Home

As many of you have heard, we are back. We came home about 5 days ago, home early because we aren't feeling the greatest. Don't worry though, we are fine. This means we didn't see France. Sad, but I am confident that I will get there someday. And in the big picture of the whole trip, its not too much of a loss.

It has been amazing to have all of you keeping tabs on us and we looked forward to the comments the whole time we were traveling. So thanks for tagging along on our journey around the world!

It is beyond weird being home. It is a major adjustment that can be a little overwhelming at times. Everything is still here, its still the same. Every day isn't filled with new adventures (actually the new adventure is getting re-acclimated to life in America). I wake up in the morning and know exactly where I am which of course is nice and comfortable but strange.

Until next time.... :)

Athens

We just got back from a day of hiking around all the amazing ancient ruins of Greece! We went up to the Acropolis and saw the Parthenon and other ruins that surround it. It was unreal to see it so up close. Next we walked around in Ancient Agora which was the cool hangout place of ancient Greece. It was first built in the 6th century BC! Socrates used to spend a lot of time there pondering the meaning of life and such. We also saw the Temple of Zeus and many other sites as well.

We have been in Athens for three days now and leave tomorrow. Tonight we are hoping to see some traditional Greek dancing!




City at sunset. That's the Acropolis way in back. Not such a clear picture.


-- Post From My iPhone

In Greece!!!

So after 42 hours of traveling, we finally reached Greece! We met mom in the airport, our flights got in at about the same time. She says we look way better than she thought haha. She expected us to be scraggly and emaciated I think.

We spent the night in Athens and had our first dinner on a rooftop with a view of the Acropolis. The next morning we flew out to Lesvos. We stayed in Plomari, a beautiful village on the sea for our first few days. It was amazing! We stayed in a really great house (thanks Pattie!) and ate amazing Greek food every night...fresh seafood! The ocean is the bluest and clearest I have ever seen!!! We went hiking in the olive groves which turned into a huge adventure! It was really beautiful!

Now we are in Mytilini and are going to be taking a ferry to Turkey! Which is awesome because we can add another country to our list! Turkey is only and hour and a half away across the Aegean sea!



Dinner on the harbor in mytilini




I found Tila's evil twin in Greece! If you look hard enough you can see it's creepy snaggle-tooth that sticks out...Scary!

Reflections on Asia

Our time in Asia is coming to an end. We fly out in one day. Kind of crazy considering we really have spent most of our time here. It has been an eye opening experiance.

I think a lot about how we live at home versus how we have been living for the past month and a half. I, by no means consider myself wealthy but compared to what I see around me here, I live in absolute luxury. It has completely changed my outlook on life. I have a room to myself, my own bed. Today, I had this moment where I intensely missed my refrigerator. Haha my old fridge! and my shower and toilet that both work gloriously! I have a car and the funds for gas, and food that I know is safe. I can't even tell you how amazing it is going to be to just grab a glass and fill it up with water from the tap. And just clean things. It is impossible to feel clean here. All of these things we take for granted...people here live without. Funny thing is they are just as happy if not way happier than most people in our country. What is the key to their happiness when so many live with so little?? That, I have been trying to figure out. One recurring theme in every country so far has been just living a symplified life. The simple life, back to basics. Family, hard work, and taking it day by day. There is a general acceptance that life is hard and full of suffering. Here, you work with what you have instead of dwelling on what you don't. Materialism is out the window.

We have been up to the regular adventures. Yesterday we went to more temples and then traveled down a river via rowboat through caves!! It was beautiful!




Check out our amazing hats! Bet you're jealous!

Halong Bay and Sapa

So, we have been doing some totally amazing touring in the past couple of days. We did an overnight trip in Halong Bay on a junk boat. Even though it was raining for part of the time and cloudy, the islands were still breathtaking, there are about 4000 or more of them. We were on a boat with a couple nice Australian groups, there were 15 people total. We went to a huge cave that went all the way through one of the islands. It was really cool, but sad that they had cemented the ceiling of it virtually killing the cave system. We also got to swim and kayak and got to see the fisherman villages that are essentially just floating shacks in some of the island bays.
Our next trip was to Sapa to see the local hill tribe people. We took an overnight train last night to get here which wasn't too bad actually. We got a minibus from the train station up to our hotel. The ride beautiful, we went high up into the mountains and had spectacular views of the landscape and terraced rice patties. Today we went on a half day trek to Cat Cat village and to see a waterfall. It is crazy here, as soon as we left the hotel we were surrounded by tribe people dressed in traditional attire, mostly kids who were very cute and friendly and walked with us for a long time chatting or just following quietly. Two of the kids made me a little horse doll out of grass. When we got to Cat Cat village, they stopped and asked us to buy stuff from them. I ended up buying something from each of the 3 kids that followed me because I felt bad leaving one out. It is all handcrafted and very nice.
Cat Cat village was neat to see, the people here believe in spirits and have a shaman who cures ailments with incence and pickled animals like snakes and lizards!
When we got to the waterfall, it started raining. The waterfall was big and beautiful and had water buffalo wading in the pool on top of it. The whole trek until now was downhill, so geting back was a bit of a challenge and was quite wet.
P.S. Father dearest, though the raincoat you gave me seemed like a good idea, it is in fact NOT waterproof, though it says it is and therefore will have it's final resting place in Vietnam.




Halong bay



Cave through the mountain



View of the mountains in Sapa

Happy 4th of July

We couldn't find any fireworks to celebrate our independence so we lit some insence toasted to or home country with some Vietnam beer!



That's us having dinner in the old quarter of Hanoi.
Today we went to see the Perfume Pagoda which is a Temple inside a cave. It is one of the most holy temples because it used to be hard to get to. We had to take a small row boat up a river that wound through the mountains and then hike part of the way up the mountain and take a cable car the rest of the way. The Vietnamese version of Buddhism is really different and interesting. This partticular temple tells the legend of a "lady Buddah". Anything you pray for in the cave temple is supposed to come true.
Vietnam is beautiful! The mountains are soooo gorgeous! I don't think I could explain them in words...so again, just wait for the pics!!
Tomorrow, we leave the choas and loudness of Hanoi to go to Halong Bay where we will be living on a junk boat for two days. Should be fun!!

Goodbye to Thailand

It's hard to believe, but our month in Thailand is over! It really feels like we just got here! Now, we will fly to Vietnam for out last stop in Asia.

Our last few days in Thailand have been spent on Koh Samet an island just off Rayong. We have been relaxing on the beach, drinking piña coladas, and snorkeling. The island is absoultely beautiful-white sand beaches and bright turquios water that is the perfect temperature for swimming. Yesterday we took a speed boat around a few of the close small islands. We stopped to snorkel at a few sites and saw some really cool things. Some of them were a moray eel, tons of humongous sea urchins, schools of squirrel fish, and the hugest jelly both jess and I have ever seen in the wild. It's body was literally two feet in diameter. Of course jess had to touch it to get pics of how huge it was in comparison to her hand. We were sad to leave the beach!
Everyone in Surin, we missed you this week!!!!!




Each night we had dinner literally on the beach. Fresh seafood BBQ yum!!

Many adventures!

June 29-We are currenly at the bus station just sitting, waiting to catch an overnight bus. We are headedctp Rayong where we will then catch a boat to that will bring us to the island of Ko Samet to spend some time on a beach paradise and snorkel, fish, and have cocktails on the beach! Yay!

In the two days before today, we were exploring Khao Yai National Park and having a crazy time! Yesterday, we arrived in Khao Yai and took a half day tour which included caving and seeing bats! I must say, Thai tours are way differwnt from ither ones, they never quite give you a clue as to where you are going and there seems to be no safety rules or at least they don't tell you any. So, we were brought down into a cave with pretty much no light. Usually everyone is either given a light for this, or the way is lit, but only the guide had a flashlight, and it was tiny. P.S. In case you were thinking this wasn't a normal cave, it was and caves are really dark. As soon as we descended into the cave, we could both smell and hear the bats. Once we were further into the cave, the guide broke out a brighter light. There were literally bats EVERYWHERE!! They flew incredibly close to us, barely avoiding us at all!
We were also shown a bunch of cave bugs! I got to hold a scorpion spider which is super cool, though Im still not sure if it is a scorpion or spider. One of the nearest things about the cave is that the monks have little spots and shrines set up in the cave for meditation!
Our next stop was to see a cave high up on a mountain where 2 million bats fly out each night to go hunting! It was completely amazing! The bats start trickling out and thwn build up in numbers until they are flying out in a steady stream that looks kinda like black smoke. The bats started in a straight line, but then started undulating and
looping and spiraling into the distance. Just wait for the pics, it was totally amazing!
Today, was jungle trekking. It felt like we should be on the discovery channel or something based on how we moved about searching for cool animals to see! We would all be piled in the back of a pickup truck and if our guide would spot an animal, he would shout for us to get out abd follow him at a run! Just like hunting some elusive beast! It was "Same same but different" in the jungle, we didn't even follow a trail half the time. P.S. The saying is one that Thais use a lot, not sure how to use it actually, but you get the gist I hope. We saw macaques and gibbons, 2 kinds of monkeys and the great hornbill and other birds and of course lots of bugs. I got a chance to hold this super huge scorpion...this time definately a scorpion! We also had to wear leech socks while in the jungle because the floor is covered in leeches! They were everywhere... so totally gross! They can just reach up from the ground and gitch a ride, moving like freaky inchworms to slink up your legs and find a nice soft spot to latch on. So, you pretty much had to be sure to flick them off before they got past the leech socks. Strange though, you kinda get used to them after a while. The jungle was so amazing and wonderful and and beautiful.
Our last stop was a waterfall that was goegeous and on the way back to our accomodation, we drove around looking for wild elephants, but we never found them. Oh well!



View of the jungle. It seemed to go on forever!




Mondo Golden web spider, they were everywhere and were literally the size of your hand!




This pic doesn't do the waterfall justice. It was amazing! Also, for anyone who has watched The Beach this is the waterfall in the movie!

Busy busy!

For the past two weeks we have been working on building a fish pond that will feed the children and monks who live at a temple inside a small village about 20 minutes from Surin. We had to fix up the pond, make it leak proof and build a roof over it. We have painted it with a pretty underwater scene that the kids will love. Also, today, we bought about 400 baby catfish that will grow and feed many people. The kids are so cute. They come to the temple during the day while their parents work in the rice fields. They are all really young, preschool age. They are totally facinated by our white skin, it's funny.

We have the weekends off and last weekend we traveled to Chiang Mai with a few friends it was an amazing trip. The busride was 15 hours but totally worth it. We did a tour where we rode elephants again, went to a longneck village where the women stretch out their necks and legs with brass rings, hiked through the jungle to a waterfall, and went whitewater and bamboo rafting...oh and visited an orchid farm. It was an amazing day!! The markets in Chiang Mai are like nothing I have ever seen before. We also visited a few temples and talked for hours to a group of monks. We shared stories and learned all about their lives and the ways of Buddhism.
We actually experianced what I guess you could call reverse culture shock in Chiang Mai. They were so many westerners there! We are used to Surin, where it's just us and we understand no one. There, we kept hearing English and understanding what everyone was saying... And there were hamburgers and warm showers and toilets that actually flush! Crazy.

We are back home now, in Surin. We only have about a week and a half left in Thailand which is hard to believe. Time goes so fast! It will be sad to leave all of the friends we have made here.



Fish pond we fixed then painted



Village we worked in

Photo Journal of Thailand so far!

Riding Elephants!
Sam and another volunteer, Hayley, after we went for a swim with the elephants!
Yeah, I volunteered to be stepped on by an elephant, think what you will of me.
Elephant show, never knew elephants could do this sorta thing!
Bananas for the elephants!
Feeding the elephants!
This is the awesome group of people that we are staying with while volunteering in Surin!
Big Buddha!
Big staircase to the big Buddha..297 stairs!
Phenong Raung..or some spelling like that, the temple on an extinct volcano.
Awesome huge gecko who lives at our house!
Fun times at the waterfall with Katoon, our guide and Stuart, our Scottish travel mate for the two weeks of touring that we are doing.
Behind the waterfall
The Hero Monument in Korat
12th Century Temple/Palace in Korat

Bali photo journal

Our first temple visit!
Attack of the monkies in the Monkey Forest
Traditional Balinese play about good vs evil...Barong Play



Computers here are really slow and we are paying for internet, so all apologies for these photos being posted so late and in such a small quantity...more to come when there is time!

Thailand goodness!

So who wants to guess what crazy food we've been eating? I shall tell you...I started the trip with frog curry which was good but they use the whole frog not just the legs so it was very boney and the tendons were very chewy. We have also had cricket which is surprisingly tastey and coagulated chicken blood which actually tastes good but has a texture that is hard to get past. Oh and Paps, I'm sorry, but we tried durian and it is totally gross and it stunk up the whole house even though we left it outside!
This week has been full of sight seeing. We went to a 12th century royal palace, to the hero statue that represents woman power and here we made wishes on her. We also went to a sweet waterfall! Today we went to an enormous Buddha statue that has 297 steps up to it! We also got to see Phanom Rung, a royal palace slash temple from the 11th to 12th century that is on top of an extinct volcano!


-- Post From My iPhone

Thailand!

So we made it to Thailand!!! For the past few days we have been settling into our house and getting aquianted with our town, Surin which is a town in the east of Thailand. It's been amazing so far. There are eight of us here to volunteer. One other American and the rest from the UK. Everyone is really cool. We share a house and each have our own room! We have been learning Thai because most people here don't speak English. In fact, we are some of the only Westerners here. Surin is known for the elephants that live here. At night, you see elephants on the streets, transporting people around.
This week, we are learning all about Thai culture and then we begin our volunteer work. Jess and I will be working on a organic farming project at a temple that provides food for the monks and children there. It's going to be interesting because we will be working alongside the monks, but there are all sorts of rules about how we interact because we are women. For example, if even just one of our hairs touches a monk, they have to lock themselves in a room for three days and three nights with no food to purify themselves. I think Id feel pretty bad if I sent a monk into solitary confinement!
The food here is amazing! The people who live next to us run a noodle shop at night and it's so good! We've been testing out all our favorites and of course they're even better here...pad Thai, red curry, Thai iced tea!! Today, we are learning Thai cooking.

We are working on finding a computer so that we can put more pictures up!!!

-- Post From My iPhone

Singapore!

So we spent the day today wandering around Singapore. It's an amazing city!!! More clean and advanced than any city I've ever been to. The transit system far exceeds the subway or T or any other one I've been on. Totally clean with tv's and tons of really fast people movers. It's weird because everyone speaks a different langauge but everything in the city is in English...all the signs and tv, radio, you name it. Makes it easy for us. It's a nice encounter with the familiar after way different Bali. There is every kind of food you can imagine although neither of us have our appetites back yet.
Today we went to a few HUGE shopping malls I guess you would call them, the biggest malls I've ever seen, then went out to Sentosa island via cable car over the harbor where we went to a butterfly garden, learned about the Singapore merlion, And rode segways...which are our new favorite form of transportation. We were feeling worn out so we then caught a movie in the biggest movie theature I've ever been in with gloriously comfortable seats. Like I said, very nice to feel somewhat connected with the modern world (for me anyway). That and I totally fit in here because everyone has iPhones!!! Good times!


-- Post From My iPhone

The good news and the bad news

Which would you like first? I'll give the bad. While on a full day snorkeling trip in Pemutaran, we ate bad food. Sam got off with a mild case of traveller's issues, but I got it in the SEVERE way... Yesterday I woke up at 2am with issues that got progressively worse until I not only had the runs but was also sick to my stomach, and you all know how I am about that! Miserable! Anyway, about 6 hours later I was a bit better thanks to cipro but was still only able to eat a bit of plain rice. Today Sam is better and I feel mostly better, but still lack energy... I am drinking lots of electrolytes to hydrate and got 14 hours of sleep last night and hopefully will be good as new tomorrow!
The good news... Snorkeling was amazing, though sad to see how much garbage was on the beach and in the water. We saw some eels including a big moray eel and a sea turtle and a bunch of really neat fish! Beautious! We leave for Singapore today!

-- Post From My iPhone

Bali!!!

So we have been all around Bali in the past couple days. We hired a driver to take us around and show us some of the local crafts (batik, weaving, wood carving etc.) and also to sweet sights. We saw a bunch of beautiful temples including Tanah Lot, the temple in the sea. We also went into the mountains to see local markets where we bartered for clothes and fruits (including soursop! Reminds us of Montserrat), rice terraces, waterfalls, and Mount Batur... The volcano!!! It was all super sweet! The most exciting and memorable part (ESP for Sam) was probably the Ubud monkey forest where a few monkeys decided she was a good perch and would not leave her...I think they liked her hair.
P.S. Paps, you were right about the culture shock, but now we are pros... We were told that we were good barterers today...got the price for a bunch of fruit from 390000 rupia to 120000 rupia and got some free cashews and peanuts thrown in!

-- Post From My iPhone

Bali

Just writing to let everyone know we made it to Bali. It is crazy! Right now we are in Kuta which is a hustling bustling city on a gorgeous beach. It's totally hectic but very cool. There's surfers everywhere!! Everyone is really friendly, some because they genuinely are friendly, others who are just trying to get your money.

We bought this at the grocery store cause it looks yummy. It's a dragonfruit.





Also...we're millionaires here!!!! More later!!

Photo Journal of Australia...not in order though

Jump! Cool Wicked Camper!
Whoa! Amazing whale shark!

Stromatolites!!! Cool!

Dunes with gorgeous white sand near the Pinnacles

Pinnacles!!

Barry Springs park...Sam under the falls!

Enjoying a natural massage.

Territory Wildlife Park, getting up close and personal with a sawfish.

Cute Wallaby :-P

In Darwin!!

We have made it to Darwin. Today was a little unlucky, we couldn't find one of the places we wanted to go, then the next awesome park with huge waterfalls was closed off, then the van started to overheat. We still managed to see a really cool park where there was a creek you could drift down with ridiculously clear water. The waterfalls were supposed to be a two day stop, so instead we're going into the city tomorrow...should be a good plan B. It's wierd to be in civilization again. There are street lights and stuff. We haven't seen a streetlight in 15 days!

Mom, you were a little off with your guess on the slang but still close! Good on ya as the Aussies would say.

Mollie you win! (part of me knew you would). I knew at least you wouldn't be able to resist a little game. :) And I miss you guys too!

Grandma, your comments have been great! We both send our love and tell Grandpa we hope that he is feeling better and recovering fast!

Best for last:



Lizzie- I couldnt write your shoutout til i found you a kangeroo. I caught him by feeding him carrots. I can't bring the whole kangeroo back, there's the whole fitting him in my bag plus he might beat up jäger. So I'm just bringing part of him...haha figure that one out. And no it's not a skull. I miss you!!!!!

Answers to your questions

Mom- the parakeets were all the green and yellow kind

Bryan- Only one person had been out to see the whale sharks before. The most common nationality we're coming across is people from Europe, mostly French. We've only met one American couple.

Mystery person- sorry but I still don't know who you are slash might know but I'm not sure!!??


-- Post From My iPhone

Driving and driving...

So since we last wrote we have been on the road A LOT!!!! It was a pretty boring stretch for a while since Exmouth. We are now about 100 km outside of Katherine, which is maybe 600 km from Darwin, our ending point. We have come over 4800 km!!! We did a variety of things to entertain ourselves on the long sometimes monotonous drive. We played the alphebet game as a team but there's so little cars and signs that it took two days and we stopped at Q. I taught jess some mindfulness games, the no multiple of 7 or numbers containing 7 game ( Nia Sagers you know what I'm talking about). I modified it for two people, it took us 45 min to get to 69. I made up a song for Dooby Doo to the Scooby Doo theme song...it has four verses. And we studied up on Aussie slang. Whoever can decipher this first wins:

We've been hitting the bitumen at sparrows fart right after brekky. So we're pretty knackered by tea. Spindoola is tight and I've been earbashing about tucker, dinky-dee like chook on the barbie or a big sanger in the arvo. As long as there's no blowies. Fair go blowies!!
Good luck!




-- Thats jess. She's waving!



Geikie gorge...nothing bad happened. I was staying out of reach of the crocs.

One life goal down

13/5/09-Today was one of the most amazing days ever! Why, you ask?Well, today we were booked on a tour to see whale sharks. Turns out it is whale shark season here and there had been multiple sightings for the past few days...though nothing is garunteed. The tour started in the lagoon of Nigaloo national park with a snorkel on a beautiful reef. After, we went to deeper water outside the lagoon, where the whale sharks were. We were briefed on how to go about snorkelling with these creatures and shortly after, our plane (there was one working along with our boat) spotted a shark. As soon as we were close enough, we were given the ok to get into the water. I don't even know if there are words to describe how very majestic and graceful whale sharks are! It was coming right at us and was very near the surface and so we had to swim out of the way. We swam with it for a while before it dove back to the depths of the ocean. It was estimated that this shark was about 6 meters long. I was awestruck. This was not to be our only encounter. Our plane found two more sharks over the course of the day and we swam with both of them before lunch. These last two were even bigger than the first one! One word...and this time I mean it more than ever before, AMAZING!!!

We got in another snorkel after lunch on a very nice reef... Not only did we get to see the splendor and beauty of the whale sharks, but we were lucky enough to see two sea turtles, a dolphin and a white tipped reef shark not to mention a bunch of colorful reef fish and coral!

Dooby doo lost a headlight today and Sam had to chase it down the highway. We now have it taped on.

P.S. Mystery person, out if all my friends and family I have narrowed you down to a SERC person. Beyond that, I need more to pinpoint you.

P.P.S Mama!! Imagine a mini swallow spectacular but with parakeets...we saw that!!!

Coral revenge

Today we woke up early and drove up to Exmouth. We had planned to just hang out there for the day. But we stumbled upon something amazing and once in a lifetime. We booked it for the next day...you'll have to stay tuned to see what it is!!!
That gave us a whole day to kill. We got another campsite, again no roadside camping allowed. Then we walked through the dessert and over big sand dunes until we got to the beach. It was a long, hot walk but totally worth it. We had the entire beach to ourselves! And it was probably the most beautiful beach I have ever been to....so far. The only thing was that there was a pretty strong undertow so we stayed where we could touch. It was enough to suck you off your feet. No getting pulled out to sea, no thanks!!
Oh and another thing, I got attacked by coral. Most of you are probably wondering how coral could attack...well it happened during an intense seaweed fight between me and jess. We chuck the biggest grossest pieces of seaweed at eachother because it's funny. We've been doing it since we were young. Well jess thought she had found the motherload of seaweed and tried to nail me in the stomach but her aim sucks and she hit me in the face. And what she thought was a big, heavy glob of seaweed was actually seaweed attached to a large piece of coral. She basically threw coral at my face. Haha! Hit me right in the nose. I'm ok, no worries just a little scratched and bruised. Of course it was a mistake (although part of me thinks this is payback for when I threw a rock at her head when we were 8). Good times

Banana plantations and coral reefs

May 11
Today we woke up super early and headed to Carnarvon to check out their biggest crop, bananas! I've never seen so many banana trees in my life! After that we drove up to coral bay and went snorkeling on Ningaloo Reef. There were lots of cool fish. Jess took lots of pictures. The sunset over the ocean was absolutely gorgeous!
We're in a real campsite tonight which means showers!!! And bathrooms. Pretty luxurious for us. It's nice to have people all around. Usually it just us in the middle of the desert.



Grandma, a lot of times this is what the road looks like. It's called the Great Northern Highway but in the US it would be just a small back road. No shoulder and huge distances with nothing but red sand, brush, and a few farm animals.




That's Jess agaist the pretty sunset tonight.