pm and it was still nearly empty, but we were too hungry to wait any longer and ordered a nice bottle of wine and 2 steaks. Everything was delicious, the steaks were excellent quality and cooked to perfection. While a dinner like this in New York City would cost at least $100 for 2 people, our meal cost us only about $40. Yes, this is a huge price difference, but I do have to say that I expected Argentina to be a little less expensive. I know that $40 for a nice steak dinner with wine is a deal, but keep in mind that we were coming from SE Asia where we were getting nice dinners for less than $8 for two people...BA is not the most backpacker-price friendly city in South America, but then again we were in one of the nicest, most developed cities in all of SA so we hoped things would be a bit cheaper in less popular cities.

After being in BA for just a day I got some great news - Britt, one of my closest friends from home, would also be in BA and I would get to spend a few days with her! This was a great surprise, I knew that she and her roommate, Kat, were planning a trip to BA but the last we had spoken we did not think that our dates would overlap. Due to me changing around my schedule, I ended up in South America almost a month ahead of schedule so it worked out that Britt and Kat were there at the same time. They had rented an apartment for a full week in Palermo, a really hip area in the northern part of the city. Thanks to craigslist they were able to find a nice 2-bedroom apartment to rent for a full week that ended up being much cheaper than staying in a hotel. Plus they had a full kitchen so they were able to stock up the fridge and cook some meals at home. They invited us up for drinks and dinner one evening so Hari and I hopped on the metro and made our way up to their area. I was most impressed with the metro in BA, it only costs about 30 cents a ride and is quite clean and consistent. It took us about 30 minutes to get up to Palermo and after a short walk through a pretty little park, we found the apartment. After being let in by the doorman we ran upstairs and Britt opened the front door and jumped into my arms. I had not seen her for about 8 months and was so excited to reunite in BA. She had the nicest engagement card and a bottle of wine waiting for us, and we started catching up right away. We were probably talking to each other a mile a minute, so much had happened and we didn´t even really know where to start. We talked for easily over an hour before realizing it was nearly 11pm and we should get going for dinner. We all headed toward a street near their apartment that had lots of restaurants and picked a parrilla. Throughout the whole dinner we just kept talking and talking and were so excited to be together.

Before we knew it, it was getting quite late so we all decided to meet up again the next day to do some sightseeing together and Hari and I headed back to San Telmo. The next morning we woke up a bit early because we wanted to go to the Japanese and Botanical Gardens before meeting up with Britt and Kat. Another metro ride later, we were at the parks and walked around for a few hours. The weather was beautiful, sunny and not too hot, and the gardens were huge and very well kept. They reminded me a little bit of strolling through Central Park with no particular mission except for enjoying the day. We took tons of photos and headed over to Palermo to meet up with the girls again. We wandered down the main street and eventually made our way to the Plaza San Martin where the United Buddy Bears Exhibition was set up for a few months - these life-size bears are painted by artists from all over the world to celebrate diversity and teach about other cultures. Each UN-recognized country gets a bear and an artist is selected to paint the bear any way he/she chooses - some of the bears were really beautiful and creative (especially Iraq, Cambodia, Egypt, and Moldova), while some were quite cliche and weird (for example, the US bear was the Statue of Liberty, and the Netherlands bear was just weird and random). The bears were set up in a huge circle in the plaza and tons of people walked around checking them out and taking photos with them. We all had a great time checking them out and taking silly photos with them. The afternoon started to come to an end so Britt and Kat headed back towards Palermo while Hari and I went back to San Telmo for pizza (Argentina actually has really good pizza).

The next day was Britt´s last day so I went up to her apartment to say goodbye to her and Kat. It was great to see them and an unexpected reunion. Our goodbye would only be temporary, though...Kat´s family is from Colombia which is my last stop in July before returning back to the US. Kat has family living in Bogota and goes back often so she and Britt are in the midst of planning to meet me and Hari there in early July for a few weeks, I´m so excited that I will be seeing them again for Part II of our South America journey together! I said my temporary goodbye to the girls and rushed back down to San Telmo, as Hari and I were going to a River Plate futbol game later in the afternoon. Through my travels I have become more and more of a futbol fan since it is the most popular sport everywhere in the world except the US and is always on in bars and restaurants. Hari and I had heard and read that Argentine futbol fans are by far the craziest so we had to see for ourselves. The 2 main teams in BA are River Plate and Boca Juniors. Boca Juniors are probably more well-known, but they were not in town while we were there so we had to see River Plate play instead. We took the metro to the train station and after literally running along side a moving train (Slumdog Millionaire style, Hari said I reminded him of Latika but unlike her I made it on the train after being pulled on by some locals!) we made it to the stadium. We had to walk for a good 15 minutes along the highway to get to the stadium, the whole time we were surrounded by fans covered in red, white, and black, who were singing and waving their jerseys, scarves, and flags in the air. We scalped some cheap tickets and got into the stadium in time to see the club teams celebrating as if their team had just won The World Cup - there were full marching bands, people painted head-to-toe, non-stop singing and dancing, and confetti everywhere. It was really the most enthusiastic show at a sporting event that I have ever seen, they did not stop singing or dancing for the entire game! The opposing team scored a goal within the first 2 minutes but this did not put a damper on the River fans and they tied up the score mid-game. The fans continued cheering and in the 93rd minute of the game River scored a penalty goal to win the game. The celebrations were unreal, they continuted for a solid hour after the game was over - security is so tight as these games because of riots that after the game is over, the opposing side is let out first and all the home-team fans have to wait inside so the opponents can safely get out of the stadium. The opposing team section is even fully fenced in and lined with barbed wire and guards in full riot gear to protect them, so crazy. My first live futbol game is one that I will never forget, the Argentine´s are so passionate about their futbol!
Hari and I also decided to take the local ferry over to Uruguay for 2 days. Being less than 2 hours away we figured we had to go check it out, so we got tickets on the Buquebus ferry and made our way to Montevideo, the capital city of Uruguay. The new part of the town was nothing special, lined with shops and very crowded, but the colonial part of the city is quite beautiful and much more quiet. There are tons of antique shops, and one in particular was very special to both of us - Hari had given me a beautiful coconut ring engagement ring in Indonesia that I love, but his mom and sister busted on him a bit for not getting me a ¨real¨ ring. I told him that I didn´t mind either way and didn´t need to get anything big or fancy. We were just walking by one antique store and one caught my eye - it was perfect, not too big and very unique, definitely more my style than the typical large diamond engagement ring. We said we´d think about it and the next day Hari bought me the ring, I absolutely love it. The streets of Montevideo are lined with artists selling hand-made jewelery and antiques, it is very quaint and quiet. During our stay we also had the best steak dinner, even better than anything we had in Buenos Aires (and also a bit cheaper). We only had 2 days in Montevideo, but it was a wonderful time and I would highly recommend heading over to Uruguay if you are already in BA and have a few extra days.

Back in BA we started discussing where we would go next and what other cities we wanted to see while in Argentina. We both definitely wanted to see Mendoza, but Hari had also been dying to do some trekking in Patagonia for years. I also love trekking, so we booked a flight to El Calafate in southern Argentina near the border of Chile where we would do a 5-day trek of Torres del Paine.

A dingo ate my baby

2009-06-10T16:40:00.001-04:00

I arrived in Harvey Bay before we set off for Fraser Island and kept my fingers crossed for good weather. Because of Cyclone Hamish, each morning I woke up praying for nice weather. I knew that Fraser Island had been shut down for four days because of the damage the Cyclone did and I hoped the weather would hold so I could enjoy this little spot of paradise. Fraser Island is a national park that requires people to drive 4 wheel jeeps in order to get around the dirt paths, beach, and roads around the island. Because of the storm the roads were a lot more dangerous and many of them were closed down with detours everywhere.
For the trip there were three groups of 8 people, who were all randomly assigned to jeeps. I was with my friend Marja from Holland and we happened to get paired up with hellish group, by that I mean 6, very sheltered 18 year old girls from London on their GAP year, reuniting on this trip for the first time after 5 months of traveling. There was lots of screaming, gossip, and general excitement between the six of them over things that Marja and I had no clue about. I felt like the first day in the jeep was spent with Marja and me trying to hear each other over all the screaming in the car. We had one guy in our group, Patrick from Ireland (go figure), who was very easy going and he took the reins on driving the huge jeep for the three day trip. Luckily the other two cars with us were filled with people that we got along a lot better and had more in common with making the overall trip a blast. The deal with Fraser Island is you get a jeep, buy all the food and alcohol you will need for three days, tents and all camping equipment. Our group had a designated campsite for the two nights we were there and a map of the island showing us where we could go and what the tides would be like during our three days on the island. Coolest part is that roads really meant we were driving on the actual beach and when the tides were high there was no beach for us to drive on. Driving on the beach with nothing but paradise around us was pretty damn cool. Driving on the dirt roads were crazy because of all the rain we were on bumpy roads that weren´t regularly used and there would be times we would all just hold onto the bars in the jeep as we went barreling down a dirt road. There were times we were all screaming just like Indian Jones in that Disneyland ride (ok it was not that dangerous).
One thing we did have to watch out for were the dingos which were all over the island. All of our food had to be locked up in our jeep at night and all of the trash cans had lids that locked on them. Those dingos are very clever and are always lingering around looking for food. One night we left an empty cooler out and locked, in the morning we found that a dingo had managed to get the lock open and inside the cooler. Along with the dingos there were other amazing creatures on the Island from enormous geckos, crazy red colored birds, huge horneytoed frogs, to terrible annoying large beetle bitting things. Only in Australia do many of these creatures exist.
We explored the nearby lakes, finding a lake filled with little turtles and surrounded by a jungle trek (and I soon found out hungry mosquito's). We spent one day at Indian Head rock, a beautiful piece of beach, and the nearby champagne pools. When the waves swept into the pools it bubbled just like champagne. It was a blast. There was also a ship wreck on the beach from a huge cruise liner that was sunk nearby and washed onto the beach. McKensey Lake is also a big attraction of the island. Besides our last day, we hardly saw anyone else on the island outside of our group which made it like our little island sanctuary. At nights we would cook our dinner, either BBQ or pasta, play drinking games and then retreat to the beach to watch the stars and hang out late into the night.

It clearly was a very unique experience and I became close to several of the people on the trip. We all went off to Brisbine together to celebrate St. Patricks Day before I left Australia for New Zealand.

Great Barrier Reef

2009-06-05T16:26:00.000-04:00

After an awesome time in Daintree, Hari and I headed to Cairns where we would book some diving in the famous Great Barrier Reef. We spent a few days in Cairnes to hang out and find a good dive shop to book our trip. Cairns itself is a very backpacker friendly town, the main drag is lined with hostels/hotels, surf and dive shops, and restaurants. While the town is on the water, there is no beach but instead a massively long boardwalk where everyone hangs out, jogs, and rides bicycles (I was really psyched to get in some runs along the water, I had been missing running as part of my daily routine but was trying to get it back in my schedule). There is a huge public swimming pool area along one section of the boardwalk that was always bustling - it had fountains where little kids splashed around and tons of people sun bathing along the faux-shoreline. It was a cool place to walk around, but we didn't spend too much time near the pool, as we were on a diving mission.

We were a bit nervous when we first arrived because we weren't sure how the cyclone would affect diving conditions, but luckily the dive shops we spoke to said within a few days visibility should clear up so we booked a 3 day/2 night trip to depart a few days later. In the meantime, we parked in front of the TV/DVD at our guesthouse and very excitedly caught up on several episodes of Lost from the new season, as Hari's mom sent us a DVD of all the episodes in Australia.

Our departure day finally came and we anxiously headed to the dive shop to be on our way. We could not wait to get back in the water and to see the Reef after hearing so much about it. We got all of our equipment together and hopped on board the speedboat that would take us to the live-aboard a few hours offshore. Thankfully, unlike the bumpy speedboat ride in the Similan Islands where many people got seasick, this ride was a lot smoother.

We got to our live aboard, met our fellow dive team, and were briefed by the head DM, Vincent, on the diving protocol in Australia. It was quite different than diving in Thailand and Indonesia - for starters, all certified divers went under without a DM unless you opted to pay an additional AUD 15/dive to have a DM show you around the sites. While Hari and I both successfully completed our underwater navigation tests during our Advanced Open Water dive courses, we had never navigated dive sites ourselves without a DM guiding us...doing it alone would definitely be a new learning experience! Also, in Thailand there are really no regulations as far as air consumption is concerned but in Australia every diver legally has to surface with at least 50 bars of air remaining in their tanks - this is a bit of a conservative regulation, as in Thailand we would start our 3 minute safety stops when we hit 40 or 50 bars, often leading us to surface with only 10-20 bars. What this regulation means in essence is shorter dives, but I guess it's always best to be safe. Another difference with the GBR is that we had to wear stinger suits to protect us from the deadly marine stingers that were brought in by the currents instead of wet suits - because the water was so warm (about 28-29 degrees Celcius), we would not need wetsuits to keep us warm which was a huge plus for me since I tend to get cold underwater very easily.

After getting briefed we got into our gear and were ready to hit the water. For our first dive it was required that we had a DM take us down just to make sure that we were really qualified and safe to be navigating a site by ourselves. Unfortunately, because we were with some beginner divers, our dive time was a mere 30 minutes. At least we passed the test to dive by ourselves and would be able to stay down longer in our future dives.

It was great to be underwater again, but to be completely honest, Hari and I were both a little disappointed with the quality of the Reef. I know that we were only in a small section of the southern part of the Reef, but I was very surprised as to how damaged and bleached most of the coral was. Maybe my expectations were a bit unrealistic, I imagined that the acquatic life and coral would be 100x better than that of Thailand, but unfortunately it was not. Due to rising water temperatures and the holes in the ozone layer above the reef, much of the coral is bleached white and lacks the brilliant colors that we saw throughout both eastern and western Thailand. It is a shame that the changing environment keeps damaging the coral more and more every year, I just hope that the damage slows, otherwise the entire reef will be wiped out.

But don´t get me wrong, despite my expectations being a bit too high the acquatic life was still really great - on every dive we saw tons of Nemos, humbugs (adorable black and white striped fish that are about the size of your pinky nail, some of my favorites), rainbowfish, parrotfish, etc. We did get ¨lost¨ a few times underwater, but overall we made our way around pretty successfully. One thing that was really cool is that we would station at one dive site in the morning and get 2-3 dives at each site, which gave us the opportunity to learn our way around and make sure that we saw all parts of the reef instead of having to rush around. One of the dive sites had a massive drop off that was actually pretty scary - we were under about 20 meters or so when all of a sudden there was a wall that dropped off over 1000 meters. Looking down was really intimidating, I kept my distance from the wall...even though there was really no chance of falling into the abyss, I still wanted to be cautious!

Overall we had a great time on our dive trip. Even though we were a little let down on the conditions of the Reef, we still did get in some great dives and saw some great marine life. I would like to return to the more northern section of the Reef in the future, perhaps the conditions in other sections are in better condition...either way, it is up to us to be environmentally responsible so the damage to the Reef does not continue. And that´s my little ¨go green¨ cheer for the blog, do your part and protect our planet!

Cyclone Hamish

2009-05-26T12:50:00.002-04:00

Hari, Mary and I flew up to the north of Australia to see Fort Douglass and Daintree. We stayed at this awesome hostel resort, Dougie´s Backpacker Guesthouse, that is exactly the way a backpackers hostel should be. A perfect hostel kitchen area ie. huge refrigerators, lots of room to hang out, great swimming pool, and bar happy hours. No wonder people stay here for months at a time.
Our first day at Fort Douglass was beautiful weather so Mary and Hari took bikes to check out the town, while I made an appointment and went to the doctor to see if my eardrum was healed and if I would finally be able to scuba dive in the Great Barrier Reef. I went to the doctor and he told me that my ear was not healed and that I could not go scuba diving. I was devasted. Again I was not going to be able to go scuba diving and would have to sit out, just like I had to in Thailand and Indonesia.

This was probably the toughest period of the trip for me. Besides the worry that my ear was still not healing correctly, I was facing the realization that Mary would most likely go with Hari to Argentina and I would be going to New Zealand alone. Clearly their relationship was now a life commitment and it didn´t make sense nor was it fair for me to tag along with them. Although Mary and I had planned on going to New Zealand together, I knew it wouldn´t make either of them happy to leave eachother. Each time Mary and I had split up from Hari they had always made an effort to meet up and travel together again. Naturally, they wanted to be together, travel together... I just didn´t really know where that put me or what I would do when I got to New Zealand, which was now about a week away. I clearly had never planned on traveling alone for such a long period of time.

The next morning as Cyclone Hamish blew through Fort Douglass, I basically told Mary and Hari they had made a life commitment to eachother and going off and traveling together just made logical sense. It was ultimately what I think they both wanted. New Zealand would alway be there and Mary could go there anytime. About her leaving me and our plans of travel together, I guess that often life does not work out as planned. Mary and I would be meeting up again in Chile as we had a Peru trip booked- trekking the Amazon and Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, but the trip dynamic had changed.

The next day the Cyclone was still in full swing but we made to decision to rent a car and go see if the Daintree Discovery Center (rainforest walk) was open. Unfortunately it was closed, but we made the best of our day and went on a river cruise to see some crocodiles. Althought the rain was pouring down we did see some Crocodiles, Fat Albert being one. The tour guide and owner was an awesome guy who knew all about each crocodile and where they liked to hang out. The crocs were like his kids. We saw a small snake which Mary and Hari managed to take a small peek at (they are both terrified of snakes) and a cool looking green frog.

The next day the weather had cleared and we took another trip to the Daintree Discover Center where we walked in the rainforest. We were able to get close up to rare plan life and see all the different levels of the rainforest. The Center provided lots of information about the different plants and their purpose in the rainforest. When we looked up through the canopy of the trees we could see small rays of sunshine, it was quite beautiful. We then went north to Cape Tribulation where we walked along the beach and discovered awesome mangrove treeroots. Our final stop was at a winery were we were persuaded into buying two horrible bottles of wine, one was even left unopened- yes it was that bad.

The next day it was time for us to say good-bye. I had booked a snorkel-scuba trip leaving from Cairns early that morning because I couldn´t miss out on seeing the Great Barrier Reef, even if it was only from the snorkel surface. Mary and Hari were of course going to get their scuba diving on and still needed to find a trip down in Cairns. We would see eachother again in South America.

Sydney and Kangaroo Valley

2009-05-23T13:43:00.001-04:00

We had an awesome time with Megan down in Melbourne and driving the Great Ocean Road. It was a great start to our time in Australia and we had even more to look forward to...from Melbourne we´d fly up to Sydney where we would stay with our traveling buddies from Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos, Brad and Esther! And even more exciting for me, Hari would be waiting for me at Brad and Esther´s apartment...after separating in Indonesia we weren´t sure how long we´d be apart for, and as it turned out, it was only about a week. Our flight landed and Hari and Esther picked us up at the airport. We were all excited to see each other and were looking forward to the weekend - it was Esther´s birthday and she had planned a big celebration in Kangaroo Valley.

Just a short 2o minute ride from the airport we arrived at Brad and Esther´s pad in Bondi Beach. Bondi Beach is an extremely happening area of Sydney with kilometers of stunning beaches and views. Their apartment was just a 10 minute walk from Tamarama Beach, and their terrace had a perfect view. Not only did their place have an ideal location, but the apartment itself was spacious and comfortable. It is a 2 bedroom, but Brad had converted the second bedroom into the ¨Man Room¨ - Brad is a musician and works in website design so this room is full of computer and music recording equipment, guitars, and a plethora of other testosterone pumping gadgets. After our tour of the place we settled down and started catching up on everything that had been going on since we had last seen them in Laos. Our flight landed in the morning so Esther had a delicious breakfast spread waiting for us, and then we´d pack up their rental car to head 2 hours south to Kangaroo Valley to ring in Esther´s birthday.

Esther and some friends had planned to properly celebrate her birthday and rented out a house, okay not really a house, more like a mansion, in Kangaroo Valley. There would be about 20 people staying at the house so Sarah and I were told to prepare ourselves for some hard-core partying. After a nice breakfast we packed up some small weekend bags and got ready to hit the road. Now there would be 5 people in a rental car (Brad, Esther, Sarah, Hari, and me) so our space was limited...rental cars are always quite compact so we had to squeeze a lot of stuff into a small trunk. We started laying out everything we were bringing, mostly backpacks of clothes and such, when Brad came out of the Man Room with armfuls of stuff - a croquet set, blow-up pool toys, laser tag. Laser tag? Brad, do you really think we are going to need to bring laser tag for a 2 day trip? The answer to our question was ¨ahhhh, yes¨. Brad and Hari did some strategic packing and we somehow managed to fit everything in the car. Soon enough, we were on our way.

The 5 of us were the first to arrive at the house and like kids in a candy store we ran around checking out our first-class lodging for the weekend - at least 5 massive bedrooms, a huge kitchen that opened up to the pool area, proper well-kept grass tennis courts, a huge yard area (good thing we brought the croquet set), a billiard room, and a bbq area. Quite a change from the dodgy hostels we were used to staying in, but we had no trouble adjusting. We quickly unpacked the car, claimed our beds, and were on the tennis courts to play some sets and absorb some sun. We spent the day living like socialites, sipping on some delicious rum, mint, and ginger beer concoctions, playing tennis and croquet, and dipping in and out of the pool. It was the perfect start to Esther´s birthday weekend. We welcomed Esther´s friends as they arrived with drinks in hand and were ready for the festivities to begin. For dinner Brad cooked up a spinach and cheese pie that was to die for, and we partied until all hours of the night.

I could go into more detail, but in summary the rest of the weekend was spent living in luxury and partying - we spent our days sipping cocktails in the sun by the pool, on the tennis courts, or playing croquet. We had some interesting American Gladiator type games in the pool with the blow-up toys and water guns that Brad brought. Hari and I became addicted to laser tag and spent hours running around the house shooting at each other (I´m sorry we doubted you on that one, Brad, it was a good call to bring the laser tag!). We feasted on bbq for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as one of Esther´s friends manned the grill and was constantly cooking up something for everyone. Johanne even made an appearance! He was also in Sydney for the weekend and we insisted that he make the trip out to Kangaroo Valley so he borrowed a friend´s car and came for an evening. He was the hit of the party, as he is an artist and draws some funky, cool designs on plain white shoes...everyone wanted a pair, but only Sarah, Esther, and I were lucky enough to receive authentic Johanne Silva custom-made kicks. It was one of the best weekends I´ve had on the entire trip, aside from the awesome house, we got to bond and party with great friends.

We were all pretty beat after our weekend and headed back towards Sydney to recover. We stopped off at Brad´s mom´s beach house for an evening where we watched a few movies and ordered in pizza. Unfortunately the weather was not too nice so we didn´t get to spend time on the beach. The next morning we headed back to Bondi Beach and spent the afternoon walking along the bike/running trail that lines the shore. Brad and Esther showed us some local places to get some good eats and were beach bums for the afternoon. That evening we relaxed back at their pad and watched Slumdog Millionaire - if you have not seen it, go see it ASAP, it is excellent.

After Esther´s crazy birthday weekend and spending a few days relaxing, we made our way into the city to explore more of Sydney. Hari, Sarah, and I walked along the bridge that overlooks the Sydney Opera House and did all of the touristy things that you have to do while in Sydney. It is a beautiful city, one that I could definitely see myself living in at some point in the future. It has all of the big city sights that I love, but also has the ideal beach location and weather. I am a huge fan of Sydney. We just walked around and wandered for an entire afternoon. Hari and I indulged in a big sushi lunch, I LOVE sushi and had not had it in so long. After a few hours on our own Esther met us in a park and we headed back to Bondi Beach. Hari, Sarah, and I were heading north to Cairns and had to have a goodbye dinner with Brad and Esther before our journey continued. We had the greatest time with them in Sydney and Kangaroo Valley and were so happy to spend time with them. We were all a bit sad to split again, but we had a feeling we´d see them again somewhere along the way...

What a great,Great Ocean Road

2009-05-20T12:04:00.001-04:00

Megan suggested that we see one of her favorite parts of Australia and go on a roadtrip along the breath-taking coastline of south-west Victoria on Australia´s famous Great Ocean Road. This was one of my most favorite things that we did in Oz. Not only was it a girls roadtrip with good tunes and good friends, but it reminded me a lot of driving up the coast of California with its beautiful ocean views and cliff formations.

We made loads of stops along the way as Megan is quite a pro when it comes to the GOR; she knows all the best things to see and do. Our first stop was to try and spot wild koalas in their trees at an area known for koala bears. And did we see koalas!! We saw about seven of them, mostly just looking all cute and being lazy sleeping in their trees. One koala was actual up and moving and we got up close and personal with it. We watched it climb down his tree then he gave all his spectators the evil eye as he got off the tree and darted across the road to the other side. Once I saw the vicious look in his eye I bolted out of there- all I could think of was the monkey bite episode.

It was a cloudy day in Oz, but we still made several stops at lookout points along the 4 hr journey. We also had a nice picnic lunch of wine, cheese, fruit, and crackers. We also kept our eyes open for kangaroos, the other wild animal we hoped to see while in Oz. Unfortunately, we didn´t see any roo´s during this road trip. Our last stop that day was at the world-famous Twelve Apostles. These are a series of amazing rock formations that stretch along the coast. That night we arrived at our destination and looked for a room to stay in for the night before we started our journey back the next day. The only thing we could find was this amazing suite-apartment type accommodation complete with two rooms, a huge kitchen, and living room. We were in heaven and felt at home immediately. We had brought a movie, ´Tropic Thunder´to watch that evening, and for some reason our amazing suite didn´t have a DVD player. We ended up sitting in Megan´s car with her computer and a couple bottles of wine watching the movie with our spacious accommodations unoccupied.
I awoke the next day to the sounds of coffee being made in the kitchen and a beautiful day outside. We had perfect weather for our day back to Melbourne and we took advantage of it. Our first stop was for Mary and Megan, who love cheese, at a place appropriately named Cheese World. After we got our cheese on, it was time to make all the rock formations stops in this beautiful weather. We stopped again to see the world-famous Twelve Apostles and made other stops at Bells Beach, Apollo Bay, the Surf Coast and many others. It was a full two day roadtrip and we all had a great time just getting away from the city and spending some great time together.

Melbourne

2009-05-17T19:28:00.001-04:00

Sarah and I had both been excited to get to the Land Down Under from the very beginning. Neither of us had ever been before, and we had heard from so many friends that Australia is an awesome place. Plus we had met so many Aussie travelers throughout our journey that we wanted to meet up with again. Megan, a close friend of my sister´s from Villanova, moved to Australia after graduating and is now happily married to Matt, one of the sweetest Aussies we have met so far. They so generously invited us to stay with them and their adorable puppy, Lola, for as long as we were in the area.We arrived at the Melbourne airport and Megan and Matt were anxiously waiting for us at the arrivals gate. I had not seen Megan in at least 2 years and was excited to catch her up on everything that had happened since the beginning of the trip. Megan is also a fellow traveler, so she was able to relate to a lot of our adventures and traveling stories. After lots of hugs and excitement, we hopped in the car and were on our way to Megan and Matt´s place. We arrived and were happily greeted by Lola who was so excited to have company that she ran around the house in circles for several minutes. Megan and Matt showed us around their place and within minutes were making us as comfortable as possible - Megan had stocked up at the supermarket on all the goodies she knew we´d be craving (popcorn, candy, and other munchies) and Matt made us some delicious cheese and tomato toasties. It was so nice to feel at home and in a place where we could unwind and be comfortable. Megan and Matt are huge Seinfeld fans and had the entire series on DVD so we quickly popped on several episodes in the background while catching up.
Megan does not yet have her Australian work visa so during the day she would be able to be our personal tour guide. After sleeping in a bit and doing some laundry (so nice to have a washing machine at our disposal), we piled in the car and drove around to get a feel for the city. Megan and Matt live just minutes from the beach so she took us to a cute little cafe for breakfast and then we just walked along the shore for awhile. Megan also took us to a popular area of the city where people go to get a glass of sangria while soaking up the Melbourne sun. Let me just say, the Aussies are very attractive people...it was funny coming from straight backpacking life in SE Asia where girls never wear make-up and guys wear the same outfit 3 days in a row (hey, if it doesn´t smell, it´s not dirty!) to a chic metropolitan city where everyone is all done up and beautiful.After Matt got home from work one evening he promised he would cook us up an authentic Aussie bbq so we stocked up at the supermarket and made a huge feast, he is a bbq expert. We had everything from burgers to pasta salad to chips and guac, it was all delicious. We also picked up some Vegemite, as it had been talked up by every Aussie we had met along the way and we wanted to try for ourselves. Matt promised he´d make us a ¨proper¨ Vegemite sandwich - a thin layer of Vegemite, avocado, and tomato. It was...okay. Really salty, really just...interesting. Sorry all you Aussies, it´s definitely not something I would indulge in often, but the way that Matt made it was alright. I certainly would not want to eat a spoonful of the stuff, though. It is an acquired taste, kind of like how we Americans love our peanut butter but some cultures find it nasty. To each his own.

Megan and Matt live closer to the beach scene in Melbourne, so we had to hop the train to get into the city proper. Megan walked us around some of her favorite areas - the botanical gardens, the farmer´s market, and all along the water. I really loved the feel of the city, it was very laid back and chilled out, yet at the same time in the Financial District area there was a bit of the same hustle-bustle of New York City that I love. The weather was gorgeous, sunny but not too hot, a perfect day to walk around the gardens and explore.
Another reason Sarah and I were excited to get to Melbourne was to meet up with 2 friends who we met at the very beginning of our trip, Johanne and Peter. We shared a hostel with them in Berlin and they promised us that when we arrived in Melbourne that we would all meet up, so we had planned on getting together for some drinks and dinner in the city. After walking around for several hours, Megan headed back home and Sarah and I went off to meet Johanne. It was so great to see him again, even though it had been 6 months since we had seen him last we picked up right where we left off and immediately began sharing traveling stories and catching up. Peter joined us a short while later and we enjoyed a few pitchers of sangria at a hip rooftop bar. After a few drinks the boys we grabbed dinner, walked around a bit more, and eventually they drove us back to Megan and Matt´s to hang out there for awhile. It was really great to meet up with Peter and Johanne again.

Megan has been living in Australia for about 2 years now and has done quite a bit of traveling around the country, so we asked her suggestions for must-see places. Her first recommendation was taking a drive on the Great Ocean Road...so we hopped in her Outback (how appropriate) and were off.

Gili Air

2009-05-07T11:29:00.024-04:00

Just off the coast of Lombok lie the Gili Islands - Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno, and Gili Air. These 3 tiny islands are a popular destination for travelers and backpackers who end up on Lombok. Just a 30-45 minute boat ride away, they offer quiet beaches, scuba diving, a wide variety of chill bars and restaurants, and spectacular views of Mt. Rinjani, the 3700 meter mountain on Lombok. Gili Trawangan is known as being the party island, Gili Meno is the super quiet island, while Gili Air is somewhere inbetween. We all opted to head to Gili Air, as we didn't need a huge party island but did want the option to have a few Bintang beers on the beach while socializing with other backpackers. We took a long, extremely indirect local bus from our hotel on Lombok to the port where we could catch the boat to Gili Air - had we taken the logical road the bus ride would have been 30 minutes, but instead we had to go all through the center of town to make other stops so the bus ride ended up taking almost 2 hours. After finally arriving at the port, we found our boat and quickly realized that this boat would be insanely crowded - the boat itself was quite small, in reality it probably had room to seat 30 people comfortably, but we would end up cramming 60 people plus baskets full of food on this little boat. Since the Gili Islands are so small and secluded, almost everything has to be imported from Lombok, hence everyday the boats that go to and from the Gilis are filled with fresh fruits and veggies, bread, eggs, meat, you name it. Thankfully the boat ride was only about 30 minutes, so despite being crammed onto the boat, we didn't have to endure discomfort for too long.

We arrived on Gili Air to quickly see that there are NO cars or motorbikes on the islands, the only mode of transportation is horse-drawn carriage, bicycle, or foot. It was so nice to be surrounded only by the sound of the ocean and the click-clacking of horses hooves on the dirt road. Sarah, Hari, and I found some cute beach-front bungalos complete with hammocks on the porches and decided that we would easily be able to park there for several days. After dropping off our stuff, we walked along the narrow white sand beaches and explored the island. Gili Air is so small that you can walk along the entire beach front perimeter of the island in about 1.5 hours. I immediately loved this island, it was so peaceful and while there were other people around, I still felt completely secluded and not at all like I was on a tourist island.

Another reason we chose to spend our time on Gili Air was because Hari´s has a family friend, Kelly, who insisted we stop by there - Kelly is married to a Sasak man who was born and raised on Gili Air and now owns a bar/restaurant on the island. Kelly and her husband currently reside in the US but her husband´s brother and friends are in charge of Zipp Bar. Kelly told us that if we made it to the island to go to Zipp and ask for Didi, who she promised would take good care of us. Since the island is so small we found Zipp Bar very quickly and as Hari approached the bar, Didi was there waiting for us. He could not be nicer - Hari had contacted Kelly a few days earlier to tell her that we would be going to Gili Air and she told Didi to expect us. Didi immediately made us a drink introduced us to ¨The Boys¨, the rest of the crew who help out around the bar. Zipp Bar had a first-class location on the island, it was on the nicest part of the beach and had awesome views of Lombok.

We spent a lot of time at Zipp hanging out with Didi and The Boys. The food at Zipp was delicious, I ate the chicken and pineapple salad almost daily and they had a wide variety of fresh, Indonesian specialties. We spent most of our time on Gili Air relaxing on the beach, walking around exploring the island, and snorkeling. During that time Hari and I both had a lot on our minds - at this point in our journey not only had we become extremely close, but we were now a couple. Based on our general travel plans we would have to separate after Gili Air, as Sarah and I were on schedule to head to Australia for about 3 weeks, while Hari was going to spend more time in Indonesia and make only a brief stop in Sydney. After that we would all head to South America, but Sarah and I had a completely different path in mind than Hari so we did not think that meeting up in South America was really a possibility. Neither of us were really sure about what was going to happen when we separated but we did know that we were not ready to be apart...

Sarah headed back to Lombok a few days ahead of us because she wanted to spend a few days in Singapore before we flew to Australia. I had gone to Singapore with Hari before Indonesia so Sarah and I decided to meet at the airport in Singapore in a few days time and fly to Melbourne together. Hari and I thought that these would be our last few days together, so we spent every second together. We managed to get in a few scuba dives off the coast of Gili Air, but aside from that we relaxed on the beach and had a few romantic dinners. On our last night, we went to Zipp Bar to have one last dinner and hang out with Didi and The Boys.

We arrived at Zipp just before sunset. After a drink and a few rounds of Hold Em with The Boys, Hari and I looked at the sky and saw pink, orange, and yellow as we had never seen it before. It was, by definition, the perfect sunset. Hari asked me if I wanted to go for a walk on the beach and of course I said yes. We walked along the edge of the water and watched in awe of the brilliant colors illuminating Mt. Rinjani on Lombok. Along our walk we found a perfectly situated log on the beach and sat down to take it all in. We started chit-chatting, nothing out of the ordinary at all. Hari was a bit quiet but I didn´t think much of it. After spouting out some random thoughts about missing friends at home and blah blah blah, Hari took a deep breath and started talking - he told me how happy he was that we were able to meet in Vietnam a few months earlier, and that we were able to continue our travels through Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Indonesia. We were both very concerned about what was going to happen when we separated, especially since he was supposed to be moving to Africa for 2 years to join the Peace Corps. Somewhere along the way when we realized that our relationship was much more than a fling, I asked Hari if he would be willing to stay with me even through his journey in Africa. In his ¨speech¨, he told me that he had given it a lot of thought and that he wanted to commit to me even when he was in Peace Corps. At this point I wasn´t really sure what to think, I could tell this was not just any regular conversation...but the next thing I knew, Hari said that he had gotten me something on the island and pulled the most beautiful coconut wood ring out of his pocket. Before I could even realize what was happening, he asked me to marry him. I was shocked, thrilled, ecstatic, so many things at once that I could do was give a little giggle. Poor Hari thought that I was laughing at his speech and rejecting him, but that could not have been further from what I was really thinking. Without an ounce of hesitation I said yes and with that neither of our lives would ever be the same...

After embracing and realizing that we were ENGAGED, we headed back to Zipp Bar as future husband and wife. We enjoyed a quiet dinner and found ourselves just sitting and smiling at each other through the whole dinner. It was nothing short of magical, I couldn´t have asked for anything else in the world. To be honest, the rest of Gili Air and Lombok is kind of a blur to me...we did head back to Lombok for a night, and then had to sadly split for an undetermined amount of time. We were sad to be leaving each other, but given that we had just committed to each other for life we knew that we would figure out a plan for the rest of our travels to work for us. And so I headed to the Singapore airport to meet Sarah and tell her the news - she screamed, jumped out of her chair, hugged me, and even cried a little, it was so sweet. Sarah is the one person who watched my relationship with Hari unfold from the very beginning - we met in Vietnam as friends from work who hadn´t seen each other in several months, and ended up falling in love and agreeing to spend our lives together. Sarah and I hopped a flight to Melbourne and were both excited to start the next leg of our journey...Down Under.

Lovin' Life on Lombok (part II)

2009-04-29T00:03:00.000-04:00

After finally arriving in Bali, I headed out to Lombok to meet up with Mary, Hari, and Steve. Now I was a little MIA for awhile (my bus from Mt Bromo, a volcano in eastern Java, broke down while in a town with no cell phone capablities let alone internet so I was a day late getting to Bali. I was not able to contact Hari/Mary so they were obviously getting pretty worried. But I lived to tell the tale and made it to Lombok alive, but a day late). Lombok is what people say Bali used to be like ten years ago - a quiet beach island, not flooded with tourists or crazy clubs. But since we were in Indonesia during rainy season we did get a lot of rain, especially while on Lombok.

I had brought some friends I met in Java with me to Lombok and on our first day on the island we all got motobikes and went out to a local beach to go surfing. As the rain began to pour down we abandoned our misson and instead visited a small village on the island. There we learned about the local weaving that is done on the island, which is a way that many people make money. We also spent some time meeting the local village people and children. Back at Senggigi Beach we quickly discovered a great happy hour, they cleverly called CRAZY TIME! just a minute walk from our hostel. Some spicy red curry and several mai-tais later and we were ready to party. It was really great to have Steve back with the crew and we definately celebrated that night.

The next day Steve and I checked out the Sengiggi beach since it was nice out. We spent the day just laying in the sun, playing Jenga, drinking fancy drinks, and then avoiding the storm that soon rolled in. Ahh the rain. That night Steve departed the island bound to go home to America so when he left it was just the threesome back together again.

We woke up the next morning and decided to again take out our motobikes and explore this beautiful island by going north. After we took off the sky opened up on us and we were stranded at Monsoon Point, named the day earlier by Hari and Mary, and were forced into our rainstorm hut. There are small huts all over the island becasuse quick rainstorms happen so often, but they only last about 10 minutes. Sharing the hut with us was an Indonesian man carrying a rather large saska. Let's just say we got out of there as soon as the sky cleared. We continued north around the island and it seemed that at every turn in the road there was another breathtaking view. I was just enjoying the beautiful scenery that the island had to offer. This island is really something to see. Eventually we turned and started heading east into Monkey Forest. The road through Monkey Forest was very lush and filled with trees and yes, monkeys. We all know how I feel about monkeys (see China monkey blog entry) but for some reason I did stop to take a picture of a monkey when he suddenly began to charge at me. Luckily I had stayed on my bike to take the picture and was able to get out of there quickly. Further along the road we encountered a line of cars and bikes, after some investigation we realized that a huge tree had fallen across the road and men with large chainsaws were attempting to cut it up so that bikes could pass. After waiting about 15 minutes they had carved up enough of the tree to pass and we were on our way. After we returned to Senggigi I took off for a while on my bike to do some exploration of my own. I came across a small village where I stopped to play with some of the kids. It seems that cockroach on a string is the next big toy for young kids.

For our last day on the island we actually decided to rent a car because we really wanted get to the northern most part of the island. This car was a minivan and the three of us felt like school kids on a roadtrip, complete with snacks and good tunes. There were a few random tapes in the car and one of them just happened to have good music on it. That day we cruised around the island, saw some waterfalls and local villages. For the sunset we pulled over at a village and suddenly the car sank into a mud pit!! We could not get the car out and soon the entire village was over by our car to watch us. The village men got together and pulled, pushed and put wood under the cars wheels to get us out. While the boys worked I talked to the villagers and took pictures. That was our last day in Lombok and we left for Gili Air the next day.

Bali and Lombok, Indonesia (Part I)

2009-04-26T15:04:00.000-04:00

Indonesia is the world´s 4th most populated country after China, India, and USA. Kind of hard to believe when you just glance at a map, the cluster of islands doesn´t appear to comprise that large of a country but looks can be deceiving; Indonesia 17,508 islands are home to 237+ million people. How would we possible decide which of these islands to visit in only a few weeks?

Well, Hari and I started with probably the most well-known island: Bali. I´m sad to say that we were both disappointed with our first choice. For me, Bali had always been built up in my head as the epitome of island paradise, but it was quite different than I had imagined. We arrived late in the evening and headed to Kuta Beach, the backpacker hub. We drove past huge shopping malls covered in advertisements for Cartier and Louis Vuitton. There was even a Planet Hollywood, not exactly the Bali that I had pictured in my mind. I knew that Bali is a tourist hot-spot but I guess I more pictured it as a small, sand covered island. I did not expect the city center to be so developed. Nevertheless, I still couldn´t wait to get to the beach scene. We got to our hotel just after 11pm, dropped off our bags, and went down the road 5 minutes to the beach. Sadly, it was covered in trash. Covered. We learned that because it was low season the tides changed and washed garbage onto the beaches. We didn´t let this get us down, though.

The next morning we got out early on motorbikes to explore other parts of the island. Fortunately we did find some really cool secluded beaches, coves, and cliffs, but again there was so much garbage covering the beaches and in the water. Bali is a big island, and I know I did not see all of it, so hopefully we just had some bad luck and missed out on the good beaches. We were also there in low season so I hope it is nicer and cleaner in high season. We did some research and asked around and decided to cut out stay on Bali short and head to Lombok the next morning, another island just a 30 minute flight away.

A definite highlight of Bali, though, was unexpectedly meeting up with my dive team buddies from Koh Tao, Steve and Matt! We actually knew that they would be in Bali but we did not plan on meeting anywhere specifically. I had sent them an email telling them the name of our hotel and surely enough after we had gotten back from exploring and were relaxing/taking showers and such, our room phone rang; Steve and Matt were standing in our lobby. We were so excited that they found us, we all went to dinner to catch up. They told me and Hari of their Cambodia experiences (they had some crazy stories) and we caught them up on our diving trip to the Similans. After dinner we all went to town and hit up some bars. We did get to stop and see the site of the 2002 bombings that killed 202 people. The memorial was very nicely done, it listed the names of everyone who had died and their nationalities. While it was a sombre sight, it was surrounded by bustling shops, restaurants, and bars that gave a positive vibe that despite the tragedy that occured there, Bali is still thriving and will not let the past bring it down. We had a great night with Steve and Matt and were glad we got to see them again.

The next morning Hari and I got our stuff together and went to catch our short flight to Lombok. As we were sitting in the airport waiting to board we saw Steve walking towards us - the evening before we tried to convince him to come to Lombok with us (Matt couldn´t come, he was heading back to the States) and he decided to come along. So in his hungover state he trudged to the airport and got on our same flight. After an extremely turbulent but short flight, we landed in Lombok. This island was much more what we were looking for - the center of town was not at all touristy and really authentic feeling, the island was covered in green palm trees and forests, and the black sanded beaches were lined with people watching surfers riding the huge waves. We found a cute guesthouse near Kuta beach and spent the day exploring and watching the surfers, they were awesome.

Over the next few days we rented motorbikes (I told you that we are all about motorbiking) and drove all around the island, through the main town and the lush palm tree forests. There was just so much to see, it is one of the most beautiful islands I have ever been to. After Sarah´s Malaysia adventure, we all agreed to meet on Lombok. After a few days her flight landed and she, Hari, Steve, and I were reunited. It was great to all be together again. I´ll let Sarah pick it up from here and tell you about the rest of our time on Lombok...

Similan Islands, Thailand

2009-04-22T13:07:00.000-04:00

As I have mentioned, Hari and I very quickly became scuba diving addicts. We loved Koh Tao and diving in the Gulf of Thailand, but while we were there we couldn´t stop hearing all about the Similan Islands which are located in the Andaman Sea off the west coast of Thailand. Since we were already planning on going to Phuket for a few days, we could not pass up the opportunity to head to the Similans, which were just a few hours from the mainland. Plus as things between us were getting serious, we wanted to spend some more time together on what became known as ¨The Honeymoon¨.

After a few days on the beaches of Phuket, we did a bit of research at some of the local dive shops and found out that a live aboard dive boat is really the only way to go to see the Similan dive sites. Day trips are possible, but we wanted to spend some more time and see as much as possible. We signed up with South Siam Divers for a 5 day/4 night dive trip where we would be able to get in 19 dives. We could not wait.

From Phuket we took a 1 hr mini-bus to the port where we boarded a speed boat that would take us out 1.5 hrs to our home for the next 5 days, SSD3. The speed boat ride was rough, so bumpy that several people on the boat got sea sick. Luckily, Hari and I both have strong stomachs so we made it to the dive boat unscathed. As soon as we arrived at the SSD3, we met the crew, dive masters, and the rest of the divers. The boat was quite small, about 35 people total, but really cozy and comfortable. The lower deck had a large dive deck for all the equipment where we would wet suit up before getting into the water, the middle deck had tables and benches where we would eat and just hang out, and the top deck was lined with lounge chairs to relax on in the sun inbetween dives. All of the cabins were either on the same level or below the lower deck and they were quite nice; we didn´t expect much since most of our time would be spent in the water, but we were pleasantly surprised at the quality of the rooms.

Now let´s get down to business - within an hour of arriving we were getting ready for our first dive. Vincent, the head dive master, gave us a briefing about the dive site and got us excited for everything we were about to see. He said conditions were excellent and improving everyday. The water was a bit warmer than Koh Tao, 27°C, blue unlike I have ever seen, and so clear; even from the top deck of the boat you could see down several meters. So we wasted no time and got right into the water with our dive team and Stefanie, our dive master who would lead us around the sites. Stefanie was great, she simply acted as a leader to show us the best parts of the dive sites and gave us freedom to go off with our buddies to explore. She has over 3,000 dives and is only in her mid-20s! I strive to be her someday...

We jumped in, descended, and immediately knew why everyone had told us that the Similan Islands are some of the best dive sites in the world...the visibility was 30+ meters, unbelievable to be able to see everything even from so far away. And the coral formations were spectacular, some were easily the size of a house. I thought Koh Tao was great and this put it to shame (don´t get me wrong, I still love Koh Tao and the diving there is awesome). The acquatic life was incredible and the colors were absolutely brilliant. We were constantly surrounded by schools of fish and saw fish that are considered rare during every dive. Hari and I were like kids in a candy store during every dive, we kept grabbing each other´s arm or leg to signal that there was a massive parrotfish or a coral formation covered in Christmas Tree Coral which look like tiny, colorful trees growing out of hard coral that go into hiding if you wave your hand in front of them.

Our lives for the next 5 days pretty much followed this schedule: up at 6am for a beautiful sunrise, dive, breakfast, dive, take our small dingy to a private island where we were the only people to hang out for an hour, dive, lunch, relax on the top deck of the boat and jump off 10 meters to cool off in the water, dive, dinner, beautiful sunset, dive, hang out for a bit, bed. Like I said, it´s a good life.

There definitely are many highlights of our time at the Similan dive sites, but I´ll go through a few (in no particular order):
#1: One afternoon while hanging out on the top deck inbetween dives we saw some huge sea turtles just swimming around the boat. Everyone ran down to the dive deck to see them closer and the crew started throwing bananas into the water, sea turtles love bananas. They were so relaxed and friendly that we jumped into the water and they would eat the bananas right out of our hands and swim all around us, they were so cool.
#2: Hari and I were on a shark hunt during our dives, we made it our mission to find sharks, as neither of us saw any in Koh Tao. During one dive I turned my head ever so slightly and saw 2 massive (at least 2 meters long each) leopard sharks just lying on the bottom of the ocean. They are not aggressive towards humans, so we were able to get within a few meters of them and just checked them out for a few minutes, it was very exciting to see them up-close and we were lucky enough to see several leopard sharks over the 5 day period.
#3: We learned in our dive courses about nitrogen narcosis, which occurs when diving at extreme depths. Essentially, you get a little bit of nitrogen poisoning which makes you feel and act a little bit high. It sounds dangerous and it is, but as long as you are not too deep for too long and stay with your buddy it really is not that big of a deal. All the dive masters talked it up and said it is actually kind of fun, but neither of us had ever been deep enough to get narced. Then we went on a really deep dive. Thirty-eight meter deep. I started to feel it and looked at Hari who signaled to me via hand wave that he was a bit loopy. It felt kind of strange, I was giggling a little bit into my regulator, but it wasn´t that intense that either of us worried. We were only down that deep for a few minutes and as soon as we ascended to a safer depth we were both fine again. It was interesting to feel the narcosis that we had heard about but there is really no need to dive that deep when there is so much to see at 20 meters.
#4: The highlight of all highlights, manta ray day. We went to one dive site that is known for being home to manta rays. We didn´t want to get our hopes up too high and be disappointed if we didn´t see any, but once again the Similans did not disappoint...they delivered, oh they delivered more than we could have ever imagined. During this one dive we saw at least 6 massive mantas, I´m talking 6+ meters wingspan massive. They were just swimming all around us, it was as if they were putting on a show for us and knew how excited we all were to be seeing them so closely. They hovered around us for a solid 45 minutes, we didn´t even really explore much of the dive site, as we all just stationed where we were and looked all around us to see them so gracefully swimming around. It was almost like huge airplanes flying above us, they would block out the sun completely when they were above us and all we could see was their huge wingspan. Hari was the luckiest one during this dive, at one point he was just hovering and one of the mantas swam directly above him, he had to be less than a meter away. Stefanie had an underwater dive camera and got the whole thing on video, it was awesome. After the manta swam away everyone at the dive site did some underwater clapping, Hari was the star of the day.

Needless to say again, I obviously loved the Similans and could go on for hours about them. If you are a diver spend the money and go there, you will not regret it. In addition to having 19 incredible dives during our 5 day stay on SSD3, we met some really cool people and got to go to some beautiful secluded Thai islands. It was definitely 5 of the best days I´ve ever had.

Patriot Games

2009-04-18T19:15:00.002-04:00

While Mary and Hari were on their 'honeymoon' scuba diving in the Similian Islands I headed south to Malaysia. I really enjoyed my time in Malaysia. It was quite refreshing to be away from all the 'package tourists' that were on the islands in Thailand and to be somewhere really new and different. Malaysia is a country made primarily of Chinese, Indian, and Malaysian people. Each of the cities I visited had their own China Town or Little India. I was in Malaysia during the end of the Chinese New Year so the cities were in full celebration mode.
I arrived in the evening in my first Malaysian city, Panang, a city known for its food. The streets were packed with food stalls, red lanterns, and people. There was a huge parade that night packed with children doing a ridiculous synchronised drumming set (think smaller version of Olympic opening ceremonies in China), dancers, and floats. Lots of food, drinking, and general happiness filled the streets and the town enjoyed the festivities of their New Year. I enjoyed lots of food- cookies, candies, beer, dumplings, some strange duck meat noodle concoction, cookies, and more beers. Yes in that order. Good times. Good times.

The next day I was off to explore the city, I walked along the city's Heratige Trail looking at the historic sites, the Khoo Kongs Temple, went into some art and photo galleries. The city is so old that many of the buildings date back to the 1800s. I happened upon Little India and knew it right away with the incense filling the streets, women walking around in bright colored saris, Hindi writing on all the store fronts, and Indian music blaring out of huge speakers out on the sidewalks. Welcome to Little India. For lunch accidental I walked into a packed restaurant that serves the best beef soup in all of Panang. It is so good in fact that it is the only thing on the menu. I sat with two guys that work for the government in Malaysia. I got into a fascinating discussion about politics and Obama, what the election means to the Malaysian government and the positive affects that they have already seen in their government (younger guys running for office, general hope that bigger changes regarding parties or candidate's now being given consideration). The conversation really stayed with me.
The next day I took off on a motorbiking trip with two guys I had met at the bars the night before (Holland, France). One guy had lived in Malaysia for years and he knew all the secret spots to take us. We started off with a traditional Jim Sung breakfast of dumplings then rode to the nearby beach. From there we took a scenic drive and hiked down some crazy jungle type hill where I was eaten alive by spiders type things, but we eventually made it to the river we were searching for and had a swim. We stopped at a roadside fruit stand to eat some of the local spiky fruit that the Chinese say "Tastes like heaven, smells like hell". Our day continued onto a small local village where we encountered local Malay fisherman in the middle of an illegal card game (illegal in this country to gamble, they even had spotters watching out for cops). We joined in the game and they got a kick out of the fact that I am a girl playing with them. The fun slowed a bit as we started to win money, their money. I started to make larger bets in hopes to loose my money because I realized we couldn't leave until we broke even. Eventually we were even and we able to get out of the game. The next stop was at the village faire for dinner and I got distracted playing with all the little kids that were following me around yelling "hello" at me. I love playing with the local children in villages. It was really a very special day for me.

Koh Tao: Wet Suit Up!

2009-04-14T11:33:00.003-04:00

Paradise. As much as I love big cities, I am a beach bum at heart and had been anxious to get to the Thai islands. Koh Tao is one of the 3 major islands off the east coast of Thailand. Ferries run between Koh Tao, Koh Phangan (famous for the Full Moon party), and Koh Samui at all hours of the day so it is common for travelers to island hop. We started off on Tao, but I never actually made it to the other islands as I intended because I fell in love...I will get to that more later.

Tao is renowned for it´s world class scuba diving. Not only is the water crystal clear and the acquatic life incredible, but it is one of the most inexpensive places in the world to dive. So naturally people come from all over for their Open Water, Advanced, and Dive Master licenses. I had been looking forward to getting my Open Water certification since Plan B was born, so as soon as I arrived on the island I signed up for classes at Buddha View Dive Resort. Unfortunately, Sarah would not be able to join me...she hurt her eardrum while tubing in Vang Vieng and could not dive because of the under water pressure. I was bummed that I would not be able to buddy up with my partner in crime, but she kept her spirits up and enjoyed the many beaches Tao has to offer while I was taking my classes.

I started off in the classroom for a day, learning all about how depth affects water pressure, air density, and heat. One of the first things you learn is that you always dive with a buddy and since Sarah couldn´t join me, I buddied up with one of the guys in my dive class, Steve - Steve, Matt, and Jake are from Seattle and were traveling through Thailand and Cambodia for a month. We immediately hit it off, shared travel stories and Sarah, Hari, and I were able to give them tons of advice on Cambodia since that was their next stop. After our classroom sessions were complete and we passed all of our written tests, our Fab 4 dive team (Steve, Matt, Jake, and I) hit the water.

Day 1 was pool sessions which are not the most exciting things in the world, but you have to ease into it and learn the way the equipment works and get used to the concept of breathing under water. It. Was. So. Cool. At first it does feel a little unnatural (especially with all the heavy equipment on), but after just a few minutes I kind of forgot that I was under water and was having the best time. We learned how to clear our masks, read our gauges, use our regulators, and went through emergency training if something were to happen to our air tanks under water and we needed to share air tanks with our buddy. It was all the technical stuff, but it is absolutely mandatory for any diver to know so even though we weren´t yet seeing anything exciting, we were learning necessary skills.

Day 2 my dive team finally got into the ocean. We took the dive boat out to the site, wet suited up (that one is for you, Lis and NPH), and hit the water. It was amazing: 26°C, 20m+ visibility in the tropical blue ocean. As soon as we descended just a few meters I could see beautiful coral and brilliantly colorful tropical fish - butterfly fish, angel fish, moray eels, trigger fish (keep your distance - they are territorial, temperamental, and just plain mean), blue-spotted sting rays, clown fish (Nemos), nudi branches, batfish, barracudas, and so many more. It was simply beautiful. My eyes remained wide open the whole time, every time I turned my head I saw another amazing fish or coral formation. After we completed our underwater skills tests in the ocean, Steve, Matt, Jake, and I were officially Open Water (OW) certified divers.

On day 3 the real diving began. Since we had passed all of our tests it was time to fun dive. We descended to 15 meters and followed our dive master around the dive site to explore. Again, so many tropical fish everywhere and got to get really close to the coral to see all of the tiny fish and nudi branches that lived inside. Everything was just beautiful. Since I was now OW certified, I could finally dive with Hari who got his OW certification earlier in Vietnam. We were both very quickly addicted to diving and got in the water at any opportunity that we could. While I was getting my OW license, Hari completed his Advanced course and he convinced me to do the same. So only one day after I had my OW certification, I decided to keep diving and signed up for and started my Advanced classes.

During my Advanced OW course, I learned peak performance buoyancy skills, under water navigation (using an under water compass to navigate dive sites), completed my first deep dive (30 meters) and went on my first night dive with Hari as my buddy. Night diving is so cool, at first I was a little freaked out to go down 20 meters in the pitch black with nothing but a small torch to find my way around; but as soon as I got in the water and started swimming around I loved it. At night many fish that you cannot see during the day are out and we even got to watch barracuda hunting. We shone our torches on their prey and once I was lucky enough to watch a barracuda swallow a small fish in one quick bite, it was very exciting. When we ascended to the surface there were millions of brilliant stars shining above us, it was kind of a surreal experience and one that I will never forget.

Aside from diving, Koh Tao has tons of tiny beaches off small dirt roads and trails. Sarah rented a motorbike and checked out many of the beaches during the day and got in some snorkeling at the shallower dive sites. When I wasn´t diving I was soaking up the rays, relaxing, and enjoying the peaceful scenes. At sunset everyone seemed to congregate at Eazy Bar, oh how we loved Eazy Bar. It was right on the beach and had a small deck with pillows to lounge on while enjoying a Tiger beer and listening to excellent classic rock/reggae music - everything from Bob Marley to Pink Floyd to Pearl Jam. Every night, one of the guys who worked at the bar would practice poi, the Thai art of fire juggling/dancing. This guy was mesmerizing, he so gracefully twirled around lit fireballs on the ends of approx. 1 meter long chains for hours. He is a poi master. Everyone at the bar just watched in awe, he made it look so easy to be playing with fire.

Now earlier I said that I fell in love. This has multiple meanings - I fell in love with the island; I fell in love with scuba diving; and I fell in love with Hari. We had been close friends through good old Citigroup in NY for 3 years, but we were always ¨just friends¨. After we started traveling together in Vietnam, something happened along the way and we both started looking at each other differently. It is kind of cliché, but there was something magical about Koh Tao that made us realize that love was staring us right in the face for 3 years. Sparks flew. We finally ended up together and it felt so natural and just so right. I had intended on going to Koh Samui but we were so content on Tao and with diving that we stayed put. Sarah witnessed everything develop first-hand and knew that this wasn´t just some little fling, so she went to Samui for a few days while Hari and I stayed behind to spend more time together. In those few days, things intensified and we decided that we weren´t yet ready to part ways as we originally had planned. We stayed on Tao a bit longer and then sadly left our island paradise to head west to Phuket to reunite with Sarah and check out the west coast.

The beaches of Phuket were beautiful but overall none of us were really fans of Phuket - in my personal opinion, it is too developed, too touristy, and lacked any sort of real Thai culture. It is really just a crowded tourist beach. But we still made the best of it and found one really cool beach, Karon, away from the crowds. It was really interesting to see Phuket post-tsunami, there were evacuation signs and routes posted everywhere. We only stayed a few days and after that the 3 of us discussed future travel plans and routes. Being dive addicts, Hari and I really wanted to go out to the Similan Islands off the west coast of Thailand and Sarah decided to head south to Malaysia, so again we temporarily parted ways. Of course none of this was expected, but all these surprises are just part of the adventure...

Bangkok

2009-04-11T21:51:00.003-04:00

Hari, Mary, and I arrived in Bangkok on night bus coming in from Chiang Mai. We were dropped off right in the thick of things on Khao San Rd. Khan San Rd is where most backpackers spend their time buying loads of cheap crap from cool tee-shirts, fake Ray Bans, fake IDs, yummy pancakes, street stall Pad-Thai, and amazing fresh squeezed orange juice (Hari was a huge fan). To sum it up, if it can be copied to look like the real thing, you can find it on Khao San Rd.
Our first day was unfortunately spent at the Bangkok Hospital where I was having my ear looked at to see if 1. Everything with my ear was OK and healing (yes) and 2. If I could get certified for SCUBA diving in Koh Tao (no). The Bangkok Hospital was one of the best I have ever seen, the ear specialist I saw even put a video camera scope into my ear to show me exactly how my ear looked with a small hole in the ear drum and what a normal ear looks like. Top notch treatment despite the disappointing outcome regarding diving.

That evening we went out for a night in Bangkok - enjoyed some amazing pad-thai from our street lady who made the best pad-thai in all of Thailand, then we went to a few bars for drinks, buckets, and dancing. Hari and Mary, whose relationship was getting more and more serious, spent the evening dancing the night away.

So the next day we set out to see the city sites. We went to go see the City Palace and the trusting folks that we are, we believed an official looking guy standing near the Palace that told us that the Palace was closed for the afternoon and would be open later in the evening. He casually suggested that we take a boat cruise from one of the main canals to the Wat Arun. After a quick trip along the canals we realized we had been royally ripped off . Never take a canal cruise in Bangkok... Wat Arun is a Khmer Temple with a huge tower that is covered in porcelain. Beautiful porcelain flowers in all colors covered the temple, very unique looking. There we met some local students studying English and they requested an interview with us to practice and ask us some questions. These girls were so cute and shy with their English but did a great job. The interview was one of the three others I would do for students through out my next few days in Bangkok as we realized that there were loads of students doing these interviews around the city. After Wat Arun it was off to the Nine Wonders of Wat Pho. This Wat contains the famous reclining Buddha which lays more then 150ft long and is a beautiful gold with mother of pearl feet. Of all the Buddha's that I saw throughout Asia, this one is probably my favorite. To complete our day of Wat´s it was off to Wat Inthrawihan to see the standing Buddha.

The next day we went to finally see the Royal Palace. The place is huge and contains loads of wats inside. The most important Buddhist wat in all of Thailand is the Temple of the Emerald Buddha which is located in the Royal Palace. The Emerald Buddha is made of jade and is stunning. The wat was filled with monks chanting while they looked at the jade Buddha beauty. The Buddha was dressed in its rain costume (it has different costumes that change throughout the year). The Palace grounds were stunning and quite massive with all the different wat's to explore
That night Hari and Mary took off for Koh Tao to start their SCUBA diving classes, introductory and advanced. I stayed in the city an extra day to take in the sites before I met them on the island. I took a local bus out to Bangkok's China Town to enjoy the shops, food stalls, and some amazing shrimp seafood served to me on the street corner. It was a little like being in China again, with the strange smells, unidentifiable foods, dumplings, candies, and the Chinese language being spoken.

On my last day in Bangkok I broke out of the tourist circuit to just walk around the city and explore. I walked for a couple hours around the outskirts stopping along the way to play with some local children, get coffee in some small cafes, figure out where I was on the map, and just reflecting on the trip. I went to get a Thai massage in some small shop and they pretty much kicked the crap out of me, which is what you want in a massage. After that I was off to Koh Tao...

Mo

2009-04-06T20:02:00.004-04:00

In memory of my little man, I am sorry I couldn't be there for you during your last months. I will miss you so much as you have been part of my life and our family for 15 long years... I will miss my cat calls to you 'meer mo' and you come running, your tire sniffing, your gopher killing, your favorite blanket obsession, how you were the fattest cat ever, your shade laying, how much you loved getting brushed, how you always thought the perfect place to lay down was on the paper or book I was reading, your immediate purring capabilities, your constant eating, even your cat meows (alright those did get annoying sometimes). You will always be my little man and will have a place in my heart. I love you and will miss you very much.

Pai, Thailand

2009-04-05T22:55:00.001-04:00

After our elephant excursion we decided to go about 3 hours north of Chang Mai to Pai, a small, laid-back hippie town in the mountains. We heard from fellow backpackers that the drive to Pai on motorbike is beautiful and we jumped at the opportunity to get on bikes again. During our time in SE Asia we have been motorbiking very frequently, not only is it extremely inexpensive (about $3-4/day) but it is a fast, easy, and fun way to get around and see both cities and countrysides.

Sarah, Hari, and I got on our 125cc Honda Dreams and got going, but not before a quick stop at 7-11 to pick up some supplies. A quick side-note about 7-11s in Thailand, they are everywhere, I have never seen so many 7-11s in my life. They are almost like Starbucks in the US, if you stand at one point on a street you can see at least two 7-11s on the same street. Anyway, I bring up our stop at the 7-11 because another hilarious incident occurred right outside - among the 3 of us Hari is the expert motorbike rider, he never passes up the opportunity to get on a bike and always has a huge smile plastered across his face when he is riding. Hari exited the 7-11, strapped on his helmet, put his freshly purchased water bottle in his backpack, started his engine, and pulled out onto the road. Well, not exactly onto the road. More like into a car. A parked car. He accelerated a little too quickly while looking at the oncoming cars to find a place to pull in and boom, right into a parked car. Sarah and I laughed so hard that we drew a crowd of several Thai ladies who just shook their heads at the inexperienced tourists trying to motorbike. Classic. No damage to the car or to Hari so thankfully it was just another hilarious incident to add to our list.

After we caught our breathe we actually got onto the road and began our journey. We stopped at a tiger sanctuary along the way that we had heard and read about. We got to play with 2 year old tigers, they were the cutest, sweetest things. Their fur was incredibly soft and thick, they were really like playing with German Shepherd sized cats. One liked Sarah so much that he cuddled up in her lap and licked her hands just like a regular house cat would do. Perhaps the reason they were so relaxed and tame is not only that they were born and raised at the sanctuary and have thus never been in the wild, but we think that they must have been sedated. I can't imagine that they were not and was disappointed that this is likely the case. I do not support them being drugged in captivity, but in retrospect I know that we could have protested and skipped out on seeing them. At least it did appear (hopefully) that they are treated extremely well, the people who worked there were very friendly and loving to the tigers.

Some fun facts about tigers that we learned: cubs are born blind and eventually develop vision 6x better than that of humans; in the wild tigers live for about 15 years, in captivity, 20 years; cubs eat only 2kg/day, matured tigers eat 6kg/day (I would have thought it would be significantly more, but keep in mind they are in captivity so they do not have as much space to run and work up an appetite the same way that wild tigers do). Despite my qualms with the sanctuary, it was still really cool to see them up close, they are incredible animals.

Back on the road we had an awesome drive to Pai. The tarmac was properly paved (unlike a lot of the roads in Cambodia and Lao) so we were able to drive at higher speeds. The roads were hilly and curvy and surrounded by gorgeous landscape. We stopped about every 20-30 minutes at lookout points to take photos and just have a look around, such a great drive. We made it to Pai and immediately loved the feel of this tiny town - it is extremely laid-back and quiet, the town itself is made up of only 2 major streets that are lined with small shops and restaurants. Lucky for us we were in town for the night market, so we strolled up and down the streets that were closed off to traffic and enjoyed many delicious treats - everything from kebabs to grilled corn on the cob to street pad thai. We had finally entered authentic pad thai territory, I was obsessed and would eat it nearly everyday for our month stay in Thailand.
We only spent one night in Pai but would recommend to anyone who is thinking of exploring northern Thailand to spend a few nights there, it is just really cute and quaint and the scenery along the way is gorgeous. We had great weather for our drive back to Changmai and got to take in the beautiful sites of the drive one more time. And no one drove into any parked cars again.

V for Victory - Villanova advances to the Final Four

2009-03-28T21:52:00.007-04:00

I am in New Zealand now and I just finished watching the very intense Villanova/Pitt game. What an amazing victory and now we are off to the Final Four!!! Amazing. Thank you boys!
Villanova players celebrate with the trophy after defeating Pittsburgh, 78-76 during a men's NCAA tournament regional championship college basketball game in Boston, Saturday, March 28, 2009. Villanova advances to the Final Four.

"V for Villanova, V for Victory

B for Blue, W for White

For the Blue and White we will fight, fight, fight..."

An Elephant is Faithful, 100%

2009-03-26T02:57:00.003-04:00

In Chang Mai, Mary and I decided to do a two day elephant trip. We spent two days with a group of elephants just playing with them, feeding them, training them, and bathing them. It was amazing tosee our elephants and run up to them and give them a hug or just climb up on their backs without hesitation. That was how comfortable we were with them. Spending two full days with them was so special. Elephants are such amazing creatures.

Some fun facts:
- Elephants eat 200kg/day and drink 200kg of water/day
- They are born at 90kg
- Elephants on average live to be 80 yrs old
- Starting at 18 their trunks can hold 6L of water at a time

We spent most of our time with two elephants: Cham Pu (Mary's) and Lucky (mine). We learned how to climb on the elephants with them picking us up on their trunks or with their back legs. They could all do tricks and we learned the commands to direct them on where to walk and what to do. Our favorite part was bathing them in the river. We went into the river on their backs with their mahoot. (A mahoot is someone who stays and trains an elephant from birth and often an elephant will have the same mahoot their entire life.) We would hold onto their ears and they would swing into the water. They would twist from side to side in the water and we had to hold on tight to their huge floppy ears to not get knocked off into the water. Many times we would get totally submerged as the elephant went under. The elephant would suck up water with their trunks and spray us. Even the baby came out to get washed. Bathing them was like a roller coaster ride and it was such a blast!!

I don't know exactly how to describe the elephants treatment at the camp. They did have chains on their legs so they couldn't run away and a set area that they were confined to live in. In Thailand there are no more 'working elephants' (elephants that work to tear down the jungles and trees) so most elephants are used for tourists purposes. Our elephants were also taught tricks for the benefit of tourists. They would bow their heads down when we said hello to them or spinning a hoola hoop on their trunks. But overall they seemed fine, well cared for, and they were clearly well loved by their mahoots and all the staff there.

We spent the night at a 'local' village camp nearby which consisted of other tourists groups that were on 2 or 3 day treks so there was no local aspect to it. We were bunked with some crazy Irish guys that had quite a bit to drink and began speaking in Gaelic as the night went on. Overall, we had a great time with the elephants and they have officially become my favorite animal of all time (outside domestic dogs and cats).

Vientiane, Lao

2009-03-24T22:23:00.000-04:00

After our Christmas and New Year's celebrations we made our way to Vientiane via kayak. From Vang Vieng, our crew - Brad, Esther, Neil, Hari, Sarah, and I - hopped into our boats and headed 2 hours south on the Mekong River. Kayaking is not only a lot more exciting than sitting on a bus, but we thought it was only appropriate to get in one more Mekong journey. We had spent a considerable amount of time on the Mekong River during our time in Vietnam and Cambodia and wanted one last trip.

The scenery was beautiful and we stopped along the way to jump off some cliffs and go swimming. We successfully made it through one Class 4 rapid (the water level was quite low for that time of year so it was not as intense/dangerous as it would be when the water level is high) and the daring boys all showed off their adventurous sides by jumping into the water and going through the rapid sans kayaks. Thankfully they all made it through safely, and yes, they were wearing helmets.

Vientiane, the capital city of Lao, is a charming, quiet city with a lot of French influence. There are tons of French bakeries, coffee shops, and restaurants. Several times I even forgot that I was in Lao and felt a bit like I was in Europe, as French is spoken rather frequently. Vientiane is situated on the Mekong River with Thailand on the opposite side.

We spent most of our time in Vientiane relaxing and just taking in the sights. We had to say goodbye to Neil, who headed home to the UK, and to Brad and Esther, who were going back home to Sydney. On our last night together we feasted on delicious French food (at Lao prices) and drank wine on the rooftop of our guesthouse. During our little gathering one of the funniest events of the trip occurred - we were chatting when all of sudden we hear a loud 'POP' and see pieces of plastic flying everywhere. Then I turn and see Neil lying on the ground, the small plastic chair that was made for small Lao people, not muscular Englishmen, exploded from underneath him. And I mean exploded, pieces of the legs of the chair were all over the rooftop. Neil sat on the ground like a trooper while we all laughed hysterically for several minutes, it is an image I will never forget.

We were sad to be leaving Lao, so far it is my favorite country. It is so rich in culture and is just stunningly beautiful, from the 4000 Islands in the south to the mountainous jungles in the north. We encountered so many friendly people who were just as interested in learning about us as we were in learning about them. I will never forget the conversations that we had with some of the locals, Lao will always hold a special place in my heart. While we were sad to be going, we were also extremely excited to be heading to Thailand. It had been built up by so many people that I was anxious to see it for myself...first stop, Changmai.

Bringing in the 2009

2009-03-17T02:54:00.003-04:00

"Vang Vieng is a town located in between Luang Prabang and Vientiane in Laos. It was formerly a quaint riverside village that is set amongst picturesque limestone cliffs and filled with caves, waterfalls and lagoons to the hearts content. It is currently still a beautiful natural site, but also home to the world famous tubing activities and has become a must-visit party destination for backpackers throughout Southeast Asia. As you walk down the streets in Vang Vieng, you will hear the cacophony of canned laughter as restaurants are blaring Simpsons, Family Guy and Friends 24 hours a day. The riverfront is littered with bars and open-air clubs, so if you're looking for a place to party with a very backpacker/outdoor vibe, this is the place to be."

We still had quite a big crew with us to bring in the new year: Hari, Mary, Esther, Brad, Cory, and Neal. Our first night there was Brad's birthday which we celebrated on the strip of three main bars (and a bunch of other bars neighboring) is comprised of Bucket Bar, Jaidee's Bar and Smile Bar (playing the world's worst music). We had a great night filled with buckets and everyone was very excited for the coming days ahead. All-in-all, Brad's birthday was celebrated in a proper and drunken style.

"We got up the next morning to partake in the tubing that VV is famous for. We picked up some dry bags and inner tubes and were off on a tuk-tuk up the river for a day of tubing. Tubing is quite literally what it sounds like - you float down the river (and very small rapids, especially since it was low water season) in a truck tire inner tube. What makes it glorious other than the beautiful scenery and cold mountain water, is the entire first kilometer from where you get dropped off on the river is filled with bars blaring all sorts of music, offering up booze, food and buckets, and providing water apparatuses. On a particularly beautiful day, our huge group, Mary, Hari, Neil, Cory, Brad, Esther and I, had a blast. These water apparatuses consist of everything from trapeze style swings that drop you 30ft into the water to a mega waterslide that is more of a long ski jump than a waterpark waterslide. The afternoon was spent just floating from bar to bar, where they throw out lines to reel you in off the river."

The whole crew rented motor bikes on Dec 31 to do some exploring of the surrounding caves and lagoons. Everyone brought different riding experience with Neil and I having the least. Immediately, Neal and I both got lost from the group but we didn't realize it for a good 20 minutes driving. We eventually found the group at the blue lagoon and cave. "The cave, a steep climb up some rocks, was simply amazing. It was a massive chamber that had many tunnels leading on to other chambers. Lacking any natural light, guardrails or floodlights, we clambered around climbing up and down the limestone and eventually descended (with headlamps) deep down a slippery hill into a tunnel. What a thrill! Sweaty and tired from our caving, we returned down to the lagoon where they had ropes to swing on and tree branches to leap from. The lagoon was a turquoise blue similar to the one seen near Luang Prabang and was storybook perfect." After the lagoon we grabbed something to eat before we got ready for New Year's Eve and went back to the guesthouse separately. We returned to the guesthouse to find that Cory had absolutely eaten it on his bike as he was covered in bruises from his back to his butt.

Everyone (Brad/Esther, Yanni/Annuka, Sevan/Tara, Cory, Mary, Hari, Neil, me) ran into each other that night at the Smile Bar and, despite a horrific music selection that saw the Chicken Dance and Who Let the Dogs Out played right around the stroke of midnight, had a great time. We danced the night away. Although it was hard to be away from home, it was special to be with a great group of people for the holidays and to bring in the 2009.

The rest of our time in Vang Vien was spent motorbiking, tubing, relaxing and healing up. Somehow I have become quite accident prone during this trip and had a spill on the bike (not to worry, just a scrape on my leg which has given me a 'Lao Tattoo' scar.) The worst thing that happened was when I landed in the water after going off one of the zip line jumps. You will hear more on the injury as the blog progresses, but in short, I busted a hole in my eardrum and have been to a slew of hospitals/doctors since the incident- I guess that is why I bought health insurance. The hole in my eardrum is still slowly healing, but it prevented me from being able to scuba dive. Scuba diving was something that I was really looking forward to on the trip and I was not able to get certified for diving in Thailand, Indonesia, or Australia. Huge bummer, but I am dealing with it and know I will get certified one day soon. Enough about all that. Vang Vien was a blast, but we eventually had to leave down south making our way to Thailand...

Many of the events described in this entry- town, tubing, blue lagoon- were taken directly from Hari's blog entry. http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1231136760/tpod.html

Luang Prabang Trek

2009-02-23T04:52:00.018-05:00

I will start off by apologizing for being really really far behind on the updates...it is currently 23 Feb 2009 and we are in Melbourne staying with my sister's close friend from Villanova, Megan, and her husband, Matt. We just came from Thailand and Indonesia and fell into ultra lazy beach bum mode and just haven't been keeping up. So let's rewind to 26 Dec 2008:

The only truly productive thing we did on the 26th was booking a 3 day/2 night trek via White Elephant Adventures through an area in Northern Lao outside of Luang Prabang. So on the 27th Sarah, Hari, Corey, and I set off for some hard-core trekking. The trail was rarely traveled by tourists, in fact in the 3 day period we did not see any other Westerns. We had 3 incredible leaders, Su, Lao, and Leng - locals from villages near Luang Prabang. Not only did they speak excellent English, they were 3 of the most genuinely nice guys we had met in a long time. During our walks they were very talkative, asking questions about our schooling and how the places we grew up differed from their homes. It was really special to be able to have conversations with them and learn about our similarities and differences.

The trail was simply gorgeous, we were truly in the depths of the Lao jungle surrounded by green as far as the eye could see. On day 1 we had true jungle trekking, it poured several times leaving us soaking wet but having the greatest time. The trail was quite difficult while wet, there were steep inclines up rocky trail and deep mud. Despite the non-ideal conditions, the trek was beautiful and extremely enjoyable. And the clouds did break for some sunshine a few times. At one point in the adventure "we were walking along when all of a sudden a young guy (20 or less) came riding alongside of us on a bicycle and suddenly crashed into a ditch on the side of the road. I'm talking a complete and utter breakdown in coordination and a pretty ungraceful landing with a bike on top of you. In a split second, the boy who reeked of booze, nonchalantly got up and waved to us and said "Sa Bai Dee! (Hello!)" as though nothing had happened at all. Reeling in laughter, we proceeded onwards and noticed him almost fall one more time behind us" (Hari, http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1230449340/tpod.html). It was hilarious and kept us laughing on and off for the rest of the day.

After 5 hours of trekking we made it to the Hmong village where we would stay the night. It was extremely poor - no power and simple bamboo and straw huts. There were chickens, dogs, and cats running around freely. We saw children playing and saw men and women working. Their way of life was so simple, but they were happy and interested by us. Sarah spent over an hour talking with a group of little girls (I'd guess 5 or 6), communicating via hand signals and the few Lao phrases we learned along the way. We had an entourage of little kids around us, some shy and hiding behind their friends, and some outgoing and laughing with us. Hari made friends with a little boy who had "slingshot skills" - this kid had 90%+ accuracy at hitting water bottles that we put up on a wall from 20+ meters away. Our trek leaders cooked a great dinner via fire and we put on any dry clothes that we had to get to sleep early, as we had a long trek ahead of us the next day.

Thankfully the rain stopped overnight and after the morning mist cleared we were surrounded by blue skies. The trail was still muddy, but we were able to maneuver over the rocks with little difficulty. We went to a tiny village surrounded by rice fields at the foot of a steep rock trail leading to a cave. We hiked up 485 stairs (Hari challenged by ability to count and was quickly put to shame) to the cave and explored the beautiful rock formation. After that we hiked for the rest of the afternoon to another, larger village where we sleep. This one was far more developed than the village the previous evening, there was electricity, TVs in nearly every home, power tools (they were building new homes in the area), and running water. It was really interesting to see how much more wealthy and developed this village was, only a few hours walk away from the village we stayed at the night before. Nevertheless we had a lovely dinner with Su, Lao, and Leng and enjoyed our time exploring the village.

Our third and final day started off at fast pace, as the first stretch of trail that we hit is known for having a large leech population. Since the ground was wet from the rain a few days earlier coupled with the morning mist, we had to almost run through the trail to avoid our shoes being covered in tiny leeches - each one was about the length of a pin, not that big of a deal but still you don't want them on you. We made it through unscathed to a small waterfall where we'd stop to splash some water on our faces and take a break. The trail leading to the waterfall was quite muddy, in fact it was so muddy that in one step Corey stepped knee deep into a mud pit, temporarily losing a shoe. He did fish it out of the mud but they were dead and would be put into permanent retirement upon returning to Luang Prabang.

Back in the city we winded down after a tiring 3 days. While walking down the main street we bumped into Brad and Esther, our Aussie pals who we had spent time with in Cambodia. We had been planning on meeting up with them for New Year's but had not figured out a final plan yet, but they knew where we were and came to meet us. We were so happy to see them and immediately started planning out how we would ring in 2009. We thought it would be appropriate to head to the party scene so Sarah, Hari, Brad, Esther, Neil, Corey, Tara, Sevan, Jani, Annukah, and I hopped onto a bus to Vang Vieng...

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree in Lao

2009-02-21T04:46:00.002-05:00

We arrived in Luang Prabang at 6am in the morning (night bus) and got to see the monks walking along the street getting food from the town that supports them. The street was lined with monks wearing their saffron robes as they collected food like rice and other delicacies in small bowls that they would eat during the day. It is quite phenomenal, amongst the myriad western tourists walking around during the day, you will see seas of saffron robes as young monks make their way from the school to the Internet cafes to the monastery to wherever else.

Luang Prabang is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which ensures reasonable tourist development and preservation. The city was the capital of an old kingdom by the same name and was also a seat of the independent Kingdom of Lao from 1954-1975. Situated between two rivers with the mighty Me Kong river on the west, it is a beautiful old town and more importantly a springboard town for all of the amazing trekking and adventures in the northern Lao mountains.

On our night bus we met a couple, Joe and Kim, who were studying in Singapore and spent the day with them seeing the local waterfalls in the area. We hit Sai Waterfall which, via tuk-tuk, was about an hour outside the city. We walked through the forest areas and came to the beautiful waterfall. We hiked up to the top of the falls for a beautiful look down the mountain to the water pool below. While at the falls we met Corey, an American that was also traveling the same direction as we were. We decided to join forces and Corey traveled with our group for the next week.

Later that night for dinner we discovered the amazing sandwich stalls which we consumed almost every day for the remainder of our time in Lao. These were huge sandwiches with fresh cut up chicken, laughing cow cheese, loads of veggies, for about $2. Heaven. We grabbed a Beer Lao and checked out the market. Luang Probang has an amazing night market. The main street is lined with families selling cute bags with flower decorations sewn on them, lots of jewelry and woven bracelets, Beer Lao tee-shirts, and beautiful embroidered bedspreads with the same flower pattern... Now, let me take a moment to tell you about this Beer. Beer Lao, the national beer, is a lager that is easily one of the finest brews in the entire world. I'm not just saying it was good because I was in Lao. It is seriously a world class lager that needs to be exported in massive quantities and sold the world over. We have found it difficult to find this beer in Thailand and they are neighboring countries!

We kept our eyes peeled all day for Hari (an Indian guy with a beard probably wearing a blue soccer jersey, shouldn't be too hard). Since Luang Prabang is a tiny old town with a massive tourist vibe you constantly run into people. While walking through the night market Mary spotted Hari and suddenly took off running and jumped into the arms of Hari giving him a huge hug. The threesome was back together again, now in Lao.

Before long, a motley crew had been assembled together that night including: Mary/Sarah, some friends Hari had met along the way -Neil (UK) and Sevan/Tara (Canada) - our friends from DonDet, Yanni/Annuka (Finland), and Cory (USA). All would make it to Vang Vieng. Mary and I decided that we wanted to have a Christmas Eve party, as we were all away from home for the holidays and we both love Christmas - you should see the number of Christmas songs on our iPods. We were to have the party the following evening, complete with Santa hats that we had been hauling around since Vietnam.

On Christmas Eve, we started the evening off with some drinks at our room, some Xmas music, Santa hats, Christmas cookies (aka Oreo cookies) and some more drinks. Eventually, the party took us across town to a couple of outdoor bars where they had bonfires and Xmas trees, Santa's sleighs, tinsel and faux snow. Did I mention we was in a tourist town in the middle of Lao. Despite the sadness at seeing poor non-Christian Laotians wearing Santa clothing as they worked the restaurants and bars, it was nice to be in a festive atmosphere amongst good people and loved ones.

In this evening, we learned of a fascinating sociological phenomenon from Neil. Singles night at the grocery store. Where Neil is from, in Redding, England, Thursday night around 10pm is single's night at the local Safeway equivalent. He was telling us how this affects what you buy (you don't want girls seeing you stuff yourself full of junk food), causes you to become a more innovative cook (you sometimes end up buying some random ingredients for reasons similar to the first and have to concoct some recipes when you get back home and realize the error of your ways), and can result in some dates. In Neil's case, the icebreaker was those damn vegetable bags that are impossible to open. It led to two dates with a Czech girl. Bloody brilliant.

Xmas day itself was a little bit of a quiet one (translation: hangover day). After taking care of some errands and booking our trek, Cory, Hari, Mary and I headed off to the Pak Ou Caves, about 2 hours up the Me Kong from Luang Prabang. Somewhat disappointing, the boat trip is down the beautiful stretch of the Me Kong and the caves that have many Buddhist relics.

That night we finally had our first random friend sighting (we had been waiting for the day that we ran into someone we knew from home, it's a small world style). Out at a bar I ran into my friend from high school, Christina Penfield. It was so great to see her and we got to spend some time catching up on. All in all we had a quiet evening and dinner as we all prepared for our trek the next morning.

I couldn't have completed this entry in the time I did without help, so to give credit where credit is due- Thanks Hari!

(http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1230449340/tpod.html)

Don Det, Laos - Sticky Hammocks

2009-02-04T03:53:00.011-05:00

We said our goodbyes to Cambodia and hopped a quick flight from Siem Reap to Pakse, Laos. From there we took a short 2 hour bus ride plus a 10 minute boat ride to Don Det, one of the 4,000 Islands. Laos is landlocked so the concept of 4,000 Islands was a bit strange, but these small islands are actually located in southern Laos on the Mekong River near the Cambodian border. They are known for being quiet, peaceful backpacker havens so we decided to take a few days to relax Laos-style.

Don Det is exactly what we were hoping for - a tiny, quaint island that can be covered on foot in a matter of minutes. The island is in fact so quaint and peaceful that there is only electricity between 6am and 10pm which may turn off some travelers, but we were totally up for it. The riverbank is lined with small bungalos for US $2/night. Yes, you read correctly, US $2/night. We got off the boat and quickly found Paradise Bungalos, our home for the next several days.

Our bungalo was simple but right on the river with amazing views. We immediately met our awesome neighbors, Jani and Annukka (from Finland), who we would spend most of our time on the island hanging out with and who we would also meet in northern Laos for several days later in the trip. They told us that they had fallen victim to Don Det's "sticky hammocks" and warned us that we would likely end up staying longer than we expected...they were right. These "sticky hammocks" are no myth - each bungalo has 2 hammocks right on the front porch and once you lay in one, you are pretty much stuck there for the rest of the day. It is a little too easy to be a lazy bum on Don Det and we loved every minute of it.

Our days were mostly spent hanging out with Jani and Annukka on the infamous sticky hammocks while enjoying Beerlao, which is arguably one of the greatest beers I have ever tasted. Why the L.B.C. (Laos Brewing Company) does not export Beerlao to the US is a mystery to me, they would make an absolute killing. We were not lazy the whole time, we did take some time to explore Don Det - we walked around and rented bicycles one afternoon to check out some beautiful waterfalls. We were on Don Det the week before Christmas so we decided to have a little Christmas party on our porch with Jani, Annukka, and several other friends who we had met on the island. We drank Beerlao, wore our santa hats, played Christmas music on the iPod speakers, and lit 40 red and white candles on our porch (since there was no electricity). It was a great way to get in the Christmas spirit.

We also spent a lot of time with the resident "dad and mom" of Paradise Bungalos, Lance and Donna. They are an older couple from the US who vacation on Don Det for 3 months every year and therefore know everyone and everything about it. They told us the best places to eat - Paradise's lentil pumpkin curry with sticky rice is easily one of the best things I've eaten on the entire trip, I had it everyday...sometimes for breakfast. It was just really great to chat with Lance and Donna about our travels and how the island has changed in the past few years and how it is still advancing. Don Det is expected to have power 24 hours/day in the next several months which some may view as a positive change, but Lance and Donna expressed their concern that it will take away from some of Don Det's charm, attracting more party-hungry backpackers and taking away from the simplicity of the Lao people who reside on the island. We understand their argument and hope that despite the technological advances Don Det remains as quaint as it is today...

Five days later we had to pry ourselves off our sticky hammocks to head north to Luang Prabang, but we had a wonderful time on Don Det. It is definitely on my list of places to return to in the future.

Angkor Days: 2-3

2009-01-28T08:52:00.001-05:00

Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. These temples are quite possibly the most incredible thing I have ever seen. Our next two days in Angkor Wat were just as incredible as the first. We rose at 4am on our second day to see the sunrise above Angkor Wat Temple. Magical. The golden colors of red and orange and yellow were breathtaking over this impressive temple. Satisfied with a billion photos/videos and warmed up by the sunrise, we were almost ready to explore the temple. First, Hari decided that he needed to take a digital macro photo of one of the lilly flowers, which meant leaping from the muddy bank across the bog water to a moss-covered rock in the lake. Needless to say, he slipped and everything submerged - backpack, sweatshirt, shorts, shoes, socks and camera (Don't worry, his camera is fine, but we will never forget or stop laughing about Swamp Thing).After the 'swamp' incident, the three of us stared to explore the temple. Angkor Wat is commonly known as the world's largest religious building - it was a Hindu/Buddhist shrine built late in the Khmer Empire's rule by Suryavarman II in the 12th century. Each god-king ruler of the Empire left his mark with a massive temple. It is easily the best preserved Khmer temple, Ankgor Wat is set inside of massive corridor walls in a classical design and consists of a temple mountain. This is a unique structure for the Khmer temples as most don't have the corroded walls with bas reliefs that you find in Hindu South Indian temples. The site is the monument, the symbol and the pride of the Cambodian people. It adorns the currency, the flag and represents the greatest period in the history of this embattled country. It is quite frankly, a stunning architectural masterpiece.

Surprised to find no crowds at the temple, we enjoyed its majestic towering pyramids (symbolic of Mt Meru) and massive grounds and spent a good amount of time just relaxing on the ledges high above the ground. The greatest and most unique part of the temple are the bas-reliefs. Surrounding the sides of the temple are massive bas-relief galleries depicting war procession scenes, the Ramayana and Mahabharata and the myth of the Churning of the Sea of Milk. Carved meticulously into the sandstone, these 200m reliefs are simply amazing in their detail and grandeur.
Upon exiting Ankgor Wat, we hopped in Li's tuk-tuk and made our way back through the gates of Ankgor Thom to investigate its wonders. Our first stop was the mysterious 216-headed tower state temple of Bayon. The last state temple built by Empire, it is entirely a Buddhist temple and the many faces that gaze out are thought to be depictions of the god-king himself, Jayavarman VII. Relatively compact and vertical, Bayon is also symbolic of Mt Meru and the surrounding oceans. Just outside of the temple is the Bayon Library - rare that a secular building in Ankgor was built of lasting sandstone rather than perishable materials - with a ridiculously steep staircase that provides great views of Bayon.

Needing a snack, we made our way over to the row of restaurants for some shakes. Having been there a day earlier, all of the trinket girls recognized us. We told them we'd buy them some shakes and lunch if they would stop selling us their stuff and hang out with us and let us teach them. So excited to be hanging out with a bunch of adults and get some yummy food, the girls excitedly put down their baskets and sat down with us. The three of us quickly had many girls around us and we were teaching them how to read and write a bit in English and we were just enjoying their company. These girls were really intelligent - the one I was with picked everything up on the first try. It was so enjoyable to see them just acting like little kids. These girls were also so selfless, eagerly sharing all of their food amongst each other and their other friends that popped by. The girls would ride their bikes into Ankgor from their village everyday to sell stuff when they weren't at school. When we were leaving, the girls gave such loving hugs to all of us and then came running up to our tuk-tuk, putting multiple friendship bracelets on all of us.

After lunch we walked through the Terrace of the Leper Kings and Terrace of the Elephants. These grand terraces in the center of Ankgor Thom are good relaxing spots. There is a short trail that runs inside of one of the terraces and is covered with sculptures.

On day three we said good-bye to Hari, don't worry it was only for a week, and set out to see the rest of the Angkor Temples. These temples were located an hour and a half north of Siem Reap (thank you for our dust masks Li). We first set off up the nice and steep 15 minute trail up to Kbal Spean. Running through a rugged forest, you eventually come upon a large stream that is the origin of the Siem Reap River, the water source for the Khmer Empire and the most sacred river to the Khmers as it is symbolic for the sacred river Ganga in India. Lacing this stream are one thousand lingas, the phallic symbol of Lord Shiva, as well as numerous Hindu carvings in the rocks along the stream. This beautifully serene and natural shrine to the Hindu gods also has a 15m waterfall.

The next stop of the day was 40km from Ankgor, the small, but intricately carved sandstone temple of Bantey Srei. Much older than Ankgor Wat, Bantay Srei is also much smaller, but contains the best preserved Hindu sandstone carvings of any of the temples. The ornately carved leaves, Garudas, Nagas, Vishnus, Ramas, Ravanas, cows, Krishnas, etc. are supreme and on par with Khajuraho in terms of sculptural brilliance. With ruined doors, columns and walls strewn about, you can mentally picture the original grandeur of the temple just as you can in a ruined Classical city. There is something equally beautiful about seeing these ruined temples as seeing the ones in pristine conditions. As usual our day was complete with a magnificent sunset over the temples.
After our third day in Siem Reap our time in Cambodia was over and we were off to Lao. We had heard so many great things about Lao that we were very excited to continue on our journey to this new country.

(Due to that fact that Hari had already written a brilliant entry about these two days for his own blog, I borrowed some material from him, http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/chiapoe/1/1229075520/tpod.html)

Siem Reap - Day 1

2009-01-25T01:23:00.001-05:00

After a refreshing time on the beach we continued on through Cambodia to Siem Reap. When we separated with Hari in Phnom Penh we decided to meet up again in Siem Reap to explore Angkor Wat. We had both been looking forward to seeing Ankgor Wat for sometime and were re-energized to do some hard-core sightseeing and exploring.

We met Hari at the Jasmine Guesthouse, as he arrived in Siem Reap a day earlier than we arrived. He spent his first day exploring some of the Angkor temples on the outskirts of the city and waited for us to arrive before going to the main temples. We all had to share stories from the time we were apart so naturally we headed to town to get some dinner a few Ankgor Beers. Sarah and I told Hari of our time on the beach and he caught us up on his 5 day dirt bike excursion with Brad and Esther through eastern Cambodia. It was great to have the threesome back together and we planned out the next several days at Angkor. While Siem Reap is quite a large tourist destination, the town itself is relatively quiet in the evenings except for one street lined with bars and restaurants which is appropriately called 'Bar Street'. Since we started traveling in SE Asia we saw tons of people wearing 'Angkor What?' t-shirts - we asked around and apparently 'Angkor What?' is the most popular bar in Siem Reap and is a must go for backpackers. We heard nothing but rave reviews so we checked it out. Overrated. Overpriced beers and buckets, below-average music, and extremely unfriendly staff (especially the resident bouncer with whom we had a minor incident). If you find yourself in Siem Reap just go to the bar across the street from Ankgor What? and have a much cheaper beer in a much more enjoyable atmosphere.The next morning, we all bought 3 day passes ($40/3 days, worth every penny) and made a tentative plan for our first day of seeing Angkor Wat. We took off early with our tuk-tuk driver, Li, for our first full day of temple exploring together in the main temples of Ankgor. Our route would take us in a counterclockwise tour of the eastern set of temples, leaving the heavy hitting Ankgor Wat and Ankgor Thom for the next day. Our first stop was Ta Prohm, the massive and tree-covered temple that was made famous in Tomb Raider. It was a bit overcrowded with tourists, but it was still stunning to see a ruined temple completely enveloped by the jungle. Massive (10ft diameter and bigger) trees have grown right on top of the walls of the temple, with their roots spilling down like blood until they bury themselves in the ground below. I felt a bit like Lara Croft wandering around the eerie jungle and temples, the trees were so beautiful and despite the masses of tourists, the surroundings felt quite serene.

From Ta Prohm we headed eastward to Pre Rup. Pre Rup was very different than Ta Prohm (as we would learn each temple has a much different style, as they were built over a period of 4 centuries) but stunning in its own way. Pre Rup was much smaller and not surrounded by any jungles, but instead set atop a hill that creates a phenomenal sunset spot. We saw the main Shiva tower in the middle surrounded by smaller towers at the cardinal corners in homage of Vishnu, Saraswati, Lakshmi and Brahma. It's so unique to see the Khmer version of Hindu temples as you will rarely (if ever) find a temple in India where all three of the main Hindu gods are under the same roof.
After Pre Rup, we headed counter clockwise along the Grand Circuit, so our next stop was the jungle-enshrouded Ta Som. The entrance gate has one of the famous smiling faces (that is supposed to be an image of one of the main Khmer rulers Jayavarman) and there are a couple of massive trees with twisting roots that have engulfed the eastern gate. Not as spectacular and large as Ta Prohm, Ta Som has very little crowds and offers its own charm. East Mebon is in a massive sandstone pyramid layout similar to Pre Rup and is protected by beautiful sandstone elephants standing vigil. Late in the morning, we reached the relaxing pool Preah Nean Pean. Down a short path from the main road you come across a massive pool with stairs on all four sides - similar to ghats in India - that is surrounded by four smaller pools. There is a huge statue in the middle of the pool and some smaller statues in the surrounding pools at the cardinal corners. Needing a place to relax for a bit, we sat down on the stairs and reflected. I could just picture thousands of people chatting by this pool amidst a typical day in the bustling city of Ankgor in the 11th century. A school field trip added to our enjoyment as we watched the kids and their reflections in the pool as they paraded around. One shy little boy, Ba, just sat by us the whole time and didn't speak much as he too seemed to be enjoying the fish and peace rather than running around with his mates...I think that he was also quite fascinated to be sitting by us.

We took a lunch break after Preah Nean Pean, taking us to the heart of Ankgor Thom. Ankgor Thom was the main fortified city of the Khmers and was constructed late in the empire by Jayavarman VII. Protected by massive walls on all sides there are four imposing and intimidating gates that bear the heads of Jayavarman high up top and either serve as a grand entrance to the city or a stern reminder to watch out. The main road running north south also has the sculpture of the Churning of the Sea of Milk running along some bridges. At the heart of the old city are a couple of large and old terraces, the King's palace and the piece de resistance, Bayon. We opted to tackle this massive city the following day and enjoyed a meal in the parade of restaurants next to Bayon. There were kids selling all sorts of trinkets, but it was great to see them just playing hide-and-seek with each other and just being kids. All the kids who sell stuff in and around the temples are quite inventive. If you won't buy from them, they try to trick you into playing games with them where you have to buy if you lose. The games are generally tic-tac-toe or "name that world or US state capital". They're really quite good, but as I said, it was great to see them playing and just being kids.
Re-energized after lunch, we tackled the massive Preah Khan. Believed to have been a Buddhist university late in the days of the Khmer Empire, this is THE temple for aimless wandering and exploration of ruined corridors, courtyards and buildings. Set in a similar cruciform style to many of the other temples, there are Shiva lingas throughout the corridors as you get the center of the inside of the temple and the Buddhist stupa. Because you are supposed to bow to the King and be subservient to God according to the Hindus, the four main corridors get narrower as you move out of the temple in all four directions. This was one of our favorite temples as you could wander, climb and discover to your hearts content.

Another day was timed to near perfection (kudos to Li, our tuk-tuk driver), as we raced up the hill of Phnom Bakheng in Ankgor Thom for sunset. Atop the hill is a large fort and there were thousands of people gathered for another magnificent sunset. Hari, Sarah and I found our spot in relative peace sitting on a grassy terrace looking out at the fading light. It was really reminiscent of sitting on the grass terraces in Machu Picchu. After the sunset, there was a resounding round of applause from the crowd. Applause for the sunset...let's hear it for Mother Nature. This has now caused us to give the sun reviews after every sunset and enjoy the "encore" that is the pinks and other colors that occur long after the sun has dipped below the horizon. Our first day at Ankgor was magical, for me it was love at first sight and overall just a perfect day. We all crashed out early in anticipation of our sunrise experience at Ankgor Wat and visit to Ankgor Thom the following morning...

Beach. December. Cambodia.

2009-01-20T02:29:00.001-05:00

We headed down to the beaches of Cambodia for some serious chill out beach time. I mean it's December, what else would we be doing? Sihanoukville is located at the southern tip of Cambodia and contains amazing beaches that line the west contour of the city. We headed for Serendipity Beach and for four days we didn't really move more then from our lounge chairs to the water. Serendipity Beach is definitely a backpacker paradise with a beach lined with bars, BBQs, lounge chairs and great happy hours. Walking the beach were girls selling fresh cut fruit and hand woven bracelets. It was serenity. We met two fellow backpackers, Tori and Sam, that we ended up rooming with and we got a great room steps from the beach ($3/person/night).

Not to entice jealously, but we had four amazing days on the beach. To summarize, each jammed packed day consisted of 1. ordering an omelet and banana shake for breakfast, 2. laying on the beach in the sunshine or floating in the water for hours, 3. ordering freshly cut fruit from 'our girls' selling on the beach, 4. enjoying a beer on the beach and watching the sunset, 4. shower, 5. go back to the bars on the beach for the night.
The girls selling items on the beach were awesome. There were tons of them asking you if you wanted a massage or manicure or fruit or bracelets. Their dedication was admirable considering they only got around two sales a day. We became friendly with a couple of the girls and they would just hang out by our lounge chairs, in the shade, and we would chat. These girls were so smart, spoke excellent English, and went to the beach everyday after school to try and earn a couple dollars to bring home. The girls were great and I really enjoyed talking to them. Mary and my wrists are now covered with these friendship bracelets.

So, Sihanoukville, Serendipity Beach... and that is kind of it.

Phnom Penh: Hari's Cliffs Notes

2009-01-16T01:15:00.001-05:00

~As you may have gathered, we are running a bit behind on the blog so we could not turn down the opportunity for another guest blogger entry...Hari is a bit more on the ball than we are and has already completed his own Phnom Penh entry so we did a little editing and created the Cliffs Notes version for you. And with that, I will turn it over to Hari for a slightly abridged version of our Phnom Penh adventures:

Phnom Penh has about 1mm people and the Kingdom has about 15mm total population. Phnom Penh maintains a very small town feel with an extremely wealthy center and extremely poor fringes that are quickly reached. We pulled in and checked into the Okay Guesthouse. There's more to this later, but Mary/Sarah/Brad/Esther all had the dorm room upstairs (with a terrace), while I was placed in the dorm room downstairs. Setting my stuff down, I noticed black curtains segmenting every dorm bunk bed and remarked to myself, "this is nice, it offers privacy and darkness if someone turns on the light at night". Sometimes, I embarass myself with my naivety.

We set off along the Tonle Sap river north to the main restaurant and bar area. During dinner, there was a drunken motorcycle wreck about 10ft away from us and I ran to help the guy to his feet and make sure he was ok. This Aussie guy, who knew first aid, and I, an Eagle Scout, helped the man lay down, checked him for injuries, got him some water and cigarettes to sober him up and tried as much as we could to keep him from getting back on his bike. The local restauranteurs wanted him riding and out of there, but the man was clearly concussed and drunk as all hell. There's only so much we could do.
After a tasty dinner experience, we set off on foot to explore and find an art exhibition at a gallery that was closeby. Aimlessly wandering by the palace (glowing at night), a park, and many pagodas, we eventually walked by an SME bank many blocks away near Norodom Blvd from where we started. This bank was a palace fit for Tony Montana in Scarface. There were Rovers and Escalades, guard dogs, security, and more marble columns and statues than you could imagine. From this point onwards, I would realize that Phnom Penh, and Cambodia at large, was a city and country of two sides. There is extreme corruption, opulent wealth and conspicuous consumption juxtaposed with extreme poverty that I didn't find in Viet Nam. There are tons of shoeless and torn-clothing-clad children wandering the streets hungry and there is a plethora of orphanages within the city. Alas, our aimless wander through the city did not lead us to the museum and, after stopping at a chic French homemade rum bar, we eventually called it a night back at the guesthouse. The Kingdom of Cambodia is a Buddhist monarchy that is at the same time a rural, peaceful and beautiful country as well as the Wild Wild West. I would realize this that night.

Back to my dorm room at the guesthouse. Tired as all hell, I called it an early night and was peacefully asleep. For awhile. From the hours of 2-5am, my dorm room was transformed into a brothel as a bunch of British guys returned to the hostel with some purchases they had made locally and what ensued was an all-night orgy of debauchery that left me trapped in my bed (and I really had to go #1) and quite bleary-eyed the next morning. Not more than eight hours earlier, I was walking along pleasant and wide boulevards, looking at beautiful pagodas at night and then this. Only in Cambodia. I would not let this one night detract me from enjoying the country and I'm glad I maintained this open-minded and positive spirit.

The morning of Dec 2, we got bikes at Lucky Lucky (do not ever rent bikes here) for the five of us and set out to the Khmer Empire ruins of Tonle Bate with Mary and Sarah riding motorbikes for the first time in their lives. Slow and steady out of the city, I was very proud of the way the girls rode their first time on steeds and in and out of relatively busy traffic. Immediately upon leaving the city limits, you are in extremely rural Cambodia. Very reminiscent of rural India, there are spread out villages, fields everywhere with cows tending to the land and their keepers washing and watching over them, people bicycling through the countryside, pigs and chickens running everywhere and incredibly tropical and lush plains. We stopped at a delicious juice stand along the side of the road, where I tried out Esther's clutch and gear 250cc Honda dirt bike. I immediately got a grasp on the bike, on pavement at least, which bode well for our planned dirt bike tour that would allow me to fall in love with this country forever. We eventually made it to Tonle Bati, part ruined Khmer Empire temple and part modern pagoda. We couldn't find any peace and quiet for ourselves as there were these kids who accompanied us everywhere, but we made best of the situation and were friendly with the kids. Riding the 250cc Honda the rest of the day, I headed back to Phnomh Penh with the crew and we all successfully navigated rush hour traffic and had dinner (hmm, those Singapore noodles were grand) at a cheap Chinese joint.

Dec 3 was our last day all together in Phnomh Penh as the girls decided to head to the beach while we headed north on our bikes. We wrapped up another momentous day in Cambodia with our temporary goodbyes to Mary and Sarah (I would meet them later in Siem Reap) and by planning our route for our off-road, off-the-beaten-track, dirt bike tour...

Border Crossing: Vietnam to Cambodia

2009-01-14T04:28:00.001-05:00

During our short reunion with Hari in Hoi An, we planned on meeting up in Saigon after spending some time in northern Vietnam. From Saigon the 3 of us would cross the border into Cambodia via the Mekong River. We spent some time up in Hanoi and Sa Pa and then Sarah and I flew back to Saigon to meet Hari and travel together for a few weeks.

As we were in a taxi on the way to the guesthouse that Hari had booked for the 3 of us I saw two of Hari's Aussie friends, Brad and Esther, sitting at a bar. I had briefly met them up in Hoi An and they were really cool. They had to go to Thailand for a wedding and decided to take advantage and travel through SE Asia for a few months. Hari had met them a few weeks earlier and they hit it off and decided to travel together for awhile... What a coincidence that they were in Saigon, I thought that they were supposed to be in Thailand by this point. After dropping off our stuff at the hotel I ran down to the bar to say hi and they said that they were still with Hari and he was on his way. Because of the situation in Thailand they could not fly into Bangkok as they had originally planned, so they decided to join us and come to Cambodia. We were really excited to have a fun group of 5 to cross the border with and celebrated with a few Tiger Beers and caught each other up on our journeys since we had last seen each other.We all boarded a small boat and got started traveling down the Mekong, stopping along the way at a few little shops on the water where they were making rice paper and coconut candy. It was a beautiful day to be riding along the River and the 5 of us just relaxed and chatted. After a few hours we stopped off at a floating hotel where we would spend our last night in Vietnam. We went to a small street restaurant where no one spoke a word of English so via the Vietnamese that we had all picked up over the past few weeks and some hand signals we ordered our last pho noodle dinner. Delicious. Back at the hotel Brad had his guitar so we made some drinks and had a jam session on top of the hotel, it was an excellent evening with good friends and we were all looking forward to entering a new country.

The next morning we got on another boat and headed towards the border. We were surrounded by clear blue skies, palm trees, and fishermen on the Mekong. When we crossed the border we had to go to a checkpoint to have our passports and visas checked and before we knew it we were in Cambodia. We all decided that our first stop would be Phnom Penh, so off we went...

A Halong Bay Thanksgiving

2009-01-11T01:07:00.000-05:00

Upon our return from Sapa we jumped on another bus and headed for a two day boat trip on Halong Bay. Wikipedia: "The bay consists of a dense cluster of 1,969 limestone monolithic islands, each topped with thick jungle vegetation, which rise spectacularly from the ocean. Several of the islands are hollow, with enormous caves. Hang Đou Go (Wooden stakes Cave) is the largest grotto in the Ha Long area. Its three large chambers contain large numerous stalactites and stalagmites (as well as 19th century French graffiti). There are two bigger islands, Tuon Châu and Cat Ba, that have permanent inhabitants. Both of them have tourist facilities, including hotels and beaches. There are a number of wonderful beaches on the smaller islands." To see the islands and grotto's a boat trip is mandatory and we had a great group of people on the boat with us, which made for a great trip and an eventful night.

We spent two glorious days and one night aboard the ship (three star ship status) on HLB. Our first day consisted of laying on the boat deck just reading and listening to music. The boat stopped at two of the bays famous caves. The first cave, Thien Cung, was filled with incredible stalactites and stalagmites that have been in evolution for over 20 million of years. The cave was also full of colorful lights, probably to accent the s-mites. The multi-colored lights made you feel like you were in some awesome cave club as opposed to a Unesco World Heritage site. (As a sidenote- if you were able to rent the cave out it would be an awesome clubbing venue, obviously only complete with a incredible DJ and bar. Talk to the world heritage people and sign me up.) The other cave was missing the multicolored lights, but proved to be just as spectacular.
It was Thanksgiving Day while we were on the boat. It was a bittersweet day because we are so thankful to be doing this trip and living this life, but at the same time we are still missing our family and friends back at home. Lets me just say that tofu and rice isn't exactly up there with turkey, cranberry, sweet potatoes, and family for Thanksgiving dinner. Despite being two of the three Americans on the boat we had everyone at our table say what we were thankful for. There can never be a wrong time to do that.

That night (lets face it, we started before the sun went down) we played a lot of cards and drank a lot of Hanoi Vodka. We were introduced to this awesome game called Snap which consists of a group of people passing around playing cards, trying to get a four of a kind. You move cards around by saying something like 'pass two cards to your left' etc. Once you have four of a kind you yell Snap and throw your hand and cards in the middle of the circle. Then there is a mad rush of hands flying into the middle and the last hand on top losses. You can also mix it up and do a fake 'Snap' shout out. Trust me, Snap is a blast! We played cards and chatted late into the night. Although not a traditional Thanksgiving, still one we will never forget.

The next day on the boat was spent much like the first- music, sun, and books. Good times, new friends and too much Hanoi Vodka. Happy Thanksgiving.

San Diego Super Chargers

2009-01-08T00:38:00.001-05:00

The Chargers are in the hunt for the Super Bowl and I couldn't be prouder. Here is a shot out to my boys in SD. I will be rooting for you and I wish I was watching the beating the Steelers will be getting this Sunday. Go Bolts!

"San Diego is playing as well as any team in the league right now. And Saturday's play from players such as Sproles and Scifres showed it is a total team effort." - ESPN

San Diego Chargers' Darren Sproles, center, scores the winning touchdown in overtime of an NFL AFC wild-card playoff football game the Indianapolis Colts Saturday Jan. 3, 2009 in San Diego. San Diego won the game 23-17. (AP Photo/Chris Park)

Sa Pa, Vietnam

2009-01-07T03:12:00.002-05:00

From Hanoi we went to the northwestern part of Vietnam - Sa Pa is the Lao Cai Province in the far north near the Chinese border. At 1600 meters, this small town of only 40,000 people is notorious for great hiking. After yet another overnight train we arrived early and made our way to Pinocchio hotel as per Hari's recommendation. The hotel was family run and we were lucky to get a room on the top floor with an excellent view of the entire town.

We arrived early and got started with a hike. For our first day we decided to head down to the villages just south of Sa Pa and ended up in Tan Van. It was a beautiful day, being in the mountains it was brisk but sunny and clear. As we left the hotel and started walking to the trail we had an entourage of little girls and women following us to try to get us to buy clothes and jewelry from them. We politely declined but they were persistent and walked with us for a solid 15 minutes. A couple from New Zealand informed us that the day before they made the mistake of saying "maybe later" and surely enough when they returned to the hotel later the girls were there waiting for them. When they said "no" again, one of the little girls got really nasty and actually cursed them out, claiming that they promised to buy something from her. We took their advice and luckily did not get yelled at by little Vietnamese girls during our stay.

The hike was incredible, the trail was so quiet and peaceful. We walked for 4 hours and were surrounded by amazing views - it was green as far as the eye could see, there were trees and rice paddies growing everywhere. We got to walk through the villages and see how the families lived. As expected, they were poor and lived basic lives - men worked in the fields, women wove scarves to sell to tourists, and children helped when they were not in school. But despite the simplicity of their lives compared to ours, they were all happy and they all enthusiastically said "sin jow" as we walked through their homes. There were tons of cows, pigs, chickens, and puppies all over, the villagers share them as community pets. There were more puppies than I have ever seen in my life. For a second I wondered why there were so many puppies but not so many full grown dogs...and then I realized, the dogs are dinner. (No, we did not eat dog. We're into trying the local cuisine but we have to draw the line somewhere)

Later in the afternoon when our hike was finished, Sarah and I decided to do some trekking on our own. We hiked to the top of one of the smaller mountains in town and got in the standard birds-eye view of the city that we both love so much. Once the sun went down the town almost completely shut down and got really quiet. We got our favorite pho noodles for dinner and went to a bar to have a few Tiger beers. We were 2 of the 6 total people in the bar that had the most interesting selection of music - when we arrived the bartender/DJ played not one, but two different versions of "What a Wonderful World", followed by some old-school Bon Jovi, followed by the loudest techno music I've ever heard. After some minor hearing loss we decided to turn in early so we could get in some more hikes in the morning.

As I said earlier, the hotel we stayed at owned by a young husband and wife and they were so sweet. They had a 15-month old son who was the happiest baby I've ever seen. He was always running around and was so social with all the tourists. When we came back from our hike the mother was holding him and when he made eye contact with me his face lit up and he immediately held out his arms for me to pick him up. This was a first for me. I am not really sure about babies...I guess the maternal instinct that I was not so sure I had kicked in and I picked him up. He was all smiles, laughing, poking my nose, and I loved him. After a few minutes of playing I went to hand him back to his mom and he started to cry! The kid loved me, too. The next morning when Sarah and I went down to the lobby area he ran right up to me and continued the love-fest. We played and ran around a bit (I patrolled him while he was near the stairs) and luckily he did not cry this time when we headed out.
For our second day of hiking we went north to the Matra Village and Ta Phin. We had a great trekking leader - a woman in her mid-30s who has lived in the village her entire life (a local villager must escort you through the villages, tourists cannot walk through on their own) . She spoke excellent English and told us all about everyday life. She even brought us to one of the schools that all the kids from the village attend. Again the views were picturesque and we took a million pictures of the beautiful scenery. We would have loved to do a home stay and sleep in one of the villages (highly recommended, everyone we met who did it said it was an incredible experience). We wished we had planned on spending more time in Sa Pa, but we had to leave after 2 days so we could spend some time on Halong Bay. We loved Sa Pa, it's a must go if you are in Vietnam. Definitely worth the hike to get there.

A Halong Bay Thanksgiving

2009-01-05T03:59:00.000-05:00

Upon our return from Sapa we jumped on another bus and headed for a two day boat trip on Halong Bay. Wikipedia: "The bay consists of a dense cluster of 1,969 limestone monolithic islands, each topped with thick jungle vegetation, which rise spectacularly from the ocean. Several of the islands are hollow, with enormous caves. Hang Đou Go (Wooden stakes Cave) is the largest grotto in the Ha Long area. Its three large chambers contain large numerous stalactites and stalagmites (as well as 19th century French graffiti). There are two bigger islands, Tuon Châu and Cat Ba, that have permanent inhabitants. Both of them have tourist facilities, including hotels and beaches. There are a number of wonderful beaches on the smaller islands." To see the islands and grotto's a boat trip is mandatory and we had a great group of people on the boat with us, which made for a great trip and an eventful night.

It was Thanksgiving Day while we were on the boat. It was a bittersweet day because we are so thankful to be doing this trip and living this life, but at the same time we are still missing our family and friends back at home. Lets me just say that tofu and rice isn't exactly up there with turkey, cranberry, sweet potatoes, and family for Thanksgiving dinner. Despite being two of the three Americans on the boat we had everyone at our table say what we were thankful for. There can never be a wrong time to do that.

The next day on the boat was spent much like the first- music, sun, and books. Good times, new friends and too much Hanoi Vodka. Happy Thanksgiving.

Traveling Hanoi

2009-01-03T04:15:00.008-05:00

We headed north to Hanoi, a busy city with a small town feel. The motos are still as crazy as ever, swerving along the roads and constantly honking their horns, but we enjoyed the simple hustle and bustle of the town. Hanoi seemed to have more family run shops and fewer large buildings then Ho Chi Minh. Women walk the streets with baskets of fresh fruit and veggies hung from wooden sticks hanging off their shoulders. There was no evidence of the recent flooding the city had experienced several weeks before and finally the rain stopped and we were able to explore the city without waterproof jackets and wet feet.

We spent the first day just walking around the city, which is the best way to get a feel for a place. We went to the Bach Ma Temple in the center of the Hoan Kiem Lake. Legend has it that back in the mid-15th century, Heaven sent Emperor Ly Thai a magical sword that he used to drive the Chinese out of Vietnam. One day a golden tortoise grabbed the sword from the Emperor and disappeared into the lake, thus restoring the sword to its divine owners. This is why the lake is referred to as the Lake of the Restored Sword.
In Hanoi we saw the Temple of Literature which consists of five courtyards, pools and pavilions. It is a great example of Vietnamese architecture in the 11th century. We also checked out the Hoa Lo Prison Museum which is the prison that POWs were housed during the American War. It was also the prison that Sen. John McCain was imprisoned for 7 years during the War. Pictures line the walls showing POWs playing ping-pong and decorating Christmas trees. These pictures were meant to imply that the Vietnamese treated the American really well as POWs in prison.

We had hilarious roommates in our dorm room, two guys with thick Ireland accents that were on an extreme drinking binge and spending the evening with us was no exception. We hung out with the usual mix of Aussies, English, Netherlands, Canadians, etc. Meeting new people is definitely a huge part of the travelers' experience. This is why we have enjoyed the social atmosphere of hostels and guesthouses along the way. We have only met a few Americans while traveling. In fact, people are always surprised to discover that we are Americans and we are doing a trip like this. For many people we meet we are the first Americans they have properly hung out with in their months traveling. It is fascinating how different cultures and people throughout the world view traveling.
Our second day was spent exploring the other sites the city had to offer. There are loads of markets in Hanoi filled with shoes, veggie and fruits, clothes, pho noodles, etc. Pho noodles are everywhere in Vietnam and I took a liking to Pho Ga noodles (noodles with chicken) and pretty much consumed them for dinner almost every night. The coffee in Vietnam is also a must try. We also went to see the famous Hanoi Water Puppet Show complete with traditional music (unfortunately did not live up to expectations despite being sold out weeks in advanced, aka. tourist groups). The show consisted of wooden puppets manipulated by puppeteers using water-flooded rice paddies as their stage. After that thrilling show it was off to catch our night train up to Sa Pa for our next adventure.

Guest Blogger 2.0: Hoi An

2008-12-30T03:39:00.008-05:00

~Thank you, Mr. Gregory Johns, for Guest Blogger entry 2.0 from Hoi An, Vietnam. Despite the rainy weather we had a great time in Hoi An with Greg and were sad to see him go. BUT on the bright side of things I couldn't have been happier to meet up with our second special guest: Mr. Hari Vasu-Devan. Hari and I have been very close since we started working together in NY back in 2005 and both decided to take time off to travel. We have been following a similar travel path and finally overlapped for a few days in Hoi An. More adventures from Mary, Sarah, and Hari to come, but for now I'll hand it back to Greg to fill you in on our Hoi An experience:
Arriving back at the hotel from the trip to the tunnels in Cu Chi, it was time to leave Saigon and head to central Vietnam. Now, when I traveling I am typically not of the improvisational sort, but this time, we hadn't quite figured out how we were getting to our next destination, NhaTrang. We had two options: train or plane. Back at the hotel, we checked to see what flights to Nha Trang would cost, only to be told that flights to Nha Trang were not operating because tropical storm Noul was bearing down on the town. Oops. Guess we were going to be skipping that. So, we would simply head to the next planned stop early, which was Hoi An. Luckily, the flight to Da Nang (the nearest airport) cost a grand total of $62. Southwest can kiss our ass.

We landed in Da Nang and got a taxi for the 30 minute drive to Hoi An. I can't tell you how nice of a change it was to be on a road without 300 buzzing moped encircling us like flies on shit. We then arrived at the Golden Sand in Hoi An, a wonderful 5-star resort. Here I felt the "vacation" part of my trip was beginning (you see, unlike the rough and tumble world adventurer/hostel braving girls, I am a princess and demand luxury and coddling). While waiting in the lobby to check in, we were greeting with fresh sugarcane cocktails, which we immediately fortified with more vodka. Our room was a spacious ocean view suite complete with a college football game blaring on ESPN (the mostly showing soccer Hong Kong version, but at least it had some football tonight).The next morning we woke to brilliant sun and took in breakfast. One thing I think the girls appreciated, the hotel had a true western breakfast (aka eggs, pancakes, omelettes, cereal, etc) that they were unable to enjoy for quite a long stretch during the trip. We finished breakfast and headed for the pool. In the midst of all this, we had been a few cocktails down during the morning and continued so at the pool. I'm telling you all this because yours truly decided to throw a wrench into the entire rest of the day via what I call "the incident". This basically consisted of me developing a case of severe dehydration so much so that I needed to seek medical attention, which in Vietnam (let alone in a smaller town Vietnam) was a scary prospect. (The doctors were first rate though).

Fortunately the girls were great and took very good care of me through my ordeal. I was down for the count for a full day though, and missed what was left of the sun for the remainder of the trip. The girls managed to get some additional time at the pool however. The next day we planned to head into Hoi An, but the tropical storm which had hit Nha Trang decided to hang a right and move up the coast. We woke to 40 miles and hour winds and rain. And rain. And rain. Remember when Forrest Gump was talking about what it was like in Vietnam. Yeah, pretty much that. So, we were landlocked in the hotel for a while, during which time we read quite a bit, played massive amounts of Mahjong and finally figured out what happened at the end of the movie "Outsourced".

FINALLY, the rain cleared enough for us to head into Hoi An. The town is what is called a UN World Heritage Site, which is a fancy title for "place that hasn't been greatly disturbed by mass modernization, McDonalds and the like". Hoi An is also renound for being the textile capital of Vietnam, which is a fancy title for "getting custom made clothes really cheap." And that we did. 3 suits and 6 shirts for $250 cheap. The girls got a bunch of clothes made too. We walked all over the town for two days, taking in historical old buildings, the town market (complete with $3 polo shirts thanks to the haggling of the blonde). Central Vietnam retains a great deal of their French heritage, and it certainly shows up in the food, which was outstanding.
All too quickly, it was time for me to head back to the US (complete with a bag containing all the clothes so large that it looked like I was carrying around a dead body) and we said our tearful goodbyes. Yours truly flew back to Saigon and prepared for a long flight over the Pacific. Before I left Saigon though, the airport got hit by one of the worst thunderstorms I'd ever been in. And the funny part....the airport continued operating normally, even as lightning as hitting all over the place. Sitting in your seat waiting to push from the gate and looking out to see a funnel cloud forming knowing you're about to take off into the weather, well good times.

But all was without incident (as you can tell since I'm here writing this). The girls headed up the coast to the ancient capital of Hue. And with that, I will hand the blog back over to them. Despite the rain, it was a truly amazing trip and I highly recommend visiting Vietnam soon before McDonalds gets in there and ruins it.

Guest Blogger: Good Morning Vietnam

2008-12-28T06:08:00.007-05:00

Mary and I were proud to have our first visitor come meet us (aka 'walk the walk') during our trip... Gregory Johns. As a special treat Greg got the privilege of writing the blog entries for the trip. This is a great deal all around, especially for us. Hopefully he lives up to the high blog-post expectations that have been established here. Thank you Greg for coming out to visit us and visit Vietnam. It was wonderful to have you here, a little piece of home as the holidays draw near. We had such a great time with you and with living the life of luxury for a few days. Good call on those suits. We miss you already!

Read on...
Greg here, proud to be the first special guest blogger on Plan B Travels. Apparently I am also the first guest on the trip, four months in. I've read the comments and I know lots of you are promising to meet up with the girls, so you best get to walking the walk.

For those who don't personally know me, I am Sarah's friend from Los Angeles that helped her toil through her two and a half years in the advertising business here. While I've traveled to Europe, Mexico and French Polynesia this trip would mark my first to Asia, let alone Vietnam. Needless to say I knew I was in for something completely different and was extremely excited. Just in case I was too overjoyed, I brought along Paul Krugman's "The Return of Depression Economics" for reading.
My journey to Saigon started with a flight from LA to Taipei. For some reason in my head, I thought this flight was 11.5 hours for weeks, but turns out it was 14.5. There is a YUUUGE difference between a 11.5 flight and 14.5. Fortunately, China Airlines (very good BTW) had a well stocked in flight entertainment unit allowing me to watch about 4 movies. Also, I won about $40K in video poker. I need to figure out who makes their software and somehow hack it into the machines at Mandalay Bay as soon as possible.

After finally landing in Taipei it was another 3.5 hour flight to Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City as it is now known. After being greeted by an airport more modern than the one I departed in LA, I experienced the traffic in Saigon. They call Beijing the capital of bicycles. Saigon is the capital of mopeds. Their are something like 4 million of them in the metro area and I think we rode with at least 3 million of them on the ride into the hotel. My favorite part is when traffic backs up on the streets, they just start driving on the sidewalks.

After decompressing at the hotel for a few hours, the girls arrived from Hong Kong, so great to see them after all this time.

Our trip began with an all day exploration of Saigon by foot. Step #1, not getting killed by the traffic. We quickly mastered the art of the slow and deliberate walking pace and before too long we were experts. We saw many sights such as the Reunification Palace, the former "White House" of South Vietnam. The Vietnamese are very open about what is called the "American War" over here. Especially moving was the War Remnants Museum. As expected, it's painted in a fairly anti-American slant, though not nearly as bad as one would suspect. Still, the imagery and artifacts shown are stunning, from a tribute to the journalists (from all sides) killed in the war, to replications of the tiger cages that housed prisoners of war. Much attention is given to our use of Agent Orange during the war and the pictures showing what was once lush jungle now looking something like the surface of the moon were quite haunting.
After long day of walking, we had a wonderful dinner. The food in Vietnam was great all around, though I don't think I need to have a spring roll until about 2010, as they featured prominently in every meal we had. Our next day took us to the Mekong River delta, where we embarked on a boat tour around a few of the islands. We watched as locals made rice and coconut candies and fired bricks in traditional kilns. We also got to tour a traditional French colonial house dating from the late 19th century. The trip was also highlighted by some recurring engine trouble on the boat. Now we can say we were stranded on the Mekong River in Nam.
The next day we visited probably my favorite site on the trip, the Viet Cong tunnels of Cu Chi. The Vietnamese government preserved about 75 miles of what was once hundreds of miles of tunnel network where the insurgency lived and commanded the war in South Vietnam. Although the site has become a bit touristy, all of the tunnel openings were authentic and it was amazing to realize that people actually fit in the spaces, let alone lived in them and more. At the site, I got to fire an M60 machine gun and AK47 assault rifle...Sarah took on the AK47 as well. Neither of us won the stuffed animal though. The grand finale of the tour was getting down in the tunnels. Now, the tunnels have been tourist-ified with some low power lights and made a bit bigger. But let's just say I don't really ever get claustrophobic at all, AND THESE SUCKERS WERE SMALL. I took an early exit from the second level down, but girls went down to the 3rd level command bunker.
After we returned from Cu Chi at mid-day it was time to leave Saigon. For the 4 days we'd been in Saigon, we were fortunate to enjoy good weather. Sadly, our fortunes were about to turn courtesy of Tropical Storm Noul.

- Greg Johns

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

2008-12-24T00:01:00.000-05:00

It's December. We are on the beach...in Cambodia.

Even the statues at Angkor Wat get into the holiday spirit.

Missing all of our friends and family and wishing we could be with you, but we won't complain...

Much love, Sarah and Mary

Birthday #2 - Beijing Style

2008-12-22T19:10:00.000-05:00

Sarah got to spend her birthday floating down the Nile River - I got to spend mine in Beijing, walking the Great Wall, seeing a crazy acrobatics show, and having a traditional dinner at Lillian's parent's house. Okay, okay, so the whole Great Wall experience was actually the day before my actual birthday, but it's pretty damn close. On my actual birthday we spent the day sightseeing in Beijing which was awesome. Lillian and Sarah secretly worked to plan an amazing birthday evening...

Lillian's parents live in Beijing and were generous enough to invite me, Sarah, Holly and Charlie to their home to have a birthday dinner celebration. Unfortunately Lillian's father was out of town on business, but her mom took the day off from work to cook all day for me, so cute. As we were getting ready to leave the hotel Sarah mysteriously disappeared and came back with a few bottles of wine to bring over to the house, and a big box from a bakery. I had no idea what could possibly be in there. We arrived at their house and were happily greeted by Lillian's mom. She was so excited to show us around the house and took out tons of photo albums from when Lillian was a little girl. We hung out and had some wine and before we knew it, Lillian's mom starting bringing tons of plates of food out from the kitchen to the dining room. She truly made me a birthday feast - chicken, several kinds of stir-fried veggies, rice. Everything was delicious and I was so thankful to be surrounded by such a great family.
After dinner was over the festivities began, Lillian and her mom insisted that I partake in some Chinese birthday traditions. I had to roll an egg up my arms and over my head for good luck in the coming year, and I had to pick up noodles from soup as high as I could to see how long I am going to live. I got to 100 years, chopstick skills. Then the lights dimmed, and Sarah came out with a birthday crown and a cake covered in candles. It was seriously one of the best chocolate cakes I've ever had. Everyone sang to me and it was just a great night. By the end we were all just sitting around the dining room table talking and reminiscing about the past 3 weeks that we had all spent together. We miss Holly, Charlie, and Lillian and think about them often. The next day we said our goodbyes and parted ways - Holly and Charlie stayed behind in Beijing for a few days, Lillian started another tour, and Sarah and I headed into Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh City, here we come.

The Great Wall

2008-12-22T04:08:00.001-05:00

Needless to say the anticipation of seeing the Great Wall was building - we had been in China for 3 weeks and had been looking forward to it from Day 1. After a few days of sightseeing in Beijing we made the trip to the Great Wall. We took a 3 hour bus ride from Beijing to Simatai, a more remote section of the Wall with less tourists where we would be able to hike all day. We started to get close and all of a sudden, there it was on the horizon: a seemingly endless wall that perfectly kissed every curve of the surrounding hills. We practically jumped out of the bus, made our way up a few ridiculously steep flights of stairs and then we were standing on the Great Wall. I think we all just stood there for a few moments taking in the scene, we were speechless.

The Wall was built under the rule of Emperor Qin to protect the northern borders of China from Xiongnu attacks. It stretches more than 6000 meters from Shanhaiguan to the current southern border of Mongolia and took nearly 2 millenia to complete and maintain. Some of the most famous parts of the Wall were built in 220 B.C. and many sections are currently being restored. It is estimated that nearly 3mm people died during the construction of the Wall. It was difficult to grasp the amount of time and dedication it took to continue construction over several dynasties. It was one of the most impressive man-made things I have ever seen in my life.

We hiked for 4 hours, climbed 10,000 steps, and passed 30 watch towers, stopping every few minutes to take photos and just take in the fact that we were walking on the Great Wall of China. It was a perfect autumn day complete with cloudless blue skies. Simply amazing. Sarah, Charlie, and I did cart-wheels along the way and Holly impressed us all with a backflip (she's got diving skills). We had an awesome time taking crazy photos and messing around, but overall the day was pretty quiet and serene. We spent most of the time admiring its beauty and just taking it all in. Once again, Sarah and I found ourselves just gazing into the horizon, thankful for how lucky we are to be doing this.

We were approaching the end of our hike and thought it could not get much better when we saw a zipline from the top of one of the watch towers, over a lake, back to the bottom of the hill. How could we possibly turn down a zipline? We strapped in and took off, a great ending to an awesome day on the Great Wall. It was a bit of a risk taking the camera but we got some bitchin' shots of us on the way down.

And just when we thought that the day could not get any better, we forgot that we had tickets to see a traditional acrobatics show in Beijing. It was insane - a group of guys jumed off trampolines to do flips 5 meters into the air, a contortionist twisted her body in ways that I did not even really care to see while balancing crystal vases on her hands and feet, 12 young girls balanced one bicycle while riding around stage, men did flips through hoops and juggled while balancing on each other's heads. Like I said, insane. I couldn't have asked for a better way to ring in my 26th birthday...

One Night in Beijing

2008-12-20T07:23:00.001-05:00

One Night in Beijing is the song that we heard a guy BELT out during karoke night on our cruise ship (past blog post). Let's just say he gave it all he had. We arrived via night train to the last leg of our trip, Beijing, were we stayed for 5 days. There is so much to do and see in Beijing our days were packed with sightseeing. I would like to note that Beijing was freezing cold. Mary and I are following summer on this trip so our warm clothes consist of two long sleeve shirts and a fleece. Those items got plenty of wear while in Beijing.

Disclaimer: I am too lazy, tired, and behind on blog posts to Wikipedia the background info on all of the places we visited and add the info to this post pretending like I remembered all those facts from our tour guides who were less then proficient in English. Apologies. Yes, I did refer to Wikipedia a few times for the post.

Our first day in Beijing we set out to see the Summer Palace and take advantage of the nice weather (only one long sleeve shirt was required). The Summer Palace served as a resort for Empress Dowager Cixi, who took money from the Chinese Navy to build and reconstruct the Palace. This almost crippled the navy. The Palace is a huge area of land on Longevity Hill surrounding a beautiful, man made lake, Kunming Lake. There are a slew of different things on the Palace grounds, museums, islands, temples, a projection TV playing a Mavericks NBA game, and the palace itself. There is a killer view on the top of the hill. Later that night we enjoyed peking duck, a dish Beijing is known for. It was so yummy- the duck comes cut up and you make a small rice paper wrap using the duck, scallions, and plum sauce. We got the usual eggplant side dish and were in heaven.

The next day was our great great day at the Great Wall (see Mary's post for all the juice). Our third day was Mary's official birthday. In the morning we visited the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square. Both places have a significant place history. The huge picture of Chairman Mao is worth the trip along (joking), but the picture is pretty great. The Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square are located in the center of Beijing and has been used as a podium for peace, justice, conquest, independence and power over the centuries in China. The Square is obviously important as it has been the site of several key events in Chinese history. The Forbidden City complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 bays of rooms and covers 720,000 square meters. The palace is rich in Chinese palatial architecture and it is evident in each of its many buildings. There were entire buildings for everything you could think of: getting dressed or storing a royal throne. The City was closed off from the public since the 1400s and was recently opened. After the Forbidden City we went to have lunch at a school for special education. The kids put on a show for us and taught us how to write calligraphy. It was a nice change to the usual restaurant meal and it was great to spend time to the kids at the school.

Our last two days in Beijing we were on a sightseeing frenzy with Holly and Charlie. We went to the Olympic stadium which is incredible. It is such a stunning piece of architecture creating the birds nest effect. We went inside the complex which was impressive to see in person since the Olympics just passed. All the buildings including the swimming pool and the gymnastics arena were top notch, no expense was spared. London has big shoes to fill. After being asked to be in photos with a number of Chinese people (not going to lie, there was a line forming) we headed out to the snack market. The snack market consists of stands selling any disgusting thing you could think of, usually fried. Some of the snacks available to eat were seahorses, scorpions (still moving), or sheep penis. Charlie wanted to try the fried starfish and I decided to take a bite too (you think I would have learned after the monkey). Lets just say I regretted the decision for the next 10 min until I got the gross fish/salty/unidentified taste out of my mouth. Mary and I did find the sour berry stick treat was a favorite of ours.

We also checked out the various temples in the city. One had the largest Buddha statue carved out of a single piece of wood. It made the Guiness Book of World Records, which was proudly displayed on multiple plaques outside the temple. It was cool. Next it was time to pack up and head off to South East Asia!

Xi'an, China

2008-12-18T05:30:00.001-05:00

Xi'an was the first major metropolitan city in China that we visited on our tour. Xi'an is literally translated to "Western Peace" and was the ancient capital of China in the 14th century. The city is surrounded by a 14km wall that was built during the Ming Dynasty to protect the center city. Sarah, Holly, Charlie, and I rented bicycles and rode around the entire perimeter of the wall which took us nearly 2 hours. The views were incredible, the weather was perfectly brisk, we were able to see the entire city from every direction. Great time on the bikes. We also went to the 64m high Wild Goose Pagoda which was built in 652 to store the translations of Buddhist sutras obtained from India. It was surrounded by beautiful gardens and statues and we just walked around and hung out there for hours.
Lillian walked us through the city and showed us some cool markets where we could buy silk and traditional paintings. We ate Xi'an's traditional duck dish but passed on the "smelly tofu"which is exactly what it sounds like - street market fried tofu that smells so disgusting I cannot imagine being so accustomed to it that I would ever want to eat it myself. Lillian said it is an acquired taste, her grandmother loves it but she thinks it is terrible. One night we also went to a popular dumpling restaurant and got to try the traditional steamed veggie and crab dumplings, delicious. During our few days in the city we also saw the famous Bell and Drum Towers at the North end of Xi'an. We went to the top of each and also saw performances inside - appropriately enough, the Bell Tower was a 10 minute performance using all different sorts bells, while the drum tower used different types of drums. We preferred the Drum Tower performance, very impressive.

The main attraction of Xi'an lies about an hour and a half outside of the center: the Terracotta Warriors. In 1974 farmers were digging near the sight and uncovered the massive tomb of QinShi Huangdi who ruled from 259 - 210 B.C. He was the first emperor to unify China's divided territories into one nation and he also standardized its written language. Emperor Qin was very concerned about the afterlife and wanted to be protected so he demanded that an "army"of soldiers to guard him into the next life. When Qin was only 14, construction began and took 700,000 workers to complete. Skilled craftsmen used terracotta to sculpt over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots, and nearly 700 horses, all of which are life-size. Imagine being one of the farmers who uncovered a massive life-like terracotta soldier in his field. The army was placed in lines surrounding Qin's tomb. Today the army remains in excellent condition despite some destruction by peasants, and the excavation process is continuing. Only a portion of the entire site has been uncovered as to protect the warriors that are still buried. The army is currently housed in 4 massive warehouses, called Pits, that could easily fit a Boeing 747. I could not believe how many there were and how life-like their features looked. I was extremely impressed at how careful and meticulous the excavation process is, the archaeologists are even working to restore the original colors. Seeing the Terracotta Warriors is definitely a highlight of Xi'an.

Monkeys, Monkeys Everywhere

2008-12-16T03:43:00.005-05:00

Next we traveled to Mt. Emei to experience a very different side of China, spending three days living at two different monasteries and hiking up Mt. Emei. Having the opportunity to stay at monasteries was a very unique experience and a humbling one. We had no idea what to expect living at a monastery to be like. We were presently surprised. We had very nice accommodations and were able to have our laundry done for us, which was huge plus. The monastery is open to visitors so there were always people wandering around, saying prayers and lighting incense. It was just a very peaceful place of harmony. An additional plus was that we got to enter the 'no visitors' areas which made us feel like we were kind of a big deal since the tourists were always so curious as to why we had the privileged of being a non-tourist. We enjoyed the monks vegetarian meals which we got to eat while staying at the monastery. The monks weren't allowed to eat with us, but they were very kind and courteous to us during our whole stay. We even got up (were woken up anyway) at 5am to watch their morning prayers, which was a very special experience.

Side note: one thing we noticed in China was that you could hear and see people were spitting (aka, hawking up loogies) everywhere you went. I could always here the throat clearing sound before the shot gun spit flew. The monks were no exception, several of them leaving during the prayers to hawk and spit into a designated jar located outside the door. Even in Hong Kong there are signs that say 'No Hawking'. I know it is gross but I had to bring it up, as it was often a topic of discussion (that and the bathroom situation in China).

I digress, after our first night at the monastery we took a bus, a tram, and then hiked up to the top of the Mt. Emei. We were so bummed that it was raining so the magnificent 'view from the clouds' was just fog and rain clouds. It was so foggy it was hard to make out much of anything. There was a beautiful and huge golden statue in the middle top, but it was hard to see with the dense fog. We took the bus down the mountain were there was a chain reaction puke incident which thankfully we did not contribute to, but let's just say no barf bags were available and I will stop there. After they literally hosed down the bus, we were back on the road and soon we hiking up to the other monastery where we were to spend the night at.

Our hike was beautiful as we walked through the forest filled with wild monkeys, waterfalls, streams, and just mother nature at its finest. The Chinese government created the trail a few years ago and the trail was filled with lush green trees well taken care of plants and wildlife. Monkeys were everywhere and we were provided monkey sticks to protect ourselves if they tried to grab us, or anything that we had exposed outside of our backpacks. It was about a 3 hour hike with our fiscally fit group, we even performed like rockstars up the 2,000 steps that led to the monastery. Yes, my legs were sore the next day.

The next day started with yummy banana and honey pancakes (we saw the hive the honey came from, delicious). We went down the hill and luckily it was a nicer day and the sun was shining. We, well mostly Charlie, spent quite a bit of time taking more photos of the beautiful surroundings. Then Charlie got the bright idea to buy food from a stand and feed the monkeys. His feeding attempt went flawlessly and without incident. Of course decided I need to get in on the feeding monkey action (keep in mind there as signs everywhere that say 'do not feed the monkeys', but it was from a legitimate stand, right?!) I am not going to go into details, but there was eating the food in my hand, then reaching for the bag of food in my other had, then there was an 'incident'. Iodine was on my hand in seconds, I guess this has happened before, and we completed the hike. After going to three clinics we finally found one that actually had a doctor present. There was a shot and some pills ingested and I was on my way.

The day ended with a $4, hour long massage and a night spent playing mahjong, playing cards, and eating cookies - hey we were at a monastery. I was just grateful that the injury wasn't worse and even better I got to be the laughing stock of everyone that heard the story. Yes I now think it is funny too. Bottom line, I am OK, it has been over a month and Mary tells me she hasn't seen any foaming at the mouth, erratic behavior, etc. I do however I have a new found fear of wild monkeys...

Xióng Māo (Panda)

2008-12-14T06:28:00.000-05:00

We traveled to Chengdu to see the Giant Panda Sanctuary. We spent two days in this big city seeing the sites and most importantly seeing the giant pandas. Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province and is one of the most important economic centers and transportation and communication hubs in Southwestern China.
China's Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuary is home of one-third of the world's giant panda population and is the largest remaining contiguous area of panda habitat. The sanctuary is also home to several endangered species, including red pandas (they look a little like cats), snow leopards, and clouded leopards. We got there early because that is when the pandas are most active. Active for a panda consists of sitting and eating and perhaps moving around a bit, lazy. They were SO SO cute and were hungrily eating their bamboo and sleeping and occasionally playing. We also got to see these tiny pandas that were only about three months only. They were trying to stand up and falling all over each other. Pandas are absolutly adorable! This was the part of the trip that Holly was looking forward to the most, seeing Xióng Māo. Since the Prime Minster of Sri Lanka was at the Sanctuary, Holly almost didn't get to fulfill her dream of holding a baby panda (she eventually was able to). Prime Minster of Sri Lanka, really, really?!!?

Besides the adorable pandas, Chengdu is known for its spicy food (such a fan) and their hot pot dish. The hot pot is eaten family style and consists of a simmering metal pot of water/oil/spicy-ness at the center of the table - think fondue. While the hot pot is kept simmering, ingredients are placed into the pot and are cooked at the table. Typical hot pot dishes include thinly sliced meat, veggies, mushrooms, seafood (white carrots and lotus roots are a favorite). Although you get quite smelly in the process of cooking your food, it is worth it and did I mention it was spicy. Always a plus.
Other tourists attractions include the huge statue of General Mao, the Anshun Bridge, and the Jin River that runs through the city. We went and saw the Sichuanese Opera, famous in Chengdu. The opera consisted of traditional musical instruments, an insane hand puppet show (she did ET), a girl that flipped a table on her feet, and a marionette show . The highlight of the opera is the mask changers, they switch masks every couple seconds, it was incredible. We also got the once in a lifetime offer to star in a porno movie if we run out of money and want to go to Taiwan. Interesting...

Yangtze River, China

2008-12-10T03:44:00.000-05:00

As part of our tour in China, we spent 3 nights on a small cruise ship on the Yangtze River, making our way through the Three Gorges Dam. The Yangtze River is the third largest river in the world (after the Nile and the Amazon). We boarded in Yichang and scoped out the scene on the boat: there were about 80 people on board and Sarah, Charlie, Holly, and I were the only Westerns on board. We quickly became minor celebrities, people were asking to take pictures with us and at dinner everyone wanted to sit at our table. We were kind of a big deal and loved it.

We had a lot of free time on board as we were moving up the River and noticed that everyone else besides us was playing Mahjong so we asked the cruise director, Tommy, to teach us how to play. Mahjong is a traditional Chinese 4 person game played with domino-like tiles. Thank you, Wikipedia, for this oh-so accurate description: Mahjong involves skill, strategy, and calculation, as well as a certain degree of chance. Depending on the variation which is played, luck can be anything from a minor to a dominant factor in success. In the game, each player is dealt either thirteen or sixteen tiles in a hand (depending on the variation being played). On their turn, players draw a tile and discard one, with the goal of making four or five melds (set of 3) and one pair, or "head". Winning comes "on the draw", by drawing a new or discarded tile that completes the hand, and the winner must yell "HULA!". We set up a table, picked up our tiles, and Tommy started teaching us the rules. As we were playing an audience quickly formed around us, and before we knew it, at least 10 people were surrounding the table to watch us play and give us advice via a mixture of broken English and hand signals - it was so much fun and our fans seemed to be having just as much fun as we were.

After a full day on the boat we made it to the Three Gorges Dam. Quite a bit of controversey surrounds the Dam - it was constructed in Sandouping, where the water level has already begun to rise in surrounding towns after only 2 years, threatening both the ecology and the people. Not only will the scenery of the river and mountains change, but there will have to be a mass relocation of the towns where the water level continues to rise. However, proponents of the Dam argue that in the long-term the Dam will increase river traffic thus making shipping along the river more efficient and boosting the economy. It was very interesting to hear both sides of the argument. The Dam is massive, I could not believe how large it is. It took our boat 4 hours to get through the 5 sections that lead to the other side of the Dam.

One night on the boat there was "entertainment" on the top level so we had to check it out. The entertainment turned out to be musical chairs, an interesting game where you tie balloons to your feet and run around trying to pop other people's balloons, an awesome dance called "Left Left Right Right", and of course, karaoke. Man, the Chinese love karaoke. Some guy rocked the female part of a duet, hitting notes that even I could not hit. Sarah might have been Chinese in a past life, she loved the noise makers they gave out to applaud and got up on stage to sing Britney Spear's "Hit Me Baby One More Time". We were huge fans of the "Left Left Right Right" dance and later surprised some people in Xi'An when we ran to join in with them in the middle of a street.

We also got to go down the Shennong Stream off the Yangtze River on small Chinese style canoes. The Stream was surrounded by amazing mountains and greenery, it was so quiet and untouched. On the boat everyone sang traditional Chinese folk songs, very cool to hear. After our cruise down the Stream we went back to the cruise ship, took some pictures with our friends on board, and got our things together to move onto our next destination.

Yes we actually made it!

2008-12-02T06:40:00.002-05:00

I won't sugar coat or elaborate on this too much, but after much drama/hassle/hell we both got our f'ing Chinese visas and successfully made our way to Hong Kong and ultimately mainland China. Enough said.

We arrived early in Hong Kong to see the city for a couple days before meeting up with the tour group that we were going to be traveling with in China with for the next three weeks... Hong Kong is awesome - it is easy to see how it can be described as the city where the East meets the West. It is very cosmopolitan and has a big city feel with a landscape complete trees, beaches on the sea, a harbor, and stunning architecture all around. Hong Kong has the world's largest number of skyscrapers: 7,558. The urban areas are small and that is why there is such a tall skyline in the city. We stayed with my friend Audrey (shout out and big thank you) in HK so we had a local to show us the town with is a huge plus. The city is filled with expats as we soon discovered for ourselves out on the first ngith SOHO where it seemed everyone we met was from somewhere other than China. Honestly, a nice change of pace from the last couple months being able to just blend in.

The next day was an absolutley beautiful day to see the city. We started off at the famous Victoria Peak where you can take a tram to the top of the peak that over looks the city. From the top you get an amazing look at the cities modern architecture and views of the harbor front to the steep hills of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. Truly impressive. From there we grabbed some sushi lunch (ahhh it had been so long). We walked along Hollywood Road in SOHO and checked out a few temples in the area. We took a pretty hairy bus ride (Audrey was definitely nervous) to Stanley Market. Along the way we saw picturesque views of the South China Sea and the beaches. Stanley Market is the best market in HK to find anything you are looking for: Chinese silk bags or jewelry cases, jade jewelry, Chinese paintings, and any knock-off good you could want. There are actually many markets like this throughout China so don't spend all your money in one market/city. That night, on the way to meet up with our tour group at the hotel, we took the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbor to Kowloon.

At the hotel we met up with the much anticipated group we were going to be traveling with for the next three weeks. When we walked in there were only three people there, our tour guide and another couple - Charlie and Holly. Turns out that was the whole group, just the four of us and Lilian our tour guide. Not going to lie, we were a little shocked at first that the group wasn't bigger, but it turns out that the four of us couldn't have gotten along any better. It was an awesome little team of Charlie's Angels. Charlie and Holly work in Hawaii on the Norwegian Cruise Line, which is where they met. The just got married and this China tour was their honeymoon... And they got to spend it with us. I know, I know. We were a big happy family for the next three weeks and now Mary and I can say we have gone on our first honeymoon. On our last day in HK we wandered around Kowloon Island. Taking in the outdoor markets, jade street, and a temple in the area. Then it was off to get some use out of our China visa and hit mainland China.
After one of our many overnight trains in China we arrived in the little town of Yangshuo. This town is surrounded by karst peaks and the Li River (represented on the 20 yuan bill). The town consists of just a few streets filled with small shops, an outdoor market, and restaurants. The town is known for its beer fish which we got a taste of - a light fish cooked with lots of veggies, chilies and yes, beer. We also fell in love with the eggplant dishes (even Charlie) and got a lot of it while in China. We tried our hand at a cooking school one night, right on the Li River. We cooked stir fried eggplant, cashew chicken, steamed tofu balls, and beer fish. And not to brag but all the dishes turned out pretty awesome. We spent a day bike riding and rode out to Moon Palace and hiked up to the top of the huge rock with a giant hole in the middle of it. On our last day there it was unfortunately pouring rain which ruined our attempts to take a ferry ride on the Li River. Bummer, but we were able to see all of the city in our three days there. After that it was another overnight train to...