Mike and Kendra Travel Blog

Tombs and Pyramids, Pyramids and Tombs

2007-10-04T16:38:00.000-07:00

Hello again, it's taken a while to get this update finished but here we go.

Kendra's update ended with our amazing week long dive trip on the Red Sea. Once we were back on land we soaked up the sun at a resort in Hurghada (on the Red Sea Coast). There isn't much to say about it of course because all we did was eat, sleep, read and lay out in the sun.

The Beach at our Resort in Hurghada

On Sunday, after 3 days, we left Hurghada and went back to the craziness that is Cairo. I had only booked a hotel the night before so our fingers were crossed hoping that it would be decent. A bit of drama ensued on the way to the hotel when driving through a tunnel we heard several loud screeches and bangs as an accident took place right in front of us. Ohh, don't worry, an accident in Cairo isn't like an accident back home. Our driver just kept going and so did whichever car could still move. The best part was the Cab that probably caused the whole thing driving off with his rear bumper dragging on the road and two rather dazed looking people in the back wondering if they had just imagined it all. Judging by what we'd seen on the roads up to that point, we weren't suprised, just happy not to be involved.

Our hotel in Cairo turned out to be a bit of a gem. It was built originally in 1907, as a bath house, converted into British Officers club and finally a hotel in 1952. The place has so much character that it's been in several movies with several actors (mostly Egyptian) having stayed there. According to the hotel manager we stayed in the same room as an actor from the Monty Python movies who was there back in the 70's or something, we felt honored.

This second stint in Cairo was not to be like the first (i.e. sleeping) and once we were settled in our room we set out immediately to take in the famous sites. We started out with the ancient Egyptian capital Memphis. Next was the Bent Pyramid, the Red Pyramid, and the Step Pyramid of Djoser's (as well as a few tombs older than even the pyramids). You may have guessed then that the Pyramids of Egypt aren't just the famous ones that we see all the time but in fact there are many pyramids scattered along the vast plateau's above the Nile. From our first stop we could see as many as 15 (approx.) pyramids in our view North up the Nile valley, including - because it was a clear day - the Great Pyramids far off in the distance. Incredible. As a short history lesson, it's interesting to note that the practice of building the pyramids for the tombs of the Pharaohs was abandoned after it became obvious that they were easy targets for tomb robbers. Instead of constructing the massive pyramids they moved the tombs to a secret location near Luxor that would be much easier to conceal, hence the Valley of the Kings. Unfortunately for them this didn't work either and, as we mentioned in our first Egypt update, only one tomb from hundreds of burials was actually discovered intact, Tutankhamun, a.k.a. King Tut.

We were allowed to go into one of the pyramids called the Red Pyramid, which basically meant crawling down a steep sloping tunnel about 4 feet high for about 160m. Once through there were 2 large rooms to explore that really took your breath away, first, because it was truly rank in there, and second, because of the sheer genius of its construction especially considering the primitive technology available at the time. What makes these structures even harder to comprehend is the fact that they predate any stone structures ever found around the world. The first one, with the prestigous title of the worlds first stone structure, was King Djosers Step Pyramid built and completed around 2600 B.C. - That's 4600 years ago...What! How can these still exist and more importantly how can I be standing in a room where people once walked, or touch a stone larger than a car that was carved and put in place that long ago! More than the temples from the Nile, these pyramids really shook me with that revelation.

The road to the Red Pyramid, the first "True Pyramid" of Ancient Egypt.

The Bent Pyramid in the distance. This was constructed before the Red Pyramid, half way through construction they discovered the angle was too great and had to change it to a gentler slope in order to finish the work.

A closeup of the Red Pyramid.

King Djoser's Step pyramid and the worlds oldest remaining stone structure!

Our next day, the last in Egypt, we saved for the Great Pyramids of Giza. Trust me when I say we "Saved the best for last". The day started by visiting a section of Cairo called the "City of the Dead". This is a cemetary, found in the middle of Cairo, that was first used by muslims as early as 1200 AD. However, this cemetary is a bit different. As the population exploded in Cairo from 2 to 18 million people, the crypts of this "City", which have an extra room for visitors of the deceased, also became room for the living. Poor people began to squat in the crypts and use them as home...and we thought Calgary had a homeless problem!

We visited a large mosque in the middle of this "Dead City" called the Sultan Barqouk mosque. We spent an hour or so enjoying its architecture and the views allowed from climbing one of the two large minarets. Next was a typical tour ploy, our driver stopped at a papyrus painting studio and we got the spiel on how ancient papyrus was made. Of course they must have known that Kendra and I are suckers for paintings and we proceeded to find ourselves persuaded into buying some paintings at outrageous prices...Damn, it happens every time. I tell you, any traveller that says he's never been ripped off, is either lying, or just doesn't know it. Oh well, the paintings are nice.

Sultan Barqouk's Mosque in the "City of the Dead". We climbed the Minaret on the right to get the view from the next photo.

OK, and here it is, our last stop would be the most famous of all, The Great Pyramids of Giza. We'd seen them briefly from the car prior to this but now it would be up close and personal. @#$%, they are amazing. Of course we've all seen the pictures, heard the stories, and put an idea into our minds of what they are actually like, but you can never quite know if what you hear is true. Well let me say this, its all true! Every word of it! Incredible is too mundane a word for this.

My first impression, even as we saw them from a distance, was just how incredibly big they actually are. They are massive, and literally dominate everything around them. We first went to the famous Sphinx and then proceeded to spend 2 and a half hours, wondering around the site. Every time you closed your eyes and opened them again you just couldn't believe what you were looking at. The other rumours about this site are also true, yes, there is a KFC at the entrance, yes, the vendors are constantly barading you to buy a statue, ride a camel etc. and yes, the city is right next to the site, but who cares! How about some pictures.

The Shpinx, Khafre, and Khufu (Cheops) Pyramid's all in one photo. Oh yah, and tourists.

Kendra and the Sphinx

The Khafre Pyramid

The Great Pyramids of Egypt, L-R, Pyramid of Menkaure, Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Khufu which is the largest actually. (The 3 in front were for Menkaure's Queens)

The Great Pyramid of Khufu standing originally at 146.6m tall and now after erosion and the removal/theft of the topmost stone just a bit shorter 138m!

The base of the Khafre pyramid, amazing.

So that was Egypt! Boring I know, the next morning we were on a plane and headed back to...Vienna actually. That’s right the trip isn’t quite over we have three nights in Vienna before we finally head home to start planning our next trip (can anyone say Peru...Galapagos).

Mike and Kendra

It's Hammer Head Time!

2007-09-22T02:52:00.000-07:00

Greeting all, from a beach town, tourist villa, of Hurgada. We've been relaxing at the Hilton Resort for the past 2 days while our "land legs" return to us after our amazing Red Sea adventures.

We boarded the Emperor Serenity for a luxurious 7 day diving extraveganza in the southern part of the Red Sea. With a minimum of 50 dives logged, Mike and I barely met the requirements to dive in the south. We had heard from our previous travels that the south had the best, untouched dive sites, so we were really happy to be seeing these remote reefs that could only be reached by live-aboards. Two hours after boarding the ship, we were taken back to the the dive shop by a zodiac as they had forgotten our dive gear (BCD's, wet suits, and weight belts) - sort of essential for decending 30 meters into the abyss. A crucial miss, but luckily sorted out prior to our port departure.

Mike and I are always excited to do this sort of travel; on board with strangers from other parts of world to share in a commom love of traveling and diving. This time was no exception.... until Ute, the main dive guide, grabbed Mike, me and three Swedish guys from our meeting point and then said "and now to find the Americans". We have only come across a handfull of American tourists in the past and for the most part, they have been great people, but when we saw - I mean heard - the group of American's that would be joining us on our dive boat for the next 8736 minutes, we groaned deeply, but luckily the zodiac drowned out our dispair. Fourteen, middle aged, semi retired divers from Florida, partaking on one of their semi-annual diving trips, slowly, loudly and enthusiastically joined us in the zodiacs. By the time we reached the Serenity, we were already feeling our energy being sucked from us. As best as I tried to be open minded, by the middle of the trip, after diving or eating, Mike and I would escape to our cabin or to the very top deck of the boat. We endured comments like "We don't get a separate beach towel to dry off with? But everywhere else we have" (even though we got a towel and a terry clothed bath robe), "We're diving the WHOLE time from zodiacs? I don't want to do that!" (to which the guides accomodated and changed our itinerary so that we could dive from the back of the boat), "I can't eat the salad it has green peppers in it" (NO this comment wasn't made by me) to which the dive instructors profussly apologized and then realized only one dish of the ten provided actually had any green peppers. That's not to say that there wasn't some really nice American's on board - there was, but at least 3 quarters of them met the sterotypical "American" attitude that up until this trip I really thought was a blown out of porportion myth.

Luckily, 180 minutes a day were spent in the blissful sea in search of exotic creatures and everything else was forgotten. Because of the distance we had to travel to reach the various dive locations in the south, we usually completed 3 dives a day. However, each dive was on average 60 minutes long, which was great! The water was a warm 28 to 30 degrees celcius and visibility was incredible - at least 40 meters on every dive! The coral was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. An abundance of soft and hard coral in a rainbow of colours. So many times I found myself giving Mike the "Okay" signal, because that's the only signal we have underwater for positive things, but I would accompany that with a somersault to convey my contentment/excitement.

With only 50 dives under our belt, there were so many new things we learned, saw, and experienced on this liveabord. From drift diving, to cave dives, to unguided dives plus ideas on equipment to buy; our buoyancy and skill set improved dramatically over the 19/20 dives that we completed. One of my favourite dives was on our second day at a site called Daedalus. It was action diving extraordinare! We had a very detailed briefing before putting on our gear, where the instructors urgently stressed the danger of the dive. It was our first zodiac entry, so the first test came when we had to step into the small, rubber boat. A hard task when you are strapped down with your buoyancy vest, air tank and carrying 6 kilos (13 lbs) of weight to help you sink when you enter the water). When the driver stops the zodiac, he will count to 3 and then everyone has to do a backwards somersault out of the boat. Once in the water you have to find the reference point - a coral reef wall that drops 400 meters into nothingness. If the wall isn't found immediately, you have to ascend immediately because of strong currents. Although, the drop into the sea was very disorientating, our group of 5 divers found the wall successfully. The risk with this kind of dive is that because there is no bottom, you can sink beyond the recreational limit and have to do a decompression stop, so you have to be constantly aware of your depth. I have to admit that the dive was almost clausterphobic at times, because there was so much blue open water. It was quite mind numbing.

The main reason to go to Daedalus is because of schools of hammerheads can sometimes be seen. However, we were warned that with the warmer water temps, sharks are rarely seen in the summer months (March to May is a better time). Luckily, when we started out into the deep abyss, 30 meters in the distance, we saw the belly and side of a shark hunting. It was incredible to watch the grace and agility of this top of the food chain creature. All too soon the majestic fish swam out of our view. He was the only shark we saw on our whole trip, and once we surfaced, even though I didn't see the head for myself, our guide told us it was definitely a hammerhead! So cool. (I never thought I would say "cool" about seeing a shark!)

The marine life was terrific, but everywhere we went, resorts were being built along the red sea and the sites that were once inaccessable to day boats are being more frequented. From improper use of building material, workers fishing in the sea (as they cannot survive on the minimal food and wages offered by the construction companies), to dive boats dumping their waste into prestine sites and even divers lying across sand and coral to catch a photograph of an eagle ray, turtle, clown fish or what have you; the reefs are being damaged. I can only hope that strict guidelines and hefty fines will be put into place to minimize future damage to the Red Sea, but as demand from Eurpoean countries to visit Egypt continues, I suspect a blind eye will be turned.

The top deck of the Emperor Serenity Dive Boat!

Kendra and I in our daily gear.

Anyone want to go diving?

Daedulus Reef on the white board.

Daedulus Reef in real life!

From the Daedulus Reef Lighthouse.

Zabargad Island, an amazing dive site.

Overall, it was an incredible week with amazing weather, smooth seas, a great crew, and extraordinary diving. I guess the one good thing about the American's is that our honeymoon suite got used more often :-)

Hugs,
Kendra & Mike

PS. Pictures to follow

Honeymooners

2007-09-12T02:30:00.000-07:00

Salaam 'alaykum Friends and Family,
We're at it again. Once more we find ourselves on the other side of the world enjoying the latest foreign discovery and cultural enlightenment. In case you didn't know, our current destination is the mystical land of Egypt. Kendra and I are now almost 2 weeks into our honeymoon and loving every minute of it.

On our way to Cairo we had the chance to meet up with our old friends from our Tibet trip last year, Karl and Petra in Vienna. We had one overnight stop there, and a great evening catching up. They put us up for the night, took us around the town to enjoy some local culture (an open air opera playing on a big screen at the Vienna town hall), and even fed us before we settled down to play some cards. We went to bed that night after being awake nearly 40 hours.

On Monday we finally arrived in Cairo, and were welcomed to the heat, the haggling, and the chaotic streets of this big city. As this is our honeymoon, I surprised Kendra when we pulled up to the Nile Hilton in central Cairo for our stay. Unfortunately for us the jet lag was a killer this time. In our 1-1/2 days in Cairo we only made it out of the hotel long enough to take a mandatory visit to the Cairo Egyptian museum. The museum is a huge place, chock and block full of artifacts, statues, sculptures, and even several royal mummies.

A view of the Egyptian Museum from our Hotel.

On Wednesday we were off to the famous Nile city of Luxor where we would begin a life of luxury. Little did I know at the time of booking the trip but the Oberoi Philae cruise boat was actually one of the best on the Nile. When we arrived in Luxor we were picked up by a private car that took us to the boat. Once there the manager introduced himself and showed us to our cabin with our own private balcony overlooking the Nile. Once on board everything was all inclusive except drinks, they had a pool on the top deck, a bar, a lounge, and a restaurant, all of which were in immaculate shape. They took care of everything for us including arranging a guide to visit all the temples and sites along the way. The food was amazing, the attention to detail was amazing and the Nile was amazing. We were to be on this floating palace for 7 days/ 6 nights, and couldn't be happier.

The sun deck on the Oberoi Philae

Our days on the boat consisted of several hours of cruising and several hours visiting the Egyptian temples along the way. Our guide kept us entertained and well informed wherever we went. He would show us the famous aspects of each temple but also less famous ones and we were always given time to explore by ourselves, which is much appreciated as I hate being herded around from one thing to the next. For those of you who are interested we visited several temples including, Dendara, Karnak, Luxor, the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens, The Temple of Hatshepsut, Edfu, Kom Ombo, and Philae. We also saw an ancient quarry where unfinished sculptures can still be seen, and enjoyed a ride in one of the many felucca boats on the Nile. All of this was in a 200km corridor along the Nile. The history of the temples were mind boggling, some from 3700 BC, others from Alexander the Greats time, and others still as late as 300 AD. The size of these temples was equally mind boggling, huge obelisks, walls and columns are everywhere. Several of these temples I had never heard of and was literally in shock as we approached them. Shocking still is the fact that most of these temples, especially the tombs of the, Valley of the Kings, which had all originally been beautifully painted still retained their colors! In some cases after over 3000 years! Amazing!

The outer wall of the Temple of Dendara.

Some of the massive columns in the Hypostytle Hall at the Temple of Karnak.

One of the few remaining statues of the Pharaoh Tutankhamum, otherwise known as
"King Tut", at the temple of Karnak,

While the history of this place borders on surreal, so equally does the beauty of its landscape. The Nile is truly a life giving artery to the people of Egypt. Except for only a few small oasis' in the Western Desert, all of the settlements in the interior of Egypt are on the Nile. Of all the land in this country only 5 percent is actually habitable year round. The scenes of the Nile valley is one of stark contrasts. The dry beige desert cliffs and sand dunes are the backdrop to lush green trees and fields of maize, bananas, cotton, and fruit. Then comes the dark blue of the river and the mud huts of the villages. From our balcony or the top deck we spent hours watching as life on the Nile slowly drifted by.

We have now left our palace and spent a night in Aswan. As an adder to our trip on the Nile we also took a day trip to one last temple that could easily be called the greatest, Abu Simbel. With that we completed our historical Egypt trip and will now start our diving Egypt trip. Later today we take a tourist convoy (the only way for tourists to travel overland in Egypt) to the Red Sea where yet another boat awaits us, this time for a dive adventure to some of the worlds renown coral reefs.

See you soon,
Mike and Kendra

Epilogue

2007-02-08T14:42:00.000-08:00

Well, its been a couple of weeks since we left off in Beijing. I believe a lot of people can guess where we are now...yes, we finally made it home to Calgary.

Unbelievable. 360 days after we left for Seoul we arrived home. We've been to 10 countries, countless temples, beaches, reefs, mountains, valleys, rivers and lakes. Small towns, big cities, the middle of nowhere and back. What a year! We've been home now for 3 weeks adjusting to Calgary life and the sub zero temperatures. We've met with family, friends and several freezing snow falls, Welcome Home!

Our trip is over and one phrase comes to mind, "Bitter Sweet". Its sad to know the adventure is over but great to have our own home again. We're drinking water out of a tap, putting food in a fridge, flickin through the channels, and meeting people for drinks.

So, what's left, how about some parting thoughts from each of us,

Mike:
In the few weeks that we've been home, usually the first thing I say to people when they ask about the trip is, "Amazing (obviously)...I could not have seriously imagined all the places we saw, or all the things we did". That is the absolute truth. Sure we had a list of what we thought we'd do, but once you actually find yourself in these places, there's always 5 other things to see and do that you didn't expect. Right there is the beauty of having such an open ended schedule, we were almost always able to see and do those extra things. For example, China. You may agree, if you kept up with the blog, that we saw a lot of that country. We left Canada with no idea that we would go there, and even once we made it, kept adding places when we heard about them from other travellers or on guesthouse walls. Same goes for our 6 weeks in Koh Tao, or our trip to Kakadu in Australia. But travelling isn't just about seeing places, its also about meeting people. We met plenty of good people a few of whom who we hope to keep in touch with and see many more times in the future. Of course there are also the strange situations one finds themselves in along the way; arguing over 50 cents for 1/2 a kilo of pistachios, being stuck in the middle of nowhere because the driver forgot to gas up, pointing out ingredients in someone's restaurant kitchen because we couldn't speak the language, and the list goes on. It wasn't always easy, we didn't always like where we were, but we always loved the journey and I assure you, never once, took it for granted.

The second thing I say is, how..."Kendra blew me away...". How quickly she adapted to tough situations, how enthusiastic she was at seeing new places, and how I watched her discover a true love of travelling. This past year was only made better because she was with me the entire way. I can only say that I am looking forward to our life together and more great memories with her by my side.

Kendra:

How can I express my year away? Life altering? Inspiring? Educational? Transcending? Adventurous and courageous? Of course, it’s all of the above and so much more.

As I think back to a year ago, wondering how I was ever going to survive a backpacking trip and how I was to pack my whole closet into my 22 L backpack, I was filled with anticipation and a sense of panic. Except for the resort beach trips I had never traveled and was not very geographically inclined. So little, that I believed Africa to be one country and had no idea where “SE Asia” was. Like I said not geographically inclined.

Although I still believe that backpacking isn’t for everyone – such as my sister Alana, I love you, but you would never survive the toilets in China; it became a lifestyle that I adapted to and prevailed. Perhaps adaptability is the key word for traveling for a year. You had to be ready to deal with any situation that hits you. There were times when I would want to cry – and sometimes when I did cry… no one forgets the leeches do they?… but I sucked it up and kept on going because what else could I do?.

The gratitude I feel towards Mike for opening my eyes to our world will never be properly expressed. Without his dream to travel for a year, I never would have saw a sun rise on Angkor Wat, gaze at the formidable Mount Everest, trek 52 km, abseil 30m into a cave, or log 49 dives and touch a shark. Throughout our journey, he was my rock – except when he was dealing with Chinese admission prices that is. His ability to pick up languages, read maps and shop at markets was truly admirable. I am so thrilled to be spending the rest of my life with this amazing man.

It’s crazy to think that our 6-8 month trip turned into a 360 day adventure. I never expected to be away from home that long, but everywhere we stayed became our home away from home surprisingly quickly. The people we met along the way really made the trip and hopefully will stay lifelong friends. Mike always said that nothing ever changes in a year – but this year was the exception with all of my family members moving, my youngest sister getting pregnant, not to mention all of the engagement announcements

Now that we’re home, it feels so surreal to have been away for a year. It’s surprising how quickly you fall into your old routine and the memories start to fade. It’s also amazing what will trigger a travel memory – a commercial on TV, a question on jeopardy – and the smell, sound and imagery is suddenly right before you and you are back in that special moment..

However happy I am to be home and seeing my friends and family; I am also eager to plan our future trips – our first one being a honeymoon to Egypt and the Red Sea. Another being a 6 month sabbatical within the next 5 years to do not for profit work. Something I promised myself to do after seeing some of the atrocities in developing nations. Without this year away, I would never have had these dreams.

So that wraps up our blog and our travels. Hope everyone enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it. We're going to print this out in colour, bind it, and put it on the shelf at the house, memories for life. To all the travellers we met along the way, thanks for the memories. To all the family and friends in Calgary, its great to see you again.

Deep Regards,
Mike and Kendra

PS. THE END

World Heritage in Beijing

2007-01-19T07:35:00.000-08:00

Well like I said before, we're not quite done.

As we finished the dive trip we realized that within the next 48 hours we would be making our way from Phuket Thailand, to Singapore, and finally to Beijing. It was hard to believe, but the last major destination on our trip awaited us.

On Jan 9th, we reluctantly left our little boat paradise and headed back to civilization, Phuket Town. We spent the night in a comfortable room before catching our 8:00am flight to Singapore. Once there it would be a 15 hour wait before our flight to Beijing at 1:20 am (1:20...what?). We had all day in Singapore to do whatever we wanted. What to do, what to do? Luckily, Kendra had been in contact with Nigel and Furee, who, you may remember we visited on our first trip through Singapore, and arranged for us to meet them at a cafe to catch up. In the last year, these two had been busy. Not only did they get engaged, but were now married and accomodating a new guest, their 2 month (nearly) old baby son, Naveed! Not bad! So it was under completely different circumstances that we met up with them and were introduced to their little pride and joy. We spent a couple of hours catching up, swapping stories and basically having a good time. It was great to see them. After the visit Kendra and I found we still had over 4 hours to get back to the airport and ended up catching a movie, and grabbing a decent dinner. Just like that we were aboard another flight and landing in Beijing. To recap, that was, Wake up in Thailand, visit some friends and catch a movie in Singapore and then wake up in Beijing...a strange day to say the least.

L-R: Kendra, Me, Nigel holding Naveed, and Furee in Singapore

When we arrived in Beijing we noticed two things. One, we were tired! I felt like the walking dead. Between only 5 hours sleep before leaving Thailand and fitful naps on the plane there wasn't much rest in those 2 days. Two, oh Yah, it was cold! -8 C to be exact.

So much for fun in the sun, it was back to the northern hemisphere winter. This at least woke us up a little as we were basically sleep walking to get from the plane to a shuttle bus to a cab. Of course, we got a traditional Asian welcome into the country by the cab driver who obviously could see that we had just arrived and needed a place to stay and proceeded to rob us blind on the cab fare...yup, you just can't let your guard down for a second. In all it took around 2 hours to get from the airport into a warm cozy bed, and for the next 48 hours, yes thats right, forty-eight, we caught up on our sleep (we couldn't even blame jet lag, it was the same time as Singapore). A marathon of power naps, call it what you will, but it was with a feeling of slight guilt that we woke up on that third day to start exploring this most interesting world capital.

Not only is Beijing the capital of the worlds largest populations but it also boasts a cultural heritage unrivaled by all but a select few of the worlds major cities. There are several world heritage sites within the city as well as several within a days drive, there are temples, universities, galleries, theatres, palaces, and pretty much anything else you could imagine. Furthermore, one cannot forget to mention that the city is gripped in olympic fever or should I say, olympic marketing fever, with plenty of projects completed and underway that will make the city that much more impressive for the big event. We couldn't wait to get started.

That first day we started out with a map and a plan to explore. We came across a small market street, and were treated to an impromptu 1 hour lesson on the intracacies of Chinese tea drinking. Aferward, we must have still been a bit rusty on the whole bargaining thing as when we went to buy some of the tea we ended up paying the first price offered, oops. We walked out, realized what we did, and found ourselves laughing about how much we just spent on tea, oh well at least we were laughing. We continued walking and soon found ourselves in that most infamous of Beijing meeting places, Tian' anmen Square.

Tian' anmen Square caught the worlds attention during the 1989 anti-government protests that ended in massacre. In one day during the government crackdown it is estimated that over 180 people were killed. In total across Beijing and other Chinese cities the numbers of actual deaths and injuries varies on who you talk to. Peoples Republic of China (PRC) officials estimate 200-300, students and organizers of the protests say 2000-3000, whatever the number its easy to agree that it was a brutal affair. For us, however, 18 years later, the square was now a meeting place of tourists and those that prey on them. As we tried to enjoy the sights around the square we were bombarded with people selling strange paraphernalia and asking if they could practice english with us before trying to get us to buy a tour, visit an art gallery, or go to an acrobatic show. In the spirit of being spontaneous we ended up actually going to an acrobatic show that night. All in all Day 1 turned out to be a long day.

The main gate at Tiananmen Square

The next few days were a mixture of Sightseeing and Markets. In Beijing we visited the Temple of Heaven, a Taoist temple complex originally built in 1420. Here is the place that every year on the winter solstice the emperors of China would go to pray to Heaven for a good harvest. The centerpiece of this complex is the "Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest" a magnificent triple-gabled circular building, built on three levels of marble stone base recently renovated for the Beijing olympics.

Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest, Temple of Heaven

We visited the famous Forbidden City or Palace Museum as it is now called. Its extensive grounds cover 720,000 square meters. It is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world with 800 buildings and 8,886 rooms. Needless to say, we didn't see them all, although we tried after wondering around for nearly 6 hours.

We went to old market streets and a Beijing silk market which used to be a charming old street but is now a 6 storey building. Each floor jammed packed with vendors selling a lot more than just silk. When it came to shopping in Beijing, Kendra and I felt that we could open the gates just a "bit" and, seeing as we were about to head home, pick up some great souveniers that we might not otherwise have bought. This little "bit" became a big "BIT" after we found a couple of items that, for the price, just couldn't refuse. We bought, Chinese porcelin, Qing Dynasty Vases, carpets, and paintings, we bought so much that in the end we actually had no idea how we were going to get it home. We also realized that we had now properly busted the budget, as if the dive trip hadn't already.

Kendra with the owners of this antique shop just after getting a couple vases.

So that about wraps up our trip to Beijing...
...
just kidding...

Of course we went to the Great Wall! I saved this for last as it is definetly the highlight of our week in Beijing. Based on advice from fellow travellers and our own likes and dislikes, we got on a day trip to a section of the wall that is a lot farther from Beijing than the traditional spot and therefore less crowded and touristy. We were in for a treat, not only was there no crowds but our minibus was the only one there, meaning only 10 people in total. Because it is low season as well there was almost no vendors or shops ( I say "almost" because we were followed by people for a while when we got there trying to sell stuff but it wasn't bad at all). What this all translated to was a trip to a world famous site on a beautiful day, with basically just ourselves around to enjoy it...amazing. The section we went to is at a place called, Jinshanling. It took nearly 4 hours (should've been two but traffic there is brutal) to drive there but that section of the wall is original, no renovations, pure history. We walked along it for 10 km, through guard towers and over ridges to a place called Simitai. It was everything I had imagined and more. Check out the photos.

Thats Kendra standing on this secluded section of the wall.

So that was Beijing, and where are we now...

It's Dive O'clock !!!

2007-01-09T01:26:00.000-08:00

With heavy sea legs, Mike and I have just returned to land after an incredible 8 day/ 7 night liveaboard sail and dive trip. With Thailand weather, sails up, an old friend, and a mecca of diving in store for us, we knew that this last minute adventure would be one of the best highlights of our year away.

Our diving adventure began on Jan 2 with a tuk-tuk ride from Patong Beach to Chalong Bay Pier, where we saw Alex again (one of the instructor from Ko Tao and co-owner of the sail boat), gave him an enthusiastic hug and met the rest of our liveaboard gang... 3 couples from Swedan. You might not be impressed, but we found this somewhat surprising as we'd only met one other Swedish person on our entire trip and oddly enough the couples didn't know each other either. Suddenly, Mike and I were the minority as English speakers - the first time in a while; especially when we found out our dive instructor was also, you guessed it... Swedish!

A two hour mini-van ride took up us to the pier, where we laid eyes on our home for the next 8 days; The Sampai Jumpa. The wooden hull with 3 sails had a charming quality about her and we were happy to get aboard. Alex and his team: Fred (the underwater tour guide), Ee (the Captain), Lin (the chef) and Khai (the engineer) welcomed us aboard, introduced us to the 21 m, 5 cabin boat, and over a round of Tiger beer, described the hectic schedule we would succumb to for the next 7 days.

View of our ship, the Sampai Jumpa, from the ocean

An example of our Day:

* 6:30am - Wakie Wakie
* 7:00am - Dive #1
* 8:00am - Hot Breakfast
* 10:30am - Dive #2
* 12:00pm - Lunch
* 2:30pm - Dive #3
* 3:30pm - Snack
* 5:00pm - Dive #4 (this could be a sunset or night dive)
* 7:00pm - Dinner & Beer o'clock

Phew! So, to sum it up, it was pretty much: dive, eat, relax, dive, eat, relax, dive, eat, dive, eat, and relax. The dives were stellar (but more on that later), the food was exquisite - with the culinary tastes of traditional Thai and western dishes (I got off the boat almost 2 kilo's heavier), and the relaxing, well... sun and boat... need I say more? I was in heaven!

Ready to jump in - honestly is that what I look like in the mask? Where are my upper teeth?!

Mike is ready for our first night dive!

Before every dive, Alex (in this case) or Fred gave a briefing of the site and all the marine life that we could potentially see.

Relax time!

Relaxing as well - that's another one of the Similan Islands behind him (I think #2?)

As for the diving, well let me first draw you a picture of the Similan and Surin Islands. Located 100 km northwest of Phuket, in the Andaman Sea, the Similans is made up of 9 different islands. The sea floor is littered with enormous bolders and stunning coral reefs, creating a haven for marine life. One hundred km further north is the group of 5 islands that comprises the Surin. The islands have sandy beaches and lush with tropical vegetation. Because of the monsoon season, diving in this area is limited from Oct to April each year. The Similan's boast having one of the top 10 dive site's in the world: Richelieu Rock. The islands are also home to some of the sea's most fantastic creatures; including manta ray's and whale sharks. We were eager to jump in and explore this diving wonder.

View of Similan Island #8 from our boat.

With our own computer watches to monitor our stats while underwater (necessary for multiple day dives), on Jan 3 at 7:55am, our group decended for the first time into the Andaman Sea. The location was Anita's Bay; a nice leisurely dive to get everyone reaquainted with their equipment and bouyancy skills. Minutes after depleting our BCD's of air and plunging 27.7 m into the 24 Deg C water, we glanced up into the ocean blue and to our shock and amazement, witnessed a large manta ray passing by. Mike was going to point out a Trumpet fish to me, but when he turned around, the ray was right behind me. The 3 m ray maneaveured gracefully in the water and circled us once, enabling me to see it's soft white under belly before continuing it's search for food. Fred, our dive guide was stunned b/c in the 15 years he's dived the Siliman's he has never spotted or heard of anyone spotting a manta ray at this site before. So, dive one: check mark for the largest ray in the world!

Our manta ray. Friggin' awesome!

The dives continued at a lightning pace and we were introduced to many new species of marine life such as Octapus, Kuhl Stingrays in the sand, White Margin Unicorn Fish, Redtooth Trigger Fish; Longnosed Emperor Fish, Blue Starfish on the sea floor, etc. We started to practice Negative Entry dives (where you deplete your BCD and fix your face mask on board then jump into the water, with no surface stop and immediatley start to decend) necessary for strong currents and high waves. Unfortunatley I had to skip out on a couple of dives because I had a reverse block - where air gets trapped in your ear while submerged and then when you surface the pressure is greater, creating a very painful ear ache. Luckily after a dose of cold medicine to unblock my sinus cavities and ear drops, I was back in the water again without missing too much marine life; although my left ear is still plugged.

On our second day of diving, Fred had led us through a swim through created by rocks and Mike and I were the last ones to go through, content to stare at the box fish and my favourite: the Oriental Sweetlips. After we idlyically sauntered out of the swim thru, we noticed that everyone else was in a frenzy and racing towards something. By the time we reached the group 20m ahead of us, the fish that had gotten their attention had disapeared into the murky water. When we reached the surface, we found out that everyone except Mike and I had spotted sharks! White tipped reef sharks to be exact. Our instructor saw 6 while the majority of people saw 2 or 3. Mike and I were so dissapointed! Continuing to stress our dissapointment throughout dinner, Alex stated that the objective for the next day's dive was for Kendra (that's me) to TOUCH a shark. I laughed and said before I could touch one, I actually had to see one!

So, the next day (Jan 5) on our third dive, at Three Tree's site, after 10 minutes of diving around a sandy pinnicle, Fred pointed out a LEAPORD SHARK sleeping in the sand. It was the first time that Mike and I had seen a shark and we were ecstatic (plus it's much easiler on the nerves to see a shark when it's sleeping below you in the distance rather than prowling around you in the ocean). Slowly Fred drifted closer to the sleeping hunter and beckoned me to follow. I did and slowing we pivoted our way right beside the beast and then Fred indicated for me to touch the shark and without any hesitation, I DID!!! Its back was hard and sandpaper like. My touch wasn't gently enough though, because the shark woke up and slowly swam around the group, looking at us inquisitely before moving a few metres away. This was one of the best moments of the trip for me.

Oh, I wish this was a picture of me touching the shark, but we didn't have the camera with us on that dive. This is me descending after jumping from the boat (above in the picture). That's Mike's knee.

Another favourite diving moment was at a site called Koh Bon. Mike accuratley described the dive as "Manta Ray Theatre". Our diving group held onto a rocky ridge covered in coral and floated in the current waiting for Manta's to drift by and we were rewarded with multiple sightings! There was at least 3 different rays that curiously circled over us at least 10 times throughout the 50 min dive. The rays measured in 3 - 4 metres, not including their tail. Such an amazing thing to see these majestic creatures floating in the water around you. It was a very special moment to share our dive with them. An encore performance an hour and a half later resulted in another 4 sightings, plus a quick glimpse of a leopard shark swimming in the blue 15 meter away while we completed our safetly stop.

The marine life bonanza continued with giant eels, octupus, sea snakes, poisonous yet beautiful lion fish , camoflagued scorpian fish (yet again poisonous), Durban Dancing Shrimp, and even 2 very rare yellow Tigertailed SEA HORSES!. We also did a couple of wreck dives, which was really neat to see. All in all, the diving was everything that we had hoped for and more. The only thing missing was the elusive Whale Shark, which I personally think are a myth anyways :-)

Giant Moray Eel

Clown Fish

When we weren't in the sea, we became friends with the Swed's: Eva & Dag; Mathias & Per; and Karin & Mathias. Another diver joined us on our second day- Marg from Bathe, England, who was also lovely. Surprisingly, everyone was around the same age and we all got along really well (unless they were talking about us badly in Swedish and just pretending to be nice to us in English the whole week). Now we'll have to visit the Scandanavian country as we have so many places to stay! Unfortunately our friend Alex, had to leave the boat mid way through the trip. It was great to see him for a third time and I'm sure we'll see him again in a few years when we sign up for his new luxury dive boat trip!

Well that's 20 more dives for the ol' dive log book!

Sunkissed and feel like fishies!
Kendra & Mike

Flying into the New Year

2007-01-01T03:16:00.000-08:00

Welcome back to our blog!
Are you bored yet? Hope not because we're not quite done!
Kendra left a little cliffhanger on her last update regarding where and what our next destination will be. Well I can alleviate the suspense (I knew you could hardly wait) by telling you that Kendra and I are now back in Thailand for the 3rd time looking forward to some more fun in the sun. Damn you guys must be getting sick of hearing that on this website, sorry about that, well not really, we love it!

Kendra's last update had us as far as Dunedin and the Otago Pennisula in the South Island. We were originally unsure of what would happen after that as our rental was going to expire but luckily we were able to extend it until our flight on the 27th (for the original price) (not sure why I'm mentioning this). Now because we had been so efficient in touring the country we had already completed Kendra's South Island Itinerary (see my last update for info on "the" itinerary") ahead of the schedule and found ourselves with an almost 10 day gap in activities. So, naturally we headed back to Queenstown to meet up with Brian and Dale to muche (sp?) off them for as long as possible before they kicked us out. Actually as Kendra already mentioned Brian and Dale were absolutely awesome to us and suprisingly they welcomed us into their home for the second time (suckers...just kidding ;) ).

While we were at their place we kept ourselves busy (mostly watching movies, sleeping in late and watching movies, thanks Mike). Daggy took me off to a back road sheep/cattle station called "The Branches" one day (don't worry as far as I can tell the rumors about Kiwi's and sheep are still just rumors) and while he mustered cattle up the valley I was set loose for the day to explore the countryside. No trails, no signs, just fields, hillsides, rivers and lakes! Kendra stayed in town with Dale taking in the sights and sounds of the local town, Arrowtown. I also spent a couple hours at the local pub meeting rugby players and farmers alike, one of those visits got pretty inebriated, I mean, exciting, ending in a cab ride, late night snack and another sleep in. Kendra spent those times having reportedly several bottles of good white wine and keeping Dale up with conversation and laughs. Oh yeah and also keeping the boys up especially George playing all manner of board games until, I'm pretty sure, every game they owned had been played at least once.

Unfortunately After that week off travelling, we reluctantly had to hit the road again leaving the Daggs to have Christmas without us nosy Canadians around. At this point I have to say a huge THANK YOU to Brian, Dale, Michael and George for letting us stay and treating us like one of the family...it was awesome you guys...sob...(thats Kendra sobbing in the background).

We were on the road again. Two items remained on Kendra's Itinarary, Mt. Cook, and Christchurch. The first day we drove to Lake Pukaki making it just before sunset. Lake Pukaki offered spectacular views of Mt. Cook, New Zealands tallest mountain, and the sunset was phenomenal. We slept overlooking this lake in the visitors center parking lot (no we are not hobos) and were treated to a sunrise that was even better then the sunset the night before. That day we drove into the Mt. Cook village and did a short 4 hour hike up to Hookers Lake before getting back on the road and stopping for the night at another beautiful lake called, Lake Tekapo (pronounced take-a-poo, hehehe, poo....sorry its not funny I'm just imature). This is where we would spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, a fitting tribute to a year of travelling, a dinner of steak and potatoes and a breakfast of cereal. It was easier to forget that it was Christmas being that it is summer in New Zealand. However, we still found ourselves nostalgic about missing the Christmas festivities with everybody back home.

That day, Christmas day, we drove to Christchurch and stayed for the night at yet another body of water on the nearby Banks Pennisula. On the 26th we returned our car. I have to say, we definetly did not have the same attachement to this car as we did for the ABBA van and wasn't sorry to see it go, just sorry that our New Zealand adventure was over.

Christchurch is another beautiful New Zealand city, we explored it that afternoon although unfortunately we didn't get a chance to see much of it as we had to pack our bags and get ready for our depature the next day. I have to say that New Zealand is an amazing country as you may have noticed from our updates. I recommend that everybody visit this great country at least once in their life, beauty, friendliness and adventure await all who make the trip! (I know we're going back - 2011 Rugby World Cup...)

And where did I say we were, thats right Thailand. On the 27th we flew to Singapore, on the 28th, after a wonderful night sleeping on the floor and benches of the airport, we flew to Phuket. Just like that we were back in the middle of SE Asia, and why did we come? Why would be backtrack to a country we had already visited twice on this trip? The answer is two fold.

1) to postpone again as long as possible the inevitable trip home and the end of this amazing trip.
2) to get Kendra, who can't imagine going home without a tan, the chance to get one before the dark cold nights of the Albertan winter claim her.

I mean 3 fold.
...
wait for it...
...
3) to get on our BOAT, thats right, our 8 day/7 night liveaboard boat trip that will take us to the Similan and Surin Islands and some of the worlds best dive sights....more diving! Suprise!

Oh yeah, we are pumped about this one! We leave tomorrow the 2nd after 5 days enjoying the beach, sun, and a hell of a New Years party last night here in Phuket! Trust us, we are suprised as you are. It came together because one of the dive instructors we got to know back on Koh Tao is a partner of this liveaboard dive and sail company. He emailed us back in November and offered us a deal we couldn't refuse, so here we are! All I can say is check out the link and prepare to get jealous, sorry but its true. My god you must be sick of us by now.

So we're off on one of our last adventures. Kendra will let you know how it all went in about 8 days/7 nights. After that its Beijing, the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and then, well I can't believe it, Home.

Till Next Time,
Mike and Kendra

PS.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

The Energizer Bunnies

2006-12-17T18:09:00.000-08:00

Ever feel like you just keep going and going? Well, since hitting New Zealand, with only 7 weeks to see the entire country, Mike and I have had a very tight schedule (as Mike may have eluded to in the previous update). With all of the sight seeing, adventure seeking, driving on winding roads that take you twice as long as you expected, sheep gazing and rain drizzling almost every day, we’re pooped!

Let’s just say, by the time we reached Queenstown and were able to stay with Mike’s old rugby coach Daggy and his family, we were ready to have some R&R. But first, on with the show!

The south island is geographically quite different from the north, most noticeably the huge range of mountains to the west. And with any decent mountain range, you get… glaciers! After countless rainy days, the forecast was suddenly showing a window of sun so we booked our full day hike on Fox Glacier – apparently everyone had the same idea for we got the last 2 spots for the day. Before donning our hiking boots and crampons however, we woke up extra early in the morning to complete a 6km walk to capture the quintessential NZ picture: the reflection of Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman into the calm waters of Lake Matheson. This extra little morning activity may have been my undoing.

I think the word you're looking for is "wow". The picture was worth the early am wake up call.

We arrived at the tour guide’s office and were promptly fitted with hiking boots, well maybe fitted isn’t the best word as my right foot was swimming in my boot. Then we boarded the ancient, signature, maroon and black guide buses and quickly arrived at the glacier’s terminal. Our guide, Troy, was full of interesting tidbits about Fox Glacier. For example, all glaciers actually only advance, however sometimes the ice melts faster than the ice moves forward, creating an illusion of retreating. In the Fox’s case, the glacier is advancing 1 meter per day and melting 60-70 cm. Because of the movement of the glacier, we were not able to walk along side it. Instead we had to climb through forested hills with streams and precarious steep cliffs before putting on our crampons and touching the void. All the while, the glacier was speaking to us as it creaked, moaned and sometimes created a thunderous boom.

As the sun shone upon us, standing on 200m of ice was a very surreal experience. With deep crevasses to our right, seracs to our left, we made certain to follow exactly in our guides footsteps. As we hiked 7km up the glacier, the ice changed to a beautiful deep blue colour. The glacier got even more precarious and at times we would be rooted to our spot for minutes on end as Troy determined the safest route and make steps into the glacier for us. We got to climb a few short vertical walls and then – my favourite part – we were able to descend into an ice hole that had a slippery, narrow tunnel that we could navigate through. Definitely not for the claustrophobic! Finally after 5 hours of ice time, we removed our crampons and stepped off the glacier. What an amazing day, but the hike wasn’t over yet as we still had to make our way back to the end of the glacier. Not use to wearing heavy boots to hike in, plus already walking a good distance, coupled with the morning gaunt; my feet felt like lead and I could barely drag them, let alone maneuver them safely on slippery rocks and terrain. I really felt like my lower limbs were not even attached to my body and it took every ounce of energy to concentrate on my footing. Finally, after what seemed like hours, we arrived back at the bus which was a sight for sore eyes!

Descending into the ice tunnel. So cool!

One of the Moulin's we were able to explore in. Amazing colour!

The roof of the Moulin above.

We continued our journey through the Haast Region, which consists of scenic rainforest and wetland and saw many waterfalls. A quick stop in a small town called Wanaka, introduced us to the most succulent, scrumptious, luxury burgers that I have ever had the pleasure of touching to my mouth. Blue cheese with big grilled mushrooms, ohhh my mouth waters just thinking about them. Mike was so impressed that he actually “borrowed” the menu for future barbies at home!

Finally we arrived at Queenstown, the centre for activities, adventures and thrill seeking. Mike’s favourite place in NZ – home of the first AJ Hackett bungy jump, nestled in a valley surrounded by a mountain range called The Remarkables and situated on Lake Wakatipu. We spent the afternoon wondering around the tourist filled town and found ourselves climbing what we thought would be a quick hill to reach a summit overlooking the town and turned into an aggressive hour hike… in flip flops. Don’t worry, we took the gondola down!

Brian and Dale Daggs live just north of the city near Coronet Peak. Mike and I had been looking forward to visiting Daggy for months and couldn’t wait to see their dream home that Daggy had once outlined to Mike on a cocktail napkin. Their house is gorgeous! Made of wood and stone, the house overlooks the valley leading into QT. With the guest wing to ourselves and the warm hospitality of Dale and Daggy, Mike and I settled in for some much needed R&R.

The Dagg's home - don't worry we've stolen the floor plan for our own dream home.

However, this wasn’t in the immediate game plan. Let’s just say we had a really fun evening of reminiscing that turned into a not so fun 3 am excursion to the bathroom, for someone, who proceeded to “give back” a bottle of bourbon… everywhere. At 7 am I was cleaning up a mess, plus charging batteries for our camera, as through a very foggy head, I remembered Daggy booking Mike and I on a scenic flight from QT to Milford Sound for the morning.

Milford Sound is a deep 22km fiord, with rugged mountains rising from the ocean, 1700 m into the air. It is the most coveted tourist location in all of NZ. The 45 min scenic flight, in our 7-seater air craft had us flying over lakes and mountain tops before reaching the ocean and Milford Sound. With 6m of rain per annum in this region, we were fortunate to have a clear, sunny day. Our pilot had mentioned that in the past month they had only been able to fly out to the Sound 3 times. Mike and I were giddy as the plane landed and we boarded our cruise boat. For the next 2 hours we cruised around the fiord and took in the splendor of snow peaked mountains, cascading waterfalls, the stunning view of Mitre Peak, and observing fur seals basking in the sun. Back in the plane, we perused by more mountain sides and with a bit more turbulence, out of the corner of my eye I saw Mike reach frantically for the infamous paper white bag and go very pale (apparently the 3 am excursion wasn’t enough fun for him). Luckily, he was able to control himself – can you imagine what smell that would have created in the small plane? The trip was amazing and we couldn’t thank Daggy enough.

Aerial view of Mitre Peak; just in the distance is the ocean.

As we flew over a mountain top, this pool of glacier water was waitng to surprise us.

View from our Milford Sound cruise boat

That wasn’t the end of Daggy and Dale’s generosity. The next day, they booked us on a white-water rafting trip. Still feeling slightly queasy, we made our way to The Shotover River, where we got equipped with wet suit, wet suit jacket, rain jacket, life jacket (how many jackets is that!?!) and boarded a bus, where we promptly took off all the jackets as it was friggin’ hot! Our bus, towing rafts behind it, maneuvered its away along a road called Skipper’s Pass, a 120 year old road built by miners to access the river of gold after the civil engineers took one look at the hills, claimed it was impossible and bolted. I guess I’m desensitized to precarious cliff roads after Tibet and Asia, as most people on our bus were squirming with unease, I was pointing out things to Mike at the ravine’s deep bottom. I realized then that I’ve come a long way!

The white-water rafting was so much fun! We learned the basic paddling calls “paddle forward, back, hard, hold on, and duck!” and proceeded down the first 8 km of river with a few easy rapids to practice our techniques. Then our guide paused to ensure that our life jackets where cutting off our air supply… I mean securely fastened and then we entered the +V grade rapids. With names like “Threading the Needle” and “Flushing the Toilet”, I knew we were in for a kick ass ride. As water sprayed us, our raft bent nearly in half, a foot of water landed in the boat, we were out of the rushing, spinning, white water, back on our seats and waiting for the next set. The final test is passing though the Oxford Tunnel and the lead person, Mike in our case, sits on the front of the raft paddling while the rest of us duck in the bottom of the boat. At the end of the dark tunnel is the final rapid which drenched us, but everyone managed to stay in. Can’t say the same for the group of big German men behind us who flipped their raft!

NZ has quite a few “great walks” consisting of multi-day hikes through very gorgeous landscape. Although we weren’t equipped for overnight camping, we did do a day hike on the Routeburn Track and Kepler Track. Excellent 13 km hikes each. I’ve promised Mike that the next time we come to NZ, we will do the complete route on one of these great walks.

Mike and I hiking the first phase of the Kepler Track. Lake Manapouri is in the background.

One of the splendors of the first 6km of the Routebourn Track. We had to cross 2 swing bringes and walked along the Routebourn gorge for a portion of the route before entering a woodland area and valley to the first hut.

After a couple more days of vegging, Mike and I knew we had to get on the road again to see the rest of the southern island. We were so comfy and at home with the Daggs, we didn’t want to leave. Finally, we sighed, repacked the van and were off to drive the Scenic South Route, which includes the Catlins. A highlight was seeing the Southern most point of the South Island called Slope Point, where I proceeded to step in some very smelly sheep shit.

View of the southern most point of the south island. If your wondering what's south of the south island, it's Stewart Island - still a part of NZ.

We arrived in Dunedin, which has a very Victorian colonial feel to it, and spent a few days immersing ourselves in culture by visiting their museums and art galleries. We also immersed ourselves in some Speight’s beer as we did their brewery tour. Speight’s is one of the oldest brewing companies in NZ and it was great to bear witness to the history, challenges and success’s of the company, plus who’s kidding who, taste their product.

Bottom's up!

Just around the corner from Dunedin is Otago peninsula, which houses some unique marine life including the world’s only mainland albatross colony. In the evening, we saw many albatross’s (the largest flight bird in the world), floating in the sky. We also attempted to see yellow-eyed penguins, the rarest of the species, but by the time we walked down the sand dune and across the long beach to the viewing hide out, we found out that we were there at the wrong time of day, so instead we watched a group of sea lions playing. On the highest point of the peninsula is NZ’s only castle. Having never been to Europe, I was pumped to see my first castle. It was funded by William Larnach in 1871 to impress his noble French wife to the tune of 125,000 pounds (equal to $25 million today). The grounds are landscaped impeccably and the current owners of the estate have restored the once abandoned castle to its full glory. With period pieced furniture, each room was a delight to enter. Definitely a highlight for me! Now I want to get married in a castle – anyone know of any in Alberta?

Larnach's Castle

One of the friendly critter's on the peninsula. Don't worry, I didn't get to close, this is digitally zoomed.

Still going and going! From Dunedin, we made our way back to Queenstown, where we plan to spend another week with Dale and Daggy before making our way to Christchurch to leave NZ on Dec 27. What’s after NZ? Well you’ll just have to wait and see!

Happy holidays everyone. We wish you love and peace at this merry time.
Kendra & Mike (Hand)

Crossings

2006-11-29T16:03:00.000-08:00

OK, so I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, dumped cereal all over the car, took 10 minutes alone to find the keys, had to stand outside in the rain to repack the car from our day hike on the glacier yesterday (while Kendra cleaned up the cereal) and then realized that we were heading into town where I was meant to write a blog update. Ohhh the challenges of living and traveling in a van :).

Curbside dinner, living out of a van :)

Nuff of that. Hope everything back home is going well, hope you other travelers are enjoying yourselves and for everybody else, well let the sun shine in. We've heard that the weather has recently been hitting -30°C back home, -40°C wind chill...well, can't say I'm looking forward to that, but maybe it will make you feel better that we've hardly had a day where it hasn't rained on us here in New Zealand. OK, probably not feeling better. From Kendra's last update we've settled into our strange spaceship and toured more of the North Island.

After the Waitomo Cave adventure we drove ourselves to that center of action, Taupo. Taupo is situated next to Lake Taupo, a massive crater lake formed from a volcanic eruption around 26,500 years ago. The Lake and the entire area surrounding Taupo is still active with the most recent eruptions coming in 1996 from Mt. Ruapehu. This was the reason we came. Not of course for volcanic eruptions, even though that would be cool (and probably kill us), but for the volcanoes themselves. The area south of Taupo is a designated World Heritage Site called Tongariro National Park, with no less than 3 active volcanoes and a couple of hikes that are said to take your breath away (literally, the sulphur smells get pretty strong).

I had hoped ever since we knew we were coming to New Zealand that I would get a chance to do the Tongariro Crossing. This is a 17km one day hike that is said to be the best single day hike in all of NZ. The only problem, the same problem that I encountered the first time I came to NZ, is that the weather on the crossing can turn extremely bad in only a few seconds making the experience miserable and dangerous. The hike, therefore, is only recommended when the forecast looks good. Even then you are warned that it can turn to crap on you any minute. Great, so why did we want to do this ... let me tell you. The hike takes a person down through a temperate rain forest, past old lava flows, across blast craters, over sulphur lakes, past hot springs, and basically to scenary that is unique to only a few places in the world. Sounds pretty good eh? If that doesn't convince you, the area around the crossing was used in the Lord of the Rings as Mordor. Mt. Doom is in fact the youngest of the three active volcanoes in the park Mt. Ngauruhoe, of course with added special effects lava (thats right you can't do much in NZ without hearing at least something about THE movies).

As mentioned the weather is a crucial element to doing this hike and because of this we ended up spending a total of 4 days in the surrounding area in the hopes that the windy, rainy, weather would crack and we'd get a chance to do the hike. Our chance came on that fourth day and it was worth it. A definite highlight of the North Island.

Mt. Ngauruhoe otherwise known as Mt. Doom.

One of the highlights on the hike, the Emerald Lakes. It clouded over a bit here I took probably 15 photos of the lakes as they appeared out of the mist to finally get this shot.

Near the end of the hike a view of Lake Rotoaira and the outlying valley.

After the hike we immediately drove straight to the capital, Wellington, to make up some of the time we used up waiting for the hike. We spent a day exploring this picturesque city and on the 22nd of November we boarded our ferry and crossed the Cook Straight on our way to the South Island.

Previously on our trip in the North, Kendra had excitedly and meticulously, spent several hours working on an itinerary for the South Island. I wasn't allowed to comment as she read every page of the New Zealand guidebook until she came up with an action packed schedule that would not only maximize our time on the South Island but make it really hard to keep up with the blog update (thanks a lot Kendra...geez). Here we go.

Kendra's South Island Itinerary - Activity #1
OK, we got off the ferry in Picton and drove to our first destination, Nelson, the gateway to the Abel Tasman National park. After a couple nights camping next to the ocean (its a hard life) we headed into the national park for a full day sea kayaking trip. What a day it was. First thing in the morning we found that we would get a free upgrade to a better trip than the one we booked (Kendra might have said something to the guy behind the counter...wink)! I love free upgrades!! This new trip would take us to several offshore islands, a seal colony inside the national parks marine reserve, a couple of tidal lagoons, and across bays of turquoise water. Yes, in case your wondering, it was beautiful.

The Sea Kayaking attire modeled by yours truly.

Abel Tasman scenary.

White sand, clear water and a sunny day, what more could you ask for.

Kendra's South Island Itinerary - Activity #2
Next was a wine tour of the famous Marlborough region. We spent an afternoon sampling wines, tasting tastes, making small talk, and pretending to come up with impressive wine tasting comments such as "This one has a hint of strength, with just a breath of good finish.", or, "Ooo, a very quick but dry taste.", or as the day went on, "This one tastes like crap", "Can we just eat the garlic bread", "What was the name of your winery again?", "Where's that thingy I can spit this into?". Yes a very refined day. In fairness the wine was very good but in the end the only thing we ended up buying was some garlic olive oil and a very good nut dip called Dukka...riiiiiiight.

I'll have another Sauvignon Blanc please.

Kendra's South Island Itinerary - Activity #3
Go, go...after waking up with a slight headache and taking a short drive to a small town called Kaikoura (for those of you have been, wait for it...) we boarded a state of the art boat that was built for one purpose...thats right, whale watching. Kaikoura is famous for whale's and boasts a unique geological formation right off its coastline. There is a massive underwater gorge over 1 km deep that plays host to all types of marine life including...well pretty much any whale you've ever heard of, as well as seals, sharks, albatross, and several species of dolphins. Basically this place is teeming with wildlife. The star of the show here is the massive (3rd largest) Sperm Whale. On our 3 hour trip we saw 2 of these incredible creatures as well as a pod of over 100 Dusky Dolphins. Awesome.

Sperm whale taking a dive.

The playful dusky dolphins.

Still more (we're getting up to 8)

Kendra's South Island Itinerary - Activity #4
After the whales was a drive straight across the island with a stop at Hanmer (yes I spelt that correctly) Springs. There we spent the evening enjoying natural hot springs and relaxing. Ended up having to spend the night as the only gas station for a 100 km's conveniently closes at 6:00 pm every day...what?

Thats a photo for the brochure don't you think.

Kendra's South Island Itinerary - Activity #5
Bullers Gorge and mining country. A walk across New Zealands longest swinging bridge and an hours stroll through old gold mining country.

Kendra's South Island Itinerary - Activity #6
The Pancake Rocks. Unique limestone cliffs that look like pancakes stacked on each other. The cliffs are constantly being battered by the heavy waves from the Tasman sea which carve out chambers beneath the surface. At the top of some of these chambers are little holes which, if the waves are big enough, will actually spray water out all over tourists and their cameras (fun for the locals to watch I'm sure). We didn't get to spend as much time there as we would have liked as a heavy rain storm blew in and completely drenched us. In a way though it made the site that much more impressive.

The pancake rocks.

Kendra's South Island Itinerary - Activity #7
Hiking in Arthur's Pass. Unfortunately we didn't get to do any hiking as when we arrived, there was heavy rain which turned into heavy snow. This was a proper "dump" of snow, with those huge flakes that silently float to the ground (Kendra loved it just like anything that reminds her of winter...). Most of the hikes in the area require river crossings, and because of 2 days of these heavy rains/snow, most of the trails were closed due to high water levels. Thats OK, we were also there to swap our spaceship (our spaceship had a slight malfunction and they offered to swap us with a new one). This was a nice suprise as now we'd be able to watch movie's on our own portable DVD player at night! The transfer went went smoothly and we headed for activity #8.

Big fat snowflakes in Arthur's pass, a taste of home.

Kendra's South Island Itinerary - Activity #8
Shantytown, a heritage village built to show what life was like in the 1800's in the gold rush along the west coast of the South Island.

The 1877 working steam engine at Shantytown.

I've been asked politely to save both #9 and #10 for Kendra's update later, and so I shall (see the first paragraph...wink).

Once again we've done a lot and are apparently still going strong, New Zealand may be small but there is definetly plenty to do. Kendra's list moves us on.

Mike and Kendra

Orbita: The Next Frontier

2006-11-16T18:38:00.000-08:00

How could I ever compete with Mike's last entry?... not that it's a competition ... I guess the news that I'm pregnant would certainly help. Except that it would be an utter lie (Mom(s), it was a joke, please don't call an emergency family meeting)! The engagement euphoria lingered for some time, but eventually we realized that we were still on our whirlwind adventure and wedding planning could wait until we got home (by the way, does anyone know of a beautiful outdoor wedding setting for say next June, not that I'm planning or anything:-).

A delay in Sydney, attributed to a fight with a pole in a parking lot that ripped off the ABBA van's driver side mirror, resulting in an unexpected visit to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney as we waited for a new part. The mountains were picturesque, with a blue haze surrounding the area due to evaporating eucalyptic oils. After a relaxing, and cost-free weekend, we returned to my favourite city in the world and the scene of the crime, aka the Opera House for a scrumptious breakfast overlooking the harbour with our good friends Karl and Petra. This would be the last time we would see the Austrian couple on this journey, which resulted in heart-felt goodbyes.

Engagement photo!

After a week's stay in Sydney, we were on our way back up the coast to spend the remainder of our time surfing in Byron Bay. We settled for a week in a campervan situated right off the main beach. It was heaven with only a 2 min walk to the sand and surf. I took a second lesson to learn how to paddle, read the waves, and get up without a "push". After some serious nose dives into the white water, I mastered the surf... on my 9 foot board that is. Mike and I rented boards for the rest of the week - I was upgraded to a 8 foot, semi-hard board, while Mike had the 7'10" hard fin board. With the assistance of Mr. Andy Wu (a good friend from uni days who was visiting Australia and a decent surfer), Mike ventured out into the bigger waves while I still trained on the rushing white water. The ocean was a cool 25 Deg C, so for the first couple of chilly, rainy days, our sessions were only for an hour before we were purple and shivering. At one point, I had to feel my toes with my hands because I was certain they weren't there any more. But did we pay the extra $5/day for a wetsuit, heck no! We're intrepid travelers, we hiked Mt. Kailash, so we could definatley handle the cold. Actually, the next day the weather improved dramatically and was blue skies and hot sun for the rest of the time. Sessions became twice a day with beach time inbetween. Mike and I improved quite a bit and know that future trips will now have to involve diving and surfing.

Mike and I on the beach at "The Wreck". Just our rashies, boards and the ocean.

Suddenly, it was November 8. We said goodbye to Byron Bay and then drove up the Gold Coast, with a quick stop in Surfer's Paradise, before returning to Brisbane for a fourth and final time. Debbie and Dom once again where the essence of hospitality and with champagne filled flutes, Mike's Uncle Ron offered us a toast on our engagement and welcomed me to the family. The next morning, we dropped off the ABBA van and as we walked away from Wicked Rentals, it felt like we were in mourning. The van had been our home for over 2.5 months. We had traveled 17,077 km with her and had learned every ABBA song (just ask Andy!). We had seen the center, the north, and all of the eastern coast of Australia and the van never failed us. Australia was an amazing country and a wonderful journey into the heart of indigenous people, a walk into their national parks, a sail through their reef and a beginning to a marriage. Australia will forever be in our heart and memories.

On Novemeber 10, after a 3 hour delay due to mechanical problems, our plane touched down in our 10th country of our trip, New Zealand. It was 4am and as the pilot welcomed us to the Northern Island and a city called Hamiliton, he stated the weather outside was a balmy 7 Deg. C and I commented "Mike, I don't think we're in Oz any more". We staggered into our dorm room at a cozy little house called J's Backpackers and slept for the next 10 hrs. The next day we took a bus to Auckland and settled into another hostel as we tried to organize our 6 week stint in New Zealand. We quickly realized that we missed the luxury of our own mode of transportation and looked into campervans. Unfortunatley Wicked had no rental vans available. Instead we found an outfit called "Spaceship" that had orange coloured vans that were "out of this world". ENTER ORBITA. This montrosity would be our home for the next 40 days. With a dvd player, 2 gas burner stove that swiveled out of the van, an extendable back with awning for more room, the van had potential. It wasn't ABBA, but the price was right. With transportation and accomodation arranged, we were finally able to relax and enjoy the wonder of New Zealand.

Our new home... Orbita

Mike loves NZ and no wonder, 1 day after stepping off the plane he got to see his first Rugby game in 10 months!

First of all, NZ is like no other country I have ever seen. The north island is covered in lucious green rolling hills, dotted with sheep. There are remenents of volcanos everywhere. The scenery is absolutely breath taking. Although the country is much smaller than Oz, the roads are narrow and winding, making for longer drives than excepted. Not to mention that we're stopping all the time for pictures!

One of the many view points of rolling hills on the North Island.

After touring the city of Auckland for a few days, we started to make our way south. We visited Coromandel Penisula and attempted to dig a spa at Hot Water Beach, but to no avail. Next up was a cultural trip to Rotorua, where we participated in a traditional Hangi meal and Maori concert. Although quite commercialized, it was a real treat. In accord with the Maori people tradition, a "chief" was chosen from our group and then was approached by a maori member who was dressed in tribal wear with wooden weapons, war paint and a tounge flicking, eye rolling expression. In order to be allowed access to their village, our chief had to respond appropriately, or our "tribe" would have been attacked and destroyed (if it was 100 years ago). Of course everything went smoothly and we entered the village and learned about how their skirts were made from blades of grass, stick games were played to strengthen eye-hand coordination, and weapons were used in battle. There was an hour long concert performance where the Haka was done (a challenge to opposing sides performed prior to a battle), and a love story was sang about Hinemoa and Tutanekai. Then there was the Hangi (meal cooked in the ground). An amazing feast of food. For $92 per entry, I wanted to make sure I got my food worth, so I filled my plate full with potatos, carrots, fish, chicken, lamb, buns, salad and then had dessert. A meal that would normally equal 3 days worth of suppers, I was stuffed for the entire next day, but completely satisfied.

View of the city line of Auckland.

Mike testing the supposedly hot spa like water at "hot water Beach". It wasn't!

The Maori warrior challenge at the start of our cultural visit.

The Hangi Feast.

In Roturua, the next morning was spent observing the thermal activity of the region. The sulphur smell was a little overwhelming, but the view of the bubbling mud baths, steaming rocks and spewing Pohutu geyser - an active geyser that erupts 10 times a day up to 20 m high of steaming water, was worth the rotten egg oder. We were fortunate enough to see another Maori concert before leaving Roturua.

On our way to Waitomo Caves for some "Extreme Junky" activities, we came across a bus with a sign saying "Hobbiton" on it. Intruiged we decided to follow it to a town called Matamata. At the visitors center we learned that 10 km away was the only remaining set from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. When in Rome... right? We signed up for the tour that took us to the 1200 acre sheep farm of the Alexander family where Peter Jackson directed the first 20 minutes of the film. As the set was being demolished, heavy rains prevented the complete destruction and after a 2 year battle, the family won the rights to show the remaining set to tourists. Of the 40 hobbit holes built into the green hills, 16 remained, including the home of Bilbo Baggins. Enough of the set remains coupled with pictures of the film, to give you an incredible idea of what the complete set looked like at the time of filming. The anecdotes from our tour guide also made the tour fun. Not to mention that Mike and I were the only ones on the last tour of the day, so it felt like a private tour for us.

View looking out of Biblo's home onto the Party Tree.

Now on to the extreme, Kiwi tried and true, adventure. Waitomo caves are an impressive underground water system that is known for their glow worms; or the larvae of the gungus gnat. In the dark caverns, the glow from the luminescent bugs looks like a canopy of stars. Our day adventure started with abseiling 30 m down the shaft of the cavern, into a undergroud river. Except for the guide having to push me off the cliff - seriously, who wants to leave the firm footing ground to have 30 m into the abyss supported only by a harness and ropes that may or may not slip - the decent was successful. Then our group of 6 people waded into the cool, strong current river, hopped into our tubes and raced down the river. This activity is also known as black water rafting. Very cool. We entered a large chamber, turned off our headlamps and were silenced with the beauty of the glow worms. After some more tubing, then some cave exploration, our 5 hour adventure ended with rock climbing up a steep, wet cliff to return us from our subterrainian haven. It was my first time rock climbing and with a very insulated wetsuit, I think it went really well. Not very graceful, but I got up. Mike of course was stellar!

Me dangling into nothingness, before abseiling down into the cavern.

View from the bottom of the cave.

Mike and I caving at Waitoma Caves.

So in a country where rugby is life, where places are named "Whakatane" and pronouced "Fuk-a-tan-e", where bungy jumping, abseiling, and zorbing are a mantra of sorts, where Middle Earth is not just a nickname but a ideology, Mike and I will journey on and discover the Kiwi life.

Kia ora,

Kendra & Mike

Boats, Island, and Surf

2006-10-26T05:38:00.000-07:00

What a ride! Its been 10 days since we left on our sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands, we've done loads of things in that time so I'd better get started.

THE WHITSUNDAYS WERE AWESOME!!

I've wanted to do this trip since the moment we booked our flight to Australia, actually since the first time I heard about it 6 years ago. You can imagine we were all pretty excited when we arrived in Airlie Beach for our 3 day, 3 night adventure. Once there, Nicole, Kendra and I were joined by our old travel buddies Karl and Petra, and we all headed to meet our crew and see our boat, the Anaconda III.

What a boat! A mega yacht over 100 ft, one of the biggest ones we saw on the trip. This is an important point as for some strange reason we had trouble finding the damn thing in the marina. Anyway, once we were on board, the crew quickly showed us our triple share cabin at the front of the boat and gave us a celebratory glass of champagne. We were introduced to the crew and our fellow passengers by Pablo, the first mate, who happens to be Irish...go figure. Our fellow passengers numbered 29 with not a single other Canadian but plenty of Germans, "Guten Tag".

We boarded the boat just after sunset and immediately made our way out to the Whitsundays. The Whitsundays, as part of the Great Barrier Reef, are a group of 74 islands surrounded by beautiful beaches and coral reefs. We were scheduled to visit some of these islands and beaches and then head out to the outer reef for some diving and snorkeling. Only a few boats are legally allowed to make it out to the reef which is one of the reasons we picked Anaconda III.

Karl, Petra, Kendra, Me and Nicole on the Anaconda III.

Kendra and I basking in the sun on deck.

A view of the islands from the boat, not bad at all.

The forward cabins on the boat. We were the one at the end on the left.

That first night was a bit tough, the seas were a little rough and it became dark soon after we left the marina. Neither of these things helped with sea sickness as several people found themselves hugging toilets, or hanging over the deck. Luckily Kendra, Nicole and I avoided any intimate porcelin adventures and were able to enjoy our first time out on the sea. I'm not sure why but the crew didn't pull out the sails that night (probably to help the seasickness victims), so unfortunately we went to our first stop under engine power. We anchored for the night in a sheltered bay after the 2 hour ride from Airlie, you could hear several sighs of relief once the boat was stopped.

Early on the next day we discovered that despite what we had signed up for back on land, our itinary would be determined based on the Captains interpretation of weather forecasts, tide reports, years of experience on the open ocean, his parrot "mini-me" and the aching in his wooden leg. OK, he didn't have a wooden leg but besides that and the lack of an eye patch this guy looked the part of a sea captain. Not sure how someone so obviously meant for hard work at sea ended up working on a tourist boat, but he was a great guy with lots of stories as would be expected from an old sea hand (maybe thats why he got the job).

Our first stop was Whitehaven Beach. An amazing white sand beach with crystal clear waters. While we were there everybody who had never tried SCUBA before was offered a free introductory SCUBA dive in shallow water. Nicole decided that it was an offer she couldn't refuse and took the plunge along with Karl. She did well, especially considering that not only was this the first time that she had tried SCUBA but also the first time she had been in the ocean...impressive. Good on ya Nicole! Meanwhile Kendra and I lost a sand castle competition and wouldn't get 2 free beers that night...crap. Karl said we should have won but then he said something in German to Petra that made her laugh...a little suspicious I would say.

Whitehaven Beach from the boat.

After the beach and a great lunch by the on board chef, Michelle, we finally got underway with the sails. Karl and I helped pull up the main sail with calls of 2, 6, heave from the first mate. It felt great to be working on a sail boat and it wasn't long before we were running to starboard to check out the dolphins, sunbathing on the bow, drinking in the stern, and diving from the tender...just like real sailors! I have to admit though that the captain never did turn the engine off and have us strictly under wind power, not sure why, I was going to ask him but he glared at me with his glass eye so I went back to watching the dolphins. Anyway, it was a bit disapointing.

Raising the Sail!

The Sail we raised!

On that note, I might as well get the disapointing stuff out of the way all in one go. First, Kendra wasn't allowed to dive as she fearlessly admitted that she had a minor asthma problem which checked out in Thailand but didn't check out on the boat. We were both pretty upset as we obviously were looking forward to diving together again. I would be diving without my dive buddy! Second, despite a valiant 1 hour attempt at getting to the outer reef, our captain turned us around back to the islands due to poor conditions. Major bummer! Nobody would get to see the reef on this trip! Of course us land lovers had to respect the captains decision as, after Karl tried to take over the helm, they cut off his right middle finger and fed it to the sharks...terrible. The attempt was pretty exciting though as we were out in 2.3m (thats what Pablo said) swells, a great ride.

OK, so we didn't get out to the reef, instead we spent more time on the islands. We spent an afternoon at Luncheon Bay where everybody got to snorkel and dive. Nicole, Kendra, and Petra, never missed an opportunity to snorkel, and Karl and I never missed an opportunity to dive. The sea life was amazing. Compared to Thailand the coral itself was way more colorful, bright blues, yellows, greens, purple, pink, and every other colour you could imagine. The fish were equally beautiful, Kendra and I were both impressed. We were also impressed with Nicole who took to the ocean like another fish, she spent as much time as she could snorkeling around the corals showing not the slightest discomfort in being surrounded by fish, corals, deadly sharks, jellyfish, stingrays, and fearsome turtles (OK, just fish and corals, there was a stingray though).

So despite a few disapointments, oh, and the Bed Bugs (thats a whole other story) the sailing trip lived up to expectations. I am now in total love with the ocean and sail boats.

OK, OK, I can't hold back any longer, speaking of LOVE, on Thursday after a beautiful time at the Sydney Opera House (I'll get into that later), I asked Kendra to marry me and she said "YES!". Thats right, we are engaged! and both very excited. I found it next to impossible to get a ring without Kendra knowing about it, so I proposed without one and we went to look for one in downtown Sydney right after she said yes. It worked out great and we've picked out a ring that Kendra and I both love...OK, have a look.

Wow, don't stop reading yet, I have to get back to our story. As I said, the Whitsundays was amazing but when we got off the boat on the 20th there was no time to rest, the three of us had 5 days to drive 2000km, take some surfing lessons, and check out the famous Sydney Harbour. So we got in the ABBA van and headed south. We made it to Brisbane where we had enough time for Nicole to spend some time with an old Australian friend she was roomates with in Calgary, and for Kendra and I to have another great visit with Debbie, Dom, Ron, and Donna, our Australian home away from home.

Our next stop was Byron Bay, famous for its surfing and laid back atmosphere. Byron welcomed us with a perfect day for the surf. Kendra and Nicole signed up for their very first lesson and I rented a board to join them in the ocean. What a morning we had. I forgot how fun surfing was, even though I was falling left right and center I couldn't get enough. As for Nicole and Kendra, well check out the photos.

A picture is worth a thousand words!

A great shot of Nicole enjoying the ride. Don't worry she was up and surfing on many occasions, this picture just seemed to capture the moment.

Heading out to the surf.

A short break before another session.

Too bad we didn't get the photo when Kendra faked getting hurt so she could flirt with the instructor, feeling a little guilty now aren't ya Kendra (just kidding... of course I know she'll always be a flirt...haha...kidding again...oh, when does it stop).

After surfing we found that Byron wasn't completely done with us yet. We went out to the lighthouse viewpoint over Cape Byron and the most easterly point on the Australian mainland. The views were amazing, and much to our suprise we spotted two Humpback whales heading south in their yearly migration (confirmed by a local watching alongside us), beautiful.

The Cape Byron lighthouse.

And finally we made it to Sydney where more great things were to happen. With Nicole we spent a day exploring Sydney Harbour and Manly Beach. We took a guided tour of the Opera House (we tried but failed to get tickets to the current Opera), walked through the botanical gardens and explored downtown and Darling Harbour before taking in a movie and heading back to the hostel. And just like that after a 16 day whirlwind tour of Australia, on Thursday morning we had to say goodbye to Nicole. We had a great time with her and couldn't have been happier that she joined us for her vacation. (Oh and thanks for the boats...wink).

Do I have to explain this one?

Warning: For those of you who can't stand cheesy love stuff you should skip the next paragraph. For those of you who don't mind a bit of cheesy love stuff here's how it went.

Once again Kendra and I were alone. Luckily we had managed to get tickets to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra matinee show of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony at the Opera House. We couldn't have been happier as we strolled up the steps with our tickets, elegantly dressed in cargo pants (Me) and flip flops (Kendra) ( in fairness she wore her nice dress), and took our seats directly behind the french horns (the only seats left were behind the orchestra). We spent 2 hours mesmerized by the beautiful sounds and setting of the Opera House. When the performance was over we stepped outside where I worked up the courage to ask her to marry me. Most of you probably aren't very suprised, but somehow in the moment Kendra was (she new I didn't have a ring yet). It was great to watch the question register on her face before she could say yes...what a moment. Afterwards we picked out a ring together and went out for a great dinner forgeting, for a while, that we were supposed to be travelling on a budget.

Our view from our seats at the Symphony.

And now its Friday, and while we're still a little high on the moment we're back to travelling again. We've booked our flight to New Zealand and have two weeks to go back up the coast and get in some surfing. See you next time.

Mike and Kendra (Hand)

Here and back again - A tale by Kendra

2006-10-16T20:05:00.000-07:00

After a final, harrowing, two-day driving frenzy from Mt. Isa, the landscape dramatically changed from barren, arid, tumble weed blow outback to lush fields with dairy cows, windmills, and sloping hills. Green! We reached the coast with eagerness. Cairns was a treat. A quaint beach town resort with a beautiful esplanade, a marina for Mike to drool over the sail boats, pubs and a great energy. We treated ourselves to a movie (The Devil Wear's Prada - Mike begged me to see it!) and the next day we were treated to the final game of AFL (Aussie Football League). We spent the afternoon in an Irish pub cheering on the underdogs, who won by one point.

Nothing better than a pint, a big burger and a game of footie to watch! (Okay maybe a beach...)

Next stop was a mini trip up the coast to a rain forest World Heritage Site called Daintree National Park. I swear Australia has the most NP's in the world and Mike and I have seen them all! Not quite, but we've seen a lot of parks! After a small ferry ride, we arrived at Cape Tribulation and went to a Discovery Centre to walk along canopy trails and learn about the flora of the rainforest. The entrance fee was a whopping $25 each, so we tried to maximize our stay and read every piece of info on the bugs, animals and plants cohabiting in the park. We were also on the lookout for a bird called the Cassowary - the third largest bird in the world, endemic to the northern coast of Oz. However, after 3 hours the Cassowary had eluded us so with grumbling tummy we succumbed to our defeat and left the centre for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. After we headed to a boardwalk with an outlook of a beautiful beach. Prior to the boardwalk, an urgent call of our own nature drove us to the loo, when all of a sudden, blocking our path was the weirdest looking creature I have ever seen. Part bird, part wooly mammoth, this 2 meter monstrosity stared boldly at us before deeming us harmless, walked slowly by while Mike frantically tried to get a picture of it. We had met the infamous cassowary! A definate highlight of the Daintree day.

The Cassowary.

Some of the flora we saw at the Daintree NP. This is a fan palm only found in this region.

Slowly, for the next week, we made our way down the eastern coast, trying to catch some beach action. The ABBA van was still holding strong and our routine was perfected. The evening life was a little lackluster, but games of cribbage filled the hours accompanied by frequent shouts of frustration as Mike lost another game. We still attemped to stay in free rest areas, which meant using free showers (i.e. COLD showers), whenever possible. About every 5th day I would break and want a camp ground with hot showers. A couple of times Mike and I risked the tap on our window in the middle of the night by the police and would park on the side of the coast or at Noosa Beach, beside an abandoned store.

Highlights of this week included sun baking on Mission Beach, Bundaburg Rum Distillary Tour (did you know Alberta is one of the 4 places that Bundy rum is exported to), doing 9 holes of golf at Bundaburg Golf & Country Club (scores: 68 K, 60 M.... I think we're improving!), eating Barra & Chip, and stopping in Airlie Beach to book our Fraser Island tour and Whitsunday liveaboard trips. A low light included an impromtu hair cut from a woman driving a purple bus with a sign in her window reading Call Roz for a haircut, Only $10. After blowing off a salon appointment to finish watching the AFL game (can't you just hear Mike saying "That's my girl"), my hair was in dire need of a trim. Thinking that Roz's Barney coloured van was a sign, I approached with glee. Once she sat me down in her camp chair, told me I had the finest hair she ever cut, further mentioned that she was a truck driver, and then continued to cut my hair as a wild wind blew around us, I knew I was in trouble. I wouldn't call it exactly butchered... well yes I would. Guess that's what you get for $10.

After the Bundy Tour is over, we got complementary free drinks at their bar.

Watch out for this bus, and definately do not "Ring Roz"!

On October 9, after 5 weeks, 11,850 km, over $2200 in gas, and 27 rest stops, we returned to Brisbane. Debbie once again welcomed us with open arms and we were further greated by her parents, Mike's Uncle Ron and Aunt Donna who were visiting from Calgary. Another Hand clan member was due the next day. Mike's sister, Nicole had decided to join us in Australia for a 2 week vacation. We were pumped and had planned an intense itinerary.

Sibling love. Great to have you here Nicole!

Upon Nicole's arrival to Brisbane, we spent an evening visiting with the family, slept in our first Aussie hostel and were off the next day to Steve Irwin's Australia zoo just north of Brisvegas. The zoo is incredible with excellent habitats for the animals. We got to pet koalas and actually saw some running around on the ground and jumping trees. We watched in awe as trainers held food and waited without fear as crocs charged them. We walked around roos in an open park area and even saw some beautiful siberian tigers (with trainers again in their habitat "playing" with them). Surprisingly, Mike and I had realized that we have seen the majority of the animals living at the zoo, in the wild on our trip. The memorial to Steve, the Crocidile Hunter, was heart breaking.

Crikey! Croc live at the Aussie Zoo

Mike getting friendly with the Koala's. Step away from the marsupial Mike.

The second item on Mini Travel Itinary for Nicole was a 3 day, 2 night safari self-drive adventure to Fraser Island. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world and boasts crystal clear fresh water lakes, gorgeous white sand beaches, and a lovely ocean surf. With places like "Champagne Pools" and "Wabby Sand Dunes", you know it's going to be great. Our group consisted of 11 people, mostly Canuks, English and one Frenchie. Our 4 wheel drive jeep was a beast of a machine, with a heavy top and touchy cluch and gears. There were 2 benches in the back where the majority of the group received the frequent bruises from the bumps in the roads. The roads on the island were definatley interesting; sandy one laned bitches that took all the driver's strength and constant awareness to navigate. We narrowly escaped the jeep tipping over, got bogged twice and one time all the guys had to push the jeep up a steep, sandy hill. Fun times! I won't mention that both times we bogged, Mike was driving - oh I guess I just did - but in all fairness, he was the man and it was the toughest part of the tracks and everyone trusted him to drive. Once we got out of the interior, we were free to drive up and down the beach coast which was a total blast. Basic road rules applied, with the only difference being we had to yield to planes landing. No kidding! We camped for 2 nights on the beach. So much fun the first night drinking 2 boxes (yes boxes) of wine, 3 flats of beer and 2 bottles of rum - yes the Greese tunes came out, plus a little limbo action, and a round of Waltzing Matilda. We peed in the ocean (don't tell the ranger!) and Mike introduced everyone to Bio Luminescence. During the day, we visited sand dunes, beautiful lakes, look out points and avoided dingos. All in all a gorgeous island. The only crappy part was the tides were out only during the early morning, so every day we were up and at 'em by 5am. Our group was so much fun and lively. Everyone pitched in with chores and no one grumbled about the early hour of rising. We were sad to board the ferry on the third day to return to the mainland. On a last humourous note, 2 girls on the trip confided to me that they called Mike the "Father Figure" because he drove the jeep, cooked the meat and could fix the cameras. Who knew?!

The "A" team's 4x4 jeep

The "A" Team: Ollie, Mike, Chris, Pat, Jess, Mo, Nicole, Me!, Kathy, William & Sam in front.

Our first stop on Fraser Island - Mackenzie Lake.

Chris, Mike, Sam and Pat strutting their stuff before jumping down the sand dune at Wabby Lake

View from Indian Head lookout. Priceless.

Birthday sparklers for Sam!

Tonight is phase three of Nicole's itinary. We are finally boarding a boat for our Whitsundays sailing tour. It's going to be a blast - I can't wait. Althought hopefully the cloudy, windy, rainy weather will dissapear NOW! And a good piece of news... we are keeping the ABBA van for the rest of the time we are in OZ!!! We got a wicked deal and in a funny way it is home now, so we are really happy.

Fair Dinkem!

Kendra & Mike

The Northern Territory

2006-09-20T23:51:00.000-07:00

Well we can say it now. We've been to the center of Australia and survived. We survived the heat, the flies, the bugs, the swooping sandwich snatching falcons, the road trains, the strange gas stations, the National Parks, the tourist buses, and suicidal kangaroos. Its an amazing place with long drives that usually end in spectacular sights, or at the very least a free camping spot.

Music Please: Dancing Queen, Young and Sweet....

After Alice Springs, we headed deeper into the outback to see that Australian icon, Ayres Rock, or, as the Aboriginal's call it, Uluru. However, Uluru is not the only thing to be seen in middle-of-nowhere Australia. Before we got to "The Rock" there were a couple of stops along the way. First, was Watarrka National park where we did the Rim Trail around Kings Canyon. Second, was a hike around The Olgas or Kata Tjuta as its known to Aboriginals. Third, it was finally time to see the "Big Rock", Uluru, and another memorable hike. That was 3 hikes in 3 days, a welcome change to the 4000+ kilometers of driving up to then.

It must be said that these Aussies have everything covered when you go for a hike in the desert. There was drinking water provided along the way despite several warnings that you should take plenty of water with you. There were emergency radio stations sticking up out of the rocks in case something goes wrong. There were handy little arrows, bridges, stairs, and other things to make the hike as simple and enjoyable as possible. This may sound like overdoing it, but after walking for a little less than an hour in that heat, we understood the precautions...things could get real ugly in no time if a person wasn't prepared. Anyway, check out some of the photos.

We got up at 5am to catch this shot. Actually, I got up, Kendra kept sleeping in the back with a, "Yah I see it", in between very long blinks.

A classic shot.

This rock is HUGE. We did the 10km base walk around Uluru, the trees in front are a on average about 5m high.

Our next stop was a new addition to the trip. We decided that we had the time and motivation to head up to "The Top End", Darwin, and visit a couple of national parks, including the famous Kakadu National Park. As an added motivation we were able to hook up with another of our long lost Tibet pals, Karl and Petra. Its crazy that 4 months after meeting them in Dali, China we would meet them again strolling down the streets of Darwin. Not to be too cliche, but it truly is a small world and it was just like old times, as it seemed like yesterday we were in Bampa's truck bouncing around Tibet. Great to see you guys!

Once we left Darwin we were able to spend 2.5 days exploring Kakadu. What a place! At first glance it didn't seem like much, but take a couple of walks and/or boat rides and you discover why the place is so famous. Once again, check out the photos.

This was posted at our campsite for the night...being careful where one walks at night takes on a whole new meaning!

One of the many croc's that we saw on the Yellow Water boat tour.

On another note, one could say that Uluru is a just a "big rock" in the middle of nowhere, and Kakadu is just a "large river system", but as we discovered, they are much more than that. Not only are they great places to visit but they are also sacred Aboriginal sites. The Aboriginal people have lived in these areas for well over 20,000 years (some say 60,000) isolated from the rest of the world longer than any other group of people in human history. Their languange, social structure, stories and knowledge all comes from the nature around them. Because of this they've developed intimate knowledge of their world and consider many parts of them to be sacred.

Two of the national parks that we visited, Uluru and Kakadu, are actually legally owned by the Aboriginal people that originally lived in those areas. This was not always so. Most land, as in North America, was taken from the aboriginals who had to fight their claim of ownership, eventually gaining their land back around the 1980's. In the case of these two parks, they were already famous icons in Australia at the time. The aboriginals agreed to lease the land back to the government as national parks on the conditions that their people be allowed to live there, and that the park would be run based on their culture and traditions (I'm sure there were several other conditions, but we don't know about them). Ever since then they greet thousands of visitors into their lives each year, simply asking that visitors respect their sacred places. This may mean in certain places no photography allowed, or not doing the climb at Uluru (although this free climb still goes on due to its long established tourist draw, something Kendra and I did not do). Their influence in these parks is unforgetable as each one has fantastic cultural centers with free guided walks and talks dedicated to explaining many parts of aboriginal life. An eye opening experience.

Today was a unique day as we picked up a great half day underground mining tour in Mt. Isa, Queensland. We got fully dressed up and went undergruond with Steve, a former miner for over 35 years. Steve came complete with an intimate knowledge of underground mining, a booming voice, a missing finger and plenty of first hand stories. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos, although considering we were underground they probably wouldn't have been that spectacular. Instead it would have been better to record the sounds and smells of the place rather than the sights. Its incredible what most miners deal with on a daily basis.

Cultural centers, mine tours, we're proper tourists now aren't we.

So after several thousand kilometers we are now back in Queensland heading North to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. Looking forward to seeing the ocean as well as something other than long straight roads for a change.

Talk to you soon,
Mike and Kendra

Mamma Mia

2006-09-12T03:19:00.000-07:00

G'day Mates!

After 7 months of Asian backpacking, we have finally arrived to Austrailia!!! We touched down in Brisbane, Queensland on Sept 1 and were fortunate enough to stay with family (Mike's cousin Debbie & family). Free accomodation, an accessible fridge with endless supplies of beer, wine and cheese (it's amazing how it was always full :-), drinking water from a tap, a shower and toilet just a few steps away from our room; it's no surprise that we ended up staying for a week!!!! All joking aside, it was a blessing for Debbie, Dominic, Meghan and Erin to open their arms, hearts and doors to us; it was a royal welcome to Austrailia. Deb, how you orchastrated the fireworks and fighter jets to fly over your house for us will always be a wonder... okay it was actually the start of the annual River Fire Festival, but it was still special!

Debbie, Mike & I at a great lookout point of Brisbane

So what did we do in Brisbane for 7 days? Well, there was A LOT of sleeping, shopping (Mike had to burn most of his shirts), touring down town, singing at a barbershop chorus practice, attempted hair cuts, and arranging for our overland trip to the outback. Oh, and then there was the visit with the Infectious Disease doctor. No kidding! We had gone to a travel clinic for our post Asia travel check up, when the doctor looked at us quizzically and said "I've never heard of a post check-up in all my years" (and trust me he was old). Leaving his office, we felt like we were slapped in the face (especially with the $106 bill!). Debbie had mentioned to a collegue our experience and it turned out her husband was an Infectious Disease Doctor, so he called us that night and agreed to see us the following day! Talk about a wonderful doctor. He spent 1.5 hours going over our history, giving me a thorough check-up (I was feeling pretty crappy again; not as bad as China, but not great), and then dun dun dun... the inevitable stool sample. Only after you have scooped your own liquidy poo into a container and hand it to your doctor, do you know true humility. Two days later, after the preliminary results were in with no signs of parasites or worms (yeah!!!), I was given the all clear to travel.

While in Vietnam, we had heard of a company called "Wicked Rental" that had camper vans for rent. As the cost for accomodation in Oz is astronomical, we thought it would be ideal to rent a van that we could sleep in for our trip to the Outback. The vans are "groovy baby" to say the least! Each van is hand painted on the sides to hide the accumilation of dents. With our upgrade to the delux van for FREE, not only did we have a "kitchen" in the back, with cooking burner, ice cooler, and utensils; a table in the middle that converts into our bed, all the linens we need and storage room, we suddenly were wooed with Air Conditioning & Power Steering! Such Luxeries!

Our van's artistic mottife is the faces of ABBA. So, prior to leaving Brisbane, we burned a cd of ABBA's greatest hits and now, as an anthem of sorts, we faithfully listen to ABBA every morning as we leave our camp sites. Everyone now:

"Mamma mia, here I go again
My my, how can I resist you?
Mamma mia, does it show again?
My my, just how much I've missed you
Yes, I've been brokenhearted
Blue since the day we parted
Why, why did I ever let you go?
Mamma mia, now I really know,
My my, I could never let you go."

Mamma Mia Indeed. The day Mike & I picked up our new home for the next 35 days

Leaving Brisbane, we thought was going to be easy, but it turned out to be quite the adventure! Just as we were packing up the van, we received an urgent call from Dom, who was in dire need of a part from Brisbane to be "hot shot" to a town 6 hrs away called Roma. With the offer to make a quick buck (although we would have done it for free after everything Dom & Deb had done for us), and a chance to be on the other end of "expediting", we quickly made our way to the airport to pick up the 8" x 8" x 3' long package. Five minutes away from the airport, Mike's claim of "wow it really feels like it's windy, but there's no wind", clued us into the fact that our tire was flat. Once we stopped, realized the tire was completely busted, tried the jack to change the tire and found the jack was broken, we knew we were in for one of those days. Well that's one of the reasons we rented... for roadside assistance. At least they didn't have too far to drive! But in the mean time the back up courier had picked up the package from the airport and had it at their depo. Now we had to get a new jack, a new spare tire, and the package from the opposite end of the city. Yikes! Luckily we had all the tasks done within an hour, the package fit in our van like a glove and we were off..... Hand Delivery indeed!

Break down #1. Still inside Brisbane!

"Hand Delivery" in action

The one thing we were warned repeatedly about driving in the outback was the "roos". Yeah, yeah I replied. We're from Canada. We have to watch out for deer all the time. We know to look for their eyes on the side of the road at dusk. Well, holy crap had I ever underestimated the roo invasion! In our attempt to meet our rendezvous at Roma, we had to drive after dark and I have never seen more animals on the sides of the road in all my life. There were kangaroos everywhere! And they were staring at the road, ready to pounce across the highway right into our grill. But it wasn't only the live roos that were surprising, it was the number of carcasses on the side of the road. Talk about marsupalocide! I swear there were dead roos every km! Wicked Rental's motto regarding roadkill is the following: Don't swerve when you see an animal, you will roll 4 times. Don't be a Dickhead.

The solution: stick behind a truck and let them either a) scare the roos or b) hit the roos instead. And let me tell you about the trucks. They're not even called trucks, but "Road Trains", because quite literally, they haul many containers on them, exceeding lengths of 55m and boasting 64 wheels! You are advised to only pass these monsters when you can see 1 km ahead of you.

And then there is driving on the "wrong" side of the road. And that's not the only thing, the van is backwards! The driver sits on the right hand side, the windshield wiper is where the signal indicator should be and the stickshift is on the left. Talk about a comedy of errors! Let's just say I never knew that my left and right turns were associated with having to cross lanes of traffic. In one town, Mike told me to turn left to hit the highway again, and I proceeded to get into the right hand lane. Mike yells "LEFT, LEFT"... I yelled back " I am turning LEFT"... then realized I was in fact turning right and had to swerve into the left lane at the last minute. Then there's the "gas is on the driver's side"... man I can never figure out what side is the "Driver's Side"... even when I'm driving! Slowly its all coming together though.

So far, we have been on the road for 6 days and have just arrived in Alice Springs, Northern Territory Province. We have accumilated over 3000 km on our van and have seen gas prices reaching $1.79 AUS$. The scenery has been spectacular - very barren, yet not the desert that I expected. At one point, the surroundings were so flat that Mike and I were able to see 360 degrees of the horizon and when it set, it was breathtaking. The earth is red with sparse vegetation of greens, yellows, purples & pinks resulting in a rainbow of imagery. We have seen roos, emus, birds of prey, ferrel cats and procupines. Thankfully we haven't seen snakes or spiders.

View from our van (for the last 3000 km!)

The other thing on the road.

Our only sight seeing stop on our way to "The Alice". This is the Devil's Marbles in the middle of the outback. Many rocks that are set precariously on the earth. Like I said, Mike likes to throw boulders, but this one wouldn't budge!

Camping life is great! We are up every morning by 9am because of the heat wave that hits our van. Then its make the bed, have breakie (usually cereal) and then I take the morning shift of driving *Insert ABBA CD here*. We pull over at a rest stop to make sandwiches for lunch while trying to avoid the masses of flies that attack every orifice available to them. Then Mike takes over with the afternoon drive. I look up the next free rest stop for the night and set our aims to hit it before sunset (6pm). Once we find our evening accomodation, we turn on the propane burner and start cooking dinner. After eating our meal (no not Kraft dinner - we have made some really great meals including of course Tacos), we boil water, do dishes, and make the bed. The evening ends with a star gazing bonanza as the outback has a brilliantly clear night sky. I even saw my first shooting star!!! Then we crawl into bed by 10pm and fall into a deep sleep riddled with dreams. Every one and a while we splurge for a camp ground that costs $$$ so that we can shower (yeah baby!).

Mmm, Special K in the morning, my favourite!

One of our many overnight stops. Mike in his glory... a campfire, the wilderness and a sunset

Only 29 more days of camper living! Next stop: this "big rock" in the middle of nowhere. Sounds fun, eh? And you were worried that Oz would be boring!!!

Luv ya!

Kendra & Mike

In a Word

2006-09-03T23:47:00.000-07:00

How do we describe Asia in a word? We just can't think of ONE word, so instead we decided to put together a list of our top places, sights, and cultural moments. We've documented some little known tidbits, quotes, and strange foods all wrapped up to entertain you and to remind us of these moments for years to come. Enjoy....

Mike's Top Places
(It is soooo hard to decide or categorize the best places we've seen, but I've summarized ten places here)
- Mt. Everest
- Mt. Kailish
- Potala Palace and Lhasa
- Angkor Wat
- Terra Cotta Warriors
- Koh Tao
- Sapa
- Teman Negara
- Kashgar
- Geongju

Kendra's Top Places
- Terra Cotta Warriors
- Mount Everest
- Angkor Wat
- Guge Kingdom, Tibet
- Mount Kailish
- Laos
- Potala Palace/ Lhasa
- Sapa, Vietnam
- Ko Tao, Thailand
- Phuket, Thailand

Mike's Top Highlights
- Standing on Monestary's step at Mt. Kailish at 6:00am with one of the monks; Tibet, China.
- The monks kitchen in Bampa Monestary; Tibet, China.
- The Bell at the Bulguska Temple; Geongju, Korea.
- Snorkeling in Mango Bay; Koh Tao, Thailand.
- Diving the "Chumphon" and "Southwest" pinnacles; Koh Tao, Thailand.
- Waiting for the stars at Rowak Lake; Tibet, China.
- Haggling at Kashgar Markets; Xinjiang, China.
- Jumping off Bamboo Contraptions into the river in Vang Vien, Laos.
- Wondering the old town of Lijiang early in the morning; Yunnan, China.
- Watching the sunsets in Railay; Krabi, Thailand.
- Sunrise at Everest; Tibet, China.

Kendra's Top Highlights
- Reaching the 5650 m pass of Mt Kailish and realizing I could hike anything (if I want to, and NO I do not want to hike the Anapurna Circuit!).
- Staying at Mount Everest base camp.
- Diving with the fishes... 30 times.
- Finding the "end of trail" sign after our lovely "walk" in the leech infested jungle of Teman Negara, Malaysia.
- Climbing down a dark tunnel in the Guge Kindgom by myself and discovering hidden rooms in a mountain, China.
- Thai massages on the beach.
- Walking through the rice fields in Chang Mai, Thailand on our way to the Karen Village.
- Kayaking in Luang Prabang, Laos.
- Understanding the meaning of pain, suffering and endurance when I visited the Killing Fields and S21 museum of Phenom Phen, Cambodia.
- Playing with a restaurant owner's children after exploring Kumbum Temple; Gyantse, Tibet.

Best Quotes
- "Poo can make your day." Warren
- "Jody, I dropped my undies in the Dunny." Warren
- "Como Manzo, Laba." Everybody on the way to Lhasa
- "Your the longest person we've travelled with so far." Mike
- "We've got F'n Shitty ass wine, but its free!" Tour operator, Vietnam
- "I am not going to Mt. Kailish." Kendra (5 min before signing up for the Mt. Kailish overland tour)
- "Freddie don't do it." N/A
- "Your staying for a month and not doing your DMT?!?" Everybody in Koh Tao
- "Its only another hour hike." Just before our ordeal in Teman Negara, great advice :(.
- "Where are you from,"...Canada...", "The capital of Canada is Ottawa...." Every kid in Vietnam, and Cambodia
- "Great to see you, you couldn't have picked a worst time to come." Renee

3 Things we didn't know about each other
Mike
- How quickly Kendra adapts to any situation.
- Once Kendra starts to hike, she doesn't stop until she's there
- Kendra loves Caves, and Museums.

Kendra
- Mike loves to throw boulders/rocks down hills.
- Mike doesn't like sand to be on him, although he prefers to lay directly in it rather than use a towel at the beach.
- Mike has an amazing ability to learn foreign languages quickly (thank goodness!)

3 things we didn't know about ourselves
Mike
- I can't stand when people overcharge for admission prices in China...doh!
- It is OK, and sometimes actually fun, to get lost.
- I really enjoy markets; looking around and shopping at them.

Kendra
- I can survive without showering for 5 days straight
- I am a less pickier eater than I thought... although I still don't like onions, and green peppers, oh and tomatoes,
- I am a backpacker (although I will always love a good ol' resort!)

Top 5 "Critter" Experiences
1. The leeches of Tehman Negara Jungle
2. The cockroach that walked across Mike's *cough* unit; Ko Tao, Thailand
3. The poisonous spiders dangling in our paths; Halong Bay, Vietnam
4. The Ants in our beds at Railay, Thailand, and along the walls at Hoi An, Vietnam
5. The Titan Trigger Fish attacks, Koh Tao, Thailand

Average weight of our Laundry: 5kg
Longest distance we've carried our bags: Big Bags 4.5 km; Small Bags 22 km
Average Cost of Beer: $1.25 Canadian (including the big 750 ml bottles :) )
The Favorite Traveller we've met: We didn't like anybody (just kidding).
1 Thing we miss most about home: My own car (Mike); My Bathtub (Kendra)
Strangest foods we've ate: Fly Larvae, Sampa, Kimchi, Minnows
Most expensive drink: Singapore Sling, $15 Singapore Dollars
Most Expensive place we've stayed: $36 CDN; Koh Tao, Thailand
Least Expensive place we've stayed: $3.5 CDN; Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Least favorite place: Ali, China

# of times we used overnight transportation: 18
# of Car Accidents Seen: 15+
# of Car Accidents Involved in: 1
# of Countries Visited: 8
# of Scuba Dives: 28 Mike: 30 Kendra (I was legitamately sick one day)
# of Can's of Shaving Cream Mike used: 1/2 of 1, barely shaved at all.
# of different cities we've slept in: 59
# of times Mike got angry at admission prices in China: Too many to count
# of World Heritage Sites we've visited: 12
# of engagements announced since we left: 6
# of significant fights between us: none, we never fight...owww, Kendra, OK 3.
# of Parcels Shipped home: 9
# of times we've cooked for ourselves: 0 (Does instant noodles count?)
# of Injuries Mike's had: 0; YESS!!
# of days travelled (up to Sept 1): 221

Cheers,
Mike and Kendra

Banana Seeds and Jewel Beaches

2006-08-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Well this is it, our last day in Asia has arrived (at least for now). Where do I begin, easy... After Cambodia, Kendra and I made our way back to Thailand to complete another full circle of Asia and enjoy some familiar places. We had three weeks before our flight to Australia. Our plan was to catch a few things we missed in Bangkok, head back to Koh Tao for a short reunion and then head out to the Adaman coast (West Coast of Thailand on the Indian Ocean) in search of some of Thailands famous (and/or secluded) beaches.

In Bangkok we spent a day doing errands (ie. Fast Food, Starbucks, Post, Singha, Buckets, Van Bars etc..) and a day doing some of the sight seeing we had missed on our previous visits. Actually it was on my birthday when we went around Bangkok taking in Thailand's largest reclining Buddha, the Royal Palace, Emerald Buddha, Ramayana murals, Temples, Stupphas, Amulet markets...well the list goes on. Check out some photos. (Some of you may be disapointed to know that we didn't get to see the Ping Pong's ;)

Just inside Bangkok's Grand Palace.

The Chakri Maha Prasat Hall at the Grand Palace.

The absolutely massive reclining Buddha in Wat Pho ("Wat" means temple) nearby the Grand Palace. This structure/sculpture is 46m long and, at its highest point, 15m high!!

After the bustle of Bangkok we headed straight back to our diving paradise, Koh Tao. Kendra and I were pretty excited about seeing who was still there and enjoying a familiar place for a change (Funny what seems familiar after 6 months on the road). We weren't disapointed, not by the people anyway. Accomodation was another issue.

We had arrived in Koh Tao on one of the busiest weekends of the year. Not only was it the Queen's birthday, a national holiday, but also the day after the Full Moon Party in Koh Phangang. In other words the place was packed. The accomodation problem was eloquently made clear to us when we walked through the courtyard of Buddha View and saw our first familiar face, Renee (the instructor that brought us into the diving world). "Great to see you!" he said with a smile and (still smiling) "You couldn't have picked a worse time to be here"..."Nice to see you too Renee". He was right, of course, and we ended up walking up and down the beach trying to find a vacant room. In the end we spent the night in our most expensive accomodation yet, a whopping, $36 CDN...
what...it's a lot to us...come on stop laughing...yes it is whopping...no I haven't been smoking weed...it's quite a lot actually...OK, I guess it's not that bad...
how about I compare that with what we got the next night for accomodation. Fortunately for us, that's not a fair comparison because the next night we were offered a deal we couldn't refuse, although I have to explain a bit before getting to that.

Once we had our, extremely posh, 2nd story room, with satellite TV, hot water and a view (kind of) of the beach :), we went back to the dive shop and discovered that there were several people on the island that we still knew and even convinced a few of them to join in my b-day celebration (having previously spent it on an overnight bus...although you already know that). This was when I broke out the homemade Banana Seed Wine (which actually tastes like cheap whiskey) that I had bought for the occasion a month earlier in Vietnam...that was a mistake, but I'll get back to that later.

OK, I'm getting to the point here, I think. As part of our Koh Tao reunion we ran into Sarah (you may remember she was the one that shaved my head just a wee bit too close), our old neighbor at the Sunshine guesthouse. She had heard about our accomodation woes and offered her place to us as she would be on another island for a couple of days! So you see, an offer that we couldn't refuse, two nights for free!! Thanks Sarah (too bad we missed you though, I needed another haircut :)!!!

OK, so at this point you know that we've saved on accomodation and started drinking Vietnamese Banana Seed wine. After this things get a little blurry until the alarm goes off the next morning to wake us up for our dive at 7:00am. We were on the boat by 8:00am enthusiastic, hangover and all (okay I was the only hungover one). Being that this is the rainy season in the Gulf of Thailand the seas were just a "little" choppy. The banana seeds didn't like this one bit, and it wasn't long before I was at the back of the boat spewing my guts out...twice...at least it wasn't into the regulator at 20m! It wasn't too embarassing, although half the boat had a good laugh.

That was our first 24 hours in Koh Tao. The next two days were relaxing ones. We took it easy, enjoyed our favorite places, had some more great laughs, and even checked out a night of Thai Boxing before heading to our next destination, Phuket. The trip to Phuket was a little adventure. At one point we were abandoned for 4 hours at an obscure roadside restaurant with 7 other people, waiting, hoping, that the mini bus driver that was supposed to pick us up didn't forget about us. Instead of getting to town at 4:00pm like we expected we arrived at 1:00am with no where to stay...hey, what can you do...we eventually found a place and crashed for the night.

As a little family suprise, Paul (my brother in Korea) was taking a vacation and had picked Thailand as his destination. We met him and his girlfriend, Kate, in Phuket for three days of fun in the sun, cut-throat card playing (Hearts mostly), and a memorable round of mini-golf. It was great to see them both!

Paul and I on Patong Beach Phuket just after our Boogie Board attempt, dude.

Paul and Kate out for dinner on our last night before going our seperate ways. Go Flames!

Finally our last major stop in Thailand. We were headed to Railay beach to try and spend our last 10 days in Asia basking at one of Thailand's jewel beaches. We would not be disapointed.

When we arrived in Railay it was just what I had imagined. To make things that much better, it was the off season and one of the nicest resorts in the bay offered a great deal to stay in a fantastic bungalow with access to a beachside pool. How can you beat it. This is where we would spend our last days in Asia. I can't describe the beaches or the scenary any better than pictures so check it out.

Our arrival in Railay Bay.

These ones kind of speak for themselves.

So that's it, we left Railay - reluctantly - and headed on our last great journey in Asia (at least for now). This consisted of no less than 7 seperate boat/minivan/bus transfers. Picture us, at one point, being dropped off in Malaysia at a totally confusing bus station. It was dark, raining, we were under a highway overpass with no idea how, or when we would get out of there for about 3 hours, oh and practicaly nobody could speak english. A little tense but it all worked out, another story to tell.

So here we are in Singapore, the night before our flight to Australia. Asia was amazing and we will miss its many charms. For now we're headed back to the "Western" world, fixed prices, traffic laws, marsupials, venomous snakes, meter maids, and something that should resemble english, "Throw another shrimp on the Bar-B"...we'll see.

Regards,
Mike and Kendra

History 401: The Kingdom of Cambodia

2006-08-23T20:53:00.000-07:00

In Phnom Phen, the capital of Cambodia, Mike and I bore witness of one of the largest genocides the world has seen in the 20th century. From 1975-1979, 2-3 million Cambodians died from execution, malnutrition, exhaustion and disease.

How could this atrocity occur? It started with an internal battle for power, where the ousted President, King Nordom, started to support a small indigenous rebel group called the Khmer Rouge. Coupled with the US B52 bombers tearing up the Cambodian country side, in an attempt to draw out the communist Viet Congs believed to be in hiding, the rebel group became strong enough to overthrow the Army gov’t and become the leaders. Under this new order, called ANGKA, the leader Pol Pot, decreed that it was “Year Zero” and forced all citizens to vacate their homes and return to the fields to work as equals. Everyone received the same lodging, food rations, and black pajama like uniforms. This radical idea was further accentuated with the indoctrination of love for only Angka – family loyalty was strongly rejected. Labour camps for children and adults were established where over the years, the food rations declined to nothing, yet the hard, manual labour never slowed, resulting in countless deaths.

If you were educated, spoke a foreign language, opposed the creed of Angka or even wore glasses, you were executed by the loyal Khmer Rouge soldiers. Over 17,000 Cambodians suspected of being against the KR were taken to Tuaol Suay Prey High School, which was converted into a torture and interrogation prison called Security Prison 21 (S21). Men, women and children were shackled in chains, locked in small rooms, interrogated, tortured by dubious means and when they finally “confessed” for their treason, then were taken to Choeung Ek. Here, the prisoners dug massive holes, were blindfolded, bound, and then bludgeoned to death in an attempt to save bullets. Thus the mass grave site became known as the Killing Fields.

Eventually the Vietnamese Army overthrew the KR, who continued guerrilla warfare throughout the 80’s. The memory of the Khmer Rouge era haunts those who survived. Awareness and understanding of this genocide is critical in helping deter the current civil genocides ongoing: Bosnia, Rwanda and Dar Fur just to name a few. Perhaps with education, we can force our governments’ involvement to stop the killings.

Memorial Tower at the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek which houses the skulls of thousands of victims of the Khmer Rouge.

One of the many signs found at the Killing Fields.

The sign reads: "After escavating the mass graves, Victims' clothes were cleaned by deodorants in 1988".

One of the torture rooms at the S21 prision. Along the faded walls, you can imagine prisoners sitting, waiting for their interrogation.

These are only a handful of the victims at S21. Walking around the museam, looking into their faces, I saw fear, shock, indignation, anger and tears. I cried myself.

After my eye opening, heart wrenching, soul piercing experience in Phnom Phen, we continued our history lesson north in Siem Reap. For 3 days, Mike and I explored the architectural haven of Ankor – the temples that are the essence of Cambodian pride. The monuments were built from the 9th – 13th century. The most widely known, Angkor Wat, is the largest religious building in the world. Our first glimpse of Angkor Wat was at the stroke of dawn. The sky turned from a midnight blue and into an orange, then pink hue and the magnitude of the temple was revealed.

Mike & I standing outside the entrance to Angkor Wat.

I'm climbing (crawling?) the steep steps that lead to the highest tower of Angkor Wat. This is the only side that has a iron rod handle to cling onto when going down. Mike was able to go up and down 5x faster than me!

Angkor Wat is covered in Bas-Reliefs, images scuplted right from the original stone. We spent hours roaming around the temples looking at the pictures.

View from the highest tower of Angkor, looking out at its front yard.

The many temples distributed throughout this 200 km2 of land vary in style, composite material and meaning, but all are awe inspiring. Some of my favourites were the Bayon Temple, where faces are carved into the numerous towers and Ta Pronhm whose corridors with cornered towers and gapuras has tree roots slithering down gates trying to dislodge the building.

The Bayon Temple

Talk about Jungle Mania! This is a part of Ta Pronhm complex.

On our final day of visiting the temples, we were bike riding to Angkor Wat to see the sun set, when we saw families of monkeys along the roadside. I was so excited and thought of my mom who LOVES monkeys! We had heard we would be inundated by two things at Angkor: 1) children selling souvenirs and 2) monkeys. Well the former was bang on, the kids were everywhere, selling everything and always asking in a singsong voice “Where are you from”… “The capital of Canada is Ottawa, they speak 2 languages”. The first 5 times were endearing, and then it just became repetitive and finally a little annoying. As for the later, we thought that monkeys in SE Asia were a myth, but we were finally rewarded with a sighting!

Instead of a setting sun, we saw the release of rainstorm clouds and got drenched racing home in the dark, torrential downpour. Somehow it seemed a fitting end for our last day in Cambodia. To sum up our experience in Cambodia, I found it was a dark journey with a lot of sorrow and tears, but there is an underlying force in the people and as in the Angkor temples, a strength and endurance to survive.

Love and peace,

Kendra & Mike

P.S. Book Recommendation: "When Broken Glass Floats" by Chanrithy Him (her personal account about growing up under the Khmer Rouge)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE

2006-08-10T21:44:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to write a quick note to wish Mike a happy 29th birthday!!! We are currently back in Bangkok (for the third time) and like always, we are in a rush to go somewhere else.... back to Ko Tao for 3 days, before finally making it to the Phuket. We are taking another overnight bus to Ko Tao, so not too much of a celebration fo Mike's b-day, but we did have drink buckets from a party van on the side of the street last night.

I love this picture of Mike. I took it while we were touring Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but that's another update.

Love,
Kendra

The Tailors of Hoi An

2006-08-02T07:32:00.000-07:00

Hello again!!
We’ve just finished our trip through Vietnam, and once again we had a great time. Kendra and I both feel that Vietnam has its own distinct vibe that sets it apart from the other SE Asian countries. This could have been because of our recent 2.5-month stint in China but seriously it did feel different and we loved it!

From the last update you may or may not remember that we were in Ninh Binh (just south of Hanoi) on motorbikes touring the countryside. Next we headed south along the backpacker trail to Hue - Hoi An - Nha Trang - Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City depending on your politics) - and the Mekong Delta (check out the map link).

In Hue we spent a day touring the Perfume River visiting ancient tombs, pagodas and watching the local river life. We also walked around the old town, which much to my eternal happiness was another World Heritage site (check). Here we saw our fist real evidence of the Vietnam War as we walked past old American tanks and armored units “captured” by the Viet Cong near the end of the war in 1975. We also saw an old American bunker along the city's Ancient Citadel walls and a site of several battles. We would see a lot more reminders of the War before we left Vietnam.

American Tank in Hue. The sign says (and this is exactly whats written same spelling and grammar)
"M48 Tank with artillery of the US equipped to puppet soldiers for raiding and killing the people. In the spring 1975 campaign. Captured by the liberation army at Phu Bai on 25 March 1975."
Different perspective.

Kendra snuck a nice picture at a market in Hue.

Ming Mang Tomb in Hue on our day trip down the perfume river.

We stayed in Hue for a comfortable 3 nights and headed to Hoi An. Here we encountered the world famous Tailors of Hoi An...dun dun dun... they definitely deserve special mention. Tailors are everywhere in Hoi An. Custom made clothes is the business and business is gooood! For us, this was one of the reasons we were there, and like most travelers we met, we were a little wary/nervous of the whole process. First thing first, we had to pick out a shop. This took some time but eventually we found one based on an off hand reference from another couple. We dove in. For the next 6 days we would be there twice a day everyday (except one). The closest thing either of us has had for a job in months (hehe, sorry to rub it in, not really :) ). We started out with a little feeler to see if shop was any good. For me they made one pair of pants and one shirt (yes Kendra helped pick out colours) and Kendra had one dress made. This went well and we started our main order, which consisted of several suits, shirts, pants and dresses (I only got one, the Tailor said it brought out my eyes...ha, cheesy). The fitting process was sometimes fun, but mostly painful, like I said we were there every day making sure we got what we wanted, we did our best but we knew nothing about tailor made clothes, material, stitching, floating canvas's, French cuffs, plackets, English style, lining, burn tests....the list goes on. Our greatest fear was that because we've lost so much weight (a shocking 9 kg each), when we get home the clothes wouldn’t fit. Of course the obvious reply is, don't gain the weight back, thanks, but just in case, we hammered it into the tailor every day that they had to fit when we got home...we'll see. You should have seen us...the fittings were pretty comical; we'd walk into the store like the travelers we were, sandals, swimsuits, and t-shirts. We would get all dressed up, talk about nipping here, and tucking there...it was like we were in some parallel universe. Afterwards we'd step back outside and resume our backpacker role by checking out the beach or site seeing. At one point we were both in our suits and got shivers down our spine as it looked like we were about to head off to work, yikes. In the end the clothes looked good and we were happy with them although the whole process took its toll on our enthusiasm. Oh and just a heads up, Mom, you’ve got several packages on its way home from Vietnam; hope there’s room (Dad?).

Getting fitted at the tailors and yes, that is a look of confusion on my face.

Kendra in a nice new skirt and one of her new shirts. She looks happy!

Hoi An wasn't just about tailors and clothes, it also boasts two, count them, two, World Heritage sites. They are:

1) Hoi An Old Town: made up of a mixture of Chinese, Japanese and European Architecture. There are temples, cafe’s, theatres, craft shops and of course tailors.

2) My Son (pronounced - Me Sun, meaning – Beautiful Mountain): are Cham ruins with buildings dating back as far as the 7th century AD. Cham is the historical name for the ethnic group that settled the area and which still makes up a large portion of the population. This area was a religious center from the late 4th century and was occupied until the 13th century – the longest period of development of any monument in SE Asia (including Angkor Wat, or so says the guidebook)! The jungle has had a few centuries to reclaim the site which gives the area that much more appeal. Despite its significance (and probably because of it) My Son did not escape the war and we saw evidence of destruction from the fighting including a massive crater near one of the biggest groups of buildings.

"My Son" ruins outside of Hoi An. In the bottom right quadrant you can see a bomb crater from the Vietnam War.

Other than tailors and heritage sites, much to Kendra's happiness we spent some days on the fantastic nearby beach, our first few official beach days since we left Koh Tao at the beginning of April! (and Kendra thought we’d be beaching it all the time, it wasn’t so bad, right babe :)?)

The beach at Hoi An. Brings a tear to the eye.

Nha Trang was our next stop where we also spent time on a beautiful beach. One day we did an island tour, snorkeling, diving, beach volleyball. Who could forget the floating styrofoam bar or the call from the server, “Hey everybody, we-got-f’n-shitty-ass-wine, but-don-worry-is-free!!!”. A nice surprise here was on our last day when we met up with our long lost friends from Tibet, Warren and Jody. We caught up with our respective travel stories since we last saw them and reminisced about our Tibet adventure, it was good fun (not to mention some solid Frisbee on the beach)

Finally after spending almost two weeks (half our total time in Vietnam) in Hoi An and Nha Trang we left for Saigon. Our Visa was running out so we couldn’t really explore the city much. We did get to spend 1 day at the famous Cu Chi tunnels of the Vietnam War though. Here we crawled through tunnels made by the Viet Cong, got a lesson on how guerilla warfare works, and even fired an AK-47. The whole day was an eye opener on how the Vietnamese had to live during the war. We didn’t have long to think about it though as the next day we were off to Cambodia on a 2 day trip up the Mekong Delta to Phnom Penh.

Cu Chi Tunnels. That is the standard entrance into this extensive system built by the Vietnamese. This was just before I went into the tunnel which hasn't been changed since the war. There were bats hanging from the roof, which was only about 4 feet high, and several corners to get me turned around. A humbling experience considering that some Vietnamese lived in these tunnels for several years at a time!

A booby trap devised by the Viet Cong. This would obviously cause a lot of damage, they had several others equally as leathal.

The trip began early in the morning. Once again this was in a “tour format” which we generally don’t like, but time constraints and the fact that it guaranteed we’d make it to the border the next day proved its worth. Actually the trip was a pleasant surprise. It started out with a bus and then a boat ride to an island in the massive delta. We spent the next two days going up canals on several islands and visiting little cottage industries such as coconut candy villages, honey bee farms, and floating houses with fish farms underneath. We spent one night at a border town on the Delta called Chau Doc, and then headed up the Mekong river to Phnom Penh. What an amazing trip. The Mekong delta is huuugge, we only saw a fraction of it in 2 days. It was particularly special for Kendra and I as we had crossed the river in 5 of the 6 countries it flows through. We saw its beginnings in Tibet, its middle in Laos/Thailand and its end in Vietnam and Cambodia!! A travelers dream!

Travelling down a small canal on an island in the Mekong Delta.

Typical Vietnamese house along the Mekong Delta.

Taking in the view as we headed to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

I feel long winded (as Kendra says) today so I thought I’d go on a little bit more with insight into something about traveling that you don’t usually hear about, other travelers. When we write back home, update the website, or tell stories of where we’ve been, its obviously much more interesting to tell everybody about the locals, the funny stories, the different cultures and traditions of the area. However, when reporting travels back home one tends to ignore the fact that we are also meeting people/foreigners from all over the world.

In Asia the typical way you meet travelers is either on the bus, or in the restaurant. You might find yourself having dinner with a couple of people from your latest overnight bus. Once you’re at dinner conversations usually begin with innocent questions about where you’re from, or where you’ve been. It gets interesting next when, depending on the people, the conversation might develop into a discussion about the continuing crisis in the middle east, or maybe an analysis of censorship in communist countries versus western countries, even better the pros and cons of traveling over long periods of time vs. a short period of time. Inevitably there is always mention about US foreign policy (they dip their fingers in everything). You better believe it, traveling doesn't just give you an excuse to take photos of everything, ride on the back of motorbikes, dodge insane traffic, and have a banana shake every day, it also gives you the chance to debate everything from traveling to terrorism, politics to religion, or, the "you-don't-have-to-eat-local-food-at-every-meal" debate (most of these are not actually debates, it seems that the people we’ve met at least generally have the same opinion on things, ie. its OK to order a Pizza). You meet so many people from different parts of the world who for the most part seem to love conversation. I'm sure we've saved the world 3 times since we've left, or at least stopped injustices in 2 African countries (the best results come over beers after a good meal). In Vietnam, it also helped that it was so cheap we could actually afford a room with a TV. We were able to get caught up on recent news, wars, crisis, and what-not (still can’t believe the Tour de France) that we have missed. Its one of those things that you don't often hear about from traveling, the conversations, ideals and personalities you meet along the way. It’s as much about people as it is about places. Ohhh, the nostalgia is setting in.

OK so after all that I’ll just say that Vietnam was a place of bus tours, boat trips, tourist traps, heritage sites, beaches, history, great people and good food, the whole package! A vacation from a vacation. Now we’re in the home stretch for Asia, another 4 weeks and we’ll be basking in the Australian sun. Take it easy back home or wherever you are.

Mike and Kendra

Back on Track in Vietnam

2006-07-11T04:32:00.000-07:00

After two and a half months and what felt like a mad dash to the finish line, we finally left China. We only spent 2 days in Xi'an, then took an overnight train to Chengdu to see a research center for breeding panda bears (so cute!) and buy our new camera, one day later took another overnight train back to Kunming to apply for our Vietnamese visa's, then 3 days later with visas in hand, took our final overnight bus to the border.

Mike has been playing with our new camera and found this cool setting. Picture is on a city garden in Kumning.

First stop in Vietnam was a northern village called Sapa, which is a wonderful, tranquil place nestled in the mountains. With picturesque tiered rice fields, mist surrounding the mountains and a calm that was soothing, we finally exhaled and relaxed for 3 days. There are many local tribes surrounding the small town and the women dressed in traditional attire walk daily to Sapa to sell their handicrafts. They speak English very well and engage you in conversation before pulling out their bag of goodies; very good sales tactics! There are many treks that can be completed around Sapa. We did a 3 hr one to a nearby tribal village and saw some amazing scenery. Other than that, we spent most of our time on restaurant balconies: playing chess, reading or just enjoying the view. If we had more than 30 days in the country, I'm sure that we would have stayed there a week!

View of the mountains and rice fields surrounding Sapa.

Next stop was our first major city called Hanoi. We arrived at 5am and got suckered into a taxi at the train station that had its meter rigged so high that every km we went, the counter changed. Mike was furious. After the meter reached 48,000 dong (when the trip should have only cost 15 - 20,000) he made the taxi stop and we got out to walk the rest of the way to the old town in Hanoi. Surprisingly at 5am, the city was bustling. There were people running, doing aerobics in a park, bicycling, etc. Then we found out why.... the excrusiating heat! No wonder July is low season for tourism. It's so hot, just standing makes you sweat! However, there were not many guesthouses open at this hour. A man approached us saying he had a room available, but we were so grumpy with the taxi driver and did not want to get ripped off twice before 6 in the morning that we were really reluctant to go with him. In the end we did, and found a relatively nice room with satellite tv, shower, but no A/C (which we later regretted!) and a small ant infestation for $5 USD. So nice to be in a cheap country again!

We explored the old town of Hanoi, walked around Lake Hom Kiem in the middle of the city, and saw the Temple of Literature (where for the past 1000 years scholars have studied Confusionism, which is not actually a religion but more a philosophy for governing people). We tried to see the embalmed body of Hoi Chi Minh, the reveared leader of northern Vietnam whose vision was "a democratic, independent, society that would promote peace throughout the world" (honestly, that's what the museum says!), but unfortunatley his dead body of 37 years was not available for viewing in the afternoons. Fun fact: Hoi Chi Minh's body is moved to Russia for 3 months of the year for maintenance. Russia has perfected the embalmment process with Lenin. Interestingly, Mao is also embalmed in Beijing, though in their wills, none of the communist leaders wished for this.

Mike and I in front of Ho Chi Mihn's Mausoleum

Nothing beats someone else working up a sweat while you sit in the shade. We called it supporting the local people. Others may call it laziness. All in all, a great way to see the city.

The roads in Vietnam are very chaotic. Now, being the kind of girl that likes to wait for the little white man to appear before crossing the road, the thought of stepping out into dozens of motorcyles, taxis, and bicycle carts, racing through the streets is not my idea of fun. But you can't stay on the left side of the street forever. So with a pounding heart, I attempt to cross. Now here's the trick - DO NOT RUN and for the love of god DO NOT STOP, just walk at a constant speed through the road and surprisingly no one will hit you, everyone just goes around you. I'm getting more brave, but on the odd occasion, Mike needs to hold my hand. Circumnavigating Mt. Kailish pales in comparison to crossing a street in Vietnam!

Aerial view of one of the intersection we had to navigate through - this is during a slow time!

We just returned from a three day tour to Ha Long Bay. The literal translation is Bay of the Descending Dragon, where according to legend, to protect the people from invaders, a family of dragons spit jewels into the water and created the 1600 limestone islands that protrude from the sea. The grottos are spectacular to see and the ambiance is one of awe and wonder. As a part of the tour package, we got to spend a night on the bay in a boat with dining room and small cabin beds. Luckily the boat had satellite so the men were able to watch the World Cup final at 2am (honestly Mike didn't even like soccer in the beginning and now was up until 4 in the morning watching the games). The next day we stayed on an island called Cat Ba, where we completed a 2 hour trek that was actually very gruelling, partially because of the heat, the jagged rocks, but mostly because of the enormous poisonous spiders with their webs within easy reach of passing tourists! No kidding! There was a bit of beach action (first ocean we've seen since we left Koh Tao 3 months ago), where a boat dropping off tourists almost capsized! We stayed at a swanky hotel that actually had A/C, so for the first time in 5 nights, we slept soundly and didn't wake up in a pool of our own sweat. Although we were apprehensive about being on a package tour because we've really enjoyed going at our own pace, it was nice not to have to negotiate pricing or think about where you were going to stay or eat. Plus you didn't save any money by doing it on your own, so it made sense.

This is the type of boat we stayed on for a day in Ha Long Bay.

Night view of the bay. Stunning!

Huge, poisonous spider right ahead. Yikes! It was hard to walk on the trail b/c we were always looking up to see if we were walking into a web!

We have bought an open bus ticket to travel in Vietnam. The ticket allows you to stop at any destination you want along the way and when you are ready to travel again, you go to a local travel agent and reserve your next seat. The bus has A/C which is such a treat.

We spent a day in Ninh Binh - a small town with amazing scenery surrounding it. To my chagrin, the only way to tour the sites is by motorbicycle. Don't get me wrong, I like bikes, but only when I'm in full clothing and have a helmet on my head and not weaving precariously through traffic. Not to worry though, our drivers were really professional and took a lot of back roads with minimal traffic and actually slowed at pot holes and when straw was covering the road because it was drying in the sun. The day was beautiful with bright blue skies. We saw a couple of temples, pagodas, and then took a paddle boat ride on a river with rice paddies and grottos surrounding us. The place was called Tam Coc and took our breath away. While in the boat we passed through 3 caves where the water had eroded through the rocks. Very cool! It was a perfect day, finalized with a 500 step walk up a hill that's view overlooked the Tam Coc.

Mike & I starting the river tour of Tam Coc. It's so great to be in a bathing suit again!

View from the paddle boat.

Looking out from Hang Hai Cave.

Taking a break with a local man who offered Mike a drag from his water tabacco bong.

Now we're arrived in Hue and spent the day exploring the old Citadel and walking around the fortress gates. The history here is amazing and it's interesting to see the propaganda that still is prevelant around the north i.e. at a war museum the south army was referred to as "the puppet army". We are planning on taking a boat tour to see the tombs of kings tomorrow, which we are really excited to see.

It's only been 2 weeks since we arrived in Vietnam, but we absolutely love the country!

Love and peace,

Kendra & Mike

China's Silk Road and the Camera Crap Out

2006-06-16T00:31:00.000-07:00

And so begins our trip down China's Northern Silk Road. Kashgar - Turpan - Dunhuang - Xi'an. (PICTURES ARE HERE - these were all taken with our film camera, its hard going back to film after getting used to digital, but I think we did pretty good!)

KASHGAR

After Kendra's last update we took a 32 hour (yes thats right)...32 hour sleeper bus from Ali to a place called Karghilik in the Western China province of Xinjiang (pronounced Shinjan, kind of). What a ride :( The bus was old, dirty, extremely small, and packed. We drove over places that most 4x4's would shy away from...ahhh the smells of farting, smoking, sounds of spitting, bathroom stops on the side of the road with people on the bus staring down at you blankly from the windows, and bone jarring bumps will always be with us. For those of you ever inclined to take a trip like this we recommend the top bunks somewhere in the middle, away from the speakers where they blast music so loud that Kendra was wearing ear plugs most of the time (I would have as well but had lost mine...some day, some where). Despite the conditions we were happy to put Ali behind us as this had to be our least favorite place on the entire trip so far.

A small glance at what a sleeper bus is like. This was one of the more comfortable ones as the bus was almost half empty. Yes, that is the whole length of the bed!

OK, enough of the negative. The next stop, Kashgar, was a total suprise and breath of fresh air. After the sleeper bus, (32 hours, did I mention that already, my back aches thinking about it) we immediately took another regular bus for 5 hours to get to Kashgar, the last Chinese trading post on the historic Silk Road. What a cool place!

When we arrived we were greeted by a city unlike any so far. The atmosphere is much more like a middle east country giving us a flavour of the neighboring countries like Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Krgyzstan, Pakistan, and so on. We ate Shish Kebabs, enjoyed traditional Uighur (pronounced wee-ger, the original muslim population of the area) food such as "Leghman" (a noodle dish much like Spaghetti), and just couldn't get over the atmosphere in this ancient city.

The first thing we did was head to the Sunday Livestock Market. Farmers, traders, buyers, and sellers come to trading grounds just outside Kashgar to test ride donkeys, inspect sheep, unload/load cattle, and even take camels for a walk. As we drove into the area by taxi we passed people using all types of transportation, from bicycles, to donkey carts, trucks to buses going to the market. Carts were filled with sheep, trucks had cattle loaded precariously in the back, and bicycles carried feed for all the animals. I'll never forget the sights, sounds, and smells, especially those strange sheep bums.

Uighur man lining up his sheep at the market, nice bums!

After the Sunday Livestock market we headed to the Kashgar Bazaar that also has its routes as a Sunday market but now goes full tilt 7 days a week. This market rivals any market I've seen to date. Tonnes of stuff for sale from pitchforks to silk carpets, from knives to pastachios and once again a great atmosphere. Now, recently I've really started to enjoy bargaining at these markets and relish the opportunities to argue prices with the store owners. For example...

Mike: "How much is that?"
Seller: "ummm...." thinking: 'he's a foreigner, I'm going to start high' "....100 Yuan, good price!"
Mike: "Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha" or "Your crazy, byebye"
Seller: "OK, 80 Yuan...."
Mike: "Hahahahahahahaha"
Seller: "OK, because you are like my brother (seriously they say this), I'll say 60 Yuan"
Mike: "I'm sorry, thats still to much, I'm leaving now...."
Seller: "Wait, OK, 50 Yuan"
Mike: "I've got 40, I'll take it for 40"
Seller: "OK, 40, but don't tell anyone what you got for it...wink... because you are like my brother."

OK, maybe not exactly like that, but seriously Kendra and I really had fun at this market, and not just because of the arguing, most of the time it was just the sights, sounds and smells that put smiles on our face. I have to mention the best part of the market; the carpet/rug shops. It was as if they plucked the store right out of my imagination...awesome. I couldn't resist and went into a really nice/old antique place; carpets on the ceiling, walls, and piled on the floor. Before I knew it Kendra and I were checking out beautiful examples of old silk carpets as if we were going to buy one, it was tonnes of fun, only problem is that when we asked a price I couldn't understand the number, turns out it was so big I hadn't learned the word for it yet...5,000 Yuan, or $697 Canadian! cough cough, I figured even if I got half off, it was still too much...nevertheless a very cool place.

Kendra took this photo just after we spent a half hour picking material and haggling with the owner, good fun.

Anyway, the main reason for staying in Kashgar was to check out the markets but we stayed for an extra day to explore the old town which was worth it. Mud huts in the middle of the city, people selling bread out the front of their house, like I think I've said 10 times already, really cool!

Id Kah Mosque in central Kashgar.

Left to Right: Petra, Kendra, Jodie - inside the Id Kah Mosque. The girls had to where those scarfs to cover up their necks (and cleavage ;) ).

Unfortunately as I described in the title, our camera crapped out when we got to Kashgar. Luckily we have a backup film camera and also luckily we are getting photos from our fellow travellers, because of this our album will not have any significant gaps. Other than that it definetly sucks, the damn thing was brand new and supposed to last if not 5 years at least the whole trip (at least I didn't lose it ;)!). Anyway I'm working on replacing it with Nikon as it is definetly still under warranty. Stupid Camera, now we have to buy a new one. You may think its cheaper here in Asia but not in China, prices are pretty much the same although with a few tricks we should be able to bargain down the price...OK, boring. Next.

TURPAN

After Kashgar was a 30 hour sleeper train (gotta love this "sleeper" transportation) to a place called Turpan. The train was 100 times better than the bus and was actually pretty enjoyable. Turpan itself sits in the middle of a barren desert (not sure if its the Taklamakan Desert or if its part of the Gobi desert...hmmm) in a natural depression that is second lowest on earth next to the Dead Sea. It is at an elevation 154m BELOW sea level...what? We've gone from 5600m high passes to 154m below see level in 2 weeks, we should have tried to run a marathon with all that extra oxygen, too bad it was bloody hot, at one point my little key chain thermometer went through the roof, it read over 50 deg C...Hahaha...we should have been dead. I guess that proves to Kendra that the thermometer isn't exactly accurate, she's been saying that the entire trip.

Turpan itself owes its existence to an ingenious irrigation system called "Karez". In ancient times, around 2000 years ago, the Uighur's devised a way of bringing water from nearby mountains to their desert landscape, I think around 50-80 kms away. They did this by literally digging tunnels underground the entire distance by hand. In total there are nearly 5000km of these tunnels that still bring water, by gravity, to breathe life into their farming industry, incredible. We visited one of the sites which boasted that the Karez systems of the Turpan basin are one of the three major Ancient Chinese projects, along with the Great Wall and the Great Canal (we haven't seen those yet you'll have to look them up, you may have heard of the Great Wall).

We also did an overnight trip of the area where we saw ruins from an ancient trading post on the Silk Road, and an old village called Tuyoq which has a very important Mosque and ruined caves with ancient Buddha paintings. The amount of history here is mind boggling, wait till I tell you about the next two places. We stayed overnight next to desert sand dunes in a small village, another great cultural experience. Unfortunately, one of our fellow travellers Warren had gotten extremely sick from something he ate earlier in the day. It was so bad that he had to rush to Turpan 2 hours away to go to a hospital. We found out later that by the time he got to the hospital he was so dehydrated that his hands were cramped, he couldn't walk, and couldn't see hardly at all. It was bad. Luckily he just needed to get some fluids in him and by morning he was OK. Pretty scary though, we all new that it could have been any of us and if it happened in a place with no hospitals (i.e. Tibet) we could have been screwed.

Kendra modelling at Jiaohe ruins outside Turpan. Yeowzah!

An example of a traditional Uighur village near Turpan - Tuyoq Village

Kendra and I out in the Taklamakan/Gobi(?) Desert.

DUNHUANG

OK, phew, what next. We headed out of Western China and into Gansu another province next to Inner Mongolia and the Gobi Desert. Our destination after, yes, another sleeper bus, was a place called Dunhuang. Basically an Oasis town on the edge of massive sand dunes and barren rocky desert. Unfortunately, shortly after we arrived in town Kendra got the bug that hit Warren. Luckily she didn't get as dehydrated but was in severe discomfort for almost a day and a half and all I could do was watch (the world cup...hehehe, just kidding I did try and help but what can a guy do, we had a room with a TV and every channel was in Chinese. The only thing that made any sense at all to watch was soccer - can you believe that Australia made it through the round robin...crazy...oh yeah - Kendra, seriously) , it was a bad situation for her. We basically took three days off so she could get over it...brutal. We ended up saying goodbye to Warren and Jodie at this point, its hard to believe but we travelled with them the entire way from Zhongdian, Yunnan, till there, almost 6 weeks! They were great companions and lots of fun, good luck on the rest of your trip guys!

Once Kendra felt better we made our way to Dunhuang's major attraction called the Mogao Caves...amazing again! The area is designated a World Heritage Site (another checkmark) and is definetly worthy of the title. The site is formed into a 1.7 km long section of desert cliffs. It is made up of more than 700 caves/grottos (we were able to see 10) that contain some of the oldest known Buddha and Taoist shrines, paintings, scriptures, and sculptures in China. Some of the earliest caves had been decorated as far back as 366AD, they were renovated however sometime around 900-1000AD, ha, renovated 1100 years ago, haha, still bloody old. Another fact is that this site, being so remote, is one of the few sites that escaped the ever destructive clutches of the Cultural Revolution, good on yah Mogao! Another highlight of the trip (highlight after highlight after highlight I know its getting boring...but its so true).

A shot of the Mogao caves. This is a small section of the site, there are over 700 caves each with unique styles, murals, and sculptures.

XI'AN

And finally our current destination, Xi'an, home of the Terra Cotta Warriors and a province with more than 35,000 designated cultural sites. The area around Xi'an has been affectionately dubbed the cradle of China. This is the area where wars were fought, emperors reigned, farmers farmed, hawkers hawked, and yes, tourists flock. After yet another Sleeper train we arrived in Xi'an on Friday and with that the end of our remote travels in China. We found ourselves in a bustling city of over 6 million people (with the smog to prove it), McDonalds, KFC, Cellphone shops every 5 m, and tourists galore. Phew, we sighed a gratifying "sigh" as we sunk our teeth into our first french fries in 4 weeks (I don't know if its a good thing or just plain scary that McDonalds tastes the same all over the world...scary I think).

OK, so your all wondering about the Terra Cotta warriors. We visited the site today, again, an unbelievable example of China's ancient history. I can't say enough of the site, we spent hours walking and marvelling at the 2000 yr old statues all lined up ready for battle. Emperor Qin Shi Huang had the army built as protection for his equally massive tomb. Hundreds of people were used in the building of the caves, and army itself. Apparently he buried the artisans alive within to keep the secrets safe. I guess that works because the site wasn't formally discovered again until 1974, only 32 years ago.

The famous Army of the Terra Cotta Warriors.

A bit tough to capture this site with a camera especially without zoom or wide angle. Every single warrior has his own unique features, none are alike!!

And again we had to say goodbye to the last couple from our original group of 8 that left for Tibet 6 weeks ago. This time it was Karl and Petra who were heading out to Vientienne, Laos. Two more great travelling companions not only for their company and laughs but for that great medicine against...you know what, the runs. Cheers guys, see you in Vienna (or Australia, or New Zealand, or Santiago, or...).

With that we end our trip on the silk road of China and continue now to Chengdu to see Pandas, and Kunming to finally go full circle on our trip to China. After that we are headed back to SE Asia and Vietnam, on track again after our short 2 1/2 month detour in China. We'll keep you informed.

Cheers,
Mike and Kendra

PS. I wrote this along the way from Kashgar so, yes, its a little long winded, I considered breaking it up into two but heh, you're bored anyway, might as well read this then check 150 emails at work...don't miss that...

Qomolangma & The Road Less Traveled

2006-06-08T04:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, grab a cup of coffee (or Caramel Machiatto - man I miss them!), go to the bathroom and get comfy... this is going to be long one!

When last we left off, Mike and I were planning a 5-6 day trip to Mount Everest Base Camp. This trip quickly expanded to a 16 day overland adventure starting with Everest, continuing west to Mount Kailash, and ending in Ali. Next stop will be Kashgar, China which is the last trading post for the silk road in China. Then we will travel east in northern China to Turpan (desert country - camel rides & dune surfing!), Dunhuang, and finally arrive in Xi'an (where the terracotta warriors were recently discovered) on June 21. So, instead of a little exposure to China, we decided to explore the whole damn thing!

We continued our Tibetian journey with 2 of our 3 original couples to Lhasa. The one thing that really made up our minds about seeing the rest of Tibet now was that in July, a new train line will be coming to Lhasa, bringing with it up to 4000 people a day, probably losing what remaining culture and identity the Tibetian people are desperatly holding onto. At times we have been very disheartened to see what the Chinese occupation has done for Tibet; new concrete towns constructed and aided with gov't incentives to mobilize masses of Hans people into Tibetian territories. Tibetians are charged significantly more for EVERYTHING. They are not allowed to get a passport or leave China without significant trials. Nor are they permitted to have foreigners stay in their homes. The leader of their precious religion is in exhile and the gov't is trying to control them with dubious means. The children run to our vehicles with hands out begging for money. Yet, with all of the above, Tibet has been amazing, eye opening experience, that will forever be with us.

The gang: Jodie, Mike, Petra, Karl, me & Warren

The last 2.5 weeks has been a bone jarring, exhilerating, anxious, and mesmerizing trip. I called this entry "The road less traveled", because literally the roads, if you can call them that, were hardly traveled. We drove through rivers up to our car doors, on dried river beds thought mountain terrain, up mountain passes that made me hang to one side of the jeep in fear of my weight tipping us over the steep incline, sand paths with dust devils enveloping the car, and not to mention the precarious driving of Bemba our driver or the condition of his jeep. Let's just say that 15 days of bumpy roads had it's toll on the car... 4 flat tires, 2 times being stuck - once in the river, once in mud, a broken rear differential, dropped front drive shaft (quick fix - electrical tape & wood), and our favourite... running out of gas on a secluded 4500m mountain pass. We definately had our share of adventure!!!

One of our many river crossings by jeep

At exactly 9pm, on Friday May 26, Mike and I witnessed the glory and magnitude of QOMOLANGMA, or as us Westerners call it "Mount Everest" for the first time. The sun had started to set and the mountain took on a brilliant pink hue that beckoned us to her. And to her we went. We hiked to the Chinese Base Camp (5200m) and spent a memerable night in a Tibetian tent waiting for the enigma to present itself again. We were awarded with a stunning, cloudless morning view. The exhibition climbers were at their own base camp 2 km away, so we were unable to speak with them, however a sports psychologist for one of the teams shared our tent and told us that the previous week 8 people had died,3 from an avalanche; reminding us of the viciousness of the tallest mountain in the world.

First view of Qomolangma

View of Base Camp

Morning view of Everest - spectacular!!!

Okay, last picture of Everest ... promise!

Our next major adventure was to hike Mount Kailash - a 52 km trek that is one of the most important pilgrimages in Asia for Buddhist and Hindus. We completed the circuit in 3 days and as one of our traveling companions, Karl put it "if you've hiked Mt Kailash, you can hike anything". Trekking at an average 4750m, with a pass of 5630m to climb, crossing streams via slippery rocks, descending rocky paths, and crossing snowing plains, this was a difficult hike (even Mike claimed it was one of the hardest he had done). While completing the kora, we stayed in two monestaries with Monks treating us to their staple food called Samba (a dough substance made of barley, yak butter, tea) which provided us with enough energy to complete the pass. For 3 days we survived on Samba and instant noodle soup. We had not showered in 5 days. By the 45th km all I could think of was green veggies. The weather took a turn for the worst: sunny the first day, and snowing hard by the final day. By the end of the kora, we were cold, desperatley hungry, exhausted, and my lips were blistered from the conditions, but we had such a feeling of accomplishment that nothing else mattered!

Mt. Kailash with the Tarboche Flagpole

The streams we crossed around Mt. Kailash

The path down Mt. Kailash

One of my favourite moments of our overland adventure part deux, was exploring Guge Kingdom. Located 20 km away from Zhada (a remote town similar to the badlands in US), these ruins once belonged to the Guge's, a trading nation from the 11 - 17th century. A war in the 17th century destroyed the palace located on top of a mountain, and the cultural revolution in 1970 destroyed what remained of the two temples, but the ruins are beautiful! Hidden underground passageways still exist and you can just imagine the people centuries ago living in cave rooms, the monks praying and the royalty overseeing it all.

Ruins of Guge Kingdom

How can I forget suffering from AMS - no not altitude sickness (thankfully we aclimatized properly and never felt any side effects), but ACUTE MONESTARY SICKNESS!!! As much as I loved the monestaries we saw... the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Panchoi Monestary w/ Kumbum in Gyantse, Tashilumbo Monestary in Shigatse, Chiu Monestary at Lake Manasarova... there are literally hundreds of temples and monestaries to see and eventually they become quite repetative. Mike and I have learned quite a lot about the Buddhist religion, although we still get many of the Buddha's confused!

Tashilumbo Monestary - the most important monestary for the Penchen Lama

Panchoi Monestary, the Kumbum in the 8 layer building on the left that housed many images of Buddha's

In parting, I would like to share with you some insights to Tibetian culture regarding marriages (marriages... why would I focus on that I wonder?!). Arranged marriages are a strong part of Tibetian beliefs. Typically only one brother of a family will be married so that a families land plot does not become divided into smaller sections. Consequently, the wife is shared between all the brothers of the family in all meanings of the word. It was joked to us that a women will go to bed at one end of the bedroom and wake up at the other end. Paternity is seldom known, so children will call the oldest brother "father" and the younger brothers "uncles". We have also heard of some men having more than one wife.

Okay a few more candid pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Mike & I at the highest pass we drove through.

Local Tibetian house. The brown pile in front of the house is yak/cow dung drying in the sun. Poo is the fuel of choice to keep you warm on a cold night.

For 2 blissful nights we rested at a holy lake called Lake Manasarova and stayed in these mud and wood rooms with no electricity and no showers. Cleaned ourselves in a tiny basin by candlelight.

View from Lake Manasarova looking towards the monestary on the hill at twiligh. Like I said, blissful!

Missing you and caesar salads, cheeseburgers, steaks, popcorn and movies...

Kendra & Mike

7 days to Tibet

2006-05-19T23:53:00.000-07:00

We've just made it to Lhasa, Tibet (China) after our 7 day overland trip from Zhongdian (Southwestern China, Yunnan province). There are few words that I can think of to describe how amazing this trip was. It was definetly a trip of a lifetime. We went over 5000+ m passes, visited 600 yr old monestaries, marvelled at 7700m mountains and clear blue/green rivers. Of course we also spent time meeting the people of Tibet, we drank Yak Butter Tea with Buddhist Nuns, showed our pictures of Tibetan farmers to their delighted family, even helped carry mud onto the roof of a house being built in a small village. Everything was amazing!! After all that, we made it into Lhasa and got our first view of Potala Palace (the Palace shown in the movie "7 years in Tibet" with Brad Pitt). Who knew you could do all that in one week.

The trip from Yunnan to Tibet is actually closed to independent travellers by the Chinese government. Because of this one needs to arrange travel by booking through an agency and undergoing a rigorous permitting process as well as finding at least four people to rent the vehicle and pay the driver and guide for the trip. This is daunting especially when permitting situations seem to change by day, by city, and by person. Finally, the price is a bit more than an arm and a leg. This is obviously in place to discourage all but the most determined people from going overland to Lhasa, needless to say we were determined. In the end we met six other people as determined as us.

In fact all the hoops one has to jump through ensures that the area is virtually untouched by tourism. This meant that we would be visiting places and meeting people that rarely see foreigners. We didn't know what to expect when we left Yunnan, but we all knew it would be amazing. We did have our ups and downs though, in fact, in the first half hour of the drive we were stopped in a traffic jam for 1.5 hours. The cause of the jam was an accident where, tragically, a 5 yr old boy from a local village was killed while trying to cross the road by a large truck...we all took a while getting over it. The incident did prompt discussions about the lack of road safety in China as well as several questions to our guides regarding Tibetan beliefs around death. On that note how about an interesting cultural lesson.

After someone dies Tibetan people have 4 types of burials, the most common and most shocking to westerners is the "Sky Burial". This is reserved for people that die from natural causes. The body is brought to a small temple on a hilltop/mountaintop. It is then prepared by a special monk by chopping the flesh into small pieces and crushing the bones into paste, vultures then come (sometimes called by the monks using a Conch horn) and devour the remains. This is in line with the Buddhist belief that everybody is reincarnated for a future life. The body is just a vassal for the soul. Human remains are given to the animals, in this case vultures, who carry the remains into the sky; a very idealistic and happy thought for most Tibetans. In fact Tibetans are largely encouraged to witness the sky burial although foreigners are not. On one morning of our trip we were at a monestary below a sky burial site that was conducting one of these rituals, we watched as a monk blew on a Conch horn and several vultures appeared flying towards the site, a very sober moment.

Sky Burial Site

The other types of burials are the "Tomb Stuppa Burial" reserved for high Monks and Lamas, the "Fire Burial" reserved for people that die of disease, poison, or unknown causes and finally the "Water Burial" reserved for those that die of accidental or premature death such as the tragic death of the 5 yr old we encountered.

On a more lighter note, we travelled with a great group of people. Everybody was really easy going and we had loads of fun switching between the two cars, playing jokes on each other, experiencing the cuisine and using each other as a backup to try things that we probably wouldn't have tried on our own. We had found so many people in Dali to go on the trip with that we had two trucks and two guides along with us. Our two guides and drivers were really amazing and gave us the tour that we all wanted and hoped for. They also talked honestly about China-Tibet issues, taught us as much as they could about Tibetan Buddhism, and allowed us to take as much or as little time we wanted along the way, we definetly owe the success of this trip to them. Actually I'm having a hard time trying to sum up this trip as there are so many great stories and highlights from each day. I guess I'll try and let the pictures tell some of the story.

Our Overland Group in Lhasa after 7 days on the road.
Top Row: Shifu (driver), Dazom (guide), Laba (driver), Warren, Eric, Lisa
Bottom Row: ME!!!, Dolkak (guide), Jody, KENDRA!!!, Petra, Karl

Kendra and I at 5030m, a little windy :)

Yakaty Yak! Who you looking at?

Speaks for itself.

One of the several Tibetan Monestary's along the way.

Drinking Yak Butter Tea offered to us from some Buddhist Nuns

Kendra doing her part in Village chores.

Thats me on top of one of our highest passes. Warren and I hiked up 200m to this spot at approx 5200m, needless to say it was worth it.

A couple village boys with big smiles and snotty noses.

Prayer flags over one of the passes.

After all that we are now in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, and the center of its Religion and Culture. Over the years since the Chinese have been here the city has lost some of its Tibetaness. However, the Palace, Old City and most of the major monastery's and temples are still intact and the Tibetans are still holding on as hard as they can to their culture and beliefs. We are trying to plan trips around Lhasa, in particular a 5-6 day trip to the Chinese Everest Base Camp...we'll see, I'm sure it will be amazing.

If only we could travel for ever.
Mike and Kendra

PS. The bathrooms are absolutely repulsive ;)

A Tiger Jumped Where?

2006-05-08T06:01:00.000-07:00

Well we've only been in China for 12 days, but its already been remarkable. That is, aside from the constant spitting (which actually is hauking a loogie first then spitting it out), smoking allowed everywhere and the shocking public toilets - lets just say that public is definately the key word... has anyone else ever seen another adult person poo before???

We've been on a cultural kick again in China. In Kumning we spend a day on bicycles touring the sights of the city. We saw a beautiful 1000 year old temple, walked in a scenic park (Green Lake Park) and visited two pagoda's from the Tang Dynasty. The weather was not the best however, and for the first time in 2 months, I had to pull out my hoodie.

Yuantong Temple, Kumning

Next stop was Dali, not to be confused with Dali City (or Xiaguan) half an hour away. We were excited to see the old city of Dali with it's cobblestone streets and shops, but were disheartened when we discovered that we had arrived at this tourist hub for the Chinese at the start of their week long national holiday and prices for rooms had quadrupled!!! Not wanting to miss the sights, we stayed for 4 nights, but someone was a bit grumpy about the prices (not naming any names though). With mountains as a backdrop and a large lake in front, Dali was quite picturesque. We spent a day at the historic three pagodas sight - absolutely amazing, a day hiking in the mountains (we est. 22 km long!!!), and a day resting (after the 22 km hike!) .

Mike & I in front of the 3 pagodas.

View from our hike on the Cang Shan (Jade Green Mountains). In the background is Dali.

In Dali, we realized it was time to figure out our Tibet trip. After looking around, we found 3 other couples that were interested in the overland trip so after much discussion and number crunching, we booked two jeeps with drivers and guides (don't worry Moms). We should be leaving Saturday, May 13 and arriving in Lhasa 7 days later.

With our Tibet plans finalized, we continued north to Lijiang where we trekked the Tiger Leaping Gorge for the next 3 days. This was an exhilerating and breath taking (sometimes literally for me) hike. For those who don't know, Tiger Leaping Gorge is one of the deepest gorges in the world. The mighty Yangtse River rushes between 2 mountains that peak at 5800high, although we climbed to 2660m. We stayed at rustic guesthouses along the way, with beautiful views. Mike spent one whole afternoon sitting on a ledge staring out into the vast mountain range. We had no cares in the world on this special hike. We may be one of the last few people to see the gorge in all of it's prime as the Chinese gov't plans to dam the gorge in the near future.

We've just climbed a part of the Tiger Leaping Gorge called the 24 bends for two hours, to reach this site.

Waterfalls, new friends and goats... who can ask for anything more?

Another view of the Gorge.

This is where we stopped to wait for the bus to take us back to Lijang after the trek was over... okay not exactly true, but we thought the sign was funny (we still had to go down to the river, cross a ferry, and climb back up the hill top to catch our bus).

We arrived back in Lijiang today and have been pleasantly surprised by the "old city" and are looking forward to exploring it more and seeing the Black Dragon Pool Park. Then we hope to head further north to Zhongdian where we will spend a few days climitizing to the high altitude for our trip to Tibet.

Overall, China has been wonderful! The food has been surprisingly good (we had heard of travelers surviving only on M&M's and McDonalds), the people are friendly and hardworking - we've witnessed men and women plowing fields by hand and carrying remarkably heavy loads on their backs, the scenery is astonishing and the culture is mesmerizing. Mike bought a Mandarin phrase book to help with the language barrier and we are starting to communicate better. But damn, those public toilets are just too hard to get over!!!

Some people pictures that we are starting to take

All the best,
Kendra & Mike

Slow Boat to China

2006-04-27T01:47:00.000-07:00

Hello again,
Well, its been quite some time since we last updated this website so where do I begin. After Vang Vieng we continued on our way through Laos up to Luang Prabang, which has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, but I'll get to that in a minute.

The drive from Vang Vieng is truly beautiful, but what a rollercoaster! A few people were green in the face by the time we finally made it to Luang Prabang 6 hours outside Vang Vieng. On the good side the drive took us up into the Laos mountains, we passed beautiful scenary, and small villages precariously hanging on steep hillsides. On the bad side, we were in a crowded minibus going far too fast over roads far too narrow. There wasn't a straight enough section the entire way for you to pull out your wedgy before the next corner flung you into the window or passenger next to you. Our driver had to dodge everything from huge 50 seater buses that took up the whole road to pigs and chickens (one poor chicken sadly lost its life). Unfortunately we did witness two accidents, no suprise considering the conditions, not to worry though, nobody was seriously hurt, I think.

Ouch, Thats a truck that T-Boned a Bus.

Luang Prabang is definitely worthy of its World Heritage Site title, we had 5 days there to explore. We went to temples, freed some birds (seriously), swam in waterfalls, kayaked down the Nom Kham river and basically enjoyed ourselves. Check it out.

The crowd from Luang Prabang, Look Mom, we didn't forget Moose! Along with Kendra is Paulien (Holland) on the left and Christina (Sweden) on the right. Thanks for the fun and the memories (Christina travelled with us the whole time we were in Laos, as I so eloquently put it one night, "Christina, your the longest person we've ever travelled with."....

Luang Prabang Royal Palace Museum with the Mekong River in the background.

One of the many Buddhist temples throughout the city.

Kendra and I exploring the Nom Khan river on Kayak.

The only unfortunate incident occured while we were cycling around the city, one of the girls we were with had her bag snatched from her by some guys on a motorbike, luckily for all, we were able to get it back, but it put a damper on our feelings on Laos. That didn't last long though as the following day someone returned our camera that "Yours Truly" forgot at a small store, and later we were all spontaneosly invited to a small outdoor block party by a group of friendly Laos people. We still love Laos.

Last week we got a comment from an anonymous person (Dave D.) who mentioned that he wanted to hear about some of the boring stories of travelling such as bus rides and weird occurances. After reading that comment I wasn't sure that we had anything that would fit the bill, however, Dave must have set off a chain reaction because since then we've had three straight days of "boring" events.

It started with our own personal "Slow boat to China". We left Luang Prabang for our two day journey to China on Sunday. We booked a slow boat (its actually called that) to take us to a small town called Nong Khiaw in Laos. Buses are quicker but the slow boat was supposed to include breathtaking scenary and we couldn't pass it up. It did not disapoint, it was amazing. However, because its the dry season the river wasn't exactly deep and our boat bottomed out on some rocks damaging the propeller as it did. We had to push it upstream until the driver could replace the propeller, not much drama or delay, but watching him replace the propeller sure brought Dave's comment to mind, check out some photos of the trip.

Picturesque beauty on the Slow Boat to "China" (Actually Nong Khiaw, Laos, but close enough).

Propeller repair job on the side of the river.

Our "Slow" and "Crowded" boat, at least everybody looks comfortable?

Another incident occured the next day when our minibus started smoking from the tires. The breaks were overheating, we had to stop. Once we did, it was discovered that there was brake fluid leaking everywhere. Not very good considering the driver was slamming on the brakes every 5 seconds to avoid trucks and chickens. Of course our driver told us "no problem" and we reluctantly got back in. We did have to stop twice more and wait on the side of the road to keep the brakes from burning out (at least they worked, kind of).

And finally our leg into China, once again, a roller coaster ride in a minibus to the Laos-Chinese border. We went to customs and got our stamps out of Lao, next was a matter of finding a way to get the 3 km to the China border. That was answered when a Chinese sleeper bus from Laos pulled up and offered to take us not only to the border but as far as Kunming, a city we weren't planning on reaching for 2 more days. This was a suprise, the bus looked actually kind of nice and we thought it would cost a lot of money. However, because we were literally picked up on the side of the road, not only we were able to get a great deal on the ticket we also saved money skipping two days at intermediate stops as well.

Our serendipitous sleeper bus that we picked up on the Laos Border.

The bus itself would have been comfortable if I was about 6 inches shorter, it definitely was cramped inside and we were the only foreigners on the bus. We quickly realized that there is a far greater language barrier here than in SE Asia. As far as the ride itself, at one point we waited three hours on the side of a mountain in some kind of traffic jam as there was plenty of construction going on in the area (a first hand look at all the resources China is snatching up lately) and then another 2 hour wait when the bus broke down and the crew had to fix it. The good thing was we were lulled to sleep by cheesy elevator music and Chinese pop songs being blared into our ears all night. What a ride, but we made it, 28 hours later, Yikes! After all that, we are currently in Kunming, China (Yunnan Province), check out the maps below.

Another country and another adventure, the next couple of weeks will take us to smaller and smaller towns until we are hopefully on the Tibetan Plateau overlooking the amazing city of Lhasa, we'll keep you posted.

Cheers,
Mike and Kendra

Pi Mai Laos!!

2006-04-17T23:56:00.000-07:00

Mike and I were going to surprise everyone with our spontaneous decision to go to Kathmandu, Nepal. We were an hour away from booking our plane ticket when we heard that protests and fighting had broken out in the Thamel tourist district. Not wanting to get in the way of stray bullets, we decided to continue with our original plan of travelling to Laos, then up into China instead. Here's Mike's updated map of where we've been.

After a tourist filled Thailand, Laos has been a breath of fresh air. The Lonely Planet says "Travellers utter a distinct 'ahhh' when they cross into Laos, like settling into a comfy chair after a long day's work." This is the utter truth.

After another night bus (2 in a row!) we arrived in the capital city of Vientiane - a beautiful town with the Mekong river running through it and French colonial architecture sprinkled throughout the streets. As the town is quite small, we rented bicycles to tour the area. What an amazing day! Vientiane is such a quiet place, with minimal traces of Western influences i.e. no 7-11's and McDonalds on every street corner. Very refreshing!

One of the many sights in Vientaine we saw on our bikes.

Two days later we took a bus to Vang Vieng. The normally laid back, quiet villiage/town, was transformed into a place of music, water fights, fairs, with many locals on the streets as they celebrated the Laos New Year (Pi Mai Laos!). So far we have celebrated New Years 3 times!!!

For the past 5 days, we have been tubing down the Nam Xong river (twice) - which includes jumping from swings, zip lines and free falls from 7m... although I swear the cliff was AT LEAST 15 m high... I definately had time to scream for a long time on the way down!. Sorry, pictures are on the film camera, so you'll have to wait until they are developed.

We also rented mountain bikes to tour the villiage and see some famous caves in the area. First we went to Tham Jang - one of the largest caves I've ever been in. A little touristy though as it has cement floors and electrical lights. Our second cave, Tham Phu Kham was 6 km away. This bike ride involved a torrential down pour (okay, maybe just light rain), unpaved really rocky road, and interesting "toll bridges" along the way (see below), plus some aches & pains (some of us hadn't been on a mountain bike in over 10 yrs!). Then we had to climb 200m of rough, slippery terrain to reach the entrance of the cave. But it was worth it! The cave had not been altered from it's natural state (expect for the Buddha shrine in the first section). With only our head lights, we explored the dark caves, saw amazing stagalmites & tites, limestone formations, and a few bats. What a perfect day! Especially with the Laos massage to end the day... mmm massage!

We are actually in the Tham Jang cave but you can't tell, but really we are.

Mike finding a new section of cave, never explored before, or so he says...

Tham Jang Cave

Tham Phu Kham - just a little different than the first cave!!!

The wonderful mountain view that we saw while we biked. That's Christina on the left - a Swedish girl that we've been travelling with in Laos.

One of the toll bridges that we had to pay to get across. I guess capitalism has started in Laos!

This is the view from where I had my massage. You can image why we love Laos so much!!!

Tomorrow we are taking a mini bus to Luang Prabang in Northern Laos where we hope to do some more treks.

To health & happiness,

Kendra & Mike

Northern Thailand

2006-04-08T23:26:00.000-07:00

What, another update in less than 3 days, we must be bored or something. On the contrary, we've been quite busy in Chiang Mai, since the last update we've done a full day Thai Cooking course as well as a 2-day 1-night hike into the mountains of Northern Thailand. So where do we start.

The cooking course was great. We went to a local market to pick out the fresh ingredients for the days cooking. This was probably my favorite part as we've been passing these markets for weeks now without having a clue what half the stuff is (besides the fact that they are vegetables ofcourse). We learned 7 dishes all together from Pad Thai (great noodle dish) to Green Curry. The wierdest part was when we had to kill a live chicken...that was strange...just kidding...the chicken was already dead we just had to pluck the feathers...OK, kidding again...it was nicely chopped up for us just like at Safeway...hehehe. Check out some photos.

Let the Apron jokes come forth.

Getting instruction from Perm, our master cooking instructor.

The trek into the mountains was fantastic. Along with just the hiking we also had a ride on elephants, which, except for the fact that they were elephants, was kind of similar to horse rides back home. We both enjoyed the ride, a unique experience for sure. The only drama was when the elephant started freaking out, roaring (or whatever that sound is that elephants make) and our guide jumped off to smack it on the head...Not kidding this time. I mean, its just me but, if you smack an animal thats 10 times bigger than you on the head with a stick, that would seem a little dangerous don't you think...especially when your two guests were still on top. For a second there we thought we'd be another statistic of the many people that have been carried off never to return on the back of a rampaging elephant, oh the horror (hehehe). Actually the crisis was shortlived and no harm was done (except for maybe a bruise on the elephants head).

Pudong (the elephants name I think) and our guide just after getting off the contraption on its back. An interesting experience.

We were soon on our way to start the hike. The rest of the day we were walking through jungle, rice fields and around swamps (in Kendras case she walked through the swamps, but thats another story, see the photo below). The hike was fantastic, we had heard mixed impressions of the trekking up here in Chiang Mai as some people reported that it was kind of fake and boring. Ours, however, exceeded expectations. Along the way we were able to swim in waterfalls to get away from the heat, and at the end of the day we stayed with a family in a village of 150 people. There were 6 of us and the people we stayed with were the guides cousins. I thought that it would be uncomfortable intruding into the village but I was wrong. The people seemed genuine to us and we enjoyed a night out in the mountains. Some trekkers/hikers apparently go to villages that are all decked out for the tourists making the trip seem fake, this village (in the words of our guide who does actually live there with his wife) is a working village who supply vegetables and cows to the local markets, they understand the value of supplementing their income with tourist dollars and seem to enjoy having people come in once or twice a week (different families host the guests each time). All in all a good experience.

The next day was more hiking and another great escape into the cool of the mountain waterfalls. The last adventure of the trip was a cruise down a river on a bamboo raft. Tonnes of fun. It was the weekend so there were lots of people picnicking along the shores, what made it more fun was that currently Thailand is gearing up to celebrate the Songkram Festival (or Water Festival), which, without to much detail, is a massive 4-5 day water fight. Needless to say we were constantly attacked with splashing and water guns by people along the way. Pretty funny. Kendra was a particularily favorite target as they would sneak unexpectedly up to her while she was lying down on the raft...ofcourse, the rest of us didn't want to ruin the suprise...hehehe.

Some of the hiking photos.

The coolest spider I've ever seen, Kendra loved it...kind of. Thats our guide, La, holding it.

Kendra and I in front of one of the waterfalls along the way. The water was perfectly cold to keep us from overheating on the hike.

On our way to the village. Its currently the dry season in the area, they will wait till June to start planting the rice again. They also burn some of the fields to clear out brush for new crops which is why it appears a little hazy here. Nevertheless a beautiful sight.

I just missed taking this photo when Kendra fell into the swamp, it doesn't look that deep but she was in above her knees with visions of leaches flashing through her head I'm sure. She was unharmed. In case your wondering she's the one in the back looking a little off balanced. The puppy behind kendra was a stray that befriended us from one of the villages for the next 2 days, we called it Scrappy.

The Bamboo raft. If you look behind us you can see some people along the shore splashing the people on the raft. Its the Water Festival so be prepared to get wet. In the cars on the way home we were more than once suprised by people throwing buckets of water at us from the streets (and the festival isn't supposed to start till Wednesday!).

After all that we are headed back to Bangkok on the Night Bus today. We should get there by 6:00am tomorrow and from there organize ourselves for the next leg of the trip. This should be a suprise for you as well as us, because we don't quite know yet where that will be. We will keep you posted though and our next update shall have all the answers.

Cheers,
Mike and Kendra

Goodbye Ko Tao - Hello Thailand

2006-04-05T01:41:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

After much denial, Mike and I realized that it was time to leave our beach life to see the rest of SE Asia. We had 6 glorious weeks in Ko Tao, vegging, diving, meeting wonderful people, beaching, snorkelling, singing Grease songs in the back of taxis, etc. Although there was the odd negative occurrence, i.e. the cockroach that invaded Mike's personal space (I'll let him tell you about that one when we get home!), the trigger fish attacks under water (the males are very aggressive during breeding season - one guy we were diving with got bit in the head), and the drunken head shaving incident (see picture below), Ko Tao will be a treasured memory.

Snorkelling at Mango Bay on a day long trip around Ko Tao

Mike and I ready for our last dive.

The gang at Buddha View who helped us with everything - Gee, James & Joline. Thanks guys!

Our dive instructors who made us into the divers we are today. Our last dinner was with them - Jasper, Alex & Rene!

Kimberly & Scott - thanks for the great memories

Before....

After... Hee Hee

Travelling to Bangkok in style (Catameran high speed boat, then A/C double decker bus) for $12 CDN we arrived in Bangkok on April 2. We found New Siam II Hotel, highly recommended by Jay & Denise. Air conditioning!! Hot water shower!! And a TV to watch BBC news - now that was luxury. However after paying only 200 B per night, the 790 B charge for the room was quite the shock. The next day we toured Koah San Road and met with Tip the travel agent to get our visa's organized for China and Vietnam.

Funny thing, on the Bangkok tourist map, it tells you to beware of the tuk-tuks who will try to scam you. Mike and I were well prepared or so we thought. We wanted to go see the grand palance and temples. We took a local river boat to a pier (highly recommended). A gentlemen speaking very good english advised us that the palace was closed due to a private service and recommended us to go to a couple of other temples in the area until it reopened to the public later in the day. He arranged a tuk-tuk for us for 40 B to go to 2 temples and back to Koah San Road. After the first temple however, he wanted to stop at an "Exchange Market". Once we saw the store, we realized that we had been had and refused to get out of the tuk-tuk. He finally left the store and then took us to another temple called the Golden Mountain, which was actually quite extraordinary. When we got out of the temple however our driver had dissappeared. Thinking back, we're pretty sure that the palace was really open and we were scammed, but at least no harm done.

Picture of Tuk - Tuk for those how have never been to Thailand

Once we found out that it was going to take a week to get our China Visa, we decided to leave Bangkok and take an overnight bus to Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand). We just arrived this morning and found a decent room for 200 B. We are looking forward to seeing the villiage people, treks, elephant rides and taking some Thai cooking classes so that we can charm you with our cuisine cooking when we come home. Speaking of coming home, Kei you are right, we are hoping to stay abroad for a bit longer... maybe coming home in November??? We'll see....

Hugs & kisses everyone,

Kendra & Mike

Run to the Border

2006-03-27T23:46:00.000-08:00

Hello again, its been a while since our last update but even so there isn’t much to tell, not that that’s a bad thing. We’ve been enjoying our little island here in Thailand, which basically means, SCUBA, lying on the beach, kayaking, snorkeling, swimming…you get the picture. Well just in case you don't this might help.

The countdown is on, though, until we leave this paradise and head to the bustling capital city of Bangkok. Our last day is either Sunday, or Monday this coming week depending on how far our month rent lasts.

One thing of note was our 18 hour VISA run from here to Burma and back. I know I've mentioned it before but for those of you unfamiliar with the Thailand VISA run, every foreigner that comes to Thailand gets 30 days to visit before they have to leave the country. If you are staying longer than 30 days ie. Kendra and me, you have to cross a border somewhere and re-enter the country to get another 30 day visit. This little loophole allows some people to actually live and work in Thailand for years without having to immigrate, or apply for a work visa, all they have to do is get to a border and back every 30 days and they’re good for another month. Handy eh? You might think so except the Border runs are long and after several months quite boring for those that are live here. For Kendra and I, though, it was another mini adventure that came with added bonus of more VISA stamps on the Passport.

It starts with a boat to the mainland, we ended up on the cheap night boat that leaves at 11:00pm and gets in at 5:00am. We actually had to get there at 9:30pm to make sure we had a place to sleep which basically meant a spot on a bench and a spot on the floor next to the bench on the top deck of the boat. Needless to say sleeping didn’t come easy although when I couldn’t sleep I could enjoy the moonlit ocean and was able to see several flying fish jumping out of the water around our boat, pretty cool. The next Leg is the Mini Bus leg, which meant that several of us are crowded onto a minibus that takes us to the border. This took 2 hours and was especially uncomfortable for Kendra as she got stuck in the middle front seat, crappy! Kendra also had the misfortune of having a birds eye view of the driving techniques of our driver. It’s a harrowing experience sometimes when you are passing a car on solid double lines around a blind corner. My favorite was when our driver and another guy in front decided to pass a car both at the same time, we were 3 cars wide on a double line with oncoming traffic, crazy. Kendra learnt faster than the rest of us to simply ignore what was happening and try to sleep. We survived the ride to the border and went to Thai customs to receive the first stamp of the day. Next we had to get back on a boat to cross a rather large bay/river into Burma. We spent a grand total of 15 minutes in Burma and headed back to Thailand to get our new 30day VISA. Then 2 hours on a mini bus, another boat ride and we're back in Koh Tao. In total about 18 hours non-stop. Not much sleep was had, but hey, at least we got more stamps...I love stamps. Check out some of the photos.

Starting out on the Boat Ride, thats Burma in the background.

The pier at Burma, there was also a large market that we explored where you could buy live chickens...Kendra didn't want one.

Burmese immigration office...interesting.

OK, Till Next Time.
Mike

Moons and Parties

2006-03-18T02:33:00.000-08:00

First of all, thank you so much for the birthday wishes and to Mike for the great day at the spa. Appartently all of the guys on the island usually go to the spa with their girlfriends and I found out why... let's just say boobies are not left out on the treatment list ... Mike all of a sudden has a new interested in aloe vera wraps, oil massages and facials!

Here's Mike and I at dinner for my b-day.

We've been really busy this week. March 14 was the full moon party on Ko Pha Ngan. For those of you who don't know, the full moon party is a huge event every month where thousands of people congregate on a beach to stay up all night to dance and do other things that are not pg rated for our family website. Along with 4 other people from our diving center, Mike and I set off for our 12 hour adventure armed with bug dope, our cheap film camera (those of you who remember Mike on St. Patty's Day 2005, know why), my serong and 2000 Batt. After a 2 hr boat ride, where poker was played and beer consumed, dinner at a bar where Simpsons played 24/7; we made it to the beach. The full moon was shimmering on the ocean water and was breath taking. Knowing we had to pace ourselves in order to last the full nite to catch our 7am boat back, we started at a reasonable pace. But this resulted in warm beer. Soon we were introduced to "The Bucket" - a medely of a Mickey, a can of coke, ice and a Red Bull. Mmmm!!! We walked the beach that was filling up with people, and found a bar that was pumping out great tunes. We actually stayed there all night dancing. At one point we looked out onto the beach and saw a sea of people dancing in the moonlight. At 5am, Mike and I were starving and stumbled along the beach, waking up our friends on the way and headed back to the pier. We missed the sunrise while we were gorging ourselves on burgers, but that's okay. What an amazing party!!!

Sorry no pictures developed yet for the party, but you can imagine, I'm sure.

What else have we been up to? We did another day dive yesterday at Sail Rock, one of the famous dive sites of Ko Tao. It has an 18 m chimney that you descend. Still don't have an underwater camera, so check out the link instead. This is a picture of the rock from 0 meter depth.

After logging the dives in our books (up to #19 now!), we got ready for St. Patty's day celebrations. Although we were lacking the green clothing, we didn't lack the spirit. We went to a bar on Sairee Beach (western part of the island) called Choppers with a bunch of people. Not an Irish bar, but they did have 2 for one specials and free Guiness (only for 5 minutes). Another great nite. Tomorrow is a border run day (I can't believe that we've already been in Thailand for 30 days).

Mike & I with our 2-4-1's.

Mike with two of our fellow Full Moon Partier's Matt & Tom.

Take care everyone, and Happy St. Patty's day!!!!

Kendra and Mike

Happy Birthday Kendra

2006-03-09T00:53:00.000-08:00

Lets all collectively wish Kendra a Happy Birthday! She's finally old enough to drink beer around the world, 21, Congrats ;) Still don't know why she hooked up with me, I'm like 7 years older than she is.

You will all be happy to know that Kendra is, at this very moment, enjoying a fine day of massage, aromatherapy, aloe vera wraps, and other strange things that make people feel pampered, at the Jamahkiri Spa & Resort (I'm especially jealous of the hot shower). The spa is amazing, on top of a hill overlooking a bay, great views while they treat you like a movie star. Check out the photos.

Thats the resort but if you want to get even more jealous (like me) check out the link.

The Birthday Girl right before the royal treatment, she looks happy.

Later on its dinner and a sunset.
So "Happy Birthday Kendra!"

As for Koh Tao, it has been so nice to us here we decided to stay for a month, thats right. We rented a small, but homey, room near the beach and will enjoy the following weeks by hitting the beach, doing some diving and enjoying what the island has to offer, should be great. Unfortunately that makes our photos kind of repetative as we won't have a bunch of different and exotic things to show you.

So in lieu of new and exotic things, for those of you who are interested on what its like to dive here in Koh Tao, I thought I'd put together some snapshots of heading out on a dive.

1) Start out at the shop (thats not us in the water, but thats where we learned)

2) Pile into the transport to the pier (we're close to the beach but not the peir)

3) Scramble over a couple of boats trying not to slip off into oblivion (its happened I've seen it...actually I've seen it on the video that the shop gives to everybody after your first dive. Maybe they include it to scare the crap out of everybody so they won't fall. So far its worked, but really its not that dangerous parents, really, look how well she's poised to jump the gap 5m over the water between the boats...oh I mean, its not dangerous...crap, this isn't going well.)

4) Put your equipment together (don't screw up or you won't be able to breath underwater!)

5) Jump off the side of the boat holding on to all equipment (don't screw up again, everyone is watching!)

6) Due to lack of underwater camera, there is very little that I can show you of what happens in a dive, however, picture fighting off sharks, dodging stingrays, and running out of air, and thats almost exactly what its like...

7) After the dive enjoy a nice ride back to the shore with some of your divemates (No more farmers tan!)

8) Enjoy a nice sunset and regail the near death shark attack experience with other great story tellers who lie equally as well.

There you have it a dive on Koh Tao in a nutshell. I'd better hurry back and pick up Kendra for the rest of her Birthday.

Cheers,
Mike

SCUBA Part Deux

2006-03-01T01:35:00.000-08:00

Mike and I are now PADI Advanced Open Water divers!!!

As Mike mentioned previously, we had to complete 5 more dives to get our advanced certs. After a day of rest, and by rest I mean a 40 min hike to Shark Bay and 2 hour of snorkeling trying to see... you guessed it... sharks. We actually did see one, a reef shark called a Black Tip Shark. It was probably 3 feet long and looked very sharky. I figured if I was going to see sharks, I'd rather see my first one while snorkelling and having access to a beach and breathable air when I lost my snorkel in fear versus on the bottom of the ocean.

The AOW course started at 7:30am for the next 2 days (this was earlier than we had ever managed to make it into work!), but being the eager beavers that we were, time did not matter. Our first two dives were a Muli-level dive and a Peak Bouyancy Performance dive. The Multi-level was a bit scary because at 20m there was a huge theromcline where the water became really cold and murky... it felt like we were slowing descending into a black abyss. We only stayed there for a few minutes and then went to a better visable level. The second dive perfected our neutral bouyancy and our hand stand ability underwater.

Then came the NIGHT DIVE. Good god that was scary and talk about a comedy of errors. We get on the boat and I put on my wet suit. The zipper is broken, which means that I'm going to get a bad draft of cool water running though me. Mike sort of fixed it, but we knew it was just time before it would unzip again. Then after our lecture about how to work our "torches", what to do when we get lost, and what animals we're going to see underwater, we jump in just as the last sun rays dissapear. Suddenly I hear a hissing sound escaping from my BCD jacket and realize that I have a leak. Mike jumps to my rescue and turns off my tank to resecure all of the hoses, but forgot to turn the air back on (to Mike's fairness, our instructor did ask for me to swim over so he could take a look, so I'm assuming that Mike thought he would turn the valve back on).... just to let you know Mike's pretty defensive about this.... Then we started our free descent into the gloom. It was so surreal only seeing everyone else's torches and outlines of other things like rock, coral and people. With your own torch you could see the odd fish, sea urchine, eel, or sting ray at the bottom of the ocean. We had to make an emergency ascent as we lost 2 of our divers, but then after picking up 2 more diveres separated from their groups, plus our own guys, we went back down. At one point of the dive, we turned off the torches and moved our hands all around us to see sparkles of beautiful light (bioluminescence). As we ascended and swam back to the boat, we looked up at the sky and saw it sparkeling with stars and the moon.

Our final 2 dives were the next day. We did our deep dive at 30 m! To make sure that none of our group had nitrogen narcosis (too much N2 in your body that makes you feel drunk and silly), we had to do some math at the bottom of the ocean. (Didn't they know that we were on vacations?!). Our next dive was a navigation dive where we learned to use compasses. Then the next 20 min we had a free dive. Our instructor left and we were left to explore the coral and make it back to the boat. That was the coolest moment, when Mike and I both new that we had made it as divers!!!

That's pretty much it for now. We're still not sure where or if we are going anywhere. We are considering continuing with a divemaster program, so that we can become instructors and never come home. Just kidding, well sort of!

Kendra & Mike

Sunshine and SCUBA

2006-02-25T21:14:00.000-08:00

Well we've done it. We've officially completed the PADI Open Water Diver Scuba Course and we loved it. For those of you who haven't done SCUBA the Open Water Course allows you to dive pretty much anywhere up to 18m. During the course we did 1 pool dive and 5 dives in the ocean, each one deeper than the last until we went down to 18m yesterday! I now know why so many people recommend doing SCUBA its frickin awesome, so awesome in fact that Kendra and I have both signed up for the Advanced Divers Course (Good advice Kei) which is another 5 dives and a certification that allows you to go to 30m! Sweet. We get to do 5 specialty dives starting tomorrow including 1 night dive (Kendra is a little freaked about that one...).

Some of the fish of note that we've seen so far include, a Blue Spotted Stingray, Morray Eel, Schools of Baracuda, Clown Fish ("Nemo"), Wrasses, Angelfish, Banner Fish....and hundreds more. Its also Whale Shark season here in Koh Tao and our instructor expects that we'll see one this week!

Other than SCUBA we've been enjoying the sunny island life on Koh Tao which is beautiful. We don't know when we'll move on but we expect that we'll stay on the Islands in the Gulf of Thailand for at least 3 more weeks when we have to run back to the border to get another 30 day Visa (By the way if anyone knows a way to get a 30 day extension without going to the border again let us know). After that we'll either head up North, or hit the West Coast, we aren't sure at the moment, although from all accounts the West Coast is even more beautiful than the East which is hard to believe.

For those of you who either can't read or get bored reading check out some photos.

One of our Dive Sites called "Twins".

Kendra Suited up

Kendra doing a "James Bond" entry

Our Open Water Group. (Yes I still have a farmers tan even in Thailand, pathetic I know. Just so you know, I pulled a rookie move, overcompensated and ended up getting sunburned, genius, not as bad as Roger did though (thats for you Laurel))

We don't have any underwater shots but I found this picture on the net for a Blue Spotted Stingray...very cool.

OK, thats it for now, take it easy and in a couple of days Kendra will tell you how our advanced course went.

Mike and Kendra

Junglemania

2006-02-20T05:34:00.000-08:00

Well it took me 24 days before I broke down and cried for the first time and wished that I was at home, not sure jungle life is quite for me....

Mike and I took a shuttle bus from KL to Jerantut (6 hr ride) and then boarded a boat that resembled a canoe with a small engine in the back with 6 other backpackers to head up the river to the Rainforest/Jungle of Teman Negara. The scenery was beautiful and the 3 hr trip flew by as we watched the different flora and landscape. We didn't see any animals except a monitor lizard walking in the sand. Once we got to the villiage of Kuala Tahan, we found our bungalow, a cute little room with a bathroom attached (you don't know how quickly you appreciate a sink and toilet in your dwelling!).

The next day we were eager to go on our Canopy Walk - a 500m walk on boards attached by ropes to trees and steel frames (Mike assured me it was designed well) 50 m high. The view was breathtaking; it was really amazing to see the top of the rainforest. We were hoping to see some animals, but only saw 2 squirrels with really long furry tails that resembled monkeys.

Mike & I declined the tour guides to save some $$$ and take our own time. The National Park Headquarters suggested that we also go to a view point called Bukit Teresek and insinuated that it would be an extra hour walk. Feeling adventurous we continued our trek after the canopy walk (already a 2.5 hr hike). The trail got a little more grueling with steep inclines and a lot of tree roots to manuveur through.

We made it to the viewpoint and it was like looking out of a window into a wide open rolling jungle. Very beautiful! We continued on the trek and soon were on our way down. As it is rainy season in Malaysia, and we had some tremendous thunder showers in the afternoon the day before, the jungle floor was muddy in places and made the climb down a bit precarious. At one point the trail ended before us, with the only option being to jump down a 3.5 foot drop to pick up the trail again. Soon we were deep in the jungle with no sign of a trail and a stream right in the middle of our path. Realizing that this could not possibly be the way, we retreated. Let me paint the picture, we were sweaty, muddy, low on water, and feeling lost. We back tracked and then Mike went alone to search for the trail. All of a sudden he hollered for me to look at my pants because he had "3, no 4, no make it 5 leeches on him". I looked down and to my horror saw tiny "worms" wrigling on my shoes and then escaping into my socks. Now I don't know if any of you have seen "Stand By Me", but the leech scene in that movie freaked me out and I am dreadfully frightened of leaches. I freaked out! I screamed to Mike and started crying on the spot. Mike ran back to me and seeing the state I was in, rushed to remove the leeches from me (I have know idea how many were on me b/c he blocked my view). After I was deleeched, I couldn't even talk I was so shaken. Before Mike found the leeches, he had found the path, so we resumed the trek. Pretty soon we realized that the leeches were in the mud and continued to attack us. We lost the trail again (a tree had fallen down from the rain). While I waited for Mike to find our route, I looked down once again and saw a leech go through my pants! I cried again and when Mike found the path I was running for my life! Eventually we saw a sign that said the end was 2 km away, but it was still an tough journey to get back. When we got back to the HQ, I was never happier. We grabbed 2 huge bottles of water when I looked down at my pants and saw blood on my thighs. Mike and I went to the bathroom, pulled down our pants (scariest moment of my life), and found 3 bites on my leg. No leeches thank god, but the marks were there. Mike also had some bites around his feet. The trek ended up taking 5 hrs in total!

Take a look at our war wounds...

The next day, no more jungle treks for me; we went to an Native villiage of nomidic people. We saw how they lived, were hold of their history, how they support themselves and how they make fire and catch their prey with poison darts. We then got to make fire (Mike's favourite part) and had a try at blowing darts. Very cool day.

We left the park the next moring. If you are ever in Malaysia, I would totally recommend going, but do the jungle trek when the ground is dry!

The next 50 hours were comprised of boats, trains, buses and 10 hours of sleep to get us to Ko Tao (Ko as in "Toe", Tao as in "Cow"), Thailand. Along the way we met some great poeple; a fun young dutch couple, a lovely guy from Scotland (Raymond ... not Randel, Mike!) and an energetic English girl.

We are planning on starting our SCUBA course tomorrow and will be certified for open water dives of 18 m in 4 days. Definately in the mood for beach life for the next month. This is a picture of us as we finally got to our room today:

Check out where we've been for the last 2 weeks:

Miss you all and wish you the best.

Kendra & Mike

Hindu Festivals and Sky Bridge's

2006-02-14T05:25:00.000-08:00

Hello again, its been 5 days since my last confession...I mean update.
Yes we've done a lot recently. As mentioned on the previous update, Saturday was the Hindu Festival, "Thaipusam" (for those of you who don't know what that is check the link to the right).

The first order of business on Saturday was to meet up with a University buddy of Kendra's, Nigel Goodwin and his girlfriend Furee (sorry if the spelling is wrong guys). It was based on their recommendation that we stayed in Singapore to watch this amazing festival, and let me tell you it was more than worth it.

I'll let the pictures do the talking.

He's carrying what's called a "Kavida"

Yes those spokes are piercing his skin.

This man is walking on Nails driven through wooden shoes.

Pretty amazing isn't it. The whole festival is a 3km procession between two Hindu temples in Singapore. We started at the end and made our way back up the route watching as the participants, danced, winced and hobbled their way to the finish. When we got to the start we were able to get to the staging area where people were getting pierced, and speered with many different devices. There was constant music, drumming, and singing, along with plenty of burning incense and human odour. The strange sights, poignant smells and general atmosphere are something that neither of us will soon forget.

The night before we left Singapore (Sunday) we spent an evening with Nigel and Furee. We had a great dinner at the Boat Quay where we were pleasantly suprised by Fireworks over the Quay in the middle of dinner (Nice touch Nigel, wink). Next stop was the famous Raffles Hotel on Beach Road, which is the very place that some intrepid bartender came up with the Singapore Sling. We went to the bar and ordered a round for the low, low price of 15 Singapore Dollars each (~$11 Can). They were exquisite if not a little over the top (actually I think thats the first one I've every had).

From L-R: Furee, Nigel, Me and Kendra (and Singapore Slings)

Monday was a train ride to Kuala Lumpur. To get to the hostel we had to take a short LRT ride to the heart of Chinatown and walk to the Hostel. This is what we found when we got there.

Thats what it looks like from the street, hard to see, but I'll just say that it makes it more secure.

We explored a little today and visited the famous Petronas Towers, walking along the Sky Bridge, between the two towers (see picture below).

Two hours earlier and the background would have been a blue sky.

Tomorrow is a short 8 hour trip by bus and boat to the famous national park "Teman Negara" (come on I'm sure you've all heard of it). It's an old growth rainforest where we can do canopy tours, jungle treks and rafting. We aren't sure what we'll do yet but, yes, (for the parents) it is very, very safe.

We'll catch you on the other side.
Cheers,
Mike and Kendra

Warning: The contents of this website do not necessarily reflect true circumstances, events or Kendras feelings. Furthermore if you've logged on to this site we do not take any responsibility of wasted minutes at work or getting in trouble by significant others for not getting the cleaning done. We are not liable or indemnified for any desire to quit your jobs and join us after viewing this website . For those of you expecting more frequent updates we apologize as 1) we've forgotten how to use computers and 2) not knowing the exact day of the week has made it difficult to determine when our last update was.

Snow and Sun

2006-02-09T20:24:00.000-08:00

We've made it to Singapore but Korea left us with a nice parting gift.

Thats Kendra and Paul outside his apartment building at 6:00 am on our way to the airport. And yes, that is snow...lots of snow.

We had a hair raising bus ride to the airport but made it safely. Our take-off was delayed an hour as all the planes taking off were in line to get de-iced. The flight was amazing once again, Singapore Airlines rocks!

We landed in Singapore and for the first time on the trip it was just the two of us fending for ourselves. We had a small hug to commemorate the moment. Of course the next thing we noticed was the sun, the heat, and the huge smile on Kendra's face, it was finally hot. We soon discovered that there would be minimal culture shock as Singapore feels like the New York of Southeast Asia. There are huge skyscrapers, modern architecture, clean streets, tap water is drinkable, and the shopping looks like a designer list Paris Hilton would use. (Tiffany's sent a spark through Kendra, I don't know why, don't they sell clothes?) Here's a shot of the central business district in Singapore.

There is also a colonial feel with some of the old British buildings and Quay's from the late 1800's. Kendra and I splurged on a really nice Indonesian place (Thanks Nigel great recommendation - extra peanut sauce indeed) right on the picturesque Boat Quay which was first built by the English for trading around 1860.

Accomadations was a breeze, we took the MRT (public train) from the airport to within a block of our hotel. Here's a picture of the front of our hotel.

Pretty nice eh? We were taking a bit of advice by not diving into the dorm beds and shared bathrooms right away. I guess the only problem is sometimes the air conditioning gets to cold...my my...its a hard life.

Just Kidding. Here's a more accurate shot of our accomodations.

Actually, its still really nice (Thanks Heather).

This weekend we will be checking out a local Hindu festival called "Thaipusam" which is said to be pretty amazing to witness. Its a day of penance, thanksgiving, and consecration for the Hindus, a 3km procession through Little India right in Singapore.

Ok, thats it for now, we're off to Orchard Road and some exploring.

Cheers,
Mike and Kendra

Are those ants on the kitchen counter?

2006-02-05T22:16:00.001-08:00

Today is our last day in Korea. I can't believe that we have only been here for 2 weeks, we've seen so much!

The last three days have been pretty low key. Not sure if we told everyone, but Mike's brother, Paul and his roommate let us stay in their spare room. Very generous of them, but it did come at a price. Laurel, we can never complain about Rog, Mike, and Jamie's old house ever again. Talk about a bachelors pad! The inch of hairs and something that can only be defined as "gunk" on the bathroom counter, the grubby floors, dirty dishes and the garbage that had accumulated and smelled.... apparently a balcony is the equivalent to a garbage dumpster. After we got back from the DMZ, Paul had to return to his teaching job, so after a doctor's vist (no Mike didn't break anything - I had a throat infection) and a hair cut, Mike and I went to a nearby department store, bought brooms, mops, and cleaning supplies and for the next 3 hours scrubbed the aparment down. The boys were very surprised that the apartment could be cleaned, apparantley they thought the grung was permanent. And yes, those were little ants on the counter.

On Saturday we went to a Korean Theater, where we watched amazing performances of traditional dance, singing, and music (both classical instruments and drum dances). We weren't. allowed to take pictures of the show, but check out the link to Chongdong Theater to see examples of the performances. The most spectacular part of the show was called the Samgo - mu, where 7 women are lined up and beat 3 drums while doing dancing movements in sync.

After the show we were starving and went for Gal-Be (beef cooked in front of us that we wrap in a leaf with garlic, sauce and onions (not my choice) ). Sweet potatoes were being cooked in the coals of the fires, and by the time we retreived them they were a little burned. Apparantley Mike and Paul were making quite the spectacle of themselves, b/c our Korean neighbour at the next table was laughing at their efforts to eat the potatoes. He then proceeded to show us how to eat the meal, gave us each a shot of Soju, and fed us from his chopsticks. Every time he wanted to show us how to eat something correctly, he would say "hey you" and give us an example. He was hilarious and really made our night.

Yesterday and today have been devoted to laundry (there is only a washer and is located on the balcony), which because of the freezing weather has been quite the challenge. Mike created an ad hoc clothes line in our room. Well take a look for yourself. (we spent so much time cleaning the rest of the house, we forgot about our own room!).

Yesterday, we took Paul out for his birthday dinner. We were trying to go to the "The Outback", yes western food, but ended up at an Italian restaurant instead. Food was actually really good!

Overall, Seoul has been a great adventure. It was great to see Paul, meet Kate and experience the amazing cultural history of the country. We leave tomorrow for Singapore, where the temperature has been 30 Deg C, so we're going to SIZZLE! Can't wait...

Miss you,
Kendra & Mike

Just in case you forgot what we looked like...

Center of Korea Culture and the DMZ

2006-02-01T06:46:00.000-08:00

Its been a few days since the last update. I believe we left off on the boat tour of the Han river. Saturay we took it easy, slept in and relaxed. Saturday nights, as we discovered, turns out to be South Africa night as Paul's roomate, Ludwig, and his buddy Jacque come over to cook some South African stew and drink some Korean Soju (Korea's solution to Russian Vodka, well, thats my opinion anyway). We all joined in of course along with two other Foreign teachers, one from South Africa and one from USA. Good fun was had by all...

Sunday was a tourist day around Seoul, we went to a historical park and joined in on some of the New Years Festivities. The Lunar New Year in Korea is a lot like Christmas, mostly family gatherings and few large parties or countdowns, at least as far as we could tell.

Monday was the start of a three day trip to the South of Korea. We were headed to Gyeongju in the far southeast of the country.

Gyeongju, is considered the cultural center of Korea and the whole area is designated a world heritage site which I didn't know. There are tonnes of buddhist temples, sculptues and memorials in the area so there was a lot to see. We took a whirlwind tour of the area over the two days that we were there, check out the photos below.

Kendra, Myself, Paul and Kate outside the Gyeongju Train Station (the volunteer photographer apparently cut off some of the Gyeongju Station sign, and some of my hair...)

A traditional Korean dinner, quite delicious (yes, contrary to popular belief Kendra enjoyed everything).

Pulguksa Buddhist Temple, one of the oldest in the country and one of the reasons the area has been recognized as a World Heritage Site.

Exploring the temple, some steep stairs, everyone (yes including me, "Mike Foot") made it down safely.

Today we went on a tour of the DMZ which was an eye opener to say the least. North and South Korea have technically been in a state of war since the signing of the ceasefire agreement in 1953. You could feel the tension as we went through army checkpoints and looked across a 4 km valley at North Korea. A lot has changed in the last year though and it seems that peace, at least from the indications in the short video propagand...I mean presentation, may still be a possibility in our lifetime. South Korea in the last year has set up some factories just north of the DMZ giving jobs to a few thousand North Koreans, the products of which are shipped out of the North.

A picture of an observatory over the DMZ. Photos of certain areas were strictly forbidden.

Well thats not bad for a week. Hope everything is going well back home.
Cheers
Mike and Kendra

Gyeongbokgung Palace

2006-01-26T18:56:00.000-08:00

Hello all, Mike here.
Wednesday was our first tourist day of the trip. Paul took us to Gyeongbokgung Palace in downtown Seoul. For those of you who don't have the slightest clue as to what that is, the brochure says.

"The Primary Palace of the Joseon Dynatsty"

For those of you who don't know what the Joseon Dynasty is, the brochure says

"The Joseon Dynasty was established in 1392, and started building the Palace around 1395"

OK enough of the history lessons how about some pictures.

Kendra and I at the front gate.

Korean Party Pavillion called Gyeonghoeru. Built on a manmade island. Note the "ice". Yes Kendra wants to point out that it is that cold.

Paul and I getting some good Korean food from a Street Vendor.

The next day we took a boat tour of the Han river that runs through the center of Seoul. It was a very cool trip. We stopped at a downtown Budhist temple that is a 1000 years old, and which provided some cool photography, Old vs. New.

Its been pretty busy this week so far, this weekend is the Lunar New Year so maybe we'll see some dragons, don't know.

Take it easy.
Mike and Kendra

Sleep Deprived & Love Motel

2006-01-24T19:28:00.000-08:00

We have made it!!! Today is our first day in Seoul, South Korea. Maybe we shouldn't have stayed up until 5am on Friday night and 2:30am on Saturday, because holly crap did we have a lot to do before we could leave. Between packing our bags, packing the house, cleaning, doing some last minute paperwork, we were still going strong at the eleventh hour. With no sleep we left for the Calgary airport at 3:30 on Monday morning. We flew to Vancouver, San Fransisco and then the 11 hr flight to Incheon. If you ever fly to Asia, you have to fly on Singapore Airlines. It was a great flight - they really know how to take care of you. Great food, free wine, our own personal TV's with on demand movies, tv shows, games, definately made the time go by quickly.

Mike's brother, Paul (who has lived here for 3 years, and the reason that we went to Asia in the first place), picked us up at the airport in Incheon. We took a overheated bus to Seoul and a taxi to a hotel area in Seoul. Hotel rooms were $100 Cdn per night, so Paul found us a "Motel Love Letter"at $40 for the nite. We're pretty sure that we could have rented the room by the hour if we wanted! Actually the room was pretty good. We slept from 8:30pm until 9 the next morning, so I think we won't have jetlag. We're waiting for our first Korean meal to arrive and then we are headed to meet Paul's girlfriend.

Talk soon

Baby names and Snowmobiling - Almost

2006-01-16T14:12:00.000-08:00

Its been cold up here in Yellowknife. Suprise. Suprise. No day higher than -20°C yet. Its Monday now and we have only 3 days left before we head back for one more high paced weekend before we leave to Korea.

The aforementioned baby is doing fine, there have been plenty of pictures and plenty of ooo's and aaa's. She's adorable! and its official, the name of the lovely girl is
"Kylie Skye Bujold"

Yesterday Jeremy and I went out for some snowmobiling, however, before we got the chance...well see for yourself.

Thats right, we had a bit of an accident on the way to the trailhead. This obviously cancelled all snowmobiling activities and created a whole new itinerary including RCMP visits, insurance calls and car estimates, a very shitty deal. For the record, another car towing a sled on a trailer came at us from around a corner, we missed the truck but hit the trailer at the same time we hit the ditch. Fortunately no one was hurt.

So it looks like snowmobiling will have to be saved for another trip.

That's it for now. Take it easy.

Yellowknife - Cold and Babies

2006-01-06T20:58:00.000-08:00

We made it to Yellowknife with a balmy temperature of -24°C (missed the -3°C heat wave the day before). Along with our arrival we discovered a 5-0 victory by Can....oh yeah...sorry Kendra, we discovered that Kendra had a new baby niece on the way. The official birthdate and time is January 6th at 2:29am. The happy parents have not named the bundle of joy yet although she's been nicknamed "monkey" (something to do with the way she looked right after birth...I don't know I wasn't in the room!) until they can agree on a name. There's ten fingers, ten toes, blue eyes and a full head of hair. Everyone is healthy and are expected to be home tomorrow morning.

Quote's of the day

"Carrie, your a Mom!" : Kendra
&
"There's a medical name for it but I just call it black tar!" : Jeremy (a.k.a. Dad)