4 Months and Counting

It may be a little premature to say that we've been traveling for 4 months already, since we started on the 7th of September and today is only the 30th of December...but it's damn close. So far we have been in 6 different countries: Mongolia, Russia, (Mongolia again, which doesn't really count twice, does it?), China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand, our present location.

Since we haven't updated the blog for a while (shocking, I know), here's a little run-down of what we've been up to lately.

Cambodia
We finished our SCUBA certification course -- Wooo hooo! It was a blast. Well, the first day kind of sucked, actually. It consisted of 1 long afternoon of watching a cheesy dvd on SCUBA safety, and taking 4 or 5 multiple choice tests. Luckily, Shane is a bit of a nerd and likes looking at graphs, and I'm really competitive and like beating Shane. Needless to say, somehow we managed :)

The cool part was the confined water portion of the course. They took us to a small island that was home to about 20 Khmer families where the SCUBA shop had a little stilt house right over the ocean. The water was gorgeous -- all shades of turquoise and blue, and the local residents were so friendly and full of smiles. We swam around learning the basics and got to eat yummy fresh seafood for our meals. We spent one night in the stilted house and slept hearing the waves crash below our bed. It was so strange and wonderful! We did about 5 practice dives and by the end of the 2nd day we were pretty tired. On our last day we spend over 3 hours diving!

After the SCUBA class we headed to a small riverside town called Kampot. The town itself was so so , but we found a wonderful guesthouse about 7 or 8 km outside of town that we fell in love with. It was another stilted contraption built right over the river, and was run by a crazy (in the best way imaginable) German man and his lovely Cambodian wife. We were the only people staying there and had a blast exploring the area and hearing stories from the spliff smoking German (btw, avoid going to a Tokyo prison at all costs, it sounds terrifying). We also loved playing on the rope swing which hung from a palm tree across the river from our guesthouse.

The other great thing about Kampot was the pepper! It is supposedly the best pepper in the world. They say you can't find a gourmet French restaurant without Kampot pepper on the table, and I believe it. The stuff is out of this world. It's so rich with flavor it made the spicy food there irresistible. I spent a lot of time leering over the shoulder of the cook at our guesthouse trying to learn the secret to "Chicken Lok Lak", and I think I've got it down :)

It took a lot of will power, but after 5 full days of hiking and lounging around Kampot we finally headed out to the North to see Siem Reap and the amazing temples of Angkor Wat. If you're wondering whether Angkor Wat is all that it's hyped up to be, the answer is an emphatic "hell yes". Angkor Wat, and the surrounding temples are spectacular. We spent 3 days roaming around via bicycle, catching some breath taking sunsets, 1 mediocre sunrise (it was cloudy), and lots and lots of pictures.

I was beginning to feel a little homesick on Christmas because my whole family was together, which doesn't happen very often, and it was snowing at home, which also doesn't happen very often! So, I consoled myself by singing "Jingle Bells" while ringing the bell of my bicycle as we rode around the temples, dripping with sweat. We had a fun Christmas feast of Indian food with our Quebec friends, Mylene and Rudy. And topped the night off by having our feet sucked clean by some fish (see attached photos for more clarification).

The next day we caught a free Cello Concert put on by a Swiss guy named Dr. Beat. The concert turned in to more of an information session on his work as a doctor in Cambodia. He worked as a pediatrician in Cambodia in the 1970's at the height of the Khmer Rouge reign. He fell in love with Cambodians and Cambodia and returned a few years later to open up a free children's hospital. Since then he has opened 6 children's hospitals all over Cambodia where the offer all of their services free of charge! It is an incredibly inspirational story, and I suggest that you check it out if you have time. 85% of their budget comes from private donations, and 20% of those donations come from the free concerts he gives in Siem Reap! Because of that, he asked that people donate either money or blood, or both. Since we didn't have alot of extra cash to give away, we decided blood would have to do. So we both left 1/2 a liter of blood in Cambodia and even got 2 free sodas and free t-shirts out of the deal :)

Moving on to Thailand
Unfortunately for us, Thailand recently changed its visa policy to declare that people crossing into Thailand by land receive a 15 day visa maximum. The only way to get a 30 day visa in to Thailand now a days is to arrive by plane, or apply ahead of time, but who plans ahead, really? This came as a big problem because we're meeting Ramsey in Thailand for 2 weeks and don't want to waste time making a border run to Burma just to extend our visas for another 15 days. It's also a problem because taking a bus is only $13 but taking a plane is a whopping $160 -- a big difference when you're trying to spend $20 each per day. Also, we hadn't taken a plane since arriving in Ulaanbaatar in September and kind of enjoyed making this trip an airplane free journey. BUT we were running out of time. So, we splurged and took a flight. It felt so strange to be on an airplane after so many shitty 18 hour bus rides, I kept waiting for someone to realize that were way too smelly and uncivilized to be on a fancy plane and kick us off. Luckily, the 55 minute plane ride from Siem Reap to Bangkok went swimmingly, and we were able to get the treasured 30 day visa without a problem.

We've now been in Thailand for about 30 hours, and so far it's been awesome. We've already eaten our weight in Pad Thai served fresh from the street vendors. We started off the day by walking around, until we were cornered by a really sweet Thai high school teacher who told us that today was the best day of the year to be in Thailand because you can take a Tuk Tuk around the city all day long for only 10 Baht (about 30 cents)! He was so excited for us, that he planned out our whole itinerary and hailed a Tuk Tuk for us to use. Of course it turned in to an event similar to the "free cello concert" except that we didn't have to give anyone our blood. We just had to go to different stores that were giving Tuk Tuk drivers gas coupons and pretend that we were interested in buying whatever crap they were selling. To his credit, the Tuk Tuk driver also took us to see some sweet temples and a few other attractions along the way. In the end, we didn't even have to pay our 10 Baht, the driver just ditched us at a temple after we had scooped up all the free gas coupons in town. It sounds a little more painful than it was. We actually had a great time Tuk Tuk-ing our way around Bangkok, and after a while it felt like a really intricate scavenger hunt.

Now we're patiently waiting for Ramsey to arrive in the next few hours. We'll spend "Happy New Year" here in Bangkok and then try to head south for some SCUBA action.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! We feel very lucky to be doing this trip, and even luckier to have friends and family that we love so much. Thanks for reading our silly blog and loving us back!

Here are the latest pictures:

Cambodia II

Catch Up, Again

Well, at the risk of starting this blog entry the way we start most of them, I'm sorry it takes us so long to update it. I know reading our blog falls somewhere in your daily routine between your first cup of coffee and dropping the kids off at the pool, so you all must have started biting your nails by day number 20 without a new update. Well, you can get rid of those new nervous tics that you have developed without an update, because this one's gonna be good. We've got pictures and videos (some that go all the way back to China).

After our last update, we rented the crappiest bicycles I have ever ridden, strapped small day packs to the rack on the back, and took off on a three-day bike trip from Ninh Binh to Cuc Phuong National Park, Vietnam, about 65 kilometers. We spent some time convincing the hotel staff in Ninh Binh that we weren't crazy before they let us take their bikes.

The first ten kilometers of the ride wasn't spectacular. We hugged the shoulder and tried not to breathe as fully loaded eighteen wheeler trucks blasted past us spewing black exhaust. I think Asia is due for some smog checks, I can understand why everyone wears little face masks when they are out and about, we need to get some of those.

We made it the first 45 kilometers, all the way to the park entrance, in about 3 hours. Not bad considering our bicycles. The next day, we rode the last 20 kilometers to the center of the park. This was the most spectacular portion of the ride (see video below). The road was alive with butterflies, lizards, and flowers. We had the place almost entirely to ourselves. We checked in to our stilted house in the jungle and went off on foot to explore some more. The next day, we woke up early to tackle the 65 kilometer trip back, and found to our surprise, that steel bicycles that weigh 50 pounds are a lot quicker going downhill. We made it back in about four hours.

After Ninh Binh, we spent four days in Hoi An, on the central coast of Vietnam. Hoi An is famous for its tailored clothing and after a full day of convincing Kerri that she didn't need to buy anything, I decided it was pointless, and told her that she really did need three new dresses, two new jackets, three new dress shirts and a suit. After all, who would even think of hiring a professional young woman without a pant suit? I even splurged myself. I know, Kellen, you are shocked, that's where the money went that I was saving as a kid. All those M&Ms that went unpurchased as I exercised my amazing will power as a ten year old. It's paying off now.

Next, we set off on another wonderful 20 hour bus ride to the "Alps of Vietnam", a town called Da Lat. We found a nice two-star hotel with a view of the valley, which turned out to be more like rolling hills with pine trees rather than snow-capped peaks, but we weren't disappointed, it was really nice to see pine trees for the first time in a few months.

From Da Lat, we spent a few days exploring a the countryside and took a tour around a silk factory and learned how silk is made from start to finish. I didn't really believe it came from worms until I saw it, I thought it was just an advertising trick that Marco Polo used to get Europeans to buy it. I don't know if you can really call them worms, though, they are more like the kind of oversized maggots that Bear Grills eats to gross people out. It turns out, the worms are a large part of the diet of the people who work at the silk factory. Apparently they taste just like nuts. Check out our pictures of the factory.

Once we had our fill of the alps, we hopped on a bus to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), formerly known as Saigon, before Ho Chi Minh rolled over the South Vietnamese forces in Saigon, during the American War, as it is referred to in Vietnam.

We met up with our Canadian travel buddies Jen, Lyle, Darious, and Nick (who we met in China), as well as one of Michiko's (Kerri's sister) friends who lives in HCMC, Nhan (sp?), pronounced "Nyoung". It was great to meet up with someone who could speak the language and he was incredibly generous and showed us all around the city.

Since the Canadians had a hankering for snake, he took us to a restaurant where they brought out a live Cobra, chopped its head off, ripped out the heart and gall bladder and put them in shot glasses. Since nobody was volunteering for the heart, I threw it down the hatch. Kerri got stuck with the gall bladder, which is about twice as big and slimy. Once we got that over with, the waiters held the beheaded snake upside down and funneled the blood into a bottle of vodka, which we all shared in shot glasses. Yum.

Next up was porcupine followed by fried crickets. I wouldn't recommend the porcupine, I would have preferred chewing on my dirty shoes. The crickets, however, were awesome, very nutty and crunchy.

We went out with a bang in HCMC and spent the last of our Dong before we were off to Cambodia on the 6 hour bus ride to Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh seems like a pretty busy and bustling city, so we only spent one day there before going to Sihanoukville, where we are now. It's a beautiful beach town, but a little touristy for our tastes, lots of white, short term, intoxicated, vanilla-faced vacationers here. No offense to any vanilla faces out there.

Tomorrow, we start our first day of our PADI Open Water SCUBA class. We are going to be certified divers!

We love you all.

Check out these videos:

Rocky VII, Great Wall, China

In case it doesn't work, click here

Heeeeelllllloooooo! Kids at the Panda Rescue Center, Chengdu, China

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Cutest Kids Ever, Tiger Leaping Gorge, China (Kerri almost ate them)

In case it doesn't work, click here

Motorcycling in Northern Vietnam

In case it doesn't work, click here

Halong Bay, Vietnam

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Biking through Cuc Phuong National Park, Vietnam

In case it doesn't work, click here

Here are the photos:

Goodbye Vietnam, Hello Cambodia

Catch Up

Sorry for the sporadic blog entries. We've been racing time as of late, trying to see as much of Vietnam as possible before our 30 day visa runs out. The countdown is now T-minus 16 days.

After our motorcycle trip in Sapa in the North we headed to Hanoi (btw mom, they fill you up with gas and oil at the same time when you drive a shitty old Russian motorcycle-- they just pour both into the gas tank at the same time and shake it around). Hanoi was, well, busy. I loved it! We took an overnight train which arrived in Hanoi around 4:30 a.m. Of course there was nothing open, and nearly every guide book we had read warned travelers of the rip-off scams that people do to weary travelers arriving in the early morning hours. Mostly they just drive you around in circles before dropping you off to a hotel that will later pay the taxi driver commission for giving them business. It was hilarious to look around the train station after all the locals had hopped into a cab and all that were left was a large group of around 20 or so foreigners huddled together, too scared to attempt a taxi ride, but not sure what the alternative would be. Apparently they had read the same warning as us.

Luckily, we had a master plan. Share a taxi with 2 other people (hey, if we're 'ginna get ripped off anyway, we might as well split the cost with others) and get dropped of near the general vicinity of where hotels are located. Turns out it wasn't as genius a plan as we had hoped. We forgot to compensate for the fact that absolutely nothing would be open at that hour. We ended up wandering the streets for a while until we stumbled upon an open street vendor selling pho', and ate our breakfast while we watched the city wake up. It was a great way to start. You can't imagine the transformation the streets of the Old District in Hanoi make changing from zero occupancy to being literally packed full of motor-bikes and pedestrians.

We found a great little hotel right near all the action and posted up for 3 days, exploring the city, eating, and dodging motor-bikes. We also managed to find a theater playing the new James Bond movie and got our Hollywood/pop culture fix :)

The women in my family may be surprised to hear that I didn't buy any clothes in Hanoi, despite all my years of training as a Fjeld! We did buy 2 silk sleeping bag liners (of questionable quality) and ditched the heavy sheets we've been carrying around with us, which was good. Not that I've become a saint and rejected all worldly possessions...I'm mostly saving it for Hoi An. All the other travelers we've met say it's the place to have clothing tailored for you. Even Shane is thinking of having a suite made, though I keep telling him that Amish Men with beards like his just wear suspenders to work the fields :)

From Hanoi we wanted to go to Halong Bay. Again there were dozens of warnings to watch out for rip-offs. We decided to skip the Lonely Planet's advice of booking a tour of the Bay from Hanoi and took a local bus on our own, figuring out the details along the way. It worked out surprisingly well! The only problem was being overcharged for our bus tickets (sidenote: when the women selling tickets to you says "I'll give you a deal but don't tell ANYONE else how much you pay because it's WAY less than usual, the joke is on you, dumbass).

Once we arrived at Cat Ba Island in Halong Bay we booked a really great overnight boat trip which was supposed to be for 4 people, but the 2 others bailed out at the last minute and Shane and I had a whole boat to ourselves with a crew to serve us yummy sea-food meals as we cruised around the Bay. The first day entailed lots for cruising around, swimming to small island beaches, kayaking through cool little hidden caves, and eating fresh fish. It was awesome! That night we slept on the boat and were so grateful for our new silk sleeping bad liners because there was a bit of a cockroach problem, and we were happy to have a place to hide.

The next day, our little private tour came to an abrupt end when we realized we had been sold off to another boat which had about 9 other people on it already. I guess the crew decided that they were loosing too much money on us and radioed in for some help. So we packed our things and hopped aboard with a bunch of Germans. Even though it ended prematurely, the day of privacy was well worth the cost. What a great experience! We ended up cruising around with the new boat for the rest of the day doing more of the same, before heading back to Cat Ba island in the evening.

The next day we did a hike through the national park on the island. It was so beautiful! It's accurately described as a scene straight out of Jurassic Park, with tons of lush vegetation covering steep limestone karst formations. The guide said we trekked 18 kilometers, but it felt more like half that. Either way it was great. We had lunch in a local village about 3 hours in to the trek and finished at another end of the island, taking a boat back to the main harbor.

That was yesterday, and today we took a bus to a small city called Ninh Binh, just south of where we were in Halong Bay. The surrounding countryside is supposed to be amazing here, but the weather kind of sucks at the moment, and we're thinking of leaving tomorrow evening on an overnight bus to head further south. Right now the plan is roughly:

-head to Hoi An, a beach town about 12 hours south of here for a few days
-from there go to Danang, a mountain town to do some hiking
-hop on a train toward Saigon, or HMC and explore the city for a few days before moving over to Cambodia.

Any suggestions?

Here are the latest pictures

Vietnam

Motorcycle Diaries

Hello faithful followers!

We have survived our first ten days in Vietnam!

After taking the overnight bus from Kunming, we arrived at the Vietnamese border town of Lao Cai, walked across the border and jumped onto a minibus to Sapa. After and hour of sitting and waiting for the bus to fill, we finally took off for Sapa.

Once in Sapa, we did the familiar "haul the bags to every single hotel and look at the rooms in order to find the best deal" before we finally decided on a place, threw our bags down, kicked off our shoes, and passed out from exhaustion after (surprisingly) not being able to sleep at all on an overnight bus where your bed is only five feet long, a foot and a half wide, and the people across from you are smoking. Ahhh, the joys of budget traveling.

After a whole day of recovery, we managed to get out of bed early on the second day and rent a motorcycle. :). Kerri was very trusting and it didn't even phase her when I confessed that the last time a really rode a motorcycle I was ten years old and my feet couldn't touch the ground. Side note: being tall enough to touch the ground really makes riding a lot easier.

We had so much fun on your motorcycle that, after one beautiful day of trekking through the villages around Sapa, we decided to rent a motorcycle for three days and do our own tour through northern Vietnam. We were feeling pretty confident after the first day of riding on windy roads, passing trucks and pedestrians, so we convinced the guy who owns the bike to let us take it without a guide and just ride off on our own. I looked over the map with him and explained the route we wanted to take and he said no problem.

We show up on the morning to rent the motorcycle and he shows us our "new bike", which is an old Minsk that looks like its been through a lot. Of course I made sure the horn, blinkers and headlight were working, the speedometer and tachometer were broken, but who needs those, right? I took it for a quick test drive and decided to give it a shot.

Kerri and I took off around 10:30 am and rode for three hours before we hit our first real town. We (mostly me, I guess) attracted a lot of stares. I don't think a lot of tourists visit these places. There weren't any hotels in the town, and since it was still relatively early, we decided to push it to the next town, another four hours.

We set off around 2 p.m. after a few wrong turns and confusing interactions with Vietnamese people who had no idea what we were doing when we waved our map in their face. The road in the afternoon was beautiful, green valleys with limestone spires. Our progress was hindered by the occasional water buffalo (these things are massive) in the road, little kids playing, and roadwork. After a few hours, we were getting a little worried we weren't on the right road so we started asking for directions again. We finally found someone who we could communicate with and confirmed we were on the right track. Reassured and excited, we started cruising again as the sun was starting to set. We crested on hill, passed a massive truck taking up the whole road, rounded a corner and the road went straight into a massive river. More confusion. A barge being pushed by a tugboat came over and we packed ourselves on.

Once on the other side of the river, it was a race off of the barge before the trucks, breathing diesel sucks. Side note: don't mess with Vietnamese people on motorcycles, or any Asians for that matter, they were born (literally) on one and they are better riders.

We climbed over a pass just in time to see the sun dip below the horizon, so I really started pushing it on the way down. We were making really good time when we were slowed by a gravel road. The gravel road turned into a dirt path about four feet wide with little water channels running through it. We found a dirt trail that looked no different from a walking path (except for the obvious motorcycle tracks). After a few minutes of deliberations, three H'mong (minority locals) women walked up and reassured us that this was the only way after triple and quadruple checking.

A few minutes later, a man came running over to help as I was getting ready to cross the shittiest make-shift bridge I have ever seen. He was helping me push the bike when I slammed on the breaks before we got on the bridge so I could inspect. It was bamboo, that looked like it was tied together with reeds. I pointed at the bridge and said the only word that we could both understand "OK?" He gave me a nod and pushed again. When we reached the other side, he pushed me out of the way, jumped on, revved the engine to a degree that I have not heard, and proceeded to burn the clutch/drive/walk the bike up the remainder of the steep, single track dirt path.

Running to catch up with him, I was pondering how much I should tip this angel for helping us. He answered that question by demanding that we pay him 50,000 Dong ($3)! After some arguing, not because its too much money, but because I hate getting ripped off, we gave in after he kept pointing at the marvelous feet of engineering that was his bridge.

Once we finally saw the town, we pulled over, went into a little restaurant and yelled "hotel" - we were a little pumped from the adrenaline, this might have seemed a little strange to them. Luckily, an equally strange man named Le, was there and decided to take us under his wing. "You come with me", he said. We obeyed.

The next morning, we woke up to find that the bike was leaking oil and the electrical system was entirely shot, the kill switch didn't work. I had to turn it off by holding the break and letting out the clutch. Easy enough.

We took off around 10 am with bellies full of Pho and high spirits. We were pretty confident considering we rigorously studied the maps the night before, we didn't want any surprises this time. We were surprised early when we realized that our destination wasn't really called Lai Chau, like we thought, but the name recently changed to Muong Lai, and is twice as far as we thought.

We rode through a windy, mostly gravel, road, dodging water buffalo, trucks, kids, heavy machinery, and potholes for four hours before we made it to Lai Chua, which is now Muong Lai. Not impressed by the town and confident that we could make it all the way back, we looked at each other, gave the nod and said, "let's do this".

We took off from Muong Lai at around 2 pm and cruised through the hot, flat river valley towards Pa Tan, and then turning towards Sapa, our destination, from there. After two hours of making really good time, cruising mostly in fourth gear (a big deal on this bike and these roads) we made it to Pa Tan.

We finally made it to Lai Chau and realized that it used to be called Tam Duong, the town we were looking for, and the government renamed it when they decided to start construction on a damn that would eventually flood the old town of Lai Chau and the whole valley that we rode through.

It was good timing to ride through that valley as we probably won't ever have a chance to see it again before it fills with water.

The next morning, we got on the bike and realized that there were three police officers pulling people over right next to the hotel. We packed our bag and strapped it on to the bike and set off.

We pulled out slowly, but not too slowly, I didn't want to give the officers too much time to see that the needles for the speedometer and tachometer were bouncing around. Besides, I don't have a motorcycle license and I wanted to get away from them before they had too much time to contemplate how much money they could suck out of us foreigners.

We made it the next few hours back to Sapa, turned in the bike, and checked back into our favorite hotel room and relaxed until it was time to catch the train to Hanoi.

Before leaving or Hanoi, we read several accounts of foreigners being ripped off by taxi drivers and hotels.

We arrived in Hanoi at 4:30 in the morning and stood amongsWe have been in Hanoi now for two days

The end of China

After hiking Emei Shan, we hopped on a train south towards Kunming. We decided to get the hard sleepers for our 12 hour ride. When we found our beds there were six Chinese people sitting on them. After we managed to squeeze our big packs in and then sit down, we pulled out our trusty phrase book and tried to make some polite conversation. This is usually the point where we try and say a few words that are spelled phonetically in English, but usually after we get the first few syllables out the laughter drowns out the rest of our attempts. We have found, however, it is not really necessary to actually speak Chinese to have people talk to you. An old, slightly intoxicated, Chinese man kept slapping me on the knee, waving his finger in my face (probably not very polite in China, either), and continued ranting and laughing for an hour straight. At this point my cheeks began to hurt and my throat was horse from fained laughter, so Kerri and I started playing cards in hopes that he would lose interest. This however, attracts more attention from Chinese people than my blond hair and blue eyes, and in no time we had almost a dozen people watching our crazy card game.

After 12 hours on the train, we hopped off at 7 am in a small town where we heard we could catch a bus to our destination, Lijiang. We got off the train, cursing ourselves for not making reservations for a bus when suddenly a woman ran up to us and shouted "Lijiang", grabbed me by the arm and threw us on a bus. How did she know?

We were laughing at our good luck on the bus, and we happily slept for the first hour. I noticed that I was having trouble sleeping because of a familiar smell, when I woke up with a jolt suddenly recognizing the unmistakable scent of vomit and realizing that the floor was slippery. The woman directly behind us had been puking on the floor and it flowed under our seat and soaked the bottom of my backpack. For the next six hours of the bus ride I held the backpack on my lap in the only position where I wouldn't touch the puke. The inside of the bus ride was such a contrast to the exquisite scenery we were passing on the twisty road. The entire drive we wound our way through a canyon of gorgeous rice paddy fields and small villages. Unfortunately the puking was contageous and others around us starting throwing up. I can confidently say it was the longest bus ride of my life.

We arrived in Lijiang and found a super cute little hotel with a view of the city. It looked so nice, we thought about just walking by, but we decided to go in and take a look just in case. We asked the price of a super cute, clean room, and when we heard it was 60 Yuan ($9) we struggled not to smile and Kerri said, "60 as in six, zero?" and I said "60 Yuan, total?" At this point we decided not to ask any more questions and jumped at the opportunity for a hot shower and clean room.

We found Lijiang a little like Disneyland, too cute to be real. But it is quite a site with cobbled roads and bridges over flowing crystal clear little water channels and canals with a snow-capped mountain in the background.

We spent one full day in Lijiang and left the next day for Tiger Leaping Gorge. Not knowing what we were getting into, I was trying desperately to take pictures of the snow-capped mountains from the bus. After using my whole battery and taking 20 crappy pictures with blurry trees obscuring the mountains, when I realized that we were heading straight for them and that they are in fact part of Tiger Leaping Gorge. We arrived at the trailhead at 3:30 in the afternoon and hiked two hours up to "Naxi Family Guest House", which had a beautiful little courtyard and tables with a view of the mountains changing color with the sunset. We both agreed that it couldn't get any better than that.

I found it hard to look at the trail while I was hiking, the view of the mountains was stunning. I managed to convince myself to look at the trail after we hiked passed a few ledges with nearly 3000-foot drop offs to the river at the bottom of the gorge.

We arrived at "Halfway House" guest house that afternoon which had a roof deck with 360-degree view of the mountains and a little farming community. It also has spectacular views out of the bedrooms and the toilets. I had to wear my sunglasses in the toilet the next morning while doing my business so I could look at the mountains. We were so taken by Halfway House that we decided to stay two nights and do day hikes around the area before heading out to Kunming to get our visas for Vietnam.

We are in Kunming right now and heading to Vietnam on a bus in a few hours. After we cross the border, we are going to try and head to a small mountain town called Sapa and do some more trekking.

Here are the latest pictures, videos coming soon....

China, Part Three

China, Part Two

It has been way too long since we've updated this blog! Since our last entry we've moved further south in China, slowly working our way down to Vietnam. Here are some highlights (new pictures and videos are posted below):

Train Ride to Pingyao -- The Hard Seater (aka worst decision, ever)

In an effort to save money we decided to take the hard seater tickets for our 12 hour train ride to Pingyao. Terrible idea. Not only did we squeeze 4 people in a 3 person seat...there we literally people occupying every free space on the train. People were squeezed so tightly together, they just stood for hours at a time all along the isles and in between the cars. It was the most insane thing I'd ever seen. There was one guy that I couldn't stop staring at. He was wearing a full suite, holding a briefcase in his hand, and looked like he was on a short 10 minute subway ride. This guy stood in the same damn position holding the briefcase for 5 hours! I didn't go pee for 12 hours because the toilet looked like a disgusting pile of 150 people's poo, and I probably couldn't have climbed over all the people to reach the door anyway. Also, I'm pretty sure an old lady would have stolen my seat. We slept a cumulative 1 hour while sitting completely upright, sandwiched between strangers that were way too close for comfort. Whew! But, it's like Kirstin said to me, even the rough days of traveling are blessings...even if you came frighteningly close to pooping your pants and freaking out from claustrophobia :) I like to look at it as training for India, if we ever make it there.

Pingyao, Shanxi Province

One of the most well-preserved walled in cities remaining in China. A cool little city, that could pretty accurately be described as a mini-Forbidden City with people still living in it. It looks like the set of a movie. All the streets are lined in cobblestones and red lanterns hang from every doorway. It's beautiful. A little touristy, which is difficult for Shane because Chinese tourists LOVE to take pictures with him. The crumbling old rock walls give the city an ancient feeling, but the people within the city make it extremely colorful, especially all the cute little kids. They like to yell "HELLOOO!" at us as they pass us from the back of their parent's bicycles and motorcycles. Our hostel was inside the old governor's residence, and it had oodles of charm. It had a classic courtyard that lead to all the rooms, and beautiful antique furnishings in each room, that give it a funky new-meets-old vibe.

Chengdu, Sichuan Province -- Where the Panda Roams

Chengdu is a cool city, as far as big cities go, but we kind of used it as a transition city on our way to the mountains. We did get to see some really cute Giant Pandas! I was hoping to meet the author of "Wild Swans" a controversial book on the Cultural Revolution and Mao's policies. Unfortunately, we didn't see her. But we did eat lots of fatty pork, drank lots of beer and played Uno.

Oh yeah, we also finally got to experience a tea house that overlooked a pretty lake at sunset. It was a really peaceful, beautiful experience, and then a really old Chinese guy sat next to us and started listening to really loud early 90's Madonna music from his cell phone. Ha! I love the Chinese.

Mt. Emei Shan

Day 1: Soooooooo many stairs

After a 2.5 hour bus ride from Chengdu, we arrived at a little mountain town at the base of Mt. Emei. Mt. Emei is one of the 4 sacred mountains in China and supposedly one of the most beautiful. We decided take about 3 days to climb it, sleeping in one of the many Buddhist monasteries along the way. It was such an amazing experience! We climbed about 6.5 hours the first day - and when I say climb, I mean step by step. Every trail on this mountain is covered in rock stairs. At any point on the mountain you are either climbing up, or climbing down. By the last day I looked like a crazy old mountain man coming down from a gold digging expedition, I was so sore I could hardly move!

Day 2: The Summit

On the 2nd day we woke up at 5am so that we could climb to the top before sunrise, and beat the throng of Chinese tourists who take a cable car to the top. It was so misty and dark we could hardly see the stairs we were climbing. As we climbed higher we could hear the sounds of the monasteries waking up as we passed them on the trail. It was so surreal to be hiking in the dark, hearing chanting and drum beats somewhere in the fog. When we finally reached the top, we weren't really sure we had made it because it was too misty to see anything. We could barely make out the temple at the "Golden Summit" but we beat the crowd! We had a few precious moments of silence at the summit of this beautiful mountain to ourselves right before the sun began to rise. It was so misty, we couldn't grasp the height of the severe cliff we were overlooking. Slowly the mist around us lightened and we were able to make out the golden elephant statues that surrounded us, and the giant Buddha that stood behind us. It was a trip.

The climb back down to our hotel passed in what seemed like 5 minutes, though the hike up took at least an hour and a half. Once we reached the hotel it seemed like a dream. Like it never happened. It still kind of feels like that.

Day 2 continued: I got jumped by a monkey

The rest of that day we spent hiking toward the monastery where we would sleep. They warned us at our hostel to use our bamboo walking sticks to ward off monkeys, but I didn't believe them. Of course, I got jumped by a monkey the size of a large toddler. At first he looked really cute and we were joking that we made a friend because he was walking down the path with us. Then before I knew it he was walking toward me with his beady monkey eyes and started climbing up my leg. I'd like to say that I kept my cool and used my stick to do some kung fu defensive techniques, but I basically fell into a ditch and screamed for Shane to help me. Thank god he was there! Otherwise I seriously would have hired a guide to walk with me for the entire length of the trip just to ward off monkeys. I now hate monkeys.

We slept that night at a beautiful old monastery in possibly the crappiest room they had. The guy at the counter showed us pictures of their rooms before we paid, but the room we got couldn't have been further from the version in the picture. But, a bed was a bed, and we were so tired from our climb and all the monkey adrenalin had worn off so we were ready to crash for the night. We had a delicious vegetarian dinner with all the workers in the monastery and the monks. There was a little confusion over the bill (they kept saying "3" when really they meant "30") and finally a short monk with a sweet face told us to follow him, which was hard to do because he was really fast and took us through the labyrinth of the monastery before pointing to a bench and instructing us to sit. When he returned he gave us 20 yuan, presumably from his personal stash, because he thought we didn't have any money to pay for the food. It was really humbling.

Day 3: The hike down

More monkeys, unfortunately. This time I had the sense to keep rocks in my hand and not hesitate to point my stick of fury in their direction. The mist finally started to clear and we could see more of the beautiful scenery that surrounded us. The final part of the hike was the most beautiful and also the least crowded. When we finally finished and left the park, we were sad to be done.

Now we're relaxing at a hotel at the base of the mountain. Tomorrow we leave for Tiger Leaping Gorge for a few days, and then on to Kunming to get our Vietnam Visas!


Here are our latest pictures:

China 2

Here are the latest videos:

Kerri found gold in them hills!


Narrow canyon hike


Kerri powering up the stairs

Pictures from Beijing (and some Mongolia stragglers)

After almost a week here in Beijing, we have decided to head off to Pingyao tomorrow night. Beijing is a beautiful city and we have enjoyed walking across its enormity (one block = 1/4 mile), taking the subway, ordering food by pointing at other tables, eating dumplings on the street, and walking through the historic hutongs, or old alleyways.

Two days ago, we woke up at the ungodly hour of 6 am to make the trek to the great wall. We jumped in a very cramped bus and drove for three hours before arriving at Jinshanling where we started our walk. We walked for about 10km on the wall all the way to Simatai. The scenery was breathtaking and we took about an hour to do the first two kilometers until we caught up with our guide who promptly scolded us for walking so slowly. Some parts of the wall were more like climbing a ladder than walking up steps, but we were rewarded after four hours with a zipline over a reservoir to the finish in Simatai.

Other Beijing highlights include the Summer Palace, Forbidden City, Beihei park, seeing our french-canadian friends Andre and Tonny and sharing a whole delicious roasted duck, crepe-ish egg and dumpling street food for 2.5 yuan, roughly 40 cents (so good we thought we would mention that again), riding bikes around the city, and the beautiful weather.

Check out our latest pictures:

China

We are in Beijing!

Hi everyone! We made it safely to China. Whew! The train ride was a long 30h adventure and we got here yesterday night and were immediately picked up by our friend here in Beijing, Rebecca, and brought in to her college classroom at the University of Beijing where she teaches English and we were the center of a classroom conversation for the rest of class. Exhausting but fun and very interesting.

We spent the night on the University campus, but it smelled strongly of paint and was very dusty because it was under construction. I guess it helped that we hadn't slept more than 3 hours the night before (vodka + long train ride = disaster). We made a quick decision to switch to a hostel in the lama temple district of Beijing. We found a very nice hostel when a guy named Lee took pity on us carrying our backpacks down the street looking like lost tourists and offered to have us at his hostel. We are sitting in the hostel bar drinking our first Beijing beer and feeling much more relaxed already.

We were offered the equivalent of $100 to give a lecture for 2 hours in front of a group of 200 students about the US economy and the presidential election. What crazy experience!

Nijow, China! Here we come

A quick update on what we've been doing:

After returning from our tour of the West we decided to apply for our Chinese Visa's and discovered that the consulate was closed all week due to Chinese National Day. The Chinese Consulate in Mongolia is only open 3 days a week for 2 hours a day anyway...so having a whole week off set our ambitious plans back by a lot. We then decided that the most logical course of action to was to mooch off of Sam's free apartment, catch up on sleep, and play lots of games of chess while drinking cheap Mongolian beer. Mission accomplished. We even managed to squeeze a few other activities in to our busy schedule. We hiked around the mountains south of the city and got a great view of Zaisan Memorial. I volunteered at an orphanage run by an Australian ex-pat where I made necklaces out of cereal and fell in love with Mongolian children-- they're sooooo cute! They are also incredibly well behaved. I was expecting to leave the orphanage covered with sticky globs of cereal in my hair and all over the unwashed jeans I had been wearing for 2 weeks straight. But the kids all worked methodically and carefully, cleaning after themselves as they played. They made American children seem like crazy entitled little drunk people. I think my presence confused them because I look really Mongolian but respond with a blank, dumbfounded expression on my face whenever they spoke to me in Mongolian. I'm pretty sure they were thinking "who's the weird mute Mongolian chick that's eating all the cereal?"

Last weekend we were lucky enough to be here for micro-finance day. Sam Grant invited us to come and "celebrate" with his bank in one of the suburbs of Ulaanbaatar. In true Sam Grant style we were assured that micro-finance day is one of the most fun days of the year and we could not miss it. After two and a half hours of standing in the cold, watching Mongolians speak Mongolian on stage, and Shane being told that he was Osama Bin Ladin and then Ghengis Khan, and then his brother by a middle-aged vodka-loving Mongolian man, we decided to leave early to go eat homemade mutton with rice with one of our Mongolian friends.

This week we focused on the whole Visa fiasco. After 2 unsuccessful attempts to get a Chinese Visa from the US and over 4 hours of pushing and shoving in the freezing cold weather outside the Chinese Consulate in Ulaanbaatar, we finally got our f-ing Chinese Visas-- whew! I have never seen such a crazy crowd. I felt bad for the poor Mongolian security guard who's only leverage against the mob of foreigners trying to push their way in was a thin metal door which he would push his whole body against to slam shut, only letting in a small group of people every hour.

Now with our Visa's and 2 first class train tickets in hand (they were sold out of every other seat) we are ready to leave Mongolia and start the next portion of our trip. We're a little sad to leave. Hanging out with Sam Grant has been awesome, and experiencing the countryside was such a unique experience. We've also grown to love Sam's 3 Mongolian roomates who, when combined with Sam, are the most hilarious group of individuals you could cram into such a small and, until recently, filthy apartment.

We are going to try and extend our 30 day Chinese Visa for another 2 months and head South by either riding bikes, taking trains, or doing a little bit of both to Vietnam. As for where we're staying in Beijing (or anywhere in China for that matter) we're still not sure. Our friend in Beijing, Rebecca, has found an apartment on the Beijing University Campus for us to rent for a month, but spending a whole month in Beijing might be a little too much city for us. If anyone has friends in China would you mind passing their information along? All we know how to say is "hello" and "thank you", so meeting friends along the way would make things so much more fun!

We are still alive

In the last two and a half weeks, Kerri and I went to Lake Baikal in Russia, horseback riding in the Mongolian steppe, and camel riding in the desert on a six-day tour through western Mongolia.

Russia was an amazing country. After a 26 hour train ride from Ulaan Baatar, Kerri, Nate, Sam and I arrived in Irkutsk dazed and confused. We hopped on a tram headed the wrong way, but eventually made it into the heart of the city. It was and odd feeling to be in Asia, but in a city with a very European feel. We joined a four-day tour of Olkhon Island in Lake Baikal and we met up with four French Canadians (Anna, Jean Louis, Toni, and Adre). Lake Baikal is incredibly beautiful and also incredibly large. Looking north from Lake Baikal, you can't see the other end because of the curvature of the earth. We spent our days in Russia hiking, swimming (trying to swim), throwing rocks, eating Russian cuisine, drinking vodka, and sweating in a wood-fired sauna.

We finally got a train headed back to Ulaan Baatar, which ended up taking about 36-hours. We arrived in UB at about six in the morning and headed out in the afternoon to a Ger (Mongolian yurt) camp to ride horses. We rode for five hours the next day, visited a Mongolian family's ger, watched horses get milked, and drank fermented horse milk, a Mongolian specialty called airak.

We got back to UB at night and left the next morning on a six day tour throughout western Mongolia. We visited hot springs, rode camels, swam in a freezing cold lake, stumbled upon a grave yard with human bones on a ground, and spent countless hours bouncing around on pot-holed, Mongolian dirt highways with our four French Canadian friends from Russia.

Now, we are back in UB trying to convince the Chinese government to let us in to their country. We have taken over Sam's apartment and I think his three Mongolian roommates are starting to wonder if we are ever going to leave.

So far, its only been three weeks, but we have already met traveling friends that have invited us to come stay in their homes from Tokyo, Quebec, to Cortes Island in British Columbia. We are having a great time and we are excited about the adventure still to come!

Check out these pictures and videos from our trip:

Latest Pictures:

Our Travel Photos

Latest Video:

Fun on the Trans-Siberian Railway


Throwing Rocks into Lake Baikal


Mongolian Ger Experience


Sunset Camel Ride


Kerri Camel Dismount


Shane Camel Dismount

We made it!

Well, the adventure is finally beginning. Kerri and I made it about 24 hours ago after roughly 30 hours of traveling. We only had one setback in China when we had to land at a different airport and sit there for an hour and a half before taking off for Beijing. We only suffered a couple of bloodshot eyes and two extremely swollen ankles (a.k.a cankles, video coming soon).

We made it here and met up with Sam at an Irish pub and brought our stuff back to his semi-clean apartment before heading out to meet his friends and party in Ulaanbataar. We also met up with Kangaroo Mouse (Nate Upham) who has been sampling pastries all over town.

For those of you who grew up playing (fighting over) Risk games as a kid, you might be interested in the fact that we are taking a train up to Irkutsk, Russia tomorrow and eventually visiting the oldest and deepest lake in the world, Lake Baikal. It is over a mile deep and holds roughly 20% of the worlds fresh water.

Now we are off to host a Tortillas and Vodka party as Sam's apartment with his three Mongolian roommates and international friends.

Check out these videos of Costa Rica

Kerri on the Tarzan Swing


Shane on the Tarzan Swing


Kerri Stuck in the Mud

Is it weird that we are sharing a website?

Today is Sunday, August 24, 2008. Kerri and I are leaving for Mongolia on September 5. We haven't unpacked from our trip in Costa Rica, our passports are at the Russian consulate and hopefully we will get them back in time with our visas ready to go.

So, we don't really know exactly where we are going, how we are going to get there, how long we are going to be gone, or how much it will cost. Sounds like a great idea to me.