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!