5 Letter Travel: Our Journey Around the World

Fondue, Rolex, Hiking, and Roman Polanski... Hello Switzerland!

2010-07-26T22:01:00.007-05:00

After turning in the rental car on the French side of the Geneva airport after a long day of driving, we hopped on a Swiss train around Lake Geneva (see pic at right) and continued eastward until we reached Gstaad, a small posh town in the Swiss Alps. Unfortunately we visited during the off-season (between winter skiing and summer hiking) so we were limited in the number of lifts and trails open, but at least the crowds were minimal. We never caught a glimpse of Roman Polanski, but apparently he's been hiding out in one of the chalets here. :)

Anyhoo, so the next day we took the train just a couple stops to Schonried, where we hiked the Helena Trail up the mountain and took the lift at the top back down (see pics). It was a beautiful sunny day, and on the trail we saw abundant wildflowers and numerous cows (with a lovely manure-stench that spread throughout the countryside, blech) - and the funny thing is, here they actually wear giant cowbells! (see pic) I kept asking the cows for more cowbell, of course. :) And we finished off the day with a nice dinner of none other than Swiss cheese fondue, which beats the Melting Pot hands down any day.

View from our room	Gstaad
Hike	Hiking signs
More cowbell!	Hike
Gentian flower	View from top

After a couple days in Gstaad, we once again boarded the train and headed south to Zermatt, home of the famous Matterhorn. Unfortunately the weather had taken a turn for the worse, and we arrived in the rain with no sign of the giant mountain obscured by the clouds. So we put off our hiking plans and instead spent the afternoon at the Matterhorn Museum (see pic), learning about the history of climbing attempts on the mountain, and then went across the street to the climbers cemetery (see pic) for a sobering look at how many lives have been claimed by the 14,700-ft peak. It was while walking through the cemetery that we heard a car crash - an awfully strange occurrence for this supposedly pedestrian-friendly "car-free town". It turns out that "car-free" is a bit of a misnomer, as vehicles were actually everywhere - little electric taxis (see pic), construction vehicles, delivery vehicles, everything but tourist rental cars. We actually came closer to getting hit crossing the road here than in any other town we visited, which is pretty ironic.

Rainy Zermatt	Matterhorn Museum
Climbers' Cemetery	Zermatt Taxis

The next morning the rain was still coming down pretty steadily, so we did some shopping downtown, purchasing a little Landert Swiss fondue set as our souvenir to bring home. We were both a little down, wondering if we'd ever get a glimpse of the Matterhorn before we had to head on our way the next morning, or if this would be another "Waimea Canyon" and "Cotopaxi Volcano" experience where we'd try in vain but never get to see the main attraction. Not to worry though, by afternoon the clouds had started to clear a bit, and we took the underground Sunegga Funicular to the top (the highest trail open) and hiked down through the small hamlet of Findeln. The top was still covered with snow and mud, but as we descended the mud cleared to grass and wildflowers, and we were surrounded by cute mountain marmots just waking from hibernation, and a few herds of sheep. And the best part was that we were treated to FANTASTIC views of the Matterhorn all the way down - eventually even the last wisp of clouds cleared and we had a perfect view. :) It was a great way to end our couple days in Zermatt before hopping back on the train and heading to Grindelwald.

Hiking	Hiking
Matterhorn	Matterhorn
Sheep	Sunny Zermatt

French Oddities

2010-07-07T22:21:00.006-05:00

Turns out we didn't need to visit northern Thailand after all... we could have just gone to the "Chieng Mai" Restaurant in Paris!

If I want crepes that suck, I think I'll just make them myself instead of going to "Creposuk"...

Mommy, mommy - can I ride on the horse with the tequila barrel??? (seen on a merry-go-round near the Eiffel Tower)

An old-timey Paris subway sign

I'm not sure the "Fokop" Business Center is the first place I would go for assistance...

"I like nothing. I am Parisian." Fair enough.

The common abbreviation 24/7 seems clear enough to me, but in France they seem somewhat confused, as evidenced by Example 1:

And Example 2. What do these mean???!

I had never seen subway trains with tires on them until Paris:

The sign on this grave is to make the occupant aware that they are about to be displaced unless they continue to cough up the rental fee...

We saw a ton of these rental bikes all over Paris - neat idea!

Mime practice in the park...

Public street toilets

A very very old Citroen...

Normandy and the D-Day Beaches

2010-07-05T21:42:00.006-05:00

For our last few days in France, we decided to rent a car in Paris, drive up to Normandy, and then drive down to the French side of Geneva, where we could hop on a train using our Swiss Rail pass. Needless to say, I can't count the number of times we got lost, got stuck in traffic, paid exorbitant $$$ for tolls and gas, pulled illegal u-turns, and just genuinely wished we had just gone with public transit all the way. But it was an interesting experience! We picked up our Ford Fiesta 5-speed at the Gare du Nord train station in Paris and literally crawled for the next 3 hours to Giverny, only 47 miles away. Once there, we headed to the primary tourist attraction in town, Monet's gardens and house (see photo at right). The gardens were gorgeous, but Brian and I both felt that the serene "Monet" atmosphere was ruined by the swarms of tourists everywhere. Once we got out of that claustrophobic area, we strolled through the town down to Monet's gravesite (see pic), and then hopped back on the crowded expressway to our our B&B in the Normandy countryside (see pic). That evening we decided to head to the town of Bayeux (~45 minutes away, if you know where you're going) for dinner (yummy vegetable crepes - see pic), and then had a nightmare of a time trying to find our way back to the B&B on narrow country roads in the dark. And we of course were assisted by enormously helpful roadsigns like the one shown below, that tell you what town you are NOT in. I really thought we were going to have to just pull over into a field and sleep in the car that night!

Monet's house	Monet's grave
Our B&B	Bayeux
Crepe	Street sign

The next morning we drove back to Bayeux (fewer wrong turns in the daylight) to view the famous medieval Bayeux Tapestry, which dates from the 1070s and is a very impressive 230-ft-long cloth embroidered with scenes from the Norman Conquest of England, to tell the story to the illiterate residents at the time. (The photo is from the UNESCO website, since photography was not allowed.) A parody of the tapestry was even featured in an episode of the Simpsons a couple of years ago as the opening couch gag. :)

After seeing the tapestry, we drove over to Caen and toured the Memorial WWII Museum (see pic), and then headed over to the 172-acre Normandy American Cemetery at Omaha Beach (see pic), which honors American soldiers that died in Europe during WWII (most of them during the invasion of Normandy). We took some time to hike down to the beach, and Brian explored the remains of the German pill boxes above the shore while I marveled at how tiny male European bathing suits can be. Leaving the beach, we drove to the Longues-sur-Mer Battery, where Brian got a thrill checking out the giant German guns (see pic). And last on our self-guided Normandy tour, we drove to Arromanches to see the Mulberry Harbors, which were a British military invention for the war to provide a huge manmade harbor to assemble and offload cargo and men heading to the beaches of Normandy, since it would be some time before French ports could be captured. They were only supposed to function for 2 months, but the complex near Arromanches was used for 10 months and parts of it have survived in the channel for 66 years now.

Memorial Museum	American Cemetery
Omaha beach	German gun in concrete defense

The next morning we got an early start for our 9-hour drive from Normandy, back through Paris, and on to Geneva. The drive was long, rather uneventful, and cost us $90 in tolls. But we did get to see quite a bit of the countryside and a ton of vineyards... and we even passed right by Dijon, France, so of course I had to stop to pick up some local mustard! (see pic)

Paris in the Springtime

2010-06-30T22:26:00.011-05:00

The past 5 weeks have rolled by in a haze of drywall dust and paint fumes for Brian and I, as we have been diligently renovating our guest room in anticipation of even bigger home renovations this Fall. It's been a steep learning curve for us (well, Brian's curve is up sharply, while mine has remained pretty flat as I accidentally hammer through windows, paint on the wrong side of the tape, etc.), but I think the end is finally in sight. We tore down a wall, installed new flooring, removed two windows and replaced another, built a closet, repainted the walls, rewired everything, installed new lighting, and re-did drywall on one wall and the ceiling. We're down to the wire, as Brian starts back to work in a week, and I'll then be leaving for Michigan to take intensive graduate courses in epidemiology for 3 weeks.

But despite the ongoing home renovations, we did manage to take a fantastic 2-week trip to France and Switzerland at the end of May, which was a really nice finale to our whole round-the-world adventure. Our trip started off well, with a kind resident of the housing project near the bus stop bringing us bottles of water as we waited in the heat for the bus to arrive, and then we got on our way, flying first to Atlanta, where we saw rapper Chris Brown (yes, the one who beat up Rihanna) and his posse in the airport, and then on to lovely Paris! When we arrived at the airport, I discovered that my ATM card wouldn't work over there, and it turned out Brian had decided to not bring an ATM card or any cash (I guess he was planning on washing a lot of dishes??!), so we had some significant money hurdles to get worked out in our severely jetlagged state upon arrival. With everything eventually finally cleared up, we made our way to My Hotel Le Marais to drop off our stuff (this pic is the view out our window), and from there we headed out on foot to explore Notre Dame (impressive, but kinda cheesy with trinket machines next to the prayer alters), fight off numerous crazy gypsies, see the crypt (not all that exciting), and tour Saint Chappelle (which has nice huge stained glass windows, but is currently undergoing renovation). We stopped to consume a giant mint chocolate chip meringue (almost the size of my head - see pic) before having our first of many VERY expensive meals out during our time in Europe.

Notre Dame

Huge Meringue

We started out the next day by taking a very cliche stroll down Les Champs Elysees (I sang the whole way), stopping along the way to buy a couple of French music CDs at the giant Virgin multimedia store and to pick up some Pain du Chocolate (a flaky pastry filled with chocolate) - yum! We eventually made it to the L'Arc de Triomphe, and climbed the 280 steps to the top for a fantastic view of the 12 boulevards that converge at the circle. After enjoying the view, we decided to head over to the other famous Paris landmark, the Eiffel tower. We walked underneath (see pic), but chose not to go up due to the long lines. We walked up through Trocadero Park, where we were able to get a nice view of the tower framed by the beautiful trees blooming in the springtime (see pic). Afterward, we decided to go ahead and head to one more Paris icon - the Louvre, which was open late that night. Neither of us are huge art fans, so we made our way through the masses of children and tourists to hit the high points - the Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa (which is actually pretty small), and the Code of Hammurabi (Brian's favorite), then decided to hightail it out of there in search for some dinner. While walking through the St. Eustache area, we stumbled upon a FANTASTIC walking street - Montorgueil - which is lined with cute local restaurants and shops bustling with locals. We indulged in some crepes and Normandy cider before walking onward towards our hotel.

Arc de Triomphe	View from Arc
Eiffel Inside	Eiffel Tower
Louvre	Louvre

Throughout our time in France, we found that our elementary knowledge of French (I had 5 years in school, and Brian went through a phase where he was obsessed with the PBS series "French in Action") was essentially useless. Even when we knew exactly what we were supposed to be saying, the discrepancy between our accents and theirs was just too much for us to be intelligible. This was most problematic at the metro ticket windows, where we often had to resort to finger counting and animated map pointing to describe where we needed to go. On the third day of our trip, after another ticket dance, we boarded the metro to Montmartre, an artists community high on a hill in the north of Paris. We embarked on a self-guided walking tour, seeing the Moulin Rouge, the Cafe des Deux Moulins (from the movie Amelie), one of Van Gogh's houses, the Man in the Wall sculpture (see pic), the last vineyard in Paris (see pic), and numerous sidewalk painters. We ended our tour at the magnificent Sacre Coeur, and then had lunch at a cute macrobiotic vegetarian sidewalk cafe (see pic of Brian). After walking through Montmartre, we decided to tackle a request from my grandmother to visit the huge luxury department store Printemps and get her a small bottle of Paris perfume. We definitely looked like we just fell off the turnip truck as we walked through the fancy perfume department in our stinky backpacker clothes, but we did manage to buy a small apple-shaped bottle of "Nina" by Nina Ricci and make a hasty exit, since we wanted to make it to the Paris Sewer Museum before it closed. After two hours of searching, we finally gave up trying to find the museum (it turns out the entrance is through a manhole on the ground!) - at least this gives me a reason to have to come back to Paris. :) But instead we headed over to the Musee de Orsay, which contains a nice collection of impressionist art. The museum was currently undergoing renovation (seems to be a theme), but we still were able to see some nice paintings by Monet, Manet, and Renoir.

Moulin Rouge	Man in the Wall
The only vineyard	Art Stands
Sacre Coeur	Brian at Cafe
Printemps	Musee d'Orsay

Our final day in Paris was another busy one. We got up early to get to the Catacombs at opening time, only to find that they were closed due to flooding. :( (Another excuse to return to Paris one day!) So instead we took a stroll through the nearby Montparnasse Cemetery, where we saw the graves of composer Saint-Saens (see pic), the Citroen family, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Poincare. From there, we stopped to pick up a "baguette de tradition" to snack on, and continued on for a walk through the Jardin du Luxembourg (see pic), where we saw a bunch of men enjoying a game of boules (similar to bocce ball) and a group of mimes practicing their craft. After leaving the garden, we went inside the Pantheon, where we observed Foucault's Pendulum (a big hit with Brian) and saw Marie Curie's tomb in the crypt underneath. That afternoon we toured the Arts et Metiers Museum, full of lots of interesting mechanical items, and then on a whim, I decided to drag Brian back up to Montmartre to purchase a kitty painting I had seen the day before. So 2 hours later, the kitty canvas was finally in my hands! (It was quite a sight to see me lugging this painting on and off the trains in Switzerland, but I'm happy to say that the picture now has a nice spot on the wall in our newly renovated guest room.) But even after that escapade, the day was not yet over. We rushed back to Montparnasse to arrive at Tour Montparnasse (a viewing platform on the top of a giant skyscraper) just in time to catch the last lift up at 11pm - and we got to the top just in time to see the Eiffel Tower do its extra-special night twinkle, which it only does for 5 minutes on the hour from sunset to 1am (see pic). Awesome way to end our time in Paris!! :)

Montparnasse Cemetery	Saint-Saens
Jardin du Luxembourg	Foucault's Pendulum
Marie Curie	Eiffel twinkling

Singapore Oddities

2010-05-15T21:43:00.008-05:00

For the past couple weeks we've been busy back in Austin starting our home renovation projects and getting ready for our final 2-week journey to France and Switzerland, which we're really looking forward to. Si je parle français aussi mal que j'ai fait à l'école, je vais avoir un temps difficile, cependent! :) In the meantime, here are some of the oddities we came across in Singapore:

We saw these signs in a lot of places, but I really think the whole 'caning' thing works a lot better as a crime deterrent than our often lenient jail sentences. We never felt like we were in any danger, and since the standard of living is so much higher in Singapore than in the other places we visited in Southeast Asia, there weren't even people trying to rip us off at every corner!

Here is an example of the 4 languages on most signage in Singapore: English, Mandarin, Tamil, and Malay.

No durians on the subway! (a very stinky fruit popular in tropical Asian countries)

Illustrated instructions for using this public restroom:

A FANTASTIC dynamic parking sign, letting you know how many spaces are currently available in each of these lots!

And another fantastic sign, this one at the bus stop, letting you know which buses will be arriving and when.

Need a hip joint? These were for sale at the pharmacy down the street from our hotel.

Giant boat on the roof of Singapore's new casinos.

Odd things for sale at a booth in Chinatown... shark fin, frog, giant lizard, etc.

And now by reading the ingredient list of these pills in Chinatown, we can see where those items above would be used...

Another stand in Chinatown, "The Last Sausage Kiosk Before the Equator":

We had quite an appetizing selection of desserts to choose from in Chinatown:

Brian chose this mango ice thing (that dark area at the bottom turned out to be a core of baked black beans). I was kinda glad I had the vanilla ice cream!

Lightning counter on a tree at the Singapore Botanical Gardens - this tree has been struck 4 times already!

And the last night we were in town, we came across a group of Asian line dancers doing their thing right outside our subway stop. Kinda made us feel like we were back at home in Texas. :)

Singapore

2010-05-11T20:40:00.007-05:00

We arrived in Singapore after our flight from Manila and immediately noticed the difference from the rest of Southeast Asia: clean streets, clean air, drinkable water, European prices, and a much more heterogeneous population (4 languages are prominently spoken: English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil). We made our way to the outskirts of Little India and arrived at our hotel, which suspiciously was only marked with a sign that said "HOTEL" out front. It certainly wasn't cheap, even by U.S. standards, but sure enough, we ascertained by the sketchy men and hookers in the lobby that we had managed to book ourselves in a "rent-by-the-hour" place. But they had a cool fat calico cat and free internet, so we stayed anyways. :)

The following day we took public transit to the Singapore Zoo, which has a reputation for being one of the best in the world, and it did not disappoint! Moats are largely used for animal containment, eliminating most of the need for cages, and the animals have large natural habitats to roam around in. They also have a lot of specialty animals that are rare to see in most North American zoos, such as False Gharials (a large fish-eating alligator-like creature), Proboscis Monkeys, Pygmy Hippos, White Tigers, and more. Our favorite was the rainforest exhibit, which allows you to walk through a contained rainforest amidst the free-roaming animals (which is how we got this close-up picture of a lemur just 'chilling' on the path!). Once darkness fell, we ventured next door to the Night Safari, which is essentially a 'nighttime zoo' that features nocturnal animals. We took the tram tour and walked the trails, where giant bats, flying squirrels, and enormous mosquitoes were swooping overhead - pretty exciting!

The next day we had our first of many meals at Komala Vilas, a prominent Indian vegetarian fast food outlet in Singapore. Here is a picture of their mascot, a giant dosai. :) If only they would franchise in the U.S.... then we would have an alternative to Taco Bell when we are on the road! After lunch we took the MRT (subway) to Orchard Road, the famous upscale shopping district. We looked like we just fell off the turnip truck compared to most of the people there, but it was still fun to browse in the 6-story malls full of Louis Vuitton, Prada, Jimmy Choo, etc. And they were air-conditioned!

Orchard Road	Orchard Road
Huge Mall	At Night

After getting our fill of 'window shopping', we took the MRT down to City Hall, where we walked to the Singapore Flyer, a 540-foot tall ferris wheel overlooking Marina Bay. There are 28 cars that hold 28 people each (according to the audio tour, it's some feng shui thing), and one rotation takes 30 minutes to complete. It was even recently featured in a stunt on this season's Amazing Race!

That evening (it was a busy day!) we journeyed over to Chinatown for a guided tour of the area and of the 'brothel history'. We saw odd foods, Chinese medicine shops, old sewage doors where nightmen came weekly to remove the pail from under your toilet, old brothels, and even some current brothels (identified by their red and white lighted signs - see pics).

Chinatown	Sewage Door
Brothels	Brothel Sign :P

The following day we headed to the Changi Museum, Chapel, and Prison, which memorializes the Japanese Occupation of Singapore during WWII. From there, we took the MRT to the Singapore Botanical Gardens, which are free to enter and are extremely popular with the locals and visitors alike. We saw similar activities as are popular in the U.S. - a couple getting married (see pic), random people dressed in newspaper costumes acting out scenes (see pic), kids learning to ride their bikes, runners, etc. It was the most "American" scene that we had come across in Southeast Asia! Here are some pictures:

Newspaper Costumes	Wedding
Rainforest Fig Tree	Ginger

The next day it was time to say goodbye to Asia and take off on the long flight to LA, with a 6-hour layover in Beijing. :( We had intended on heading to New Zealand at this point to do some hiking, but of course family matters became more pressing and we needed to head home. Our seats on the flight were just a couple rows behind the giant TV screens, so when the lights were dimmed for 'sleeping time', I put my black blanket over my head to block out the TV lights. And of course, in usual 'Susan' fashion, I wake up, the cabin lights are already on, breakfast is being served, and everyone is staring at me for having a blanket over my head! I wanted to just put the blanket back on to hide my embarrassment, but at least I will never see any of those people again, haha. In the next few days I'll post some pics of the odd signs we saw around Singapore - all the rules, instructions, and warnings that the country is so famous (or infamous) for.

Sad News and What's Next

2010-04-26T22:39:00.005-05:00

It's been almost a month since I've posted, and as most of you know, things have not gone well. My mom Reaves passed away on March 31st, 2010, after being diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer (an extremely aggressive cancer that is rarely detected during mammograms) last summer. She touched many people during her 55 years, which was evidenced by the packed memorial service and outpouring of support that my family has received throughout her illness. For all of that, I thank you. She would too. I thought I would share a few photos of my mom and I, and also post a handout from the memorial service that I put together (many of you probably already have a copy) - it's an excerpt from an email that my mom sent me while I was in college when I was going through a rough patch, with suggestions of how to take charge of your life and have a more positive outlook. My mom was always there to lend an ear and offer a kind word to anyone who needed it, so I feel like if at least one person is impacted positively from this, then her legacy will continue to live on.

And what's next for us? Well, I still have yet to finish the Singapore entries of the blog, so those will be posted next once they are finished. Brian and I have been going back and forth between Texas and Tennessee for awhile now, but we will finally be returning back to our home in Austin this week and diving into some home improvement projects we've been wanting to tackle for awhile. Unfortunately the 'big trip' is over for now, but we are planning a 2-week 'grand finale' trip in May to France and Switzerland since I really wanted to close out the trip in Paris (we are crossing our fingers for no more volcanic eruptions!). So I'll do a few blog postings on that excursion, and then we'll see where things go from there.

Getting Through a Rough Patch

Good morning! It's a new day and I hope things are looking a little brighter. You are going through a rough patch, as all of us do at times, and I hope I can help by encouraging you and suggesting things you can do to help feel better about yourself and in charge of your life.

1) Kindness - Everyday, do at least one kindness for someone else. It doesn't have to be something big--going out of your way to say something kind doesn't take much time or effort, and it can be something as small as scattering a piece of bread for the birds, who will have a little easier day because of you. This one is very important, because if you do this, you will never have a wasted day.

2) Gratitude list - Every night, write down 5 things you're grateful for. Some days it may be things like, I'm grateful I don't have a broken arm, but if you keep doing it you'll start appreciating the good in your life, and you'll see more good things. This has made a huge difference to me since I started doing it.

3) Exercise - an all-around winner--good for your body, releases relaxing chemicals to your brain, reduces stress, gets your mind off things.

4) Laughter - a great stress reliever. Rent a funny movie--anything by Mel Brooks, The Marx Brothers, etc., watch Candid Camera. Here's a joke: What's black and white and furry and never wants to grow up? Answer below...

5) Yoga-relaxation-meditation exercises - I've been doing yoga about twice a week and though I'm not very good, I always feel more relaxed and centered. That breathing stuff helps.

6) Music - Playing it or listening to it, especially the Baroque style that has all the harmonic resolution.

7) Church - You don't have to go to services if you don't want to, though I'd recommend it, as it helps to be among people who are looking for meaning and trying to make themselves better. Just sitting in a church or chapel can be very restorative; there is an atmosphere of peace.

8) Get out in nature - I'm not sure why this works--maybe it reminds you of the connection between all things, but just spending time in the outdoors is helpful. I used to study outdoors a lot when the weather was nice.

9) Spend time with people (or animals) who make you feel good about yourself - Right now you don't need the company of people who bring you down. I hope you can start visiting the elderly again sometime. These people usually have a lot of wisdom to share and are grateful for company.

10) Keep a journal - It helps to write things out and can be very therapeutic--also helps you see patterns you might not see otherwise.

11) Uplifting reading - Yes, self-help books can be cheesy, but they can actually be helpful in giving you new ideas and suggesting new ways of looking at things. I also recommend watching Mr. Rogers, the kindest, most affirming person on TV.

12) Be kind to yourself - Buy yourself a present! Pick out something at the grocery store that you like but consider a little extravagant. Give yourself the gift of a few hours to do whatever you want. Treat yourself as kindly as you would treat someone else you care about.

Take heart--every little thing that you do to take control of your life puts you a little closer to where you want to be, and those little things will add up quickly, day by day.

The answer to the riddle? Peter Panda. Love, Reaves

“A ministry doesn’t have to be only through a church, or even through an ordination. And I think we all can minister to others in this world by being compassionate and caring. I hope you will feel good enough about yourselves that you will want to minister to others, and that you will find your own unique ways to do that. If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.” - Mr. Rogers

Filipino Oddities

2010-03-29T07:22:00.006-05:00

Well, unfortunately things have continued on a pretty rapid downward trajectory with my mom's condition, but we are all trying to cope the best we can. She's resting again right now though, so I thought I'd try to post another severely-delayed blog entry from our trip. Here are some of the strange things we saw in the Philippines:

Ooo... magical placenta whitening soap! Gives me that baby-soft skin I've always wanted...

Everywhere we went in the Philippines, the locals were extremely pro-American, calling America their 'second mother' and attributing the success of the Philippines to America - and I guess maybe the "Obama Grill" on White Beach is just another token of their affection. :)

A small tree-root toilet to add to my toilet photo collection...

Rice drying on the side of the road

Alright, so this is a terrible photo I took of the TV, but I was trying to capture this odd karaoke channel that was showing soft-core porn in the background. The song playing in this image is "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". :)

Banana Ketchup - blech!

Why go to a gas station when you can just buy your gas in a bottle on the side of the road? I just wish I had gotten a picture of the stand we passed that was selling gas out of Coke bottles...

Ice-cold sarap. Coke na! (For some reason I thought a lot more English would be spoken in the Philippines than actually was - Filipino seemed to be much more prominent. In addition, there are 13 indigenous languages with 1+ million speakers apiece, with most Filipinos learning one of these as their native language.)

A Filipino woman wearing a snake vertebrae 'necklace' on her head to protect from lightning strikes

We saw people peeing everywhere, despite these signs, haha.

Wooden scooters ridden by the Ifugao tribes (I'm not sure how they get them back uphill!)

A bag with chewing substances - areca nut, betel leaf, lemon/lime, and spices. These are chewed together for a stimulant effect - and are the cause of red-stained teeth and lips of many locals. (Areca and betel are also carcinogens.)

And last, but certainly not least, another lovely toilet picture! This is a relatively clean FEMALE trough squat toilet - the gals just back in and pee in a cozy row. I decided just to hold it. :)

Beautiful Rice, Hanging Coffins, Collapsed Roads, and Bad Karaoke - Welcome to the Cordilleras!

2010-03-20T21:35:00.006-05:00

Once again it has been awhile since I have posted... Brian and I have been back at my family homestead in Tennessee for almost 2 weeks now, and unfortunately things are not going well. The cancer has spread to my mom's brain, so we would really appreciate if everyone could keep her in their thoughts and prayers, as the prognosis is not good. It's been quite a shock for us to one day be strolling through Asia planning our next destination and then the next day to be catching a last minute flight back to the US to stay with my parents indefinitely, but we are really glad that we have the luxury of this flexibility so we can be with my family at this time. I have a few minutes free while my mom is sleeping, so I thought I'd continue with the blog where I left off a couple weeks ago...

From Boracay we took the tiny propeller plane back to Manila and jumped on the local Victory Liner bus for the 8-hour ride to Baguio, in the northern Philippines. Getting to the Cordilleras requires long, grueling bus and jeepney rides no matter which way you go, due to unpaved bumpy mountain roads and a lack of any other transportation method. Luckily, most of the road up to Baguio was paved, so that ride was fairly smooth, but we did have to deal with people jumping on the bus to hawk goods at us repeatedly (see pic). We arrived in Baguio around midnight, and decided to check into a room at the Microtel above the bus station to get a few hours of sleep before our 6am bus the next morning for the 5.5-hour ride to Sagada. Morning came way too soon, and we boarded the rickety bus with schoolbus-like seating and off we went up the jarring mountain roads. About every 100 feet we could look down and see sections of the road that had collapsed down the mountain; luckily we never spotted any buses down there!

Once we arrived in Sagada we found a clean private double room with a bathroom to rent for $8.50/night (little did we know it also included a strong stench of sewage and a rooster outside the window that thought the sun came up at 2am!), and set off on the hiking trail through Echo Valley to visit some of the hanging coffins, caves, and an underground river. Even today they still hang some of the coffins - here's a pic of some more recent ones.

That evening we went to a local restaurant expecting once again to be sorely disappointed by the selection of vegetarian food (usually only mayonnaise sandwiches - I'm not kidding!), but the chef offered to make us the traditional Filipino "pork" adobo dish, using seitan instead of meat. Where they got seitan in this tiny remote town I have no idea, but it was fantastic! (see pic) And even stranger, we had traveled 14 hours by bus over remote dirt roads into the northern Philippines mountains to find the T.V. in the restaurant showing the most recent episode of American Idol! :) After dinner we had to hurry back to our inn to make the mandatory 9pm curfew in town (left over from a conflict during the Marcos era).

The following day we hired a local guide and made our way to Lumiang Burial Cave, where ancient coffins are stacked from the floor to the ceiling (see pic). Apparently, sometimes the guides will even open the lids and shake the bones around, but we passed on that. Afterwards we hiked by some nice rice terraces (see pic) on our way to the Sumaging Cave, where we descended down steep, slippery, guano-covered rocks for what seemed like hours until we finally reached the pools of water (see pics). We were feeling pretty gross with the humidity and bat poo, so we didn't stay long at the bottom!

Lumiang Burial Cave	Sagada Rice Terraces
Sumaging Cave	Sumaging Cave

The next day we got up early to catch the 8am jeepney for the one-hour ride to Bontoc. Jeepneys are the most popular method of public transportation in the Philippines, and were originally made from leftover WWII US military jeeps. They are essentially lavishly decorated extended jeeps with benches in the back for passengers - although many passengers also ride on top. The destination is written on the side, and rather than having a time schedule, the jeepney driver just leaves when he feels he has sufficiently crammed enough passengers into (and onto) the vehicle. So needless to say, it's not the most comfortable ride! Once we arrived in Bontoc we searched for a jeepney that was making the 3.5-hour trek to Banaue. We found a rickety blue one that was making the journey, but we had to wait another 2 hours for enough passengers to show up - at least by getting there early we didn't have to ride on top! We were crammed in pretty tight on the benches, though, and the jeepney was carrying fruit wine jugs that were leaking all over our bags and shoes... and then we had to stop for another hour for "road construction" (see pic). It was on this jeepney that we met one of the only two Americans during our time in the Philippines - a 74-year-old backpacking granny from Minnesota. You go girl!

After the long, bumpy, uncomfortable ride, we finally arrived in Banaue, which is home to the UNESCO World Heritage Site rice terraces. We spent the night, and then chartered a jeepney and a guide to take us out to the tiny villages of Batad, which has amphitheater-shaped stone-walled terraces (the Banaue terraces have mud walls). We drove on the bumpy roads for an hour and a half, passing many terraces and a house perilously hanging over the side of the mountain (see pic) before we reached the end of the road and set out on the long hike down to Batad (many of these Ifugao villages don't have road access yet). We finally reached the terraces (see pic) and continued hiking down them all the way to the Tappia Waterfall at the very bottom (see pic). And then we had the grueling hike back up, where our huffing and puffing selves were humbly passed by old grannies carrying tree trunks and giant baskets of food. :) We didn't finish the hike until late afternoon, and boy were we sore... I can see why they are all so thin here!

Beautiful Banaue	Downtown Banaue
Hanging House	Batad Rice Terraces
Batad Rice Terraces	Tappia Falls

The following day we had a few hours to kill before our bus left in the evening, so we listened to some of the bad 24-7 karaoke coming from the bar down the street from our inn ("I'm a beeeech, I'm a lover..."), then walked about an hour up the hill to the Banaue viewpoint (the scene on the 1000 peso bill, see pic). Unfortunately, it's been so dry this year that the terraces aren't in their full bright green glory, but they were still fascinating to see. We then toured the Banaue Museum of Ifugao Culture, had one more nasty mayonnaise sandwich, and boarded the bullet-hole riddled Autobus (see pic) at 6pm for the frigid (A/C on full blast) 10-hour trip back to Manila, where we were treated to obscure Japanese movies such as "My Wife is a Gangster 4". We arrived back in Manila around 4am, and promptly got ripped off by the taxi driver on the way to the hotel - ah, southeast Asia! :)

Banaue Viewpoint

Bus to Manila

Flying High on Boracay!!!

2010-03-08T12:02:00.000-06:00

It's been awhile since I've posted, and as some of you know, Brian and I are currently on our way back to the US due to my mom's health condition. We've spent an adventurous past 3 weeks in the Philippines and Singapore, though, so for the time being, I'll continue to post of our travels for at least a couple more weeks.

Our journey from Phuket to Boracay Island in the Philippines was an arduous one, with an 8-hour layover and airport change in Bangkok, a very odd 3-hour “overnight” flight from 12:30am-4:30am (a one-hour time change) where they kept us awake the whole time trying to hawk “duty free” items, another airport change in Manila (the airport shuttle driver refused to take us because we were only 2 people, even though driving the shuttle was his JOB), a short flight on a SEAIR propeller plane to Caticlan airport (most airlines have stopped flying here because the runway is just *barely* long enough in good weather conditions – there have been a few recent mishaps), a 20-minute boat ride over to Boracay Island, and finally a ride in a motorcycle sidecar (a "tricycle") to our guesthouse. Whew!

Ferry to Boracay

Tricycle

Once we arrived at White Beach though, it was all worth it. We stayed down at Station 3, on a quieter end of the beach, and spent a lot of time just walking up and down the sandy path along the beach, lined with restaurants and shops, free from traffic and those freakin' tuk-tuks! The only negative was all of the hawkers, trying to sell tours, sunglasses, jewelry – you name it. Our guesthouse wasn't great, but it did have a couple of very cute 1-month old kittens! (see pic)

Beach Path

Kitten

We got settled in, and spent our first evening watching the sunset (see pic), eating halo halo for dessert (a Filipino specialty of shaved ice, milk, ube ice cream, fruit gel cubes, corn, boiled beans, and other assorted fruits, see pic), and strolling up and down the beach listening to all the live music that kicks up after dark. The chill vibe in the evenings was really fantastic – probably the highlight of the island. :)

Sunset from White Beach

Halo Halo

The following day we took a tricycle up to Mt. Luho, and hiked up to the top for stunning views of the entire island (see pic). Then we made our way to the Puka Shell Beach, named after the large number of puka shells found there (see pic). After dinner back on White Beach, we were surprised by a spectacular random fireworks show over the water, coming from one of the wooden boats. They even launched parachute flares at the end! (see pic) We later surmised that this fancy display may have been in celebration of People Power Day, which commemorates the People Power Revolution of 1986, when Marcos was run out on a rail.

Puka Shell Beach

Parachute Flares

The next morning we decided to take the ferry back over to Caticlan to do some hiking on the Island of Panay up to Nasog Point. We got as far as taking a tricycle to the town of Malay before things really started to go downhill. We had some vague directions from the internet, but Southeast Asia doesn't really follow a concept of “marked trails”, so after a long arduous uphill climb in the heat, we were lost with no idea where the point might actually be. We made the mistake of stopping to ask some locals, whereupon one of the very drunk men agreed to lead us on the trail (expecting a hefty “tip” of course). As we walked, more people kept joining in to follow us, also in hopes that we would pay them a little something too. After about an hour of this, we arrived at a random beach, but still no sign of Nasog Point. By this time we were just ready to be done, so we got the “guide” to lead us back to the road, and then paid him off to leave. It definitely makes it a lot harder to interact with the locals when every single thing they do for you, whether it is giving directions, holding a door open, letting you take a picture, pretty much anything, is met with the expectation of receiving a “tip” in exchange. But it definitely was an interesting day!

We decided to get adventurous the next morning and go parasailing off the coast of White Beach. It was cheap – only $39/person! (I don't know if that's really a good thing or not, haha.) It was a little bit scary, but we got some great views of the island while flying high in the eerily quiet air. And the crew of the boat took some pics of us, too:

Up	Up
And Away!

Overall, we enjoyed Boracay a whole lot more than Phuket – less crowded, very few Americans, better food, lack of a 'bar girl' scene, and altogether just a better atmosphere. :)

Hiking, Kayaking, and Snorkeling in Southern Thailand

2010-02-23T10:15:00.007-06:00

After a couple days in the hut, we decided we were ready to return to modern amenities, and booked a guesthouse down at Karon Beach. But before heading down that way, we drove a few hours north east into the Phang Nga Province to Khao Sok National Park, one of the last remaining remnants of Thailand rainforest - home to gibbons, elephants, tapir, tigers, and the giant Rafflesia flower. We hiked the main waterfall trail, but being the dry season, there wasn't much to see in the way of waterfalls, but that also meant we didn't have to deal with the abundant leeches that plague the trails at other times of the year! We did get to see giant bamboo, huge trees, and numerous species of lizards and birds... but were unsuccessful in locating the giant rare Rafflesia flower, which only blooms for one day. Overall a nice hike, though!

	Bamboo dwarfs Brian

We got settled in down at Karon Beach, which was quite a change of scenery from the quiet Mai Khao beach (see pic). The area was teeming with tourists, primarily Russians and Europeans, and we were constantly stalked by tuk-tuks, which look like tiny red pick-up trucks here (see pic). On our way to play some Dino Putt-Putt, I was finally able to snap a picture of the baby elephant street begging (see pic). The animal was surrounded by tourists eager to give money to feed the elephant and have their picture taken - if you look closely, you can see the scared baby elephant in the middle. We also passed a funny sign advertising a performance by "The King of Thai Elvis" (see pic) - I guess he's alive after all! :)

Tuk-Tuks	Karon Beach
Elephant begging	Thai Elvis

The following day we decided to visit Khao Phra Thaeo National Park, which is home to the Gibbon Rehabilitation Center (see pic). Many street beggars here use baby gibbons as a gimmick to get money (they shoot the mothers in the wild and steal the babies), but once the animals reach maturity, they often become violent and are abused and abandoned. This center takes in these gibbons and rehabilitates them so that they can hopefully be returned to the wild again one day. After touring the Gibbon area, we continued on the main trail up to Khao Phra Thaeo waterfall, which wasn't very impressive, but we did see this really cool giant vine! (see pic)

Gibbon

Giant Vine

We got up early the next day for our self-paddle sea kayak caves tour in Phang Nga with Sea Canoe, and headed out on a large boat with about 15 other people. We arrived at the site and set off in our kayak (see pic), passing macaque monkeys in the wild and eagles soaring overhead. When we got to the cave, however, it turned out to be so jammed with other tourists that our kayak got stuck; we had to get out and swim through the pitch-black cave amongst a huge claustrophobic cluster of canoes to finally reach the mangrove lagoon on the other side (see pic). It was an interesting experience though! And we did see some really cool walking fish hanging out on the mangrove branches. (see pic)

Sea Canoe Traffic

Walking Fish

We spent our last day in Phuket on a day-long snorkeling tour on a speed boat out to Phi Phi Island, Maya Bay (where "The Beach" was filmed, see pic), and Monkey Beach. Again, the vast number of tourists everywhere really detracted from the scenery, but we did get to see the caves where locals harvest birds nests for "birds nest" soup (an Asian delicacy), lots of baby jellyfish (and lots of barbs that stung us in the water), and the "wild" monkeys on the beach eating bags of chips and drinking from bottles people had left behind (really sad, actually). We did stop for lunch at a relatively un-touristed beach, though, and were able to do some nice snorkeling there. Overall, to us it seems that Phuket has become so over-touristed that it really takes away from the overall experience of the place. But now we're off to Boracay Island in the Philippines to do some comparisons!

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, the Austin IRS-building plane crash did in fact make the front page of the Thai paper. (see pic)

Sleeping in Huts with Giant Spiders and Other Creepy Crawlies

2010-02-22T08:30:00.008-06:00

After almost two weeks in Chiang Mai, Brian and I headed up north to the mountains for a 4-day vegetarian cooking course at PunPun Organic Farm. We saw on the fancy website that we would be sleeping in mud huts, but boy was it a surprise to find that our mud hut (see pic) was a 10-minute walk up the mountain from the farm, had no real windows or doors, no electricity, a twin bed for us to share, a smelly mosquito net with a ton of holes, a squat toilet in the woods with no toilet paper, and an outdoor cold shower. If it hadn't been so cumbersome to get to the place, I think we would have left as soon as we arrived! Oh, and did I mention the 4-inch spider living in the bed?? Gah! The first night we hiked back up to the hut after dinner in the dark with only our headlamps to find that a bird had taken residence in our room; I shrieked and left the hut, while Brian found a random broom to shoo it out with... only it flew directly toward my headlamp, whacking me straight in the forehead! I swore that I was going to leave once the sun came up again.

In the end, we ended up sticking it out for the 4 days, and actually met some pretty cool people. There were two other women in our cooking class, and 20 interns staying at the farm building a new mud kitchen, mostly couples our age also on round-the-world trips. Their huts had electricity and actual windows and doors, though, hehe. We got a guided tour of the farm and gardens, did a couple hikes, learned to make 11 different dishes, and also made our own soymilk and tofu from scratch. And we saw some beautiful sunsets due to all the haze from the burning fields in the area! (see pic)

Roselle fruit	Wing bean
Banana flower	Banana flower salad we made
Cooking class

Making soymilk and tofu:

Step 1: Grinding soybeans	Step 2: Squeezing out the liquid
Step 3: Boiling the soy milk liquid	Step 4: Adding curdling agent
Step 5: Press the curds to make tofu

We returned to Chiang Mai for one more day after the cooking course to do laundry and take a warm shower, and then flew out the next day for a one-week stay at the southern Thailand beaches in Phuket. For our first two nights, we stayed in a $15 rudimentary bamboo beach hut (see pic) on the isolated Mai Khao beach on the northwest side of the island.

It had a great view (see pic) and we really enjoyed the quiet beach, but unfortunately the hut had another resident giant spider (see pic), my foot got attacked by sandflies (see pic), a crab pinched my big toe in the ocean, and the lack of A/C turned out to be little more cumbersome at the beach than in the mountains. We did get to see a herd of buffalo come wandering by on one of our beach walks, which was pretty cool, though! (see pic)

Giant Spider	Sand fly attack
Buffalo on the beach

Food and Other Oddities from Thailand

2010-02-18T10:11:00.007-06:00

Waffle-wrapped banana on a stick

Blocks of solidified frozen chicken blood at the market

Our green curry came with this free roach leg! Yay?

Black-colored mound of grass jello - it's supposed to be good, but I decided to pass. My stomach was still a bit queasy from the roach-leg incident...

Sugar cane machine at the Flower Festival

Festival-stand pizza... gotta love the spray cheese on top!

Pandan-custard bun and taro balloon from the pastry shop - yummy!

Inside of the pandan-custard bun

We've had some trouble finding vegetarian food here, and sure enough, our bag of peanuts from the plane ride wasn't even vegetarian!

Even the wheelchair-bound need scooters - just roll into the side cart and use the controls to drive the motorcycle.

Just a few of the many whitening products on the shelves here... I had a really hard time finding 'non-whitening' facewash!

And last but not least, a typical Thai public toilet, complete with a bucket of water for 'wiping' and flushing. :)

It's a Sign!

2010-02-17T08:21:00.005-06:00

Here are some funny signs we've seen here in Thailand:

Chicago style... Chinese food??

Hey - it's my team!

"Smarter Choice"--was this 2 marketing slogans ago? or was it 3..or 4?

Gotta watch out for those elderly that refrain from running...

Maybe it's not such a good sign if even the B&B is encouraging you to stay home.

Not sure I want to find out what they serve at this cafe...

Do the angel wings and halo really make this sign any less offensive?

Okay, I know this is a bit juvenile. :)

This sign was on the back of a tuktuk we passed:

Stop! (Don't worry, it's just a suggestion here.)

Flower Festival, Another Market, and a Monk in a Box!

2010-02-16T09:11:00.007-06:00

So Brian and I decided to change up our plans a bit, and are now sunbathing (and sunburned!) in Phuket rather than tooling around Kuala Lumpur. This weekend we head off to the Philippines for a couple weeks, then Singapore, and then to New Zealand for some late-summer hiking. And then I think we'll jump back on course with our original plan and head to India, etc. Neither of us wanted to see any more freakin' wats (see below), plus burning season has started in the fields here, so now I have a chronic "Thai cough", blech. It turns out the Japanese know what they're doing with those masks after all! "I think I'm turning Japanese..." :)

We had planned part of our stay in Chiang Mai around being in town for the large annual Flower Festival, which did not disappoint. There was a huge parade with flower floats and bands (similar to the Parade of Roses in CA, except much hotter outside), flower competitions, performances every night, and a beauty contest. My favorite float was the one with the purple and white pandas. :) Here are a few more pics:

Since it was our last weekend in town, we strolled through the Sunday Walking Street market again to pick up a few more goods to send home. I also was finally able to get a picture of one of the bands made up of blind street musicians, and an orchestra of students playing the Saw-U, a traditional Thailand string instrument made from a coconut.

And last but not least, we ventured down the street from our B&B to Wat Chedi Man, where I had heard rumors that there were creepy life-size wax monks in boxes, and sure enough, it did not disappoint! (see pic) This Wat also had one of those fortune teller machines that gives you your fortune and lucky number for a small fee (usually we see them at carnivals in the US), and a number of "gift shop" tables inside. Brian and I haven't really been able to discern any "sacredness" around any of the temples we've visited - they've all just been gaudy buildings with giant gold Buddhas that are used to convince the Thai people to constantly give donations in exchange for "good luck". We've seen horrible animal abuse at the Wats - monks kicking dogs, birds trapped in tiny baskets that you can pay to release for good luck (see pic)... and the Thai form of Buddhism certainly doesn't encourage vegetarianism! From what I've read, the rampant prostitution and infidelity here is also largely due to Buddhism's lack of a social ethics. I guess whatever works for them, though... it isn't like we don't have some pretty kooky religions ourselves in the US! I think we'll pass on the Wats from now on, though.

Mountains, Gardens, and Caves

2010-02-07T05:31:00.006-06:00

The following day we hopped on a songtao headed up Doi Suthep, the mountain west of Chiang Mai that Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep sits atop of. Unfortunately after climbing the 309 steps to the top and paying the entry fee, we discovered that the gold chedi was under construction (probably the reason for the big "No Refunds" sign out front!). We were able to get a nice view of hazy Chiang Mai and a nice jackfruit tree, though.

Jackfruit

Hazy Chiang Mai

The next day we decided to venture onto the roads again, this time in a rental car (a beat up Honda Jazz). After a slight mix-up with the rental car company (we unknowingly were given someone else's car), we were finally on our way, this time about 2 hours southwest of the city to the highest mountain in Thailand, Doi Inthanon. We visited a ton of waterfalls, the 2 chedis on the hill, hiked the Ang-Na Nature Trail (which has a spur trail to a helicopter crash memorial site), and finally made it to the summit of the mountain (the highest point in Thailand). We were eager to hike the Kew Mae Pan Nature Trail, but decided against it when we learned we would have to hire a mandatory "local guide" who didn't speak English and expected us to provide him with food and water for the 2-hour hike. Overall it was a really nice day though, with lots of beautiful sights.

Mae Ya Falls	Mae Klang Waterfall
Wachirathan Falls	Sirithan Waterfall
Chedis	View from Chedis
Ang Ka Helicopter Crash Victim's Spirit House	Highest spot in Thailand

We kept the car again the following day, and headed first to the Queen Sirikit Botanical Garden, which has a lot of beautiful trails, greenhouse plants, and a waterfall. We enjoyed a couple hours there, despite the hundreds of unsupervised Thai schoolchildren who were running around everywhere! Here are some pics:

Bottle Tree	Carnivorous Plant - The lid closes when insect enters
Orchid	Water Lily
Brian with giant rainforest leaf	Unidentified Pink Flower

Our last stop of the day was 2 hours north, near the border of Burma, at the Chiang Dao caves. These are five interconnected caves that extend more than 7.5 miles underneath Doi Chiang Dao. We again were forced to hire a "local guide" for a significant amount of money, but since we had driven so far, we decided to go for it anyway. Unfortunately the only words she knew were "elephant", "chicken", and "diamonds", so all of the cave formations were described to us using one of those three terms. We're still getting used to the whole "having to hire a guide and getting no educational value out of the tour" thing here in Thailand, but I guess it does give the locals a source of income. Certainly wouldn't fly in the US, though! Overall the caves were really interesting to see, and we were encouraged to take pictures and touch the rocks, which are big no-nos in the caves I've toured before, hehe. My favorites were the "elephant rocks". :-P Here are some pics:

Us in the cave	"Chicken"
"Elephants"	Some ominous religious thing near Chiang Dao cave

Our First Few Days in Chiang Mai

2010-02-06T05:17:00.007-06:00

We've been here in Chiang Mai for about a week now, and so far things are going MUCH better than in Bangkok (well, aside from waking up yesterday to look out the window and see a tuktuk driver trying to steal the windshield wipers off our rental car, ha). Here's a picture overlooking the Mae Ping River and the Mountains - you can see a couple red pick-up trucks with benches in the back ("songtaos"); they (along with tuktuks) are the main form of public transportation here since there are very few buses or cabs. You just hail one down that's going in your direction, and jump in the back!

We arrived last Thursday afternoon, and in the evening made our way down to the large Night Market, where we bought one of these nifty lampshades (see pic) for our kitchen. Shopping seems to be THE favorite pastime of the Thais - there's always a market going on somewhere! Some are permanent markets, primarily utilitarian, while others are street markets, where crowds of people just stroll along, looking, shopping, and eating. Thai masseurs also set up comfy chairs for cheap foot massages on the side if your feet need a break from all the shopping!

The next morning we headed out to the Friday morning Hilltribe produce market (see pic), where members of the indigenous tribes come down from the mountains to sell their crops and meats. We saw a lot of odd root vegetables and animal products that we would probably find revolting even if we weren't vegetarian, like these gray chickens (see pic). Afterward we checked out the Lam Yai Market and the Wororat Market before taking a tuktuk over to the Chiang Mai National Museum (which covers Ancient Lanna culture), and grabbing a songtao back to the B&B.

The next day, we got up early for our vegetarian cooking course at May Kaidee's Cooking School (see pic), which began with a trip to the market, and then continued with an intense 4 hours where we each made ~15 Thai dishes, ranging from salads to spring rolls to curries to pad thai and even mango sticky rice! I have never been a huge fan of Thai food, but finally being able to cut out the spicyness myself has opened up a whole new culinary world for me. :) The food was fantastic, and we left there exhausted with our bellies stuffed and many full to-go containers. That evening we hit up the Saturday Market, where we partook in delicious street waffles and watched numerous blind street musicians sing karaoke or play various instruments up and down the street for donations. Some were quite good, but there were a couple that I wondered if maybe they were deaf too. :-P

On Sunday, we decided to get brave and rent a scooter to tool around the countryside (see pic), which was easier said than done since a) no one follows any sort of road rules, b) people here drive on the left (when they aren't barreling down the middle!) and c) I don't know how to ride a bike, so Brian had to cope with all my wobbling on the back. But it all turned out well - we only ran off the road once, and since we were on a scooter it wasn't a huge deal when we ended up driving on the wrong side a couple times. :) We ended up riding east of the city out to San Kampaeng Hot Springs, a park popular with locals. There's a hot springs stream to soak your feet in (see pic), and even a hot pool to boil eggs in (see pic). The eggs seem to be the big draw, as there's a huge egg statue in the middle of the gardens (see pic).

Brian on scooter	Boiling eggs
People enjoying the hot springs	Hot springs garden

That evening we returned to town and headed to the Sunday Walking Street Market (see pic), which stretches all the way across the Old Town section of the city. Brian had tired of markets by this point, but I went on to purchase a few more gifts (on a side note, we ventured to the Post Office today to mail all of these purchases back - even sending them on the 3-month boat, I think it negated any cost savings from buying things over here, haha).

The next day we took a group tour out to the Elephant Nature Park, a sanctuary for abused elephants. This has definitely been our favorite day in Thailand so far. We were able to feed the elephants, including a female who was blinded by a logging industry employee when she refused to work after he had killed her baby, and we helped bathe an elephant with a broken back from forced breeding and one whose foot was blown off by a land mine. We saw many more with injuries on their heads from the hooks used to give rides at the other elephant camps in the area, and we watched a video on the horrible "training" that these tourist elephants are forced to endure. I even got a kiss on the cheek from one of the elephants! It was nice to be able to help the elephants instead of just exploiting them, and we were really really glad that we had chosen to come to this sanctuary instead of the other elephant camps. I would encourage anyone visiting Thailand to do the same. It's astonishing how cruelly the Thais treat these creatures that are so revered in their culture. Later on back in Chiang Mai, we were out walking at night and saw a couple of men taking a baby elephant down the street soliciting donations - the elephant was terrified, and the men kept pinching its ears to get it to squeal for entertainment. At least the elephants at the shelter are finally living a better life. :) Here are some pics from our day at the Elephant Nature Park:

Ready to eat!	Susan feeding elephant
Bathtime!	Brian washing elephant
Elephant injured by land mine	Elephant with broken back
Elephant kissing Susan	Baby elephant

Bangkok Oddities

2010-02-01T10:16:00.008-06:00

We've been in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand for a few days now, and are happy to report that the atmosphere is much nicer here than in Bangkok (both literally and figuratively!) First though, I'm going to finish up a few more Bangkok photos of odd things we saw around town:

I guess whatever will sell burgers...

Hmm... wonder where the R.Alf Lauren store is?

Anything goes with the wiring!

Yet they have these super-advanced "Google traffic" signs...

These "Fish Massage" places are all over - you stick your feet in a tank of fish and they eat off all of the dead skin cells. I think I'll pass.

We saw a ton of these "cleaning supplies" sales carts rolling down the street, but couldn't for the life of us figure out who was actually buying (or using) any of these items!

And I know you've missed the toilets, so here's a typical Thai toilet with the spray hose to be used on the derriere - except the problem with this bathroom is that they decided to be artistic and cover the floor with stones...which meant that all that poo water sprayed from people's behinds was retained under the rocks, giving a horrible stench to the place. Maybe they should invest in some supplies from the cart above...

One Night in Bangkok...

2010-01-29T04:19:00.005-06:00

...and your lungs burn, your wallet's empty, and your ego is bruised. :( Our problems first began while we were still in the LA airport, being denied boarding passes for our flight to Thailand. Apparently there's been a long-standing, not very well publicized rule (that until now has been rarely enforced), requiring tourists entering Thailand to have proof of a departing ticket within 30 days. We had planned on leaving within 30 days over land to Laos, so we had no official ticket to show, and thus could not board our flight. Luckily we had arrived 3 hours early at the airport, so we bought the wireless internet and jumped online to try to find some sort of ticket to take us out of Thailand that wouldn't empty our bank account. Thanks to AirAsia.com, we now have $100 one-way tickets to Kuala Lumpur on February 13th, and were able to get on our flight at the last minute. I hope Malaysia is nice!

After a very long flight to Bangkok that included layovers in Taipei and Hong Kong, we finally arrived and made our way by taxi to the B&B, which was located ~1 hour away from the tourist areas in a local neighborhood. We spent the evening perusing the "Fresh Market" - rows of sidewalk stands selling food items that we never found anywhere near the tourist sections of town - pretty much any kind of guts and raw animal you could imagine. The stench was foul! We also ran into many older white men strolling around with their young Thai "girlfriends", which was quite a sight to see.

The following day we took the MRT (underground subway) to the Chatuchak Weekend Market (see pic), which with 5000+ stalls on over 35 acres, is by far the largest market in Thailand. Here you can find almost anything at rock-bottom prices, but we only picked up a couple small gifts since we're traveling light. Afterwards we set out on a journey to find Chomlong Mangsawirat, a local vegetarian buffet run by the Vegetarian Society. After an hour of searching through backroads and getting soaked by the pouring rain, we finally were pointed in the right direction and had a fantastic plate of food for 15 baht (~50 cents). We also met a local vegetarian shopkeeper who gave us a lot of good tips (this was before we got jaded about talking to the locals, heh). Afterward, we took the Skytrain (BTS) over to Siam, the major upscale shopping district of Bangkok, but didn't stay long.

The next morning we got on the un-airconditioned local bus (see pic) for the 1-hour trip to the main tourist area to see the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (traffic in Bangkok is horrible, and they definitely have the smog to show for it). Honestly, we didn't find either very impressive - I guess gold flake and disco mirrors just aren't our style (see pics) - so afterward we negotiated with a taxi driver to take us down to Khao San Road, the main "gringo" area. After traveling about 100 feet, the tuk tuk driver informed us that instead of taking us to our destination, we would be stopping to shop for some "Thai fashion" (this is an extremely common scam - the drivers get commissions from the shops). We offered to up our price if he would just take us to our destination, but he adamantly refused, so we busted out of the tuk tuk and ran. :)

We walked to Khao San Road (see pic), which, sure enough, was full of white people and more Thais aggressively trying to sell things and scam us. We got some vegetarian food (much easier to find here than in the rest of the city), then took the very crowded Chao Phraya Express boat (see pic) down the river to the State Tower, where we had drinks overlooking the smog, I mean city, from the dome on top (see pic).

The next day was the worst of our entire trip so far, and has really jaded us on Bangkok. While exiting the MRT station on our way to the Forensic Science Museum, a well-dressed Thai man helped us cross the street (the cars and numerous scooters here don't bother stopping for anyone or anything) and then began chatting with us, saying he was in town for a teachers conference and was just strolling around town before his train that evening. He asked if we'd like to walk with him for a few minutes since we were going the same way and he could point out some landmarks. We were like "alright, whatever"... and before we knew it, he had ushered us into a cab heading to another part of the city. We arrived at a temple with a giant sitting Buddha inside, with very few tourists, which was pretty neat (see pic), so we thought maybe the guy was genuinely trying to be kind (we now know that "self-serving" rather than "kind" is the prevailing trait of Bangkokians). He paid for the cab himself, and said he would take us on a short cruise down the canals of old Bangkok, so we stupidly agreed to go. And 2 hours later when he had us trapped on the boat and robbed us of all our money, we decided we were really really done with Bangkok. So here's a piece of advice for anyone planning a visit: People in Bangkok who speak any amount of English are out to screw you over. Don't talk to ANYONE.

We spent the last couple of days in the city yelling at anyone who approached us to "Go F Themselves" (is this really the kind of person that Bangkok has driven us to be???), finally made it to the Forensic Science Museum to see the bodies of accident victims (pretty interesting, actually), and viewed the Marble Temple. We've eaten bad pizza for most meals since vegetarian food is extremely difficult to find here, and can't wait for our flight up to Chiang Mai in the mountains of Northern Thailand, which is supposed to be a much nicer place than nasty mean Bangkok. (see pic of view from our B&B)

Galapagos Cruise: Days 4-8

2010-01-21T20:33:00.016-06:00

We're currently in LA with a few hours to kill before our 21-hour flight to Bangkok, so I might as well get caught up with the blog. :)

We spent the next five days of the cruise exploring Floreana, Isabela, Fernandina, Santiago, and Bartolome Islands, getting up at 5am to see sea turtles nesting, snorkeling with penguins and sharks, riding through mangrove bays to watch penguins chasing large schools of jumping fish, and hiking to areas where we could view flamingos, penguins, flightless cormorants, blue-footed boobies, iguanas, sea lions, rays, pelicans, and more, participating in their feeding/breeding activities. Seeing penguins and flamingos in the same place is very surreal, haha. Oh - and we got to see small Galapagos dolphins (~1m) playing at a distance, and then the next day got to watch a huge pod of bottlenose dolphins follow the front of the ship's bow, jumping and diving. Amazing! Unfortunately, I did lose some clothes off the back of the ship that I hung out to dry - maybe there's a sea turtle swimming along in my tie-dye shirt somewhere. :)

Here are our favorite pics:

Punta Cormoran	Nesting Sea Turtle
Flamingos	Post Office Bay
Golden Rays	Lava Cactus colonizing new lava fields
Oasis on new lava field	Lava Injuries
Blue Footed Boobies	All together now
Galapagos Penguin	Boobies feeding
Blue Heron Chicks in Nest	Dinghy Ride
Dinghy in Sunset	Land Iguana
Marine Iguana returning from feeding	Sally Lightfoot Crab
Us with the Marine Iguanas	Flightless Cormorants
Marine Iguana	Lava Cacti
Galapagos Fur Sea Lion	Pelican
Pelicans feeding on fish head	Crabs scavenging fish head
Dolphin jumping beside Samba	Dolphin swimming in front of the Samba
View from Pinnacle Rock	Samba shipmates

Galapagos Cruise: Days 1-3

2010-01-21T00:10:00.013-06:00

We haven't had a lot of internet access lately, but we're in LA for the night (yes, in the flooding) getting ready for our Bangkok flight tomorrow, so I think I'll take advantage of the free wifi at the hotel to post another blog entry. :)

Our fourth day in Ecuador, we took one of a handful of the daily flights from Quito to Guayaquil to the Island of Baltra in the Galapagos for our 8-day cruise. At the airport we met the other passengers on our ship, the Samba, and our naturalist guide Juan, who grew up in the Galapagos. We were expecting the boat to be full of rich retirees, but surprisingly out of the 13 passengers, five were our age (including a couple of lawyers who had also just quit their jobs to start a trip around the world), six were in their early-50s, and only two were older. There were 5 Americans, 2 French Canadians, 4 Germans, and 2 Swiss. The old German guy was incredibly stinky!

We set sail shortly after lunch, which is when the fun began for Brian and I, as we spent the whole afternoon puking overboard. On the bright side though, our vomit attracted lots of nice fish, seabirds, and sea turtles! We were really glad to land about four hours later on South Plaza Island, where we got our first nice viewings of marine iguanas (the only sea-going lizard in the world), land iguanas (waiting for the prickly pear flowers to fall to eat), sally lightfoot crabs, sea lions, and numerous sea birds, scattered amongst a landscape of Galapagos sea carpet and giant prickly pear trees (they have evolved to be MUCH larger than the ones in Texas to ward off hungry iguanas and turtles).

Our Galapagos Route	The Samba
Our tiny cabin	South Plaza Island
Swallow-tailed gull and chick	Land Iguana
Sea Lion & baby

After taking a few Dramamine pills, Brian and I were feeling much better the next morning, so we took the dinghy with the rest of the passengers out to the Charles Darwin Research Station in Puerto Ayora (pop. ~18,000) on Santa Cruz Island. Here we saw even larger prickly pear trees, baby tortoises being reared, examples of the different types of dome and saddleback tortoise shells on the islands (there were 14 different species here in the Galapagos – three are now extinct), and we got to see Lonesome George, the last remaining tortoise species from Pinta Island, who never learned breeding techniques as a youngster in the wild (due to a lack of other tortoises), so now will not reproduce.

After that outing, we walked down to the dock area of Puerto Ayora to pick up a few things and check email (our only internet access for the whole cruise), and then boarded a bus up to the highlands area of the Island. All of the Galapagos Islands are volcanic, mostly forming over a hotspot and then drifting southeast (Hawaii is similar, except the islands have moved to the northwest, with the Big Island now containing the hotspot). Santa Cruz is one of the older islands, so it has had time to develop soil and establish mature ecosystems, unlike some of the other islands. Up in the highlands, we visited Los Gemelos, which is an area with two collapsed volcanic craters that is now dominated by a forest of Scalesia (a type of daisy that evolved into a large tree here) and various epiphytes. After that hike, we traveled to an area of private land where we walked through an ancient lava tunnel and saw wild dome tortoises foraging for food and water.

The following morning we had a wet landing at 6am from the dinghy onto a white sand beach at Gardner Bay on Espanola Island (the oldest), which was teeming with sea lions, marine iguanas, and sea birds. After a few hours of walking and sunbathing, we returned to the boat to pick up a sea kayak, and spent the rest of the morning kayaking around the coast of nearby Gardner Island. That afternoon we took a hike at Punta Suarez on Espanola Island, where we saw numerous nesting Nazca Boobies (also known as masked boobies, they are famous for their “siblicide”- the oldest chick to hatch always kills the younger one), marine iguanas, other seabirds, and a few young albatross preparing to leave the island (they will be at sea for ~5 years until returning to nest). We also caught a baby sea lion chasing the tail of a visibly annoyed marine iguana just for fun. :)

Here are a few pics:

Different types of shells	Giant Prickly Pear
Lonesome George (Pinta Saddleback)	Puerto Ayora
Scalesia Trees	Lava tunnel
Wild dome tortoise	Sea lions on Espanola
Courting Nazca Boobies	Nazca Booby and chick
Young Albatross	Sea Lion chasing iguana

Hola Ecuador!

2010-01-19T20:22:00.006-06:00

After a rough journey, with a 5.5-hour delay in Miami and a 1.5- hour wait in the Quito customs line, we were glad to finally arrive at our hotel around 2:30am to get a few hours sleep before our tour the next day. Six hours later, our guide Jorge picked us up and off we went to Ciudad Mitad del Mundo – the Middle of the World, which is along latitude 00º00'00”. Rather than stopping at the monument, which is located where the French first marked the spot, we traveled to the Inti-nan Museum, which contains the actual GPS-marked spot (see pic). We got to participate in goofy 'equator' experiments that were exaggerations at best, such as the clockwise vs. counterclockwise water drainage and standing an egg on its end, plus view some exhibits on Incan culture, like this actual shrunken head of a 12-year-old boy and sloth (see pic).

Next we traveled to El Panecillo, which has fantastic views looking down on the city (see pic). Quito is situated in the valleys at ~10,000 feet (twice the elevation of Denver) flanked by volcanoes, so the 2 million residents are squeezed into a very long narrow area of land, and smog is rampant. This hill is also home to the “Winged Virgin of Quito” metal statue (see pic). Here we stopped at a stand to buy a 25-cent cone of strawberry meringue fluff (see pic – that's not ice cream!).

On our drive back down the hill, I asked Jorge to pull over at a roadside stand so I could pick up a “guaba de machete”, which looks like a giant green bean about 2 feet long (see pic). Inside the fruit are edible 'cotton-balls' with big black seeds inside (see pic). Yummy!

After our descent, we drove into the Old Town section of Quito, which has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO due to the preservation of colonial architecture. The area was swarming with activity, and since it was Sunday, many of the streets were closed to cars, cutting way down on the air pollution. We walked to Plaza San Francisco for another view of the Virgin statue (see pic), La Compania, the Governor's Palace, and Plaza de la Indepencia (see pic). We also bought some fantastic Ecuadorian chocolate, and Brian purchased a trendy handmade Panama hat. On the way back to our hotel in the touristy Mariscal Sucre area of town, a little local boy started following me whining for my machete guava... he continued for a few minutes until finally I turned and snapped “Don't touch my bean!” and he finally left us alone. :)

The following day Jorge again picked us up early for the long bumpy drive on gravel roads out to the Cotopaxi volcano – the highest active volcano in the world at 19,347 feet. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate, and the entire day was just rain and fog with no view of the volcano. I did buy a postcard and take a picture of it though, so here is a picture of us in the rain, and a picture of the volcano that you should be seeing in the background behind all that fog.

After a disappointing day at the volcano, we returned to the Mariscal Sucre area to explore La Mariscal Craft Market, which has extremely cheap local crafts. The currency in Ecuador is the US dollar, but goods tend to be much cheaper; gasoline is especially cheap since oil is found in abundance here. We purchased a scarf, a woven coin purse, and a little turtle made of Tagua nut (vegetable ivory) (see pic). We decided to forgo the cuy (guinea pig) for dinner (see pic), but did try the corn beer (chicha), potato cheese and avocado soup (locro), llapingachos, and empanadas. Then we returned to the hotel to prepare for our early flight to the Galapagos the next day!

Our Final Frigid Days in Russia

2010-01-08T14:46:00.005-06:00

Alright, I'm going to buckle down and finish up our tales of Russia... now that I have procrastinated to the last day before we leave again. :) Our second day in St. Petersburg, my brother Edward sent us off to the Winter Palace/Hermitage for the day, while he perused the flea markets for old Soviet cookware. The Winter Palace was the official residence of the Russian Tsars from 1732 to 1917 and now houses the huge State Hermitage Museum of art and culture (see pic). As with most of the museums in Russia, the entry fee cost several times as much for foreigners as for locals - even though most of the exhibit explanations were written only in Russian. So we couldn't understand what we were looking at, and we had to pay considerably more. And then there of course was another fee to use cameras in the museum (also common). But such is life.

Brian and I really could take or leave the art (hehe), but just seeing the interior of the palace was worth the entry fee. There are over a thousand rooms, most designed in an extremely ornate Baroque-style, using gold, marble, and malachite (a dark green mineral). Here is a picture of the Guard Room, with an example of the impressive gold columns found throughout the palace. It would take multiple days to get through the entire museum.

The following day we headed out to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery and Cemetery, which contains the tombs of Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Dostoevsky, and other famous Russians. My goal was to find the grave of Rimsky-Korsakov, the composer of one of my favorite pieces, "Scheherazade". I searched and searched to no avail, then went back and checked the map... and finally located a shed, covering his grave for the winter. :( So here's a picture of Rimsky-Korsakov's "winter shed".

An extreme cold front was beginning to blow in, so we decided to make the rounds of some of the city's cathedrals. We walked to the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood (see pic), which is the only building in St. Petersburg with the traditional Russian medieval architecture (like in Moscow). The rest of the city was built in a European Baroque/Neoclassical style.

Afterwards, we ventured into the Kazan Cathedral and St. Issac's Cathedral, before hiding out from the cold for awhile in the Gostiny Dvor department store. Here are pictures of the inside and outside of St. Issac's.

For dinner, we made the frigid walk over to Idiot Vegetarian Restaurant, where I had delicious patties made from broccoli and brussels sprouts covered with sunflower seeds and sour cream. (see pic) Then we shuffled back to the hotel in the extreme cold - here's a pic looking down the sidewalk at some of the "Christmas" lights. (New Years is the big present-swapping holiday in Russia; the Russian Orthodox Christmas is observed on January 7th due to the Julian Calendar.)

The next morning we checked out of the hotel and ventured to the Museum of Hygiene, which we didn't get a lot out of since we couldn't read the exhibits. We then made the mistake of trying to buy stamps at a Russian post office - I have a feeling that Brian and I are going to have a lot of trying times at foreign post offices, haha. After over an hour of chaos with Russians screaming and no one knowing what line to be in, we finally gave up and luckily were able to find stamps elsewhere. That night, we took the overnight Nikolay's Express train back to Moscow (see pic), sharing our 4-berth coupe with a nice Russian man who surprisingly spoke fluent English. (The urine-cicle photo is from this train.)

We arrived back in Moscow the following morning, where it was currently -27C (-17F). My eyelids and nosehairs were crunchy, and the snot from my incessant runny nose froze all over the front of my face. Yay! Even the Russians were complaining about the temperature. There was only one thing worth braving that kind of cold for - more khatchapuri! So sure enough, we met my brother down at the Georgian boat restaurant again for dinner - this time the entire Moscow River had frozen over. Here's a picture of the 3 of us getting ready to go back outside - we could pass for trick-or-treaters. :) The next day Brian and I departed Moscow and arrived in balmy 40F Tennessee, 57 degrees warmer than where we had just come from. I'll take it!

Russian Oddities

2010-01-05T17:28:00.005-06:00

"Married with Children" tv show - Russian style. A friend of my brother's roommate used to be a writer for the American show, and was in Moscow helping to develop new episodes for the Russian version. Another popular sitcom over there is the Russian version of "The Nanny".

We saw this sign at the weekend market by the stands selling blue and white Uzbek pottery.

No offense, but I think I'll stick with Hanes.

Cosmonaut survival kit: These are the things you will need when fending off the bitter cold, bears, and drunk Russians when the capsule has once again gone ballistic and landed way off-target.

We had a heck of a time figuring out this microwave - rather than entering the cook time, you have to enter the type of cooking to be done, and the weight of the food in grams... I just pressed buttons until it started running. :)

One of the stainless steel "jail-type" toilets in the Hermitage.

I paid 17 rubles to use this lovely hole in the floor in the Moscow train station.

I just hate when I sit down somewhere and get stabbed by hypodermic needles... don't you?

I think this is my most prized picture of the entire Russian trip: One of the many urine-cicles hanging out of the bottom of the train bathrooms (they empty onto the tracks) on our frigid ride back to Moscow. :)

С НОВЫМ ГОДОМ! (Happy New Year!)

2010-01-01T16:33:00.005-06:00

Brian and I have actually spent the past couple of days in North Carolina for my grandmother's 93rd birthday, amusing ourselves by watching the old women zoom down the nursing home hallways in their electric wheel-chairs, sportin' the one-armed gangsta lean while trying to run down the other women who might be competing for the one or two men in the place (my grandmother got her foot run over!). Sigh. We spent a nice Christmas in Tennessee with my family, and will be heading back to Austin for a few days before taking off for Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands next weekend. But first, I need to get caught up with the blog. Back to Moscow (cue the fog and spirit fingers)....

We had to delay our departure to St. Petersburg by a few days to wait on Edward's visa paperwork, so we passed the time by visiting the Novodevichy Convent and Cemetery, which contains the graves of Yeltsin (a large flag monument, see pic), and Prokofiev (see pic). We also tagged along with Edward to a large shopping mall near his place and the large outdoor food market where he gets his odd blue "pumpkins", and finally started getting accustomed to the Metro subway system (with gorgeous stations - see pic). Finally his paperwork came through, and we departed on the overnight Smena train to St. Petersburg, an 8-hour trip. The three of us had a 4-berth coupe to ourselves, which was nice, but the thick cigarette smoke on the train kept me up most of the night. Blech!

We arrived in St. Petersburg at 6:45am, and made our way to the hotel, which of course wouldn't let us check in yet, but after a jumbled conversation with the night security man, we were told to leave our bags in someone's room (and half expected to never see our luggage again). We then ambled down Nevsky Prospect, cold and hungry, looking for anything that might be open - the sun wouldn't rise until 10am. We finally stumbled upon a 24-hour baked potato place, and got a "unique" breakfast - here is the picture of my potato, covered with 2 cheeses, mushrooms, and pickle pieces. It actually wasn't all that bad!

We killed some more time in a coffeeshop, then ventured to the Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic, which documents Soviet polar exploration. As we were heading through the rooms, one of the older gold-toothed female museum employees started mysteriously following us around and started lecturing Edward (in Russian) on what is wrong with Russia today. She claimed that all the young people just want to have "sex sex sex" instead of having large families, leading to a dissipation of sexual energy, and that subliminal messages in commercials (the work of the 25th cadre) were encouraging young people to start smoking, which makes the babushkas cry. Edward frantically translated for us during the long conversation - once he got one part translated, she would come back over and start up again.It didn't make a whole lot of sense, but was probably the most interesting part of the museum visit. :)

After that lesson in Russian culture, we headed to the center of town to the Kunstkammer Museum (the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology). I, of course, wanted to see the most famous portion of the museum - Peter the Great's "natural science" collection of deformed animals and fetuses, decapitated baby heads, and children's skeletons. It did not disappoint! (see pic)

By this point it was beginning to get dark (~3pm), so we headed back to the hotel to see if anyone had absconded with our luggage. Luckily, it was still there, and we were able to check into our 2-BR apartment, which ended up also having a party shower! (see pic) This thing had party lights, a radio, 14 shower heads, a rain shower, a massager, and a jacuzzi. Sadly though, the tap water was brown in St. Petersburg (say hello to giardia!), so the party shower mostly just went to waste. Now if only I could get one of those back to Austin...

Two Texans in the Snow! (aka "How We Almost Got to Visit a Russian Hospital")

2009-12-22T17:52:00.006-06:00

The day after visiting the cat theater, we met Edward at the Metro station and headed out to the newly renovated Cosmonaut Museum, which Brian was especially excited about. We saw Gagarin's Vostok capsule (actually very spacious!), several models of orbiting spacecraft, landers, many engines and other space-related gear. Here is a pic of Edward standing next to (the stuffed) Strelka and Belka, the Russian dogs that went into space. It was here at this museum that we first started to noticed the pervasive stench of vodka permeating the air, particularly around men... and this was at 10am on a Sunday morning. According to my brother (and NPR), the average Russian consumes 18 liters of pure alcohol a year. Guess that explains the 3L bottles of vodka and the 5L bottles of beer we saw in the grocery store! (see pics)

That afternoon we headed over to a Christmas party thrown by Taryn, a high school acquaintance of mine who is now working in Moscow, and had some fantastic American-style Christmas cookies and Siberian Corona (a real brand of beer!). Here is a pic of a giant spinning Siberian Corona bottle on the side of the road (see pic). Since we were on an American food kick, Brian and I hit up Pizza Hut for dinner, incredibly thankful for their dual-language menu!

The following day we met up with Edward to head to Gorky park, an amusement park on the Moscow River that contains a test vehicle for the abandoned Russian space shuttle program. It was snowing a bit, but we weren't too concerned, as the mayor of Moscow has implemented a "cloud seeding" program this winter to ensure that Moscow doesn't receive any heavy snowfall, which apparently is much cheaper than plowing the streets (this program of course is inciting much consternation in the small towns surrounding Moscow).

Anyhoo, turns out Gorky Park is closed in the wintertime. But I did get a picture of "Crapdogs" (Edward insists it says "Stardogs"), the hotdog stand outside the gates, though (see pic), and could see the shuttle from afar (see pic). Since our trip to the park was unsuccessful, we took a minor detour to a fantastic Georgian restaurant in a boat on the river... and it was here that my love affair with Khatchapuri (a Georgian cheese bread) began! (see pic) The following week I would end up braving the -27C temperatures to return to this restaurant (it was so cold the entire river had frozen) just of the for another taste of the Khatchpuri. :)

Throughout the day, the snow had continued to fall, accumulating on the ground and snarling traffic. The sidewalks were beginning to get a bit slick, but I suggested to Brian that we take a quick jaunt over to Red Square so I could see St. Basil's in the snow. Turns out that was not such a smart idea. Brian's legs went straight out from under him while crossing the street, and he landed smack on his back and head in the middle of the road. I quickly shuffled out there and did a ridiculous policewoman impression trying to get the traffic to stop while Brian tried to limp out of the road. I'm sure it was quite a sight! Somehow his tough noggin' survived hitting the pavement, but he had back spasms the rest of the evening and the next day. We debated going to the doctor, but he decided to tough it out. Now I see why the guidebook recommended boots with cleats!

We were pretty much apartment-bound the next day while Brian recovered, but I did venture out and finally got my picture of St. Basil's in the snow. (see pic) The headline in the newspaper read, "Unexpected Snowfall Paralyzes City". I'm just glad Brian wasn't paralyzed, too. :)

It's all Cyrillic to me!

2009-12-20T14:42:00.003-06:00

Even though we had my brother around most of the time, Brian and I would have been well-served to learn a bit more Russian than we did. Our Russian vocabulary consisted entirely of "please" (puzhalsta), "thank you" (spasiba), and a thumbs-up sign. :) Of course, one of the toughest parts is suddenly being faced with a completely foreign script. Street names, metro stops, menus... everything is in Cyrillic, especially in Moscow (St. Petersburg gets more tourists, so English is a little more common). Still, it was certainly easier to decipher than the Asian languages will be - a good warm up for Thai in January, haha.

We were able to pick up a few tips, which helped us to be able to read some signs and names - these may also help in deciphering some of our pictures. Some of the letters are similar to English: A, b, K, M, O, T - and a C is usually an "s" sound. Some are similar to Greek: Г = G (gamma), P = R (rho), П = P (pi), and Ф = F (phi). The rest mostly just require memorization - the few we learned were И=i, B=V, H=N, Л=L, and Д=d.

These are pics of some familiar US brands we came across; it's a pretty neat feeling to actually look up and comprehend a Cyrillic sign! Brian was SO excited when we saw the Cinnabon - we had been standing in a blizzard, waiting for Edward to pick up some visa paperwork, and it suddenly appeared to us across the street like a vision. AND - it had wireless internet! Best cinnamon bun we ever tasted. :)

привет Россия! (Hello Russia!)

2009-12-19T14:55:00.007-06:00

We arrived in Moscow in the evening and somehow managed to locate my brother Edward in the large Paveletsky Station (this is where his large handlebar mustache comes in particularly handy!). He helped us get over to our rented apartment, just across the river from the Kremlin and Red Square. The next day, Brian, Edward, and I ventured over there in the deceptively balmy weather (oh, if we had only known what was to come), and got to see Red Square all decked out for the holidays with a giant tree and skating rink (see pic). Even Lenin's Tomb had some small Christmas trees out front!

One of the buildings on the square was undergoing renovations, but no fear - a fabric facade was hung around the building so we would know what we were missing, haha. (see pic)

We walked through St. Basil's (aka "The Candy Building"), popped in GUM (the upscale shopping mall), and then made our way over to the Kremlin. The highlights definitely were seeing the Tsar Cannon (40 tons) and the Tsar Bell (216 tons), the largest cannon and bell in the world, respectively (see pics). Sadly, the bell cracked during a fire before it ever was rung.

After the Kremlin, we headed to Old Arabat St., a pedestrian shopping boulevard. Here we had sweet condensed milk blini for lunch (see pic) - these became one of our staple meals, as blini stands are everywhere and we could order just by pointing!

The next day we got up early and headed out in the snow flurries to Izmailovsky Weekend Market. Here I found a handpainted set of 'cat lady' nesting dolls (see pic) that I tried unsuccessfully to bargain for, so I enlisted my Russian-speaking brother to get me a deal. I'm not exactly sure what happened next, but it involved the babushka yelling, some laughter, and no price reduction for me. Sigh. Apparently she told Edward that the "discount" he was asking for was equivalent to the price of a cheeseburger - and "this is art!!!" As you can see, I bought the dolls anyway. :)

We grabbed more blini for lunch, and then made our way across town to the renowned Moscow Cat Theatre, a fast-paced show with clowns, dancers, and 120 'trained' cats performing tricks (see pics). Most of the cats are rescued strays, and (as was apparent in the show), cats cannot actually be trained - they will do what they want, when they want. But if one cat wasn't behaving, it was just removed and replaced with another cat who would perform for treats. I personally think that my own kitty Ginger could be a star, but sadly she's a bit pudgy for a lot of the apparatuses, haha.

That evening we headed over to my brother's apartment, where he made us a traditional Russian dinner of mushroom pelmeni (dumplings) and vegetarian Borscht (plus some homemade eggnog!) (see pic). It's no Italian pastries and pizza, but I could actually get used to this Russian food...

Italy Wrap-Up

2009-12-15T14:18:00.004-06:00

Despite the disappointing day at the Amalfi Coast, overall we enjoyed our time in Italy and wouldn't mind returning again someday. Here are a couple more pics, one of the ceiling in the Map Room at the Vatican, one of a fountain in the Vatican, and one of a cute little Fiat.

Our favorite things:

1) The pastries (especially Meringue con Panna!)
2) The gnocchi and street pizza
3) The pleasant weather (except for the one rainy day)
4) The ancient history
5) The cute little cars
6) The bustling plazas in the evening, full of people mingling and strolling through the neighborhoods

Things we could have done without:

1) Dog poo all over the sidewalks
2) How the Italians like personal space - YOUR personal space
3) Seat-less toilets (although I guess I should be glad they had more than just a hole in the ground!)

How to end up lost and stranded in the rain with very little money and being forced to pee in the Sea

2009-12-12T13:22:00.005-06:00

The following day we planned to head to the Amalfi Coast, which we were both looking forward to and had heard was absolutely gorgeous. The guidebook recommended taking the SITA bus from Sorrento, since it ran fairly often and was able to adeptly maneuver around the curvy 1.5-lane Amalfi Coast Road. But in keeping with our typical pattern, we arrived at the station right as a bus was pulling away, only to be told that since it's not tourist season, the next bus wouldn't be for another hour or two. As we're walking out of the station, we're approached by a cab driver who offers to take us to Positano (the first town on the coast) for "15 Euros, 1-5... cinquanta". Having just bought all-day bus tickets, we were hesitant, but decided to go for it since who knows when the next bus would have come. So we take her up on the offer and arrive at the bus stop in Positano... which she points out, but then keeps driving another mile or so steeply DOWNHILL from the bus stop to drop us off - where suddenly the cost becomes "50 Euros, 5-0... cinquanta" (about $75) - apparently cinquanta is the Italian word for 50, not 15. (Important Lesson: Learn Italian numbers before negotiating cab fare.) We begrudgingly paid the fare, she peeled off, and we were left standing at the bottom of a ghost town (everything had closed for the season in Positano) with little money left in our pockets, staring at a steep uphill to where the bus stop should be (see pic of looking up at Positano). We finally found an open internet cafe and were able to find a bus map that showed a closer stop, but still a long way uphill. We climbed up to the stop (see pic looking back down at where we had been) - I'm sure a bus had probably just come before we got there - and waited almost an hour for the next bus, during which it started pouring down rain (see pic).

We finally got on the bus and had planned on stopping at a few other towns to walk the coast for a bit, but decided to head straight to the main town of Amalfi due to the rain. We walked around the town for a bit, but the weather was not really cooperating (see pic of dark clouds over the coast)... and it turned out all the public restrooms were closed for the season. Brian was forced to discreetly pee off the end of the dock into the sea while I distracted with some ultra-touristy photo-taking moves in the other direction. Then we went back to the bus stop and waited another 45 minutes for the next bus... which we watched drive right by us and continue on its merry way without stopping to pick us up. :( So another hour in the rain, and we FINALLY were able to get on a bus back to Sorrento. Sadly Amalfi Coast, you are not our friend.

The next day the rain had moved out, so we checked out of our B&B and got back on the Circumvesuviana train north to Ercolano in hopes of climbing Mt. Vesuvius this time. We arrived at the station to find that the one shuttle of the day was leaving at noon - we had about 45 minutes to spare! When we went to pay of course, suddenly the fare chart on the desk was whisked away and we were quoted a much higher price, but at this point in the season they were the only game in town so we took it. We were joined by a male Japanese traveler who we ended up having lunch with later on. We got to the drop-off point for Vesuvius and were told we had about 55 minutes before the shuttle would leave - which is about enough time for a marathon racer to run up to the top and run back down... and we had all our luggage (our 25-lb backpacks) on us. It was tough, but we made it up to the top (see pic), and looked into the smoking crater. We were also able to see the coast and Pompeii down below in the distance (see pic). By this point we had about 10 minutes to get back down the volcano, so we ran like a Pompeiian, and luckily enjoyed a better outcome than they did, making it back to the shuttle just before it pulled away.

That afternoon we walked down to Herculaneum, also destroyed by Vesuvius, but better preserved than Pompeii. It was a vacation 'resort town' on the coast, unlike the middle-class working town of Pompeii. We actually found these ruins to be a bit more interesting, despite the area being significantly smaller than Pompeii (see pic of ruins with Vesuvius in the background, and a pic of one of the decorated walls). That evening we returned to Rome on the high-speed train and prepared for our flight to Moscow the next morning!

Making our way from Rome to Pompeii and down to Sorrento

2009-12-09T02:35:00.004-06:00

After 4 days in Rome, we boarded the high speed rail down to Naples, and from there got on the Circumvesuviana line (a clunker of a train, covered in graffiti - see pic) down to the Pompeii Scavi stop. Our plan was to visit Pompeii, then catch the bus up to Mt. Vesuvius in the afternoon. After having the worst food we had in Italy (outside the entrance to Pompeii, what should we expect), we made our way through the ruins for about 2 hours, using the rented audioguides and the Rick Steves Pompeii Walk that we printed off the internet.

Most of the artifacts are now in the archaeological museum in Naples, but they do still have a couple of the plaster casts at the site (see pic).

We didn't see a whole lot of tourists until we got to the brothel - which was teeming with giggling Japanese travelers. See the picture of one of the brothel "bedrooms" - comfy, eh?

When we finished at Pompeii, we went to catch the bus to Vesuvius only to find that the one bus of the day had just left (this seemed to be the theme of our next few days of traveling!) - apparently in the "off season" a lot of the transit shuts down. (We actually came to wish we had rented a car for this part of our trip.) So we got back on the Circumvesuviana and headed further south to Sorrento, where we waited a couple hours until we could check into our B&B, which was hidden in a grove of citrus trees - these trees also line the streets of the city. Once we got checked into our room, Brian promptly managed to cut power to the whole B&B by putting the heater on turbo mode - whoops! That evening we ventured out to the main square in town, and just happened to catch the Sorrento tree lighting (see pic), which consisted of Randy Newman's "You've Got a Friend in Me" being played on repeat for about 15 times in a row before the tree was lit. No Christmas music or anything. The Italians started cussing every time the song would start again, and it was good to see that despite the language barrier and cultural differences, we all shared a universal hatred of Randy Newman music.

When in Rome...

2009-12-07T13:52:00.004-06:00

Well, we got about 4 inches of snow today in Moscow (despite the mayor implementing a 'cloud seeding' program to spare the city of snow this winter), which is nice since we rarely see snow in Texas, but tough since the only footwear I have here is sneakers. So I'm going to hide out in our apartment for a bit and post some more Italy pics (the sun went down about 6.5 hours ago anyways, around 4pm). Here are some more of the oddities we encountered on our travels through Italy:

Thirsty? These water fountains are scattered through the city of Rome. They are always on; to drink from them, you plug the end of the faucet and the water shoots out through a smaller hole in the top of the spout pipe. (Alright, so maybe we tried to drink out of the faucet before we saw someone do it the "right" way, haha.)

Another interesting thing we discovered immediately is that Italians will park their cars anywhere they will almost halfway sort-of fit. They mostly drive tiny little cars, and we saw them on the sidewalk, double parked in the middle of the road, behind trees, pretty much anywhere they could wedge them. They seemed to have an unusually large number of scrapes and dings too... made me glad we didn't rent a car!

In Italy you don't have to worry about guys leaving the seat up since public toilets have no seats!

Poker anyone?

Local Typical Food?! Just what I was in the mood for! (from the Amalfi Coast)

And here is the strangest port-a-potty I have ever seen, located on Mt. Vesuvius. Just pull the handle and all your unsundries are whisked away by the conveyor belt!

Journey to Rome

2009-12-06T13:04:00.005-06:00

Well, so we're actually in frigid Moscow right now, but due to a lack of reliable internet in Italy, I will start from the beginning of our trip. We departed November 25 - Austin to DC to Rome, overnight, arriving at 7:45am on the 26th. Jetlagged and exhausted, we managed to get on the train without validating our tickets, got on the tram going the wrong way, stepped in dog poo on the sidewalk (apparently Italians have not yet discovered the concept of "dog poo bags"), pissed off 2 Italian women by asking directions, and finally arrived at our B&B in the Trastevere neighborhood after about 2 hours of being lost! But at least we avoided having to take a cab and being ripped off by an Italian cab driver, which happened in the next segment of our trip.

After dropping off our luggage, we headed off for lunch, where we discovered that 1 kg of pizza is a whole helluva lot! (It's ordered by weight in Italy.) Then we took a guided tour of the Vatican, which is now selling billboard space around the main plaza to fund renovations. There is one billboard visible in the picture (Italian Telecom), but there are more around the sides that are even more gaudy. Don't worry though, they're all God-sanctioned. :) The Sistine Chapel was fantastic - I've wanted to see it ever since reading "The Agony and the Ecstasy" in high school - but of course, no photos were allowed.

The next day we went out exploring historical Rome, visiting Largo Argentina (with thousands of cats that take sanctuary in the ruins), the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and Capuchin Crypt, which is made from bones of over 4000 monks donated between the 1500s and 1800s (see picture). In the evening, we wandered around our neighborhood (Trastevere) - it's a fantastic local neighborhood with shops, restaurants, and lively activity. The weather was great too - 60s every day.

The following day we took a guided tour of the Colosseum (see pic), Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum. We had lunch in the Jewish Ghetto at a local place called Sora Margherita - no English was spoken, and we had to become "members" to eat there. They chuckled at Brian's name when we got on the list, and kept referring to him as "Life of Brian". :) We had a fantastic meal that included the famous fried artichokes (see pic). It was later this evening that I fell in love with Merengue con Panna (2 meringue "buns" with creme in between) from a local pastry shop... these proved to be my downfall at pretty much every pastry shop we passed from then on out in Italy! I wanted to get a picture, but they always disappeared into my belly by the time I remembered.

The next day we got up early and took the train out to Toffia, Italy, about 1.5 hours north of Rome, where we met Sally and Guido in the old medieval village for a cooking class with Convivio Rome. This is olive country, and the village is on a hill surrounded by olive groves in every direction (see pic). We made pumpkin risotto, melanzane alla Parmagiana, and Guido's award-winning apple cake, using local produce and cheeses. After the meal, we headed to the Annual Olive Oil Festival at the monastery in Farfa, where we sampled local olive oils, breads, and cheeses. We pretty much had to roll back to Rome that evening!

I guess I'll stop here for now... maybe tomorrow I will post some pictures of some of the stranger things we've seen in Italy, including the conveyor belt toilet, and then continue our travel tales as we ventured south to Sorrento.

FAQ - Choosing Destinations

2009-11-24T09:31:00.002-06:00

Well, so I'm sitting here staring at a (mostly) empty closet and a (mostly) empty kitchen, hoping that (mostly) + one more day = a packed clean house by the time we leave for Italy tomorrow morning. I've been meaning to update the blog a bit more, but it seems every time I turn around there's another cat fur tumbleweed on the floor to be swept away or an item I've forgotten to pack. And the 'real' packing - in the backpack - hasn't even started yet, because I decided on a whim to order a new pack yesterday and get it overnighted here... crossing my fingers it will actually get here today and will work out.

Anyhoo, gotta get to the point, because there's a ton more packing and cleaning to be done. I thought I'd make some notes about how we chose the destinations we are planning to visit since that's one of the questions I've been getting a lot (some destinations are still tentative further along into the trip, though).

Italy: Our original plan was to stop in Stockholm, since that was a logical stopover destination on the way to Moscow. Turns out Stockholm is pretty much cold and dark and depressing in December, though. So we decided we had to find a warmer place, still at least sort of on the way to Moscow. So we chose Italy! We were going to stick to Rome and Pompeii (we recently saw a tv show on the brothels of Pompeii and wanted to check it out for ourselves), but then a coworker of mine said the Amalfi coast is the most beautiful place she's ever seen, so bam! it's on the agenda too. Which also meant we backed up our departure date from TX by a day... and are now leaving on the busiest travel day of the year. Ah well.

Russia: My brother is living in Moscow, and can't do a whole lot of research in December since the archives are closed, so we decided to freeze our butts off and visit him. :) I've been reading Fifty Russian Winters and A Russian Diary to get some background before we go.

Galapagos: South America was originally not on our itinerary at all, but I sat next to Lance Tarrance (one of McCain's political advisors) on a flight recently, and he raved and raved about the Galapagos - and he's been around the world a time or two. So we decided to take a little southern detour down there between Christmas in the US and heading to Thailand.

Southeast Asia: It's cheap, relatively safe, and there's a well-worn backpacker circuit. And everyone who has been to Thailand has said it is fantastic. :)

India: Brian has been here once before for a wedding, but I really want to see the Taj Mahal, the International Museum of Toilets in New Delhi, and the houseboats in Kerala (Brian has a coworker who knows people). Plus they have a lot of vegetarian food!

Dubai: This area has very little recorded history or culture, but due to the recent influx of oil money, the country is creating its own identity as a land of luxury and lavish extravagance. Everything has been built to be bigger and better here, so it should be fascinating to see. Hopefully I can use my hotel points for a free stay in a resort on the artificial island Palm Jumeirah (shaped like a palm tree - see picture).

Cairo: Gotta see the pyramids, plus we've never been to Africa.

Eastern Europe: Turkey is at the top of Brian's list of places to see, and we may be able to meet up with my brother and a couple friends in the Ukraine next summer. Also, Eastern Europe tends to still be a bit cheaper than western Europe.

Alright, I just saw another cat fur tumbleweed roll by, so it's back to cleaning and packing...

FAQ - Budgeting

2009-11-02T22:14:00.003-06:00

Well, now that news of our trip is spreading, we're getting a lot of questions concerning logistics, so I thought I'd address some of them here. Probably the most common question of course is, "Did you win the lottery? Are you rich?" :)

As much as we would like to be able to say we just hit the Powerball jackpot, no such luck here. Brian and I have worked hard to live well within our means, buying a 900sf 1936 "fixer-upper" house, keeping our cars for many years, and not buying things we don't need. Unfortunately the consumer culture in the US leads many people to become prisoners to their possessions, which is especially lamentable if it ends up keeping someone from their ultimate goals and dreams. But if you want to travel, it can definitely be done, and the great news is, it doesn't have to be expensive!

Let's take South Asia (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, India), for example, which is where we will be spending a good chunk of time during our trip. The average cost of living per day runs about $20, including a room in a decent guesthouse, and round-trip flights over there from the US are around $800 right now. So a 6-month sojourn could be had for under $5500 ($3600 cost-of-living, $800 flight, ~$1000 incidentals (visas, vaccinations, travel insurance, gear, transportation)). That's less per month than just my rent ever was here in Austin!

On our trip we are planning a couple splurges to more expensive areas (one week in Italy, 2 weeks in Russia, and 8 days in the Galapagos), but the majority of our trip will be spent in much less expensive areas (namely South Asia and Eastern Europe). We also will be using the hotel points we have built up with our reward credit cards, and should garner enough airline miles along the way to get a few of our later flight legs for free. So hopefully you won't see us panhandling on the street corner upon our return... but then again, there's that saying: "Why live in a $200,000 house when you can live under a $2 million bridge?" :P

So What's the Plan, Stan?

2009-10-25T22:47:00.003-05:00

Our tentative itinerary (November 2009-July 2010):

From Austin to Rome and Sorrento, Italy for a week
Then to Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia (to visit my brother, who is currently living over there)
Back to TN to visit my family for Christmas
A quick stop in Austin to change out winter wear for warm weather gear
Down to Quito, Ecuador, with a week in the Galapagos Islands
On to Bangkok, spending 6+ weeks circuiting through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia (so cliche, I know) :)
Then to New Delhi, India, hopping south to Kerala
Dubai (where we will hopefully have enough Hilton hotel points for a nice stay!)
Cairo
Eastern Europe (Turkey, maybe Ukraine... things are still up in the air this far in advance)
Paris (I told Brian we have to stop here for at least a couple days since it's the "City of Love" ...which might be useful for rekindling after spending 8 months together 24/7, haha)
Finally back to Austin

I'm sure there will be changes depending on circumstances, family situations, our likes/dislikes, etc., but this is our "Susan has to have a plan" Plan. (I'm just one of those types!) Life has a crazy way of screwing with even the best laid plans, it seems, though. But hey, our plane tickets are one-way, and we're just purchasing as we go along, so Universe, go ahead and throw some curveballs our way! (If you're listening, Universe, I didn't REALLY mean that - I was just trying to make a point about how I can be flexible if I absolutely HAVE to be.) :)

So that's the plan, Stan!

You're WHAT?!!!!

2009-10-24T20:13:00.005-05:00

After a couple years of planning and many years of saving, Brian and I are finally planning to break out of the cubicle and depart on our 8-month backpacking trip around the world in November. And what better timing, as I just recently found my first gray hair! Brian has taken to referring to our trip as "The Amazing Race - Special Olympics style", but maybe that's giving us too much credit, ha. No, we actually have a fair amount of travel under our belts... and between the two of us we have missed flights, been pickpocketed, gotten stuck in foreign restrooms, been chased by the police, and even spent 9 days trapped on the US/Mexico border due to a flash flood (thanks for the rescue, park ranger!). Call us greedy or adventurous or just plain loony, but we still want to see more! So, barring any major disaster, we're putting aside our jobs, having a couple friends move into our home and look after the pets, and embarking on a loose itinerary that will take us 40,000 miles over 5 continents.

Things we are looking forward to:

1) No more gray hairs, stomach ulcers, joint pains or quarter-life crises. Is this really what defines the 20s these days?

2) Instead of explaining to our grandkids/nieces/nephews that we spent our youth living vicariously through others, we will be able to read our own travel journals to them just as my 92-year-old grandmother recently read hers to me about her 1937 trip to Italy.

3) Being able to feel the sand in our toes for days at a time. (I don't think my office would have appreciated me filling my cubicle with sand!)

4) Discussing "transparency" only in a "Look at the beautiful transparency of the Mediterranean Sea!" sense.

5) Burning 1000 calories a day exploring rather than 10 calories a day pushing the elevator button and walking to coffee break.

6) Spending the same amount on nice lodging in Southeast Asia as we would spend here on a Taco Bell burrito.

7) Finally having a real excuse to wear the same pair of pants 5 days in a row.

8) Trading worry lines for tan lines (well, maybe "freckle lines" in Brian's case).

9) Finally seeing the photos in our travel magazines with our own eyes.

10) Taking cooking classes in foreign lands (American cooking didn't turn out to be my thing - I kept blowing up the microwave - but I'm convinced there's another style of cooking out there that I have latent talents for...)

“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” – Samuel Johnson