Two weeks in Malaysia and then off to Thailand

We’ve spent two weeks in Malaysia, and now we’re in Thailand. The two weeks in Malaysia were nice, but we were getting anxious to get settled somewhere and we didn’t find anything in that country so we’ve left and settled in Chiang Mai instead. Most of our ideal destinations in Malaysia were places that are not ideal this time of year due to the rainy season.  The island of Borneo would have been really great to visit, but they get a lot of rain this time of year, so most of the information we read recommended against going there at this time, so we opted to head north into Thailand instead.

Kuala Lumpur was good to see.  Getting mugged there (see our last post) definitely put a damper on our excitement of the place, so we left it after spending only a few days there.  While we were there we walked around checking out the sights. The Patronas Towers were cool to see, and they have a lot of big crazy shopping malls (good for finding a new camera) and street shopping.  The city is very multi-cultural, so we checked out Chinatown and Little India as well, and we enjoyed some great food from there. The Indian food was especially good.

We left Kuala Lumpur by train and headed north to Georgetown, Penang. It is on a really nice island off the western coast of northern Malaysia.  The weather there was great, and they have some really good parks and historic buildings, and they are also quite famous for their food.  We tried a bunch of the local dishes, which were pretty good, but we ended up eating most of our meals at a great Indian restaurant (link) around the corner from our hostel.  Awesome lamb, chicken, vegetables, rice, naan bread, and really flavorful curries. Also, our favorite drink was the ubiquitous Teh Tarik, which is basically a sweet milky tea.  We had some of that every day.

Also on the island was a the Penang National Park (aka Taman Negara).  We spent a nice afternoon there hiking through the trails and to some remote beaches.  It was really hot and sweaty trekking there, but very rewarding. 

We were initially planning on staying in Georgetown for a while, but we couldn’t find any nice places to stay and there really wasn’t too much to do there, so we opted to head to Thailand instead. The northern city of Chiang Mai is a place I have been before, and it has a lot of great cheap apartments to rent, so we booked train tickets there, and after a two-day train journey all the way through Thailand we arrived and fell in love with the city very quickly.  There is a lot of activity here, great food, cheap prices, and great accommodations.  We spent the first day apartment hunting and eventually came across a really nice place (link).  The apartment has a pool, an exercise room, and our room has a kitchen – so we’ll finally be able to do some cooking for ourselves again. We booked in here for a month so we’ll be here until the beginning of January.

We also wanted to find some sort of activity to do while we’re here.  Joh has been constantly on the lookout for good places to do yoga, and we found a place (link) around 10-15 minutes away from our apartment that she was interested in.  They have a great deal where you can come as often as you like during the month, so we booked in there and we plan to go everyday (hopefully twice if we’re up to it) for the whole month. I’ve never done yoga before, so I was a little apprehensive about signing up, but I’m gonna give it my best and hopefully enjoy it.  We went for our first class yesterday, and it was good.  I’m extremely inflexible, and I can’t sit cross-legged to save my life and I can’t really do any of the poses correctly (my downward dog looks more like a hunched rabbit), but hopefully after a few weeks that will change.  By the end of the class I was sweating and pretty sore, so I guess it’s a pretty good workout.  It will be interesting to see how much progress is possible in one month.

So that’s what we’re up to.  Hopefully sometime mid-month we’ll update you on our progress.

Malaysia

Hoi An, Ho Chi Minh, Phu Quoc, and an unfortunate incident in Kuala Lumpur

This entry is a little delayed.  Sorry about that.  No excuses – just a little too lazy to write.  Catch-up time!

Around three weeks ago we left the city of Hanoi to head south towards Hoi An. We boarded a sleeper bus for an overnight ride. It turned out to be a very difficult way to spend the night.  The “beds” on the us were basically little pods that were definitely not designed for someone who is 6’4”, and to top it all of the bus driver insisted on honking his horn every 30 seconds so there was no sleep that night. We eventually arrived in Hoi An in the midst of a rain-storm so we headed into the first hotel we were brought to and spent the night there catching up on some sleep. The hotel was much too far out of town, so the next morning we explored a little and found a nice place to stay in a more central location. 

Hoi An is a great place to spend a few days.  It’s a smaller town, with a “old” section that is quite touristy and great for walking around and visiting great restaurants and cafes.  The city is popular for its clothes-making shops. Many people come here to get custom-made clothing.  Everywhere you walked, shopkeepers would attempt to get you into their stores to order some clothes to be made.   Due to our travelling style, we really didn’t have any room in our backpacks to be carrying extra clothes, so we passed on them, and just enjoyed the atmosphere and the local food instead. Unfortunately it rained quite a lot while we were in Hoi An, so we didn’t have a ton of time to spend walking around exploring the area.  On the one really nice day we had, we headed down the road to go to the beach.  The beach is quite huge and the waves were really high that day, so it was fun to do a bit of swimming, and we also spend some time sitting around enjoying the sights at a little restaurant/bar right on the beach.

As I mentioned, we got a lot of rain while we were here, so we spent a lot of time indoors reading and watching movies (thank goodness for bit torrent). After a week we were well rested and sick of waiting for better weather so we decided to move on.  However, the morning we needed to leave to go to the airport (we weren’t about to jump on another sleeper bus) we woke up to massive flooding in the streets.  There was more than 4 or 5 feet of water covering the entire area.  The bottom floor of the hotel was under water, and the street was basically a river.  We had to hire a local boat to get up the street to higher ground. Fortunately, a taxi was waiting for us on a higher street, so we made it out of town and out to the airport without and further problems.

We flew south to the biggest city in Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon). The city is populated by over 9 million people, so it was very big and very busy.  There are also more than 5 million motorbikes in Ho Chi Minh, so the streets were absolutely nuts.  We headed down to District One, which we were informed was the “backpacker district”.  We spent around 5 days in the area exploring the city and hanging out eating more pho and drinking really cheap beer.  It was a nice place to stay and hang out for a while. The hotel was really great too. They were super friendly and provided free breakfast and dinner.  The free meals and the cheap food and drinks out in the streets made for an extremely economical way to travel.  It took us around 3 or 4 days to get through one day of spending based on our travel budget.  If we wanted to elongate our trip a bit, it would be the perfect place to hang out.  You could retire here with less than $50,000 and spend a pretty comfortable 10 years or so if you were so inclined.

One day when we were there we took a day trip out of the city to the Cu Chi tunnels.  These tunnels were the underground hiding places for the Vietnamese soldiers during the war.  The tunnels were extremely small, so it was difficult to move around a lot and quite a bit claustrophobic.  In the area they also had some museums with displays of the things they used during the war including a lot of mean-looking traps, and a lot of guns.  If you paid them enough, you could even shoot one of the guns yourself.  You had the option of shooting an AK-47, or a M16, or M60. It would have been pretty cool, but the price was a bit too steep for our budget.

After a few days in Ho Chi Minh City, it can get a bit overwhelming, what with all the noise and pollution and the general craziness, so we decided to head out to the beach for a week.   Based on a recommendation, we went to Phu Quoc Island, which is just a short (3/4 hour) flight south-west from Ho Chi Minh.  The island had all kinds of nice beaches  and lots of decently-priced resorts and hotels.  We stayed at a pretty decent place – it was a lot like a beach resort, only not quite so fancy.  We had a small bungalow just a stones-throw away from the water, and we proceeded to spend a week there enjoying the beaches and the great warm weather.  After all the rain we had in Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh, the weather Phu Quoc turned out to be a lot nicer.  It was usually hot and sunny all day and then in the evening it would rain for an hour or so and then return back to good weather in no time.

All along the beach were ladies selling massages for only 3 dollars an hour, so we took advantage of that a few times.  We also went out on a boat for a day trip around some of the smaller islands south of the main island to do some snorkeling.  The boat brought us to a few small reefs and we were able to snorkel around for a few hours.  It was really beautiful under the water.  There was a lot of pretty coral and brightly colored fish all around.  We also went fishing for a little bit and some people from our boat caught a bunch – although neither of us caught anything.  We had the fish for lunch along with a bunch of other seafood and that was really good, especially since snorkeling builds up your appetite quite a bit.

While staying in Phu Quoc we had no idea where we were going to go from there, so we spent a lot of time researching where to go next.  Unfortunately, the rainy season is in full effect in this part of the world so a lot of options were not really feasible.  We debated on a lot of other places, but eventually we decided on Malaysia.  So, yesterday we headed back to Ho Chi Minh to catch a flight to Kuala Lumpur.  We hope to spend a month or so exploring Malaysia, with hopefully a lengthy stay somewhere. We’ve been going at a good pace for the last 2 months, staying a week or so at a time in 9 different places, and so we’re hoping to settle down somewhere for a while soon.  We’ve been staying in hostels, eating out 3 times a day, and never really unpacking anywhere, so it we’re thinking it will be nice to have our own place for a while, unpack, cook our own meals, and work on a few projects or something.  We haven’t decided where yet, but we’re hopeful that an opportunity will present itself soon somewhere here in Malaysia.

We’ll be writing about Kuala Lumpur soon, but I couldn’t let you go without filling you in on our day today. We already had a pretty eventful day here. After walking around Chinatown, and the Central Market, and the City Centre with the Patronas Towers and the KL Tower we were walking back to our hostel, when we had an unfortunate incident with a mugger.  We were walking down the sidewalk when a motorbike approached us from behind, and grabbed onto the strap of Joh’s purse and ripped it off of her.  Joh had the purse securely over her shoulder and across her torso and it was a tough leather strap so the purse didn’t give way very easily.  Joh was dragged by the guy on the bike for a good 10 meters or so before the purse strap finally gave way and they guy took off.  Joh was a little banged up but OK - just a few scrapes and bruises, although it was a pretty frightening thing to have happen.  There wasn’t anything either of us could have done, the guy was going quite fast on the bike so there was no way I could do anything other than watch as Joh was dragged down the street.  He took off fast, and all I could do was yell a few choice words and throw my water bottle at him (I missed…).  Joh was able to collect herself pretty quickly and we surveyed the damage.  We went to a pharmacy to get some antiseptic cream for her scrapes and cleaned them up as best we could.   The purse had been taken and with it our camera.  Nothing else of value was in the purse.  The camera had a lot of photos on it, and so we lost all our photos from our time spent on the island of Phu Quoc and from our first day here in Kuala Lumpur.  Joh typically backs up her photos off the camera every week or so, so we still have all the other photos from Vietnam.  It’s a real shame to lose the photos but there isn’t anything we can do about it.  As for the camera, we filed a police report to send to our travel insurance company, so hopefully the insurance will come through and we’ll be reimbursed. 

So we’ll have to go shopping for a new camera and purse. This will be our 4^th camera purchased in just over a year.  The first one we bought last year before our trip, and it got stolen in Bolivia.  The second was just a temporary one for the last part of our first part of this trip, and then while we were home Joh bought a really nice one for this part of our trip, and now that one is stolen too.  Hopefully the forth one will last us a little longer.

Anyways, sorry to end off on such bad news.  Hopefully things will get better and we’ll be taking more photos soon. In the meantime, I assure you we’ll be extra cautious and be as safe as we can be.

Hoi An

Ho Chi Minh and Cu Chi Tunnels

Hanoi and Sapa

We’ve spent the last two weeks travelling around northern Vietnam.  Vietnam is a fantastic country.  As most of you know, I have been here before – back in 2007 on solo trip, where I visited Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand over a span of 5 weeks.  It is really good to return to a place you’ve visited before, and to do it now together as a couple, it’s really neat to show Joh some of the interesting things I experienced last time.  We plan on visiting quite a few of the places I saw last time, but now that we’ve got some additional time, we can explore them more slowly and go to a few new places along the way.

We started our travels in Vietnam in the capital city Hanoi, which is in the northern part of the country.  Hanoi was one of my favorite cities I visited last time, so I was really looking forward to returning.  The city is quite large, but the main interesting area is the old town which surrounds a small lake in the middle of the city. The area is really nice, you can walk along the pathways and gardens surrounding the lake, visit old shops, restaurants, and cafes scattered around the old town, and walk around in the markets checking out all kinds of cool stuff. 

One of the main things that shocks you right away when you get to Hanoi (or any Vietnamese city for that matter) is the motorbikes that clog up the streets.  There are millions of motorbikes in Vietnam, and at any given moment it feels as though they are all swirling around you, honking their horns, and zooming in and out of every square inch of free space.  It is tricky to cross the streets as it feels as though one step off the sidewalk will result in a collision within seconds.   However, if you look around you will notice many of the people crossing without problems.  The key to it apparently is to just have faith.  You need to just step off the sidewalk and confidently just start walking. The drivers will see you and swerve around you.  The first few times you do this it feels incredibly nerve-racking but after a while it starts making sense and it is actually quite a neat feeling to just step out and leave your fate in the hands of others.

As you may have guessed by the content of previous posts in this blog, food was of course a huge part of our decision to come to Vietnam.  Joh and I both love to eat Vietnamese food, and we’ve been to Vietnamese restaurants back home quite often.  Our favorite is Pho.  Pho is basically just a bowl of soup, but the flavors and textures are quite unique.  They make Pho by starting with a really good beef broth and then they add rice noodles.  From there they add thin slices of raw beef to the piping hot broth which lightly cooks it while keeping it nice and tender.  They then give you a plate of crunchy bean sprouts, basil, and other greens and you dunk them in and then add hot chilli sauce to taste, and then you’re good to go.  You eat it with chop sticks, slurping up the noodles and other contents, splashing hot broth all over your table and usually your shirt too – never wear white shirts to Vietnamese restaurants ;).  Other part of the charm is that it is usually served on the sidewalk by little old ladies, to a small crowd of people gathered around on tiny plastic chairs or stools only 4 inches high on makeshift wooded tables.  These small “restaurants” also got a fresh keg of beer available, usually for only 15 cents a glass.  As you can imagine, these places are quite popular all over the city.

Another specialty of Hanoi (and I’m assuming all over Vietnam) is the coffee.  They have great coffee here.  One of the traditional ways it is served (and our usual choice) is poured over ice and a big dollop of sweetened condensed milk.  The strong, thick coffee, thinned out by the ice, and mixed with the caramelly flavor of the condensed milk creates a really delicious treat. It’s also really good hot too.  They serve it to you with a small aluminum contraption on top of the mug.  The contraption is stuffed with fresh ground coffee beans, hot water, and a small metal filter, and you need to sit and wait 5 minutes for the coffee to filter out before you can drink it.  You are well rewarded for your wait however, as the coffee is rich and thick and really really good.

Other than the city itself, there are two big reasons why tourists come to Hanoi.  The trips to Halong Bay and to Sapa.  I had previously been to Halong Bay, so we chose to do the trip to Sapa instead.  Sapa is the province in the north of Vietnam – near the China border.  It is a less developed area where there are small villages surrounded by rice fields and small mountains.  We went on a tour there for two or three days, and hiked through the hills and villages, watching the local people, gazing out over the farms, and checking out the locally made crafts.  Unfortunately our first day there was raining quite a lot so we got quite soaked, and on the second day the weather was better, but the trails were extremely muddy and slippery.  I’m not sure why, but for some reason I had thought it was a good idea to wear flip-flops and so I ended up slipping and sliding all over the place.  One of the old ladies from the village was following us (trying to sell us some of her wares) and I ended up holding her hand pretty much the entire way down the mountain.  If it wasn’t for her I would have fallen down and slipped off the trail over the cliff, so even though I felt like quite a wuss the whole time, I’m glad she was there, because if she wasn’t there I wouldn’t be around to tell the tale.

After Sapa, we spent a day or two in Hanoi relaxing, and then headed south to the city of Hoi An.  We spent a week there, and I’ll write about it soon.  We’ve since moved on to Saigon, and we hope to spend a few days or more here, depending on how it goes.

Hanoi

Sapa

China

Well, it’s been quite a while since we’ve posted here on the blog, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been doing anything exciting.  Our last blog post was about our time in Hong Kong, and since then we’ve travelled all around China and have seen and done a lot of cool stuff. We’ve actually just finished our tour of China and we’re now sitting comfortably in Hanoi Vietnam, and we expect to spend the next month or so here exploring Vietnam.

To sum up our time in China is really difficult.  China is huge. There are billions of people, many different cultures, languages, foods, styles, and landscapes.  I’ve heard it said that saying you’ve visited China is like saying you’ve visited planet earth.  You can never see it all, and it is incredibly diverse and impossible to sum up in just a few sentences.  That being said, here is a bit of a recap of our time here in China:

We basically travelled in a loop. First we went north from Hong Kong, to Shanghai, then further up the coast to Beijing, and then back down through the middle visiting Xi’an and Lijiang, before finally exiting the country at the Vietnam border.  All of our travelling has been done by train.  They have a very effective train system here in China.  We spent a total of 108 hours on these trains. They all were sleeper trains so it wasn’t too bad. We could lie around  and relax, read, and sleep the time away. We both managed to get through a lot of books over the past month. Some of the trains were better than others.  The beds we had comfortable enough, but anytime you’re stuck together with 100’s of other people in a confined space for 15 hours, it’s going to get a bit smelly and dirty by the end of the trip. 

Shanghai

Our first stop after Hong Kong was Shanghai.  Shanghai is the most populated city in China and it is very modern and easy to get around and see the city.  We did a lot of walking around, taking the subway from one end of the city to the other, checking out a bunch of different neighborhoods, visited the giant aquarium, walked along the river in the Bund district, through the French Concession, through walking streets, and temples.  We also spent a day in a city two away called Hangzhou. Hangzhou was really cool. It has a lake in the middle of the city with a lot of temples and gardens and everything around, so it was a really nice place to spend the day walking around exploring.  Another great thing about our time in Shanghai was the hostel we stayed at.  It was probably the nicest hostel we’ve ever stayed in, and it was very welcome after the dump we stayed at in Hong Kong.

Shanghai

Beijing

Beijing was really cool.  We walked around the city, saw Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Olympic buildings (although there was an event going on at the time, so we couldn’t get near them), and we went for a day to the Great Wall of China and walked along the wall for a few hours.

Beijing

Xi’an

After Beijing we took a train to Xi’an. Xi’an is the old capital of China, and not nearly as modern as Shanghai or Beijing.  The city was pretty nice, but our main reason for being there was to see the Terra-cotta warriors.  Years ago, archeologists found some terra-cotta statues of warriors underground, and started digging further and found a huge army of them.  There were thousands of statues buried under the ground along with horses, chariots, and other artifacts.  We visited the site for a day and visited a bunch of museums in the area. It was really cool, but they’ve got a lot of work ahead of them still to finish excavating the area. There are still massive amounts of other artifacts to be dug up still.  I think that this place will be even better to visit 10 or 20 years from now when they’ve unearthed even more.

Xi'an

Lijiang

Lijiang was our favorite city in China.  The old section of Lijiang has been transformed into a beautiful walking area full of old buildings, cobble stone roads, small shops and restaurants, and all in all an amazingly beautiful place to walk around.  The city was always busy and full of life and lights and colors and flowers.  We spent around a week here strolling around the streets and checking out all the nearby sights.

Lijiang

Tiger Leaping Gorge

While we were in Lijiang, we went on a 2 day trip to hike the Tiger Leaping Gorge.  The gorge is a beutifull area around 3 hours away from Lijiang. Mountains, valleys, and the river made for beautiful scenery. We hiked the first day around 6 or 7 hours up into the mountains and along the cliffs through breathtaking scenery. We stayed at a lodge overnight and then the next morning we hiked another 5 hours or so down into the gorge and back up out again.  It was quite a treacherous hike down and up steep cliffs, and rebar ladders set into the stone walls.  The river at the bottom was fast and full of large rapids and was a really cool pay-off after hiking for two days straight.

2 day Trek - Tiger Leaping Gorge

After a few days of recuperation in Lijiang, we made our way out of China via 2 days of trains and train station waiting rooms.  We had a great time in China and saw quite a lot, but now we’re excited for the next part of our journey:  Vietnam.  Now that we’ve got full internet access again, we’ll hopefully be able to blog a little more frequently.

Finally....Photos from San Fran and Hong Kong

Hey everyone,

We are out of China so we can finally upload our photos. Below are the albums from San Fran and Hong Kong. Jack is working on a massive blog for the rest of our time in China. After he is done, we will add the rest of the photos from China.

BLOG San Fran

BLOG Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is classified as one of the world’s great cities along with New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo and a few more, so it was a must see for us and a great place to start the Asian leg of our trip.  Millions of people live here and it considered one of the cutting-edge cities as far as technology goes.  Sure there are areas in the city that are poor and wearing out, but the majority is giant skyscrapers, extravagant shopping malls, and a very streamlined transportation system.  We were quite shocked as to how new and clean everything looked.

It was very easy to get around in Hong Kong.  From the airport, we caught a bus into the Kowloon area of Hong Kong and it dropped us of quite near our hostel on one of the major roads.  Hotels and hostels in Hong Kong were very expensive, so we had just gone online and booked one of the cheapest ones we could find. We weren’t expecting much, but the place was named Chung King Mansions, so we weren’t quite sure if this was going to literally be a mansion or end up being a bit of a slum.  It ended up being a large, busy building full of small shops and food vendors, with 18 floors of small apartments above it.  Now when I say small, I mean small.  The room was quite literally around 8 feet by 8, with a tiny washroom in the corner that was at the most 2 by 2.  Just big enough to contain a toilet, with a tiny sink that was basically in your lap as you sat on the toilet and a shower that sprinkled down on top of the toilet. The room also had 2 beds around 1 and a half feet wide and around 5 feet long.  There was just enough room to sleep and that was about it. We figured that this was what we get for being cheap, and we made the best of it.  After spending all week sleeping in airports and on airplanes, we were hoping for a nicer place but this would have to do.  We booked in here for 3 nights and resolved to spend the majority of the time exploring the city.

We woke up the following morning and went to start our day with a good breakfast.  Now Hong Kong (and generally most of Asia) doesn’t do breakfast the way our western society does.  There’s no bacon and egg restaurants or cereal or toast or anything like that.  Basically the breakfast menu is the same as the menu for every other meal.  We opted for a bowl of soup with noodles and we didn’t regret it.  You get a huge bowl with rice noodles, delicious broth, some meat (usually pork), and a tiny bit of vegetables. If was a great introduction to the local food, and the bowl of noodles has become quite a staple for us over the last few days. The menus here are very easy to read. Every item on the menu has a picture with it, so it’s pretty easy to see what you’re getting.  After 3 or 4 days we have yet to have a disappointing meal.

We spent our days walking around the city, crossing the harbor on the Star Ferry, visiting both the island of Hong Kong and the area of Kowloon.  The city is very easy to get around in.  Huge sidewalks, a great metro system, ferries, and underground walkways bringing you across streets and under buildings. There is shopping everywhere.  Hong Kong in general is quite a rich area, and the shopping areas reflected that.  Designer clothing, jewelry, electronics, and everything in between was for sale and in grand displays everywhere we went. 

We visited the number one recommended tourist stop – The Peak, which is basically a large hill in Hang Kong that gives you a fantastic view of the city.  It reminded me a lot of going up Corcovado in Rio.  A trolley car ride up to the top and then a great view of the harbor.

The harbor is probably the coolest sight in Hong Kong.  Basically the city is divided by a water way, and on either side are large skyscrapers up and down the waterfront.  At night the buildings are all synchronized to show a cool light show.  Music plays and the buildings all light up with different colors and there are lasers and flashing lights and everything.  It was really cool to see.

One of the other highlights of our time in Hong Kong was visiting a Christian church in Hong Kong on Sunday morning.  It was just down the road from our hostel, and we had seen it the day before and made plans to be there for the service in the morning.  We hadn’t really expected to see Christian churches here, so we jumped at the opportunity to get a service in before we entered China and were unable to do so.  The church was classified as Anglican, but it was nothing like the Anglican church we’re familiar with back home.  It was quite a large congregation, probably half-foreigners and half-locals.  The service was in English, and the pastor was from Australia. There was a lot of singing, bible reading, and prayers, and the pastor had a good message about what it was like to be a Christian in a city like Hong Kong.  After the service there was a social with all the attendees and we drank tea and talked to some of the people we met.  We met a family from Denmark that were living there for a year, and we asked them all sorts of questions about the church-life here.  It was a really enlightening experience and it was great to meet fellow Christians on the other side of the world.

After spending our three days here we felt that it was time to move on.  We enjoyed our time here in Hong Kong, but it was a bit expensive to stay here longer so we’re on the move again.  We booked an overnight train ride to Shanghai, and so we’re off now to visit mainland China. We plan to spend a few days in Shanghai and then probably go further north to Beijing.  From what we’ve read and seen about China were really looking forward to it.  I’m currently writing this blog post on the train, and watching the Chinese countryside go by has been quite a treat.  The country looks really beautiful. Giant cities, rice fields, farmland, lots of activity, and lots of greenery everywhere.  Can’t wait to get off the train and start exploring…

San Francisco

After spending four weeks at home visiting family and friends, attending weddings, nights out, going on camping trips, and the like, it was time to say good-bye again to everyone.  We were leaving for part two of our trip, and we were excited to get back on the road. 

The second part of our trip is going to be focused on the southern portion of Asia.  Our flight takes us to Hong Kong (with a 2 day stopover in San Francisco), and after a few days in Hong Kong we plan on entering China and spending around a month there before moving to other countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, and possibly a few more. Naturally, we’re really excited about seeing these countries, as they all have quite a lot of extremely different cultural things to explore.  The food is going to be shockingly different, the languages completely foreign, and everything that we’re used to will be flipped on its head.  Asia is going to be very unlike South America.  In South America it was almost all Spanish, the food wasn’t that outrageous, and the overall culture was different and unique, but it wasn’t so different that it was impossible to understand. We can’t wait to experience some culture shock and we’ll be sure to write about it all in this blog over the coming months.

We left home Monday evening with Joh’s parents. Our flight was leaving Buffalo at 5 o’clock in the morning on Tuesday, so they offered to take us over to the airport and spend the evening in Buffalo with us.  We went to an authentic Mexican restaurant and reminisced about our time in Mexico together.  The food was good and very similar to what we’d had down south.  After an enjoyable time together we departed ways at the airport and we were faced with the question of what to do at the Buffalo airport for the next eight hours. Our flight left at around 5 in the morning so we didn’t feel like shelling out $169.99 for a hotel room near the airport for only four hours.  We walked to one or two hotels and begged and pleaded for a cheap place to stay for a few hours but to no avail.  We spent a few hours at a McDonalds using their Wi-Fi and then found a bench in the departure terminal and attempted to get a few hours of sleep.  It was pretty tough with the lights on full blast, music and announcements over the loudspeakers, and cleaning crews running around all night long. We did managed to get at least an hour or so, and by the time we caught our flight in the morning we were still tired enough that we managed to pass out in the airplane for most of the way to San Francisco.

We arrived in sunny San Francisco mid-morning, and jumped on the subway to downtown and walked a few blocks to our cheap hotel in Chinatown.  The hotel was pretty crappy, but it was cheap and in a spot close to everything so it suited our purposes well.  We took the opportunity to brush up on our Chinese food knowledge and chopstick skills and went straight to the restaurant that the receptionist at our hotel recommended.  We had some great dim sum at a family style Chinese restaurant and then we were ready to start exploring.  San Francisco is a city that Joh and I have always wanted to visit.  We’ve heard great things from everyone and it did not disappoint. We walked over through Chinatown towards the bay and checked out the Bay Bridge and all the walkways, parks, and buildings along the way down the bay past all the piers and Fisherman’s Warf. There was a fantastic market in the Ferry Building with all kinds of local organic foods.  We really appreciated all of it and ended up walking all the way down the walkways to the Golden Gate Bridge. After hours of walking around we really noticed that we weren’t quite ready to be walking all day again.  It has been quite a while since we’ve spent the day walking around.  Blisters and sore body parts were back. It will take some getting used to again.  In South America in the first part of our trip we were used to walking for hours on end without discomfort, so we’ll have to build up that ability again.

We wanted to book a trip to Alcatraz the following day, but unfortunately it was all booked up for the next few days, so we missed that.  We did get some good views of the island from the city, but I’m sure it would have been awesome to walk around the island and visit the jail there. Oh well, I guess we’ll have to visit the city again someday in the future.  I definitely wouldn’t mind.  After two days of walking all over the city we both agreed that it was the best American city we’d seen yet.  Great atmosphere, helpful people, culturally diverse, great food, and lots of great areas to walk around and explore.

The following day we spent more time walking around the city, visiting a few other landmarks such as Golden Gate Park, the crookest street in the world, the ball park, and a few more. We stayed in the city until as late as possible and then went back to the airport and spent another tough night sleeping in an airport. The following morning we got our flight out and we were on our way to Hong Kong.

We’ve been in Hong Kong a few days now and we’re actually finished it already and on our way to the next place.  Hong Kong is a great place and we’ll write about it in our next blog entry.  Stay tuned…

Behind the Great Firewall of China

So we're currently in Shanghai, China, and half the web is blocked from us. Apparently the Chinese government doesn't let you use blogs or any other social networking websites. I've managed to come up with a workaround here so I can at least post again on this site, but unfortunately we are unable to upload any photos. We'll keep working on it and hopefully get them to you soon. In the meantime, I will upload the two blog posts that I had prepared earlier...

USA Road Trip - Week 3

We’ve been back home now for two weeks having a blast, and I just realized that I hadn’t yet blogged about the final week of our road trip. So here goes…

Disclaimer: Since we’ve been back we’ve heard “complaints” that I write too much about food.  If you have no desire to read about food, please feel free to stop reading after the first few paragraphs.

Week 3 started out near the Utah/Colorado border.  We drove through the beautiful state of Colorado through deserts, farmland,  and eventually mountains.  We eventually made it to Rocky Mountain National Park where we had planned on staying for 2 or 3 days to do some hiking.  The park was beautiful, but unfortunately the campground was pretty bad.  They had taken out all the trees around the sites so it was pretty wide open and really windy.  We made the best of it and managed to take a nap and go for a nice little hike in the evening.

That evening we reviewed our options and decided to try to arrive home two days earlier instead of staying in the park for a few days. There was a bridal shower for Joh’s sister Ashley that had been scheduled for two days prior to our expected return date, so we figured that if we left the park the following afternoon we would be able to make it back if we put in a few long days of driving over the remaining days.

We spent the next morning in the park driving around the park.  Up and down mountains and viewing beautiful mountain sceneries. Around mid-morning we stopped for a hike and we did a six-mile one out into the wilderness to a small lake way up in the mountains.  It was a really cool hike that brought us by all sorts of streams, mountains, ponds, and the like. Unfortunately 100’s of other people had the same idea, so the trail was packed full of people; but we made the best of it and we were rewarded with a really good time. 

By the time we were finished it was early afternoon and we still needed to get a lot of miles in that day. We managed to end up around 2 hours past the Colorado/Kansas border in a small RV Campground in the middle of nowhere. The campground was really nice, and they even had a hot tub. After a morning hike and many hours of driving, the hot tub felt great.

The next day it was straight on towards Kansas City, where we planned on dining on Kansas City-style BBQ for lunch.  Those of you that know me know that I’ve always been fanatical about BBQing and so I couldn’t wait to try out the authentic stuff.  After researching online for a recommended restaurant we ended up at Arthur Bryant’s.  Arthur Bryant’s BBQ is world-renowned and is a Kansas City tradition. It’s been said to be the most famous BBQ restaurant in America. So early that afternoon we found ourselves waiting in line for BBQ with around 300 other people.  As we got closer and closer to the counter, the smell of the pork and BBQ sauce cooking in the wood ovens full of hickory and oak was making my mouth water like crazy.  After an hour or so in line we finally made it to the front of the line and ordered the 4 best things on the menu: A quarter pound each of Ribs, Pulled Pork, Burnt Ends, and Brisket.  We were not disappointed.  Best ribs I’ve ever eaten, the burnt ends were incredible, and the sauce was awesome.

Our next stop was St. Louis.  We arrived in town early morning for a walk around downtown.  We spent a few hours walking the streets, checking out the sports stadiums, parks, gardens, and of course the big giant arch.  When lunchtime came around it was time to check out St. Louis’s version of BBQ.  We got a recommendation to go to Pappy’s Smokehouse.  They had an even longer line up than the restaurant in Kansas City.  It was well over an hour in line. It was worth it though.  The ribs were really good – not quite as good as the ones we had the previous day, but still really good.

Our bellies stretched after two days of BBQ, we got back on the road and drove most of the way towards Chicago.  We stayed the night in a cheap motel an hour outside the city and got up the next morning and went straight into downtown. We arrived there early morning so the city was quite abuzz with activity.  It was quite stressful to us.  It was really overwhelming to be in the middle of that. We just sat down on a curb and watched everyone scurrying around everywhere. After we were finally used to it, we merged in and walked around town for a few hours. We visited the park, the art museum, the shops, and everything in between.

When it was time for lunch we decided we needed something different. We walked over to a local and asked where to go in order to get something unique to Chicago.  She gave us two options: deep-dish pizza, or a Chicago-style hot dog.  Deep-dish pizza has an incredible amount of cheese, so Joh wasn’t too up for that idea, so we opted for the hotdog instead.  We were referred to a place called America’s Dog. This place was cool. The owner had apparently gone on a road trip across the USA to discover all the different styles of hotdogs that each city offered.  Then he came back to Chicago and opened a hotdog restaurant with a big menu of different hotdogs from all over. Some were deep-fried, some were BBQ’d, some were spicy, and some were sweet.  I went straight for the Chicago dog (when in Rome… or in this case Chicago) and got a nice hotdog with hot peppers, pickles, mustard, and a few other things.  Really tasty –no regrets there.

After Chicago it was basically straight home.   We stayed in a small park in Michigan overnight (and got devoured by mosquitos), did a little shopping at an outlet store, and then crossed the border and straight on back home.

It’s been really nice being back for these past two weeks.  We’ve spent a lot of time with our friends and families, and went camping for a week.  We’ve got two weeks left now and then it’s back on the road. 

BLOG ROADTRIP DAY 17-22

We're back...

We're back home! We finished our road trip two days early so that Joh could attend her sister's bridal shower last night.

We'll be living at my parents house for the few weeks that we're here, and then we'll be leaving again on September 20th for part two of our journey. We'll be spending these few weeks catching up with our family and friends. We're really looking forward to that. Joh of course, will be busy helping out with the preparations for Ashley and Tyler's wedding as well. Next week, we'll be going camping with my family up north, so we're really looking forward to that too.

Anyways, we are cellphoneless at the moment, so if you want to reach us, please email one of us or call the home phone at my parent's house. We got a busy few weeks but we'd love to hear from you and meet up.

I'll write more about week three of our road trip in the next couple days. Teaser: Kansas City ribs were involved ;)

USA Road Trip - Week 2

The second week of our road trip across the US was all about canyons. We left Grand Teton National Park and headed south into Utah. The first stop in Utah was Bryce Canyon National Park. If you’ve never heard of this place or seen pictures, you’re missing out. This place was amazing. It is a huge valley full of red rock formations shaped like giant pillars. There are hundreds of these pillars and they look really sharp in the early morning or late evening sun. We drove the length of the canyon and stopped at all the viewpoints, and then the following morning we went on a hike down into the canyon. This hike was incredible. Walking amidst the pillars and trees with dark red sand and stone all around you was really cool.

After Bryce Canyon we travelled south-west towards Zion National Park. This park also has large canyons with red rocks, but it looked completely different. There were huge towering cliffs and a very picturesque river running through. We hiked part of this park as well, and really enjoyed it.

After Zion we headed further south towards the Grand Canyon. We really were looking forward to seeing it. It did not disappoint. The canyon is so large that it is impossible to take it all in. We spent two days in Grand Canyon National Park and one morning we got up at 4:30am to hike down into the canyon. It is pretty much impossible to hike during the middle of the day here as it is way too hot. We went down a good portion of the way and we had a lot of spectacular early morning sunrise vistas. The sunshine on the canyon walls turns everything bright shades of red, yellow, and orange and it made it one of the most scenic hikes we’d ever been on. We turned around just in time to make it back up before the mid-day sun attempted to scorch us.

After the Grand Canyon we started working our way back north. On our drive we passed through Monument Valley which was an incredible experience. It is a giant valley with flat ground all around except for a bunch of massive rock monuments poking up out of the ground. It was absolutely amazing to see.

After driving through Monument Valley we drove the rest of the way towards Arches National Park and stayed the night just outside the park. The following morning we got up and did a really scenic drive through the park. Arches has some of the funkiest shaped rock formations. They had giant arches carved out of rock and also all kinds of other weird shapes as well. It was a really cool drive. It would be awesome to come back some day to do some extensive hiking through the park.

That pretty much gets us up to date. We’re currently in Grand Junction, Colorado getting some minor repairs done to our Jeep. There’s something wrong with the electronic throttle control, so we’re waiting for the repairs to be done. They’ve assured us that everything will be fixed ASAP and we’ll be back on the road this evening. Other than this problem, we’ve really enjoyed the vehicle. It’s got great gas mileage, comfortable seats, and it’s got lots of room for all our camping gear. Perfect for a road trip.

We plan on spending the next few days in the state of Colorado, exploring and hiking in the Rockies. After that, it’s pretty much straight home. The plan is to be back home by next Thursday (August 25th). We’ll likely post about the final week of our road trip once we get back home.

Here's the photos from the last week. Enjoy!

BLOG ROADTRIP DAY 9-16

USA Road Trip - Week 1

We were really excited to get started on our road trip. We left early Tuesday morning with hopes to reach the Oregon coast by dinner time. So we spent the day driving through the state of Washington. All I can say about Washington is that there is forest everywhere. It was a pretty scenic drive. We also drove quickly through the city of Seattle, and it looked like a really cool city. By mid-afternoon we were back to the Pacific coast and we had a very scenic few hours of driving. We went through Astoria, and drove over the really long bridge there and drove around the town a little bit. We reached our first day’s destination at around dinner time and after visiting a few full campgrounds we found one that had room for us.

The place we had arrived at was Cannon Beach. It had been recommended to us by our friends Derek and Karen who had just come from there a few days earlier. Cannon Beach was beautiful. The beach there was absolutely massive and it had huge rocks sticking out of the beach and small islands dotting the coastline. It was really beautiful and that evening there was a light layer of fog covering the beach so it enabled us to get some really cool photos. We walked around for quite a while and then the next morning we went again. The rocks are partially covered during high tide, but when it goes down the bottoms of the rocks are revealed and they are covered with starfish, barnacles, clams, and all other sorts of sea creatures.

On the second day of our road trip we continued down the beautiful Oregon coast and eventually turned back east towards the city of Portland.

The third day we drove into Portland and stopped off at its famous Voodoo Donut shop. This place is famous for its outrageous donuts. They have donuts with every possible topping. We ordered 4 donuts: an “Old Dirty Bastard” donut (topped with oreos, chocolate, and peanut butter), a Maple-Bacon (mmm… bacon), a giant apple fritter, and a habanero donut. Needless to say we didn’t need to stop for lunch that day. Apparently every other traveller was stopping there too. There was a half hour lineup there. The place had received quite a bit of notoriety lately after appearing on both “No Reservations” and “Man vs Food” – two food-themed travel shows.

After eating our donuts we went to an outlet mall nearby to do some shopping. Joh needed a nice outfit for when we go to church on Sundays, and I was way past due on getting new flip flops. My old ones were worn so badly that there was a giant hole in the heel. I guess that’s what happens when you wear them every day for seven months and walk around on all types of terrain for hours.

After shopping, we drove down the historic Columbia River highway. This highway was amazing. It went way up to the tops of the cliffs alongside the Columbia River. We had some absolutely crazy views of the valley below. After the highway was over we drove for the rest of the day along the interstate and clocked off a lot of miles.

Eventually as we drove through north-east Oregon and south-east Washington the landscape changed into a prairie-like landscape. Seemingly unending wheat fields were all around us. I had no idea that there was this type of environment to the west of the mountains.

The next day we put in a lot more miles and stopped at a campground an hour or two away from Yellowstone National Park. This was near the city of Belgrade, where on the following morning we found a URC church in which we could attend worship services.

After church on Sunday we drove into Yellowstone Park and explored the North-West end of the park and searched for a campground to spend the night. Unfortunately in Yellowstone, the sites are all first-come-first-serve, so everything was full. We found a nice site right outside the western entrance to the park and then the following day we re-entered the park and explored a lot more. Yellowstone is so big that you can drive around all day and still not see everything. The highlight of our exploration was definitely the canyon and the views of the Lower Falls. We hiked down into the canyon and got some amazing views. There was one lookout named Artist’s Point that was absolutely unreal.

After exploring, we went to our campsite that we had booked earlier. It was a really disappointing site. It was just a field with a bunch of marked sites. The site outside the park that we had the night before was much nicer. Regardless we made the best of it and ended up having a really nice evening. At around dusk we were approached by a guy on a bike. He was biking around the campground looking for a spot for his tent. Since the campground was full, he put on his Flames hockey jersey and looked for Canadian license plates. His strategy worked on us, and we let him onto our site. He was doing a trip on his bike across the country and he was planning on eventually continuing his trip into Europe and into the Middle-East. Naturally he had some really good stories and we hounded him with question after question about his trip.

The following morning we parted ways and we headed to go see Old Faithful. In case you’re unaware, Old Faithful is a geyser that erupts every hour or so and spouts hot water 60 feet up into the air. We got there and discovered that Old Faithful isn’t quite so faithful anymore. He was about 20 minutes late. In the past he was pretty much like clock-work – spouting off pretty much every hour on the hour. It was neat to see but extremely touristy. We stood there with 100s of other tourists on a special platform made for viewing the geyser.

After Old Faithful we drove out of the park via the South Exit and into Grand Teton National Park. We had never heard of this park until two or three weeks ago when we started researching the top national parks in the US. The recommendations we saw online proved to be correct. The park was beautiful. There is a big lake with a huge mountain range next to it and the view of the mountains with the lake was one of the most incredible scenes we’ve seen on this trip. We spent last night in a nice campground in the south end of the park and now we’re continuing our way south.

We are really enjoying this road trip. It is really a completely different style of travelling than what we’re used to. We are taking things really slow and taking frequent breaks. We really enjoy stopping at a nice scenic overlook for a picnic lunch or cooking dinners on our hibachi on a campsite and having campfires. The nights and mornings are a lot colder than we expected, so our sleeps haven’t been too great but we are still really enjoying it.

Over the next week we’re heading towards the Grand Canyon via the state of Utah. Utah has some amazing national parks as well so we’re really looking forward to this week. Hopefully we’ll be able to post again soon. It’s a lot more difficult to find an Internet connection when we’re camping but we’ll do our best.

USA ROADTRIP DAY 1-8

British Columbia

Last Thursday we arrived back in our home country on a late night flight from Mexico to Vancouver. My brother Chris was waiting for us at the airport and after a nice little reunion we went drove back to his condo in Langley. We could tell right away that we were back in Canada. Everything we drove by was so spacious, clean, and modern. Everything was in English and at first it was a little weird to be able to easily understand everyone around you and recognize all the signs.

Our first order of business was to shop for a car for our road trip. The next morning we got up and started our search. After a Tim Horton’s coffee (it was really nice to have one of those after 7 months) we spent an hour or so calling and emailing private sellers and unfortunately we had no luck. We couldn’t find anything that would work for us. We ended up just leaving and driving around Langley and Surrey visiting used car dealerships. We ran into our fair share of shady sales people and found very few cars that would be acceptable. After hours of looking we finally found one that would work for us. The vehicle we selected was a Jeep Patriot. It’s a really nice vehicle but it had above average mileage so we were able to get it for a bargain. It’s a nice enough vehicle that we could consider keeping in the future or maybe sell it for a good price when we arrive back home in Ontario.

The next day we figured we’d test out the Jeep by driving up to Whistler via the Sea-to-Sky highway. I had been to Whistler a few times before, but Joh hadn’t, so it was a definite must-do. Chris, Joh, and I had a great ride up to Whistler and we spent a few hours walking around the village there and grabbed a nice lunch at the Longhorn restaurant at the base of the mountain. We also visited the Olympic park and facilities while we were there.

On the way back we stopped at a few stops including a waterfall and the look-out on the top of Cyprus Mountain where you can see a great panoramic view of the city of Vancouver and a good portion of the Fraser Valley. From there we saw Stanley Park and we decided to go down the mountain and go check that out too. While driving around Stanley Park we noticed a huge crowd of people waiting around, so after a bit of investigation we discovered that there was to be a big fireworks display later that evening. Rather than waiting around with the crowds of people for four hours, we decided to go out for dinner. I spotted an Asian restaurant and we managed to convince my brother (he’s a very unadventurous eater) to come along with. It was a nice little reminder of what’s coming up in a couple months. We enjoyed it quite a bit and Chris was able to find something on the menu that didn’t scare him. The fireworks turned out to be really impressive too.

The following day was our first Sunday in a church in over seven months and it felt really good to be back. We also met a few cousins and aunts and uncles there as well. It just so happened that one of my cousins was having their baby baptized on this day too so it was nice to be there for that. We were able to go visit my aunt and uncle for lunch and talk to them and their kids about our trip. One of their kids (Leonard) was a geography expert and knew all of the places we had been. Apparently he studies atlases in his spare time. It was really impressive to hear how much he knew about the places we’d been. After church in the afternoon we went to visit another aunt and uncle and more cousins (yeah I have a ton of family in BC) and we had a nice afternoon out on the patio catching up. Afterwards we went to visit our friends Derek and Karen for dinner and the evening. It was good to see them again, and they had just come back from holidays in Oregon so they gave us some tips about where to go.

The next day we visited my Oma in the morning. We had a good time with her talking about everything. She doesn’t have Internet access, so my Mom had been sending her print-outs of our blog for the last seven months. So it was neat to show her our pictures and talk about our trip.

After shopping for all our camping gear in the afternoon, we spent a nice evening with Chris and then hit the sack for a good night’s sleep. The next morning we left to start out on our road trip. We’re now a few days into our trip and we’ve been having a great time so far. We’ll write all about it in the next blog entry.

BC Photo Album

Last couple weeks in Mexico: Isla Mujeres

Hope everyone is having a nice relaxing long weekend.

Below is our last album from Mexico. We will deeply miss Mexico, it is such a fabulous and interesting country.

Tomorrow we pack up our vehicle and head out for a USA roadtrip that will bring us home to Burlington. We received lots of tips from family and friends about where to go and what to see. We can not wait to get moving.

We will post a blog entry within the next day or so about our lovely visit in BC.

BLOG Isla Mujeres and one day at Playa del Carmen

Our last week in Mexico

We’ve just finished our final week here in Mexico, and as I’m writing this we’re on our way out to Vancouver. It’s a little sad to be leaving this country. Our time in Mexico has been very good. We really enjoyed the culture of this country. We got to see busy vibrant cities, old ruins of ancient civilizations, deserts, jungles, and beaches, and we got to really dig into the lifestyle of the people that live here. We will never forget the flavorful food and the unique atmosphere of Mexico.

In our final week here we were joined by Joh’s parents. We had a really nice time with them on the island of Isla Mujeres. It was really good to catch up and hear all about what has been happening back home. We spent many hours relaxing, talking, going for walks, playing cards, eating in good local restaurants, and touring the area. On one day we rented a golf cart and spent a lot of time driving around checking out all the hot spots on the island. We also spent one day touring the Cancun resort area, and on another day we went to XCARET, which is a big entertainment resort around an hour away. There we got to explore some underground rivers, see dolphins, jaguars, and other animals, and at night there was a big cultural show with traditional cultural games, music, and dancing. It was also neat to share with them all that we had discovered about the local culture: trying new foods and drinks, speaking Spanish, and discovering the other idiosyncrasies that define the people and places in which we have been travelling. It was difficult to say goodbye to them yesterday, but we will be back home in one month so it won’t be too long before we see them again.

After dropping them off at the airport, we had one final day in Mexico, and we had the opportunity to meet up with our friends Dan and Rosy who were on their honeymoon in Playa del Carmen, which is just a one hour bus ride away. We arrived there around noon, grabbed a cheap hostel for the night, and then went downtown Playa del Carmen to meet up with them. They were there to meet us, and it was really great to see them again, and hear all about the wedding we had missed and all about how they and all of our friends have been doing for the last 7 months. We spent the day walking around the town, stopping every so often for nice cold cervezas and spicy tacos. We had a great meal at a local sidewalk restaurant too and then spent the night walking around the busy vibrant streets of downtown Playa del Carmen.

So after a night in Playa del Carmen we’re now on a bus back to Cancun airport to catch our flight to Vancouver. It’s quite surreal to think that we only have a few hours left in Mexico, and then we’ll be back in Canada. It will be quite something to be back to an English-speaking society. We’ve put in quite an effort learning Spanish over these past 7 months, and now we’re done with it. It’s a bit of a shame as it’s been a really interesting experience. After our upcoming time in Canada and America, we’ll be heading to Asia, so it is very likely that we’ll ever need our Spanish again, except for maybe some holidays in the distant future. Speaking English all the time is going to be a little weird too. I will no longer have to rehearse conversations in my head ahead of time. It will be so easy just to walk up to anyone and start talking and just naturally completely understand each other.

Anyways, I guess that’s it from Mexico. ¡Adiós!

Cancun and Isla Mujeres

We arrived in Cancun a week or two ago and immediately noticed the shift from a typical Mexican city to a full-on, in-your-face tourist city.  Cancun was nothing like we’d seen for quite some time.  Huge big-box stores, big expensive chain restaurants, malls, and many, many other ingenious ways to separate you from your tourist dollars.  We weren’t really too impressed with the city.  For the past month we had been living in beautiful Mexican cities like Puebla , Oaxaca, and Merida,  and to switch to a city like Cancun it was a little unsettling at first.  We had planned to be in Cancun for a few days in order to scout out the area for a nice home to stay in for when Joh’s parents arrived, but we gave up on that idea pretty quick and decided to head for the islands for a bit of peace and quiet.

Regardless of how we felt about the city, we did spend one and a half days in Cancun.  We decided that we’d take advantage of all the amenities. We went and saw a 3D movie at the local cinema, walked around Costco and Walmart, had Subway sandwiches for lunch, and we went to a Starbucks for a coffee – and then immediately walked right back out after seeing their ridiculous prices.   It was kind of nice to spend a day like that, surrounded by comfortable and recognizable things.  It is actually a little therapeutic when you’ve been away from home so long.

We also walked down the strip past all the giant fancy resorts.  After staying in hostels for the majority of the last 6 months, they looked incredibly luxurious to us.  Near the resorts were all the notorious bars and clubs that are part of Cancun’s nightlife, and although it was neat to walk around and check out the sights, it was quite obviously not our scene, so we went back to our little crumby hostel in downtown Cancun and made plans to leave the next morning.

That next morning we went over to the port to go via ferryboat to the island – Isla Mujeres.  The island is a 20 minute boat ride from the port at Cancun, and it is quite a large island.  It’s a little under a kilometer wide, and around 7 kilometers long.  It is quite populated with smaller homes, restaurants, scuba shops, small markets and the like and it was much more our style. The island is still a bit touristy, but not near as much as Cancun.  We walked around the small town on the north end of the island, and saw beautiful beaches, decent restaurants, and a small supermarket, so we decided to stay here for a while.  We found a nice studio apartment in a great location (only minutes away from the best beach) and managed to haggle our way to a pretty decent weekly rate from the owner.  There were also a lot of opportunities for day trips, so we figured it would also be a great place to spend time with Joh’s parents when they arrived.

We spent our first few days enjoying the sun and beach and walking around the island, and we had great plans to do more over the coming days.  Unfortunately, I woke up on the following morning with a horrible rash over all of my face and neck.  From there, over the next few days it spread to most of the rest of my body, and so I’ve been stuck inside dealing with really itchy sore skin for the last week or so.  The heat and sun make it feel much worse, so it’s been difficult to get out and do too many things.  I’ve gone to a clinic here on the island and the doctor prescribed some cream and pills and they’ve been working slowly to improve the situation. I’m still not anywhere close to fully-healed yet, but some of the areas (like my face and neck) have healed up, so I figure that the rest of my body will follow suit and be healed up within the next few days.  Neither I or the doctor were able to determine the cause of the problem.  It’s likely an allergy to something – either food or bugs or something else.  I have no idea.  Anyways, we’ll just have to deal with it and hope it clears up soon.

Tomorrow Joh’s parents arrive, and we’ve found an lovely small home that was available for rent on the other side of the island and it has a great view of the ocean.  It will be nice to spend some time with them here. We’ll let you know how it goes…

Here are some photos from the past few weeks.  Merida and Cancun.  You may have noticed that the number of photos per album has gone down quite a bit lately.  After seeing place after place for the past 6 or 7 months, it does get a little tedious to take pictures of every church, museum, landmark, town square, etc.  Hopefully the upcoming changes in scenery that we’ll be getting over the coming months will increase the photo count again.

Merida and Cancun

Merida

We’ve just left the Mexican city of Merida after spending 8 days exploring this wonderful city.  Merida is a big city in the Yucatan province in Mexico.  It’s a few hours away from the popular beaches and resorts around Cancun, so there aren’t as many tourists or tourist traps around, although there were a few.  We really enjoyed the city.  We had a wonderful hostel right beside the central square, so we had a great perspective of the cultural center and daily life of the people of Merida.  Our room in the hostel had a balcony with a great view of the square, so we utilized that quite a bit, enjoying evenings sitting out there watching the busy atmosphere below.

The city also had a wonderful big market with cheap food and trinkets. We enjoyed walking around in that area, taking in all the things it had to offer.  Merida also had really good restaurants, with really tasty food.  Joh really enjoyed the “Sopa de Lima” which is a lime soup with chicken, vegetables, and crisp tortillas.  I really enjoyed all the roasted pork dishes cooked in achiote paste – great flavor. Habanero chiles also were also very commonplace in a lot of the food. Habanero chiles are crazy hot.  Way hotter than the Jalapenos we’re used to.   It’s surprising how quick you get used to them though.  It’s already a lot easier eating dishes with them now.

The weather in Merida is also the hottest we’ve experienced yet on our trip.  It was so hot here you’d sweat just sitting still.  We ended up going for cold drinks and/or ice creams quite often here.  Across the square from our hostel was a great sorbet shop selling all types of delicious sorbets.  They had exotic flavors like mamey, guanabana, pitaya, nance, and the usual suspects like banana, strawberry, and mango.  We went here pretty much every day and tried a new flavor. Our favorites ended up being the coconut and the chocolate sorbets. The chocolate had that really nice Mexican chocolate flavor with the subtle hints of cinnamon and other spices.

We also decided to finally do a bit of shopping.  We’d been avoiding doing shopping for most of this trip, mainly due to budgetary constraints, but our wardrobe was getting really pathetic.  We’d been wearing the same 2 or 3 shirts every day for the last 6 months, and they were all really gross looking by now.  All our shirts were so faded and stretched out.  They just hung on our shoulders like grey sackcloth.   The markets in Merida presented a good opportunity to do some shopping without really breaking our budget too much.  T-Shirts were only 3 or 4 dollars and Joh was also able to get a really nice dress that is great for the climate here.  Joh was really excited to shop again. She said she had forgotten what it was like…  I hope we haven’t rekindled some long-lost former addiction in her ;)

We also spent one day visiting the Cenotes outside the city.  Cenotes are giant underground caves partially filled with water.  They’ve built some stairs down into them and you can climb down and go for  swim.  It’s a really neat feeling swimming in there.  The water was a very clear blue color, and the cave walls were covered with mineral deposits and stalactites making for a very beautiful place to swim.

We also received some good news, and that is that Joh’s parents are coming down to visit us for a week.    They’re planning on joining us for a week in Cancun, starting on July 20^th.  We’re really excited to see them.  If we’re honest with ourselves, we have been a little homesick lately and so it will be really nice to see some familiar faces.  It will be great to share our travels with other important people in our lives, so that they can see firsthand what this experience is like for us.

So we’re off to Cancun today to scout out the area for a day or two and to find a nice place for us to stay when they join us here.  From Cancun we’ll be taking off to one of the nearby islands to stay in the meantime.  There is supposed to be some great snorkeling near here and some other cool adventures to have so we’ll do that for a week or two before they arrive.

We’ve also decided on a plan for the next month.  After Joh’s parents leave we’ll have another month or so to go before we go back home for a few weeks.  We’ve debated on Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Cuba, or Northern Mexico, but after a lot of research we’ve instead decided on an alternative plan.  We had been searching for cheap spots to fly to from Cancun, and we happened to come across a great deal for a flight to British Columbia.  A one-way ticket from Cancun to B.C. happens to be cheaper than flying to anyplace in Central America or elsewhere in Mexico.   So we’re planning on flying there and then going for a 3 or 4 week road trip across the USA back home.  We plan on stopping by some exciting places in the US, such as the Grand Canyon, other national parks, and cities that we’d always wanted to visit.  We’re planning on buying a cheap car in B.C. and buying a few camping supplies there and then start out on our way, staying in campgrounds and the like all the way home.

Naturally we’re also quite excited to be going to B.C..  My brother Chris lives there, so it will be great to hang out with him, and we’ve also got a lot more family and friends out there that we haven’t seen in quite some time.  We’ll likely be there for at least 3 or 4 days while we quickly shop for a car and prepare for our road trip, so we should have some time to visit a few people.  I know there’s quite a few of you blog readers from B.C., so if any of you can help us out in finding a cheap car and/or maybe have a place for us to stay for a few days, please email me and let me know.

Anyways, that’s it for now.  Hope all is well with everyone back home!

San Cristóbal de las Casas and Palenque

After our week in Oaxaca we took a bus down to the town of San Cristobal de las Casas.  We were here mainly because it was a convenient stopover on the way east towards the Yucatan.  It turned out to be a very charming place with great walking streets, restaurants, and old churches.  The town was definitely a bit touristy, but it was still enjoyable so we booked in for 3 days at a local hostel.  The hostel recommended a number of local tours of which we signed up for two.

The first tour was a trip to the Sumidero Canyon. We took a van ride out to the river and then hoped onto a boat for a 2 hour ride up and down the river through the national park and between the giant canyon walls.  It was an impressive sight, and well worth the trip.

The next day we booked our trip out of town via a day trip to Palenque, which is yet another old set of ruins.  On the way there we stopped at a few small waterfalls, which were nice but somewhat dwarfed and slightly unimpressive in our minds after visiting places like Iguazu.  When we arrived at Palenque, we had the opportunity to explore the site.  It was really hot and humid so we did our best to see it all without collapsing with heat exhaustion.  The ruins were impressive and we were able to climb up and go in some of the old buildings to explore. 

After our tour of Palenque (and a six hour wait in the town of Palenque) we took an over-night bus to our next destination – the city of Merida. We plan on staying here for a week or so before moving on to other parts of the Yucatan.

San Cristobal de las Casas	Canon del Sumidero
Palenque Tour