Home again...

Well we're back home now.  Shortly after our last blog post we decided that we were finished travelling and that it was time to go home.  We had originally planned to stay in Thailand for a few more weeks and then head over to India for a month or so and then come home at the beginning of April.  We basically woke up one day and realized that we were done.  There wasn't any specific reason, other than both of us realizing that we had had enough.   Travelling was great, but we were getting more and more excited about coming home.  So we booked our flights and came home on February 10.

Coming home was really nice. We've had a lot of get-togethers with our families and friends, and we were able to make it back home for some special events such as the baptism of our new nephew, and the engagement party for my sister and her fiancé.

We’ve been living at my parent’s home for the last few weeks.  We intend to find our own place as soon as possible, but it’s proving to be more difficult that we planned.  We even had an approved offer on a really nice home that we were really excited about, but that fell through after an inspection revealed a worn-out septic tank.

Besides house-hunting we’ve also been busy with a hundred other things to do.  Paperwork, banking, insurance, bills, car-hunting, shopping, work, etc.  Joh is currently looking for a job, and I’ve gone back to the company I was at before I left.  I’ve now been working for a few days and it’s amazing how fast it all comes back.  The past 13 months of travel already seem like a distant memory as the daily routine takes over.

Hopefully sometime over the next few weeks we’ll post a nice conclusive letter here that will summarize our experience.  Everyone asks “What’s the best thing you saw?” or “What was your favourite country?”, so we’ll try answer those questions and more.  For the time being though, we’re enjoying being back and we just need a bit of time to get settled and to let it all sink in.

Beach-hopping in Southern Thailand

Well, it’s a week or two later and we’re still hanging out on the beaches of Southern Thailand.  After staying at Bottle Beach for a week, we moved on to Railay Beach, and now we’re on an island called Koh Lanta.

It’s been a fun few weeks hanging out on the beaches.  We’ve enjoyed relaxing in the sun and sand and we’ve had some pretty exciting nights out as well. We’ve been hanging out with our friend Anthony and a whole slew of random travelers we’ve met from all over the world.  People from Canada, USA, Australia, Germany, England, Sweden, China, Korea, and many more…  The islands are a major draw to tourists, so this area of Thailand has really attempted to capitalize on it. There is really very little Thai culture to speak of in the areas we’ve been.  Even the food in Thai restaurants has been dumbed-down for the western palate.   Everywhere you go, you are walking past resorts, shops, restaurants, touring agencies, and thousands of other tourists, so it makes it very easy to travel, but unfortunately it all ends up being very unstimulating.  Nevertheless, we will continue to enjoy the beach life for a bit before we move on.

Bottle Beach on the island of Koh Phangan was definitely the most ideal place we’ve been yet.  The remoteness of the location, combined with its stunning scenery, the fantastic beach, and great service and food from the resort staff for very low prices, has created such an ideal place that we could easily have stayed there for several weeks and still enjoyed every moment.  We met people there that were staying for five weeks, and I can’t say I blame them.

We had perfect weather for our first five days there, but then on the sixth day (when we were planning on leaving) a storm came in and forced us the spend another day there.  The only way out of the beach is via a small boat or a really rugged road, so the storm knocked out both of those options pretty quickly. Later in the day, the weather cleared up and we were able to enjoy our final day on the beach before we were finally able to leave the next day.

Anthony, Joh, and I left Bottle Beach and booked a trip (truck-to-ferry-to-bus-to-van-to-boat) to Railay Beach over on the west coast of Thailand.  The others we were travelling with had made it out of Bottle Beach before the storm came in, so it was just the three of us again.  The travelling went well, and by mid-afternoon we had arrived.  Railay Beach is not technically an island, but it acts like one.  It is the tip of a peninsula that is difficult to get to from the mainland, so all the people and goods arrive on the beach via boats.  The small village there is quite small.  There are a small handful of beaches, a few shops, restaurants, bars, and a whole slew of resorts.  There were no roads so everything was connected by a series of walking paths. The western side of the peninsula has the best beach and the best views, so of course the most expensive resorts were there.  We ended up staying on the east beach which had a dirty beach with a pretty bad smell coming off of it.  We sucked it up though and resolved to just hang out on west beach during the day and find other thing to do other than sitting around near east beach.  Railay Beach is famous for it’s large rock cliffs – which of course means that the Thais have capitalized on that opportunity and created a thriving rock-climbing business there.   Of course, we booked in for a session of climbing and ended up having a great time.  The guide we were with brought us to a wall that had a good range of easier to harder climbs.  We all knocked out the first few climbs pretty easily, and then progressed throughout the morning to some more difficult climbs.  The final climb proved too much for all of us as one-by-one, Joh, Anthony, and I just were unable to scale the final section of the cliff. It was a great way to finish though, because we knew we had pushed ourselves to the limit.

We spent a few more days in Railay and then booked a boat out on Monday.  We (Anthony and I) had gotten up at 5:30 that morning to watch the Super Bowl.  Unfortunately it was all for not, as the only bar with a decent TV had 200 channels but not one of them had the game on.  So we (and a few other random Americans that had also gotten up early) made due with an internet connection to nfl.com and followed the game by staring at a news-ticker that let us know what was happening.  That lasted all the way up to the final seconds of the game (which as you may know were quite tense moments) when the laptop’s battery died and we had to go scrambling to find a power outlet. We finally got it plugged in just after the game ended, and got the final score.  It was definitely the strangest Super Bowl experience we’d ever had.

That afternoon we left Anthony on Railay and Joh and I moved on to Koh Lanta.  We had a really good few weeks hanging out with Anthony, but he had other plans (something involving Swedish girls and a private lagoon).  Two hours later via ferry we arrived in Koh Lanta.  We hadn’t really researched Koh Lanta too much so we didn’t know what to expect.  The resort we ended up in is alright.  It’s a quiet resort on a quiet part of the island.  Apparently this island is a favorite vacation spot for people from Sweden.  This resort (and presumably the other resorts on the island) are full of Swedes.  It’s alright though – they seem pretty friendly.  Our resort is right on the beach and has a great view of the sunset – but unfortunately it’s pretty expensive to stay right on the beach.  We ended up in the $20 room way in the back, pretty much beside the huts that the resort staff live in. We don’t really spend any time in the room anyways except for sleeping.  The beach and lobby are pretty good hang-out spots.

We plan on being here for another day or so and then moving on.  Travel plans are uncertain at this point, so stay tuned and we’ll update soon.

Bottle Beach, Koh Phangan, Thailand

Railay Beach, Krabi, Thailand

Pictures from Bangkok and Koh Tao

Some of our pictures from Bangkok and Koh Tao. Enjoy:)

BLOG Bangkok, Thailand

BLOG Koh Tao, Thailand

Bangkok and Koh Tao

After our peaceful and lengthy stay in Chiang Mai, our arrival in Bangkok was quite a shock to the senses.  Bangkok is a huge and busy city and it’s definitely not a place to go if you are looking for relaxation.  The streets are crowed with cars, bikes, and people, and there is always a lot of noise, “interesting” smells, lights everywhere, and the weather is hot and humid.

We had come to Bangkok to meet up with Chris and Anthony and to start our journey into the south of Thailand together with them.  We met them near the Kao San Road area of Bangkok, which is the central backpacker hub of Asia.  There were thousands of backpackers in this area, and hundreds of guesthouses, restaurants, travel agencies, and locals trying to capitalize on it all by selling anything and everything.  Chris and Anthony were waiting in the lobby for us, and we found them right away.  It was really good to see them, as it has been quite a while now since either of us had seen anyone we knew.

We spent a few days in Bangkok after that.  We did a lot of walking around, visiting temples, markets, restaurants, and bars.  It was fun to introduce Chris and Anthony to our favorite Thai food too.  Our first night there we wanted something truly Thai, so we high-tailed it out of the backpacker area and went exploring.  Eventually we stumbled into some back-alley joint that was full of locals and absolutely no tourists – perfect.  Just a couple plastic chairs and tables huddled around a makeshift kitchen with a lot of pots of who-knows-what bubbling and boiling.  Of course Joh and I have learned long ago that these places tend to have a lot better food than the typical clean and calm tourist restaurant, but you could see it in the eyes of Chris and Anthony that they were a little apprehensive.  The food of course ended up great.  Anthony (who was full of bravado about the fact that he could eat spicy food) and I got a bowl of Tom Yum soup which was probably the hottest thing I’ve tasted yet in Asia. With tears running down our faces we enjoyed it immensely and Anthony was instantly hooked.  Chris on the other hand, was a little different.  You could see him looking at the menu with a look of fright.  His idea of adventurous eating is maybe trying a different BBQ sauce on his chicken.  He ordered a stir fry dish of some meat and veg and noodles or rice or something like that, and I think in the end he managed to get most of it down without too much trouble – and he said that he enjoyed it too, so I think we managed to convert them over from the bland traveler food over to the joys of eating good Thai food.

After  two or three days in the Kao San Road area, we were pretty sick of all the craziness, and all the noise and buzz of activity wasn’t too great for Chris who was having a hard time sleeping due to jet-lag. We moved to another end of town and stayed in a really cool hostel that was in a much more relaxing area.  It was better there, but still it was Bangkok, so it never gets too relaxing or quiet.  After two days there Chris was still unable to sleep, and after a week of maybe five hours of total sleep he was really feeling the effects and getting pretty sick.  We decided to go to the hospital there to get some doctor’s advice and hopefully some really strong sleeping pills.  The hospital was actually really neat to see.  The place was like a five star resort. Massive buildings, beautifully decorated, extremely competent doctors, and absolutely no issues with the language barrier. The doctor got Chris sorted out, and we immediately made plans to leave the hustle and bustle of Bangkok and to head south to the beaches of southern Thailand.

The next evening we jumped on an overnight bus and drove around 8 hours, and then hopped on a ferry for another few hours, and finally arrived the next day in Koh Tao.  By this time our group had added another person.  On the bus south we met a guy from Germany named Cornelius who was travelling alone.  Cornelius and Anthony hit it off right away and we all had a lot of fun with him so he ended up staying with us during our stay in Koh Tao and he is still with us a week later.
Koh Tao is an island off the east coast of the long skinny bottom tail of Thailand.  The island is famous for scuba diving and snorkeling.  We booked into a little bungalow near the beach and spent the next three days there.  The first day was a good recovery day.  Nobody had really slept well on the bus, so we got a good nap in and then had a pretty relaxing evening, although Anthony (who never seems to need much sleep and seems to be able to make a party out of every situation) and Cornelius made other plans and ended up finding out what the Koh Tao nightlife was all about.  At breakfast the next morning they came out with all kinds of crazy stories about fire shows and all sorts of parties going on all over the beach strip. It all sounded pretty good to us so we made plans to check it out that night.

That day we rented some motorbikes and toured the island.  We drove all around for hours, stopping here and there to check out a viewpoints, restaurants, and beaches.  It was a really good way to explore the island. After a long day biking around we sat around that evening and had a big game of poker.  We were without poker chips, so we hunted around for something that would work and ended up buying a Jenga set and used the blocks as chips.  The winner got a free meal and drink so it was pretty high stakes ;).  (Anthony ended up kicking our collective butts) After the game we went over to the beach to check out the scene there.   It was pretty crazy.  There were guys with flaming balls on ropes spinning them around and they also had a giant flaming skipping rope where all the tourists that had had a few too many drinks decided it would be fun to risk it all and jump around in it for a while.  We all had a good time watching all the craziness and Anthony (of course) braved the skipping rope and even tried to do a flip over the rope.  He ended up unscathed – other than a tumble or two into the ocean.

The following day was our snorkeling day.  We loaded into a boat and they drove us around to various spots around the island so we could get out and see the underwater sights.  There were a lot of fish and various rocks and coral to check out.  We all enjoyed it a lot and had a great time.

At this point Chris was still not sleeping well, so the lack of sleep was really getting to him.  He was really unable to enjoy himself so he decided that enough was enough.  He called the airline and managed to get his flight home rescheduled for the following day.  It was all pretty rough on him and it’s too bad that he wasn’t able to continue his trip.   We all left Koh Tao with Chris the next day, and we moved on to the neighboring island of Koh Phangan and said goodbye to Chris at the pier and he headed off back to the airport to catch his flight home.

So now we’re on the island of Koh Phangan with Anthony and Cornelius, at a small beach resort called Bottle Beach.  This is a beach I visited 5 years ago on my last trip to Thailand.  It is pretty much the most perfect place in the world.  It is a small beach on the north end of the island that is only accessible by boat, so there are no roads, cars, bikes, or really any noise at all.  There’s not much to do here other than relax and enjoy your surroundings. We go swimming all the time, have a few drinks at the bar, play cards, beach volleyball, and soccer. The resort is really well run by a bunch of Thai guys who love to hang out with you and join you in your soccer games or card games.  Our bungalow is right on the beach (the exact same one I stayed in 5 years ago) and as I type this I’m relaxing on our patio with the ocean breeze in my face, and listening to the smooth sound of the waves coming in. The weather is perfect, the beach is perfect, the food and drinks are perfect, the company is perfect…  Life doesn’t get much better than this.


* Sorry, but the internet is too slow here to upload photos.  We'll try get them up soon...

Chiang Mai

So it’s been around 6 weeks since our last blog post.  We’ve been getting subtle (and not so subtle) hints that we really need to get blogging again soon, so here goes...

Just because we haven’t be posting here doesn’t mean we haven’t be up to anything.  Our 6 weeks here in Chiang Mai have been really enjoyable.  The city is a great place to live and we’ve really embraced the idea of getting a bit settled into a place rather than running from one city to the next.   After being gone for a year now (we passed our 1-year travel anniversary 5 days ago..) travelling has become less about moving from place to place than it is about just being in foreign places and really getting to know them.  Our desire to see as many different things as possible just isn’t there anymore.  For us, it’s more about getting a deeper understanding of a few places, rather than a quick overview of many places.  Quick overviews are great for frequent blog posts, and I guess longer stays mean longer times between updates.

So - Chiang Mai.  It’s a large city in northern Thailand with around a million people in the surrounding area, so it is basically the main hub in the north.  It’s a very scenic place. It is surrounded by jungle and small mountains.  The weather is great – it’s been in the mid-twenties the entire time we’ve been here, and it’s only rained twice – once the day we arrived, and then a little bit a few nights ago. Many travelers come to Chiang Mai, and so the locals here have set up quite a lot of things for you to do.  There is trekking,  zip-lining, zoos, elephant farms, tiger farms, shopping, lots of great restaurants and bars, and with all that comes a fairly decent amount of people that can speak English quite well.  There are also quite a lot of expats here.  A lot of retirees either live here, or at least spend half of each year here.   We’ve met quite a few people that have just left home, found a Thai wife, and opened up a restaurant or a guesthouse or tour company or whatever.

The food here in  Chiang Mai has been really good.  There are small restaurants and street food vendors all over the place selling really good food for very low prices.  We have a few favorites including a soup vendor that we go to pretty much every day for a bowl after our evening yoga classes.  Most of the Thai food has been really enjoyable, but to be honest after 3 or 4 months of dinners focused on rice or noodles, a few cravings for other foods start to arise as well.  The expat population has taken advantage of this, so all over Chiang Mai you can find food from many different cultures.  We have a favorite falafel stand that we go to often, as well as a lovely bakery selling French bread and pastries.  We also found a great deli serving things like corned beef, pastrami, sauerkraut, and dill pickles (all things I have been craving lately for some reason).  You can also get pizza, or pasta, or curries, or pretty much whatever you want.  We even found a Dutch place selling croquettes and bitterballs!

We have been enjoying some of those style restaurants, but the focus of course is still on Thai food.  Some of the food, like Pad Thai and Tom Yum Soup have been especially good, so we had intentions to learn how to make them ourselves so we could eat them once we’re back home as well.  There are many places here that can teach you how to make these dishes, so we enrolled in a cooking class for a day.  We got a tour of the local market and learned about the ingredients, and then went back to a kitchen to cook.  We each picked around 4 or 5 dishes to learn and then started chopping up veg and stir-frying everything up in their woks.  The food ended up pretty good.  We’re looking forward to going home and checking out some of the Asian markets there to see if they have some of the exotic ingredients we used. Hopefully we’ll be able to make a big pot of Tom Yum soup for Sunday lunch at home.

The main thing we’ve been doing here in Chiang Mai is yoga.  We have two classes every weekday – one at 9am and another at 7pm, and one on Saturday morning, and then a rest day on Sunday.  That means eleven classes a week, and we’ve been here for six weeks, and missed only a couple of classes.  So our total number of classes is somewhere around sixty.  With sixty classes under our belt we’ve learned quite a lot, and improved immensely.  This being my first try at yoga (Joh has done a fair amount in the past), it was pretty frustrating for the first two weeks. I couldn’t even sit on the ground with my legs crossed or touch my toes.  Slowly but surely though, improvements were made, and I can now easily touch my toes and sit cross-legged -  which were my two main goals at the beginning.  I have enjoyed yoga a lot more than I thought I would.  The first few weeks were painful and frustrating, but now I am genuinely excited about going to class and working on different things.  Focusing on stretching and strengthening each individual muscle while using controlled breathing  is a real challenge and it is exciting to see improvement and to test the outer limits of your physical potential.  It is amazing how much your body can change it such a short time.  It definitely affects all areas of your life outside of class too.  Your posture gets much better, and all your movements become more deliberate and controlled as well.

Recently we also went on an excursion into the jungles and villages north of Chiang Mai to do some trekking and to see some of the local farms and villages.  We booked a trip with a guide and got grouped up with a bunch of other travelers. We started our tour at an elephant farm, where we got to ride one around for 20 minutes or so.  We then hiked through the jungle and around some local farmland for around 3 hours and ended up in a small village for the night where we had a great dinner and a campfire with everyone.  The next day we hiked again for a few hours, checked out a waterfall, and then went white-water rafting for a bit as well. All in all it was a pretty exciting trip.

So now we’re back in Chiang Mai for our final two days before we head south to Bangkok.  Joh’s brother Chris and his friend Anthony are travelling in Thailand as well so we’re going to meet up with them on Tuesday morning and travel with them for a few weeks.  It will be great to see some familiar faces again and catch up on what is happening back home. We’re really looking forward to it. We’re not sure of the plans for the upcoming weeks, but I’m sure they will involve some pretty fun times in Bangkok and some nice relaxing time on the beaches of southern Thailand.  Should be good…

Chiang Mai

Trekking Tour in Northern Thailand

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