"Not all Who Wander are Lost"

Just for Fun

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 04:03:00 +0000

To wrap up the 'Round-the-World blog, we have compiled a rather oddball mix of photos, numbers, and memories to share. The photos here have not been posted previously as they consist of some of our random "cutting room floor" pictures and a series we intentionally saved for the end: "Poses Around the World" (yoga for ginnie, just plain silly-ness for Anthony). We also took photos of nearly every room in which we slept (we forgot 2 or 3) and decided we'd put together collages of the varying accommodations to be found around the world for $25US or less per night (and, usually, it was under $20!). Due to the tedious and time-consuming nature of uploading and then rearranging photos, these are in no particular order.

We hope you enjoy our lee review of our adventures during the first six months of 2011. Peace!

Despite the fact we each used our own camera throughout the trip, somehow this moment is the only time we caught each other taking a photo. (Taken in Ayutthaya, Thailand during our last week of the trip)

So, we travelled in rainy season and found ourselves caught in rainstorms fairly frequently in South America. The beauty of rainstorms there is that they typically last for just a few minutes (not so much that morning in Machu Picchu, but we were blessed with the most amazing cloud- and mist-parting vision of the site that it was worth being wet and cold all day). That light colored raincoat ginnie has is NOT at all a good raincoat (be warned: don't get a rain coat from Land's End if you will be in heavy rain!); she was drenched; when home in March we picked up a coat that actually keeps the rain on the outside (it's from LL Bean) and that made the second portion of the journey much drier (though we didn't have as much rain then either!)

In these photos we are in Peru, the top left one was taken as we waited out a hail storm! The bottom right shows ginnie's creative use of a poncho to keep her feet dry (the Keen's were perfect for the trip, but wet and cold feet are just no fun)

Funny places where we found our names - Anthony's is in a brick, the store front sign looks just how ginnie wrote her name on a plate in pre-school with one n forward and one backward (and she spelled it with a y in those days, too)

If only we could share more of the interesting/amusing billboards. The first was on the PanAmerican Highway in Panama and is just disgusting (do we really need to fatten all the world?) and the second one is just plain confusing - how exactly does it relate to jeans?

FLIGHTS AND MILES TOTAL

Yes, we (and by we, I mean Anthony) actually calculated the number of miles flown, here is our journey by the numbers:

BOS to HOU = 1602 miles

HOU to PTY = 1770 miles

PTY to CTG = 283 miles

CTG to BOG = 408 miles

BOG to LIM = 1170 miles

LIM to CUZ = 364 miles

CUZ to LIM =364 miles

LIM to QUI = 826 miles

QUI to HOU = 2347 miles

HOU to BOS = 1602 miles

BOS to CHI = 863 miles

CHI to AMM = 6220 miles

AMM to CAI = 295 miles

CAI to ABD =1464 miles

ABD to JNB =3892 miles

JNB to CPT =790 miles

PEL to JNB = 562 miles

JNB to BOM = 4318 miles

BOM to BKK = 1885 miles

BKK to PNP = 329 miles

SAI to HUE = 390 miles

Danang to HAN = 390 miles

HAN to BKK = 601 miles

BKK to CMA = 353 miles

CMA to BKK = 353 miles

BKK to NAR =2880 miles

NAR to HNL =3810 miles

HNK to LAX = 2550 miles

SAN to NWR = 2420 miles

NWR to BOS = 200 miles

Total Miles flown = 45,311

What we do not include here are the miles traveled by foot, car, bus, taxi, bicycle, or train. We often lamented not bringing pedometers because we definitely walked 100's of miles. People continually comment on us looking as though we did not eat on this trip - trust us, we ate and we ate a lot, but when the primary mode of transportation is by foot, a lot of calories are burned!

We also did not calculate the number of hours spent waiting in airports, that would be interesting because it's going to be a fairly high number!

During our last day in Chiang Mai, we did a couple important errands: Anthony got a haircut after 3 months and ginnie had an eye exam in which she tested out prescriptions with some funky glasses

Oh, the places we slept!

Panama

Colombia (that room with 3 beds was just a couple nights to wait for a smaller room to become available - the one next to it is that smaller room)

Peru

Ecuador (we forgot to get photos of 2 of our rooms and one of them was so nice!!)

Jordan (we included the bathroom because we {this time, we means ginnie} was fascinated with the shower situation - there is no curtain, but we had a squeegee which was used to push water that left the shower section down a drain in the floor)

South Africa (sometimes our bags exploded); that one on the bottom right shows the entire room - it was a teeny one

Egypt (we did not even bother with a photo of one of the rooms - you will understand why later)

Cambodia (another bathroom shot because the shower situation in Southeast Asia is even more fabulous - it's just a shower head in the bathroom with no worry about tubs and such, the water simply flows to a large drain in the floor. If they introduced the squeegee like in Jordan, it would be pretty awesome, though nearly all our bathrooms drained really well)

Vietnam

Thailand (we included the Bangkok condo; the upper left shows our really awesome room in Chiang Mai)

The airport in Lima - this was our first 24-hour flight and overnight in an airport. This one was planned, others just happened due to delays or whatnot. For the trip through the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia, most of our flights were overnight with the long layovers during the day, so perhaps we should have taken a photo of the plane seat... hehe:)

More fun times

This is all of ginnie's luggage for the entire 6 months! You can see a glimpse of Anthony's - just the orange pack.

There are just so many t-shirts

Not the only Turkish toilet we encountered along the way

Sign at the entrance to the trail up Lion's Head in Cape Town. We wonder if dogs are prohibited from pooping or if people should just clean up after them. And, do you think if a lone dog saw this sign, s/he would suddenly decide not to walk there? Hmmm... Also, it really just reminded us of Maya.

Total World Heritage Sites

As we mentioned at the beginning of our journey, we planned our trip with an emphasis on World Heritage Sites as a starting point. Here is the rundown of the World Heritage Sites we visited around the world. Our best count is in Vietnam, where we saw 5 out of 7!

Panama

*Panama Viejo

*Fort San Lorenzo

Colombia

*Cartagena de Indias: Port, Fortresses, and Group of Monuments

Peru

*Machu Picchu

*Lake Titicaca - Taquile Island (the people of the island and their culture is really the item on the list)

*City of Cuzco

Ecuador

*City of Quito

Jordan

*Petra

Egypt

*Memphis and its Necropolis – the Pyramid Fields from Giza to Dahshur

*Historic Cairo

South Africa

*Robben Island

Cambodia

*Angkor

Vietnam

*Hoi An Ancient Town

*Complex of Hue Monuments

*Central Sector of the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long (or, as we call it: Flag in Hanoi)

*Ha Long Bay

*My Son Sanctuary

Thailand

*Historic City of Ayutthaya

And, just because it is interesting (to us, at least!)

Bodies of Water
*Dead Sea – Lowest Body of Water on Earth
*Lake Titicaca – Highest Lake on Earth

Good Eats!

Latin America. Colombia was by far the most challenging place to be a vegetarian, even the majority of cans of beans had pork in them, but we found a way. The top middle photo shows an arepa - a ground corn masa filled with cheese that oozes when it's hot! The others show vegetarian meals we found in Ecuador and Peru. Bottom right is the BEST eggplant pizza (Banos, Ecuador) and bottom left is a vegetarian version of a popular dish in Peru called Lomo Saltado, which is stir-fried meat (in this case, soy-based) and vegetables put over french fries and served with rice - delicious!

Middle Eastern - we had a lot of mezze (appetizer-sized dishes) in Jordan since there were not a lot of vegetarian main dishes available and the bottom photo is a fatir, which is like an Egyptian pizza where dough is flipped and tossed and then the "toppings" are wrapped inside and it is baked in a hot hot oven - it can be a savory meal or a sweet dessert depending on your selections - we had one of each!

We ate some of the most amazing meals in Asia! 3rd down on the left is ginnie's favorite from Vietnam - Cao Lau (a Hoi An specialty that we only found there). The bottom right shows mock meat seafood - we don't know how they do it, but it looks like real shrimp and squid!

Coca-Cola is everywhere! Fortunately, the rest of the world uses real sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. That has made it challenging to drink Coca-Cola in the US, but made it a perfect treat during the travels

There are some good snacks to be had around the world. If only some of these were available back in the US (like the Peruvian Lay's sweet potato chips or the Tandem bar which is half ice cream sandwich and half chocolate-coated ice cream bar - what an ideal combination to enjoy after a day trekking through Inca sites!)

The photo on the bottom left shows our stash of snacks packed for our day in Machu Picchu! Also, Inca Cola is not delicious, and Anthony may have developed a bit of an addiction to Inka Corn snacks.

We enjoyed the local flavors made by familiar brands (and wish they'd sell these flavors in the US!)

We love local signs!

At our guesthouse in Siem Reap since we were there for our own Indiana Jones/Lara Croft adventures through Angkor

In Cambodia and Vietnam those Choco Pies were everywhere! We did not have one.

Two banana splits in Vietnam; the bottom one saved them because that top one is just ice cream and a piece of banana

I can't remember where this is!

Anthony enjoyed testing out new haristyles with his long hair

Posing throughout the world

~~Anthony’s Reflections~~

Favorite Special Treat? All of the glorious and I’m sure terribly bad for you, Cadbury chocolates in South Africa

Favorite Day or Experience? This one is virtually impossible to narrow down, but if I have to pick one day/experience, I'd have to say the day we spent with Me in Sa'Pa Vietnam. She was a very friendly and quite funny Hmong woman who lived in a small village up in the mountains. The great thing for me about this day was the fact that she met us in town early in the morning so that she could provide us a guided three hours-plus walk/hike to her home. En-route we passed through beautiful rolling hills with rice terraces on all sides, more colors of green than one could count, and snapshots of daily village life in Vietnam. We spent the rest of the day eating a home cooked lunch with freshly harvested rice and veggies, talking with her and her family, and learning more about the Hmong people than I had ever known. At the end of the day I think we both realized we had really been part of something special and it will definitely stay with me for a long time.

Favorite New Food? Eggplant and falafel pita pockets and I’m down for just about anything Thai or Vietnamese…yummy!!!

What you missed the most from home? I like a nice comfortable pillow to rest my head on at the end of the day, unfortunately, these were often tough to come by. We actually experienced many creative attempts in the pillow department, but when it comes down to it a nice pillow makes a huge difference in the quality of sleep, regardless of how tired one may be. I also missed Marie Sharps hot sauce…I still do in fact.

What you’ll miss the most from traveling? I’m not sure since three weeks after I arrived home I was already getting the travel bug again, itching to go somewhere. I will miss all of the amazing people with whom we talked, laughed, shared meals, hiked, and spent quality time. The world is an amazing place and to travel to places that pushed us even further outside of our comfort zones is humbling. There are an immense amount of incredible, amazing, and genuinely kind people in our world who always teach me something new about whom I am and why it is so important for us to take care of one another as human beings.

Something you’d prefer to forget? Absolutely nothing… Everything that I experienced, whether good or bad, became memories that I will always have with me.

Worst Hotel? Ditto with Ginnie on the New Palace Hotel in Cairo

Worst Meal? I can’t remember the name of the place, but we had a cheese pizza in Aguas Calientes, Peru. This was not only one the worst pizza I’d ever had, but also ranked right up there as one of the most terrible meals I’ve eaten in my life.

Best Meal? Another tie. The Thai red curry that I made from absolute scratch in cooking school and the Pad Thai dish in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (only $1.75 too!); oh, almost forgot, the pizza topped with fried eggplant in Banos, Ecuador…MMMMmmmm.

Best Hotel? Casapaxi in Quito and Hoang Trinh Guesthouse in Hoi An, Vietnam

Something you’ll never forget? A tie. Standing in the tombs of Saqarra and staring at the wall still etched and painted with hieroglyphics from thousands of years ago, pretty darn amazing. Second, waking before the sun to arrive at Addo Elephant Park at sunrise and then spending the day viewing some of the most amazing and beautiful creatures on Earth.

~~Ginnie’s Reflections~~

Favorite Special Treat? Lay’s Sweet Potato Chips in Peru – we went on long walks searching shops for these, they are just that good and there have been none to rival them anywhere else!

Favorite Day or Experience? All of it? No, to pick one is hard, but two things jump to mind: 1) walking with an elephant’s trunk in my hand and feeling no fear and 2) spotting my first giraffes in the game park and the excitement of that sighting

Favorite New Food? Koshary (from Egypt, it’s made of rice, brown lentils, chickpeas, macaroni and topped with a spicy tomato sauce and then crispy fried onions)

What you missed the most from home? a couch (sitting on a bed is just not as comfortable!)

What you’ll miss the most from traveling? Experiencing new things daily, all the walking, learning to say things in different languages and interacting with some of the most amazing, friendly, open and generous people all over the world - what a wonderful place we live and how lucky I feel to have had the chance to see so much of it

Something you’d prefer to forget? The pain that develops in the lower part of the body when riding a beach cruiser bicycle through streets of Cambodia or Vietnam for several hours due to wrong turns or following well-meaning people who decide our intended path is not as good as where they think we should go. Truthfully, I agree with Anthony, there is nothing I would wish to forget because every moment made an impact.

Worst Hotel? The New Palace in Egypt – HORRIBLE (we stayed one night, but immediately checked out upon waking the next day!) Let me expound some – it is in a bit of back alley (first sign of alarm upon arrival from the airport) and is on the 6^th floor of a dilapidated building that requires taking a rickety elevator and passing empty, abandoned floors that looked as though they would collapse at any moment. Once in the room, we were attacked by mosquitos and could not find their lair. Then our toilet leaked continually and the response from staff was to just turn it off and they would look at it the next day; they also simply brought in a new bathroom rug to soak up the water and then be smelly. Finally, the staff is super creepy and rude – not comfortable to be a woman there – and when we checked out they wanted us to still pay for the remainder of our reservation (hence the reason we NEVER pay for rooms upfront because we would never have been given our money back). So, do NOT stay there if you go to Cairo!

Worst Meal? I don’t really have a worst meal (perhaps on the two occasions we had to have beans right from the can since there was no way to heat them was not my favorite, but it works), but I do have the worst dining experience and that came just days into being in Jordan when because we could not cook at our hotel, we had to eat out and since there are not a lot of vegetarian meals, we ate hummus, pita, falafel, or baba ghanouge and I felt like I never actually had substinence the entire time we were in the country! (Oh wait, not true, the night we stayed with PCVs we had an amazing spaghetti and fresh vegetable home-cooked meal that was super delightful!). The sad thing is, I was so excited to eat hummus in the Middle East, but I was so sick of hummus and pita after a few days that I just could no longer enjoy it and it was a burden!

Best Meal? The most amazing eggplant pizza at the small little unassuming restaurant in Banos, Ecuador ties with the meal we cooked ourselves at the Thai Cooking School (I am quite proud of that Pad Thai I made from scratch!)

Best Hotel? If I’m cheating, I’d say our condo in Thailand, but since that was using the timeshare I’ll pick one of the many fabulous locally-run places – Casapaxi in Quito. I also really loved Hoang Trinh in Hoi An, the people are amazing, the breakfast is fantastic and they gave us a gift when we left.

Something you’ll never forget? The adrenaline rush of having 3 lions walk right next to me and the excitement of first seeing hieroglyphs on the walls of tombs in Egypt

Well, that about wraps it up for the first half of 2011. Now, we are settling into our new home for the next 3 years here in Philly where ginnie is about to embark on the journey which really began when she became determined to fight human trafficking, slavery, and other human rights abuses. We are excited about this next adventure.

As far as travel, we know we'll be back to it when the time is right. As of now, it feels good to have a comfortable home in which to dwell and learn and relearn life in the US. We can say that there was much talk of exploring castles in Scotland and Ireland, camper-vanning through Chile, and visiting ancient ruins in Greece, so perhaps one of these will make up a forthcoming journey.

Thank you for following along with our adventure; we hope we've inspired you to leave your comfort zone and visit new places, too!

Peace and Love!

The Perfect Transition

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 16:51:00 +0000

It is said nothing is perfect, but for us there is a perfect place in the world for complete relaxation and that is Waikiki Beach on Oahu, Hawaii. This is the only place to which we have returned in our travels and to which we will continue to return when we are in the vicinity.

After four years living and exploring outside the USofA, there was really no better way to make our transition back to the states. So, when making our travel arrangements, we purposely worked the schedule so we would have to pass through Hawaii on our way back. True, we could have just flown over the state, but where is the fun in that?

We left Bangkok at 8am on Friday, June 10^th and after flights of 7 and 6 hours and 5 hours in Tokyo, we arrived in Honolulu at 9am on Friday, June 10^th (love that International Dateline!). For a time, we considered staying in Japan for two nights since we have never been and really want to spend time there, but we decided it will be better to simply return for a longer journey when we can really explore. However, we still enjoyed the little bit of Japan we saw at the airport – how fun are Japanese treats? We were tempted to take photos of the electronic control in the bathroom that offers everything from flushing, to a water spray, to moving the seat lid, but we refrained :)

Anthony has given his seal of approval on this green tea-flavored KitKat; the remaining half patiently awaits us in the freezer :)

Our transition time in Hawaii was devoted to rest and relaxation … and sticker shock; welcome back to the US. We clearly did not realize how expensive it is to eat in this country – seriously, one place (which we will not name, but they have famous cheeseburgers) charges $3.75 for one soda – a soda?!? What? We ate entire meals for less than that during this trip! So, we kept it simple: picked up groceries and prepared meals for ourselves and a couple times picked up inexpensive eats at smaller places (like the awesome Udon noodle place – if we’d gone there the first night we may have had it every day! We should have known since every time we passed there was a steady long line of Japanese tourists waiting to eat!).

Our days were filled with long walks around town, swimming and reading at the beach, and more walks through town at night. Our visit coincided with two major events: King Kamehameha Day and the Pan-Pacific Festival. We wandered the street market that took over the main street in Waikiki and was filled with treats and trinkets and lots of people watching, watched a sunset Hula Show, and found curbside seats at the closing parade. The festival exists to unite the many Pacific cultures found in Hawaii (whether as local residents or the many people who visit annually from Asian-Pacific nations).

Perhaps the most delightful discovery made on this trip was Yogurtland. We saw people with these large bowls walking through the streets, but having been tainted by the unappetizing taste of frozen yogurt from the TCBY days, we were not so sure, then we went inside and saw a dreamland where we could choose from 15 flavors and serve ourselves the soft-serve and then put our own toppings on from the topping bar filled with 20 or more items. It can add up fast at $0.49/oz, but we did well at not overdoing it (though ginnie’s fruit toppings are heavy – why does the healthy stuff always cost more?) and ate there twice (had we gone in sooner, that may have been our dinner for 5 nights!). You can imagine our excitement when we saw this dream land existed in a plaza very near to the brother’s house where we stayed while in CA (and it’s got a lower cost per oz there). Sadly (or perhaps fortuitously) there is not such a place in our new neighborhood; although, ginnie did discover a similar place in one town on her apartment search so we know we can make our way out there for a treat should we be in the vicinity ;).

I really like making my own frozen yogurt sundae!

sometimes when I take hundreds of photos at sunset, I happen to shoot a pretty fantastic portrait :) it helps to have an attractive subject

We spent six days resting in Waikiki and felt ready to return to the mainland where our first stop brought us back to California (after 7 years away) where we spent time reuniting with family for a Tarzia brother’s wedding and connecting with friends. Ginnie even made a trip to visit the amazing new Ronald Tutor Campus Center at USC – what a different place! All in all our initial return to the USofA was quite joyful.

Fun times with our nieces and nephews

Since our return, we have gathered our worldly possessions (and reduced them, too) and moved into a new city. We’re adjusting back to life in the US and while there are definitely challenges, a lot of new things to learn (like when we had to ask a salesperson what Android is since we are now 4-years behind technologically, which is weird for people who were pretty tech-savvy before we left), and days when we really, really miss our life in Belize (and Coca-Cola made with real sugar) we cannot complain about an automatic washing machine, an automatic dishwasher, knowing we will find our favorite cereal on the shelf when we go into a store, and m&ms that aren’t melty in the bag.

Life is good :)

Peace, Love and ALOHA!!

Bustling Bangkok

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 03:30:00 +0000

Our final week abroad was spent in Bangkok where we stayed in a condo through ginnie’s resort credits timeshare exchange. We planned to use it just one time in our travels and figured it would be a great way to end the trip. Funny enough, before we arrived, we were both wondering if it would not be as enjoyable since we’d been staying in local guesthouses meeting wonderful local hosts and staying right in neighborhoods where we got a small glimpse of local life. We also worried it would be far from places we wanted to visit since we were not finding it on our limited maps. All that quickly dissipated when we arrived and were greeted by some of the friendliest Thai hosts we could imagine and then entered into a lovely high-rise condo overlooking the Silom area of Bangkok. We were a short walk from a SkyTrain station which enabled us to access all the areas we planned to visit and more. While local dining options were limited, it was not a problem as we had a kitchen and nearby supermarket and we delighted in cooking for ourselves again after 6 weeks!

Our flight from Chiang Mai on the 4^th of June was bright and early, so we got into Bangkok around 9:30am. For the first time in 3 stops at Suvarnabhumi airport, we stepped outside and made our way into the sprawling urban metropolis we would call home for the next 6 days. Ginnie was not as excited about Bangkok when we first planned the trip because, unfortunately, the majority of what she understood of the city came from her reading on sex trafficking as well as the portrayal of the city as a place to party. Well, while those things exist here, it is also an incredible, lively, and impressive city with equal parts old world tradition and new world development. A lot of people visit for shopping, which we can understand, if we had money and space, we would have been shopping, too – things are so much more affordable here! There are four rather large malls within a few city blocks of one another; we visited the one that has the more affordable shops and stalls where we can bargain for the final items we were looking to pick up before we left, as well as to search for a cell phone. The cell phone search turned out to be way too overwhelming – really, do there need to be so many, can’t they just make phone calls? – and we found we could get a month-to-month plan and inexpensive phone with what we want so that was a relief.

Here’s how we spent the rest of our time in Bangkok:

On our first day, we were so relaxed in the condo that we just picked up groceries and settled in, spent some time at the pool and enjoyed our flat screen TV: the little luxuries we haven’t had in so long. In order to get ourselves out, we asked about a night market and walked about 20 minutes to the Sala Daeng area where we found some stalls, a mall, and a Red Light District. This was an area ginnie wanted to see just to put an image to all she’s been reading and to have an idea what she is working against when making this transition to human rights law and fighting sex trafficking. Reports state that 60% of visitors who travel to Bangkok do so for sex tourism. It was also quite disturbing to see books sold in the airport promoting sex in Bangkok and making light of finding an Asian wife; even our guidebook pointed out these Red Light Districts and we both have a problem with encouraging a practice that furthers the sexual exploitation of young girls and supports sex trafficking as a means to fill these brothels and sex clubs.

Wandering the bustling markets and streets

We could not visit the city without seeing the massive Chatuchak Market, only open on weekends. This is, by far, the largest outdoor market we have ever seen; we needed a map to navigate through the stalls. Even with the map, we were easily turned around; however, we are proud that we found a stall we wished to return to and wrote down the number and after a few turns and backtracks, we made our way back before leaving.

The items for sale were much the same as anywhere else, there was just a lot more of them along with some areas devoted solely to books and one for live animals. We have also read a lot about illegal animal trading and this region is notorious for its involvement, but we did not see anything suspicious until we found the squirrels. Hmmm… there were a lot of dogs who seemed to be way too hot and a lot of rabbits – some even wearing dresses. In fact, there was an entire row of shops devoted to dog clothes and accessories (and we thought only Americans did that!).

The heat, the crowds, and the tight spaces were enough after a couple hours, so we made our way to another major shopping area – the Pantip Plaza. This is famous for electronics and techie gadgets, so we had to check it out. We did not make any major purchases, but easily could find ourselves picking up the latest if we knew what was what! ;) They did not have the game systems like we found in Cambodia, which was a tad surprising, but better for us.

Along the way we found more street vendors and got a photo of a t-shirt that quickly became our favorite of the many, many for sale all over the world! We can both easily see Maya thinking this very thing... :)

Visiting Old Bangkok

We spent a day exploring Ko Rattanakosin by foot. We took the SkyTrain to the Chao Phraya River where we got on a ferry taxi that took us out to the old area of Bangkok where several important Wats and the Grand Palace reside. Due to the entry fees and being at the end of our budget, we opted out of the Grand Palace, but were able to get some photos of the tops of the chedis from the outer courtyard. Instead, we selected to visit Wat Pho, where Thailand’s largest reclining Buddha is housed.

This Wat is the most beautiful we visited in our entire temple tour in Asia. It spans a city block, easily, and has several ornate chedis covered in mosaics and carved flowers.

There are several statues as well as beautiful landscaping that make it a peaceful place to explore.

We found ourselves surrounded by Buddha statues everywhere we turned and entered various rooms with Buddhas in different poses. This is also home for official training for Thai Massage, an ancient healing method of stretching and kneading muscles that the king who established this school did not want to see lost.

We visited the reclining Buddha at the end of our time in the Wat and it was absolutely amazing! It’s kept inside a building with elaborate murals covering the entire wall and the Buddha itself is covered in gold and is stunning to view. We were one of the few people walking through the Wat areas, but in here there was a constant stream of visitors (those who did not go into the Wat really missed out).

We both felt we could end our temple tour here as it was so incredible. However, since we had a walking route mapped out, we continued on to a few other Wats in the area.

We stopped by the Giant Swing, then onto the Temple of the Golden Mount, which is a temple built up as a hill. We climbed the spiral staircase to the top, pausing along the way to ring a bell and bang the gong. The views of the city are amazing from the top – we can see the tops of the tin roofs with large skyscrapers behind them and the temple chedis scattered among it all. We enjoyed the views for a bit before making our way back down the other side of the spiral walkway. Further along the road, we came to the Democracy Monument and then to Khao San Road.

Since we were not staying in the budget area, we were curious to see this well-known “backpacker” street. We were so glad we were not staying there! It’s insane – lined with billboards trying to cover the next and filled with bars and street vendors selling flip flops, t-shirts, and fake IDs. We picked up a meal at the highly-reviewed May Kaidee’s Vegetarian Restaurant and then made our way back to the river to catch the ferry and return home.

After visiting Wats, travelling to Ayuttayha and shopping, we were in need of some relaxation, so we booked a two-hour Thai Massage at the place recommended by our concierge. It cost us $36 US for this experience, total – we love Thailand! A Thai Massage is like nothing either of us has ever experienced. There is a lot of firm kneading, pulling and stretching and bending and cracking. It’s painful at times, but also relaxing. We were sore at the end, it felt like we’d been through a yoga routine that someone else controlled, but it was well worth it. We were pretty relaxed and took the masseuse’s advice to do “only shopping” afterward and just went on over to one of the giant malls for a bit.

On our last day, we relaxed in the condo, took our final trip out to a mall to just walk a bit and search for a bedrunner that we hoped to find (we ended up finding one we agreed on and Anthony negotiated quite well for the price we could work with). It was a good way to close out our 5.5 months of travelling and prepare for another full day of airports and planes as we made our way to our final relaxation stop – Waikiki, Hawaii!

ความสงบและความรัก!

Siam's Ancient Capital

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:30:00 +0000

Our final World Heritage Site visit was to the city of Ayutthaya, the ancient capital of old Siam. The city has several temple and palace ruins where visitors can take a walk into the past and marvel in the architecture of the ancient Thai rulers. There is one temple with an Angkor-style top, but the most have their own style. Once again, we were fascinated by the beauty and history of this peaceful and astounding ancient world.

We traveled in and out of Ayutthaya by train from Bangkok so we had just over 3.5 hours to explore what we could. We were able to hire a tuk-tuk for the day at a good rate and went straight to the Tourist Authority of Thailand (TAT) office to get a map and plan a route for the day. We had read about the various Wats and the Palace and had a list of those we wanted to see. We visited 4 of the sites and were able to see much of others as we passed. They are quite spread out, so we felt good about what we selected and managed in our time frame.

The first stop took us to the Grand Palace area and a modern Wihan in which Buddhists still come to make merit and honor the Buddha within. We traveled over to Wat Phra Si Sanphet to wander through the crumbling brick structures and observe the temple chedis pointing toward the sky. The ashes of kings are kept in these chedis and they still stand tall and impressive over the grounds of the temple. There are beautiful plumeria trees surrounding the area as well, making it a gorgeous and peaceful place to walk.

One of the areas we wanted to see for months was Wat Mahathat, where a Buddha head is surrounded by tree trunks growing into a temple foundation. Pictures of it are commonly seen in many places and we saw it on a travel show as well as in a featured article in one of the in-flight magazines along our travels. It was a magnificent look at the way in which nature reclaims space. Someone had left offerings of soda cans (Mirinda, in case you were curious) so that left an interesting composition to the scene! The entire Wat itself was actually quite impressive with 100s of seated Buddha statues surrounding the outer walls of the central complex and several large Buddhas within. The seated statues are primarily headless by now, but still made for an impressive sight. We spent the longest amount of time here walking through the maze of the temple structures and imagining how it might have looked before the destruction of wars and time.

Next we selected Wat Na Phra Men because it was said it had beautifully painted ceilings. While we found the Wat and the Buddhas within to be beautiful, the ceiling looked much like several others we have seen in Wats throughout our travels. There were some really detailed paintings in Cambodia, so we expected something along those lines. At any rate, it was a nice stop and gave another style of Wat to explore.

Our final stop was to see a reclining Buddha, so we selected the one at Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon. Ginnie read this was one of the largest of the area and most significant, it also happened to be closest to the train station which was a bonus as we only had 30 minutes until we needed to get back for our tickets. This Wat was really impressive, the reclining Buddha brings revelers who come to pray and make merit as well as those interested in seeing the statue up close. We were again astounded with the beautiful site and the peace of the statue and the gardens. Another feature here is a central chedi up which we climbed to see the views of Ayutthaya, as well as the grounds of the Wat. There are numerous Buddha statues clothed in saffron surrounding the walls outside the chedi as well as a beautiful courtyard with several Buddha statues facing one another. We would have loved to spend more time quietly enjoying the Wat, but our train would not wait.

The train ride itself was another adventure. It’s quite simple to do, we hopped on the SkyTrain in Bangkok then transferred to the Metro Subway which went straight to the train station. The train ride cost less than $1 US for both of us (cheaper than each of the SkyTrain and Metro tickets!) and took 2 hours since it stops a lot (we’d call it a “bred kyat” in Belize!). We took the 3^rd class train, so that meant a bit of an uncomfortable seat with open windows providing our relief from the heat and humidity of Thailand in June. On the way home, evidently an earlier train was delayed and somehow we ended up on that. We asked station masters before getting on and they said to go on even though it was earlier than our scheduled departure. The conductor definitely looked twice at our tickets, but didn’t say anything. It turns out this was the best mistake we made on our trip. The train we got on was not one that stops at every point along the way, so we were back in just over an hour! After a long day of traveling and exploring through one of the hottest and most humid of days, it was nice to be back to our condo for an early night and time to relax!

ความสงบและความรัก!

Wan Lotta Wats in Chiang Mai!

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 07:30:00 +0000

We spent five days in the northern city of Chiang Mai, Thailand during which we took many walks around the city and visited numerous Wats (over 300 exist in the city!) when we were not cooking or hanging out with large animals. Chiang Mai provided us a nice introduction to Thai culture and allowed us to meet some of the super-friendly Thai people. The city is in a more mountainous area and many people who visit do a lot of trekking; however, the heat and humidity precluded that for us - we were fine with walking throughout the city and then returning to our great guesthouse for a/c breaks (not to mention the fact that we walked so much in Vietnam and Cambodia we felt we deserved a break)!

We spent our time exploring the Old City, surrounded by a moat and remnants of a city wall to explore many of the Wats and enjoy the city sights. With so many Wats we simply chose various paths throughout the city streets to wander the many sois and popped into Wats we saw along the way. There were those recommended on the walking map we picked up and others we just happened upon. Join a mini Wat tour of your own through our photos!

Wat Bupparam

We stumbled upon this Wat when walking outside the Old City area and touring Ta Phae road and heading out to a major electronics plaza well known for super deals. This was our first day exploring our neighborhood during which we also found the large Night Bazaar area and a great supermarket where we stocked up for the week!

Wat Chedi Luang

We explored Wat Chedi Luang to see the Chiang Mai City Pillar and the ruins of the Great Stupa in the center. It's right in the middle of the Old City, so was a convenient stop as well. As we walked around the compound, we passed by a stall selling books where a group of monks sat at one end and beckoned for us to come and have a Monk Chat. These chats are a great way for the monks to practice their English and for travellers to learn more about the monk's life and Buddhism. We spoke to a couple monks who just wanted to work on English before our final monk came over to have the more traditional monk chat. When we finished, he asked if we could take a photo together so we each have a memory of our visit. This was also the first Wat where we saw a large reclining Buddha (this pose represents Buddha's final passage into nirvana).

Wat Pra Singh

This Wat is the major temple for Lan Na art and architecture in the Chiang Mai province. The temple complex is large containing a school, library, and monastery along with the other structures (Viharn, where the Buddha resides, and chedis and ubosot - we are still learning the various names for the areas within a Wat). We met another group of young monks here who requested to speak with us for a few moments and practice their English, so we had another nice chat during our visit. When we entered the Viharn, we were immediately struck by the meditating monk sitting before the Buddha. We kneeled for a bit as we marveled at the beauty of the space and the peace of the meditation. In a courtyard within the Wat (which we saw at other Wats as well) is a quote garden where Buddhist quotes surround the beautiful greenery and serene setting. The quotes send a very important message to all (please remember, they are translated so the English is not perfect).

Two Wats Whose Names We Do Not Know

While walking along the outside of the Old City on our final day we stumbled upon these two Wats right next to one another. We did not see any Latin characters to let us know the names of the Wats and since our Thai reading skills are non-existent, we simply call them Wat 1 and 2 on Sripoom Road! Each had more of the stunning architectural elements that keep us returning to visit Wats whenever we see them! What's most interesting is how different and unique each is from the next - with the variety of various Asian influences and styles there is always something new to see, yet still there exist enough similarities to represent their Buddhist connection.

Chiang Mai's Night Market

Beyond the Wats, the animals, and the Thai food, we found the Night Market (okay, well there is a lot of Thai food here and some animals and even a few Wats nearby...) and spent a few hours on several evenings perusing the stalls. It's a fairly large complex covering several city blocks and including two inner shopping complexes and a full food street. Considering we have come to the end of our round-the-world tour, we suddenly seem more inclined to pick up a small souvenir here and there since we don't have to carry it as far! We've committed to only buying items we can use to decorate our home and represent the local culture/area so we still focus on art that we wonder where to hang. However, we planned on picking up a Buddha statue for our home and fell in love with the lanterns, so went on the hunt for these. Fortunately, as it is promoted, Chiang Mai is the place to find great Thai and general Asian items. We also managed to pick up very low cost flip flops that are sold for way too much money elsewhere (they are just plastic flip flops that happen to have a brand name label) and saw expensive designer handbags for less than $5 - too bad ginnie doesn't think many of them are attractive and we really have no space to carry them anyway. Chiang Mai also has a street filled with used book stores which was perfect for finding a good read to have for our upcoming pool and beach time during the next portion of our journey. We also took advantage of our time and took care of some important errands - ginnie got a free eye exam and 1-year supply of contacts at one of the numerous opticians (there may be as many of these as Wats!) and Anthony could no longer stand his long hair so we found a good barber who gave a nice trim. We debated dental cleanings since they are so affordable, too, but ended up running out of time.

It was a challenge to determine where in Thailand we would make our stops since we had only 11 days remaining and previously booked 6 of them in Bangkok with the timeshare (yeah, we saved the luxury stay for our last week abroad as a special treat - and it is so worth it!!) so with only a few days, we opted for the north when we heard such good things from several travellers we met along the way and we are so glad we did.

ความสงบและความรัก!

More Animal Encounters

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 23:00:00 +0000

During our visit to Chiang Mai we also had the opportunity to visit a couple of different areas that served as refuges for some of the local wildlife. The owner at our guesthouse arranged a great driver for a tuk-tuk and we spent the day out of town exploring a few different places.

The first place we stopped was an Indochina Tiger education and breeding site called Tiger Kingdom. During the visit we were able to get up close with these amazing cats. Many of the tigers in this area have either been rescued from people keeping them as illegal pets, or have been bred as part of a supported national program that will increase the dwindling populations of the cat. A number of tigers are also sent to different places around the world to help in the conservation effort.

We had a choice to visit the baby cubs, medium sized tigers, or the full grown adults. At first ginnie thought she would stick with the smaller, more cuddly baby cubs (also less threatening due to their much smaller teeth), and Anthony opted for the adult tigers figuring why go all the way to Thailand to visit baby tigers when you can get up close to a real live adult. As it turned out, we both ended up with the big cats (this was easier since it allowed each of us to enter the enclosure at the same time…easier for photos too!).

We entered the enclosure with one of the local handlers and were given the opportunity to observe, touch, and get up close to these amazing animals. They were quite relaxed in the mid-day heat of Thailand and preferred to go from lounging around getting belly rubs and affection to swimming in their pools, and then back again. It was incredible to actually touch and get close to these animals and it certainly provided a unique and interesting perspective on the type of lives they live in the wild. Since they are cats, they are much more active at night time (hunting and traversing the habitat in which they live).

Unfortunately due to an increased demand for their skins, organs, and other parts of their bodies, these Indochinese Tigers have nearly been hunted to extinction. Current numbers place the tigers (brother, Lucky, and sister, Sophia – 17 months and 19 months and +/- 250lbs) numbers at around 200 in Thailand. We left the enclosure and spent another hour or so touring around the remaining areas where we were able to visit.

After leaving the tigers, our tuk-tuk made the long journey up many large hills and rough terrain en-route to MaeSa Elephant Camp. The camp was established over 30 years ago with a mission to save and protect the beautiful Asian elephants whose livelihood as workers and modes of transport ended with the introduction of mechanized versions.

We began our visit with a stroll through the camp where we were able to observe a number of elephants either at work or just relaxing and eating. We decided to take a 30-minute elephant ride around the camp and had a nice tour with our elephant named Billy, who is 19 years old. We saw some elephants in training working on their soccer skills as well as a few elephants enjoying free time beside the mahout housing.

After our ride, we wandered through the shops and browsed through paintings created by the elephants themselves as well as looked at the various products made of elephant dung paper. By this time, we needed to get our seats for the upcoming elephant show so we made our way to the showground where we had time for our PB sandwiches J. Just before the start of the show, the elephants bathe in the river so ginnie went to watch and enjoyed seeing them frolic in the water (one small one was loving it and kept rolling over and over).

The elephant show was a lot of fun and enabled the elephants to demonstrate their abilities and talents. Learning these tricks and performing must be a great way to keep their minds active and provide these elephants with a job. We laughed as the elephants teased their mahouts, spun their trunks, waved their feet and taunted each other when competing in soccer.

The most amazing skill demonstrated was the painting; these elephants painted beautiful floral pictures during our show – it was incredible to watch.

Our day spent with two of the most impressive Asian animals provided us a unique opportunity to be close to them and to spend time learning more about each. We have been fortunate to have several incredible animal encounters and support efforts to protect endangered species along our travels and enjoyed our day spent with Indochinese Tigers and Asian Elephants.

ความสงบและความรัก!

Cooking Thai-Style

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 16:03:00 +0000

After the great time we had cooking in Vietnam, we decided we’d take another course in Thailand. The Thai Farm Cooking School came highly recommended from others who took our course in Hoi An so we decided we would make that our big splurge for our time in Chiang Mai and it was well worth it.

The full day course included a visit to the market and quick lessons on Thai ingredients, the most important being Jasmine Rice, Sticky Rice, fish and oyster sauces (they gave we vegetarians soy and mushroom sauces as replacements), and chili paste (so good!). We were let loose in the market for 20 minutes and this resulted in our group purchasing fried insects to try later...

We took a ride out of the city to the farm where we headed out into the organic garden to see many of the local herbs and vegetables, including these super miniature eggplants that we used in our curry dishes and are absolutely delightful! Thai cooking uses a lot of basil, and they have many different types; we used the Holy Basil, which is a bit lighter than the typical Italian Basil we are used to and so good (we may like it more than the Italian…).

The class was limited to 6 people and our classmates were a fun group (see the note on the insects…) and we quickly built a good rapport and had a good time learning together. Another great aspect to the class is that we were able to choose from 3 options in each of the 6 dishes. We each selected a different item so we would be able to taste each other’s and come back having cooked 6 different things to be able to make again. Between us we made green and red curry paste and then a green and red curry dish, tom yam soup and coconut soup, tofu and holy basil and tofu with cashew nuts, pad thai and stir-fry big noodles, mango with coconut sticky rice and pumpkin in coconut milk. We attempted to eat the curry, soup, and tofu dishes for lunch but it was so much food, we had to pack some up. After lunch we made the noodle dishes and desserts and didn’t even bother trying to eat them since we were so full (we just tasted them to be sure they were right). It was perfect since we had plenty for dinner that night and lunch the next day!

After lunch, the insects came out and we both tried the ones we selected earlier. ginnie went for the skinny-crinkly-french-fry-looking one (bamboo worm) that she could trick herself into thinking was a fry. It tasted like a very oily chip, so it was not so bad. Anthony went for a cricket and said it was not bad. Based on the recommendation of others, we both tried the small round one that had pincers we removed and it actually tasted somewhat like a nut. By this time we reached our fried insect limit and observed as the silkworms were tested and they were just too squishy to try – that would have been too much for all of us! Fortunately, the staff was delighted to have them as a treat!

At the end of class we received a cookbook with all the recipes from the day, so we are now ready to make some delicious Thai meals!

ความสงบและความรัก!

Hanoi Highlights

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:45:00 +0000

Welcome to Hanoi! We spent four full days exploring the city and feel the best way to share the sights is through a lot of photos. Join us for a brief excursion through the streets of Hanoi's Old Quarter and surrounds!

We walked everywhere, so we saw a lot on the streets. Typical sights include rows and rows of parked motos (as well as rows and rows of oncoming motos!), streets lined with shops peddling the same product (in fact, from their origins these streets were named according to the item they sell, though now many do not sell the same thing, they still have a street devoted to a certain product, like silk street, toy street, shoe street, counterfeit street {where they sell the fake money used for ceremonies and such}, etc.). We also visited Hanoi's market and had an early morning when we returned from Sapa during which we actually saw streets devoid of motos and just waking up with merchants sweeping their store front sidewalks.

We visited two museums in town and learned more of the history of the American War (as it is referred in Vietnam) at Hoa Lo Prison Museum {aka "Hanoi Hilton" by POWs} and the lives of Vietnamese women at the Vietnamese Women's Museum. We found ourselves referring to what we learned at the Women's Museum frequently as it was so informative. The exhibits cover family life, marriage, birth rituals (and look at these from the perspective of both the majority Vietnamese culture as well as the many different minority tribes), street vendors, single mothers, fashion, and war heroines. In our collage from the prison you'll see a flight suit - that belongs to Senator John McCain. As has been the case throughout Vietnam, the explanation for the ways the prison was used through the years (first by the French to detain political prisoners - essentially communist party members who opposed French colonial rule and later by the Vietnamese to detain American POWs) was chock full of propaganda. They even had eery music to go along with the different exhibits. They painted a rosy picture of life for POWs that somehow seems a bit too idealistic...

One of our favorite activities in Hanoi was the night at the Water Puppet Theatre where we saw a performance of the traditional art of water puppetry. Anthony read about this form of story telling and also saw it featured on a travel program and put it on our list for the trip months before we left. We considered catching a show in Ho Chi MinhCity to be sure we didn't miss it, but the art form is said to have originated in fields in the north and we preferred to see it here. We really enjoyed the show and loved seeing the stories unfold through the puppetry. The puppeteers stand in the water behind the curtain manipulating these beautifully carved puppets from long bamboo poles. An orchestra sits to the side playing beautiful music on traditional instruments. The show is definitely a highlight of a visit to Hanoi!

After the water puppet theatre, we found ourselves in the middle of an open-air, middle-of-the-busy-street performance. Motos simply parked themselves right in the middle of traffic to watch and those on foot simply filled in the spaces. We watched acrobats, a magician (we could see all the secrets to his tricks from our spot... uh-oh :) ), and an in-sync-like boy dance group. It was really interesting to just stand in the middle of a busy major thoroughfare to watch these acts (we couldn't tell if they were amateur talent night type of things or not; the magician certainly seemed to be!).

On our Saturday morning, we made our way out early to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum where "Uncle Ho" (as he is referred by the Vietnamese people) is interred in a glass sarcophagus for those who wish to pass by and pay their respects. We thought it would be an interesting cultural activity to witness so we joined the queue and made our way past his preserved body (which travels annually to Russia for two months for touch-ups). Interesting fact: Ho Chi Minh requested a simple cremation, yet here he lies eternally for all to see. Our walk also led us past the Flag Tower, Vietnam's tallest flag and a World Heritage Site. Within the Mausoleum Complex are also a few other sites of note - Ho Chi Minh's Presidential Palace and a stilt house that is a replica of his home (or maybe is his home relocated, we had some confusing information on that and actually did not end up going over to see it!) and the One Pillar Pagoda.

The photo at the bottom right (above) shows St. Joseph's Cathedral which was just around the corner from our guesthouse and served as a landmark as we navigated our way through the city. It looked beautiful in the early morning sunlight and actually did not have one moto in the lot, which we had not seen at any other time!

After the Mausoleum, we walked to the Temple of Literature. This is one of Hanoi's oldest sights; it is dedicated to Confucius and is the location of the country's first university. It is a long complex made up of five courtyards with different themes. In one, you find the stelea of the philosophers - over 80 stelea devoted to the many teachers of the school. Toward the end is where you find the temple devoted to Confucius with a large statue surrounded by statues of four major university leaders and professors. Once again, the architectural style is stunning. The complex itself is a nice, quiet respite from the hustle and bustle of the city surrounding the serene environs.

On the morning of our final day in Hanoi we'd arrived at 5am on the overnight express train from Sapa. Since it was too early to check into our room, we took advantage of the quiet morning and enjoyed people-watching and resting at Hoan Kiem Lake and were able to get in to visit the Ngoc Son Pagoda just as it opened for visitors. The early morning is a great time to see the people of Hanoi come out to the lake to exercise and begin their day - we saw tai chi classes, aerobics, runners, and several individuals doing their own thing. On the red wooden bridge (The Huc) that leads to the pagoda, several people used the railing as a balance bar, dance barre, and support for some intense sit-ups. We felt almost lazy since we were just waiting for the pagoda to open at 7am! This pagoda also has an important history as the site where a giant turtle took a sword from the hero Tram Hung Dao who had defeated the Mongols. The sword now remains in the lake protected by these giant turtles (of which sightings are reported at random; do they exist? we just don't know for sure :) ) for a time when it may be needed to protect Vietnam again from invaders. There is a preserved specimen of the turtle in the pagoda along with an altar to the hero and other traditional relics; we also enjoyed the fact that two boxes of mixed flavors of Oreos were left as an offering.

When we were not busy meandering through the streets, we found time to enjoy great meals and discovered a fabulous little bakery where we enjoyed daily chocolate chip cookies and apple-cinnamon-oat muffins {we'll leave it to you to guess who ate which treat ;)}. In fact, after we visited Ngoc Son Pagoda, it was finally time for Joma to open, and we treated ourselves to a big breakfast! We also discovered a really amazing ice cream place where we ate lunch of a banana-split Hanoi style and a chocolate lovers' dark chocolate ice cream sundae (we bet you can guess who ate what this time, too...); sometimes, you just need a treat after a long night on a train!

We found Hanoi to be a great city in which to walk and spend time. We heard many stories of busy streets and crazy traffic and touts trying to scam tourists, but we keep calm, stay alert, and prepare ourselves with information on reasonable taxi rates, so we had no trouble. You can always say no and walk away from a tout or a driver trying to pull a scam and it's up to them to realize they can either make a fair sale or no sale. We loved Hanoi and feel we definitely got a good glimpse of the local life and a little history during our brief stay.

Hòa bình và Tình yêu!

Mountain Retreat in Northern Vietnam

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Mon, 30 May 2011 18:00:00 +0000

We left the heat and humidity of Hanoi to spend four days in the northern mountains surrounding Sa’pa town. We heard the area was beautiful and had seen many pictures of the rice terraces climbing the mountainsides. It was quite reminiscent of the Inca Terraces and mountains of Peru and Ecuador and the cooler weather was a lovely respite from the temperatures in the lowlands.

Our trip to Sa’pa began with an overnight train ride from Hanoi. This was a first overnighter for each of us so there were several questions on our minds: Who might be sharing our 4-berth cabin with us? How soft were the “soft sleepers”? Will we actually sleep? etc. We met our bunkmates, a quiet pair of friends from France who did not speak much English and all settled in for a rocky ride in the bunk! Neither of us slept through the night, but we certainly got in a few hours of shut-eye now and again. We arrived in the border town of Lao Cai (less than 20 miles from China) and were met by an employee for the company who would transport us the remaining 45-km through steep uphill winding roads (good thing the Dramamine was still working!). As we climbed ever higher we could see the beautiful rice terraces in varying stages of cultivation, as well as the ethereal clouds noted in the region. The temperature outside was considerably cooler and we were looking forward to four days of trekking and exploring this beautiful area.

For the first time in our travels, we did not book a room in advance. Typically, we book the first 2 nights in a place just to have somewhere to go and leave flexibility to move should the accommodations not live up to their advertisements (we’ve only moved two times in 6 months, so we have done well with booking ahead!). However, Sapa was extremely difficult since there are such divergent reviews on various websites from previous travelers and no contact information for places with stellar ratings and within our price range. Fortunately, the mini-van dropped a group off right in an area we wanted to search, so we hopped out and ginnie went to one of our picks to look at a room while Anthony watched our bags. There was plenty of availability (it also happens to be a low travel season in the region) and we went ahead for a stay and quickly took a much-needed nap! For the rest of the day, since the clouds were low and fog was thick, we just walked through town and got our bearings despite not being able to see more than a few feet in front of us - in fact, we couldn't even find the central church through the fog and it's tall in the middle of town!

Many hill tribe people live in the villages of the north and those within a few hours walking distance of town come in to sell a variety of homemade items to tourists (well, the women; the men are farming). We immediately met a young woman named Ngu, who began with the common greeting asking where we are from, how long we’d be in Sa’pa, our names, if we’re married, and if we have children. We always then ask the same questions back (minus the stay in Sa’pa) and chat with them. Not planning to purchase anything, we are always honest and some women move along to find someone else, while some will follow us for quite a while until they really believe we are not buying anything J.

A woman we met in Hoi An suggested we meet a local woman and simply arrange to travel to her village with her rather than join an organized tour. Not being fans of tours as it is, we already planned to trek on our own, so when we met May (actually spelled Me) before dinner on the first day and she asked if we’d like to walk to her village and another with her the next day, we decided to go along.

Our trek to Lao Chai village with Me and another traveler who was on her own from Australia was one of the highlights of our travels. First of all, Me has the biggest laugh and is such an incredible woman (not that the others are not – these women are impressive with the work they do and the number of kilometers they walk daily). We had fun talking and trying to keep up with her speed as we walked down to the village. It was still a bit of a foggy day, but we could see the rice terraces surrounding us.

The two hour walk felt quick and before we knew it we were at the entrance to her village where we noticed the tour groups eating their lunch in a little café just on the outskirts. We stopped in at a shop where Me picked up ingredients for lunch and then found ourselves at the bottom of a steep, muddy slope and were informed we were heading that way! It was a slippery walk through deep, thick mud, but we managed to make it with no falls. Once at her home, Me instructed us to wash our shoes in the wash room and then we joined her inside and spent time watching her 4-year old daughter work on a simple cross-stitch pattern then play with her cousins in the house next door.

Me’s family are Hmong and as tradition states the woman moves from her village to the home of her husband and they live among his family – there were three houses in the compound for the three boys and their wives and children (views of the rice terraces sloping down the hill in front of the houses were stunning). We were impressed to see her husband cooking, we do not know much about gender roles among this particular Hmong tribe, so that was unexpected.

Lunch included fried instant noodles with fried eggs, fried potatoes, morning glory with garlic and fresh rice; this is a pretty standard fare for them. The fresh rice was amazing, it’s super soft and fluffy. After lunch, we looked through Me’s crafts (rather than just pay her for the walk, we bought some of her items) and then we went further up a less-muddy track to the next village of Ta Van where another Hmong tribe lives as well as a Dzay tribe (each tribe wears different clothes and speaks a different language).

Me took us back to the main road and pointed the way to Sa’pa then returned to her home. We decided to walk all the way back and took the steep road up for another 2 hours enjoying the scenery and avoiding motos and trucks blaring their horns as they passed. We were pretty tired as we reached town after walking over 20km!

On our third day in town, all of the clouds parted and we were able to see the views from our terrace of the mountains surrounding us. Earlier in the dense fog we could barely see other buildings! We quickly got out for a walk to a closer village called Cat Cat.

This one is much busier with people than the other, filled with shops and more women following along to sell. We had wider views of the valley and took our time on the 6-km round trip as we were sore from the day before and we were enjoying the area. The clouds continued to depart for the rest of our time in Sa’pa and we saw much more of the town.

On our jaunts through town, we decided to look at The North Face bags and jackets for sale. These products are made in Vietnam, so they were available in abundance for great low prices. Anthony was able to get a great Columbia rain jacket but we never settled on a day pack since we need it to be carry-on size for the return trip. We ran into Me again and saw Ngu a few more times.

Since Ngu was the first woman we met she always reminded us to buy from her when we were ready, finally, ginnie decided to find something from her to help her out. Unfortunately, the competition for these women is tight and several others came over when we were talking and wanted us to buy from all of them, but we were insistent that we would only buy from Ngu. We got a lovely long explanation of how we could easily come up with money by just going to the ATM and having our family and friends send us money – oh, if only! These are some strong saleswomen!

We returned to Hanoi for our final day in Vietnam on another night train ride and are glad to have the long hours of land travel behind us for now!

Hòa bình và Tình yêu!

The Descending Dragon

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Sat, 28 May 2011 11:15:00 +0000

Ha Long Bay, or as translated, “Descending Dragon Bay” is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located approximately 3.5 hours east of Hanoi. During our visit to northern Vietnam, we had the opportunity to take an excursion on one of the many junk boats that make its home among the 3000+ islets (though many locals claim there to be only 1969 due to it matching the year of Ho Chi Minh’s death). The bay is world famous for its striking limestone karsts of varying shape and size that are spread throughout the area. According to geologists, the limestone in Ha Long Bay has gone through over 500 million years of formation through varying conditions and environments. The karsts themselves have endured through a more rapid process of accelerated formations as a result of the past 20 million years in a home that hosts a very tropical and often wet climate.

According to local legend, when the Vietnamese were fighting Chinese invaders, the gods sent a family of dragons to help defend the land. This family of dragons began spitting out jewels and jade.These jewels turned into the islands and islets dotting the bay, linking together to form a great wall against the invaders. The people kept their land safe and formed what later became the country of Vietnam. After that, dragons were interested in peaceful sightseeing of the earth, and then decided to live here. The place where the mother dragon descended was named Hạ Long, the place where the dragon's children attended upon their mother was called Bái Tử Long island (Bái: attend upon, Tử: children, Long: dragon), and the place where the dragon's children wriggled their tails violently was called Bạch Long Vỹ island (www.ngm.com).

We began our trip with an early bus pick up from our hotel in Hanoi, and within ten minutes, we had gathered an additional 10 travelers before setting off on the 3+ hour ride to Ha Long City. The trip was through varying landscapes, including urban areas, rice and corn fields, and many villages and small towns. As we neared Ha Long City there were views of the great limestone karsts scattered across the distant landscape. Once we reached the port, we were organized by our tour guide and on a boat in a matter of 15-20 minutes (incidentally, just enough time to make a bathroom pit stop and reject about 37 offers to buy postcards, books, candy, chips, and other paraphernalia from the local sellers). The area is obviously quite touristy due to the great attraction to visit the Bay by just about every person passing through Vietnam. We were on our boat and off to cruise the Bay at about 12:20pm. Once on the boat the attendants served a locally produced seafood dish and dessert (we opted out of this due to the many food issues each of us contends with, as well as thinking that the last place we would want to fall ill would be on a boat far from the comforts of a nice hotel and clean bathroom). After a quick snack, and while the remaining passengers were eating their prepared lunch, we set out for the deck and sat for a long while taking in the views and just acknowledging the immense beauty that surrounded us. It’s really a difficult thing to describe, and taking pictures to capture it is equivalent to trying to capture the Grand Canyon in a few photographs…although those of you who know us well, know that we can never resist taking lots of pictures when we travel.

We cruised over to our first stop at Thien Cung Cave (Heaven’s Palace). The cave was discovered by a local fisherman not too long ago. According to the story, the fisherman was out and about his daily business when he was distracted by a monkey clamoring up the limestone. He followed the monkey to see where it was heading when the monkey suddenly looked as though he had slid through the rock. Upon further investigation the fisherman discovered a small opening high on the cliff which led to this particular cave. According to local legend, a beautiful young lady named May (cloud), caught the eye of the Dragon Prince and he fell in love with her. They were betrothed, and their wedding lasted seven days and seven nights in the very centre of the grotto. In honor of the wedding, small dragons flew about through the stalactites and stalagmites, elephants danced together happily, snakes twined themselves around trees and two stone lions danced with their manes flowing in the wind. A large elephant, smartly dressed, waited for the bride and the groom.Many of these images, as well as lots more can be observed as one walks through the different chambers of the cave. Though we have traveled to a fair number of underground caverns, caves, and other geological wonders over the years, both of us really were astounded by the stretch of beauty within this particular area.

The second cave we entered, Hang Dau Go, is one of the most beautiful caves at Ha Long. The name, Dau Go or Giau Go, has direct ties to the history of Vietnam. According to the locals (and our guide), while preparing for the Mongolian attacks in 1288, General Tran Hung Dao, sent a convoy to this area to cut wood from this region of Ha Long Bay. Wooden stakes were then fashioned from the wood and hidden in Dau Go cave. The stakes were then embedded in Bach Dang River to form a barrier against the attacking Mongols. According to legend, General Tran Hung Dao dealt a great blow to the Kublai Khan when he tricked the Mongolian army into chasing him deep up Bach Dang's channel. When the tide was down the enemies were stuck in these wooden stakes driven into the river bed. Dau Go was also the site where general Tran Khan Du hid his force while waiting for the Mongols led by Truong Van Ho in 1287.

Once we were back on the boat we made our way through the immense karsts to the floating village of Cua Van. Cua Van Village is home to about 200 households with nearly 800 people. They all earn their living through fishing and aquaculture. With an outstanding lifestyle of fishermen and merchants, the most crowded population in the fishing zone, Cua Van Village is considered the "capital" of the World Heritage Area and has been selected as the location of the first "floating cultural centre" in Vietnam. Interestingly many of the people who live in this and other Ha Long floating villages, have never set foot on land.

Our next stop along our cruise was a view of the famous rock formations in the bay. We stopped by “Fighting Rooster Rock,” “Incense Rock,” and one referred to as “King Kong.” Many of the formations in the bay have local names, and often include more conventional identifications with which visitors can relate.

After our final cruise around the bay area, and many hours on the boat, we headed back to port, reaching back to Hanoi later that same night immensely tired, but also thankful for having had the opportunity to visit and observe such a beautiful place.

Hòa bình và Tình yêu!

Culture, Tradition, Great Eats, and Fashion

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Wed, 25 May 2011 14:00:00 +0000

Once we arrived in Hoi An, we were welcomed brightly by our hotel reception with tea and delicious macaroon cookies. Immediately upon arrival, we could see this was a quaint town that we would enjoy spending the next 5 days wandering and exploring. Our plans for Hoi An included a visit to My Son to the see the Cham ruins site, a cooking class, visiting the buildings in the Ancient Town World Heritage Site and relaxing at the beach on the South China Sea.

We decided the trip to My Son Sanctuary (also a World Heritage Site) would be our first day since we would have to take a tour group to visit and the trip starts early in the morning. Hoi An was pretty hot when we arrived and was even hotter in the jungle where the Cham site remains. This site served as the religious and political capital of the Champa Kingdom. We visited the entire site and were fortunate that this group tour involved just 5 minutes of the guide telling us about the different sites and then letting us explore on our own for the next 1.5 hours. The entire site covers a rather small area, so we were able to walk through each of the excavation areas with plenty of time to spare. The majority of our photos show the most excavated area; the others are now simply being preserved and are covered with tarp and surrounded by scaffolding since they do not wish to damage the Cham bricks. It is interesting to note that the Cham bricks are perfectly shaped and put together so there are no joints, much like the work of the Inca (only the Inca used large stones and the Cham made their own bricks). To this day, Vietnamese attempt to replicate the Cham brick but have been unsuccessful in determining the exact combination of ingredients to make a brick that does not break down like the modern day formula.

The site predates the Angkor sites by a few centuries and has some “same, same, but different” elements in terms of shapes of temples and carvings of figures into the brick. The Cham actually built the structures first, then carved right into the brick structures, incredible work. These are far smaller than the elaborate Angkorian structures and provide an interesting comparison between the different empires, who were enemies.

My Son also has a strong connection to the Vietnam War (known as the American War by the Vietnamese) as the Viet Cong utilized it as a base and the Americans bombed the monuments. When asked not to destroy the historical monuments, Nixon agreed, but ordered continued killing. There still massive craters left by B52 bombers. The My Son district is also the location of the infamous and horrendous My Lai Massacre of 16 March 1968.

Following the visit to My Son, we took a lunch break back at the hotel and then rented bicycles and traveled 4km to An Bang Beach, which was recommended by our receptionist as better than the one recommended in the tourist books (which is nice since this was more of a local beach and not quite overrun by tourists). The beach is beautiful with mountain views surrounding the South China Sea and small fishing boats along the shore making their way out to sea. We got a little relief from the afternoon heat in the warm waters and enjoyed the first beach day of our entire trip. We chose to skip beaches in other areas since we’d lived in a tropical climate for the past 3.5 years and heard the beaches were spectacular in Vietnam. It was well worth the wait! The ride between the beach and town passes through rice paddies which also provided us gorgeous scenery along the way.

Photos from Red Bridge and a fisherman we encountered on the return boat ride from class

Next up was a day spent adding new recipes and techniques to our repertoire. In order to ensure we would get into a class, we made advanced reservations with the Red Bridge Cooking School for the Half Day Course and spent our second day in Hoi An immersed in Vietnamese culinary education. We had a lot of fun learning the recipes and making our own rice paper – we’ll be sure to share our new skill in making fresh spring rolls with those of you who join us for dinners! We also made Vietnamese crispy pancakes, eggplant claypots, and fancy food decorations. The best part was trying all our creations and eating a huge meal after the class. We did not realize how much we would eat that day and were so full by the time we boarded the small boat back to town. During the ride we encountered a fisherman throwing out his net and pulling in his catch and stopped to watch him work - an incredible sight.

We first took a tour of the produce market and learned some of the fruits/foods of Vietnam, many of which are the same we had in Belize only with different names. One interesting fruit is the Vietnamese Pitaya (aka Dragon Fruit) as it has white flesh rather then the bright purple/pink found in Belize and in Cambodia.

Since we were still quite full we decided to have some nice dessert treats later as we walked through the lantern-lit streets during the Hoi An Full Moon Festival held on the 14^th day of the lunar month and during which the streets are closed to motorized traffic (we happened to be on the bridge just before closing so we saw a lot of traffic getting out of town and causing some jams) and the lights are turned off along the river so lanterns and candles and the bright moon light the way. We also happened upon a small parade and there were more carnival-style games happening in the streets (we watched a fun game on our first night in which participants attempt to break a hanging claypot with a bamboo stick while wearing a clay mask with no eye holes). It was a festive night and great way to end such a fun day.

During the remainder of our visit, we toured some of the buildings of the Ancient Town. A ticket can be purchased that grants access to one each of the five different types of preserved spaces. We were able to skip a museum and visit 2 Chinese assembly halls, which we found to be the more interesting of the sites. We also visited an old house that combines Japanese, Chinese, and Vietnamese styles. Our other stops included the Quan Cong Temple and the handicraft workshop where we found primarily a shop. The variety of architectural styles from the Japanese and Chinese who settled in Hoi An during its busy days as a port town provide stunning scenery and a beautiful backdrop to the narrow streets and riverside shops of this delightful town.

In addition to the varied culture, tradition, and food of Hoi An, the town is home to an overwhelming number of tailors and shoemakers. The seamstresses and tailors can make anything – they just need a photo and your measurements and you will have a designer outfit in no time. With a limited budget and only backpacks, putting together a new wardrobe was not in store for us, but after reading reviews of tailors and asking around, ginnie was able to have a beautiful dress made for the family wedding in June. It was hard not to have a suit made for Anthony as they are so well done and cost much less, but to carry it back would be quite a challenge. This is also a shoe-lover’s dream as you can design and have shoes made as well! We did not go that far, but it’s tempting! We also visited the markets and discovered they sell sleep sacks, which we use since they are good protection from sheets when traveling and being silk are far more comfortable in the heat (we used ours the entire time we lived in Belize and every day since - our first ones were a departure gift when leaving for Belize and since we have each had to replace them); we are now frustrated with how much companies charge for them since we were able to get really large ones for less than $5!

We also set aside a full day to return to the beach and decided to give the tourist one a try (Cua Dai). The 5km bicycle ride was not as scenic as it passed by shops and eventually hotels and resorts. The prices for renting a chair were far more expensive and the beach was not as nice, so we decided to simply continue along the road and returned to An Bang Beach for the day. We actually had a cooler day for this visit, but it was perfect for relaxing. On the ride home, the rice farmers were burning paddies and the sky lit up with a beautiful magenta. We rode back out to get a few photos of the hard work of the rice farmers. Witnessing this, we will be quite careful not to waste a grain of rice!

Our departure from Hoi An was just as lovely as the arrival when our hosts presented us with gifts. We loved our time in Hoi An and feel certain we will return some day.

Hòa bình và Tình yêu!

The Cultural Capital of Vietnam

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Wed, 18 May 2011 15:30:00 +0000

Hue is described as the cultural capital of, and by some the most beautiful destination in, Vietnam. The city is home to universities, an old Citadel, Royal Tombs, stunning pagodas, and beautiful artwork (in particular Hue is known for producing the best traditional conical Vietnamese hats). We spent two full days exploring the World Heritage Sites throughout this lovely (and quite hot! Ant's watch has a thermometer and it reached a record of 111F one afternoon!) city.

On our first day we visited the Citadel and the Imperial Palace within. Further inside the Imperial Palace is the Forbidden Purple City and surrounding the area are a Royal Theatre and various areas that housed the royal family members. We spent quite a few hours enjoying the peace of the site and the magnificent architectural styles and designs of the structures and carvings.

We walked to the Citadel from our hotel and enjoyed a nice stroll along the banks of the Perfume River where we saw several vendors peddling artwork scrolls and conical hats. We also listened to the sounds of "moto/cyclo" along the way! Apparently, walking is strange? Everyone wanted to give us a ride for a "good price/cheap."

When we finished with our tour of the Citadel, we walked to the Dong Ba Market, the biggest market for the area. We were disappointed as primarily we saw cheesy souvenirs likely not made in Vietnam and lots of fabric and handbags and, of course, food. It was very hot and the aisles too narrow, so we promptly left after a lengthy conversation with a woman who tried to convince ginnie to buy cheap clothes at her shop upstairs and who spent a while talking with her about why we don't have children "yet." ginnie skimmed through a Vietnam Travel Do's and Don'ts book when we were walking through Ho Chi Minh and one section mentioned the right answer to the always-asked question of "do you have children?" is "yes" or "not yet." ginnie actually replied by saying "no" and her new friend quickly corrected her to say "oh, not yet." Brings us back to Belize... :)

Our evenings were spent walking through the various alleys and streets around our hotel sampling various Vietnamese dishes.

On our second day, we toured a few other of the World Heritage monuments: Tomb of Tu Duc and a couple pagodas (these particular ones are perhaps not on the list). We rented bikes from our hotel and began the journey through crowded streets to make our way to the outskirts of town and the Royal Tomb. Every bike excursion is a death-defying feat since the rules of the road seem to be that there are no rules, just watch the person in front of you and don't hit them! In fact, the biggest lesson we learned was that there is no delay on the turn signal, so when we get a walk sign, the motos, bikes, and cars turn immediately into the other lanes and we find ourselves in the middle of the road slowly walking as they maneuver around us. On bikes, it's a bit more challenging, but we survived it! We've managed to avoid major incidences aside from a few scratches and bruises and narrow brushes with oncoming motos/cars/people/bikes/etc. These bikes simply do not come close to our Belizean Beach Cruisers.

What should have been a pretty simple 5km ride turned out much longer when a well-meaning Vietnamese woman met us at a crossroads where we were checking the map to take our next turn. ginnie told her where we were heading and evidently she decided we should be going to a further tomb, but that was lost in translation. She pointed out we would take four turns and be there and it was so beautiful and she lived nearby, so just follow along. As we went, it seemed much too far and ginnie repeatedly asked about Tu Duc Tomb and she constantly said, "yes, beautiful temples." hmmm... finally, the heat and the ride were too much and we had to stop and pull out our book and map to ask where we were on the way to Tu Duc. This is when she was much clearer and said "no, Minh Mang is better, go there. only 3 km more." We did not want to have that long ride back, so we thanked her again and turned back. Oy - we can't get anywhere on our own the direct way!! But, these diversions always end up fine.

Back on our way, we discovered we had not been far from our destination when we first met our friend (who also had a lengthy chat with ginnie about the lack of kids and asked about what driving is like where we live) at the corner. The Tomb is another example of beautiful Asian architecture with dragons and lions and elephants carved throughout. Tu Duc was a ruler who was considered mediocre by his people; due to his strong beliefs in Confucius he often blamed himself for his poor leadership and inability to raise his people out of poverty. His elaborate tomb was an area used both for his relaxation and escape from his responsibilities of addressing current problems and also obviously for his final resting place. Though he named his burial space Modesty it is difficult to believe considering the size of the space. It is considered to be the most elaborate of the seven sites within the Hue vicinity. Another interesting tidbit is that he was the second oldest child, but selected over his brother for succession to the throne as his father thought he would do a better job; as it happens he preferred to indulge in the fine arts, enjoying theatre, music, poetry and dance rather than tending to royal duties. There is a Royal Theatre on the premises - in fact, it is the oldest one still existing in Vietnam and is one of the first built.

Our bike tour continued to the Tu Hieu Pagoda, a Buddhist temple hidden in forest just off the main road. It's a simple space and shows its age in certain sections giving a sense of its history. We've enjoyed exploring Buddhist temples after the many, many Christian sites throughout Latin America and the mosques of the Middle east. It was peaceful in the woods and whenever we visit a pagoda there is always a sense of calm and serenity that fills the beautiful, spiritual spaces.

We returned to the main center of Hue, then crossed the Perfume River via a very narrow (fits a moto tightly) metal bridge that had some pretty wide gaps between planks, then headed out another 3km to the Thien Mu Pagoda, a national symbol for the area as one of the oldest pagodas. It's built atop a hill and has a beautiful pink color and seven-story octagonal structure when entering the complex. Inside is the space for worship and areas for the monks to meditate and relax. It overlooks the Perfume River and provides yet another serene stop (well, when all the tour groups leave; it was a bit disappointing that it's been commercialized with several vendors peddling cheap souvenirs right outside).

Clouds were closing in, so we returned to our hotel after the visit and made it in time to avoid a downpour. Our two days in Hue were packed and we felt we got a nice glimpse into the culture and tradition and beauty of the city.

Our time in Hue concluded with a crazy bus ride to Hoi An. We've lived in the developing world for the past 4 years now and we understand well that bus schedules are simply guides, but this was a completely new experience. Our 8am bus arrived promptly at 9:20am. Six travellers sat in a tiny, hot "tour" office waiting and waiting and wondering and wondering. The girls working there simply smiled and apologized saying they tell us 8am "to be safe." Safe? from what? that the bus might come on time? We bought our ticket from a different tour office just down the street (meaning we paid $1 more than those who bought it at this office) and were told it would be a regular bus with seats and would stop at a scenic beach along the way (we didn't really care about the stop, but it was the plan). When the bus arrived, it was an overnight bus from Hanoi that had these awfully uncomfortable reclining seats that require the passenger to sit with her legs straight and does not allow for sitting upright. How a person can sleep on the solid mat is a mystery - our tailbones were in pain from the short trip. Oh, and the scenic beach was instead a dingy rest stop with the most disgusting WC's yet (we think the buses are competing to see who can stop at the most unclean and disgusting bathroom in Southeast Asia! everything in Vietnam seems to run on commissions, so it's likely whoever runs this stop pays the bus line to come there; perhaps they could put some of that money into cleaning supplies. just a thought). Fortunately, the bus time was also incorrect so the 4-hour ride was actually only 3. We are both quite elated that our bus travel is complete for this journey - in four years' time we have really had plenty of bus travel and are quite done with that for long stretches (local buses are still bueno!)! Please, don't get us wrong, we truly love all our experiences and are grateful for the adventure. We even chuckled quite a bit (and still do) about the ride and had quite the eyebrow-raising with the others who were waiting with us since none of us expected this particular service. When you pay $4 for a bus ride, you get what you pay for and have to expect the unexpected! Besides, how can we ever complain when we get to see such amazing and stunning sights as these:

Hòa bình và Tình yêu!

The Heat was on in Saigon

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Thu, 12 May 2011 14:22:00 +0000

On the 8th of May we boarded the Mekong Express bus in Phnom Penh and took the 6-hour journey to Ho Chi Minh City. Fortunately, this land border crossing was smooth and easy due to the assistance of the Mekong Express staff; a much better experience than the last time we crossed a land border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, which took over 3 hours due to the chaotic "systems." This also marked our final long bus ride of the journey and great joy in that :)

Our first night in Ho Chi Minh, still called Saigon by many locals, involved a brief walk around the Pham Ngu Lau area of District 1 where we would stay for the next three nights and enjoying the systematic chaos of the motorbikes whizzing by. We also read quite a few menus and settled on a nice little vegetarian place where we had some delicious tofu and eggplant dishes. We settled in for the night and prepared for a pretty busy schedule for our two days in the city. ginnie came down with a cold when we reached Phnom Penh, so we were also trying to rest a bit.

an election poster on the street; we get a mixed message about the vote since everyone has to and it is for one party

One of our requisite stops was a visit to the Cu Chi Tunnels. This was another area ginnie learned more about in her seminar on the World's Hot Spots and was eager to see in person. We are not huge fans of tour group activities and prefer to just explore areas on our own, but with our budget it was much more affordable to do an $8 tour that included a visit to a unique religious site as well. So, on the morning of the 9th, we joined the herd and hopped on a bus to the Cao Dai Temple and Holy See and then onward to the Cu Chi Tunnels.

When reading about the area, we (maybe ginnie moreso than Ant...) became curious about the religion and the way it was created from several different philosophies and practices; combining Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Roman Catholicism. We figured it would be a nice cultural experience to see their Holy See and Temple and get a glimpse of the way they worship. The temple is very bright and colorful filled with dragons and symbols related to ideals they pursue (there are homages to the arts and bright colorful stars painted on the sky-blue ceiling). They also have an interesting group of saints whom they revere, which include Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, and Victor Hugo. We had time to explore the temple prior to their noon service then were invited to watch from the balcony as they service began. We saw the influence of Islamic, Buddhist, and Christian practices in their ritualistic entrance and prayers. It was definitely a unique experience and interesting to observe.

Following the temple visit, our bus stopped at a small cafe for lunch. We sat with a nice pair from Holland and exchanged travel stories and suggested itineraries. Finally, it was time to visit the long-awaited site where the villagers of Cu Chi who fought for the Viet Cong managed to live and fight against the coalition of the South Vietnamese and US Armies.

Anthony was one of only two people who got to see what a hiding space was like for a Cu Chi soldier; this shows the before and after (he's inside in the right-hand photo)

a tiger trap converted to use as a weapon against the enemy; if one stepped on this s/he'd find bamboo spikes

The tunnels are a true testament to survival as they were used not only in the war to unite Vietnam as a communist country, but in the fight against French rule. These fighters were southern Vietnamese who supported Ho Chi Minh and helped in the fight to take Saigon. The tunnels span over 200km and served as hiding space, protection from bombs, and infiltration of enemy camps. The Viet Cong Guerrillas (as called by the Southern Vietnamese Army, for whom our tour guide fought, and the US) worked the rice fields of Cu Chi Village by day to ensure they were fed and fought in the war by night. We were able to explore a portion of the tunnels that has been expanded by 3 times its original size to enable travelers to fit. The people of Cu Chi crawled on elbows and stomachs when inside. While exploring the site, the sound of gunfire could be heard as visitors so inclined practiced their rifle skills; that was not an add-on either of us was interested in.

VC homemade weapons - all involve traps and nails

US weapons

In parts of the system, there are spaces with kitchens, sleeping quarters, and meeting areas. The kitchen is set up so the smoke from the fires comes out through openings 3m away to confuse the enemy. We were fascinated and impressed by the ability of these villagers. In addition to their tunnel system, they used homemade weapons based on ways they would typically trap animals. The weapons were well hidden in the jungle and used basic items like nails and bamboo spikes, but they caused great pain and death. They also used what they found of American weapons to make other items that would blow up tanks. They were a resourceful group. We ended the tour with a propaganda video on Cu Chi that really made us feel guilty to be the evil Americans who came to Vietnam to destroy their people and beautiful land. We understand the film is one-sided, it was just interesting to see propaganda in action.

a tunnel entrance, kitchen space, and sleeping quarters

tunnels enlarged by 3 times their original size for travelers - this was shot just before ginnie bailed out at the 2/3rds mark; Ant stuck it out and traversed the entire 100m

On Day Two in Saigon, we spent over eight hours walking the city and visiting various sites. We peaked at offerings in the Ben Thanh Market (where we quickly learned that Vietnamese sellers are the most aggressive we've ever encountered; women where physically pulling and pushing us to their stalls!), checked out various pieces at the Museum of Fine Arts, saw the Notre Dame Cathedral, popped into the train-station-look-a-like that is the Central Post Office, stopped into the Jade Emperor Pagoda (on what happened to be Buddha's birthday), toured the Reunification Palace, and visited the exhibits of the War Remnants Museum (once known as Saigon's Exhibition House of American War Crimes). We also managed to fit in a stop at a pastry place (how could ginnie pass up a fresh doughnut?) and strategically crossed streets amid the motos.

The Reunification Palace was formerly the Presidential Palace for the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) when Vietnam was split into two separate countries by the 1954 Geneva Treaty. It is the infamous sight of the conclusion of the Vietnam War as it was taken by Liberation forces on the morning of the 30th of April 1975 when Saigon fell to the North and the country of Vietnam was reunited as a single entity. We visited the various rooms left as they were in the 70's and explored the basement where the president could hide and escape through a tunnel network.

The War Remnants Museum was top on our list and after three passes, was finally open. They happened to be having "technical issues" in the morning and said they would open at 1:30, but they were still not open at 1:39, so we returned after exploring the Palace. It was a good way to end the day, but another opportunity to feel guilt about our nationality. Actually, considering our connection to a Peace organization and beliefs on staying out of wars, we know where we'd stand on the issue had we been around at the time, but despite that it is still evident that the message of the museum is one-sided and leaves out the war crimes committed by others involved in the Vietnamese civil war between the north and the south. Still, it is difficult to deny the truth of the acts displayed by the images of those who suffer to this day from Agent Orange exposure and the horrendous murder of innocent people in the My Lai massacre and others. Propaganda was again strong, but it was a good way to see the war from another side. We were both impressed by the soldier who sent his war medals to the museum with a plaque that read "I was wrong. I am sorry."

We really loved Ho Chi Minh City and had a great two days. We met some wonderful young university students who worked at the vegetarian restaurant we found on night two and returned to for our third night who were so excited to chat with us and check in on how our day was spent in the city. It was nice to have a couple days where people recognized us and shared their stories so we got to know some locals a bit more than if we just quickly passed through. We learned quickly that some southerners have a great distrust for the north and are not fully pleased with the politics of the country, but cannot openly admit such views. It is an interesting dynamic and we are curious to see if we find the differences in northerners as described.

Hòa bình và Tình yêu!

Cambodia's Quaint Capital, Phnom Penh

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Wed, 11 May 2011 13:00:00 +0000

We arrived in Cambodia on the 25th of April after traveling for 24 hours and crossing yet more time zones. Our first two and last two days in country were spent in the quaint capital city of Phnom Penh. It's a city with the feel of a town and a great place for walking and exploring the beautiful, magnificent architecture and our first glimpse of Asia.

Cambodians are known for their smiles and we definitely noticed the many smiling and friendly faces of the people around us. On our second sojourn through the city, we stayed at a guesthouse run by a Khmer family who was absolutely incredible and super helpful and welcoming. Our host even warned us of the scams and touts of Vietnam and wanted to be sure we were cautious. We loved our time in Cambodia and hope to return (there is an internship opportunity ginnie may consider for one summer of school that would get her back here and Ant is sure to come along!).

In Phnom Penh we toured several pagodas, visited the National Museum (which is reminiscent of the Egypt Museum, but much smaller, as it is filled with items from pre- and Angkorian sites), wandered through the markets, and ate quite well (we are loving the flavors and many different ways to cook noodles and rice). We were also introduced to DR Fish - the foot massage/pedicure that involves immersing one's feet into a large aquarium whose resident fish feast on the dead skin; no, we did not try, but we saw many who did. We even found a mall that is a five story bootleg palace, but considering our limited luggage space no play stations, designer apparel, or TV series' were purchased. To be honest, we are not so sure the designer appareal is bootleg since it's mostly all made around here anyway, it's likely items that didn't pass inspections or were rejected for some reason and now are on sale for way less than retail cost!

Night Market Eats

Shadow Puppets - we were in the city on the only weekend a show was not being performed but we did get to meet the man who makes the puppets from cow hide and play with a few on display

local boats on the Tonle Sap River, just a few km from our guesthouse; we often strolled along the riverside in the evenings and sat to enjoy people watching. a favorite event in the evenings in both cities was aerobic classes held in parks or other common areas or watching as people played a typo-hacky sack game with an object that looks a bit like a badminton shuttlecock.

photos from our bus ride between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap

& !

Siem Reap, a True Kingdom of Wonder

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Wed, 11 May 2011 04:00:00 +0000

We spent a week in Siem Reap (fun fact: Siem Reap means defeat of Siam [which stands for Thailand, and if you're watching world news you may have seen there is current fighting over a temple along their border called Preah Vihear]) to both explore the temples of Angkor and to enjoy time in the beautiful area surrounded by rice fields and friendly, smiling Cambodians. We initially planned to travel to another area in Cambodia from here, but we were so relaxed in the town, we just decided to stay! We stayed a fabulous place run by an Aussie ex-pat who has great stories. The guesthouse is outside the town center in the village along the river, which was perfect to be away from the noise while also getting to be closer to the local culture. One of the best parts of our travels has been staying in the local neighborhoods and getting a small glimpse of local life rather then just seeing what is around a hotel or resort and only seen by tourists; it makes the experience far more culturally rewarding as well.

When not having our Indiana Jones/Lara Croft adventures in the temples, we spent our days walking around the town, perusing (and shopping) at the markets, and eating delicious meals at some great vegetarian places (we even tried out Mexican one night, which we thought would be an interesting experiment in Asia - it wasn't too bad, but doesn't quite get the spice experience of our favorite Mexican delights).

On the 2nd of May we visited Artisans d'Angkor, a training facility and shop that helps local Cambodians learn a valuable skill and earn a living. They currently have artisans in 13 villages throughout Cambodia and sell their products through these shops in particular towns and at the Phnom Penh airport. The workshop in Siem Reap is open to the public for free tours so we were able to see trainees working on projects carving wood, sandstone, soapstone, and molding metals.

The trainees apply to the program and those admitted spend between 6 and 18 months learning a craft. The training involves following a set program with pre-determined patterns to provide the future artisans with knowledge to make Angkor-style carvings and eventually branch out to their own styles. They also teach lacquer painting and silk painting; the persons working in these areas are mute and deaf so they have large posters of sign language symbols and words posted on the walls.

In addition to the Siem Reap carving workshop, we were transported to the Silk Farm just about 15 km outside of town. Here we learned about the life cycle of the silk worm (47 days) and the process of taking the raw and fine silk from the cocoon to transform it into beautiful scarves and other garments.

The silk worm eats leaves of the Mulberry Tree, so there is a grove of trees on the ground, but the worms cannot eat them outside as birds will eat the worms. The leaves are brought into the silkworm room and they eat away. They form their cocoons, which are 300m of silk: 100m of raw silk on the outside and 200km of fine silk on the inside. Once they come out of the cocoon, the worms mate and then the male dies, the female lays eggs and then dies and then the process begins itself again.

The cocoons are dried in the sun and then boiled so the silk can be more easily unwound and spooled. Once the two types of silk are spooled, they are dyed and then re-spooled. They then find themselves on looms where artisans set up the pattern by organizing the bars in certain ways and using their feet on pedals to control their movement as the weave the silk through the loom. It's fascinating work that we enjoyed observing.

We had fun walking around town and visiting the markets, where we often heard "Sir/Lay-dee, tuk-tuk" or "buy something." ginnie had too much fun strengthening her negotiation skills and ended up accumulating some skirts to wear since it's just so hot and they are far more comfortable, a dress for the coming family wedding celebrations, silk scarves (it was hard not to buy them when people just stopped us on the way and wrapped them around her neck and only charge $1), and books {all for under $15US}. We were not aware of the book selling market in this region and are able to get books for VERY low prices ($1-$2), so we picked up one we were interested in by a young girl documenting her and her family's experiences during the Khmer Rouge regime. We almost felt like we had to buy what we asked about since by the time we walked away when we were not happy with a price they always said "ok" and took our offers! It got so we just stopped asking about items!

We also visited our first night market. Cambodia is new to the night market scene in Asia, so we are looking forward to seeing more of them, but it was a good start and fun to explore at night and check out the offers.

Our week was further enhanced by the wonderful tuk-tuk driver, Mr. Tek, who met us at the bus drop-off and drove us through town and the temples on our first full day and for the sunrise. We were lucky to have the best driver in Siem Reap!

Adventures in Lost Cities and Temples

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Mon, 09 May 2011 14:50:00 +0000

We visited our next World Heritage Site, the temples of Angkor, while in the town of Siem Reap, Cambodia. We spent three days exploring various temple ruin sites and admiring the beautiful, stunning, and ornate detail of the bas-reliefs, statues, and carvings throughout all of the sites.

Angkorian Temples were constructed by god-kings during the various dynasties of the Khmer Empire between the 9th and 15th centuries of the common era. Each becomes more elaborate than the next as sons outdid their father's temples and in general they vacillated between being devoted to Vishnu, Shiva, or Buddha demonstrating shifts between Hinduism and Buddhism.

We enjoyed exploring the temples and saw only a fraction of what remains from that era - there are 100s of temples spread throughout the area so we just visited what we could and did our best to find those that were quieter, which made for a more peaceful visit at many times. The temples are yet another example of the incredible craftsmanship of an ancient civilization and provided us the opportunity to see a different method for demonstrating power, status, and spirituality. It has been fascinating to explore so many different cultural icons and see and learn about these different ancient peoples.

We hope you enjoy your own visual tour through our journey below :)

DAY 1: 30 April

Angkor Wat - the largest and one of the last temples constructed during the era

bas-reliefs and carvings

South Gate - entrance to the town of Angkor Thom

Baphuon Temple - filled with pillars that have four smiling faces looking to each of the cardinal directions

different areas in Angkor Thom city

Preah Khan

More Preah Khan - we liked how nature is taking back the space

bas-relief of Apsara dancers

Image from Angkor Wat

DAY TWO: 1 May

On our second day, we rented bicycles and rode over 40 km to see a variety of sites. We actually did not intend to ride so far, but took an early turn back toward the temples that took us the long way through rice fields and country-side. It was a bit rough on the bottom on our bikes, but fortunately Cambodia is really flat and we had smiling, waving children who ran to the street as we passed shouting "hello," so it was well worth the effort.

We began by traveling 12km out of town to the Roluos Group which has remains of the first of the temples constructed in the era. They have a slightly different style and material, but it is clear that they inspired the later, grander temple designs.

Our rides for the day!

Bakong

Preah Ko

Cambodian Country-side

Pre Rup

Banteay Kdei

This is another one that shows the power of nature reclaiming the land and was one we enjoyed wandering through and capturing with photos so there are several!

Ant in his Indiana Jones moment :)

DAY THREE: 3 May

After the long day on the bikes, we took a break from temples and did some exploring around town. When we returned to the temples, we began with sunrise over Angkor Wat and concluded with sunset at the highest point on a temple built into and atop a hill - Phnam Bakheng.

We had a nice day for both sunrise and sunset, which was great. Many of you know our luck with sunrises and getting up early to see a cloud-filled sky. While a sunrise is pretty, it seems people may be either sunrise or sunset people, and we are clearly more into sunsets. We took far more pictures then and we find sunsets more stunning in their colorful display.

One of the highlights of the tour was the visit to Ta Prohm, which is the most covered by trees and nature. We were well advised to go directly there at 6am after the sunrise since the tour groups arrive at 8:15 and then the peace is lost. It was so amazing to spend the early morning visiting such an impressive site; it truly was a peaceful place.

Preah Pithu Group

Victory Gate - entrance to Angkor Thom

Chau Say Theyoda

Ta Keo

Sunset over Phnam Bakheng

A Somber Day

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Wed, 04 May 2011 05:07:00 +0000

Before we begin this post, we just wish to warn you that it covers a very horrific time in Cambodia and we are sharing pictures that we feel are important to ensure people know about the terrorizing of a culture by its own and remember the nearly 2 million victims killed at the hands of the Khmer Rouge.

When in high school, ginnie participated in a seminar program where she selected to attend the series on the "World's Hot Spots." The facilitator presented the participants with information and photographs (many of the same we share here) from different areas in the world that traditional history classes gloss over or don't even cover. One of those was Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge (who at the time were still a rogue group planting landmines around the border of Thailand where they fled after being removed from power in 1979 by the French). We have met people in our travels who before visiting memorial sites in Phnom Penh had not heard of Pol Pot or the Khmer Rouge and were shocked by what they learned. For those who may also not have background on this period, we have this brief intro and some links for further reading. We also recommend watching the filmThe Killing Fields.

The Khmer Rouge was able to take over power in Cambodia because the country was in the midst of turmoil over a group who had deposed the president and was also dealing with issues associated with the war in Vietnam (Cambodia was pulled in by having Vietnamese ship in supplies to the ports and the US bombing them in their fight with the Viet Cong) and things were unstable. The Khmer Rouge came in to take power from this group and Cambodians thought they were saved; unfortunately, that feeling was short-lived when the mission of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge became clear. Look here for additional information. They intended for Cambodia to become a completely peasant, agrarian nation and sought the elimination of intellectualism, arts, and culture. They destroyed previous history in order to start from the beginning, calling their first year in power, Year Zero. Immediately upon taking power on April 17, 1975, they began moving people out of the cities and into the farms to put them to back-breaking labor for 12 hours or more per day and they began the systematic elimination of those considered enemies: intellectuals, artists, and others. Just wearing glasses was enough to be tortured and executed under such a regime. Read more here. Ironically, the leaders of the Khmer Rouge were educated individuals.

In Phnom Penh, the Khmer Rouge took over a high school to establish a prison, Tuol Sleng, which they called S-21. We visited the site which is now a museum left as it was found. It's disturbing, but important to see to remember this time and to ensure future generations know what happened and such terror is never repeated. The torture rooms, list of rules, hallways where cells were built out of brick (males) or wood (females) exist as they did when it was deserted in January of 1979. There are places where blood still stains the walls and floors.

The Khmer Rouge, like the Nazis, kept detailed records of their activities and photographed every prisoner. Those photographs line the halls and present a harrowing reminder of the many people murdered at the hands of a terrorist regime. Their faces stare back at you when you pass, reminding you of the loss they suffered. We slowly passed through the halls and felt the fear and isolation of a place where one had no hope for justice or life. A graveyard is on the grounds for the 14 bodies found in the deserted prison.

Following our visit to the museum, we traveled 15 km out of the city to the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek where prisoners from Tuol Sleng were transported and executed by bludgeoning as the Khmer Rouge did not want to waste bullets. The field was once a peaceful orchard. On the site now is a memorial stupa filled with over 8800 skulls found in mass graves at the site as well as bones and clothes found. It's gutwrenching, but gives visitors the opportunity to honor and remember the victims.

The day was sobering, but we both wanted to visit these sites in memory of the victims and to see for ourselves this place we had learned about and felt a need to better understand.

At this time, there has been only one full court hearing and decision on a Khmer Rouge leader. The leader of the S-21 prison has been convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison; as of just this March, he is appealing the decision. He is the only one who acknowledged the existence of the prison and the acts of torture and murder committed. The others who have been accused deny knowledge of these atrocities. This has been a long, complicated process for Cambodia and is being documented here. Tragedy lives on with the numerous landmines throughout the country (the US planted many but decided it would cost too much to remove them, so instead Cambodians are maimed and killed when they inadvertently stumble upon one in a field; additionally, the Khmer Rouge went into the Thai border area after their ousting and continued to fight and lay landmines themselves until 1998, so those also continue to cause trauma to innocent people). The four years, eight months and 20 days of terror brought on by this regime still leaves haunting tales from Cambodians (even more immediately noticeable by visitors to Cambodia are the large numbers of very old and very young people, due to the near complete elimination of an entire generation); however, they are a resilient people who are moving forward and have been the friendliest we've met on our travels.

Two Days in Jo'burg

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 14:29:00 +0000

After our excursion into the wild for game viewing we traveled to Johannesburg for our last day and a half in South Africa. Our only plan was to visit The Apartheid Museum and gather more information on this time in the country that only recently ended in 1990 with an announcement by then-president FW de Klerk. We arrived in the city on Good Friday, which is the day South Africa celebrates the Easter holiday and is one of only two holidays that closes the museum (but we knew that from planning ahead). We were able to find an open ginormous grocery store and got what we needed to eat for the next two days and then just spent the afternoon relaxing since nothing was open. On Saturday, we traveled through the city to make our way to the museum.

The museum documents historical events in South Africa and how Apartheid came into effect as well as provides anecdotal tales and historical records showing life during this period for all South Africans. It was an important stop on our tour of the country and is a museum not to be missed. It is just this year that a class of primary school students will graduate who has not lived through Apartheid and strict separation policies.

The tour begins when you purchase your ticket and the computer randomly categorizes you as either non-white or white. We were split and had to enter through our designated entrances: ginnie in the whites only area and Anthony in the non-whites only door. Apartheid's list of 150 laws made the country a sign-filled space to ensure that whites and non-whites (further split into three groups: blacks (those with the least opportunities), coloureds (a step above black, we never really could figure out who fit this category - and with the identification system that was entirely arbitrary and up to the whim of the official working that moment probably means nobody actually knew), and Asians (a classification added to include the Indians and Chinese in the country, many of whom had been brought in for gold mining or came for opportunities). ginnie found in her entrance hall that whites were split between European and non-European and she didn't know under which sign to pass since she has both in her background.

"To be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." ~Nelson Mandela

We saw giant poster-sized replicas of the passes citizens had to carry that showed their racial classification - which they were given by the assigned official who did not necessarily have any formal education of background. A question about what happens to coffee when milk is added led to a man being demoted from coloured status to black status. It's truly unbelievable to both of us that this was able to exist for so long. We learned that the list of laws kept growing as anti-Apartheid activists continued to find ways to fight the system.

Sadly, the impetus for establishing this system came from political leaders representing poor white farmers, boers, who were concerned about losing opportunity to native Africans and other non-whites. They felt they had been given this land by a supreme being and it was there's to do with as they pleased. Much like in the USA, these Europeans took native people's lands and relegated the local people to small portions, often not truly able to own the land outright. The Apartheid government strictly controlled the media and propaganda so people did not always fully understand what was happening (though it's hard to comprehend how one could not notice groups of people being evicted from their homes and moved into townships or that the signs everywhere made it clear they could not mingle; even white people suffered from this in some ways). People were not allowed to mix for any type of relationship and there were groups who would look through the windows of mixed race couples to see if they violated the law by engaging in intercourse. It was serious and intense.

We are both impressed by the many people who would not stop fighting against this injustice. There are people, both non-white and white, who consistently stood by their beliefs and accepted prison time or even lost their lives (mysterious poisonings and such) because they would not sit idly by as the government mistreated a large portion of its population in favor of another (a minority in reality).

It is really not possible to go through the museum in a brief post since it took us over 3 hours to explore and even then we had to start skimming the information. Look at the link to the museum site and take a trip to South Africa to learn more.

ukuthula na-uthando!

"Poor Man's Serengeti"

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:09:00 +0000

Following the adventures in Addo, our safari tour brought us to South Africa’s North West Province and the Pilanesberg Game Reserve. We learned of this park from a co-worker of Mrs. Tarzia who is South African and gave us several great recommendations for our trip. We had been informed from others who’ve visited Africa that it is easy to book a safari once in country and better yet to do so locally with our own transportation or finding a local guide who would come along. We thought we were going to have to do a short and costly safari guided tour with a company, but that was definitely not the case. Armed with a suggested park (once in country we were bombarded with information on game parks, it’s overwhelming, so knowing where to go was a huge help! Also sticking to a South African National Park site is a bit nicer as well) and a rented vehicle (which, by the way, is the cheapest method of transport in South Africa for some reason – no problem for us, we are happy to take care of ourselves) we were on our way to two full days of game viewing.

Pilanesberg is a unique park in that its ecosystem is an extinct volcano which makes it hospitable to several species of animal and plant that normally could not live in the same area since some rely heavily on wetlands and others only survive well in dry areas. It’s a beautiful park and has all the same animals, and more, as some of the more well-known (and more expensive) parks. We loved the park and really explored as much as we could.

This is a much bigger park than Addo, covering 500,000 hectares so we had a lot of space to wander and view not only animals but stunning landscapes. Since it is so large, we learned later in the day to focus on the plain area where we’d have the best chance of spotting lions and cheetah. Of course, it’s some wide open plain, so binoculars would have been helpful.

Cats aside, we saw a lot of animals including our first giraffe! That was a really exciting sighting because ginnie saw something far in the distance which looked like a big tree, but it seemed to move, so we headed that way and sure enough there were several giraffes walking along the plain and stopping to graze from treetops – so incredible, we watched them for a good 40 minutes! We also spotted some new animals on this trek. The photos document our list of the animals we saw while on safari in Pilanesberg for two full days.

FYI, on a safari tour you get a 2-3 hour drive and don’t determine where you go, so once the time is up it’s up and that costs more than driving yourself around for a full day! Also, Pilanesberg is really affordable; we paid less than $25US for the full day at the park. The price will go up on May 1^st, but only by R20, which is just over $3US, so it’s definitely a great way to do safari (hence the nickname “The Poor Man’s Serengeti”).

this vervet monkey was our first animal sighting in Pilanesberg

this photo has a funny story; first, it is not our photo, it's from the Pilanesberg website from our first day at the park (20 April). we were driving toward the Mankwe plain when we saw a couple safari trucks and other vehicles stopped. we looked in the direction they were looking, but didn't see anything ahead; the people in the truck were laughing and we thought they were pulling a prank. as we passed the truck (on the left since that's the side of driving in SA) ginnie looked out her window and right there was this elephant with this stick in its mouth! due to park etiquette, we could not stop and block road access and it was so sudden the camera wasn't ready and earlier that day an elephant close like this lashed out and squealed at people and waved its trunk when they passed that close and took photos (we were one of those it lashed at!). there is another pic of the same ellie somewhere in this group, just from a side angle.

at the center of the park is a small watering hole where there is a salt lick that is evidently like sugar or caffeine or addictive drugs to some animals. we observed several groups of animals compete over time at the salt lick. at one point, these giraffe ganged up and booted out some zebra - one even charged it and tried to kick; a giraffe kicking its front legs is a sight to see, it involves some extremely awkward lumbering and maneuvering the entire body. the whole process of a giraffe running is fascinating with the way its neck awkwardly bobs up and down to help propel it forward.

one of our favorite zebra photos of a mom and baby

one aspect we enjoyed was seeing the different animal groups grazing together; here we have a wildebeest and giraffe

here's that elephant from earlier

the grey mass is in fact two hippos; they really don't move much at all

Pilanesberg is home to a LOT of bird species; we don't know what this is, but it is beautiful and looks like a sapphire when it flies

we are pretty sure this is a waterbuck - sometimes we had trouble identifying the animals, even with huge posters we referred to, but this fits the waterbuck image pretty well

even turtles are seen on safari!

white rhino; the rhino picture in Addo was a black rhino

we know, we took a lot of photos of zebra; how could we not?

springbok; they have the most graceful leap and seemingly flew through the air across the road as they passed us

ginnie decided to take photos of animals crossing the road in front of us; or coming at us or walking ahead. one of them, the one between the giraffes on the right-hand side, being a black mamba snake, widely considered the world's deadliest snake! it spanned the length of the road when we came to it, but the shock of seeing it delayed the reaction in grabbing the camera, so all we have is its last quarter.

the best we could do with this fast-moving aardwolf that Anthony somehow spotted peaking out from behind a rock. he was much better at finding small animals than ginnie!

we saw a lot of wildebeest both days; the striping along their necks helped us identify them

this black-backed jackal was up to something, we passed this area three times and he was there at each. we're thinking he was hunting something in the space behind him because at one point another car was across from us and he seemed frozen with indecision on whether to turn back to avoid us or stay and keep watch on the grass

warthogs hang out near the roads a lot, so we saw many; they are somehow kind of cute in their ugliness. these two are butting heads over something; it ended quickly with them separating and returning to grazing in their spaces

black rhino with pretty sapphire bird on its back

the giraffes chasing the zebra from the watering hole!

vrede en liefde!

My First Safari - Addo Elephant Park

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:40:00 +0000

From Nature's Valley we travelled to Addo where we stayed in our ideal safari lodge room, it even had a piano, to rest before embarking on our first African game drive at Addo Elephant National Park.

Enjoy our stories of our first safari experience and a few of our favorite photos of the animals we spent the day observing. By the way, it was really hard to narrow down the photos, so enjoy your own voyeuristic safari journey through this post! :)

Ginnie: I awoke before dawn eager and excited for our first safari. I really didn’t know what to expect; however, when I saw lots of trees and bush and green I felt like it wasn’t what I imagined. I guess my mind had images of a more barren landscape from watching National Geographic specials. I wondered what we would see among all those trees, but soon after entering we saw two elephants on either side of us grazing away at the treetops. It was so surreal to be that close to these wild elephants. We traveled on into more open plains where we saw our first zebra! I was looking forward to seeing zebra and giraffes (I knew this park did not have giraffes so was on the hunt for zebra). It’s fascinating to simply sit and watch the animals as they go about their daily lives.

Throughout the day we kept coming across new animals – buffalo (an entire herd was on the plain at one point and not 30 minutes later they were all gone!), lots of kudu, many more zebra, two meerkats, more elephants, warthogs, and a little favorite – the flightless dung beetle who works really hard to form perfect balls of dung, which is its own mini-ecosystem. I could just drive around all day looking for animals. The moment you suddenly spot something in the distance or around a curve is exciting and as you get close and see what it is it’s like a fun game of seek-and-find and the reward is the impressive and huge wild animal just meters from you in many cases. It is really difficult to verbally describe the experience.

Not wanting to leave any area unchecked, we headed to the southern section of the park after a picnic lunch (big surprise, PB sandwiches and a local flavor of Lay’s chips; side note: Lay’s has some delicious flavors of chips around the world and I really wish I could get them in the US since I never really liked potato chips but these flavors make them delightful!) where loops are longer. When we first entered, we saw a lot more tall grass and had a feeling fewer animals would be around since clearly the grass wasn’t being eaten. After a long stretch with no sightings, we decided to pick a small loop and if we found nothing, we’d return to the northern main camp. Just as we came around the corner in front of us was a stopped vehicle, generally a sign of a spotting; just to our left was a black rhino, happily grazing on a huge stretch of land all by itself. It was an amazing scene since the park includes a portion of the sea (hence being a game park that includes sharks and dolphins) and we could see the ocean behind the rhino as he grazed on the green grass of the plain. Once the rhino moved on from our view, we continued along and found ourselves alone on the trail.

As we slowly entered an area surrounded by woods, a buffalo popped out ahead on the left. More buffalo followed and we could hear a great deal of rustling in trees. We found ourselves stopped by a herd crossing to the other side of the woods. It was exhilarating, if a bit tense at moments. Every buffalo (except for the babies) who exited the woods looked directly at us for a second or two, decided we were nothing special, and carried on. One had a tree branch stuck between his horns, when it fell it blocked the only potential path we could take should there be a brief opening in the herd. We closed the windows (the safari rules state that since animals see the vehicle as one unit if a body part comes out of a window it can be taken as threatening or simply scary, either of which can incite a reaction out of the animal) and just figured we’d wait it out. Ant pondered whether or not the vehicle could move in reverse fast enough should it be necessary and then realized that was not an option as we were also blocked by a portion of the herd behind us – we hadn’t noticed them. We simply sat in awe at the realization that we were sitting in a tiny vehicle all alone surrounded by a herd of buffalo and we’d be there until they were ready to move along. I never really felt a sense of danger from the buffalo, but I was always conscious that they could damage the car pretty well should they decide to.

After that intense experience we continued our loop and took one of the long ones to make our way back to the main camp. This loop was again pretty bushy and the most we saw were gigantic human toddler-sized spider webs looped between large trees and bushes. Back at the main camp we had one loop we skipped in the morning as we were following other animals so we decided to take that before we had to leave the park at 6pm. With the sun setting, we knew there was a chance for the cats to come out but had no expectation of seeing any lions at Addo since there aren’t many in the park and cats are cats no matter the size, so they are not typically out and about without purpose. Just as I was thinking about how we probably wouldn’t see a lion but how neat it would be, Ant turned a corner and said “what is that in the street?” Before I could formulate a response or really see in the glare of the setting sun, he said, “Are those lions? They’re lions!” Two lions were directly in front of us! It was insane, totally unexpected, and completely surreal and indescribable.

We immediately took photos, I even sort of took some outside my window when they were still kind of far, but as they got closer, I knew that was not a good idea, so I rolled up the window and made due with through-the-window shots (which came out fairly well, thankfully). My heart was racing with the adrenalin, the excitement, the nerves, and who knows what else. It was just unbelievable that these elusive hunters were walking right toward me. As we watched in awe, a third lion came out of the woods, so we just sat by as the three (two males and a female) sauntered past. The first male sprinted past the car, but the female and second male sauntered slowly by. They are such huge animals – they came up to the height of the window. They were so close, I could have touched them as they walked by; I thought they were going to rub along the car like cats do when walking around and rub onto people and furniture. It was absolutely amazing, no words can describe it. The entire day was incredible and that just really topped it off. For my first safari experience, it was truly unforgettable and made me excited for more adventures in game viewing. There truly is nothing like the experience of observing animals in their natural environment simply living their lives.

Anthony: Waking before the sun rises above the horizon is something I reserve for days when traveling to a distant land on an early plane flight or watching the sun climb above ancient ruins. Today we had arrived at Addo National Park, in South Africa, a distant land that had for so long remained a dream to me. We were in a place where some of the planet’s wildest and most beautiful creatures roamed freely in their natural habitats…so, I thought it may be worth the effort to skip out on some extra sleep.

As we entered the game park under the morning mist and yellow-lit sky, we were immediately greeted by a pair of enormous African elephants that were easily 3 times the size of our miniature car rental. Each of them was about their daily business, chomping away at the lush green leaves that covered the dense bush along the road. Slowly moving down the road, I had to smile as I glanced at the first of what would be many road signs that read “Caution, lions in area, alight from vehicle at own risk” I decided to stay in the vehicle at this point and opted to venture out later when the right time arrived.

Continuing on through the park we encountered a number of additional animals including zebra, kudu, more elephants, rhinos, herds of buffalo, turtles, dung beetles, jackals, meerkats, more hoofed animals than I can remember, and a number of large and small birds.

As the day wound down and the excitement of what we would see next continued to build, we were graced with our first sight of lions. There were 2 males and 1 female. Each of the males wore a large bushy mane and the female walked alongside, stopping every couple of minutes to yawn showing her enormous incisors (yeah a bit scary). We stopped the car and waited almost breathlessly. As we sat shooting pictures, watching, sweating, giddy with excitement, we realized that this small pride of lions was actually heading right toward our vehicle. I thought back to the many times that I had seen large cats in zoos and other animal parks, but the size of them walking past at less than a foot’s distance was absolutely incredible. The experience is one that I will never forget, and instantly catapulted itself into my top ten.

The Addo Park was definitely a life-changing experience as I watched the wild animals in their own natural habitat, killing when hungry (as demonstrated by the carcasses on the side of the road), living their lives as nature intended them to each live, without cages, bars, or human interference. We all have images in our minds of what places, people, and things will look like; I guess at first I had this National Geographic idea of a safari, of Africa, and each of the different animals, but as I leave the continent, I have to admit, being so close to nature definitely gives one an appreciation for our amazingly diverse planet and why it is so crucial to protect it.

And... more photos from our first game drive:

Ant's great spotting caught this meerkat in time to snap a quick photo

black-backed jackal; always seen alone

kudu; love the spiral horns. we saw a LOT of these in Addo

ostriches are also found throughout the park

zebra are just so photogenic!

sizing us up

beautiful plains of Addo that overlook the Indian Ocean

it was such an amazing day, we couldn't stop smiling either!

ukuthula na-uthando!

Magical Nature's Valley

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:52:00 +0000

The descriptor "magical" was often used to describe areas in Nature's Valley, where we stayed during our trip along the Garden Route. We had the magical experience with the elephants, hiked in the Magic Forest on the farm of our lodge, and took a magical 5-hour trek through forest, beach, and more forest.

The following photos provide a glimpse into the magical beauty of this piece of South Africa (so far everything we've seen is beautiful in the country!).

The 6-hour journey on the Garden Route began in Cape Town and took us through long stretches of brown farmland before reaching sites closer to the ocean and more lush and green. Yeah, we thought Garden Route meant lush and green, but it really refers to the variety of landscapes - fortunately a fellow traveller gave us the heads-up on that one the morning we were heading out on the road. Ginnie likes to take windshield shots on long drives to document what we see, these photos bring you along for the ride. Check out the elephants we saw on the side of the road! How crazy is that?

After our morning with the elephants, we hit the beach for our first dip into the Indian Ocean. It is currently Fall in South Africa with temperatures similar to those of Fall in the Northeast (ok, well not really as cold actually, but around high 50's/low 60's) so we weren't crazy enough to actually don swimsuits and submerge, but we got our feet sufficiently freezing and an unexpected wave hit us so we were pretty soaked up to just above the knees! The cold wind helped us dry off as we sat on the sea wall and watched the waves, the brave swimmers, and a little boy having a blast on his boogie board.

To keep that first full day active, we took a 45-minute hike in the Magic Forest which loops around a stream (they are having some dry times, so the stream was pretty much a dry river-bed) and through thick forest on the farm property of the lodge where we stayed. We always deny that we are hikers, but this trip is making us both think we kind of are, but just of the short-term variety. It's not too likely you'll see us on multi-day treks any time soon!

Our second day was one we were looking forward to (more hiking, see) after reading about a 5-hour hike that begins in the woods and follows down to the beach area of Nature's Valley town and then across some black rocks along the beach (a tad treacherous on our journey as we came to the rocks 20 minutes before high tide and had a few patches where we had to cling to rocks to find a foothold while timing the waves and not being pulled out - no problema...) and then to an estuary where we re-enter the woods and climb back upward along the Salt River Trail and back out to near where we entered on the other side of a major road. It was one of the most stunning walks for the scenery of the mountains, then the forests, the band of baboons who happened to be right outside the forest when we emerged and the strong waves of the Indian Ocean.

We had a nice, fairly relaxing time in Nature's Valley and Ant even contemplated doing the world's highest bridge bungee jump off Bloukrans Bridge, but decided against it due to the cost. It is certain if someone offered to pay he would have been first in line!

The photo above says it all! South Africa is so beautiful and amazing and our time kept getting better as we moved into the safari portion of the trip.

vrede en liefde!

Walking with Elephants

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 04:15:00 +0000

We journeyed along the Garden Route when we left Cape Town to reach Nature’s Valley where we stayed at a lodge called Wild Spirit. We had met Jenny, the owner of the lodge, on our first day in Cape Town and heard from many fellow travelers it was a great place to stay with lots of hikes and animal sanctuaries nearby. Jenny told us that she worked out a 50% discount for her guests to have the elephant experience at the nearby The Crags Elephant Sanctuary and immediately we knew we had to venture westward in order to get up close with an African Elephant.

The elephant experience is one of the most amazing things either of us has ever done. In order to use the discount, we had to do the first one in the morning, which is perfect since fewer people come in for that and we ended up sharing our time with a family of four. This enabled each of us to have more time with the three elephants that spent the hour with us.

The experience begins with a brief informative lesson on the elephants living at the sanctuary.There are three from Botswana who were confiscated at the Johannesburg airport while en route to Russia to become circus “performers;” they didn’t have the proper paperwork. The other three elephants come from Namibia where they were rescued from being killed as they were wandering into territory that was not friendly toward having elephants (we can’t recall if it was farmland or a park). The group consists of five females and one male whose ages range from 11 years (the male) to 19. African Elephants have a life expectancy of over 70 years, so they are similar to humans in that respect and these were teenagers! They were at about half their full size (full is 5-6 tons for males and 4-5 tons for females). While the females are ready to mate at age 15, males do not mature until 20, so there is no mating at this sanctuary. Ultimately, they plan to re-release these elephants to the wild by incorporating them into a private game park. Considering they are becoming extremely comfortable with human contact and accustomed to being fed treats, we wonder a bit how their re-entry will work, but a private game park will have some feeding involved we think. We are only familiar with the public parks method of having the animals live completely as they do naturally with little or no human interference.

After our lesson, the three female Botswana ellies were brought to the meeting area where we would soon meet them. All six had been grazing on the grass while we had our lesson and then two of them stopped for a quick drink from the watering hole on their way to meet us. It was fascinating just to be that close to them, but the day got even better when we physically met. We were split into two groups of 3 (the family got split up, but we thought we should all get split up so partners could take pictures of each other! Luckily a very kind guide offered to take our camera to get some photos of us walking the elephants) and then assigned an elephant. We were in the second group so waited as the first took their elephants for a short stroll around our meeting area. Next it was time to enter the forest and we were introduced to our elephant (ginnie was with Jahma, which means love, but we can’t remember Anthony’s) and told to stand to the front left and hold our right hand behind us. The elephants put their trunks in our hands (mine, who Anthony walked on the way out, prefers to have us hold in the nostril which meant a lot of heavy breathing right on our hands!). We walked for a few moments before reaching a clearing. The walk was incredible, a 2.5-3 ton elephant trusted us to hold her trunk, while we trusted her to walk carefully. We also discovered that elephants walk quickly and have a lot of power to their forward movement, so perhaps leading is not a proper description, but being pushed along would fit the bill J. Jahma is the only elephant of the group with no tusks (due to a genetic birth defect).

In the woods, the elephants demonstrated some of their natural behaviors. Their guide gave a command and each showed a different ability: kneeling, blowing air, and shaking their heads. All are done in the wild and signify individual messages or needs. It was really fascinating! We then each had time one-on-one with an elephant to learn more about it and it’s physiology. We felt their thick, rough, bristly-haired skin, got a close-up look at their molars, felt the pads of their feet, and held the plastic-like bristles of their tails. These elephants cannot feel with their skin because it is 2 inches thick, so the bristle hairs are how they sense the world through touch. Their tongues never leave their mouths and they use their trunks to gather their food and bring it to their mouth by wrapping it around the morsel and holding on. To drink, they can fill their trunks about 1/3 of the way full (there is a biological mechanism that stops the water from going further so it doesn’t get into their airway and choke them) and then they empty it into their mouths or spray it on themselves to get cool.

We always fed our elephants in order to thank them for letting us walk with them and pet them and observe them so closely. We were giving them a pellet that has nutrients they need and would get from their 16-hours of grazing in the bush. We returned to the original meeting space by again holding trunk-in-hand and then said our farewells. The two young girls with us took the additional elephant-back ride so we joined their parents in waiting so we could have our final lesson.

During the final lesson, we learned more about the anatomy and life of the African Elephant. Here are some more interesting facts: their molars are smooth compared to the Asian Elephant because of their grass/leaf-based diet (whereas the Asian Elephant needs jagged molars for its bamboo-based diet), a female elephant’s gestation period is 22 months and she stays with her calf for 5 years and does not have another baby until one calf is independent, elephants can have about 8-10 babies in their life (being mammals, they have a limited number of eggs in the ovaries), elephants live in family groups but the males leave the herd at 15 to live a bachelor’s life (often finding a bachelor herd; it’s fascinating that they have the instinct that to reproduce they must leave the herd as they would want the best chance of healthy offspring and survival and not the genetic defects that come from incestuous groups), elephants walk on their toes (like cats and dogs and other 4-legged mammals) and have a special fatty padding that develops around them to give them the wide area on which to step and balance their weight on the ground, all elephants have tusks and they are either right- or left-tusked (by looking at the tusks you can see which has more wear and which side the elephant prefers), you can tell a female from a male by the thickness of the trunk (a female’s is thinner).

The elephant experience prepared us for our upcoming trip to Addo Elephant National Park where we would take our first safari in a park whose initial purpose was to protect the last remaining (and extremely endangered) herd of elephants and help increase their numbers (they began with 200 and now have around 470) as well as maintain a natural, protective environment for many African wild animals. We’ll share those experiences in another post.

Until then, enjoy the elephants and stay well!

ukuthula na-uthando!

The Beautiful Winelands

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:00:00 +0000

On Monday, the 11^th, we took a trip out of town to explore three of the many vineyards in the winelands. Stephen, the owner of the lodge, gave us a detailed map with suggestions for which vineyards to see on our day trip. With 100s to choose from, his advice was helpful.

Our first stop was at the Fairview Farm, where they also make their own cheese. This was a highlight as we went straight for the cheese tasting! It was so delicious and we both instantly fell in love with goat’s milk camembert and a goat’s milk chevin. There were also great cow’s milk selections, including a cream cheese and a blue-style cheese called white rock with apricot. We immediately purchased a small wheel of the goat’s camembert and a loaf of freshly-baked ciabatta bread to have for lunch later that day!

After walking through the winery and the farmyard, we made our way to the town of Franschhoek (pronounced somewhat like Frahnzh hook), an adorable town with a tree-lined main street and delightful little shops and cafes. The town is also known for culinary excellence and is considered a food and wine capital. We stopped at the Haute Cabriere Vineyard which is nestled right up into a mountain overlooking the vast vineyards and town of Franschhoek. We visited the cellar to see where the wine is bottled and stored. Afterward, we wandered the main street of town and sat along the green in front of a Dutch colonial building where we indulged in our bread and cheese lunch with a nice cold Ginger Beer (a fave soda from New Zealand and Australia that we are so glad it here, too! Oh and South Africans also use sweet chilli, another fave from down under that we can’t get enough of.).

The next stop took us to the college town of Stellenbosch. Along the route, we came to Hillcrest Berry Orchards where we were quickly absorbed in the smells of berry everything – so many jams and fruit purees and frozen options. Ginnie tasted the fabulous Citrus Blossom Honey and instantly wished for pancakes over which to drizzle its deliciousness. We did pick ourselves up frozen treats; Anthony had the frozen apple juice (it was an apple juice ideal!) and ginnie had a homemade strawberry balsamic ice cream (it may sound like a weird combo, but it was really good and did not taste like vinegar at all). The journey continued with a stop at Tokara Wine and Olive Farm, which had the most interesting looking vine fields of all that neatly and uniformly curved along the hillside. This one makes olive oil and has four flavors, all of which looked incredible.

We also made a stop in Stellenbosch to check out another town of tree-lined streets and shops and cafes. The Oom Samie se Winkel is a curio shop that is a must for a walk-through so we spent time browsing the variety of odd items for sale – at one point ginnie walked nearly into some hanging dried fish! The Dutch in South Africa came up with dried meats (biltong) as a simple hand-held traveling food and there is a lot of it everywhere. The good thing is there is also a lot of dried fruits and many healthy snacks with nuts, fruits, and grains. We are stocking up since we don’t know what we’ll find in weeks to come.

A tour of the wine country is definitely a must on a visit of Cape Town as the scenery is beautiful and the vineyards are plentiful.

ukuthula na-uthando!

Anthony's Birthday on the Cape Peninsula

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 18:29:00 +0000

On Anthony’s birthday we awoke to another spectacular sunny warm day. Having planned to visit wine country, we opted to change our visit to The Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve for April 10^thdue to an expected rain that never arrived. The visit began with a beautiful scenic drive as we twisted out of Cape Town through a southern route that hugged the coastline and offered spectacular views of the Atlantic Ocean, surrounding cliffs, and majestic mountains. The road follows the scenic Chapman’s Peak Drive and onward to Simon’s Town and the famous Boulder’s Beach, home to one of the largest colonies of African penguins (numbers show a population of approximately 2500). ginnie was looking forward to seeing the penguins since we booked our trip in October, so she was pretty excited to finally see them.

After securing our parking and walking a few minutes to the beach, we traveled along a few different designated narrow boardwalks to view the penguins. They were all over the beach, some in the water swimming and fishing, others enjoying the sun and sand, and many mothers taking care of their newborn babies (colored brown at birth) and minding their eggs. The penguin colony was really pretty awesome to observe and the walkways allowed visitors to get up close without disturbing their natural habitat. We took a lot of photos and even shot some video (see end of post) of the different groups as they waddled around the beach, enjoyed the surf, and acted silly. Unfortunately, there was no dancing a la Happy Feet, but nonetheless, they were a really interesting group for observation.

As we left the Boulder’s Beach area we were immediately struck by the large number of street signs that read “! Baboons” This was interesting for many reasons. First off, we had read in many places that there are large numbers of wild baboons roving around in great numbers across South Africa, yet we hadn’t seen any in our travels as of today, secondly, it was just really strange to see an actual red triangular street sign that warned of the presence of baboons on the road. Anyways, we headed further down the road and eventually reached the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve. The Reserve is part of an extensive national parks system across South Africa and its size encompasses the entire Cape Peninsula. Upon reaching the visitor’s center one can become quickly overwhelmed by the number of trail options for hiking, running, cycling, and walking. We perused the various offerings and settled on two (The Cape of Good Hope Trail and a second smaller trail that would pass a few other areas of interest). After leaving the center we made our way to the popular Cape Point area and trekked the somewhat short, but incredibly beautiful trail to the old lighthouse and WWII radio towers (established when U-Boats began to unexpectedly threatened Cape Town and the surrounding cities during WWII). These little coves carved into the rock offered some amazing views of the Atlantic Ocean from all sides. Did we mention that it was incredibly windy here? Thus the reason for the Cape of Good Hope – so named by early explorers due to the vicious assaults doled out on passing ships. The Cape was first discovered in 1488 by Bartolomeu Dias from Spain. Over its long and tumultuous history it has single handedly been responsible for hundreds of shipwrecks (many of which can be viewed at different points along some of the more extensive hiking routes).

As we headed back down the hill, we opted to trek out to the nearby Old Lighthouse Trail which actually followed along the entire Cape Point peninsula and ended at pretty darn near land’s end. It was a short trail that we had initially taken because our map misled us to believe that it was the actual southernmost point, however, as we neared the end, we read an additional map en-route that more clearly designated where the actual Cape of Good Hope point lay (just a lee bit to our left) and we opted to finish this trail and then head for the famous Cape of Good Hope just a short 1-hr walk away. The Cape of Good Hope is the South-Western most point on Africa’s continent and is represented by an immensely rocky coastline surrounded on all sides by crashing waves and rough seas driven by fierce winds. We spent some time here just taking in the views, walking on the rocks, and then taking a picture of us standing at the famous sign marking the area's latitude and longitude.

As we left the Cape of Good Hope area and began our travels through the remaining areas of the park we were suddenly startled by quite an interesting sight – Baboons were sitting on the roofs and hoods of cars that had been parked along the surf beach (some even had passengers in them waiting patiently for the mischievous beasts to alight from their vehicles). This was our first of many baboon sightings so we opted to slow to a stop, shoot a few pictures, and move along in an nonthreatening manner (we didn’t want them coming after us!) We spent the remainder of the afternoon visiting many different parts of the park and viewing some interesting things that included more baboons, beaches, cool rock formations, large memorials and dedications to Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco de Gama (early explorers who gained notoriety for their discoveries and charting of the Cape of Good Hope and surrounding peninsula). Our visit to the park was truly an exceptional experience and it was awe-inspiring to observe the incredible beauty of our planet, as well as the powerful forces that shape and create such amazing places.

vrede en liefde!

About Cape Town

noreply@blogger.com ("Not all Who Wander are Lost") — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 19:42:00 +0000

Cape Town is a lovely city surrounded by mountains and the ocean. We explored all we could in our week in town and found there is really something for everyone here. We were fortunate to have 8 days of gorgeous weather and were able to do all the things we planned in our time here. While we are sad to leave, we have some pretty exciting sites to visit in the coming days and look forward to some game parks and nature treks and beach excursions.

Read on for highlights of our Cape Town adventures.

On our first full day (after the travel recovery day during which we simply walked around the city center and Greenmarket Square) we hiked up Lion’s Head, a 669-m peak that overlooks the city and the ocean and provides excellent views of the massive Table Mountain. At one point the hike splits and the adventurous climber can skip quite a bit of walking by pulling herself up using chains. Ginnie took the long way, but Anthony climbed right up! At the top, we rested to enjoy the views and eat our lunch above the city. After the climb, we walked back to the backpackers lodge through the quaint neighborhoods and stumbled upon a chocolate house where we promptly found a few treats.

Really high winds came in the next day, so we took that as our sign to spend the day walking through the historical sections of the city where we walked through the Company’s Garden, visited museums, and wandered through old Dutch areas. We returned to the Greenmarket Square to peruse the various stalls and get ideas for a piece of African art that will adorn our home eventually. The Company’s Gardens were grown when the Dutch East India Company designed a green space for both function and pleasure. It’s a nice long garden with lots of lush landscape and plants that have grown for 100’s of years. On the way into the garden we saw the former Parliament building, one of many examples of Cape Dutch architecture, as well as a large National Library and an old Dutch-style church. Further along we came to the Jewish museum and complex area where the Cape Town Holocaust Centre is housed. The exhibit was a moving testimony to the victims of the Holocaust and a reminder of how such an atrocity is bred from hatred and fear of difference. From there we continued our walk and came to the Castle of Good Hope, a large pentagonal fortress built by the Dutch East India Company and is the oldest surviving building in South Africa. We found our way to the District 6 Museum which chronicles the experience of the diverse peoples who lived in the District 6 neighborhood of Cape Town and were forced to move to segregated townships due to Apartheid. The museum shares the people’s stories in their words and pictures of the diverse community that was split up for forced segregation. Now, there is a land reclamation program in the works, however there are a lot of challenges due to the buildings put in place of former homes and the current residents/businesses not wanting to move.

a township of Cape Town; it's important to keep in mind there is still much to do to strengthen race relations and work to reduce poverty in the country

For the following day, we’d already reserved our tickets to visit Robben Island. After our tour, we stayed at the V&A (Victoria & Alfred) Waterfront where we enjoyed our lunch on a bench by the water and then wandered through the craft shops and visited Nobel Square where bronze statues of the four South African Nobel Prize winners stand with famous quotes written in the plaza. We also wandered into a big mall with two bookstores; a bookstore is always a treat when we are travelling since there are many places without good access to books and we get plenty of titles to add to our reading list (the list has grown so long that we feel we need a year just to devote to reading!!).

Our next day was Saturday the 9^th and we were fortunate to awake to a cloudless, sunny, not-windy day which made it possible to climb Table Mountain. We were well prepared for a 3-hour uphill, steep, rocky, in-the-direct-sun hike based on comments from fellow travelers and the lengthy safety review by Wayne (the manager of the lodge). We were both looking forward to the climb for days (weeks, really, after we’d spoken with Mrs. Rudolph – she teaches with Mrs. Tarzia and is South African) and had our water, snacks, sunblock, and ginnie’s hat ready by 9am. We were so glad to climb on a Saturday as there were many other climbers, most of whom shared our pace of climbing and stopping and climbing again. We also happened to climb on the same day as an HIV/AIDS Charity Climb was occurring. This was for brave souls who committed to climb up and down as many times as they could during the park’s hours; we heard a man set a goal for 11 round trips. This is a climb that is up a steep, rock-faced mountain that is in direct sunlight all day – these folks are impressive! I hope he achieved his goal. We also learned from another climber that the record for going up is 29 minutes and for coming down is 12 minutes! There were a couple dogs climbing as well, and one small pitbull mix was running up that mountain – he passed us early on; we talked to his owner and he told us the dog uses 3.5L of water each way (some of it is for dousing on the dog to cool him), pretty impressive little guy. He was all muscle, but with short legs there were still a few steps he couldn’t manage on his own. The climb was amazing and we finished in 2 hours – apparently all this hiking for the past three months provided some extra stamina, or perhaps it was simply the camaraderie of chatting with fellow climbers and keeping a steady pace to keep with the flow. At the top there were many cheers from our peers as we all reveled in reaching our goal. We spent another couple hours walking around the top to enjoy the views of Cape Town, which were vast and stunning. We ate our sandwiches and indulged in a refreshing ice cold Coke (it’s not always the case we can get a cold Coke on these travels, so it’s been nice here in SA to find them everywhere!). While we could have climbed back down, the steep steps would be really rough on the knees and we aren’t spring chickens anymore, so we took the cable car down. That was a quick ride then we walked back through town to return to the lodge, with a stop for ice cream on the way back – it was a hot day, we needed it!

After recovering from the walk, we spent Anthony’s birthday traveling along the Cape Peninsula – separate post to follow. There is also a separate post on our next day during which we toured the Winelands. On our last full day in Cape Town, we returned to the waterfront to walk to the World Cup Stadium and enjoy more time at the craft markets and shops along the seaside. Our return took us back through Greenmarket Square where we purchased a beautiful batik. At this rate, we are going to need a lot of wall space in our home because we just keep finding great pieces to frame (and we started doing this in our travels years ago, so the collection is really growing!). Batiks are painted fabrics that are then baked and covered in candle wax to set them. They are quite beautiful and we are fond of the one we found after several stalls. We have loved the African merchants, they have a great upbeat attitude and all joke around with us as we visit them, no high-pressure business like in some other world markets we have passed. Although, the laid back joking and comments are some pretty persuasive dealings… We met people from many parts of Africa who come to South Africa where they find a better opportunity to make money. It was hard to not buy from some of them.

We have fallen in love with Cape Town and feel certain we will return!

Ukuthula na-uthando!