Darrel and Melica

The Sunset on a Grand Adventure

2009-05-07T11:44:00.000-07:00

After a hurricane trip through Chile and Peru we were very fortunate to be able to use our birthday gifts from my Mom and Dad-two weeks at a time share of our choice. We had been looking for something since New Zealand but nothing fit the schedule or the location we wanted. We found super cheap tickets from Bogota, Colombia to home and a resort on the Caribbean coast. Our budget and travel drive was dwindling and we decided to end the trip in style. Tired, weary, and ragged we arrived at our 5 star resort (interval international standards). We got some interesting looks while we were checking in and wondered if they would let the travel worn couple with backpacks in. Our accommodations were the best of the whole trip, and we realized that we hadn't stayed in a "western" style hotel since one night back in 'Nam 5 months ago. We had a kitchen, porch, 4 swimming pools, and just meters from the Caribbean. We were like little kids checking out a new house and headed straight for the pools. I'd like to have some crazy stories about our two weeks but it was pretty low key. A few of the highlights were taking a tour to Tyrona National Park, azure waters, a quiet beach, little boat ride, and some snorkeling. One funny thing was that my brother-in-law Travis had been in Colombia the week before we got there and he told us that if your taxi "breaks down" you automatically start beating up the driver because you will soon have 4 other goons at the car to rob you. We had decided if this happens Melica would pounce on the driver and I would work over the second wave. On the way to the National Park our bus broke down and Melica and I looked at each other and were ready to put the plan into action, we held off with no kidnapping or mugging...only being transferred to another bus. Actually, we felt really safe in Colombia, didn't have any issues and found the people to be really nice. They have a new department of tourism slogan "Colombia, The only risk is wanting to stay!".

Some of the other things we did during our two weeks was to check out the neighboring towns of Rodadero and Santa Marta. Nice little touristy, ocean front towns, good seafood and good Caribbean/island/with a Spanish twist feel to it. Most of the people staying at the resort were Colombians themselves or Non-gringos but we did end up meeting two Tennesseans and hung out with them a bit and had a really good seafood meal on their last night there.

Our time could really be summed up by just saying we took it easy. After being on the move for so long and not really being comfortable... we were finally comfortable. We unpacked the bags, spent hours relaxing by the pools, reading, relaxing and thinking about our strategy for re-entry into society. Not sure how we'll cope with the inevitable reverse culture shock and having to make more decisions than just what to eat, where to sleep and where to head off to the next day. We couldn't have asked for a better way to end an amazing trip, and it gave us some ample time to reflect on how lucky we were and what exactly we learned. Here is some of what we learned: It's a huge world, full of great people, places and cultures. We realize more than anything is how good most American (and the NW) have it...economically, weather, and natural beauty. And really how little you need to be happy or survive. You can make due with a beat up Holden Barina and 2 small bags, you can live off of rice, potatoes and lentil soup, you can sleep almost anywhere, rely on the kindness of strangers, and overall if you set some goals, work hard, plan a bit, you can have some amazing adventures.

Our trip back was long but decent. We spent one day in Bogota. We took a nice guided walking tour and saw some cool streets and a nice plaza. The plaza has one of the highest PSI (Pigeons Per Square Inch) I had ever seen. Not a bad city and definitely not as bad as its reputation makes it out to be. We concluded our long weekend of travel with long layovers and sleeping in the Dallas Airport. Monday afternoon we finally made it home. We joked before we left that we would be back in a month, sunburned and broke...it looks like it just took a little longer. One tip- if you are ever forced to sleep in an airport, go to http://www.sleepinginairports.net/ they give good advice on where to crash, if its safe, and if you can sleep. It has been great to get back to the everyday comforts you take for granite: showing without sandals, potable water, public restrooms, English being spoken and some good home cooking.

This will probably be the last blog for a while...We may keep updating it so you know where we ended up and what we are doing. Just wanted to say thanks to all our readers. Thanks to Family and Friends for their uplifting emails and skype calls. Thanks to my brother Dave and his family for taking care of our house and rental while we were gone. And thanks to the friends along the journey that made the trip so great.

Time to hang up the passports and get back to work. Adios.

Easter Chili, Machu Pizza and Lima Beans

2009-04-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

A wild and tasty two weeks of travel. For some reason we set a departure date and to keep to an aggressive timeline. Acting like travel ninjas we traveled almost always at night, taking night buses and exploring by day. Not ideal but we had a surprisingly good time, saw some sweet stuff and checked off some biggies on our goal list. In two weeks we took 6 night buses, a couple day buses, 2 trains, a boat and plenty of taxis. Some say its the journey not the destination but whoever said that may have lived under power lines as a kid. For us the destination was the goal but are glad we took the cheaper bus route instead of flying. We met some cool people- a San Fran photographer and a young Colombian traveler. We did have some uncomfortable buses but for the most part they were decent. We survived fluctuating A/C /Furnace systems on buses, a hidden diaper behind the curtain on a bus (for the longest time I thought it was sMelica), a strike, and a group of pompous Brits who - after we had been waiting 5 hours for a delayed bus claimed that we were in their seats(there were other open seats) then found out that he read his ticket wrong and then prompted to discuss it for the next half an hour and decide whether this was the worst bus they had been on (it wasn´t that bad)- It took a lot of self control not to tell them off.

That sums up the journey- Now for the destinations. We made stopovers in Mendoza, Argentina... A nice city with wide tree lined streets, plazas, a place known for their wine and being at the base of the Andes and the Americas largest peak. We then crossed the Andes on the eve of Holy week vacations along with thousands of other holiday goers, spending 4 hours at the Chilean border. Vina Del Mar was our next stop, spending 2 days at the Chilean resort town. Vina had nice palm lined streets and ocean front promenade. On Easter families were out in force along with interesting kids games, random jumping castles, trampolines, and bubble boys in a pool on the beach. The sand art was good and ranged from Homer Simpson to Jesus. we also made a day trip to Valparaiso. A sketchy but picturesque town 15 mins from Vina. We were told by at least 8 people to make sure we go to Valpo but be careful (Even our Chilean friend in Oz said the same) We hadn´t been there for over a half an hour and had already been told to watch our camera and carry our backpack on our front...That doesn´t really make you comfortable or to want to take your camera out for any snaps. The place was cool, it was an old port city with colorful houses built up steep hills and trams transporting people up the steep hills to other levels of the city. Edgy, rough, and antique would be a good way to describe it.

Next we took a long journey through northern Chili, a place that is filled with very little other than desert and mines. We stopped at the chill coastal surfing town of Iquique, spent the night and were at the Peruvian border the next day. We shared a taxi with an impatient if not comical old British/American and crossed over into Peru in a classy Ford LTD. Then we took an OK night bus to the shores of Lake Titicaca and the town of Puno. Lake Titicaca.."As Fun as it sounds" or "Something for everyone" could have been the slogans. Titicaca is a massive lake at around 12,000 ft. elevation. The claim is that it is the highest navigable lake in the world or something. It straddles the border of Bolivia and Peru and the running joke is that Peru got the titties and Bolivia got the caca or vice versa.

We arrived on the night bus before 6 a.m. and were greeted by a nice hotel tout who set us up with a hotel, breakfast and a tour for the day. Too easy, and we were really too tired to make any decisions. By 7 a.m. we were off for the day motorboating Lake Titicaca. Our first stop was a floating island where we met some colorful locals who were carrying on the old ways and living on these floating island made out of bricks of moss and reeds. We heard about their daily lives and then the island turned into a floating craft fair. We then headed to a real island for the afternoon and hiked around it for a few hours. We had a nice lunch of lake trout and saw some nice little villages across the island. It definitely reminded us of the way the families look and live in Nepal.

When first getting to South America we had a goal to get to Machu Pichu and to hopefully do the Inca Trail. The trail was booked out for 3 months and had decided to do the train instead.

Our tight timeline didn´t leave much room for error and planned to leave Puno early the next morning for Cusco/Machu, however, there was a strike closing the road for a couple days. We had almost written off Machu Pichu and thinking the closest we would come would be eating at the Machu Pizza place across the street, when we learned the strike had lifted and buses were running again. We did some scrambling, bought our train tix (must have been the last few because we didn´t sit together), bought bus tix, and ditched on our hotel for a night bus to Cusco. We arrived at 5 in the a.m. and our train left at 7, we took the nice 3 hour train ride to Aguas Calientes-the town below Machu Pichu. We lucked out with another nice hotel tout and we were off to the lost city of the Incas by noon. The place was packed with the usual tourist crowd. It was a bit annoying but we were so amazed by the place that it didn´t really matter. The place was unlike anything I had ever seen before and it gave you the feeling that you were so far away from everything. It had the mix of being natural

beauty with the mystery and awe of the people who were able to build on such an amazing place. There were bright green terraces, llamas grazing everywhere, clouds towering over Waynu Pichu, amazing stone work, and an overall great setting. By late afternoon the crowds and our tour guide eves dropping had all but vanished. We sat on a grassy terrace overlooking the postcard shot- feeling great -amazed at this place and relieved and thankful that we were able to make it. We hiked the hour and a half back to the AC and by chance met up with the Colombian friend from the train and had dinner with

him. Just a great day overall. Next morning we took the 5 a.m. train back to Cusco and eventually a night bus to Lima. We were told by numerous people and the guide book to watch out in Lima as it too is shady. We luckily had no issues, checking into a decent hostel, going to a ruin in the middle of the city(seeing a Peruvian hairless dog) and some other tourist areas. We had an early flight the next day and our cab driver must have been anxious because he showed up 45 minutes early at the 3:45 a.m. The cab driver was the Peruvian version of Jerry Stiller (Melica wouldn´t let me ask him for a photo). Next stop Colombia...in search of Shakira, a cup of coffee, and some relaxation.

La Argentina

2009-04-06T15:38:00.000-07:00

Hola amigos, just a quick update from the other America. Our flight to Buenos Aires was good, and got into BA with no problems. We met up with Melica´s sister Tirtza and spent the next 11 or so days checking out all of BA and taking a 3 day trip up to the falls at Iguazu. Tirtza just got to BA about a month ago and is doing a university exchange. She had a few days before all of her classes started, and after 2 days in a stinky hostel it was a good opportunity to travel around a bit. We took an 20 hour overnight bus north to Iguazu. We thought we booked a semi-cama bus but there was a promotion and we got a cama, but should have been the exclamation point because it was the best bus we have been on yet, with seats that lay all the way back to a bed, 2 decent meals, movies, and a bus steward who I almost expected to tuck us in. Puerto Iguazu was a decent little town and we found a good place to stay. We spent the whole day checking out the falls and they were very impressive. They say there are over 270 falls and some over 80 meters. We picked a good day, super hot and humid but a beautiful day. We did heaps of walking and ended up seeing a crocodile, a coati (racoon/anteater thing), and a little fury anteater thing. Overall a good day, the biggest falls I have ever seen and definitely worth the trip. After another overnighter we were back in Buenos Aires, it means good air in Spanish but most of the time it smelled like exhaust and dog crap. BA is pretty European; organized, big plazas, parks, dog walkers, cafes, discos, and a feeling that the town never sleeps. All in all we did have a good time in BA. Tirtza had class a few days but mostly we hung out and went to the sights around town which included: The Recoleta cemetery a huge cemetery with mini shrines and statues at each grave- a quiet neighborhood and nice for a stroll. We dined at La Cabrera, a restaurant that was recommended to us. Beef is big in Argentina and we heard this place had the best and we should starve ourselves before arriving. We weren´t disappointed and we split two meals between the 3 of us and still had leftovers. The steak was as big as my face and a couple inches thick. We capped it off with some tirimisu and called it a night. We also hit up the weekend craft fair. It actually wasn´t as bad as it sounded. There were heaps of talented artists and some unique items. The highlight for me was just the atmosphere, the street performers and definitely some of the best hippie watching this side of the amazon. (slack lines, hula-hoops, juggling and other stuff i´d never seen). We also did the BA thing and took in a tango show. This also may sound lame to some of you, but it wasn´t too bad. It was like dinner theatre, you show up get a seat, order dinner, the band starts playing and you just sit back and watch. Couples from the audience got up and did the tango, some appeared to be fresh off some lessons and this was their big debut. Then the professionals showed up and showed everyone how it was done with some flips and fancy footwork. Melica and I contemplated showing them up and turning it into "Dancing with the Haarrs" but we were too full off of the pizza...next time.

A lot of the time in BA was spent just walking around and exploring the city, always a good way to really see a place. On one of our last days in BA we walked around the big-eco park, and took in another craft fair. It was early afternoon and we decided to keep walking towards a touristy street with brightly colored houses and interesting architecture. It was early afternoon and we heard this one area was a bit shady but we ended up walking through there anyways. Looking back it was stupid but once we were in the neighborhood there was no going back. We were just like, where´s the exit¿ We started getting strange looks, cars were on blocks and without saying we all had the feeling we shouldn´t be there. Without looking at the map (definite no-no in this area) we navigate toward the tourist area. We were almost out when some punk aged 16-20 rode up on his bike and stopped in front of us and started saying something to me like ¨money money¨and grabbing for my pockets. It all happened really fast and you always think of good stuff to do later but I told him firmly to stop in Spanish and don´t touch me in English. We kept walking...faster and for some strange reason he just left us alone, maybe it was the crazy eyes. I later asked the ladies what he was saying and they said, "give me money or i´ll kill you now¨, I guess sometimes it is good not to know that much Spanish...All joking aside it was not fun and we shouldn´t have been there and were glad to get out safe. The "El Caminito" was our goal in the walk and we made it there but didn´t really feel like doddling around. Overall our time in BA was good but Tirtza´s classes had all begun and we needed to start heading on. It was great traveling with two fluent translators, and definitely good to see the sisters back together. I don´t know if they stopped talking for the whole 11 days and we all had some good laughs together.

We needed to get back to nature and a place more our style - and we did so by taking another overnight bus to Bariloche. Bariloche is technically in Patagonia on the northern end and in the lakes district. We rented a sweet studio apartment with a stellar view of the lake and mountains. We rented it for the week from the cousin of a co-worker and it has been really nice. (http://www.barilochevacationrental.com/) They are a couple from Tahoe who now live here and manage some properties and do some free-lance writing...very cool. The only damper on the week was the weather. We had a few good and clear days but it has mostly been stormy. We took a very nice 30 km bike ride and ended up getting drenched -cold but worth it. The views have been amazing and the hiking really good as well. The town itself is great with nice stone and wood accented buildings and amazing cabins all around. The town is also known for its chocolate and has some factories. We have done some extensive taste testing and mostly drooling at the large vats of spinning chocolate.

We have decided to head north, a tough decision as we both love the outdoors and there is some really cool hiking and glacial viewing down south but for cost and time reasons we are heading north. Not sure on our exact plans but hope to hit some of northern Chile and then on to Peru...

Hasta la vista.

A Van Down By The River

2009-03-20T13:30:00.001-07:00

Well, here's another big blog but it has to cover a whole country-and an extreme one at that. Our last day in Sydney we finally met up with the son and daughter of the Nepali family we lived with in Pokara. They are studying there and the family really wanted us to see them. Our flight left late in the evening and without a hitch, and like most things we have done we took the cheapest flight and we didn't get into Christchurch, on the South Island of New Zealand until after midnight. In the States the customs officials look for dangerous goods, in Australia they frisk you for fruit, and now we know in New Zealand they check you for dirt. They washed both of our shoes and went in a back room and washed down our tent...What service! It was almost one a.m. and we contemplated getting a taxi to the city and a hostel but we ended up taking the cheap route and sleeping on the hard floor of the terminal until 8:30 when we could get a free shuttle to the van we rented. The day before heading to NZ we did some extreme searching for camper van deals and found a bare bones deal for a 1993 Toyota bubble van. When we got there they had some better vans available and we got a free upgrade to the Toyota Hiace, with fridge, table, sink and burners all for the same price. The guy even through in a GPS. Free upgrade! We were off to a good start and after the first few days we decided that we wouldn't have time to see everything we wanted so we extended the rental to 11 days. We were tired from our airport sleep but made it almost to Queenstown on our first day. After being in one of the driest countries in the world for three months it was great to see the green rolling hills. As you would expect, we also started seeing heaps of sheeps (the aussies and kiwis use heaps...heaps). There are around 4 million New Zealanders and over 43 million sheep...I started checking their numbers by counting the south island sheep but soon became very sleepy.
Q-town is the adventure capital of NZ and probably the world. If you can think of it they probably have it. They have jet boating, extreme swings, skydiving, hang-gliding, paragliding, canyoning, sledging(like kick boarding down rapids), and this is the home of the first commercial bungy jump site. The weather was pretty crummy for the first few days of our trip, raining and blowing. We passed on most of the activities, but I ended up doing the Kawarau Bridge Bungy 43meters. I asked to get my head dunked and they said they would try, "it's not an exact science" he said, "I may of over shot it...". It all happened pretty fast but before I knew it I was standing with my toes hanging over the edge of the platform and listening for the countdown. I hesitated for a second then swan dove off. I screamed like I was scared ---just for effect or something like that. My thoughts were somewhere between "Did I empty my pockets?" and "Maybe I should get a puppy?" Then my head dunked under the water and up to my waist. Icy cold, blue water...I bobbed around for a bit and then was lowered into a raft. I was the only one that made it in the water for the day, so I gave the spectators a good show. So glad I did it.
We spent 3 or 4 days around the south part of the south island, dodging rain showers we hiked around the Glenorchy area, Te Anau area, played disc golf, and camped and swam in some pretty cool settings. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy was filmed all over New Zealand and some scenes in the area we were in. We didn't take any of the guided tours of the areas but took in some of the sites during our hikes. Pretty amazing, the kindof places where you would almost expect some elves jumping out of the ferns or a battle troll stumbling down the hill. We mostly camped at Department of Conservation sites or national park sites or free on the side of the road, only staying in caravan parks for 3 of the days. It was pretty great sliding opening the van door to some sweet mountain lake or river and stepping out on to the set of The Lord of The Rings every morning. (No hobbit jokes please). We drove the scenic road to Milford sound, full of oneway bridges and a oneway tunnel, nice forests, swaying motorhomes, and loaded buses. We finally made it down to the Fiordlands National park and were really lucky that it stopped raining. The place gets 21 feet of rain a year! We took an early morning cruise and the girl on the cruise said that it was the first time they had seen the sun in 3 days. It also worked out well because with the heavy rain from the night before kept the water falls running and the first snow of the season dusted the tops of the mountains making it very picturesque. The cruise was good and informative, we saw some New Zealand fur seals, got sprayed by waterfalls, and just took in the scenery...after about an hour and a half the cruise was over and a good thing because my photo finger was getting a little tired. In the afternoon we did a nice day hike for a panorama of the peaks. The weather got worse as we headed back through Queenstown and Wanaka and we decided to pass on anymore adventure activities for now. The next day we got pumped up by hiking to the (Hans &)Franz and Fox glaciers. We couldn't get too close to either because of recent rains and unstable ice faces but they were pretty impressive. On the news on our last day in NZ we heard that two Australian tourists died after crossing the boundary...Note to self, don't cross the line. We were working our way up the windy, windy and rough seas of the west coast. We caught the sunset at the pancake rocks, which are limestone rocks that have been layered and look like you guessed it...pancakes. After a bit of driving and some more nice scenery we made it to the northwest coast and the Abel Tasman National Park. We finally got some good weather and rented sea kayaks. After some colorful instruction by a cool kiwi guy we were off and cruising the clear blue waters and coastline. We paddled out to an island and just floated and watched the fur seals for about a half and hour and one even jumped a few feet from our boat. We had lunch on a nice beach, took a swim, and paddled through some caves in the afternoon. For our paddle back the wind had picked up and we fought some huge waves and even rode some...we made it back, sore but without incident. We kept moving back towards Christchurch. We relaxed and relieved our sore muscles at the hot springs in the nice little town of Hanmer Springs. We returned our temporary home and stayed at a nice hostel in downtown Christchurch. We met up with one of Melica's sister's friends who lives in Christchurch and who recently did an exchange to the U of I. We got a quick tour of the downtown and had some coffees. ChCh is a nice town and we really enjoyed the south island and definitely could have spent more time at many of the places. We first planned to split the time pretty evenly on both islands but we were having a good time and only left ourselves 4 days for whole north island. The next day we started our epic journey north and took the old adage "relocation, relocation, relocation" to a new level, tagging together a campervan and car rental to get us to Auckland. Our first mission was to take a super long backpacker campervan from ChCh across the ferry to Wellington. We headed up the pretty east coast of the south island. We saw some more seals and stopped for some fish and chips at Kaikora. Melica was attacked by a brave seagull who attacked her for a chip en route to her mouth.
The evening ferry crossing was nice and calm and we were lucky because we heard some horror stories from about a week ago where the seas were rough, people were getting tossed everywhere and throwing up...Calm seas, good views and a clear sky as we wove through islands and across the Cook Straight. We turned the van in the next morning and explored Wellington. Wellington is a really cool city with a good vibe, probably our favorite big NZ city. We walked around the streets and the waterfront ending up at the Te Papa museum. It too was a pleasant surprise, with heaps of NZ information, a preserved giant squid, and lots of great displays. The best part was that it was free-99. We could have spent all day there, but we had our next mission...to relocate a Kia Picanto (I think picanto means small and spicy-it was)to the Auckland Airport.(and only 50 cents per day!) We headed north and after about an hour we got out to stretch our legs at the little town of Levin. We realized that even the community parks are extreme in NZ. This one was fit with some extreme teeter-totters, large hampster wheels, and a crazy flying fox zipline thing-all unsupervised and open to the public. After some near misses with injuries and our abs hurting from laughing at each other we hit the road. About a half an hour later we came upon some hitch-hikers...I was like... "I"m going to go with my gut on this one- let's pick 'em up". We all crammed in the little car and kept moving. They were a kiwi couple heading home from Wellington for the weekend. The girl was part Mauri (indigenous NZ) and the guy was swiss but a resident for 7 years. After having a good chat, we decided to change our route and take them all the way to their house and crash on their floor. It was a bit out the way but worked well for both of us. We drove for about 3 hours, stopped for Kebabs, and arrived well after dark. They lived on a Mauri settlement (similar to a reservation) and worked there. The next morning we woke up to the great view of the Mt. Taranaki-an extinct volcano a few Kms from the village. It was also the 18th of the month, and every 18th and 19th of the month the village has a meeting and festival to remember their past. This group was supposedly the first indigenous group to practice passive resistance to the colonization and have been holding these meetings for over 150 years. We were invited to breakfast with them (they had to ask permission). We were greeted with a hongi or traditional forehead/nose to forehead/nose greeting- we joined them for a breakfast of porridge, mashed potatoes and meat. We chatted with the different people and learned a bit about them. In the afternoon they have storytelling and a big dinner but we had to hit the road- we fed some river eel, said goodbyes and hit the road. And that is what I love about traveling...you can be driving down the road and just by chance happen into some great cultural experience and meet some great people on the way.

Our last stop before Auckland was Te Kuiti-"The Shearing Capital of the World" all set with a 21 foot statue of a dude shearing a sheep. Melica's Dad is a shearer so it made it all that more interesting. They had the world records posted and most of the world record holders come from this area...the record for lambs was 831 sheep in a 9 hour work day! It said that attempting a world record was comparable to running back to back marathons. We took some snaps, had some lunch, and sent home some shearing pants for Martin and were off again.
We timed it just right and spent our first hour in Auckland not getting out of first gear on the freeway. It was rush hour and there were two accidents. We finally made it to our friend Clayton's house. He is a guy we met while hiking in Nepal and he said if we ever made it through-to give him a call. He is a great guy and gave us an intense 3 hour tiki tour of Auckland, accompanied by a mixed CD of classic New Zealand music. It was a good night, a nice dinner and some gelato to cap it all off. We crashed on his floor and were off the next afternoon. We did some time travel as we left New Zealand at around 8 on Thursday and arrived at 5, three hours earlier...if I could only use that technology for my NCAA bracket. (Go Zags)

New Zealand is another great country- our only regret is that we needed more time. They have heaps of outdoor activities and some amazing hikes. It is a great rural based country, comfortable, green, organized and beautiful. We were thinking that if you bundled up Norway, Montana and Canada and gave them a goofy accent and as goofy of a sense of humor you would have New Zealand-or New Normanadada as we call it. It's the kind of place you can be sporting a wooly jumper, be eating a lamb sub from subway, listening to "The flight of the Concords", while jumping off a cliff shearing a sheep.
This is our first day in Bueunos Aires, Argentina and have met up with Melica's sister Tirtza who just started her year abroad studying here. It should be fun and a definite change after being in some sort of English speaking country for the last 3 1/2 months. Our plan is still open but are hoping to travel Argentina for a few weeks and start slowly making our way north to the homeland. Adios por ahora...

Great Ocean Road and Beyond

2009-03-02T23:26:00.000-08:00

We are currently in Sydney with one more day before jetting off to New Zealand on the 4th. The last couple weeks were good with quite a bit of driving and area covered. After our time in Hahndorf we headed east and met back up with Jason and Anna from the Nullarbor and were back as travel partners. They had a great time on Kangaroo island while we checked out the Red Center. Next stop, the Great Ocean Road...Head east from Warnambool to Torquay and you are on the Aussie version of the Pacific coast highway 1. The windy, curvy road skirts the coast with countless pull offs showing the great views of limestone formations, rugged coastline and beaches. We stopped at the Loch Ard Gorge amoung others, and watched the sunset over the 12 Apostles formations. Pretty stunning scenery. We also stopped at a run down wildlife park and saw some native animals including a wombat, wallabies, roos (joey in pocket), dingo, and the main reason for the stop was to see a Koala. We hadn't seen a Koala yet and decided to stop, but after the wildlife park we began to see them everywhere. We took the road to the Otway lighthouse and it seemed that they were in every other tree, just lounging in the cracks and barely moving. They say the Koala has the smallest brain per capita, as it uses a lot of its power for breaking down the toxins in the eucalyptus leaves. We probably ended up seeing around 20 fury eared buggers that day. We spent 3 days in Lorne, relaxing and seeing the sights. After that we headed toward Melbourne stopping at the famous surfing beach- Bells Beach. Jason took a surf while we watched. After a lightning trip through a busy Melbourne we had planned to go to Wilson's Promontory, however it was closed due to fires. Plan B was put in place and we headed on a gravel/dirt narrow road over the snowy mountains and followed the Snowy River. The scenery was amazing and very few people were on the path. It was cool to be in the area that the great movies "Man from Snowy River" and "Return to Snowy River" (both childhood favorites) were filmed. It kind of made me want to catch a brumbie and tear down a steep hill.

We free camped at a little town/settlement called Suggan Buggan. Where Jason stated there were more words is the name than in the town. The drive was slow and corrugated in places but the Swing made it fine. It was definitely worth it as we saw plenty of wildlife including emus, wallabies, roos, and even a roo swimming across the snowing river. We made it to Jindabyne for the weekend and spent two days camping there. We were now in Australia's ski capital but in the summer. We happened to be there on the weekend of the Dragon Boat festival, where people come from around the area to race large row boats on the lake, drink beer on the grass and ride the rides. The night was capped off with some pretty good fireworks. The next day we went to Thredbo, the ski village and took the chair lift to the top and completed a 13Km roundtrip hike to the top of Australia. The highest point of Oz at Mt. Kosciuszko is 2228 meters. A nice day and some good scenery. We left Jindy and kept heading east and had lunch in Australia's capital of Canberra. A pretty city full of monument, memorials, lakes, government buildings, and large roundabouts. At one point while following Jason and Anna I flashed back to National Lampoon's European Vacation---"look kids- Big Ben, Parliament House".

We pushed on to Parramatta outside of Sydney and had my birthday dinner with Jason, Anna, his Mom and Aunt. We crashed at his mom's apartment for the night. The next few days were spent a few hours north of Sydney hanging out with Jason's family and hanging near the beach. We were having a good time but needed to get back to Sydney and sell the car. We posted flyers at backpacker hostels and on the Internet. We fielded calls from people with varying levels of intelligence and tried to meet up with a few...we were getting tired of the car consuming so much of our time. We finally sold it after 3 days of being in Sydney...not for the price we wanted but it was definitely worth it and we are thankful that it made it to our goal. It is hard to believe we did 11,000 kilometers together. One immediate downside was that we sold it with the camping package, so our big tent and air mattress were gone and we are back to the 1/4 inch foam. Our portable storage locker/home is gone and we had to downsize our collections of stuff accumulated over the last 3 months.

Anyway- Sydney is a great city. We are camped about 20 minutes outside the city center and have been able to see most of the sights around the city. The opera house, walked across the Harbor Bridge, Luna park/Coney island for a pluto pup (corn dog), Manly beach, Bondi beach, ferry rides, the huge bats (flying foxes) at the Royal Botanical Garden, on our first day the Queen Mary 2 pulled into port so we were able to see the largest ocean liner on earth up close. On Saturday, Jason and Anna came into town and we grabbed some dinner and went to a exhibition Rugby League game between the Sydney Rabbatohs and St. George Dragons. The Rabbitohs won 18 to 6 and it was a great atmosphere and even a couple bloody faces to make it even better. We said our goodbyes to our travel buddies and will surely see them again down the road.

We have definitely gotten our walking legs back, walking all over and taking public transport. Sydney is a big diverse city, full of parks and nice old buildings and amazing views of the harbor from everywhere.

Tomorrow is Melica's Birthday and we are off to New Zealand late in the evening. Like always we have no idea what we are doing once we get there...but that's the fun of it.

The Red Gooey Centre

2009-02-17T16:14:00.000-08:00

Another week of exciting Australian tourism. We baked in the heat on the weekend of "Black Saturday"- the weekend of the terrible brush fires that have killed over 200 people and wiped out over a thousand homes. Crazy to believe they were only a couple hundred kilometers away. It was the perfect storm of low humidity, high winds, super dry fuels and extreme heat. When we opened our windows or walked outside a building it felt like you opened the door to an oven or someone was holding a blow dryer to your face. The Australians have banned together and have raised over 100 million dollars in fundraisers all over the country to help the Victorian bush fire victims. It is good to see their country coming together in such a tragedy.

We hung up the keys for a few days and headed north to the red centre for a quick trip to see a rock. We parked our car in Adelaide and took the historic Ghan railway on an overnight 24 hour train ride. It was great having someone else drive for a change and just sit back and read and watch the miles of nothing pass by. We were just in the budget seat section but it wasn't too full so we could stretch out and get some z's. The landscape turned from coastline, to salt bush, to the red sands and arid center. We pulled into Alice Springs in early afternoon, found a campsite and rented bikes to cruise the town. We saw more aboriginals in Alice Springs than we had in any other area. The town's population is around 25,000 and is surprising considering it is in the middle of nowhere. At our camp we met up with 2 Canadians we met about a week ago at the end of the Nullarbor, small world. We had dinner with them and heard about their exciting shark diving adventure. The next morning we went to go pick up our new ride. We first heard about campervan relocation's while working at the restaurant where one girls said she had done one and it was a good cheap way to get from one location to another if you were flexible on your dates. We called and reserved one. There are so many camper van companies and well off tourist that pick up a camper/car/van/motorhome and take it from one spot to another and leave it and then the company needs to get the vehicle back for another rental. They offer sweet deals of 1 to 5 dollars per day and perks like gas money. We found one for 5$ per day and $160 in fuel money. The only catch is that you have to pick it up on certain days, get a limited amount of kilometers and get 4 days to deliver it. Ok for us. We didn't even know what we were getting until we got to the shop in the morning.

It was a full on motor home, complete with fridge, shower, toilet, and beds. More than we needed and quite the change from the swing. We took off on the 5 hour drive to the big red rock in style. The motorhome had ice cold A/C, cruise control and the ability to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the run. We pulled into Yalara (the small tourist community on the edge of the national park) found our site, went for a swim and headed off for a view of the rock at sunset. It was amazing to see something you have seen countless times in books and TV and now for real. It was huge and red just like we suspected. Sunset lit up the rock and continually changed until it turned to a charcoal color. The next morning we got up early and looked at the other side for sunrise. Just as spectacular through sleepy eyes and sharing it with hundreds of other people- mainly busloads of asian tourists, retireds, unwashed backpackers- all with their fly nets and varying levels of photography equipment. We took a very insightful Ranger guided walk that explained the native people's beliefs on how it was created and how they use the land. We spent a good part of the day walking around and looking at the rock but needed to keep moving. We still had a long way to go. After about 700 kilometers and near dark we pulled off at rest area and slept for the night- no set up required. The next morning we were off early and happened upon a dingo snacking on some fresh kanga-road kill. After repeating "a dingo's got your baby" in terrible Aussie accents and snapping a few photos we left the tan domestic looking dog to his breakfast.

We stopped in Coober Pedy- a dry dusty town that is the Opal capital of Australia and maybe the world. It is famous for its opals, underground houses and of course the back drops for great movies like Mad Max. We visited an underground museum and home - with limited time we got everything done in one stop and it was pretty interesting. The town even had a public noodling area- (noodling is looking through piles of rocks for opals). We felt a bit awkward noodling in public so after a few minutes and finding some small colorful rocks we hit the road. We returned our temporary home to Adelaide with 40 minutes to spare and 8 kilometers left. Another 2082 kilomiters of Aussie highway driving down. We left Adelaide in our little car- sitting low to the ground and missing the A/C and diesel power. After a stop in the German town of Hahndorf for some kransky's and kraut we are now heading towards Melbourne via the coast.

The Little Engine that Could

2009-02-05T20:57:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone...we are back with some new adventures to report. We spent most of January working the Xanadu and I picked up another job in the evenings for two weeks at a local seafood restaurant. A girl from Xanadu went on vacation and needed someone to fill in for a bit. We enjoyed the month of comfortable living with trips to the beach, barbies and a nice concert. Our landlord Mark took us out for some surfing lessons and had a good time and made some progress on standing up. We eventually borrowed some boards and made it out a couple times a week. Our last few days in Margaret River were good, we worked the Sunday the 25th a pretty busy day during Australia day weekend and that night we went to an outdoor concert at a local winery. It was a nice send off because most of our co-workers and people we met during our stay were at the concert. It was a great setting with the vineyards all around, grassy amphitheatre filled with lounging families and drunken spectators, and the stage was back lit by large Karri trees. The bands playing were the Waifs, Annie Di Franco, and Mama Kin. We didn't know much about them but it was a great night and a good send off. The next day was Aussie day, the national day- no Independence to celebrate yet but it was cool to see a lot of the Aussies draped in flags and national colors, flags on vehicles and all the barbies going around. We met some friends at the Lions community breakfast- baked beans, eggs, toast, bacon, snags(sausages) and hash browns. The plans for the day included watching "The Tennis" or "The Cricket" and a barbecue to be worked in there somewhere. We celebrated Aussie day with a barbie consisting of 2 Americans, 2 Chileans, a German, and a Swede. We had another day to get things organized, change the oil in the Swingo and get some supplies. We drove out of town early on Wednesday the 28th. Sad to be leaving a nice place, good friends and a comfortable way of life but we are excited about our new adventures...

We looked into a lot of different options for getting across to the other side of the country but ultimately settled on the big road trip with the ultimate destination of Sydney. We have airplane tickets from Sydney to New Zealand on the 4th of March and from New Zealand to Argentina on the 19th of March. When we told people we were crossing the Nullarbor in the swing dingo, they looked confused and worried and followed it up with comments like, why? just fly or take the train. We liked the idea of the freedom and being able to camp where we liked and had/have faith in it. Our drive was going great with our new selection of books on tape and various 80's tapes we were crossing through wheat and sheep country when about 350kms into the day the car just died. Crikie- Melica and I looked at each other like this can't be, popped the bonnet(hood) and stared at the engine. We were 30km outside of the nearest town. Not more than 5 minutes later we were offered a ride by two shire council members headed to a meeting. We discussed our travels and our jobs. They said they were looking for planners and offered me a job. I wasn't in the mood to discuss work and was wondering what we would do next. They dropped us off in Gnowangerup pop. less than 300. We asked at the local hardware store if there was a repair shop in town, and the guys just happened to be leaving the shop. We jumped in the back of their car with two dogs and were off. They towed the car back to the shop. The good ole' aussie blokes Beven and Gordon assessed the car, and with their aussie humor used phases like "Bugga" and "it might have told you to get stuffed". Its not that bad, just a timing belt and water pump that would have to be shipped from Perth. They ordered it and it arrive in the morning. Beven offered up a room in his house to stay- as his girls were off at university and the only other options were pitching the tent at the shop or the local Roadhouse. We had tea (dinner) with Beven, swapped traveler stories, learned a bit about Australia, watched "The Tennis" and had a nice evening. By 3 the next afternoon the Swing was back. We felt pretty fortunate the car broke down where it did and that we got to meet some friendly, funny, and helpful true aussies while supporting the local economy. We headed off towards Esperance. It was raining hard and we couldn't make it as far as we wanted and ended up sleeping in the car. We eventually made it to Esperance, where they claim to have the best beaches in Australia. We splurged on a new dome tent and air mattress and are now living in style- it sure beats the 1/4 inch foam mat we used when we first got to Oz. The beaches were great, white sands and super fine like powdered sugar. At Cape La Grande National park we tried some sand sledding and chilled on the white sand beaches. There were even camp Kangaroos that jumped around the tents and hung out on the beach. When we were packing up we met another couple-an Australian guy Jason and his American Fiance Anna who were also heading across the Nullarbor in their newer Nissan X-trail. We headed out a bit ahead of them and commented it would be nice if they see us on the side of the road if they could pick us up and that we would see them down the road. We had a nice time in the area and overall it was a good esperance.

Mark our former landlord is also a weather guru and helped us "pick our run" and texted us when would be a good time to head across the Nullarbor-Sunday and Monday were good and provided some clouds and a break from the heat. We headed off with an ominous start almost nailing a kangaroo and finding an Emu that wouldn't get out of the road, running down the center of the road in front of us. I finally decided to pass it at 40km an hour and will never forget looking past Melica in the passenger seat and seeing an Emu looking back at us.

The Nullarbor is one of the great Aussie road trips and it turned out to be different than we thought. Nullarbor comes from the latin Nullus Arboris or no trees and we figured it to be desert and nothing. There were trees for most of it, scragly bush, some gently rolling hills, roadhouses every couple hundred kms, and the traffic consisted mostly of Road trains which are huge semis some with 3 trailers and 44 wheels that keep you awake by almost blowing you off the road, camper vans, suvs and the occasional car. We were probably the smallest car on the road. We took a couple breaks in the shade at road houses and overheard a trucker stating that he almost hit a camel last night. After a long day of driving and almost 700Kms we pulled into the Madura over look on the only pass on the road. We decided to free camp at the spot and not more than 10 mins later Jason and Anna pulled up and decided to camp with us. We threw up our tents and enjoyed the evening with a good sunset over a whole lotta nothing, some Uno and chatting. We got an early start the next day and were armed with a walkie talkie from Jason and Anna and planned to meet up at the end of the Nullarbor in Ceduna. The stops on the second day were much better as the road followed the coast. There were some amazing lookouts over the great Australian bight- cliffs that drop straight into clear water and the only thing to the south of you is Antarctica. Pretty amazing that you can go from nothing on the arid nullarbor to the vivid blue of the ocean- it made it feel like you were at the end of the world. At one of the overlooks we saw some dolphins playing in the clear surf below. At the right time of the year you can see the southern right whales hanging out in one bay and at times there could be up to 70 whales there at a time! Pretty amazing country. Another long day of driving(~700Kms) left us at Ceduna in Southern Australia. We were glad to be off the nullarbor but happy we did it. We camped with Jason and Anna again. It was nice to share the experience with someone and know that someone would be there to give you a tow or get help if you needed it. All was good and we were now on the Eyre peninsula and with no real plans we decided to explore it with Jason and Anna. We hit up a couple good beaches on our way to Elliston. At Elliston we had a great dinner of supa fresh snappa. The next day we all piled into the X-trail for some more exploring. At the Coffin Bay national park we found an amazing beach with great sand and some good waves. We used Jason's surf board and had a good time when Jason and I were out in the surf but still able to stand- he says "what do you think that is?" pointing to a dark area in the surf, I thought it was a big chunk of seaweed but as a wave crashed over it we could see that they were good sized fish (salmon) and Jason told me to get out of the water. No need to tell me twice, even though I didn't know why. But where there are big schools of fish there are also sharks. Back on shore we saw some fins but they ended up being a big group of dolphins. Only 150kms south in Port Lincoln you can go out in chummed up water and hang out in a shark cage while the great whites swim by, so it was probably a good idea to get out when we did. We kept driving south and checked out Port Lincoln - a large fishing port and the place where the boats head out in search of the pricey blue fin tuna.

We had a great time exploring the peninsula with Jason and Anna and on Thursday we took a ferry from Lucky bay to Wallaroo which is about 150km from Adelaide. We went our separate ways as Jason has some work to do in Adelaide and we have a few days to kill before we take the train to Alice Springs on the Sunday the 8th. We are now in the Barossa valley, another picturesque wine region and currently in a major heat wave as it may reach 43 (109.4) today. We are currently in an air conditioned library waiting out the heat of the day- a time where the Swing dingos heat gauge acts like a tachometer(not really). Yesterday we hit up the local public pool- where it is OK to bring your own tractor tire, mesh shirt and mullet. Everything is good and we are ecstatic that we made it this far, met some great people, saw some amazing things and now looking forward to our journey to the red center.

Happy Xanadu Year

2009-01-05T01:37:00.000-08:00

A late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Another update from South west Australia. Things have returned to "normal" after nearly a month of road tripping and camping around the southwest. We got a much needed break, landed jobs and a comfortable place to spend Christmas and New Years. As we passed through little towns we were on the look out for a nice chill place to crash, earn some Aussie dollars and relax. We picked up the local paper and sent out some emails to perspective employers. One was for a waitstaff position and 5 minutes after sending the email we had a call for an interview. We stopped by the op shop (Aussie Goodwill) and scored some presentable clothes and the next day we were both offered short term jobs at an expensive winery restaurant (http://www.xanaduwines.com/). Xanadu, where duck rilletes, sheep's feta tiropita, marron custard and ocean trout pastrami roll off the tongue. The fine dining scene was a bit intimidating at first and we felt a little out of place- especially with no experience in the hospitality business. It has been fun getting some new skills and seeing how an intense kitchen is run and how they present their food. It's crazy to think that we have gone from substitute teachers in Nepal, to camping vagabonds, to waiters in just a months time. I guess mom was right, you can be anything you want to be when you grow up. We felt pretty lucky landing the jobs because most of the people we talked to wanted someone for a long term commitment or only had jobs for one of us. This job was a bit out of our comfort zone but with the same hours, nice restaurant, good pay, good staff and their acceptance of our short attention spans I think we got lucky.

Like we've said before it is summer here (sorry Idaho) and everyone seems to go on holiday around Christmas and New Years so the restaurant needed to bulk up its staff for a few weeks. One day we had around 230 customers, so it has been pretty busy. We thought we would only be on until the 15th of January but have been asked to stay on until the 27th which is Australia Day. A little longer than we hoped but we like the area and will have more Aussie dollars to travel on with no worries.

We started around the 23rd of December and it was off to a good start...As haggard campers and backpacking travelers for the last four months we were informed that our first two evenings of work would be to come in and meet the staff and taste the new summer menu and match some wines with it...and here's the clincher, we got paid for it. Getting paid to eat great food was a big change from eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches out of the Aussie Geo metro.

Xanadu sits in a nice area, amongst the vineyards and cattle pastures and only a few kilometers outside of the town of Margaret River. Margaret River is a sweet spot, with a good mix of old winos, families on holiday, and the backpackers. Margaret River also boast some of the best surfing in Australia and is supposedly known around the world surfing community. It has a small town feel being around 5,000 but seeing thousands of tourist come through to holiday homes and B&B's, but you can't go long without seeing a camper van or a trashy station wagon with surfboards on top.

After getting the jobs we camped for a bit but found an ad for a share house and took it. The place is nice, furnished, walking distance to downtown, 15 min. to the beach, and 10 to work. We share the common areas with a Korean and Taiwanese couple who are working in the vineyards. Our landlords are a nice couple that have a studio attached to the back of the house. They have been great to meet and have given us good info about the area, we had a barbie with them, and spent new years evening with them. The guy is also a big surfer and may give me some lessons if I so dare.

Before settling down we continued to road trip to the southern coastal towns of Walpole, Denmark, and Albany. And the more interior towns of Mt. Barker, Manjimup and Nannup. We got a good taste of the area and how diverse it is. We saw some more nice beaches, orchards, big cattle ranches, sheep ranches, wheat fields, barren outback and some more huge trees. We did the "tree top walk" where they have elevated platforms about 100 feet in the air and you walk around the tree tops. The Swing-dingo has been doing its job and we've put around 3500kms on her already with no issues (knock on wood). We are deciding whether to sell her and fly or take the train across the country at the end of January....or risk it and drive across the desert.

Our Christmas was spent eating a nice American breakfast, going to the beach and a barbie with a guy we met from works' house. A good relaxing day and I guess a typical Aussie Christmas. It didn't really feel like x-mas without the families or cold weather, but we had a good day never the less. We also experienced our first boxing day- Not sure of the significance but it is the day after Christmas- a big shopping day and when I asked a true Aussie what it was, he explained: "The day after Chrissie when everyone gets pissed(drunk) and watches cricket"

In our down time we have been enjoying the area, going to the beach, enjoying the western food, the use of a kitchen and being able to relax on a couch. One windy afternoon on the beach we almost saw our first tragedy, there were calls for help from the beach and waving from the ocean as a couple kids got sucked out to sea in a riptide. After some tense moments and some good Samaritans with surf boards paddling out to tow them in-everyone was safe. A scary situation. The nightly news has had reports claim over 250 people downed in Australia last year and just recently there was one shark attack up the coast with one man missing.

We have also had a couple nice barbies. One was the true Australian barbie, shrimps (prawns) and all. We bought some "Kanga bangas" from the supermarket. Kangaroo sausages for the lay person, they also sold Kanga steaks but we opted for the bangas. Much like selling wild game at a store in the states, they say it is super lean and good for you. The bangas were decent, a bit gamey and I can see why the price was so low and why they weren't jumping off the shelves.

Well, overall we have had a good month and like the idea of the working holiday visa and wish we had more time. We met a finish couple who bought a van and have almost made it all around Australia working a few weeks or a month in on place and then moving on. A good way to see the county and meet the locals. For now we are stumbling through our fine dining crash course and enjoying where we are. It is nice to have found a place where "No worries, mate" really means something.

A Down-Under December

2008-12-12T19:22:00.000-08:00

We are finally in Australia. To get here we had to endure one of the longer days of travel we have had yet. We finished up in Kuala Lumpur being quite sick and taking a 4 a.m. bus to the Airport for our flight. When we got to the airport my first stop was the men's room for a nice session of throwing up. I knew it would be a good travel day. Our flight out to Singapore was nice and short but we had a 9 hour lay over in Singapore and we had to wait in the departure area with no real comforts. The flight was a bit delayed but we made it off. We didn't check the itinerary very well because we had the long lay over and then we got into Perth at 1 a.m. and nothing was open. After going through customs we slept at the airport until daylight and headed into town. A lot of the hostels were booked and not super ideal for a tired and sick couple of travelers. We also got some sticker shock on the prices as we are not in Asia anymore. We found a place but it, like all of the hostels were full of binge drinking 20 somethings. The smell was a mix of sticky beer, Ramen noodles and socks. I was having some flashbacks to Upham hall at the U of I dorms. Not bad but maybe it would have been better another time. After checking in we walked around Perth and found some nice parks and sights. After 30 plus hours of no sleep, we finally turned in.

Like we seem to do when arriving in a new place we walked for hours and tried to find some direction and figure out what we are doing there. We spent 3 days in Perth and the Surrounding area. It is really nice, it is summer time here and the Christmas spirit is alive. Perth has the posh feel of any big metro area with nice cafes and nice shops and business men and women having their after work drinks. But it also has a laid back outdoors feel because of the parks, river and being right near the beaches. It is a large center for the oil and mining business and is the only real major city on the west coast and so far away from everything(~4000 km to Sydney). Basically, it has a really unique feel to it that I can't really pinpoint. Somewhere between Seattle, Southern Cal and Anchorage. Australia in general has been good and here are some of the basics: you can drink the water, flush a toilet, they speak English (kind of), you aren't looked at like a walking dollar sign (no hassles), and prices are marked (no haggling). The people are a good mix of "normal" families like you would see in the states, disgruntled youth and rednecks. Most all are extroverted and cheery and goofy in their own way, which makes any conversation fun.

So, after looking at our options we saw that it was very expensive to take a group tour or even take public transport and stay in the pricey hostels. We went to a neighboring town and walked by a car dealership and asked if they had any super cheap wheels. They didn't at the time but took our number and said they would call. We were walking down the street not more than a quarter mile away and one of the cheery used car salesmen pulled up in a shiny white car and said he was just taking it in and it may be available. We came back the next day and checked it over, it was basic but it provided us some freedom. The guys said they would buy it back when we were done and they were glad for a quick turnaround so we made the deal. I knew it would be good as we slammed the hood after our inspection and the front emblem came off. So we are the proud new owners of a 1994 Holden Barina- Swing. It is white with turquoise and pink splashes on the side. I think we will call it the Swingo-Dingo after the fierce and agile dog of the outback. It is one of the more masculine cars I have ever seen. The Geo-metro of Australia. Economical and easy to drive, actually just economical. It's got a bit of hitch in the giddy-up but I've seemed to have gotten it under control. It is a manual and they drive on the other side of the road so the first few hours/days were a bit scary for us and Australia. I am slowly figuring out the coordination of shifting with my left hand and staying on the left side of the road while merging into a two lane roundabout.

We got the car threw in our backpacks, swung by the salvation army and local Big W (Australian Walmart) and got cooking and camping supplies. Armed with a 50 cent Best of the 80's cassette tape we headed down the southern coast. So for about a week we have been checking out the little towns along the coast and camping. The first few days I didn't feel well and am slowly getting better with some self medication of anti-biotics. The coast is nice and the weather is good. We have seen a couple good lighthouses and went up in one at the very southwest tip of Australia where the Indian ocean and Southern ocean come together. It was pretty cool and quite high. We also went to a national park full of huge Karri trees and climbed to the top of a sketchy fire lookout around 225 feet off the ground. To get up there you had to spiral up the trunk of the tree on Rebar spikes that wound around the tree all the way to the top. We were surprised with all of the rules and safety things here but, you weren't required to wear a harness or have any supervision. Regardless it was a cheap thrill and gave a great view. We've also seen a good bit of wildlife, dolphins, emus, pelicans and mostly Kangaroos. The roos are just like deer back in the northwest. A bit of a pest, dangerous to drivers and in most fields near dawn or dusk as you are driving. At one of the visitor centers we got to pet some babies who's mothers had been hit by cars. They were super soft and friendly.

We haven't made it too far down the coast but we like the area, close to the forest and beach and kind of a tourist holiday area. We have a couple leads on some jobs to fund the adventures and may stay in this area a while. This will probably be the last blog until after the holidays -

so Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone

On the road again

2008-11-30T04:15:00.000-08:00

After 2 months in Nepal we are on the move again...but not without a little change of plans. We endured our first travel problems due to the chaos in Bangkok. On Wednesday the 26th we had already checked in for our flight and through immigration when we were told our flight was canceled due to political disturbance in Thailand. We waited for around 5 hours to see if the flight would go...no dice. We went to the airline office and got a new ticket for the Friday flight. We hung around Kathmandu and ran into our Canadian friend Myanna again. Friday was the same story with an ominous start. We tried to get a taxi but they were hard to get because of a strike--we found one to take us and as we were winding through the dusty and sleepy streets we had to avoid an elephant in the road. Our flight was canceled again and back to the airline office. We were very lucky and got 2 of the last 5 seats to Kuala Lumpur that same evening. The only catch was that we had to pay for business class, and to our dismay they didn't even give us our money's worth by announcing "Now boarding all business class passengers". As we left from the airport office to the immigration office to make sure we would be OK for overstaying our visas, we passed a dead dog on the sidewalk and a man relieving himself in the bushes and with the Bangkok airport still closed we made the right move.

We didn't even know anything about Kuala Lumpur but it is a really nice city, modern, clean, and a great contrast to Nepal. For example we have been up in the Petronas Towers skyscraper, ate at Pizza hut, cruised a large mall (with a huge christmas tree), watched the new Bond movie and hung out in a clean park. After seeing little in the ways of modern transportation or amenaties for 2 months we were thrown into the huge city of around 7 million people. Our Bangkok flight switched around and are now flying out on the 2nd to Perth, Australia.

Our last few weeks in Pokhara turned out really well. We got into a nice routine at the school and began to figure things out. On a couple of slow days I even got to go paragliding with Brad two more times...sans the vulture. I played basketball every morning and most afternoons. And ref'd another NBA game. I realized that my mark on Nepal won't be the nursery rhymes I taught the children or how to pronounce certain words but teaching them the basketball game bump and rebound which they seem to love. They play a lot of pig and horse but call it Monkey. Melica and I also made our "family" an American meal as they called it, but it was just pasta and spaghetti sauce, garlic bread, no-bake chocolate/peanut butter cookies and fruit salad. It was good to give the mom a night off and to see their expressions as most of them hadn't had anything other than Dhal Baht and Nepali food. They seemed to enjoy it even if they did use a little chili sauce to spice it up.
We took two field trips with the school one to some bat caves and the other to a mountain museum. Both good times.
I got my first hair cut of the trip and it was a good experience. Halfway through the power went out like it does for 3 hours most nights, so he had to finish by lamplight. The haircut concluded with the man giving a rough head massage, bopping me on the head with his fists and popping my neck. All for 50 cents.
Our last day at the school was good with some really nice festivities. We took a couple classes then visited the annex building to say good bye to the kids and teachers. They gave us a Tika (red dot on the forehead) and silk scarves as good luck and thanks. We went back to the main campus where there was an assembly with music and dancing by the students. We were given a gift of a trophy and the teachers and students said good things about us and that they would miss us.

We also had a dinner party with the Pun family, some friends and neighbors. Good food and a good way to end our time there. The Pun's saw us off to the bus with more silk scarves and flower garlands. They were great people and we hope we can see them again someday.
Time to move on and we are glad we stayed as long as we did but are glad to be out of Kathmandu and have the whole Bangkok hassle done with. Off to Aussie land.

Festival Time

2008-11-12T00:44:00.000-08:00

After a little hiatus from blogging we are back. We didn't have much to say after our long trek but finally have some news to report. It was festival time for another week or so. This one spared the goats and buffaloes but not the general public. The name was Tihar and Diwali and included children yelling a song at every home and place of business for money, fireworks and dancing in the streets, they also celebrated different animals and gave a tika (red dot on the forehead) to dogs and cows. It became a running joke because whenever we asked a Nepali person a question(what is the price? when is it open? etc) it always started..."well it's festival time..." We later found out that Nepal has over 100 festival days a year...what a great country. We took a week or so off in Pokhara hanging around Lakeside-- eating and relaxing, we extended our visas for a month and sent out some emails and asked around for volunteer leads. While at one Internet cafe I began talking to the owner of the hotel and cafe, he said his uncle is the principal of a school on the edge of town and they might need volunteers. We visited the school and the Principal's house and it looked like a good fit. We would live and eat with the Principal's family and help out and teach at the boarding school. The school is Manakamana Boarding School and it is sits in a quiet location with good views of the mountains. All but one subject (Nepali) is taught in English and the ages vary from 3 to 18 years old. After saying goodbye to the comforts of lakeside we have settled in with the Pun's. Our first few days were a bit awkward but we were met with the language barrier and very nice people. The first day of school was unexpectedly good, we were met at the school with marigold lays and a silk scarf and the whole school lined up giving us each a marigold and saying good morning sir/mam. All of the teachers are nice and I think they enjoy a few hours off now and then. Mostly we teach some English conversation, or reading out of their science/social studies books etc., all of the teachers speak English in class but I'm sure it helps to have a native English speaker talk to the kids. Some days are only games and nursery rhymes with the little kids. How many times can we sing twinkle twinkle little star without going for a run with scissors?

Our extra curricular activities have included renting scooters and braving the Nepal roads and heading to a nearby lake. Myanna the Canadian from the trek was doing some freelance volunteering as well and joined us for a few extreme days and we said goodbye to her again a few days ago. The biggest thrill of the week was last Friday when we went paragliding or more particularly parahawking. My friend Brad Sander who I worked with in 2004 while fighting fire in Alaska works for Frontiers Pargliding and just made it to town. He holds two paragliding records- I think...one for height (7700 meters) and distance kms. Anyway a great guy to know. He and paraglider/falconer Scott Mason took us up with Kevin an Egyptian Vulture for a very cool afternoon. It is the only place in the world where you can do this and it was a great experience. (http://www.parahawking.com/) I'll try to describe it...attached to a parachute- two people run off of a hill and sail over the tree tops. You sit back in a comfortable chair and take in the view. You take a chunk of buffalo meat out of your fanny pack and hold it out in your leather glove. At the blow of a whistle a vulture lands on your hand for a snack. At that point you think "How crazy is this, I am floating hundreds of feet above the ground and a vulture just landed on my hand"....The vulture rotated between Melica and me and cruised the skies for about 45 minutes with great view and good memories. An amazing day.

I've also been playing basketball every morning and some evenings with the older kids at the school and the nephew of the principal who we live with. Fun times and they are actually good ballers. On Saturday Manakamana had a "friendly" match with a neighboring school. We came to watch and I was asked to Referee. Not a bad job and only a few travels and fouls. I never pictured myself reffing an NBA (Nepali Basketball Association) game but it worked out.
Overall things are good and we glad to be settled and getting the full Nepali experience. Once you leave the touristed area of Lakeside you see real Nepal, burning garbage, dirty kids, poverty, old men sitting around playing cards. Our general routine is that we have early morning tea, a full meal of Dal baht at around 9:30 a.m., school at 10 to around 4, snack at around 1, read or walk around until dark, eat dinner with the family at around 7 or 8. Dinner usually is Dal Baht (white rice, curried veggies, and lentil soup) but sometime we have flat bread and other goods. Sometimes we eat on the floor in the kitchen, on metal plates, we haven't taken to using our hands like the Nepalis do. But when in Nepal...After dinner, if there is electricity we watch some Indian soap operas or play cards with the Principal's 13 year old daughter and the cousin.

We luckily got a working holiday visa for Australia without needing a medical check up and just got our tickets. We leave Nepal on November 26th to Bangkok then to Perth Australia on December 1st. So it looks like a Christmas down under for us.

Annapurna Circuit Training

2008-10-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

So, two Americans, two Israelis, a German and a Canadian walk around the Annapurna Circuit- sounds like a joke- funny but no joke. We are back from an amazing 17 days of hiking through the most stunning scenery and villages filled with the nicest people. I'll try to sum up the almost 3 weeks and give you an idea of what it was like.

Our first day started by taking an early morning bus for six hours to Besi sahar and then cramming into a jeep with 14 people. The festival was still going on and our ride included views of Nepalis getting together to build swings, and many water buffaloes and goats being sacrificed or the aftermath.

Our jeep ride was bumpy but worth it as it cut off 4 hours walking on a dusty road. We were the last two on the jeep and had a view out the back. A Nepali jumped on for a free ride and was carrying a plastic bag and after a few minutes I noticed that it was dripping blood on my arm. I kindly asked him to move the bag so he put it on my foot.

We then proceeded to hike for 4 hours along a river and through lush terraced rice paddies. It was a pretty exhausting day. Due to the tough day our Israeli friends decided to hire a porter named Kamal from the local village. He turned out to be a valuable asset to the whole group. Not only as a guide but also to help us find accommodation. We never would have guessed that it would have been so busy and hard to find a bed. The first night we found the last few beds in a packed dorm room and didn't sleep very well. We regretted not bringing sleeping bags, but we were told that the fleece sleeping sacks that we have been using for the whole trip would be enough and that every tea house had blankets available. Approximately 20% of the time we got blankets but in places that were full of Nepali porters and guides they got first dibs.

We spent our 3rd Anniversary hiking from Bahundanda to Chamje. We celebrated a long day hiking along the river with some cards and Oreos with friends.

The next few days we went from a bit rainy lush area following the river and waterfalls every where to apple orchards, marijuana fields, pine forests and our first great view of the mountains. On day 4 we added a Canadian from B.C., Myanna and she endured our company for 13 days.

As we got deeper on the trek we sent Kamal ahead early with his light pack and quick walking to find us rooms ahead of the large groups. The large groups were mostly French and German tourists. When meeting them on the trail you sometimes asked yourself "How did they get here?" Most were grey haired- decked out in all the latest Euro trekking gear, trekking poles, safari gear and a large shiny camera around their necks. Their porters carried their enormous bags. They were amazing and the loads they packed up the steep hills using a band across their foreheads was unbelievable. The porters have a tough life and it appeared that they had a good time at the end of the day by drinking. It may not be typical but Kamal tended to enjoy a few drinks. Eyal once said "I love my porter when he is not drunk" It wasn't a problem and we had fun with it. He was funny while drunk and turned into a loving guy saying "This place I love, my friends I love"(a man hug followed)

Most of the days included an early start, breakfast or an early lunch, stopping for the day in the early afternoon- ordering dinner- reading, playing cards (if electricity was available) -Mostly hiking 3 to 8 hours- eat- sleep- repeat. It was great hanging out with the group, chatting it up, learning some Hebrew, German, and a bit aboot Canada.

The views were stunning and around every bend you would see a waterfall, bridge, snow capped peak or picturesque village. All of the villages had their own little charm and were full of snot nosed kids running around. The quick journal that I was making during the trek, the first line almost always was "best day yet- amazing views".

It is tough to pinpoint the best day of the trip as they all had highlights. Day 6 from Lower Pisang to Bhraka was great. We decided to take the high road- 4 hours more than the alternative but gave better views and were glad we did. After an early start and steep climb we were rewarded with warm cinnamon rolls, blue skies, and the sight of an avalanche on the frosty peaks across the valley. We enjoyed the views all day- few people- no porters and ended in a open valley, with a grey glacial river running through it and furry yaks grazing everywhere. There was a full moon that made the mountains look silver and the menu also provided some new choices like pasta, lasagna and apple pie. Can it get any better? I submit that it cannot!

The next day we took our acclimatization day around the same area and hiked above Manang- Blue skies again and views of a turquoise glacial lake. Manang was at 11,614 and we hiked above 12,000 feet to get used to the elevation and lessen the risk of Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS).

As we got closer to the pass finding a bed was harder than ever - one night we found ourselves in a dirty storage room with no light and a small window. That same night we warmed up in the dining room heated by a smokey yak dung fire. The night before crossing the pass we (all 6 of us) slept on 5 beds in what we affectionately named the stable- as it looked like they kicked out the horses and threw in a few beds. The dirt floor, musty smell and rodents just added to ambiance and needless to say- with a cold night at 14,599' none of us slept well. At around 4:30 a.m. we headed out with the aid of head lamps and a fairly full moon. We started the steep climb to the pass and our long day. We stopped for some tea and snacks at high camp, I hiked to a view point to see the panorama. It was probably the most amazing I will ever see. We pushed on to the pass and it was a tough pull. We took the group photo and pushed on to the other side- a very steep descent of around 5,500 feet in 3-4 hours. A few of us had headaches and I had some nausea due to the altitude. The Bob Marley hotel was a nice refuge after a long day. We celebrated crossing the world's highest pass with a Yak burger and bean and cheese enchilada. Dorit and Eyal rode into town on horses and showed up exhausted but in good spirits. The group was still together.

The food got better over the pass. We first thought every night would be Dal Baht(plain rice, lentil soup and curried veggies) but it turned out to be the most expensive thing on most menus- we usually ate fried rice with veggies or fried potatoes with veggies, some Tibetan bread and noodles also made their way to our plate. Over the pass we moved into veggie burgers, pizza, pasta and more western fare. German bakeries could be found in most towns and one place even had a Yak Donald's (I can't make this stuff up) I even heard someone call it the apple pie trail because at almost every guesthouse you could get some version of apple pie. One of the best treats was in Manang where we snacked on the best shortbread jam cookies. On day 12 we arrived in Jonsom, where Eyal and Dorit had a flight back to Pokhara on the 20th- This meant Kamal the porter's job was finished- he was a great guy and fun to spend time with (sans drinking). He teared up as he left and gave us each a colorful string around our necks as a going away present- He gave us some last advice in his broken English "Friends stay together, this you find out" and he was off. The next day we moved on as Eyal and Dorit stayed for their flight back to Pokhara and eventually to Thailand and home. It was hard to believe we had been traveling with them in some fashion for around 20 days - we had some fun times and realized that they knew more American movies, music and pop culture than we did and enjoyed joking with them as they did with us.

After Jonsom most of the trek was down hill- literally and figuratively. Most of the hiking was on a dusty road with an occasional jeep, motorcycle, or mule train lumbering down it. The views were still good but not like we had seen. We followed the Kali Gandaki river and made some good distances down hill one day going 23km.

At Tatapani we climbed back towards the clouds (3500 feet gained and 16 km) a long day back through terraced rice paddies and what seemed like a never ending stair stepper workout to chitre and the Dhalagiri Lodge which had a nice view of the Mt. Dhalagiri- we came to call this Mt. Dougandlarry.

Our last full day on the circuit was a nice relaxing day after a one our session of Himalayan high knees that took us to Ghorepani. Here we dropped our stuff at the guest house, grabbed some yak cheese, bread and other snacks for lunch at the top of poon hill. A roughly one hour hike took us to a fire type lookout and 360 degree views of the Annapurna range and surrounds- A great way to wrap up an amazing 2 plus weeks.

On our last day we were ready to get back to some comforts and R and R. We got an early start and took a 6 hour hike down 3280 stone steps (we didn't check their numbers) and we met some people having a tough day going up. Then a 2 hour bus ride on a squeaky local bus with a goat in the isle we were done.

Looking back the hike was a blur and a lot of the places blend together, view points roughly the same and never ending trails- What we will take away from the trek is that the Nepali people are great and full of smiles and a simpler and still happy way of life exists outside of places where electricity, vehicles, commercialism and things rule. Additionally, spending 17 days with people you just met- learning about them and gaining friendships was more important that the picture you took of a mountain vista.

Some figures for the trip, not that they mattered but looking back it is good to give it some scope: Crossing the highest pass in the world at 17,768', hiked through the deepest river valley in the world, total kilometers hiked was around 210 (130 miles), nothing but tea and water for 17 days, no Internet/fantasy football for 17 days.

We are now just taking it easy for a few days. Putting some pounds back on, laundry, extending the visa and trying to secure volunteer work for the next month.

Nepal

2008-10-05T21:01:00.000-07:00

Namaste from Nepal...picking up where we left off--The night bus from Ranong, Thailand was nice, short and uneventful and luckily we were dropped off in walking distance to our guesthouse. We then found out from our travel agent that the flight had been delayed giving us most of the day to kill in Bangkok. We had some of our favorite Thai foods and made it to the airport in the early afternoon. We checked in for our flight and found out there was more of a delay. Our seat assignments put us on right side of the plane giving us good views of the highest mountains on earth, however, as our flight got pushed back further into the evening we knew that wouldn't happen. We did however, score free food vouchers that we happily exchanged for two blizzards and a chili cheese dog from DQ- so I guess it was a decent trade off. We finally took off around 8:00 p.m. on a well used Boeing 757 and the landing in Kathmandu reminded me a bit of flying into the Lewiston, ID airport.

We got our visas on arrival and probably the worst part of the delay was flying into a new place in the dark and having no idea where to go. Throughout the whole trip we haden't booked a hotel in advance, that is until here because it came with a free hotel pick-up. With the delay our ride wasn't waiting so we shared a circa 1960's beater taxi with an Israeli couple Eyal and Dorit---The taxi barely made it the hotel dying once on a dark side street and luckily re-started after a few tries. Kathmandu was pretty dark, with few street lights and dirt alleys. The hotel was fully booked so we walked a bit and found another place to crash. The next morning everything looked better. We spent the next two days looking around Kathmandu, seeing stupas and the Monkey temple on the hill overlooking the city with Everest and the Himalayas in the background. It is very different from where we have been...there are still crazy drivers, exhaust, motorcycles and the salesmen but you see more foot traffic, people carrying crazy things on their backs through crowded intersections (couches), cows and water buffaloes roaming the streets like dogs, tiger balm salesmen, and it is a bit like you have gone back in time- lots of bikes, rickshaws, older cars, old buildings, dirt roads inside the city, and no power for parts of the day.

On Thursday we took the morning bus to Pokhara. The bus ride was good, we took the "tourist" bus for an assigned seat and the other option was a local bus filled to the brim with Nepalis and people riding on the roof. The valley views were good and we followed a river for most of the trip. At the bus stop we were met with the normal hotel/taxi touts and we lucked out and landed a good place close to the center with nice mountain view from the roof and a great little family running the place.

Pokhara itself is a great town. It sits in a valley at the edge of a clean lake and on clear days you can see the white capped Himalayas in the background. It also has everything the traveler needs. The local food is good and by the sounds of it we will need to get used to it. The main staple is Dal Baht, served on a big platter with a large portion of rice, curried veggies on the side, and lentil soup, and sometimes chicken or mutton. The Nepalis eat this twice a day everyday. Our hotel man Raj invited us to dinner two nights. We are also planning to trek for 14-20 days and that will be our diet, supplemented with some snickers bars.

In Pokhara we have been trying to get some volunteer stuff organized with quite a bit of luck and we now actually have quite a few choices. Right now is one of the biggest festivals of the year for the Nepali people and most of the people are visiting family and many things are closed for over 10 days. With that we have decided to take that time and do the Annapurna Circuit trek that should take from 14-20 days through some amazing country and villages. We will do the trek with the Israeli couple we met in Kathmandu and a German girl we met at the hotel. We have decided to forgo hiring a porter and a guide and just staying at tea houses along the way. Less hassle, cost, and the trek is very popular and we should be able to follow the hordes of people. We leave on Tuesday morning and had to get some warmer gear. It will be a nice change from being hot for two months to having to put on a jacket. The highest elevation we will reach is around 17,000 feet so it may get chili. Pokhara is great because if you don't have any gear or the airline loses your bag (like happened to our Israeli friends) you can walk down the street and in a matter of minutes look REI just threw up on you and at a fifth of the cost. While in Pokhara we took a boat across the lake and hiked to the world peace pagoda, and after reaching world peace we hiked down the other side of the mountain to a waterfall. Today it was clear after a rain storm last night and we went to a overlook that gave us a great view of the mountains. So far we really like it here. The people are friendly and the scenery is great. Due to our trek we will be off the grid for a few weeks...

The Beach

2008-09-28T04:14:00.000-07:00

It probably hasn't been said often enough but Bangkok is such a refreshing city. Let me explain. We had some good luck in our last few days that led us to a chance encounter with some fellow travelers at the free hotel breakfast. Over cold coffee and an omelet we met fellow travelers from England -Frank and Sara who were 8 months into a world trip of their own going the opposite way. They were actually on the same flight to Bangkok the next day and we decided to split a cab to the airport which saved a bus ride and navigating the city. Our last memory of Vietnam was more than enough to welcome Bangkok. After paying for the cab service at the hotel we took an exciting ride to the airport. After pulling up to the terminal the cabbie was demanding more money, holding up some cash and saying "hotel mafia- you pay". He wasn't opening the trunk and Frank who was sitting in the passenger seat turned off the ignition and tried to take the keys and pop the trunk. The trunk finally opened and while I discussed the finer points of our paid receipt with the cab driver the rest of the crew safely removed our bags. With the taxi doors ajar we left the taxi driver to try and stiff someone else. It was a quick flight to Bangkok and as it was cheaper we decided to split another cab with our new travel companions. After two cab rides and a few hours in traffic we finally settled in the familiar area of Khoa San Rd. We spent that evening and the next mildly checking out the Bangkok night life and mostly people watching and discussing travel with Frank and Sara. We ran into two drunken Swiss (both nights), saw a bottle being thrown at someone on Khoa San Rd, and walked the famous Red Light district. During the day we were able to book a flight to Kathmandu for Monday the 29th giving us enough time to relax on a Thai beach. We had some tough choices with the ever popular Ko Samui and Ko Tao but with some fellow travel advice we headed to the seldom heard or visited Ko Payam (wasn't even in the guidebook) It didn't disappoint...with a short and decent overnight bus ride and a morning ferry we were on a small island with no cars and few tourists. No touts, no traffic, no worries. The only way to get around was to walk or scooter on concrete paths that criss-crossed the island. It was low season so prices are good, few people and most of the island looked deserted. Our bungalow was rustic and home to its share of cockroaches and insects but for 6$ a night and a 5 second walk to the beach there was no problem. Rain storms, good sunsets and good food filled the next few days. At one point while listening to a good tune and eating a banana pancake- I thought that it may not be possible to love a human baby as much as a good banana pancake and a Thai iced tea. We are now waiting for the night bus back to Bangkok and our flight tomorrow afternoon. We are excited for a new country- somewhere a lot different than here and like nowhere we have been before. We hope to find some volunteer opportunities there and do some trekking...

A Danang Crazy Country

2008-09-21T04:17:00.000-07:00

My apologies in advance for a super long blog, but it takes a few words to describe a whole country and an interesting country at that. I will pick up where we left off in Vientiane, Laos. We needed to kill a day for the night bus and spent the day at Laos' only water park. The place was a little different and for the 4 or so hours we were nearly the only ones there, like we rented it for ourselves. There was a group of English speaking children taking swimming lessons for about an hour and another couple came just as we were leaving. There was about 15 or 20 staff and life guards so Melica and I felt quite safe. They had slides you could slide down with the aid of a mat and you plunged into murky green water. Later we saw a sign that said "we use ground water for all of our pools". There was also a slide that you race down chutes and they cleverly installed foam speed bumps to slow you down. Overall it was good place to relax in a somewhat dirty and typical Southeast Asian city.

We then boarded a mini-bus from our hotel to the bus station. Bus stations are notorious for illegal activity and this place looked sketchy. We got off the bus and were immediately surrounded by 6 or more touts or hassles asking where we were going. Three buses behind them said Danang - our destination. Thinking back the buses must bet paid for whoever gets on their bus irregardless of who you buy the ticket through. These guys were pushy and grabbing your arm and trying to take your bags all while you were trying to decide which bus to board and wondering if it is the correct one. We chose door #2, and i think we were relatively lucky. We were able to find a place near the rear of the bus with extra leg room and nest to a British couple and an Australian. From our bus we could see that our other two choices were filled to the max with people in the isles and 3 in a double seat. The bus ride itself was decent, quite bumpy and long, with over 22 hours of travel. The Vietnam passport control was a little weird in that we had to walk to three different stations and x-ray all of the contents of the bus. If I wouldn't have been paying attention my backpack would have been left on the conveyor belt as we drove off. We finally made it to Danang at around two in the afternoon and another traveler was getting off at the same place and i luckily asked him if he knew where he was going, as we had no idea where we were or where we wanted to go. To add to that we had no Dong (Dong is the name of the Vietnamese currency, and with such a good name we have decided it needs no snazzy nickname).

This guy was actually working near Danang and spotted us some Dong for the bus (If you were wondering how much Dong you can get for a buck, wonder no more...16,500!!). The guy also showed us a good hotel near the center, a very luck break.

Our first impression of Vietnam was "Danang where's the exit" throughout our stay in Vietnam we began to really enjoy it and yet at times really be frustrated with it...more on this later.

Danang wasn't super tourist friendly and probably not the best first stop but we just randomly picked it for its central location. We spent 1 1/2 days in Danang taking a long walk on China Beach and visiting the Marble Mountains. Danang was actually the first landing site for the Americans in the Vietnam war and American GI supposedly spent some of the free time on the beach. The beach was really quiet and stretched for miles along the South China Sea. Here we saw these fishermen getting in these small bowls that were made out of baskets and coated with rubber. They amazingly worked them through the surf and out to the open ocean for a day of fishing. One did capsize and had to start over but they all finally made it. Throughout our day in Danang the conversation included things like "Danang its hot today", "this is a Danang nice beach" and even at the ATM, I believe Melica said "Danang that's a lot of Dong".

On Friday we headed to Hoi An, about 30 km south of Danang. We took the local bus and didn't get ripped off this time as it help to keep the exact change. We got of the bus and with no other public transportation than scooters we headed off on foot. About a half an hour later we ended up walking by a nice hotel. On Friday night we walked around the old town and market with many craftsmen and women in the typical conical hats. The town had a nice feel with a water front and little shops. On Saturday we took a half day trip to the unimpressive ruins at My Son. Some had been bombed and others were just ruins. The place was like a park and the tour included lunch and little boat ride so it was a rather nice day. Mr. Hung was our guide and gave us good information on the ruins, some of his family history (his father fought for the viet Cong and his uncle was killed in the war), and he told us about the Autumn festival that was happening that night to celebrate the full moon. There is a strong Chinese influence in Vietnam and it was very evident in this festival as people decorated the town with bright colored lanterns, lit floating candles and sent them down the canals, and kid drummers and costumed lions were performing throughout the city. It was good timing that we were able to see the festival and it turned out to be a good night. The next afternoon, after some biking around Hoi An and checking out their beaches we took took a 3 hour bus ride north to the city of Hue. We were supposed to be picked up at the bus station by our hotel but they never showed, we endured 30 minutes of touts trying to get us to their hotel. We finally ended up walking and the Hotel said they were sorry and had sent someone...sure. We had started getting a little lazy as the trip progressed, just going with the flow and the main stream tour buses, hotels and the tours themselves. I think the reason may be that Vietnam was a little more chaotic than expected.

The next morning we took the DMZ tour or former Demilitarized Zone of the Vietnam War. Not really knowing what to expect and my war history is not great I was hoping for more. The tour was a bit one sided to the Vietnamese side and so were the monuments and the Khe Sahn museum. I guess in a way it is understandable that the propaganda would be patriotic for the Vietnamese, however I just wish it was a little more factual. At one stop there were two guys trying to sell rusty dog tags and medals (not sure if they were real), I was not enjoying that. We also made a stop at the Vihn Moc tunnels, supposedly used by the civilians as transport, bomb shelters and living. We spent about 15-20 minutes underground and if you were claustrophobic this was not a place for you. They were quite small and one big American emerged from the tunnels with two big brown stains on his shoulders from where they were rubbing. The tunnels went down about 60 feet on three levels. I guess the longest someone stayed in the tunnels was 5 days. Overall it was good to see these places and hope to read more about them later. There were only a few Americans on the tour and it was just a sad and solemn day knowing that so many had lost their lives in the area where we were standing...and for little or no respect.

Hue itself had a few monuments to see around the city so we spent the next full day walking around the former palace and citadel and took the night bus to Hanoi. The night bus the same as we had become used to. Not that we are sleeping more but dealing with them better. With earplugs and an airline pillow in hand we endured the next 12 hours. (almost all Southeast Asia buses have TVs that blare terrible music, TV shows or movies and even with earplugs it is loud).

We were supposed to be dropped off at the center but like we have come to expect the operators can do what they want and you have to deal with it. Vietnam more than any other country, the people can be quite annoying (hanoiing) to the point of being pushy. My advice as I get more used to it is get a sense of humor. As I was getting off the bus in Hanoi 6 or 7 guys were grabbing at us and shoving their business cards in our faces. One guy even pinched me and I pinched him right back- In retrospect I should have given him one of the old fashioned big brother tittie twisters but I had to get my bag. On every street corner either a scooter driver or cyclo driver (bicycle taxi) shouts "Hey! Hey you! Moto!" and waves his hand at you like we are best friends that haven't seen each other in a while. I've begun to get an excited look on my face and wave gleefully back, I've also started saying "No thanks, I've seen how you drive" or "I'd rather run through traffic with scissors" Some others are more difficult to respond to and you always think of the good things to say later.

Q- "You buy me nuts?"

A-"Why would I buy you nuts?"

Q "Me pick up you?"

A- "You just try it"

Q- "What you looking for?"

A- This one had me thinking...The meaning of life? Adventure? Potato Casserole?

Q- "What do you want?"

A- I heard one British guy next to me say "I want the noise to stop!" He too must have had an overdose of Hanoi.

The best thing you can do is look blankly by them and ignore them and this can even be fun because they yell louder and sometimes follow you.

It was at this point in our trip when I knew we would have to make a decision. We had been contemplating going overland through China to Nepal, Fly to Nepal, or bag the whole thing and head to Australia. We had purchased a Chinese guidebook in Bangkok and have been toting it around checking where we wanted to go, asked fellow travelers and done some Internet research to see if it was possible. We knew the visa and permits to get into china and Tibet would be a hassle but well worth it if it can be done. After checking into our hotel in Hanoi we hopped in a cab and went straight to the Chinese Embassy. It was 8 a.m. and a large group was already gathered at the gate- we read the posted information and spoke with a helpful lady in line. She said it was her third day at the embassy and hoped that she had everything. She explained that they don't allow sandals, tank tops and are only open from 8:30 to 11:30 and even if you are there at 8 am you are not guaranteed to see anyone or submit your application. The gate opened at exactly 8:30 and a shoving match ensued for the small entrance and people were vieing for position. Melica and I just stood back and watched in morbid curiosity as tempers flared and the pushing your did to get you into position placed you into a line where you stood next to the guy you were pushing against for hours.

We got our visa applications and found out that we would need entry and exit tickets and a hotel bookings in China and it would also take 4 business days. One guy told us that we could get around the rules by booking the plane tickets and hotels and cancelling them later. We took our stuff and headed to a coffee shop to think things over. It may have been at this point where we hit a temporary traveler's wall. A night bus, the Chinese embassy, Hanoi streets and a stomach ache couldn't have helped. In the end we decided we were Asia'd out and it wasn't worth risking days to get the visa and touring China only to be turned away from traveling through Tibet. I know we could have done it but it just seemed like an extreme hassle that we weren't wanting to tackle.

I guess I can also explain my feeling at this point in time by relating it to something I learned in Economics. The law of the 5th Banana (Law of Diminishing marginal utility) The first few bananas are great, 3rd OK, 4th edible, and the 5th is almost too much. I will call this the law of the 5th Country. All of the asian temples and pagodas had turned into a web of bricks and gold paint and we were left asking what next? Over a Burger and Pasta that evening we decided to bag the great hopes of a land journey through China and fly back to Bangkok (the hub of asia) and move on to Nepal or Australia at a slower pace.

I know our earlier blog may have made Bangkok look crazy, however, Bangkok in our minds is a little puppy compared to the chaos of Hanoi.

Speaking of puppies, it is sad but true that the Vietnamese cuisine does include canines. At first we were skeptical of some of the restaurants without an English menu but we have learned the name for dog meat. We have also become more aware of the lack of stray dogs here. We read in our books and I'm sure you were wondering...dark colored dogs taste better than light colored dogs and men eat more dog that women and dog is usually only eaten after the 15th of the month. For us it really hasn't been an issue except bringing new reality to the phrases we use often like "let's stop and get a scoobie snack" or "If you can't finish that we could get a doggie bag".

Overall the food has been good, soups, noodles, rice and quite a bit of fish. Nothing to blog home about though.

After booking our flight we also booked a 3 day 2 night trip to Ha long Bay for the next day. We thought it would be good to get out of the city and re-energize and re-group before our next leg. The trip was described somewhat like the blue cruise in turkey with a night on the boat (which in Vietnam is adequately called a Junk), some trekking and kayaking. We had heard from other travelers that the trips were hit and miss and you could get on some bad ones. We prepared ourselves by getting a good cheap deal well under our budget and keeping our expectations very low. We could have organized the trip ourselves but it was nice to have everything planned out and we got to meet some other travelers. A small bus picked us up at the hotel, jammed to the isle with tourists. I was afforded the privilege or curse of sitting in the front passenger seat for the 3 hour drive. You could charge a lot

for that kind of thrill ride and scenery. I have discussed before that the Asians and Turks are crazy drivers but this was nuts. Our driver like all Vietnam drivers are in a hurry and seem to have no fear. At one point we were the inside vehicle, 3 wide on a two lane road on a blind corner. Most of the other vehicles are scooters so the horn is used to move them to the side. The horn is the most essential part of any Vietnamese vehicle and some have even modified theirs to honk ten times with one push. One time a lady pulled out in front of USA and we had to slam on the brakes, once we passed her the driver proceeded to veer her direction and almost wreck her in the ditch as pay back. I saw more crazy stuff in 3 hours than almost the whole trip combined and thoroughly regret not having a video camera as words do not do it justice. I will list a few: Scooter vs. Dump truck accident, industrial section of Hanoi, power plants, industrial waste, rows of "garment" factories, people breaking rocks with sledge hammers and loading dump trucks with baskets, crazy things being carried on scooters- 4'x6' mirror, bathtub, windows, re-bar, ducks, 10 baby pigs in a basket cage, 2 large pigs upside down and hog tied, a family of 5 commuting. On the return trip I saw two more accidents one very serious and just happened...not good. It is not rare to see people even texting and scooting, I may have also seen a woman on the back of a scooter breast feeding although I cannot confirm it.

Our trip started with us switching boats a couple of times and cruising through the limestone karsts and amazing scenery. We landed at the island of Cat Ba and transfered to the hotel for dinner. It was a nice place overlooking the bay. The next morning we got an early start with a jungle trekking/sweating trip. Most of the hikers complained the whole way and were ill prepared wearing flip flops and carrying large bags. Melica I found the hike to be nothing compared to our previous hikes in Thailand and Mt. Olympus. In some weird way with our expectations so low throught the 3 day trip we found joy in other peoples discomfort as they were so negative and complained about everything from the hike to the not sticking to the itinerary. The hike was good and ended at a good overlook of the bay and national park. That afternoon we boarded the boat and checked out some caves and we were supposed to stop for swimming but didn't end up stopping until after dark. A few of us jumped in, the water was warm if not a little unnerving as we had seen quite a few jelly fish earlier in the day. The evening turned out to be what made the trip, after dinner we hung out on the deck and watched the sunset, listened to music and swapped stories with other backpackers.

The next morning was another early one, we went kayaking around the bay in a heavy rain. We headed back to port for lunch and another exciting ride back to Hanoi.

Yesterday, our last full day in Hanoi turned out to be very good. After risking our lives at every intersection and once again being amazed at the kamikaze drivers we walked to the prison where American fighter pilots including John McCain were held during the war. It was nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton. They had a decent museum and some good photos. We also made it to Lennin park which was great for people watching. The park had a lime green pond (smelly and dirty yet people were swimming in it..yum) with swan paddle boats cruising by, old men doing strange excercises throughout the park (back arches over a park bench- toe walking backwards), We also saw about 5 weddings or wedding photo shoots as well as many badmitton games.

Today we fly out to Bangkok and have some time to reflect on the country of Vietnam. After a few periods of not liking it at all-- I think we are leaving with a feeling that the place is just very unique and like all places have gems and not so desirable areas but overall a very colorful and beautiful country. I remember seeing a sign in our first few days in vietnam and now it makes more sense than ever. I first thought it was like many asian signs that lose some meaning in translations such as "clean food good testes" but this one through translation couldn't have been more right on. It said..."Have an interesting stay in Vietnam!" And that we did...

Don't Panic it's Organic

2008-09-08T02:34:00.000-07:00

After Luang Prabang we decided to head to Vang Vieng. We were skeptical of the tour agencies and tried to do the next leg ourselves - as the locals do. We were up quite early on Tuesday morning and on a full bus by 6:30. We were the only falang or foreigners on board. I can't say if we are going to have any worse bus rides than that one, but I hope so. It was terrible. The Laos people either have extremely weak stomachs or all drank a lot the night before. No less than 10 people were throwing up into plastic bags all around us. The road was windy, muddy and pretty narrow. The guy behind us was chain-smoking the whole way (no smoking signs all over) and the windows didn't open. We held it together and about 7 hours later we couldn't have been happier to be in Vang Vieng. Looking back we should have taken the tourist bus that left later and cost $2 more but we didn't know at the time.

We grabbed some much needed lunch and took a tuk-tuk to an organic farm we read about in the guidebook- it was about 3km outside of the town. We heard that it organized volunteering and teaching and it was nice that it was outside of the city. Vang Vieng was much like we had heard...many bars, tourist shops and restaurants with TVs on. Most of the restaurants had "Friends" episodes playing all the time and the ones that weren't were showing "Family guy". People were just sacked out watching TV in a place with great scenery outside. There was a big party scene here so the farm was a nice quiet escape. On Tuesday night we went with some other volunteers to a couple English classes, introduced ourselves and helped out a bit. The next morning we showed up for farm volunteering but could not find anyone to point us in the right direction. We weren't worried about it so we rented some bikes. We heard there were some good caves and lagoons outside of town and we spent the day biking a huge loop. We met a British guy on a dirt bike who had a map and told us he was doing the loop...we didn't realize how far it was but there was no turning back. We rode bikes much like the "Charming Turbos" from Thailand this time they were called "24 City". We rode them through creeks, carried them through knee deep water, shin deep mud, across narrow bridges, and at one point we reached a swift moving creek/river that we had to pay a guy to take us across on a bamboo raft. The Laos people make a buck wherever they can and charge you to go across bridges, into caves, and swimming holes. I don't think they owned them - simply whoever showed up first gets to take the money. Regardless, the scenery was great- limestone pillars, rice fields, small villages and farms, a huge cave with a Buddha inside. We finally made it back to English class, tired and muddy. Basically our week was filled with bike riding and sight seeing during the day and English class for an hour each night. All of the longer English classes were already being taught by other long-term volunteers. I made some friends from the evening class and they told us about places to explore during the day and by the end of the week they had invited me to go fishing and inter tubing on the weekend. Saturday morning we volunteering fixing stuff around the youth center. It rained a lot the night before so the river was running really high and muddy so we weren't able to go fishing but tubing was still on the agenda. So at around 11, i went tubing with the kids and Melica went to town and emailed. I was a bit skeptical (read scared) The river was high and muddy with a lot of trees hanging over into the river, but I just went with it. We walked quite a ways through rice fields and under barb-wired fences and finally got to some water. We tubed for a way and got dumped in a few rapids and stopped for a snack. These kids (14-16) were very resourceful...on the way they went in the bushes and came out with sugar cane to snack on and at our snack stop they climbed a tree and got some Asian eggplant things, leaves, and had a small plastic bag of spicy fish that they ate together - too spicy for me but I was having a great time. We got back on the tubes and headed down the river to a bar. One of the main attractions in Vang Vieng is tubing and they have bars all along the river with rope swings and zip lines to entice you to stop and drink. As you float by they throw a rope to you reel you in. We stopped at one and did a really cool rope swing. We then broke for lunch and met up later with Melica. They took us to a sketchy narrow bridge that the locals used to cross the river to the farm fields. These guys had become our tour guides (and hopefully their English improved) and Melica and I took them out to dinner and ice cream. They were poor country kids and didn't know what to order, they wanted me to choose for them - in the end 3 beef steaks and a pizza was ordered. They showed us to a local Lao ice cream place with only one flavor -coconut and it came in bricks and it was good. We rode back to the farm in the dark with the aid of our headlamp while being chased by a barking dog who the Laos kid said "it was Chinese and crazy".

English classes were only Tuesday through Friday and for one hour a night, even though were were really liking it and thinking that were were making a difference there really wasn't enough to keep us there longer. So we said our goodbyes. Throughout the week we also helped out a bit on the farm. We were probably more in the way than a huge help but it was fun to see how the organic farm worked and what they did. We milked some goats, made some cheese, trimmed some mulberry bushes, and fed the animals. It was a good week and really enjoyed the laid back and rewarding time.

On Sunday we tried to get an early start and got to the bus station by about 8:30. (As a side note our Tuk-tuk driver was wearing a Terrell Owens jersey on the opening Sunday of the NFL season, probably by accident, but what a great coincidence) From our last travel experience we were quite weary of what we would step into. The cheapest and the only mode of transportation that was leaving in the next three hours to Vientiane was a pick-up with two bench seats in the back. It wasn't actually that bad, fresh air and decent views and only 4 hours this time.

Vientiane, the capital of Laos has around 200,000 people. Someone described it as the slowest moving capital city in the world. It is pretty low key here with many coffee shops, the Mekong river flowing by, some old french buildings, and relatively little traffic. There really isn't that much to do here so today we got our Vietnam Visas, went to the US Embassy to get more passport pages and went to a few monuments on bike. Tomorrow we are taking an overnight bus to Da Nang, Vietnam. We also stumbled upon the biggest/only water park in Laos and will probably spend some time there tomorrow.

Northern Thailand and the Mekong

2008-09-01T01:08:00.000-07:00

We arrived in the northern capital of Thailand-Chang Mai around the 25th of August. It is here where we stayed in the worst guest house and the best. Our first night was a shady damp place, loud and a possible fight may have broken out in the middle of the night. We found a great hotel for only 10 dollars a night that we were able to call home for 4 nights while we explored the city and surrounding area. Most of the tourism here is geared to hill tribe trekking, we had done our jungle sweating adventure and didn't feel like staring at villagers and taking pictures of them living their lives. We spent a couple days walking the city and markets. We wanted to get out of the city so we foolishly rented another scooter. The rental guy said our destination was quite a ways away and that his tour could take us in an air conditioned van...where is the adventure in that? We rented a 125 cc scooter this time and headed for the Doi Inthanon National park. The traffic was worse than our last scooter experience as this is a town of 1.6 million. Defensive driving at its best. After about an hour on a busier road we made it to the National park and it was a nice paved road that wound up the hills with stops at several waterfalls. We finally made it to the top of the mountain, the highest point in Thailand. It became quite cloudy so the view was obstructed but it was a nice trip up the mountain. Our gas gauge was a little sticky, as it was over half full at the bottom of the hill and into the red when we stopped at the top. Luckily it was down hill and we coasted for quite a while. We stopped at a roadside fruit stand and were told that there was fuel only a kilometer away...it was pumped from a barrel in a dirt hut and probably twice the going rate but lucky. The ride back was more of the same, in most of the countries we have visited they play the game of "bigger car" where the larger vehicle has the right of way.

We took a cooking class. It was an all day event of going to the market, cooking 5 different dishes, and eating a lot. The teacher was plump and cheerful and we also met some nice Canadians that we met for drinks later. All around a good day.

We were running out of things to do that did not involve temples, guided tours, and pushy tuk-tuk drivers. We ended up at the zoo and to our surprise it turned out to be a great time. It had been forever since either of us had visited a zoo and this was a good one. It was only a few dollars to get in and there couldn't have been more than 20 people in the zoo the whole day. The security was super lax, the only place we saw workers was protecting the panda exhibit. Our map was a poorly photo copied piece of paper that had been photocopied too many times, we couldn't tell if we were heading to the restroom or the monkey exhibit. At one point we found a couple throwing some jungle bears slices of bread and they were fighting for them...did I mention this was a great place? Most of the animals were from southeast Asia and they actually had good information in front of the animals. Some of the highlights were the pandas, sugar bears, and a Tiger couple.

On our way north from Chang Mai we stopped at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center. This is a place where they care for, rehab and retire elephants. There was an elephant show where the elephants painted, moved logs, and lifted their trainers (it was a mahout).

Melica took a bumpy ride on one of the big buggers. We saw some babies, and waited for a bus in the rain to Chang Rai.

Also in those last few days that ran together I decided I needed a massage after all the hiking we had done. I had had a Thai massage once before, and my memory isn't that good so I decided to get another. Frankly it is quite an unusual and awkward experience that everyone should try while in SE Asia. Here is how it goes...you are given baggy pants and shirt to put on and are instructed to lay on a mat on the floor. The small lady who speaks little English proceeds to take your limbs and appendages and bend them in different directions. At first I thought I may have been on a hidden camera show but is was for real. It could also be explained as being under amnesia (relaxed and fearful to fight back) while still being able to feel everything. The strong little hands, knuckles, feet (yes feet) are roughly massaging your body...when the masseuse is done with say a foot, she slaps it and shakes it and moves on to the next. Of the moves I remember, was the one where she dug her heel into my quadriceps while pulling on my foot, another one was where somehow my back was pulled across her knees while she pulled on my arms from the back. A few times she stopped to see if I was OK, which was nice but then kept going. It finally ended, I handed the small unassuming lady the equivalent of $4.50 and slowly backed away while she just grinned. I had just lost a one sided fight, I actually felt pretty good, but maybe because i knew it was over...as a side note I had a very sore knee the next few days??

Our next stop was Chang Rai, a northern Thai city with some good markets and more chances to visit the hill tribes. We moved on to the border town of Chang Khong, a small town with its only real assets the Mekong river and a jumping off point to Laos or a first stop in Thailand. We had our last Thai meals and strolled the town.

We were one of the first in line for Thai passport departures and after about an hour we had been stamped through, a large group had gathered and we all crossed the Muddy Mekong to Laos. The Laos visa was issued on arrival and not too big of a problem. The only issue was trying to pay the correct amount. Our new currency is now the Laos Kip, or Kibble as we call it. One dollar is roughly 8500 kibbles. Just this morning I took out 3/4 of a million kibbles from the ATM. We then caught the "slow boat" to Luang Prabang. This was a two day journey that stopped at some villages and over night at one town. The seats were wooden benches and most all the passengers were backpackers. After we found a good book and a life jacket for a seat cushion we were set. The scenery was great with amazing green hills and mountains for the whole trip. The sad part was that high water/flooding had happened about a month ago and you could see some of the damage. You could also see how high the water had been by the brown marks on the hill side and how high the plastic bags and garbage were stuck in the trees. The river is quite polluted with garbage and dead animals floating in it (pigs), villagers still swim and wash in it... for two days it was like we were cruising down the river of chocolate milk. We are now in Luang Prabang, Laos. A nice place on the Mekong river. From our few days in Laos it is not much different than Thailand. Probably a little less crowded, more laid back, and a strong french influence. A nice change to have baguettes and pastries for breakfast. So far we have taken a boat ride up a tributary of the Mekong to a clear waterfall with a bunch of cascading pools. The boat ride was actually quite scary through rapids with an underpowered motor in a little wooded boat. That was our last boat ride for a while. Today we spent the morning at a center where school kids can practice their English conversation skills. The kids were pretty funny and we had a good time. We will be heading south tomorrow to Vang Vieng. All is well.

Getting Oriented

2008-08-22T06:25:00.000-07:00

The trip/flight to Bangkok was an experience in itself- the demographics on the flight from Istanbul to Doha Qatar were quite middle eastern, you could count the whities on one hand. Qatar Airways a.k.a Air Qatar a.k.a Air Guitar was very good, they had current on demand movies to pause/FF/Rew (I watched 4) and for an airline the food was very good. We spent the night in the Doha airport, 8 hours of quality sleep...kidding. We had to walk to the airplane across the runway and the only way to describe it was steamy, I couldn't help but think that the troops only a couple hundred miles away had to deal with that on a daily basis. We even had to wait for military aircraft take off and land before we could take off. The view from the plane was mostly sand and massive development, Doha is one of the world's richest due to its oil and natural gas finds. Bangkok is four hours ahead of Turkey so were a little out of sync again. We arrived at around 7:30 p.m.- customs was a breeze and it was raining like crazy. It is the rainy season here, we usually have some good weather and then some extreme down pours that only last a little while. We found the hostel that was recommended by the New Zealand couple we met in Istanbul, it was a nice jungle oasis in the middle of a big city. Since it is the low season we were able to get in without reservations. Our first few days were spent getting oriented and re-grouping from our last 3 weeks on the go. We had our laundry done, downloaded our photos to DVD to send home, and melica got a foot massage. We walked around some of the sights and markets. We purchased a southeast Asia guidebook and are trying to map out a direction to head. We took a few rides in the Tuk-tuks (Tuk-tuk your money) 3-wheeled taxis, with no set rates or meters-They had a little scam going on but we just played along. They said for 20 baht (around 60 cents) they would take you around to each of the attractions- but what they didn't tell you was that they will also take you to a tailor shop to sell you a custom suit, a jewelry shop, and a travel agent...we saw all of these and a standing Buddha and a sitting Buddha and after we didn't buy anything and him not getting his commission the guy had enough and so had we, we were out 60 cents and were able to see a little more of the city. Our second day was more of the same with a trip to China town area - Hello Kitty, plastic crap and sandals everywhere, on to Khoa san Rd. - the backpackers Headquarters looking for info. Bangkok is a city always on the move, busy and exhaust filled with new smells and sights around every corner. It is also a city of great contrast you can get off the super clean metro filled with business men and women, walk through a huge mall like you would find in the USA and go out on the street and find an elderly toothless blind couple singing Karaoke for money, stray dogs, and sex tourists (Older white dudes with younger Thai women that are paid to be with them)
Needless to say 3 nights in Bangkok was enough. We headed out by train the next morning to Sawankhalok, nothing really in this town but it was close to where we wanted to be the next day. We quickly found a hotel (maybe the only one in town)$8 with a TV, not bad and much better for our budget. We watched the Olympics and headed out for some grub. All of the TVs around town were tuned to the Olympics to root for their boxer and table tennis athletes.
The next day we took the early bus to Sukothai- The first capital of Thailand and full of old ruins. Here we rented cruiser bikes called "Charming Turbos" - Charming-yes, Turbo-no. But what do you expect for a dollar for the day. We cruised around looking at old ruins and bumped into some Thai school kids that were on a field trip-they were also on bikes and would say "Hi, what is your name?" "Where you come from?" "My name is____" They must have been trying their recently learned English- Later while sitting and taking a break from the sun the kids surrounded us again and chatted it up for about a half an hour. The topics ranged from counting to the Olympic events. One kid even did back flips to impress us. A nice change from the bustle of Bangkok. We turboed around most of the day dodging heavy down pours and checking out Buddhas and Temples or Wats as they call them. It can be kind of confusing as you say. "Wat is that?" or "There are Wats of Wats here."

We spoke to the manager of the guesthouse we are staying in and he confirmed that there was no public transportation to the local National Parks. We rented a scooter and headed out to one about 40km away. The ride was good, we dodged people, cows, stray dogs, chickens and even a snake throughout the day all while repeating to myself, stay on the left. The Thais drive on the left hand side of the road and isn't bad on the open road but intersections take a while to get used to. Most of the driving was done on paved elevated roads that looked over rice and corn field in seas of green. We made it to the national park and started trekking up the hill in the jungle. We saw tons of crazy insects, snakes and birds but no big wildlife. The hike was about 3 hours and didn't see another person except for at the top and the bottom of the hike. It was shaded most of the way, hot and humid and there was no breeze. We were literally dripping with sweat by the time we reached the top camp area and after a break and some snacks we were ready to head down, the caretaker said we should head hike higher for a better view point and it was worth it. It overlooked a cliff and the entire valley. We headed down- Melica twisted her ankle a bit but it is doing better now. More cruising the country side and back for some dinner and relaxing...our plan is to keep heading to the north of Thailand tomorrow. Sorry for the delay on the pictures. Enjoy!

How Bazaar

2008-08-19T04:38:00.000-07:00

(Thursday August 14th 2008)

We arrived at the bus station at around 7:00 a.m. the bus ride was decent, as good as any sleep on a bus- I also hadn't showered in 4 days (swimming counts doesn't it?) The bus service was good as well, ice cream served and drink service during the drive. There was a free transport to a center square and we took it. We were hungry and groggy. The city first came off as any big city busy-dirty-and hot. We found a hostel with dorm beds for around 10 euro or 20 YTL, not a bad place but they only had room for one night and decided to take it. We stashed our bags and like always took off on foot to see the city. The skyline of Istanbul is great with a Mosque or another tower in any direction you look, there is also the Bosphorous with is the main waterway that separates the European side of Istanbul and the Asian. Our first stop was the basilica cistern, it was a huge underground area of columns and was originally constructed in 565 to hold the water for the city, it was a great underground escape from the heat. The basilica is now only filled with a couple of feet of water and acts as a koi pond a nice unexpected place. We visited two Mosques-huge buildings with amazing work. Melica had to wear a scarf to cover her head. The Iranian president was also there that day so police were everywhere and it was a little chaotic all around town. We headed back to our hostel, 5 times throughout the day there is a call to prayer that bellows from each of the mosque towers, it is pretty crazy to hear and a good 5 am wake up call. That evening we were a little more refreshed and headed out to see the town in the evening, there was a busy walking street where we dined on Kebabs that didn't look too dodgie and got a delicious assortment of Baklava and some almond honey cake that was great. Back at the hostel we met a great couple Andrew and Rachael (http://www.spokeabout.com/) from New Zealand (again) they are on a year and half or more bike trip going all over. They had some great info for our next leg and we could have picked their brains for a long time. They estimate they have already covered 30,000 km by bike...it makes our trip look a little less adventurous. We headed off to our next hostel early the next morning, a little more run down place but OK. We dropped off our bags and went hiking again. We first stopped at the Grand Bazaar, not exactly what I expected but tons of small shops selling rugs, antiques, trinkets, handmade items, clothing etc. All of the owners sit outside of their shops trying to lure you in- usually in poor English- or an odd combination of English words, such as- "Yes please, thank you". It was the same all over town and in the hot sun we fell for it twice to get a break and some A/C- We didn't end up buying anything but an experience. Our last day in Istanbul was spent looking at the spice market and taking a ferry over to the Asian side of Istanbul. Which isn't that much different but we got to see a lot from the boat and we were trying to kill time before our 7:00 p.m flight. Istanbul was a great city with a lot of character, but it was now time to move on to real Asia.

Audio & Video of Call to Prayer

Blue Cruisin' Turkey

2008-08-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Turkey with an uneventful ferry ride and quick trip through passport control and a 15 Euro "tourist tax" We quickly caught a bus to Fethiye- a smaller town down the coast. Bus rides are a little different in Turkey, we stopped for a bus wash on more than one occasion during our stay in Turkey, an employee of the bus also went down the isle of the bus and poured lemon alcohol water into peoples hands and they rubbed it on their face and hands...a little different. Our first impression of Turkey was that the people were very helpful and nice. We found a decent hostel close to the port. Our main goal in going to this town was to go on a gullet cruise or "blue cruise" so we stashed our bags and went searching that afternoon. Many of the places we went to were booked out for weeks, luckily we found one that left on Sunday (2 days away), we decided to have dinner and discuss it. The cost was above our budget but we decided to go for it. YOLO...you only live once. The cruise was fully inclusive so it wasn't actually too bad once you think about it. We went back to the travel agency and booked. That gave us a day to kill and explore the area. We mostly just walked to some ruins that were carved into the hillside and checked out the local beaches. We were stoked for Sunday, and showed up for the cruise around 10. Two boats were leaving that day so there was a mix of people waiting around. The staff were actually yelling at each other and we were hoping that they hadn't over booked. The real reason was that they had to split up some groups to make everyone fit on the boats. They tried to match the best groups I guess...booze cruise vs. relaxed. Our names were called with another couple and we headed to the boat. We were shown to our cabins, small bunk and a lower double bed a small shower and toilet. They were nice and rustic- all wood. There were already 8 passengers on the boat and the four of us made 12. There was a Dutch family of four, an Italian couple, a Turkish couple, a New Zealand couple around our age that we hung out with most of the time. Their names were Marc and Claire and we had a great time chatting throughout the trip and made some contacts for later on in our journey. It ended up to be a really great mix of people, in comparison the other boat that left that day was full of 6 fun kiwis and 6 high maintenance Brits. Our cruise was off to an ominous start as the boat wouldn't start and the management and crew were yelling at each other. Finally about 1:00 the boat started and we pushed off. The staff consisted of an old surly captain missing 3 1/2 fingers and two younger crew, one sailor and a cook...both nice and hard workers. Without going into a lot of detail for the 4 days and 3 nights of the cruise the general schedule was to anchor in a clear blue bay and dive off the boat, swim, snorkel, relax, read, nap, and eat (repeat). We had great meals, breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, and a BBQ dinner. All traditional Turkish meals. It was like a big mixed family everyone ate together and had some interesting chats. Backgammon, the national board game of Turkey was played all the time. There were small boats that came around and offered crepes, ice cream and watersports such as "ride my banana" as one touted, basically being pulled behind a boat on inflatables. We worked our way down the coast stopping at a few small villages, one was water access only which was pretty cool we also went over the "sunken city" which was ruins of an ancient city that due to earthquakes was under water. Our sleeping options were to sleep in a hot stuffy cabin or find a spot anywhere else on the boat. There were plenty of padded areas to relax. We ended up sleeping on the roof with the Dutch family. It was amazing. There was very little light pollution and we slept great watching the meteor showers. All of the days meshed together but it ended up being a very sweet experience. All good things must come to an an end. On Wednesday the 13th we took our last few swims and had a good lunch, said our goodbyes and hit the ground running again. We were bused to the backpacker haven of Olympos and the tree-house bungalows. We fly out of Istanbul on Saturday so we didn't have much of a choice but to take an overnight bus that night and get to Istanbul early. It is a huge city and we wanted time to see it. We are currently in Istanbul/Constantinople and will blog about our time here soon. Just a side note...the Turkey sandwiches are great. Thai food by Sunday.

Meteora/Athens and the Island of Rhodes

2008-08-07T22:20:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been a blur after Olympus we took an early morning train, transferred 2 buses and found ourselves in a place called Meteora near the town of Kalambaka. It is a strange landscape of Rock pillars that are just in this one small area. As early as the 11th century they were hideways for monks. Now there are monestaries on top of the rocks, packed with German tourist, where monks and nuns will sell you postcards and trinkets. We found a camping spot near a bus stop- it was nice with showers and a swimming pool...and a view of the meteoras (from the word meteoros "suspended in air") It was hot, we were pretty beat, so we cruised the town, took a swim and planned for the monestaries for the next day. We took the 9:00 am bus up to the Monestaries and when we got on the bus it was pretty full, only a few seats were available and guess who had an open seat? Pablo, from the top of Mount Olympus. We laughed at the coincidence and visited 3 of the monestaries with Pablo. When/if we get all of our photos uploaded you will have to find pablo...he is wearing a white shirt and red hat. The Monestaries were quite amazing, built right into/onto the rocks-the views were great and the was some nice old stuff to look at. After parting ways with Pablo again we visited the James bond monestary-it was a little more secluded than the rest.

There wasn't much else going on in the town so we decided to take the night bus to Athens- This saved us from the cost of a hotel or camping and got us into Athens bright and early. Not the best sleep we've ever had but we made it. All of the travelers we have talked to stated how much they disliked Athens saying it was too big, poluted, ugly and expensive (the most expensive EU capital). We didn't know how long to spend, but our time and funds for Greece were drawing to a close so we headed to the port to find our about ferries to the isles. We found out that a ferry to Rhodes left that evening at 6:00, another overnighter. We decided that 11 hours was enough to see Athens and we could re-coupe on the island. We got the tickets, stored our bags and headed to the Acropolis. We were there just as it opened at 8 and a line had already formed. We checked out the Parthenon and more old stuff. It was pretty cool to see all the things you only see photos of and learn about in history class.

When we left around 10:30 the place was packed- the cruise ships had just let out and the place was crazy. Our ticket to the Acropolis gave us entry to a few more ruins and monuments so we checked some of those out as well. We also met up with a greek guy named Vassillios or Billy. We met him through the website called couchsurfing.com (check it out) The site connects travelers to people who will allow you to stay at their place, or in this case meet for a drink and get some local knowlege and to meet new people. We met up with Bill and had a much needed break with cold drinks. It was now 36 degrees C (around 100) and humid, together with the night bus- I'm sure Billy thought we were wrecks. Meeting with Bill was good, he had just finished his last tests to become a doctor and was using couchsurfing to meet new people and work on his English. We talked for a while and then he showed us around some more sites, it was a nice way to spend the afternoon with a local. We said our goodbyes and headed to the port. We were exhausted- we had economy class which meant "find a place to sleep" other people must have gotten there pretty early and know the routine because by the time we left port all of the lounges and couches and decent floor areas had been taken up by sleeping bags and bodies. We found ourselves in airline type seats and crashed. I slept pretty decently and woke up around dawn. We made 2 stops on our way and got to see a few other islands from the boat. We pulled into Rhodes around 10...a 15 or so hour boat ride. We settled on of the first pensions we came to- a nice old lady with clean rooms and a good location in the old town of Rhodes. We spent the rest of the day exploring the town. We really liked the town as it is enclosed by massive rock walls and some parts an old moat, like a mideaval castle but for a city. There are only a few entrances and you can wander for hours on the cobblestone streets- or if you are like Melica and me you can wander for hours looking for your hotel.

Thursday we took an early morning bus all the way to the north tip of the island-there is a small istmus connecting a sandy beach to a little mountain. It was pretty windy there so it is a haven for kite surfurs and wind surfers. We watched them for a couple of hours and headed back down the coast. We stopped off in Lindos for the day and just chilled at the beach. The place was what you'd expect from a greek island town-white houses, red roofs, blue green water and ancient ruin/castle perched on the hill above. We came back to Rhodes city sunburned and tired. We got our ferry tickets to Turkey and enjoyed our last meal of food in greece...I had the stuffed peppers and tomatoes and Melica had stuffed eggplant. A pretty nice relaxing time in Rhodes and a good time overall in Greece. I guess here are a few parting thoughts on Greece and on the trip in general. The national sport of Greece may be beach pickle ball. Greeks do not know distances or directions-many times we were told it is close or on the right and the exact opposite was true and we went on an odessy to find it. Europe/Greece is expensive and I am glad to be moving on to a new currency the sand squibie. I also have finally stopped looking for my cell phone to see what time it is. Today is Turkey day and boy am I hungry...

Mount Olympus

2008-08-03T05:54:00.000-07:00

Things are good here...some sore muscles but doing great. Our adventures have continued with the hike to the top of Mount Olympus. Friday night we stayed in the small town of Litichoro and got up early, before it got too hot and we had a quite a hike in front of us. We looked into some options for hiking and staying on the mountain. One option was to take a taxi to a mid point and begin hiking from there, or you can hike directly from Lithoro where we stayed all the way to the top. The taxi was 23 euros, which is about 35 dollars. We decided to be adventerous and hike it. The hike was an amazing trek with view of the sea and it followed a crystal clear creek all the way to the midway starting point. We will try to get some photos up shortly. The hike gained significant elevation. If you have ever hiked around tubbs hill in CDA it was like that for 5 hours. We made it 12 km by noon had a packed lunch and kept on heading up. We were both pretty beat, as we neared the refuge it must have been apparent and other hikers pointed the refuge out to us and told us we were almost there. We returned the favor to hikers on the way down. We got to "Refuge A" a total of 18km by about 3:30 . We had already reserved bunks at refuge C, another 2.5 hour hike, we had the receptionist cancel those reservations and we called it a day. We made a good choice. The refuge was perched on a rock out cropping over looking the valley and straight up at the peaks of Olympus. We lounged around on the outside patio for the rest of the afternoon. We met a nice Chilean guy named Pablo and ended hiking with him the rest of the trip. We were in bed by 8, for an early morning hike. We were one of the first groups up and began hiking around 7.

Wild Greek Mountain Goat...tasty

We happened upon some small wild mountain goats. They weren't too scared-and I got some good photos. Pablo met up with us at this point and we hiked together to the top. It got pretty chilly and windy but the views were amazing. The first point was Skala, but it wasn't the highest. Up to this point it had just been hiking, we were now scrambling over some more technical areas and more was at stake. Zues was good to us and we made it to Mytikas the highest point 2918 meters. (I think about 9200 feet)

The path we took zigzaged

up the middle of this valley

We signed the guest book and took the obligatory self timer photo (with pablo) and the greek flag. The view from the top was amazing the clouds were moving fast below us and then they opened up a view of the valley and sea. What a cool spot! We didn't spend too much time at the top and scrambled down to the starting point of prionia...about a 5 hour hike, but all down hill. Here we could do the 12 km hike or hitchhike to the village. It was Saturday and there were plenty of day hikers, it took us about 40 minutes and we were picked up by a nice Hungarian family on vacation. Hitching isn't bad especially when it saves you that much walking. We got to the village picked up our bag that was stored there and got a camping spot near the sea. A dip in the sea felt great after that long journey. We spent the night there and woke up pretty early. We are now in Kalambaka near Meteora...there are monastaries here that are perched up on large rocks. They were made famous in the 1981 James Bond film "For your eyes only"...google it. We will explore it tomorrow and post photos. It is pretty hot here, i'm sure over 90...things are good. I don't think we can keep up the pace we are going and looking forward to some down time in the Greek Islands or Turkey. More later.

Mt Olympus from afar

It's all Greek

2008-07-31T09:06:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone...we made it. After a long trip of around 23 hours of travel we made it to Thessaloniki, Greece. We had one layover in Chicago and another in Dusseldorf, Germany. I guess I don't know my German geography but I didn't even know dusseldorf existed. I was thinking the first step...get some Gyros...I mean Euros. We hit the hot tarmac at around 4:30 greco/roman time and talked to the info desk and found that there was a camping place near the beach, we took a bus to the nearest town and were supposed to take a taxi the rest of the way.

We have had a little trouble reading the signs as they are almost all in Greek (mostly symbols and nothing similar to the english equivalent) it is a fun game- saying I wonder what all of these signs say. In retrospect I should have brought my decoder ring. The point is that we got off at some wrong bus stops and were finally heading in the right direction with the help of an old man that did not speak any english. We have noticed that most of the older people don't speak much English. We decided to start walking towards the beach since we found no taxis. It ended up being a narrow road and greek drivers are a little scary after about an hour of walking a pickup pulled over and offered us a ride in the back. Great sucess! He drove us about 10 minutes further and Melica commented that "I hope our health insurance covers dangerous sports". He stopped at his fruit and vegetable stand and started up a broken conversation. His english wasn't great but the first thing he asked was "where are you from? Germany?" We told him America, and he told us he does not like America or Britain only Swedish...I didn't know exactly where this conversation was going but he must have seen that we were hot and tired and he told us to sit down on his couch. He offered us some fresh Honeydew melon and cold water. We chatted with him and his two buddies for almost an hour. Only one other person stopped and they were heading the opposite direction. We thanked him for his help and headed on our way to the beach. We got to the camp site about a half an hour later. It was pretty nice, close to the ocean and some good shade. We set up our tent and headed for the water. Hopefully, the salt water washed away a bit of the jet lag.We then had dinner. I had the "special meat" which was a fetta stuffed burger and melica had a mixed salad lots of olives, tomatoes, cucumbers and feta. Today we woke up pretty early and started back on the road towards the bus station. We hadn't gone very far at all and we were offered a ride by a nice british guy and his greek wife. Good luck again. We then took the bus into the heart of Thessaloniki and walked around, checking out the old churches and ruins. We are now sitting at an internet/gaming cafe with a bunch of greek geeks playing World of Warcraft in a small villiage of Litithoro, at the base of Mt. Olympus. We plan on starting out early tomorrow, hiking to a mountain "refuge" and spend Friday night there. All is good.

We're not speaking the same Language

Two weeks until D-day

2008-07-14T22:03:00.000-07:00

Well, Here we are. This is our first blog of hopefully many. We hope to use this blog to eliminate group forwards that we all love. Two weeks until departure and hopefully we have everything in order. We are now officially homeless, thank goodness for good friends and house sitting jobs. Over the last few months we have sold a bunch of our stuff on craigslist, eBay and the like. Sold our car and scooter and rented out our house to my brother Dave. All this for the chance of a lifetime to quit our jobs, hit the road and see the world. Time has flown by and we can't believe the day is almost here. We have thought about this for over 3 years, but only recently has our hard work and dedication become a reality. It will be tough leaving all of our Family and friends for such a long time, we hope you will keep in touch via email and comments on our blog. Thanks...