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)

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Motorcycling in Northern Vietnam

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Halong Bay, Vietnam

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Biking through Cuc Phuong National Park, Vietnam

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Here are the photos:

Goodbye Vietnam, Hello Cambodia