Where In the World...

2006-12-14T23:43:00.000-08:00

End Of The Year Report

B: It has been a long, intense year. I never imagined how stressful a year travelling could really be. It is hard on your body to always be vigilent about every little detail of life--your water, your food, your bag, your pockets, your general safety, animals, cars, on and on. I still catch myself checking my coat and pants pockets for my passport on a daily basis. It took a lot of rationalizing for me to actually fill up my cup with tap water, but I am now relishing all of the veggies and fruits that I have missed for so long. By the last week of the trip, I was finally ready to come home (I think Ryan was ready by the third day in India), and am happy to be back in one place for more than two weeks! There is no doubt that we are lucky to be alive based on the events that happened in Morocco and sheer probability. We took so many forms of transportation often passing deadly accidents as our drivers sped by. We are lucky in another way, however, at 24 and 27 (Ryan's birthday is in just a few days) we have seen a good chunk of the world (although now that we have seen so much, I realize the vast amount that still remains) and been priveledged to interact with some fantastic folks in some amazing places. There is no doubt that this experience has been life-altering just based on the challenges thrown at us, the conditions we have had to adapted to, the flexibility and patience that have been absolute prerequisites when interacting with different cultures and in differnt languages (usually spoken by us in atrocious Arabic, Hindi, Spanish, etc), and the amount of different life situations and social systems that we have seen and experienced. I am lucky enough to have had the opportunity to go to college first where I learned a lot about the politics, economics, history, and cultural studies of many regions of the world, but have only now truly grasped the real consequences of government, or lack there of. Even as tourists we have learned so much about the world and ourselves. If I could share anything about my travels, it would be this...although completely relative, if you are reading this, you have amazing opportunities to live life to the fullest, so do it. You get one shot (unless you are Hindu or Buddhist) so live it up. And by live it up, I mean you have a million choices at your finger tips, so, because you can (here in the US) recycle, yes, just do it, drink water not soda, eat fruits and veggies, spend more time with your kids, be politically active, support school funding, stop smoking, tell your kids how to use a condom properly before they become teenagers and supply them in your home, car pool, go on long walks outside where there are grass and trees, and think about the small things you can do to make your local community better for ALL of its inhabitants. I realize that I sound like some kind of motivational poster, but after seeing the environmental and social conditions that so many people live in (at least to the outside eye) without a social safety net or any chance of upward mobility in their societal or economic structure, and coming back to the US, a land of plenty, and more than plenty, and plenty of plenty, it seems like the least we can do is start making smarter choices about our personal physical health, the health and well being of our community, and the health and maintainence of our environment. With that I have become the spokes person for the slogan 'Think Globally, Act Locally'. ...and while that job would actually pay my student loans back a lot quicker, Ryan and I are proud to report that we are in the process of becoming substitute teachers. So, in our small way we are getting back into the community and finding a place again.

Thank you so much to everyone that followed our journey along the way, and everyone that assisted us during the sojourn (espcially those that responded to medical emergencies!). We loved having fans and supporters. We hope to have inspired you in some way, and hope that you will share your travels too--because we are pooped and don't plan on international travel for a long time! Just remind me I said that in a year when I want to go back to China...

R: The world is terrifying and gorgeous. The sheer amount of activity and events and objects and colors is hard to digest in just one year. But having been emersed in all of those things for a substantial period of time was a truly remarkable and formative experience for me. After our return home most of the questions posed by friends and family were about what we learned about the world and how crazy the world was. My answers to those questions always leaned toward how the craziness of the world taught me things about myself, most notably about my patience, my priorities, and my limits. Depending on where we were, we always had to be different people. Calm and kind in some places (very few, however), high-strung and self-assured in others, and calculated and devious in others yet. When we were the wrong people in the wrong place we got taken, or came very close. Social norms and behavior that we can't even fathom in the West change you when you have to survive by them...and you do have to survive by them. And as if the individual stresses of each culture didn't push our limits enough, the constant changing of lifestyles and customs and money and language nearly did us in mentally. This is something I never considered before embarking on our trip. Further testing our limits was the world's food and water. You never realize how much your favorite foods (or even just edible food from your own culture) mean to you until you travel for a long period of time. We have it so good here in the U.S. Our national fare is whatever we feel like making or buying. We have every kind of food from every corner of the planet within a few miles of our homes and offices. Virtually no other country has a similar situation. And like Brittany said above, please realize that we have it so well here. Most of our worst fears would pale in comparison to the highest hopes of most of the people on this Earth. Whatever you make of this, make something. Volunteer at the homeless shelter, start your own business, make your parents cookies for when they come home from work, shovel the driveway, run the marathon you've always wanted to run. Why? Because you can here. You have the choice and the opportunity and the ability. And you don't have to worry about food, or water, or shelter--but if you do, at least there is some sort of system to help you get on your feet. I never would have offered advice that sounded anything like this prior to the trip. I am quite a different person now.

A Year's Worth of Time on the Road

By Boat: 46.5 hours

By Car: 90.5 hours

By Plane: 100 hours

By Train: 127.5 hours

By Bus: 337

....total time on the road = 701 hours, or one complete month of 24 hour days (no wonder our knees don't function anymore!)

Best's and Worst's List

While some people might write about the best country to visit, etc... this is our list, so...

Best Toilet: Warralinga Alpaca Stud Farm, Richmond, Australia

Worst: Rugby 7's game, Suva, Fiji

Best Train: Beijing to Xian, China

Worst: Rishikesh to Varanisi, India (27 hours of complete hell)

Best Bus: From Foz do Iguazu, Brazil to Buenos Aires, Argentina -- complete with steak!

Worst: Sleeper bus to Nanning, China -- complete with smokers and men in leather

Best Overall Cuisine: Egypt, Thailand & Cambodia

Worst: Northern China & India (on safety, not taste)

Best Meal: Koshiri in Cairo, Egypt (it is a really cheap local dish with rice and noodles...yum!)

Worst: Soup at Beijing University, Beijing, China (grey water and noodles)

Best Drink: Coconut shake, Thailand

Worst: Ouzo, Greece ...if you like licorice, don't drink this, it will make you hate it, at least in the quantities we experienced

Best Dessert: Mango and sticky rice, street food in Bangkok, Thailand & Passion fruit mousse in Foz do Iguazu, Brazil

Worst: ...is there a worst???

Best Animal: Llama -- specifically those of Bolivia and Peru, & penguin, of Patagonia, Argentina

Worst: ...is there a worst???

Best type of travelers to find yourself stuck with: the English!

Worst: Isrealis, Americans & Germans (not all, but MANY...maybe most!)

Best Accomodation: Wendy Mar Hotel, Copacobana, Bolivia (the all pink sweet 16 room we've always wanted)

Worst: Sarajevo, Bosnia (nice city, horrible hostel...rats, fumagation, disgusting toilets, and thieves)

Best Beach: Rantee Beach, Phi Phi Islands, Thailand & Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia

Worst: Beach in Mumbai, India (although the cows were a nice touch, the large packs of rabid dogs make it hard to get around)

Best Tour: Ha Long Bay, Vietnam (limestone spires seen from a great boat...and kayaking!)

Worst: Bolivian Salt Flats, Uyuni, Bolivia (40 hours in a Jeep on a rocky trail with two annoying German girls, altitude sickness and not enough bathroom breaks...but amazing sights nevertheless!)

Best place to Vomit: Lawn of Albergue de Paudimar, Foz de Iguazu, Brazil (palm trees and sun...and copious amounts of bile!)

Worst: Streets of Mumbai, India (luckily, Brittany is a trooper!)

2006-11-06T11:31:00.000-08:00

Incas, Llamas, and Lost Cities: Peru
While the lure of Copacabana's beds provided a real reason to stay in Bolivia we soon realized that we needed to get on to Cusco and work out our Inca Trail trek to Machu Picchu. And although we bought our border-crossing-bus-tickets by a merchant that promised a bathroom for the nine hour journey we were sadly disappointed. With full bladders, and infrequent stops to relinquish the pain, we sourjourned west crossing the Bolivia-Peru border, where we noticed immediate change. Let's just say that things started to look and smell a little more like India. Due possibly to the sizable population difference between Peru and Bolivia (Peru's 30 million to Bolivia's 8 million), Peru seemed to generate much more trash, and our bus ride included scenic views of lovely Peruvian dumps (those being the border neighborhoods leading all the way to Cusco!). More memories of India came rushing back to Brittany and Ryan as they watched gangs of young kids (maybe 4 to 7 year olds) picking through the trash piles and train tracks for food and recyclables. This was set in interesting contrast to the hordes of families in black visiting cemetaries on All Souls Day. It is not an exaggeration to say that nearly the entire population to Cusco were dressed in black and at, heading to, or coming from family graves. This was a thought-provoking way of being introduced to Peru.

At midnight we arrived in Cusco and made our way to a hostel about 70 laborious, steep steps from the center square, Plaza de Armas. Cusco is certainly set up for tourists, many from America (finally! ...where have they been?), and with those tourists come an extreme hike in prices. From food, to goods, to transportation Cusco is an expensive city to be at the end of one's trip and, thus, at the end of one's budget. While it is possible to find some cheap set meals, USD$8 is the going rate for a plate of food, which is catostrophic after weeks of wonderful Bolivian prices. As a result we found the market of our dreams just off the Plaza which offers Top Ramen, Cup of Noodles, Ritz Crackers, peaunut butter, American-style wheat bread, and more. Needless to say, we have been munching down several sandwiches and noodle bowls a day. We have never been more excited about such basic and normally-regarded-as-last-choice foods! After weeks for Dylan, and months for Brittany and Ryan of orfice-puckering food we were extatic to find food that our bodies knew what to do with.

It was in Cusco that we prepared for our three-night, four-day Inca trail hike to Machu Picchu. Because a guiding service is necessary to trek to Machu Picchu (due to a recent change in park policy) we reluctantly choose the cheaper and recommended local outfit in town called Liz's Explorers. Unfortunately, the cheaper price came with the bonus of more chaos. We nearly called the whole thing off because the head of the business, Liz, couldn't keep anything straight and kept adding additional, mysterious fees to our bill. But we stuck to the plan, forked over A LOT of cash, and found ourselves in a group of 15 Americans, Columbians, Swiss, German, and Dutch tourists (some more ready than others) to complete a four day, 58 km trek with a substantial elevation gain. While we don't consider ourselves to be in the best shape, it must be noted, with some hilarity, that we did tend to frustrate some of our group members with our consistent, determined speed. And in our defense, we must say, we wanted a good workout damn it! Although each day required considerable distance to be covered, we found the second day especially tiring with its 700 or so steps to the saddle of a pass at 4,200 meters. Drenched with sweat, and shivering from both lack of caloric intake and the cold temperature each one of us summited with a smile due to the party of llamas who were grazing and greeting us at the top (and by greeting us, we mean pushing us off the trail and out of the way of the best looking grassy knolls). As with Ryan and Brittany's experience in the Himalayas, the guides, cook, and porters were fantastic! Beyond the four (and sometimes seven!) course meals, the hand washing stations, and the private morning wake up calls complete with a cup of tea served to your tent, the people involved on our journey made the experience amazing. What we could not get over was how fast the porters were able to move up and down the mountains with 20 kilos on their backs in (get this) sandals made out of tires, or Converse, or Keds. Without trekking poles, and most often pants, or appropriate gear to meet the elements our porter crew of 15 was an inspiration! What is even cooler is that our primary guide, Wyra, told us next year there will be female porters on the trail. Go get 'em!

Our first three days on the trail was like hiking inside of a cloud. We would accend and decend to these fantastic viewing points that left us looking into mist and more mist. It wasn't until the very last day, when we passed through the Sun Gate and passed into Machu Picchu itself that the fog finally lifted and we were able to see the "lost" city in all of its glory.

Along the way, our guide Wyra treated us to a Quecha baptism ceremony, where we were each given Quecha names and doused with water from a fountain that has been flowing consistantly for hundreds of years! But before the trek began he led us in a Quechan prayer dedicated to the mountains and other natural elements asking for permission and safe passage for our journey. This will be the only time you see Ryan on his knees in prayer mode. Wyra also provided us with some great information about each site we saw on the trail and some comic relief from the bad weather.

Once we got to Machu Picchu we didn't stop hiking. Instead we climbed Wyna Picchu, a 3,700 meter nearly vertical tower overlooking the Machu Picchu site. It was a gruling but rewarding extra adventure, one that only us and 3 other from the group dared to do. However, we weren't done yet. As the rest of the group boarded buses to ride easily to the town below, we opted to embark on the winding 2-hour hike that led to the same place. Along the way we met some Peruvian students who were very, very excited to meet some folks from the U.S. We exchanged emails reluctantly and ran the rest of the way down. The road less traveled, indeed!As if all of this wasn't hard enough, Ryan stupidly chose to do the whole Inca trail in his sandals...and bare feet! One can clearly see the damage that resulted from his bad choice in this picture. I bet he'll think twice next time!

After we gathered our gear, we quickly boarded a bus from Cusco to Lima, ready to finish our last bus ride of the trip. The tickets were expensive so we all expected to have a relatively comfortable trip, despite the quoted 24-hour duration. Well, we were very wrong as the trip proved to be a very long and quite uncomfortable slog down from Cusco's 3,200 meters to Lima's 89. We did make it, however, and stayed our last nights in South America in an interesting hostel called Hotel Espana which had two large tortoises and a macaw providing entertainment.

After 6 weeks of craziness the time came for us to break up the group and say goodbye to Dylan. Brittany and Ryan sadly and jealously sent him off in a taxi bound for the airport. Just minutes after seeing him off, the event that ultimately caused us to return home a bit early happened at the KFC in central Lima. Brittany's wallet was stolen from her zipped and velcroed coat pocket by a two-man team as we sat in the restuarant. By this time in our trip we were quite used to having our money stolen, so we realized quickly that something was awry. We each took a door and shut the place down. Ryan followed one suspect into the street while Brittany alerted the police. Once the suspect was brought back into KFC, the officer asked Ryan to join him and the suspect in the bathroom, where the suspect was told to take all of his clothes off to show Ryan that he didn't have the wallet. He then demanded that we all go down to the police station. The officer said (via a translator) no problem, but he didn't know where it was and didn't have a car to get us there. So we flagged a cab and, with Brittany in the front and Ryan, the police officer, and the suspect in the back, headed for the police station. It was not a straight shot, however, because we had to keep asking different police men on the street where the Lima Tourist Police Station was located. After going through the lengthy paperwork process, we came to find out that our suspect was already known to police for theft and other crimes. He stood handcuffed in the corner during the four-hour ordeal and, on our way out, even posed for our camera! What an experience!

After talking it over we decided that we had had enough and it was time for us to just go home. Our trip plans had us spending 4 days in Panama before returning to the States. But we had other ideas and with a little talking and a lot of luck we got our tickets changed by Copa and Alaska Airlines, having us arrive at our humble Anchorage International Airport 4 days early to the surprise of both of our families!

It was an exhausting, exhilerating, eye-opening, stomach-purging, fast-paced, and eduducational year on the road, one that could only culminate in our tearful and joyous return home. What a story...thanks for letting us share it!

Signing off for the last time (with just one more post to follow that should wrap-up our year long journey), with love, hugs, and good holiday vibes...best wishes and adios, Ryan, Brittany & Dylan

Interesting things about Peru:
1) As with cows in India, there are actually llamas in quite a few places in Peru. We happened across many in the main cities roaming around the streets, and of course at Machu Picchu.
2) Much like Bolivia, you also have the fantastic opportunity of being electrocuted in the shower! Watch what you touch!
3) There is a very good chance that if you are a tourist in Lima you will get robbed. Just as our experiences in Morocco were not singular, most people who have been to Lima share similar stories involving muggings and robberies.

Interesting things about getting robbed (multiple times):
1) After the first few times you really toughen up.
2) You develop an immediate survival reaction that takes over everything else and helps you lock down the situation.
3) Instead of feeling sad or mad, you think to yourself, what can I do right now to get my stuff back and kick some serious ass.

Interesting things about LA and LAX after being gone for one year:
1) It seems clean
2) It seems normal
3) It seems nice
4) It seems green
5) It seems safe
....is it?

Interesting things about Alaska after being gone for more than one year:
1) It is damn cold....we got back to negative 10 degrees (F)!!!
2) It is BEAUTIFUL. There is nothing like flying up to Anchorage on a crystal clear day with snow capping the Chugach Mountain Range.
3) It is nice to be home. Our real home. It is nice to nest, and have a place, one spot, to just be for at least a year. ...And then?

2006-11-03T08:46:00.000-08:00

From the widest section of the Andes: Bolivia
We got to rest for a few days in Salta, but our travels picked up their usual frantic pace again as we ventured into Bolivia. The bus ride from Salta was nearly eventful (and after traveling for a while 'eventful' is not the way you want things to be) as our driver was hell-bent on passing every vehicle between him and his destination, despite the steep hills and tight curves of the road. We all thought that trip would do us in, but we arrived at the northern edge of Argentina without a scratch and walked across the border into the tiny Bolivian town of Villazon. After wandering around town for 45 minutes in search of a train that we heard was supposed to head north, we were told by a woman standing on her balcony that the train wouldn't leave for a few days. So we walked to the bus station and were quickly put on a bus to Tupiza, the town where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid finally met their demise. The bus ride there was one of those classic traveller bus stories, going something like this: We get sold tickets by an eager salesperson who hurries us onto an unbelievably packed bus. I don't mean packed by Western standards, I mean truly PACKED, with people, clothing, sticks, chickens, dogs, and miscellaneous unknown bushells of stuff. No definition of 'uncomfortable' begins to describe the situation on a bus such as this. Of couse, we look at our tickets and we have assigned seats, but we are not actually able to get to them. So we cram ourselves into the aisle with the other 20 people and a dog who have done the same. Standing room only, and barely that. Further, the eager salesperson who sold us the ticket promised us that the bus would arrive in Tupiza in 2.5 hours, no problems. Of course, for 3.5 hours we stood crammed into the aisle with what seemed like every single person in Bolivia, breathing the butter-thick dust that was oozing in through the windows and bouncing relentlessly along the gravel road. For all the masochists out there, this is your bus. We arrived at the dusty and lonely Tupiza bus station shaken but happy to finally be done with the beating. We found a hostel and got our first taste of Bolivian lifestyle, which included showers which pose the threat of electrocution! Exciting!
From Tupiza we quickly got on a 4-day, 3-night expedetion to the Solar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. After our days-long bus epic from the Patagonia to Bolivia it was a tough decision to subject ourselves to more driving time, but our schedule necessitated us doing so as we had to be in Cusco, Peru by November 7th for our Macchu Picchu hike and the salt flat was the main reason we had come to Bolivia. So we stocked up on snacks for the road and got in our guide Leonce's Toyota LandCrusier (which we got to know very well over the next 4 days) and took off into the mountains! The Solar de Uyuni is plopped high up on the Altiplano, the widest part of the Andes. On our way there we saw flamingos, emus, vicuñias, alpacas, llamas, and even a rare type of chinchilla! We also got to bathe in some salty natural hot springs and climb on some amazing volcanic rock formations. The landscape of the Altiplano looks exactly like we expect the surface of Mars to look, complete with red rocks, bubbling thermal pools, volcanoes, and geysers! Most of the trip was was spent above 4ooo meters, so for the first few days splitting headaches, buldging eyes, and nausea afflicted all three of us. However, this trip helped us get aclimatized for our next two weeks, which was spent above 3600 meters, on our way to Macchu Picchu.
The food on this trip was great. Prepared by our lovely cook Esther, we had some tasty tomales, crisp vegetables, and we got our first taste of llama steak! Our favorite was this incredible vegetable soup she whipped up for every dinner! We don't know how she did it, but it was wonderful!
When we finally arrived at the Solar de Uyuni we were quite ready. We had been driving and driving for 3 days, crammed into the Toyota with two horrendously rude German girls. Luckily, the flat was incredible! We arrived at 5:30 in the morning to watch the sun rise over it. There is just so much flat, white nothing. After the sun came all of the way up, the true vastness of the flat became apparent. We didn't think there was so much salt in the whole world, let alone in Bolivia! 12,000 square kilometers of nothing but salt (and no pepper to be found anywhere!). Our guide and cook showed us how to dig up crazy geometric salt formations from the water under the salt crust. The salt extends 8 meters (over 25 feet) deep! After our dig, we drove to this surreal oasis of an island out in the middle of all that salt. It had some 1,200 year old cacti on it and was made of ancient coral. Being in this place was like walking into a dream. Nothing seemed real or earthly at all. After a quick visit to the salt hotel (kind of like Alaska's ice hotel, but with salt) and lunch with a llama we finally arrived in Uyuni, a large, dusty town on the edge of the salt flat. Though we had completed our 4-day trip, we could not rest in Uyuni. Immediately after saying goodbye to our cook and guide (and, happily, the two German girls) we waited outside the bus station for it to open so we could try to get on the tourist bus (Yeah, the tourist bus. We weren't messing around this time) bound for La Paz that evening. All worked out, and with the help of two lovely Irish folks, we had enough money to buy our tickets and eat dinner at this savior of a restaraunt called Minuteman Pizza. Oddly, it was owned by this guy from Boston named Chris who made an absolutely succulent chicken pizza! It was the best food we had had in a very long time, and we thanked Chris gleefully for his culinary skills before hopping on the bus and enduring the VERY bumpy ride to La Paz. It should be noted that this ride was so bumby our bus company made an announcement before we departed to persuade people to drink as little liquid as possible so as not to get sick. And it should also be noted that our bus cost so damn much because it came with accident and life insurance for each of us--not the road you exactly want to travel on, huh?! But, of course, other than flying there via the Bolivian army's planes, this is the only way to get to Bolivia's capitol.

La Paz is a very unique city. Its 1.5 million inhabitants live their lives at a lofty 3660 meters, making their city the world's highest capital. Further, the city sits in a small, bowl-shaped valley with extremely steep walls, and the people have used every square inch of space there. There are houses and buildings in La Paz that are terrifying to look at as they are barely balanced on the steep slopes, seemingly floating above the city! Every direction we looked we could see hundreds of these, packed on the valley's walls.
Having made it to La Paz we figured we were on schedule and we owed ourselves a few much-needed rest days. So we walked through the streets in time to buy Halloween costumes (which we never actually did), catch several weddings (complete with pounds of confetti), and get a picture of a llama fetus being sold at the Witches Market before catching a bus for Copacabana, a relaxed little town on the eastern shore of the world's highest lake (and South America's largest), Lake Titicaca. We had originally planned to head north from La Paz to the Amazon Basin to go pihrana fishing and hang out with leopards, but time became an issue again (along with money) and we decided to just relax and look around Lake Titicaca instead. And, funny enough, our first glimpse was offered when we were ordered off our bus on the way there and told to buy a ferry ticket. When we asked more questions our bus driver told us that the bus needed to cross the lake on its own ferry and that passengers would weigh him down...with that explanation we were happy to disembark and pay our way across. With no road over this particular 1000-foot stretch of lake, it turns out that all motorists have to ferry across, even our bulky bus.

Copacabana is located right on the Bolivia-Peru border and overlooks the huge and majestic Lake Titicaca. It has an island feel to it, despite being well on the mainland. This town had some fantastic restaraunts, cafes, and hostels, so it made an ideal stopover for us on our way into Peru. We visited the town's 16th-century Moorish cathedral, took a short day trip to Isla del Sol (origin of the Incan creaction story), ate good food, played Espanol Scrabble, bought some affordable presents for our families, and slept very well (on real mattresses with real boxsprings in our totally pink room!).
It is right to say that Bolivia surpassed our expectations. The people were facsinating, the food was better than expected, the land was gorgeous, and...we didn't get sick! I guess we'll see what happens in Peru!

Abrazos,
Brittany, Ryan, & Dylan

Interesting things about Bolivia:
1) You get electrocuted in the shower...no really, you do. You have to be completely mindfull of touching any metal and, if you are Ryan and Dylan, you have to duck way below the shower head (which itself also offers a nice zap)!
2) Bolivia just elected its first indigenous president (Evo Morales) and people seem nuts over him. His picture was up everywhere (not as crazy as the pictures of the king in Thailand, but still).
3) Due to Bolivia's majority indigenous population, the indigenous flag is everywhere (as crazy as in Thailand, but a flag, not the king). For those looking at our pictures it is a bright, multi-colored checkered flag.

2006-10-20T12:54:00.000-07:00

From the land of great steaks, good air, and waddling penguins: Argentina...
After a long 20-hour bus ride from Foz we finally pulled into the largest bus station in the world in Buenos Aires. Our plan was to scout out the town a bit before meeting Ryan's brother, Dylan, at the airport, and finish up Ryan's kidney stone business at the British Hospital. We did just that and moved into a hostel in the center of downtown, and spent several days visiting an amazing doctor that took several tests that were able to tell Ryan he was stone free! Buenos Aires is a wonderful city with one of the best backpacker scenes of any city we've seen. The people rank among the friendliest we've encountered and the food is cheap and absolutely wonderful. The city gets a top rating in all of the important categories: accommodation, people, and food!
Meeting Dylan at the airport was like getting a breath of fresh air for our trip. After traveling for so long we had become a bit road weary. Dylan was really excited about seeing new places and things, so hooking up with him on a continent that was new to us did wonders for our spirits.
Brittany and Ryan had been on busses for all of Brazil and had just got off another long haul from Foz (although we can't really complain because they served us steak and champaigne!). Dylan had just spent the entirety of two days on planes and in airports. Needless to say rest was due for us all. So we opted to spend a few days in Buenos Aires to relax and ready ourselves for our Patagonian trip. One of the first things we did was to go on a walking tour of the city where we saw the Mothers of the Missing protest the disappearance of their children, husbands, relatives, friends and co-workers during the genocide of the 70s and 80s. That week's protest was particularly interesting, however, because a key witness, named Jorge Julio Lopez, who would have testified against ex-military leaders for acts during the genocide, had disappeared and been gone for several days. Thus the Mothers were surrounded and supported by hundreds of other activists, political parties, and media groups. (Lopez's disappearance sparked a wide range of concern that we have continued to see throughout our travels in Argentina and of course made us cautious as well.) Besides our walking tour of the city we visited the Recoleto cemetary (which houses the body of Evita Peron), ate unbelievable steaks (with mashed potatoes) for about $5USD, and went to a soccer game. All of these activities were fun and interesting, but the soccer game was truly amazing. As in Brazil, these folks really get fired up about their soccer and we happened to get tickets to go see the biggest team in all of Argentina play at their home stadium. The crowd was easily the most racous and fervent group of people any of us had ever been around...and we were right in the middle of them! The team is called Boca and they are known around the soccer world for having uncontrolably passionate fans, and they upheld their reputation at our game. They were down 2-0 with only 20 minutes left in the game when they started their comeback, fueled all the while by their fans. When the game ended Boca had climbed back and won 3-2! The game, of course, wasn't why we went. It was for the crowd. The stadium was small in comparison to others in South America as it only held 60,000 people (legally, that is!). But those 60,000 were nuts and we got plenty of video capturing how the stadium swayed and bounced with their enthusiasm. The crowd surpassed all of our expectations, making the game a truly unforgettable time.
Before seeing the game we had made plans and bought bus tickets to venture down into the Patagonia. Our main goal was to see the largest continental penguin colony in the world, located 19 hours southeast of Buenos Aires, just outside of a town called Puerto Madryn. We arrived on a rainy and brutally windy day, but seeing our flippered friends made it all worthwhile. We only got to walk among them for 30 minutes, but it is a 30 minutes we will cherish forever! We got out of our bus and looked out over 400,000 Magellenic penguins, all ashore in their colony for their mating season. The coolest part was that we didn't just get to look at them but we actually walked right in the group. They looked at us (one eye at a time!) and tried to figure us out, but they generally seemed uninterested in us and just went about their business waddling all over the place and fighting with one another. They are awesome animals!
It was sad to leave the penguin colony, but we had to move on, venturing deeper into the Patagonia toward the bottom of South America, the region known as the "edge of the world". We hopped on a bus heading to Rio Gallegos, the southernmost city of continental Argentina. The stretch of road connecting Puerto Madryn to Rio Gallegos is among the most barren in the world, rivaled only by other Patagonian roads we travelled connecting Rio Gallegos to Calafate and Chalten. Even in its nothingness Patagonia somehow nurtures small groups of flamingos which we saw in lakes along the way. But besides the flamingos, hour after hour of endless rolling hills and shrubs broken only by the occasional river or lake was our visual. According to legend Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid rode all of the way down here when they were on the run from US authorities in the early 2oth century. After travelling these roads with all the comforts of 2006 we can't imagine how they survived on horseback in the first decade of the 1900's! (By the way, Rio Gallegos is the city where they robbed their last bank!) After the seemingly endless bus rides, we arrived in El Calafate. El Calafate is a small town of a few thousand inhabitants with one main draw: the Moreno Glacier, one of the only advancing icefields in the world. As such, it calves all of the time, its huge 120-foot tall face plunging into the water with thunderous cracks. Having seen the glacier, and having stocked up for our camping plans, we finally made it to El Chalten, a tiny town whose main purpose is to serve as a base for mountaineering expeditions to Cerro Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre. We rolled into town with the rain pouring down into lake-size puddles in the muddy streets and learned exactly why early October is considered "off season" for this region. But we waited it out for a day and just as we set off on our three-day hike, against all odds (and the weather forecast), the skies cleared and the mountains showed themselves. The place was gorgeous, with Fitz Roy and Torre towering over 16,000 feet above us. The benefit of being in El Chalten in the off season was made clear on our first day trekking: no other people! We had the whole national park to ourselves and we made good all three days of it! We made our camp at a river junction called Poincenot and went out on more challenging hikes from there. First, we went up to Lagos del los Tres, two hanging lakes set stunningly at the immediate base of Fitz Roy. The next day we trekked around the corner to one of the many valleys in the park. This one held an unbelievably close hanging glacier, seemingly suspended right above us! It was a great three days to ourselves. Nature sure did put on quite a show for such a small audience!
We hiked back into town only to see that it had come alive. The shops were all open, there were some people walking in the streets, and there were even a few cars driving around! After one more day-hike we boarded a bus back to Calafate where we would begin our long journey back north, first to Bariloche (where we attempted to hit the last day of ski season but were put off by the total lack of snow left), then to Mendoza (where we had a half an hour break to stretch our legs), and finally to Salta, in the far northwest corner of the country. Having spent over 80 hours on busses in just under two weeks we are tired and need to stay in one place for a few days to collect ourselves before we head into Bolivia. Salta is a bigger city with some decent places to eat and some good hostels (with hot water showers!). We will leave here soon, rested and ready to face the challenges and excitement of a new country...
Our best always,
Ryan, Brittany, and Dylan

Interesting things about Argentina:
1) We have never seen dulche de leche as popular and as widely used than in Argentina. In fact the last time we had ever seen it was as an ice cream topping, but in Argentina it is used as a breakfast spread for bread, as a filling between cookies, and is crammed into about anything else you can think of. While it sounds delicious, and is in small portions, there are no small portions here! No carmel for us for a while.
2) And speaking of condiments, nothing grossed us out more than 'Salsa Golf' some type of horrible mayonnaisey mix that the locals seem to love.
3) Unlike any other transportation experience we had yet, in Argentina the buses (our main mode of transportation here) are set up to be comfortable and many offered steak, champaigne, blankets, desserts and more. It almosts makes up for being on a bus for 35 hours, almost...
4) From what we can gather the majority of school kids here wear uniforms, however, the uniforms seem nuts to us. While we can recognize one particular group of schools based on kids wearing long, white lab coats over their normal clothes, the majority of uniforms we have seen include putting plaid mini-skirts on grade school girls--an interesting fashion statement for catholic schools!
5) As twisted and wrong as it may sound we are sick and tired of steak and potatoes--that´s right, we said it. Perhaps our tune will change after a few weeks in Bolivia...

((Note: Due to problems with one of our CDs, pics will not be added until later. Stay tuned.))

2006-09-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

Our longest flight of the trip brought us from Amsterdam, one of the most relaxed cities in the world, to Sao Paulo, one of the most hectic and high strung. Fortunately for us we had Brittany's mother Engel waiting for us at the airport. She had some extra air miles and chose to use them to fly down and travel with us through and around the country of Brazil. It was so great to step off the plane and see a familiar and friendly face waiting in the crowd for us! It had been eight months since we had all seen each other in New Zealand so it was fantastic to reconnect, and to receive Girl Scout Cookies, Panda Black Licourice, and O'Boy Oberto Beef Jerkey...you can't even imagine how amazing these items are when you are denied them for 10 months, and even better after you get a huge hug from your mum. (R - There have only been a few times in my life when I have been happier to see such snacks.)

Our tentative plans for Brazil took quite a turn once we realized how expensive the country really is. From Sao Paulo, a city which had not received high reviews from any travelers that we talked to, we went straight to Rio de Jeniero, with a one night stop at a Marriot which was one of the nicest places Brittany and Ryan had been in a long, long time. Rio lived up to its reputation particularly because we were able to stay on Ipanema Beach, just a short walk from Copacabana. From Rio Brittany and Engel went on a fantastic favela tour of the Recina barrio. While originally sceptical of such profiteering, we were happy to support a local tour that shared its profits with a local school. The tour itself was a fasinating way to interact with some of Rio's poorest, yet richest neighborhoods, and according to the people we interacted with is desired to help visitors connect and thus realize that the favelas have real people living in them. On the tour we encountered many local artisans that have been quite ingenious with the materials that they have on hand including soda can tops being made into belts and plastic bags being made into hats. It was really cool to also support young artists who are trying to help their families. In Rio we also had the opportunity to support a local Samba Club for a Saturday night Samba fest. We are not sure how one even describes Samba, there is a lot of booty involved and a lot of fast feet. We tried, but could barely keep up, mostly because the music isn't necessarily one continuous beat, but instead three different beats hitting you all at once. You just kind of hope that maybe you have one of the beats and go with it. It was certainly a unique experience, but not one that the three of us would probably do again because the music was so damn loud--it took Ryan three days to get his hearing back properly! After a sunny day at the gay section of Ipanema beach (full of pride flags and speedo sales) we also had a chance to attend a local Fluminese football (soccer) match, which was awesome despite its poor attendance. We finally figured out how to take video with our camera, but are still not sure how to load it to the web for your viewing pleasure. If you are interested we have some great video of the goals--the crowd went nuts! While we intended on seeing Sugar Loaf mountain and viewing Rio from the giant Jesus statue our luck with the weather ran out too soon, and we had to find a place to relocate while Rio and Sao Paulo were bogged down in heavy rain storms. Salvador we found was too far and too expensive, our beach options were bleak due to the weather, so we hopped on a 24 hour bus to Foz do Iguazu to the west of Sao Paulo near the border with Paraguay and Argentina.

Foz was a fantastic place to stay for our remaining time together because the weather was fantastic, we were able to see the most incredible water falls in the world along with fantastic animal interactions. And this is where Ryan passed a kidney stone. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

On a bright, brilliantly blue skied day we viewed the Brazilian side of the falls walking the trails toward the falls with a child's wonder. The way the trail system is set up at each turn in the path you think you have seen all there is to see, but it just keeps getting better and better. It truly is amazing. It was on this same day that we decided to do a high ropes course through the jungle including a zip line along the forest canopy. Ryan and Brittany were so proud of Engel who was super energetic about each obstacle all the way through the end--which included a 35 foot pole climb to a small platform where you had to jump off to reach an even higher bar. It was tough, but awesome! There is even of a video of our trials, which Engel might be willing to lend out, but it comes with a 'PG 13' or 'R' rating due to Brittany's use of explicitives throughout the course. It is funny! On our second, bright, brilliantly blue skied day in Foz Ryan woke up with some side pain, but just assumed that he slept on a testicle. Within an hour, however, he was vomiting into a bucket from a hammock on our hostel lawn to the amusement of the Portugese speaking kitchen crew that thought it was perhaps their cooking from the previous evening--it turned out, however, to be kideny stones! It is like Ryan's body wants to put him through even more this year--the worms weren't enough! So, after describing his intense pain, which had him literally rolling on the lawn, Brittany called his dad, Jim, to compare symptoms from his stones. After talking to Jim, Brittany and Engel decided that it was time to go to the hospital, which was an interesting adventure in our small, rural town of Foz. With the help of a hostel maintainence man who drove like we were in an ambulance, and an amazingly helpful guest who volunteered to come help translate for us, we managed to get Ryan to the hospital in a bed, stuck with a needle, and asleep from some glucose within a few hours. Through a urine test the hospital confirmed that it was, indeed, kidney stones, and prescribed two types of pain killers. (R - For those of you who have experienced kidney stone pain, you know what I'm talking about here. But for those of you who have not, I truly hope you never have to know what I'm talking about. It is easily the worst physical pain I could have imagined ever going through. And to have all of this happen in a tiny border town in Brazil was, to put it positively, not optimum. Those who saw me that day, September 22nd, saw me at my worst. That little stone took me right out. I was vomiting not from nausea or stomach problems, but rather from the pain...and it got to the point where I loved the 10 or 15 seconds of relief that the intense pressure of throwing up allowed. It was not pretty, and neither was I. Thanks to the care given to me by Brittany and Engel and the info from my dad via telephone everything worked out. I would give a lot to never have to go through that again.) In far less pain, Ryan, Engel and Brittany enjoyed their last days together by going to the coolest bird park in the world where they interacted with super-social tucans and macaws that were mostly interested in Engel and Ryan's sunglasses and buttons, but to an extreme that made us run out of the aviary. They were actually quite aggressive and had some powerful beaks that we did not want to mess with! On our last day together we went to Argentina to view the falls from the other side. While this might seem like overkill, both sides offer a totally different picture, and one that isn't complete without the other. The Argentinian side is awesome. We were literally walking across the falls and could feel the mist off the most amazing piece of the falls called the Devil's Throat. Besides a major tire blow out on the public bus that we took back from Argentina to Brazil (which proved amusing in and of itself) we had a great last day together and were very sad to say goodbye!

It was an incredible two weeks thanks to Engel. We boarded our 24 hour bus to Buenos Aires, Argentina, sad to be done with our Brazilian adventure, but excited to meet Dylan, Ryan's youngest brother in Bs. As. for a six-week journey through the rest of South America.

Interesting things about Brazil:
1) Along with Che, Irish Pubs, Chinese Restaurants, and Rotary International the Brazilian flag is truly a world-wide symbol. And while we expected it to be covering every rooftop, balcony, and booty in Brazil we were a bit shocked not to see it that much in Brazil itself.
2) Getting into Brazil as an American is atually more of a challenge than one might think. We each had to pay about USD$150 for our Brazilian visas which seems to be a pretty big Brazilian FU to the American government due to reciprocal visa policies. But after arriving we realized that the big visa price tag is just to prepare you for the actual cost of your adventure.
3) Brazil is one of the most expensive places that we have travelled, which was a pretty decent shock to us. And, much to our amusement, we were told that Brazil gets twice and up to three times as expensive during Carnival, which makes us wonder how anyone can visit during Jan/Feb let alone live in this country year round!

2006-09-26T19:37:00.000-07:00

From the Real Sin City-Amsterdam, Netherlands!
After a great night out in Madrid with our Spanish doctor friends we headed north to the Netherlands! Our goal was to touch base with two cool Dutch kids, named Jim and Gideon, whom we met first in Athens, then in Istanbul, and finally in Belgrade. They told us when we parted ways in Belgrade that they would hook us up with a place to stay and hang out with us while we were in Amsterdam. Well, they did just as they said and they connected us with a wonderful woman named Maya Gotz who was so kind as to put us up in her house and lend us real Dutch bicycles with which to ride around the streets of Amsterdam. (Maya is part of a wonderful program called Servas which has the goal of promoting peace and breaking down cultural barriers by organizing international hosts and travellers. We would have joined this program before we left, but you must make contact with your potential host before you leave your home country, which would have been challenging for us as we have not had a set in stone itinerary. Never the less, we have heard great things about Servas. It is definitely worth checking out.) As most of you probably know, the Dutch love their bicycles and we got to feel like real locals cruising around the streets ringing our bike bells. Our friend Jim was good enough to make time in his busy college schedule to meet us and bring us to the Vanderpark to eat lunch with all of the locals on a beautiful day. Aside from such local activities we got to do some very tourist-oriented ones as well, such as visit the van Gogh Museum, window shop for clogs (called "clomppen" in Dutch), and walk through the winding alleys and over the canals of the infamous Amsterdam red light district (trying to take pictures of all of the smiling sex workers in the windows). It was crazy to see something which in US society is considered shady and dispicable practiced so openly in the streets of a Western city. Since prostitution is legal in the red light district, it is regulated and taxed like any other profession. The women (we never saw men, even in the 'gay' district) dance in windows to attract customers who, if they are interested, approach and negotiate a price. Women who have the prime locations in the district pay a pretty penny for their window, some cost upwards of $1000USD per night! Amsterdam feels small for a big city and its people are kind and fun-loving. The Dutch in general know how to make life comfortable and they have a word to descibe their lifestyle: "gezellig" (pronounced "he-zell-ick), which means "to relax, to live comfortably". No one was more enamoured by the Dutch lifestyle than Ryan who announced that he wanted to live on a farm just outside Amsterdam and wear clogs and make cheese and watch his windmill spin...making every Dutch person he told this roll their eyes several times. Maybe some far-off day his dream will come true!

Interesting things about the Netherlands:

1) You can buy beer in soda vending machines.

2) You can buy sex just about anywhere...vending machines? Not quite yet.

3) Due to our timing in September we were around for the start of school and thus saw a million well dressed young men running around the city--mostly the red light district--in suits. We later learned they were all in frats.

4) Amsterdam is home to really aggressive cyclists. Do not mess with the Dutch and their bikes!

2006-09-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

The Justin Chronicles: Relaxation in Murcia
Our psychological savior after our tramatic Moroccan experience was one Justin H. Ford. A man of great humor and kindness, he let us crash on his couch (despite much pressure from his landlady), eat his food, and just generally bum around his new flat for days on end. He met us at the bus station when we arrived back in his town from Tangier, Morocco, and walked us back to his place. No matter how pissed we were about Fez and the events that befell us there he made us smile and realize the thing that mattered most was that we were back in a safe place. Justin provided a couch, a huge patio for BBQing fine meats and feeling a cool evening breeze, and some awesome toasted cheese sandwiches to warm our cold hearts.
Our return from Morocco was our second time meeting him this trip, as we had passed through Murcia and hung out with him on our way down to north Africa a few days earlier. He greeted us with open arms the second time through just as he had the first. He let us do some much-needed laundry in his washer (which we broke and he just brushed it off!), showed us the cheapest stores from which to buy some groceries, introduced us to the good folks at his local locutoria (internet and call center) where we spent nearly every afternoon calling and emailing Brittany's home bank, Visa, the US consulate in Rabat, Morocco, and our families, took care of Brittany while she was sick, and finally helped us gather our senses and continue on with our travels. Justin is truly the man. We are deeply in dept to him for his help and coolness.

From Murcia we took an overnight bus to Madrid to catch our flight out the next day. Lucky for us, we had already met two amazing Spanish doctors, named Esther and Ines, in Bulgaria who met us at the bus station, hosted us, invited us to dinner with their other doctor friends, and took us out for a Saturday night in Madrid (which surprisingly reminded us of Seattle). It was great fun, and much like Justin, we owe Esther and Ines quite a bit!

Interesting things about Spain:
1) Spain is home to crazy, amazing hairstyles. For boys the casual winding mohawk is a must. For the ladies you definitely need a mullet with a single beaded dread and mini-bangs. Dont even think about perming your hair.

2) Although you can buy bottles of wine or sangria for a Euro, the real find was seeing juice box-like six packs of white and red wine. Perhaps they are for school lunches???

2006-09-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

'Our One-Day Moroccan Oddessey'...or 'The All Too Magic Carpet Story'...or 'Dont Drink the Tea at a Moroccan Rug Shop'...or...this post could have so many fantastic titles...can you see where this is leading??? This story is hard for us to tell, partly because there are so many details to include and partly because for about a third of our time in Morocco we were being doped. Here is what we can remember, although the story is much better in person, perhaps over a cup of...coffee.

We went to Morocco with high hopes of seeing the beauty of the place so many have told us about. Instead we saw its ugly side. It all started when we left Justin's place in Murcia on a bus bound for Algiceras, the second most popular Spanish port from which to catch ferries to Tangier, Morocco. Once we arrived to Algiceras we immdiately booked a ferry across and landed in the bustling port of Tangier only one hour later, ready to finally complete our journey and get to Fes so we could catch up on some much-needed sleep. We booked tickets on a train headed there which took only 5.5 hours. It was excrutiatingly hot, just over 110 degrees F and we were crammed onto hard bench seats. About 3 hours into the journey two kids, apearing to be in their mid-twenties, boarded the train and walked by us down the aisle. They looked like modern Moroccans, wearing jeans and sunglasses. They appeared to be looking for open seats, a tough find on our packed train. We thought nothing of them sitting down across the aisle from us as those seats were the only ones open in our car. One of the boys striked up a conversation with Ryan, commenting on his Red Bull shirt from Thailand. The boy (named Mohamed) said he was an international business student at the University of Toronto in Canada and was home visiting his family for 10 days before school started up again. He told us he was from Fes and that his family still lives there. This conversation lasted the entire final two hours of the train trip. He asked us if we were staying in Fes and we said yes. He asked if we had make arrangements for a hotel and we said not yet, but we would look as soon as we got in, just as we have done in nearly every city so far this trip (we did not book anything ahead because every hostel listed on the internet was way out of our price range). At this point the boy's friend Jack (who was from Germany and had been to Fes a few times previously to visit the boy) mentioned that last time he was in Fes he stayed in a nice place that was pretty cheap but he couldn't remember the phone number or where it was. Mohamed said he had a cell phone and that he would call information for us to get the number and then, because he could speak French and Arabic, he would call the hotel and see if they had cheap rooms available for the night. We thanked him and after he told us the price we decided it was ok. No problems. He then insisted that we join him and his family that evening for dinner at his family's house. In many countries (including Morocco, according to all the research we had done) an invitation to dinner at someone's home is the ultimate in good hospitality, even if you have only just met them. In light of all of this and with everything checking out the way it did there was no reason to refuse this offer. After all, we have had this same invitation in many of the countries we have visited. We have accepted many invitations as well and the experiences was great. His invitation was completely normal to us, so we accepted it. We agreed to meet him at the McDonald's in the center of the city because he attempted to explain to us how to get to his house but it proved too difficult. We met up at McDonalds later that evening (without passports or credit cards, just enough money to take a taxi home if there was a problem), after freshening up at our gorgeous hotel. Dinner at his house was wonderful. After meeting all of his family (a younger brother, four sisters, mother, father, aunt, and cousins) and eating a delicious meal of mint tea, fish, eggplant and bread he helped us find an internet cafe so that we could e-mail our parents. To do this he sent us off with his younger sister and young cousin, both about six. These two totally adorable girls helped us get onto the net and then helped us navigate our way back to Mohamed's house. Before our evening was over Mouhamed and his friend Tony (a social worker from Barcelona) invited us to go visit the Medina (the heart of the old town linked by complex alleyways and back roads) with them the next day. Although we were tired from our travels we were excited to see the Medina and happy to have a local guide given its complexity. Thus, we agreed to meet the next morning at our hotel (which was near one of the Medina's gates and thus easy enough to find). At 8am the next morning, quite groggy, we ate a quick breakfast and met them to explore the old city. Within a few blocks of departing our hotel Tony asked if it was okay to stop by a carpet store first because he wanted to pick up some carpets for his place in Barcelona and get a few gifts for friends. We didn´'t see this as a problem and followed them into a carpet store. We were immediately greeted by a salesman while our friends were taken to a different part of the store. Although we told the man quite bluntly that we were students, travelling, had no money, and were not going to buy any carpets he insisted on rolling out a few carpets just so we could see how beautiful they were, and insisted that we take a seat and have a cup of mint tea while we waited for our friends to finish their purchases. Some time after that, we don't know exactly when, we started buying carpets. --Yeah, it sounds crazy right, but here are the bits that we remember.-- They had all of these carpets unrolled and then they asked us what our favorite colors were. At some point they asked what our credit limit was and Brittany said she thought she had at least $5,000 of credit on her Visa card. They asked to see the card, but we had not taken anything like that with us (again, we left for the day with our passports and credit cards safely locked up). So, a salesman walked Ryan back to our hotel so that Ryan could get the card. Before that, however, Brittany told him to grab all of the credit cards (...to charge more carpets to???). For some reason, we felt okay to split up with Ryan going to get the card, and Brittany to stay behind in a roomful of men. At this point Brittany remembers having several glasses of mint tea thrust in her face. Unfortunately, she really does like mint tea and did not know that she was drugged, so she drank about five glasses of it while waiting for Ryan to return. After Ryan's return, and at some point, we don't know when, we were up in the salesman's office. Brittany's credit card was grabbed out of her hand, swiped in a machine and then a white card was wrung immediately after. At some point Brittany signed a receipt and was told (she actually remembers this part) to write next to her name "I am pleased with my purchase". During this same time Brittany was venturing to the bathroom without her shoes on, was leaving the camera all over the carpet store, and taking big swigs of water out of other people's water bottles (for those that know Brittany-the germaphobe at all this is extremely a-typical behavior). At some point Ryan called his brother Dylan (who, unfortunately for us, was out celebrating his birthday at a club and could barely hear the conversation) to let him know that we were buying carpets. It seemed like anything that was repeated became the truth. The weirdest part is that in our brains for a split second we could identify that something was funny, but it was like we were missing the next necessary nerons to complete the thought and get out of this horrible situation. Everything up to this point could be written as a really twisted comedy, particularly because neither of us do drugs. The story, however, began to take a turn for the dramatic. When all of our business with the carpet store was complete our friend Mohamad asked if we still wanted to see the Medina, we said yes, and so he agreed to find us a guide to take us around while he and Tony finished up their purchases. Just before we left, however, he invited us to go to Meknes with him and Tony later in the afternoon. Doped beyond belief we of course said yes. It wasnt until about 45 minutes later, while we chased our speed walking tour guide through the Medina that things began to wear off and we started (although it would take hours--until around 10pm that night) to get our bearings, i.e. we began to fight. We probably looked ridiculous yelling at each other in the alleyways of the Medina, but at that time we were quite confused and not feeling comfortable. We still checked out of our hotel, however, and planned on meeting our friends at McDonalds. We were just about to cross the street to McDonalds where we saw our friends when we decided that we had had enough (perhaps of each other at that point from all of our fighting) and needed to just stay in one spot. We were confused, not entirely sure what was going on, or what had happened earlier. Our friends acquieced, but insisted that they put us on a train to Marakesh that very afternoon. We agreed, but we did not have enough cash to buy two train tickets so our friend Mohamed loaned us 50 Dirham to make the purchase. After going to an ATM we told them that we needed to check our e-mail before getting on the train. It was outside of the internet cafe that we bid them farwell.
After they left Brittany realized that we had not given Mohamed back his 50 Dirham loan, which immediately made us suspicious that something was funny. We spent about an hour yelling at each other in the cafe trying to figure out what was going on and suddenly remember that we had just bought some carpets. While our train to Marakesh was pulling out of the station, Brittany was on the phone with Visa, desperately trying to dump enough coins into the machine while a woman told her that the transaction was automatic, that it could not be stopped, and that the only thing that could be done was to cancel the card, which Brittany promptly did. At this point we went back to the train station to figure out what we were going to do. We decided not to go anywhere by train because it was quite late already, and we did not want to arrive somewhere in the middle of the night. Given it was the only place that we knew about in Fes we returned to our hotel, where our hosts were quite baffled at our return, and where we ran into Jack, the German man, from our first day on the train. His expression was priceless in that he managed to look surprised, shocked, upset, and baffled while at the same time choking down a smile. He told us that he had just stopped by because now his family was coming from Germany. He invited Ryan to go for a drink at 7pm, but Brittany-getting a funny vibe-insisted that they needed to get some sleep. It had, after all, been a very long day. Jack acquieced and said he was going to stay in the hotel foyer and finish a drink, but as Ryan watched from the small, detailed window clad staircase leading up to the second floor with rooms Jack disappeared as soon as we assended the staircase. So many red flags were going up. After about half an hour in our room trying to figure out what was going on and what to do we realized that we had not eaten since breakfast. As we left the hotel in search for food and a cab, we were again greeted by our hotel hosts who demanded to know where we were going and when we would be back. They made it clear that they did not appreciate our vague answers. We went back to McDonalds, which is in the heart of the new city and the only other place that we knew about in the city. After Brittany made a quick call to her mom (telling her to refuse any charges if Visa or Alaska USA called) we realized that we were being followed by Jack the German who we saw get out of a taxi. He talked to a group of 10 people who immediately started staring at us, then walked curiously around a bunch of trees to not be noticed, and finally ran and jumped into the car of our friend Mohamed, who upon seeing Jack also ran for his car. At this point we totally freaked out. The group that Jack talked to had dispersed. We didn´t know who was who and who was in on this huge, scary scam. Luckily, we recognized the symbol for Hostelling International and managed to find their hostel (which was not on the web!). After reserving two beds for that night, and after quarrelling about whether or not we should go back to our original hotel for our bags, we decided that we would take a taxi back to the hotel, keep it running, dash into our hotel, and grab our bags. At this point we were extremely afraid of what was suppose to happen to us, what had happened to us, and how many people were involved. Making the decisoin to go back was huge because, otherwise, we would have had nothing. We found a taxi that agreed to wait for us, so we made a run to the hotel. Upon entering, we were again greeted with bizarre nervousness by the owner and staff, AND people immediately began making calls...which made us feel so scared! Our pre-arranged plan, however, was well executed and while one of us went up to the room to grab the bags, the other talked to the staff. The conversation, of course was bizarre. Ryan told her that we had changed our plans and were now catching the night train. She said the 11 o'clock one, and he said, yeah, sure the 11 o'clock one (we had no intention of telling these people where we were going and when). She insisted on us waiting while she called the train station to confirm the time, help us arrange a cab, on and on...all the while other people were still on the phone. At one point, Brittany interupted the hotel woman's phone call and demanded to know how much for the half day in the room, paid it, and was about to leave when the manager came out and said to Brittany, 'oh, madam I cannot let you go. I insist that you stay and have a cup of mint tea with me' (the irony here is a killer, but at the time we didn't realize that we had been drugged). We were beyond done with this whole situation so we rapidly rejected the offer and started to run out of the hotel, bags and all. Just as we were turning our first corner away from the hotel Ryan saw the hotel lady stick her head out to follow where we were headed. In our seven minute walk back to the gate of the Medina and the relative safety of our waiting cabbie, we saw a group of young men walking the opposite direction, turn as they passed us and begin to follow us, and as we approached the gate of the Medina Brittany saw a young man about the same build as our 'friend' Mohamed identify us in the shadows and begin to slowly back away from the gate and run into the shadows. Yes, at this point we were in a full sprint. It probably doesn't need mention, but we certainly didn't sleep at all that night. Even with a gate, guard, and locked door every crackle and whistle of the wind made our stomachs turn. Before we slept, however, we spent hours trying to figure out what had happened to us. It wasn't until about 10pm that we realized we had been drugged with the tea. At that point, however, we were terrified to go to the Moroccan police both because we, unfortunately and problematically, do not speak Arabic or French, and because we had heard horror stories from other travelers about the local police. We thought the situation would become even worse. We also thought about visiting a hospital to get our urine checked, but again with a serious language barrier, and being unsure of what drug would be used, we felt helpless. Helpless and scared are probably the best adjectives for that evening--violated and enraged are the adjectives to describe our feelings the next day. It was that night that we met several other groups of travellers that had equally scary stories involving being fed food or tea with marajuana in it, being scammed by the police, being robbed at knife point, being raped, being told that they would be raped, etc, etc, etc. Given all that we know about what could have happened to us, and what our scam artist people were trying to get us to do, we are just happy to be alive. While it is true that we are now in a lengthy dispute process with Visa over the carpets, totaling around US$5,000, this is small beans compared to what could have become of us. We left Fes on the 7am train to Tangier--the first train out of the station. Fleeing Morocco might sound a little dramatic but that is exactly how it felt. To make the experience all the more scary our train journey back north was full of precious moments as well. Our train car suddenly was filled with about 30 young men who kept signaling to each other between the ends of each car, running off the train at every stop and switching train cars and positions with each other. The point where we really began to worry was when local people began to pay attention to the men and look agitated--never a good sign. Eventually an undercover cop cuffed one of the youths, but not after some sort of brawl which included the train man, who came through our car covered with scratches and blood. It was intense to say the least, and made us all the more uncomfortable. After receiving our emergency e-mail sent in transit (which took a full day from Fes back to Murcia) Justin met us at 6am at the train station, and once again took us in.

Interesting things about us in Morocco
1) We truly feel like if we hadn't been travelling so much this wouldn't have happened. If we had just come from the US we probably would have had blinders up, but, unfortunatley in this case, we have had awesome experiences the world over.
2) Even though Ryan would like to skin the people that did this to us, our experiences in Morocco, although only about a day long, were really positive. People were really nice to us, held the door, helped us get on the right trains, etc.
3) This trial has really hurt our travel experience, because we are still travelling, but are having a really hard time trusting people...we are not saying that this experience was not valuable to have lived through or a great story, BUT we are still on the road, and it is nearly impossible to do this kind of trip and not believe in the ultimate goodness of people, or believe that people in general are evil or ill-meaning...it will take a while.
4) It seems like for every person that we tell this story, we get an equally interesting and often horrifying story about Morocco in return. Justin's teacher in Murcia had a story about nearly being drugged in a carpet store, a Dutch friend was robbed by a man with a 9-inch blade while he got into a taxi cab, and Brittany's aunt had a friend whose mom also drank the tea at the carpet store, etc, etc, ...really we have been told a million stories.

Would we go back...
The US Embassy in Rebat asked Brittany if she was willing to go back to Fes and talk to the police about what happened, and she said no way without a larger group of people including several Arabic and French speakers, which were impossible from Murcia, Spain. Ryan would like to go back to kick some ass, but really, even from Spain we were quite afraid of the far reaching network and power this group of people had. For now Ryan says there is no way he would go back to Morocco. Brittany says she would like to go back with a larger group of people, at least one of which could speak Arabic or French, and see Marakesh and the Atlas Mnts, but would definitely by-pass Fes and most of Morocco's northern territory.

Should you go to Morocco...
Yes! There are some awesome people there with a different slice of life that is worth seeing. Just avoid the carpet stores at all costs! Go with a bigger group of people. Be wary, be careful, and if you get pick pocketed consider yourself lucky!

2006-09-11T06:28:00.000-07:00

From the port of Split, Croatia we got a ferry bound for Ancona, Italy. Much like our previous over-night ferry ride we made a small camp near the backside of a smoky bar. Unlike our previous journey, however, we had the company of a spunky turtle and about 10 happy looking goldfish that are the only pets we had ever seen in a bar, including a bar on a ship. Cute animals aside, our final destination for this leg of the trip was our friend's house in Pistoia, a beautiful area of Tuscany about an hour outside of Florence. Our friend, Matteo (who Brittany met at the Univ. of Washington), and his family were absolutely awesome hosts! They fed us and housed us for nearly five days which was fantastic because after our one-city-a-day routine in Eastern Europe we were ready to set our packs down and take a real shower (with hot water this time!). As part of their generous hosting they guided us through Florence, Pistoia, and Sienna, and some of Pistoia's surrounding area including a hike into the mountainous border between Tuscany and Bologna. We learned all about the Medici in Florence and saw the benefit of their generosity toward the arts via the Uffizi and Ghibirti's doors, and saw the other side of conquest via the Medici's crest of balls (that can't be a coincidence!) which were hung in surrounding towns including Sienna and Pistoia. And after all of that sight-seeing we had the luxery of coming home to lively family meals with Matteo's sister, Lisa, her boyfriend, Beres (who was visiting from Jamiaca), and Matteo's parents Rita and Marco. It was darn good fun! We realized during our stay, however, that we were running out of time (our travel destinations and times on this trip are quite flexible, but we have to reach certain cities by certain dates to catch our around-the-world-tickets) and must move on to Spain and Morocco. After another sad goodbye, and a we-owe-you-big-time-Matteo-and-Rita-trip to the Pisa airport at 4am we were off to Spain.

Upon arriving in Barcelona we learned that Brittany's cousin, Justin, had just come to Spain to study Spanish and was now living in Murcia which is near the coast and southeast of Madrid. In a time crunch and with new visits to make we stayed in Barcelona for just one night. Our day and a half there, however, was plenty of time to take in the pet shops and street performers of La Ramblas, see Gaudi's Casa Batllo, wander around Sagrada Familia, and visit the Picasso Museum. After our blitz walking tour we hopped on a train to Murcia where Justin greeted us. We stayed with Justin for only two nights, but in that time we took full advantage of his kitchen. It had been quite a while since we had cooked any real food (pasta doesn't count!). Between filling our bellies with gazpachio, salmon sandwiches, and salad we walked around Murcia, which isn't the most picturesque town, but a lovely place none the less. On Saturday evening we said goodbye to Justin at the bus station and boarded our coach, on our way to Morocco....

Interesting things about Italy
1) We learned from several of our hosts that it is quite common for 30 and 40 year olds to still be living with their parents. We were told that this is due to high housing costs, but we also heard stories about children being so pampered that they did not do their own laundry as adults.
2) There are cats everywhere. Someone told us that during WW2 Italians ate cats to stave off hunger caused by the war. To balance out Italian cat karma a law was passed in the 80s protecting cats--perhaps that is why there are so many!
3) Fashion rules Italy, but not in a way that we would want to join in on. For example, for Ryan to fit in he would need to buzz a wavy mohawk into his hair and then wear a pair of plaid pants with reinforced knees of a different color. Brittany, however, need only find a mesh body suit or a pair of white pants with a black thong. It is just too tempting.

2006-08-21T07:32:00.000-07:00

From Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia...
Originally we planned on returning to Greece from Turkey, and from there somehow getting ourselves to Spain. However, due to our limited budget, excess amount of time in Europe, and unlimited sense of adventure, we opted instead to venture north from Istanbul, into Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, and finally Croatia. We further figured that this route was actually logistically superior to our original, in that it formed a loop which would ultimately bring us back to Italy, where we could meet up with a friend of Brittany's for a few days and then catch a relatively short ferry to Spain.
Our Balkan adventures began in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, known in backpacker circles as the eastern European capital of cheap beer. For us, however, it seemed much less about cost-efficient beer and much more about trashy, Italian-esque fashion. It seemed like a little Milan. It was comfortable in that it had good, cheap food and a decent public transport system, but it had relatively little of interest to see. Ryan did get to play chess in one of the larger public parks with a bunch of older Bulgarian men (who pretty much kicked his ass), but that was about the most unique thing that happened to us in Sofia.
After catching a slow train from Sophia (walked to train station), we arrived in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and another comfortable but rather uninteresting city. Amazingly, we met up with our Dutch friends, whom we first met in Athens, for the third time in Belgrade. We ran into them on the main shopping street and they invited us to their cafe table where we enjoyed luch with them before going our separate ways yet again. Crazy! Belgrade was interesting, but honestly not nearly as intriguing as expected. It seemed to be just another nice city that was actually kind of expensive. The War Museum, however, was definitely worth the visit. They had a section about the Kosovo conflict in 1999 and had the uniforms of many of the pilots they had shot down on display. They were especially proud of their US uniforms and weapons. There have been a few times during our trip where it has felt especially uncomfortable to be from the US and visiting this museum was one of those times. But all was well and we spent the rest of our time in Belgrade roaming around the city's biggest park and trying to buy train tickets to Sarajevo. People just kept saying that a train there didn't exist...but we had just looked it up on the internet the day before and it listed a timetable and prices, so their unhelpful responses to our inqueries were curious. We had read up on Serbian-Bosnian relations, so it became clear having the Serbian train authorities tell us that there was no train to Bosnia was just a manifestation of the serious friction still occuring between the two peoples. In the end, we found a bus from Belgrade to Sarajevo and after 9 hours on the road we finally arrived in the capital of Bosnia. Sarajevo was drab, beat-up, and chilly, but it was also easily the most interesting place we visited in Europe. Upon setting foot off the bus, it was immediately evident that this place was different. It seemed that the whole city had a grey hue and the air was a bit cold. The busses were old, the streets needed work, and the buildings were riddled with millions of 50-caliber holes. However, despite the harsh environment, the people were wonderfully kind. A city bus driver saw that we only had Euro and were having trouble getting to our hostel from the bus station. Every other bus driver had refused our money, but he told us to get on his bus and that he would take us to the nearest stop to our hostel. He did just that and wished us luck, sending us (with good directions!) to our hostel. We spent three days exploring Sarajevo. We went on a tour of the city offered by our hostel. It was very good, lead by a man who had lived through the entire 4-year seige. He showed us the 1-kilometer tunnel dug under the airport which connected the surrounded Sarajevo to the "free area", allowing the beseiged people access to food, water and clothing. We also visited a Jewish cemetary which was converted into a sniper nest by the occupying Serbian army. It was the best area from which to shoot civilians and journalists trapped inside the Holiday Inn. Needless to say, the tour was really thought-provoking and allowed us to see the "Sarajevo Roses" (spots where bombs detonated) that can be found on the streets and sidewalks all over the city. While we were there we heard news of a soccer game that was going to be played the night before we had to leave. Of course we had to go. It turned out to be an incredibly local event, full of residents of Sarajevo cheering their city's team on against a rival city's. It became a heated event as people were very drunk and the competion was fierce. All ended well, however, as the game ended in a 1-1 tie. It was really cool to see this game. It was played in a once-proud stadium with heavily shelled buildings serving as the backdrop. The whole spectacle was very moving. Sadly, the next day we had to leave Bosnia for Croatia. We chose to go to a city called Split (rather than Dubrovnik) guided by advice from an American we had met on the train from Athens to Istanbul. It turned out that his advice was quite wrong. Despite the copious amounts of grafitti everywhere, Split was a very bland and uninteresting town. We arrived there around 6am and, in a positive turn, we promptly met up with yet another couple from the UK (Scottish boy, Welsh girl), whose names were Harry and Sabrina. They were very cool and invited us to join them on a day trip to go see some Roman ruins just outside of the city. We had a fun day with them roaming around the Roman stuff and even got to go swimming with a few of the locals in a slightly dirty ocean channel. The only real excitement for us in Split came when we were all returning from our day out and Harry and Sabrina were cutting it pretty close getting back to the port to catch their boat out of Croatia. We were on the bus and had made it about halfway back to the city when we started to smell smoke. A few minutes later the bus was pulled over on the side of the road, the engine smoking. We stood in the burning sun on the side of the road for about 30 mintes before another bus came by to get us...and luckily Harry and Sabrina were fast runners because they had to sprint to their boat. An hour later our boat departed Split bound for Ancona, Italy. This would be our third time in Italy this trip, and another of Brittany's friends would make our time there very enjoyable!

Interesting things about Bulgaria:
1) Women--on the whole--seemed to be really skinny, highly fashionable, and most likely prostituting themselves.
2) In Bulgaria nodding your head in agreement actually is done by shaking your head from side to side, and rejecting or refusing something is done by an up and down shake...the exact opposite of what we were use to!
3) The police cars in Sophia looked like beat up rally cars, and the police were avoided at all costs due to their all-too-typical hassle of tourists and demand for some sort of payment.

Interesting things about Serbia:
1) The ice cream in Belgrade was a nasty, gooey, way-too-creamy, trying-to-be-Italian-gelato mess. Skip it!
2) We definitely noticed a nastolgic love for both Tito and Milosovic as expressed through postcards, banners and signs. Scary...
3) We noticed a ton of anti-NATO graffiti all around the city which was not surprising given Serbia's relationship with the organization and their interactions during the Bosnian conflict in the early 90's and the conflict in Kosovo in the late 90's.

Interesting things about Bosnia:
1) Cigarettes are sold at the post office.
2) There seems to be an extreme affinity for pigeons in Sarajevo which can be seen from the pigeon on the coins to the naming of parks. We were told by a hostel manager that they ate pigeon during the Serbian seige and the people view the bird as a sort of savior.
3) There are a ton of mosques, churches, and synagogues mixed together in Sarajevo as well as a visible muslim population--we didnt expect this. However, upon arriving in the city we learned that Sarajevo is considered the Jeruselum of eastern Europe due to its high mix of Muslims, Christians, and Jews.
4) Much like Bulgaria and Serbia, #### is EVERYWHERE. We thought the funniest sighting was near our hostel at a bus stop where a Muslim woman worked a newspaper stand and sold tickets for the tram. Her small window was surrounded by Winnie the Pooh coloring books, the day's paper, and ######## #### DVDs.

Interesting things about Croatia:
1) People were not very nice to us in Croatia (okay, we were only there for a day, but 20 hours can show you a lot about a culture!).
2) Croatians, at least the ones we ran into, spoke a crazy mix of Italian and a more cyrillic-based language like their Balkan brethren. As with the rest of the Balkans "Ciao!" was the way to say goodbye. Odd.

2006-08-12T08:49:00.000-07:00

Well, our Brazilian visas came through (all $300USD of them!) and after gathering up our things from our great hostel in Athens we raced across the city to the train station to catch our train bound for Greece's second largest city, Thessaloniki, about 550kms north of Athens. Our ultimate distination for this journey was Istanbul, but apparently they don't sell tickets that connect all of the way through (there is some tension between Greece and Turkey and their border crossing is a bit tedious because of it), so we had to buy the second leg of our ticket in Thessaloniki. To that city it was a breeze of a trip that took only about 7 hours, but it put us into the Thessaloniki train station at about 9:30pm, half an hour before the ticket window opened to allow us to purchase tickets to Istanbul, Turkey. It turned out that the next train to Istanbul didn't leave until seven the next morning, so we were going to be stuck at the train station for a bit. We decided due to our tight budget that sleeping in the station was the best thing to do so after playing a card game or two we hunkered down for the night, Brittany on a hard wooden bench and Ryan on the floor. We had just closed our eyes when a huge explosion opened them up again. Luckily it was just a cherry bomb rolled into the station by some excited Greek soccer fans. They ran through the station yelling at the top of their lungs as the one old police officer on duty there slowly made his way out of his office and walked toward them. As soon as he rambled back into his office (not one word said to the revelers) there was another explosion, this time right in the center of the station. This time the officer came out and talked to them and then returned again to his office, just in time for the third (and final!) cherry bomb explosion. Finally he called for back up and within about an hour 10 Greek policemen marched the whole group back through the station, probably only to release them with slaps on their wrists out the front door. Then, no less than 10 minutes later, station officials decided to close the station so promptly and rudely woke us up and kicked us out on the street. By this time it was about 3:30am and we had to sleep on the sidewalk in front of the train station. It was a long night, full of dogs barking and buses passing by on the street next to us. Needless to say we got almost no sleep. We finally got to board the train and get on our way to Istanbul...or so we thought. As it turned out, there were a few more legs to the trip than was explained to us at the outset. We were told to get off the train in a place called Alexandropolis, 2 hours by bus from the Turkish border. After the packed bus ride we waited at a barren train stop for the train which would first take us to the border city of Pythion and then finally on to Istanbul. When all was said and done it had taken us 31 hours to get to Istanbul from Athens, a trip that was suppossed to take 18! However, based on our new ridiculous standards (thank you India) it was not that bad of a journey besides the explosions and being kicked out on the street.
Once in Istanbul we followed the recommendation of an Italian Turk and found our way to our new home for four days, World Hostel, where we also met up with two Dutch friends named Jim and Gideon. Istanbul is truly a fantastic city. Not only were people incredibly helpful and nice, but the food there was delicious and cheap. We are not sure how it is possible, but we ate Tavuk Dromer Donors (basically a chicken kabob wrap with lettuce and french fries) for nearly every meal. At about a dollar each they fit quite well into our budget! Although we never crossed the main bridge into the Asia side of Istanbul we became well aquainted with the European side where we visited the Galata Tower (giving us an impressive view of the city and an interesting spot to be during the mid-day call to prayer), Hagia Sophia (a huge mosque/church that was built by Roman emperor Justinian and restored as a museum by Ataturk), Saltanhamet (a mosque with incredible light blue mosiac and tile work on the interior), Taksim Square (a shopping/commercial area that supposedly has 2 million people pass through it each day), and a Turkish bath. We were lucky enough to get lost at the end of our day near the Cagaloglu Hamami which is a three-hundred year old Turkish bath that was gifted to the city by Sultan Mehmet I. It is said that King Edward VIII, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Franz Liszt, Florence Nightengale, and yes, even Cameron Diaz have visited this bath--but we didn't know that at the time, we just wanted to get scrubbed! After eight months of travel 45 minutes of scrubbing and washing and massaging sounded soooooo good. And for Brittany it was. Ryan's experience, however, was a bit different. Too many Euro later, with a few new bruises on Ryan, we departed cleaner and fresher than we had been in a long time. (R -A Turkish bath, to put it bluntly, involoves a large man scrubbing and beating you, then seeing you naked. Before the thrashing, however, they tell you to get naked and to throw a towel on, and then to go into the steam room. So I did as I was told and ended up in in the steam room with 20 other folks, 15 of whom were also clearly foreigners and looked a bit scared. Anyway, I just picked a marble seat and sat down like the rest of them, you know, blending in. About 10 minutes later the big wooden door to the room slams open and 10 very large, hairy Turkish guys, also wearing towels, came stomping through. Immediately they started pointing and yelling at people to come lay down on the large marble platform in the middle of the room...so once again I did as I was told. The short massage was going well when, all of a sudden, one of the other foreigners on the other side of the platform let out a howl that would impress wolves. This intense expression was caused by his Turkish miseuse smacking him very solidly on the back. Suppossedly it was all part of the deal, and I too came to be smacked (but, mind you, did not yell, hehe). After the first bit of fun was over, my man told me to sit in the marble seat that I began in and he would scrub me tender. So he did, and then to wash away all of the dead skin from my scrubbing he doused me heavily with water, which was drawn from a marble basin by a metal dish, which, after my washing, was duely used to whack me on the top of the head. Also part of the deal, I figured, for all throughout the steam room rung the sound of the vibrating metal dishes after whacking my foreign commrades heads'. As soon as this step was finished my miseuse told me to take as long as I wanted in the steam room and then to come outside where he would change me from my now-wet towel into a fresh dry one. So yet again I did as I was told and he changed me and then told me to tip him. So, sticking with the pattern, I did as I was told and tipped him. He seemed happy, I seemed clean, and this long-practiced Turkish tradition was alive and kicking in Istanbul. Memorable, to say the least. ) (B - Okay, so even though Ryan's experience sounds way more unique mine was pretty cool, but nothing like my previous message experiences in India or Thailand, so don't expect a funny story. The facility itself is amazing. The marble used in the baths is old and worn down, and the domed ceiling has several star shaped openings to let fresh air in. When I first entered the steam room I had to yell out the name of my scrubbing lady which was a bit embarrassing considering I was wearing a loin cloth staring at a room full of naked women. She told me to strip down and then dowsed me with a big bucket of water telling me that I needed to get wet. After about 15 minutes of relaxing she called me over to the center marble platform in the middle of the room where about eight other women were being worked on. While we were all totally naked the women scrubbing and massaging had swimsuits on. You could tell many of the tourists because they had tan lines, and some refused to take their underwear off. First I was scrubbed, then rinsed, then soaped up, then rinsed, then attacked with a huge loofah-like, horsetail-like brush, then rinsed, then had my hair washed twice, then my hair was braided. Several times I was so soaped up that when my massear sat down to rub or scrub me she would accidentally send me gliding across the marble table hitting other soaped up women. It was an awesome experience. I would definitely recommend it!)
In Istanbul we met several travelers who helped us change our travel plans. While we originally intended on going back through Greece from Turkey we met plenty of young people who had been travelling in Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, etc. So we decided, what the hell, let's do it too. You don't often get the chance to visit Bosnia when you live in Alaska, or Seattle so we wanted to live it up. From Istanbul we found a night train to Sophia, Bulgaria...and here we are!
As usual, we're just taking it as it comes and seeing what happens next! More from Serbia and Bosnia soon! Blagodaria, Brittany & Ryan

2006-08-03T12:15:00.000-07:00

After a sunny day in Cambridge and one long night sleeping on the cold, stone floor of London's Stansted Airport we took off to Italy again, but this time to Milan in the north. At the airport we received a warm welcome from Eleonora Vizzini (a girl that Brittany met on the train to Venice nine years ago with her grandmother and has kept in contact with since) and her mother. They showed us back to their house in Domodosola, located a little more than an hour north of Milan by train. After letting us check email there and do some quick research on ferries to Greece we locked up the house and drove further north to their other house in the Vigezzo Valley, a place known for its stone rooftops, chimney sweeps, and a 15th-century Christian miracle involving 'Mary of the Milk/Blood'. The valley is inherently beautiful, lined with thick evergreen trees and dotted with the steeples of the numerous churches located there. Ele made sure we saw every inch of the 30km-long valley, which streches into southern Switzerland. The whole family made us feel very welcome and provided endless informational tidbits about the valley and its inhabitants. We went on many walks, allowing us to see the houses and trees and mountains both in the light of the day and the dark of the night. We were also introduced to Ele's valley friends and played cards and had coffee with many of them. We spent ten days in the valley seeing its sights and feasting on the best Italian home cooking we have ever had. Also, Ele showed us how to make this delicious yoghurt cake. We think you all would love it, so here's the recipe:
4 cups yoghurt (any kind you prefer)
1 cup flour
1/2 cup baking powder
2 eggs
mix together and bake at 180 degrees Celsius (hehe) for 45 minutes.
Speckled throughout our stay there were a few trips to the valley's pool (mandatory swim caps and all!), a drive to the Swiss town of Locarno (which turned out to be hosting cliff diving championships that we later watched in a McDonald's in Athens), a fantastic hike up some of the valleys peaks (which included purchasing some locally made cheese from a traditional family that lives in the mountains during the summer), and a romp through Milan where we saw Da Vinci's "Last Supper" and ate at a very posh McDonald's in Italy's leading fashion district.
As if they never happened at all, the 10 days with the Vizzini's came to an end as we boarded a train bound for Venice, the city of canals nestled on Italy's east coast. It was a long and tough goodbye for us all but we had to venture on. Venice was nice and we took the water taxis on its famous canals and saw all its sights in just a few hours, including San Marco Square and its awesome pigeons which we fed with a 1.00 Euro bag of corn and seed. This ten minute activity was arguably the coolest thing that we have done yet. We figure contracting bird flu was worth it. After we got our fill of the land of Venitian blinds we walked to the ferry terminal (let it be known that NO ONE does this) and reserved our little corner of the floor on Deck #7 and got down to the business of keeping ourselves entertained for the 30-hour epic trip over the sea to one of Greece's largest islands, Corfu. Located just a few miles off the coast of Albania, Corfu is a beautiful Aegean gem with one horribly run hostel on its best beach, Pelekas Beach. (R - After waiting for our promised ride from our hostel's staff for nearly 2 hours at the deserted Corfu Town ferry dock we finally gave up our effort to get our ride and just paid far too much for a taxi to drive us to Pelekas. The hostel's name is Sunrock and if you ever find yourself on lovely Corfu Island do not stay at this place. It is one of those run-by-the-guests places and the guests just happen to be 18-20 year old travellers looking for handouts. The woman who runs it was always telling us to "relax" and not to "stress out", but all we were doing was trying to find ways get to our next destination.) Long story short, we booked for a dorm room but paid for a double and nearly missed our bus to Athens on account of their confused operation.
Once in Athens we realized how low our bank accounts are actually running and began the same old bread and water routine for meals mixing in the occational trip to a fast food restaurant. (B - Never before have I eaten so much fast food, but I have quickly learned that in the developed world it is often the cheapest option, and unfortunately for us cheap is the deciding factor. I can't wait to get to Brazil and eat some real food again!) Our financial situation became all the more acute after putting in our applications for Brazilian visas which cost about US$150 per person (talk about retribution for US visa policies--yikes!). We have found that we are some of the only travellers facing budget issues in Greece, because most travellers that we have run into are US high school students on a one-month holiday in which Greece is their cheap stop. However, regardless of budget woes we did manage to see the Acropolis, Ancient Agora, Theatre of Dionysos, and Temple of Olympian Zeus thanks to ISIC student/youth cards. All were amazing, but as with the Pyramids and Sphinx in Egypt most buildings were being restored or seemed to be permanently supported by scaffolding. Perhaps it is our nihilist philosphy taking over, but we have grown to think that if the Acropolis is meant to lose a column it might just be its time to fall. Besides its ancient appeal, Athens is an awesome city. Via our shoestring budget we have had the unexpected pleasure of walking its many streets!

Assuming our Brazillian visa requests are accepted we will head to Turkey in a couple of days. We have heard that the Athens to Istanbul train ride is the worst in Europe and although it is scheduled for 18 hours it can take up to 33 hours, which wouldn't be that bad if it was air conditioned! We'll see!
From the land of philosophers and hair formulas, Brittany & Ryan

Interesting things about England:
1) We were barely in England for a total of two days during which we were mostly sleeping at the airport, couch surfing, etc. Besides their hard-to-stomach food which everyone seem to already know about (hehe), our conclusion is that there is nothing interesting about England/English people. Nada. The only thing worth mentioning is that it seems like at one point or another every Aussie or Kiwi spends at least a year of their life there (called "OE" or overseas experience). 2) On second thought, it is worth mentioning that the best thing about England, and more specifically London, is that most of the museums and art gallaries are free, which almost makes up for the ridiculously expensive means of getting to them!

Interesting things about Greece:
1) Okay, granted we only went to one beach here, but everyone really does wear Speedos--often in awesome hot pink or hot green colors. And yes, everyone does wear a fanny pack.
2) We have only been here for about a week, but have seen about twenty fights on the streets/ferry/etc. Although we have seen some physical aggression everywhere never this much. 3) The public displays of affection here have made us want to gag. It seems to be totally in vogue to bring your partner to a coffee shop/internet cafe/fast food restaurant/street corner and suck their mouth clean---maybe this has more to do with the price of dental care--we just don't know.

2006-07-15T11:22:00.000-07:00

During our 20 hour stop in London we met and stayed with an Aussie friend, named Emma, who we met in China. Emma and her boyfriend John took care of us and let us crash at their house during the day which was essential because we were extremely jet lagged. From London we flew to Glasgow and caught the train to Edinburgh where we stayed for two days. Edinburgh is a fantastic place that's 'old city' has a true small town feel. We loved walking the streets, visiting Edinburgh Castle and going to the Museum of Scotland, which is hands down the BEST museum that we have ever been to. It is extremely modern and informative making the entire experience more like reading a history book than walking through exhibits. From Edinburgh we spent a day in Stirling to visit the William Wallace Memorial/Monument and Stirling Castle followed by a day in Aberdeen. Our full day in Aberdeen was wonderful because we found cheap golf on the Balnagask Golf Course, which sits on top of the west coast cliffs of the city, overlooking the sea. The golf course dates back to 1844 which predates most of the surrounding structures including the Aberdeen fort which sits next to it. We played two rounds of nine hole 'pitch and putt' golf in the sunshine and then caught a bus south to the town of Stonehaven where we hiked to Dunnottar Castle. The weather was beautiful making the whole day fantastic! On our last day in Scotland we spent hours trying to find the Edinburgh Chess Club (the oldest chess club in the world, founded in 1822) only to later discover that it has recently started closing on the weekends. We will have to come visit them again! For our last meal in the city we headed to a local pub called the Last Drop and ate a proper Scottish meal of 'Haggis, Peeps, and Tates' which translates into a meat dish (made of sheep's lungs, kidney, and liver cooked in the sheep's stomach), turnips, and potatoes. Surprisingly, we managed to eat nearly the entire plate, and are proud to say that it actually tasted good! For the next two days we will be sleeping in airports and parks as we make our way from Edinburgh to Glasgow to the Stansted airport in London--and finally to Milan!

A proper cheers from the UK, Brittany & Ryan

Interesting things about Scotland: 1) The mohawk has made a serious comeback with the 12-22 crowd and the slicked-down hair of the 80's seems to be all the rage with young women--we're happy to be missing this trend if it is also happening in the states! 2) People were (much like Egypt) super friendly and super helpful. People helped us get all over the city and actually had good information! 3) The accent here is amazing, as is the language in general--such as the usage of the 'f' word in everyday speech and daily interaction...we really liked that! Nothing beats hearing a seventy-year old man talk about his day when all you can understand is f'n this and f'n that. Too good!

2006-07-05T10:14:00.000-07:00

From Egypt we traveled to four countries in one week. We flew from Cairo to Amsterdam in order to get down to Rome for a three day fly-by tour of the Coliseum, Pantheon, and Forum. We stayed about 30 km outside of the city at a campground/mobile home park that offered a pool, tennis court, and big screen TV drawing huge crowds on World Cup game days. Our first day in Rome was a bit of a bust because we (for the first time) forgot our camera at the camper park and were stuck in the city. This turned out to be rather cool because for the first time we just walked around enjoying the sights instead of racing around franticly trying to catch every major attraction. We also visited the National Museum of Modern Art and saw a fantastic exhibit by Italian painter Galileo Chini as well as classic works by Monet, Van Gough, Degas, etc. On our last day in Rome we managed to do a four hour blitz walking tour of the city hitting every major attraction except the Vatican which had a huge line that would have taken at least two hours to get through. We opted, instead, to see the Pantheon, Forum, Trevi Fountain and go inside of the Coliseum. It was a great way to see the city, but we were quite chaffed by the end of the day. Our camper park offered cheap but delicious pasta dinners so we were able to eat well and let our feet recover!

From Rome we flew to London for a two day stay before heading to Newark. In London we couchsurfed for the second time with a lovely couple, Pieter and Rae, who are originally from New Zealand. They made us dinner and let us use their Tube passes which helped us to get around the city. On our one full day in London we visited both Tate galleries, including the new Tate Modern, swung by Buckingham Palace and took a quick pic by Parliament and Big Ben.

Then we flew to Newark, New Jersey to participate in a huge Kingrea family reunion that was also intended to bring Ryan’s grandfather back to the Jersey shore one last time. Unfortunately, Grandpop’s condition was not good enough to fly, but it was decided that everyone should still meet. So for the past two weeks we have been eating fresh fruit, cheese steaks, hoagies, and Jersey corn and tomatoes on the beach and playing games and watching Fourth of July fireworks with Ryan’s parents, brothers, brothers’ girlfriends, grandma, and two younger cousins and aunt who came up from Tennessee. It has been fantastic to take a break from our travels, be with family again, and eat without fear of disease. Our trip back to the states also included two nights in Atlantic City (where Brittany more than doubled her money at the Black Jack tables, which only compensated for Ryan's horrible loss at the same), a fun filled night on the Wildwood boardwalk, and an afternoon in New York City where at the last minute we were able to connect with an old friend, school chum, and roommate from Seattle named Claire. She brought us to the Strand bookstore, and we made her our ninth person in a seven seater mini-van as we drove through NYC seeing some main attractions including: Times Square, Radio City Music Hall, 42nd St, Madison Ave, Ground Zero, Little Italy, China Town, The NYC Public Library, etc. It was a great way to spend our last day in America!

On July 9 we fly back to London where we arranged one pound tickets to Glasgow, Scotland where we will travel for about six days. Then we are off to Milan, Italy to visit an old friend…there is still so much to see!

Cheers from a land of patriotism and nacho cheese sauce, Brittany & Ryan

Interesting things about Italy: Will come after we visit again...

Interesting things about England: Will come after we visit again...

Interesting things about the US: We felt comfortable for the first time in a long time, but after months and months away it was nuts to: 1) Go to a supermaket that had anything and everything. It was a bit overwhelming! 2) Be around ten year-olds who were dressed and smelled better than us 3) Get canker sores from all of the sugar in our holiday diet and from all of the sugar in the food in general 4) Have to use the toilet several times a day due to the re-introduction of fiber into our diets

...we will have a better analysis when we return in December!

2006-06-18T11:13:00.000-07:00

We had the great pleasure of being greeted at the Cairo airport by smiling faces ready to whisk us away from a horde of foaming taxi touts. Thanks to the generosity of Alex and Jemma (who we met in Fiji) we were introduced to Alex's sister Lisa who lives in Cairo with her husband Ihab.

Lisa and Ihab immediately brought some normality back to our out-travelled soles. Within the first few days of our arrival they invited us on a weekend trip to the Red Sea, but not before a fantastic house party where we got to 1) socialize with a whole group of people 2) interact with many women (remember that we had just come from India) 3) eat Cheetos and 4) play Taboo (for those who may not know it we really are big game people, so this was totally up our alley). Then we packed up the car and headed to an area called Ein Elsokhna on the Red Sea with Lisa, Ihab, plus two other teachers, named Erin and Elizabeth, from the American primary school that Lisa teaches at. The sea was a little bit cold after our dips in the warm waters of Goa and Koh Phi Phi, but it was fantastic! The imagery was simply incomparable. The orange desert running into the turquoise sea was a brilliant sight, as was the contrast of women in bikinis and fully-veiled women wearing all black cloaks while splashing in the water with their children. We ate delicious fish and tahina while lounging on the beach in colorful Egyptian sofas, played cards, and caught the first World Cup game. It was great!

Our first week in Egypt was pretty packed because there is a ton of stuff to see and we literally got stranded here after several fiascoes with our ticket. Everything with the ticket worked out, but let it be known for the record there are no ferries running from Egypt to Italy, Greece, or Turkey. We'll leave it at that. Our first major sight seeing destination in Cairo was the Egyptian Museum which has some informative labels and markers, but for the most part is like exploring a time capsule that has just been dug up and doesn't come with any directions. We managed to hit the museum between French/German/Japanese tour buses so it was pretty much just us wandering through corridors. We saw Queen Hetep's internal organs (now just a pile of dust), King Tut's underwear (they definitely had track marks but that could just be time), and a crocodile sarcophagus (huge, huge crocs). And of course the usual stuff--Tut's ridiculous piles of treasures and golden coffins, the body of Ramses II, etc. Probably the coolest thing was just finding random artifacts that have been tucked behind other, bigger items, or stowed away in a back corner. That is how we discovered a stella that contains the first and only Egptian reference about Israel. It was just sort of propped up in the back with no other visitors. Unfortunately, the museum has stopped allowing cameras in the building so you will just have to visit it yourself. It would be well worth it!

The other, more major stop in Cairo, of course, is a trip to the pyramids at Giza, which butt up against the city due to amazing sprawl and an infrastructure set to accommodate two million (the city is now over 17 million). We had heard from several people to avoid the front entrance because it would be crowded with tour buses and isn't the most serene due to scaffolding around the Sphinx and electronic set ups for the nightly laser show, so (after much haggling over the price) we took an hour camel ride through a bit of the desert and approached the pyramids from the back entrance. During our two hour visit we saw all three pyramids and the Sphinx and even got to enter the middle pyramid, which was truly nothing special to see. The tombs have all been raided and are quite musty, plus at every turn baksheesh had to be given to watch a camera or tear a ticket or take a picture that you didn't ask for. It was a bit much! But, still, nothing like India, so we have managed well. We didn't get the sense of awe that we thought we would. The pyramids are certainly the oldest, and arguably most impressive 'wonder' that we have seen on the entire trip, but they are also major icons that we have grown accustomed to. We blame TV. However, our day was not finished, because after Giza we took a car from our hostel to Sakkarah (home to the oldest pyramids) and Memphis (the oldest royal city).

Cairo alone was a fun city to be in, but it also has many sights beyond the pyramids and museum. Our third major adventure was to visit the huge market of Khan El-Khalili in the Islamic district of Cairo, and practice the only Arabic we know--'shookrahn'. We still haven't mastered the art of this word usage however because it means both 'thank you' and 'no thank you'.

During our last weekend in Egypt we went to Alexandria with Lisa and Ihab with a beach stop in a resort area called Marina. We had a great day playing in the Meditteranean and drove on to Alexandria later that evening. Unfortunatley, the library in Alexandria was closed when we were there, but it was beautiful from the outside. It was around this same weekend that Brittany went to the dentist, and we both were retested for worms via stool and blood samples. We are happy to report no worms and no cavitites.

On our last real day in Cairo we met up with one of Brittany's college friends, Alison, who took us on a felucca boat ride on the Nile River. Alison and her friend Abel also took us around Al-Azhar Mosque and took us to an old cafe and hookah bar in the Khan El-Khalili market area. Our last night in Cairo was spent eating Egyptian food and doing a load of laundry at Alison's American University in Cairo dorm.

On to Europe! Best, Brittany & Ryan

Interesting things about Egypt: 1) Taking a taxi is unlike anywhere that we have been. Instead of negotiating a price before you get in the cab and go you are suppose to know what a fair price would be and pay at the end. So after your reach your destination you are suppose to get out of the car and hand the cabbie what you think is fair through the window and then walk away. We heard horror stories about travellers being followed or cursed at, but that is just the way it is done! 2) Medians are so prevalent that we were only about two streets where traffic was running both ways. 3) When people park they don't use their parking break which allows men to roll cars into place on the road allowing double parking, and more parking spots in general. The downside seems to be that everyone's bumpers are really beat up, and you have to be quite vigilent when crossing between cars---you don't want to get squished! 4) We only saw two stray dogs in Egypt, instead they have tons of stray cats. It seems like cats have literally taken over Cairo.

2006-06-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

From the richest city on earth: Dubai, United Arab Emerites!
This will probably be our shortest post. We were only in Dubai, United Arab Emirates for about four hours. Originally we thought this would be enough time to get through customs, hop in a cab, and walk around the city for an hour. Unfortunately, our plane was a bit late. So by the time we went through customs they were warning us that we would never make our plane if we tried to get to the city. Still, probably because we are both so pig headed and determined, we left the airport arrival section with the intent of walking around and seeing "something". With the clock ticking all that we got to see and experience was the Dubai International Airport's parking lot and departure wing. Just by ordering lunch we realized how expensive it would have been to stay in the city for a night, which was our original plan. After two months of Rupees being 1/43 of a US dollar we were quite taken back by the strength of the Dirham! The greatest pleasure of this part of the journey was that it was done by plane--something we hadn't experienced in a long time. Even long plane rides seem fast and convenient after taking twenty-four hour train rides that only cover 600kms! Plus we got to fly Emirates which is simply fantastic. It was from Dubai that we came to our first destination in Africa--Egypt.

2006-06-02T03:20:00.000-07:00

Mid Trip Report - Six Months On The Road

B: I think we must have really hit our burn out point around the time that we arrived in India. Looking back we have had some crazy, amazing experiences. If I could do it all again I would probably try travelling for about six months and then end up somewhere for a while to live and work, be that the States or wherever. After a while it is hard to keep moving, always changing rooms and cities. Even when we stayed in one spot for a while it never really felt like it was our space, like we really belonged there. Constant travel on trains and buses really burnt us out as well. (As an important aside that many people have been curious about--In terms of how we are as a couple: I really thought that we might get sick of each other after a couple of months, but after six we are doing really well. We know each other better than I ever imagined, and our travels have given us time and space to really talk about our plans for the future.) I think without a real break from our travels, which is what we will be doing at the end of June, we would feel a bit hopeless, without purpose, just wandering through the world without energy or enthusiasm. Another challenge with this type of travel is that once we have seen one temple it feels like we have seen them all. Once you have found perfect beaches, or had a really ideal type of one experience everything else kind of pales in comparison. Just looking at all of those thoughts and critiques, however, it must be said what a priviledge it is to travel. There are several experiences that really brought this to light. The first I remember was in Kaili, China where I showed up in John's classroom for the day to talk about our adventure. One girl asked how much it cost to go on a trip like ours and I totally froze. I realized that the amount of money we were using would probably be unfathomable to this girl, so I low-balled the estimate by a lot. Later, John chastized me and reminded me not to disillution these kids...but I found it so hard because I want other people to be able to do what we are doing. There is no doubt, however, that all of the travelers that we have met have either been from Western countries or are from very wealthy backgrounds. The other experience that is etched into my memory was in Dehra Dun, India where our waiter at breakfast asked Ryan (after he learned that we were American) if he could help him move to the United States and find a job there. It has been impossible to explain that although we are from the US and traveling that we don't come from wealthy backgrounds and that we ourselves don't have a lot of money. The fact that we will probably be broke or in debt by the time we get back to the US doesn't register because it is all so relative. Travelling for such a long time and in such a budgeted kind of way has made us really recognize our privelege and appreciate where we are from. Our experiences have been continually eye openening and jaw dropping. It will be interesting to see how the next six months can compare to the extremes that we have experienced or been privy to. Will we ever be shocked or dazzled again?--I don't know. Will we regain the same energy and enthusiasm we started out with? ...I hope so.

R: I am not a traveler. Neither of us really are, but we are tough and resilient, so we perservere. My thoughts on the trip up to this point would really echo what Brittany has already expressed, so I won't repeat things. I have learned quite a bit on this trip, some good things, some bad things. As cliche as it sounds, I will never take anything in my normal life for granted ever again. I love being in one comfortable place for more than a few weeks. I will enjoy having a job and not being terrified of my food or my hands or my water. I have leaned that I truly appreciate both lines on roads and lines at the DMV way more than I ever imagined I would. These are foreign concepts in most of the world. The next time I get pulled over for reckless driving or speeding I will chuckle and gladly pay the fine (and do any jail time necessary, as the environment in there would rival most hostel's or budget hotel's ambience, at least those we stayed in, anyway). If the lady working at the DMV yells at me for just brazenly sprinting past the line of tired, angry people to the next open window, I will smile, laugh, shake her hand and walk calmly to the back of the line and wait the four or five hours with that same smile planted firmly on my face until I finally get helped, right after everyone else who showed up at the DMV before I did got helped in the same way. Waiting my turn will never feel so good. I will also appreciate not having to fake being married (and thus not having to remember our fake marriage day and subsequent anniversaries). I will love the snow...the snow and the cold. I never fully realized how bad being suffocated by heat for nearly one entire year could be. I am from a cold place. I love the cold and all the things one can do in it.

Actual Time On The Road

(the only time considered is Dec 4 '05 through June 3 '06, thus from Fiji to India)

Total Bus Time: 159 hours

Total Train Time: 196.5 hours

Total Plane Time: 48 hours

Total Car/Taxi/Jeep/Tuk-Tuk/Rickshaw Time: 41 hours + 3,000 kms over two weeks in NZ

Total Boat Time: 36.5 hours

Actual Distance Covered

Mileage: ...we will work on this one and get back to you...

Mid-Trip 'Best' and 'Worst' List

(the only time considered is from Dec 4 '05 to June 3 '06, thus Fiji to India)

Category: Best, Worst:

Toilet: Lyn & Graeme's house, Australia Random town on the way to Lijiang, China

Train: Beijing to Xian, China Haridwar to Varanasi, India

Bus: Nanning to Pingxiang, China Navdanya farm to Dehra Dun, India-scary!

Overall Cuisine: Cambodia, China

Meal: (B)Street Phad Thai+Mango w/Sticky Naxi (food poisoning-causing) chicken,

Rice, Thailand//(R)Steak dinner, India China

Animal: Sacred street cows, India Mosquitoes---everywhere!

Other Travellers: English, Israeli

Accomodation: Ha Son Hotel, Na Trang, Vietnam, Place Inn, Bangkok, Thailand

Beach: Mr. Hutt's Beach, Phi Phi Isl., Thailand Traveller's Beach, Nadi, Fiji

Tour: Ha Long Bay, Vietnam Village tours, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Form of Transport Tuk-Tuk Bus

Festival Songkran, Thailand The anniversary of the former

king's birthday, Thailand

Place to Vomit Udai Niwas Hotel, Udaipur, India Streets of Mumbai, India

Drink (B)Lemon Mint juice, India// Baijiu, China

(R) Coconut milkshake, Thailand

Dessert Snickers Nutella crepe, Thailand ...could there be a worst?

2006-05-25T00:56:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Delhi sick, and with the unfortunate situation of having already bought tickets to visit Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, while we were in Rishikesh. It should be mentioned that every time we try to plan ahead and set things up to avoid headache and hassle, we get sick and have to scrap our plans. After being sick for the majority of our time in India, however, we saw no reason not to just go with the flow and head to Agra...so it was that we arrived on Friday, the only day of the week that the Taj Mahal is closed. Friday, of course, being a holy day for Muslims, and the Taj Mahal being a tribute to Mumtaz Mahal, the wife of Shah Jahan, perhaps the most famous of Indian Muslims.

So there we were in Agra, eating breakfast after our two and half our train ride from Delhi looking at the Taj Mahal from a roof top restaurant thoroughly frustrated with ourselves and our luck. (R - It was only fitting that we booked our tickets in advance for Agra and missed the single biggest tourist attraction in India. I mean, its just one more thing...pile it on.) We decided to make the best of it, however, and hired an autorickshaw to give us a sightseeing tour, during which we saw the lovely Itimad-Ud-Daulah (or what has been nick named 'Baby Taj'), Chini-Ka-Rauza (the tomb of a court poet) , and Agra Fort (at which we were asked to be in more pictures than ever before). By the end of the day we had seen the Taj Mahal from many angles, and had decided that it was probably all for the best considering the entrance fee to the Taj is 750 rupees (about US$18) each. (B - It was in Agra, with a full-on cold that I realized how I now walk down the street after a shop keeper yelled at me for not responding to his friendly greeting...I walk with these blinders on that totally tune out the human world. Instead the thought 'just survive, just survive' keeps running through my head. I ignore all of the noise, and walk with a near tunnel like stare. My first thought is to avoid any immediate danger, which no matter what side of the road you are on means looking both in front and behind you for rickshaws, taxis, trucks, bicycles, cows, and carts. After dealing with any immediate threats you begin to let the rest of the world have an impact. You look up and out to make sure that nothing is falling, that no electric wires are sparking above you. Only then do you begin to see and here the loads of men hawking their wares and trying to get you into their rickshaw or store. It is so overwhelming that I totally turn off. I feel like a zombie.) After our full day we headed back to Delhi by train just in time to get really sick again.

We confess, we saw very little of Delhi, which is probably okay because the average temperature was 45 degrees Celcius. (B - Delhi was the first place where we got caught in a monsoon downpour. We were lucky enough to escape into a shop targeting Indians so we didn't get hassled for the hour of intense rain that followed and made it impossible to go out. The craziest thing was about twenty minutes into the rain shower we heard a piercing cry made by two huge cows who were charging down the now open road at an incredible pace. It was probably the only time when they had the whole road. I has happy to be out of their way!) Most of our time in this best of Indian cities was spent nearly vomiting, or always shitting in our hotel room. After much parental urging and nearly five days of constant diarrhea (and with the added incentive of relieving Ryan's bloody stool) we both headed to Dr. Baht at the East West Medical Clinic. The consensus after we each got our stool analyzed, and Ryan got his blood drawn, is that Ryan has a worm in his stomach and upper intestine and Brittany has an infection in her abdomen. We are both on prescription drugs and feeling much, much better. We don't know what made us sick because in India, it seems, it could be and probably was everything: the food, the water, etc. The most frustrating aspect of our constant bouts with sickness here is our ample precaution, especially in contrast to the other travelers around us. We are both taking anti-malaria tablets, we use disinfecting gel before we eat, we always eat cooked or peeled foods, we have not gone swimming, we only drink and use bottled water, we always wear sandals, etc.

The last thing we did in Delhi was to visit the India Habitat Center, which is a huge complex with lots of trees, and home to the All American Diner, which has been mentioned before (R - If there is a god, he or she created the All American Diner in Delhi, India so that we could momentarily regain our sanity by eating pancakes with maple syrup. Seriously, as anyone who knows me knows, I am nowhere near a religious man, but my lord did those pancakes taste good.). During our second trip here we stopped by a fantastic modern art show in the Habitat Center that must be mentioned. This was probably the best art we have seen the entire trip, and we got in for free (this was great because 'free' doesn't usually happen in India). If you have a chance Sanjeev Verma, the artist, has a website that is worth checking out: www.sanjeevverma .com .

As another step toward health and well being we altered our travel plan which was to go all the way south to Kerala and instead relax on the beaches of Goa. (B - On our twenty-four hour train ride down from Delhi to Goa we shared a cabin with a really nice family of four. It was when Ryan took a nap on the bunk above that I realized how few interactions with women I have had in the last five weeks. It was really nice to just sit and talk, even if two of the girls were 13 and 15. Although I won't, I could easily count on one hand the times that we have actually had the chance to interact with women in a social or business setting. It is just so different to be out and about in a world where you don't see women.) If you only visited Goa you might have no idea what India is really like, because Goa is a totally different world. Women were wearing swimsuits without getting stared at, there were Christian churches all around, even right on the beach, and the Indians we met said things like 'No Problem', 'Right On', and 'That's Cool'. (B - As in SE Asia we had seen most local people just show up at the beach in whatever they had on that day and go in the water for a swim. People in jeans, for example, fully clothed having a fun day at the beach in the sand and water was a common sight. India wasn't different in its approach, but it looked so unique because a fully clothed mother in India is different than one in Thailand. Most of the local women or Indian tourists that we saw in the water went in with a full sari on. The local men, on the other hand, always seemed to just strip down to their briefs. It was such a crazy contrast--Indian men in their BVDs, Indian women in their saris, European girls running around in bikinis.) (R - It seems crude to say, I know, but the guys who run around in their underwear on public beaches have balls. Seriously, they do...I have seen them.) After what seemed like endless sickness and incredibly stressful daily interactions, we admit it was really nice to be back in a touristy spot that catered to backpackers where we didn't have to haggle for everything. We spent ten days in Goa which mostly involved running on the beach, playing frisbee, and swimming--that is until the monsoon started and the tail end of a tropical cyclone rocked Palolem Beach and our shoddily built beach hut. It was about our fifth day in Goa, and it seemed like someone just turned on the monsoon switch because the rain did not stop. It was the cyclone, however, that we had no way to anticipate. At about 3:30am in the morning we woke up to huge crashing sounds and could feel our beach hut swaying and rocking in the ever strengthening wind. The rain was intense and horizontal, so much so that we were getting sprayed with water through the joints where the walls and ceiling of the hut connected. It was around this time that we heard all these coconuts falling and some huge metal crashes in the distance. We had never been through anything like a hurricane before, so we didn't know what to do or what to think. It seemed like either the roof was going to fly off or the entire hut was going to collalpse. We could not go outside because it looked and sounded incredibly dangerous. When we peeked out the door with our headlamp we couldn't see anything. It seemed like the sea, which should have been about 40 feet away, had lifted up in the night and was now a huge wall of water near our door. The wind was so strong that as soon as we opened the hut door it would not close again because the entire hut was jilted out of its square frame. At that point we packed our bags (full of now wet books and clothes) and just sat on our bed waiting. We figured that if the hut collapsed the bed was the only thing to help us break the fall. What a scary thought! By 10am we had decided that we needed to get out of there. So, when the wind died down and there was a lull in the rain, Donna and Sean (an English couple that we had recently met and were staying in the beach hut next to us) led us away from the coast down a back street so that we could avoid what would have been a totally soaking wet walk along the blasting beach. The locals that Ryan talked to said it was the strongest wind they had seen in fifteen years! (R - I was actually scared of this storm. I can't say I have ever been in winds that strong before. Roofs were coming off and trees were blowing down and coconuts were flying everywhere. I thought we were going to be on the news, but not in a good way.) After finding a dry, safe place to stay in town we really chilled out and played cards for the rest of the time in Goa. Although we had big plans about things to see the monsoon rain and consequent daily flooding and power outages kept us in one spot. The benefit is that we got to really relax, play cards, read, and eat the fantastic multi-cuisine that Goa's tourist area offers. At that point Donna and Sean introduced us to a great local restaurant run by a British couple and the finest in English cuisine--the English 'Sunday Dinner'. It was also during our time in Goa that we found the best replica of Mexican food in all of our travels. Needless to say we ate a lot. We were use to eating for two or three, but with the loss or our worms we now have no excuse! (B - As with the rest of our India experience this place was overflowing with animal life. The picture I most regret not getting I saw the morning before the big storm. I was running on the beach and I looked over my shoulder to see a whole group of cows that were on the beach sitting in the shade of some palms. It is the funniest thing because by 11am they were always gone off the beach, and after the storm they stopped their daily beach break. The other interesting addition to this area are the roaming hordes of stray dogs that are literally at every corner. The catch is that they seem to really cling onto tourists, perhaps because it is low season and they are hungry, but regardless they walk us to and from our hotel. There is a particular dog that sleeps by our door every night and comes running on the beach with us in the morning. You would almost forget that they are strays because they are so well behaved when we are around, but they are all in pretty bad shape with cuts on their ears, and are constantly biting and scratching at their tics and fleas. It is so sad.)

We headed back up to Mumbai, which had some severe flooding due to early monsoon rain, on a day train from Goa. In Mumbai we got retested for worms, and are happy to report a clean bill of health. On June 6th we fly to Cairo, Egypt after a four hour layover in Dubai, UAE. By the time we leave India we will have been on the road for six months, which means by the time we reach Egypt we will have made it just a bit more than half way. Looking back on our time in India and the things we have written is quite interesting. India probably never had a chance in that we were both relatively burnt out by the time we arrived in Mumbai. We also have had such a different perspective from most travelers here because we didn't walk into a pre-set program where we studied, or taught English, and on top of that we were sick most of the time. What an experience. It is surely one that we both are relieved to have survived. In many ways the trip has been completely redefined by our 2 months in India. Nothing will ever look bad again. (R - It was crazy, it was interesting, it was amazing in all of the sense of that word, and it is done. Needless to say I will never go back.) (B - Oh, the melodrama...I think I could go back, but I need some serious distance. To be honest, it will even take a few months before I can eat Indian food again.)

Next stop Egypt! Love, Brittany & Ryan

Interesting things about India: India. No seriously, the whole place is so interesting it would take a book to explain it all....but here are the highlights... 1) Brahmin caste members wear red wrist bands on their right hands making their rank very obvious. 2) Women don't seem to have a public role. We only saw two female drivers, and only interacted with about four shop women-either owners or workers. 3) There is a huge animal presence in India, more so than any country that we have vistited previous. On top of this, there are more packs of stray dogs than we had ever seen.

2006-05-17T22:33:00.000-07:00

From the land of the dead, Varanasi, India...
We had just under two days to see the holiest city in all of Hinduism. It is the place where many Hindus who are dying choose to come and spend their final days. Dying in Varanasi, according to Hindu faith, allows one to break the cycle of reincarnation. By the time our 24 hour long train reached Varanasi we were both on the verge of getting really bad head colds. We are not going to blame the overly packed Sleeper car filled to the brim with people, which surprisingly filled even further as the night wore on, or the sick sadhu who shit his pants stinking up the entire train car who decided to sleep below us, or the, or the, or the...we blame ourselves! (R - She can blame herself! It has always been the environment that has made us ill in India. We have taken better care to not get sick here in India than anywhere else in the world, but where do we get sick? Yes, that's right, India.) (B - This turned out to be a pretty bad ride. For some reason our tickets weren't together, which meant that we had to split up and Ryan had to get off the train to get into a different car to go to sleep. We didn't kow what he would find so I kept all of our stuff, which, because we each have a medium size hiking pack, meant that I had about a two foot space to sleep in. It was a long night...) It was silly of us to choose a train ride this long, and perhaps to choose the Sleeper car where we would for sure be exposed to at least 80 extra people, but that is what a budget trip does, it forces you to choose options that you probably wouldn't choose otherwise. As budget travellers in India it has been nearly impossible not to get sick. And when one of us finally recovers from one illness, we swap sicknesses with each other. So, when we did get pounding head colds, we looked at each other and said, 'Wow, we know what this is! We can identify this sick feeling and will enjoy walking through each uncomfortable step, because this is familiar.' With this thought in check, we had one day to really explore Varanasi before we hopped back on a train to Delhi.
Our exploration began by walking to the bank of the Ganges River where many ghats burn hundreds of people around the clock. Looking from afar has never really worked for us in India, and per usual we were scooped up by a local man who claimed to be working with the St. Theresa Hospice and wanted to show us around. He brought us to a tower overlooking the Marnikarnika Ghat, which seems to be the most well known ghat in Varanasi. From this bird's eye perch he explained the scene. Different types of wood can be chosen based on what one wants to pay for their family member's funeral pyre, apparently Sandalwood is the most expensive. Several kilos of wood are weighed to determine the price of the outdoor cremation ceremony's expense. Several raised portions of the surrounding bank are cut and divided so as to deliniate caste and keep castes seperated when several dead bodies arrive. What we witnessed that morning was individual bodies burning, but have been told that the lower the caste the more quantity of bodies that are burned together. Our guide went on to explain that bodies wrapped in gold foil represent a person that is 50 years old or more. Those who die before that age are wrapped in white (male) or red (female) respectively. As of six months ago, female family members are no longer permitted to attend the cermony at these ghats because a widow threw herself into one of the fires after her husband was cremated. We watched logs being weighed, two bodies burning, and an eldest son bringing his father's cremated remains into the water when our guide spotted a floating body several hundred yards away floating in the water. He explained that babies, pregnant women, yogis and people who have been bitten by snakes are not cremated, but instead just put into the Ganges...which went a long way in explaining the bobbing body we saw float by at breakfast earlier in the day. (B - This was an interesting process to watch as an outsider knowing that the only people allowed to touch the dead bodies, and thus bare the brunt of the worst work were of the Dalit, or untouchable caste. It was also crazy to hear our 'guide' talk about the widow throwing herself into the fire, and afterward confessing that this was just an old practice of the past...) (R - Watching the processes of death in Varanasi is something that will change you forever. The world looks really weird when you are in that city. It just seems to quit making sense because everything that I have been encultured with in my life is turned on its head here. Picture standing on a beautiful riverside balcony in the United States and looking out on 3 burning people and smelling their ash wafting up into your nostrils and seeing 2 corpses floating by in the river, all the while kids are splashing and playing in the putrid water and some crazy people are out on the banks of the river singing and bathing and selling things and cows and water buffalo and goats and ducks and crows are all moving by looking at you like, "Do you know what's going on, because I don't?" I think the poor animals were more shocked and scared than we were. I could write for pages about this place and never even begin to scratch the surface of how it actually is. Showing up in Varanasi, even after seeing the rest of India, is like having a bad dream come true. Everything is distorted.) After about an hour of viewing this very different death ritual, and unintentionally breathing in an hour's worth of smoke we had had enough. But, of course, our guide wanted the best for our karma, and insisted that we couldn't leave until we had donated rupees for the crematory logs of the less fortunate...about two-hundred rupees later we found ourselves being blessed (i.e. smacked on the forehead) by an old woman in a back corner who was supposidly a nurse. We have severe doubts as to whether our rupees will ever go toward what was stated, but regardless it is a good story. From our perch we weaved our way back through huge piles of different wood to the banks of the Ganges. It was here that we really began to see the large animal population in Varanasi. Still including the roaming cows which have continued to obstruct movement everywhere we have been, Varanasi also has a considerable goat and monkey population. We walked along the water's edge for about another hour, passing through markets, past boys working on boats, and as always trying to avoid the inevitable group of men that follows to talk to Ryan, asking him super direct questions and always wanting to shake our hands. We were at this point walking with blinders on, when we turned to the left responding to a goat's bleeting only to realize that we had just interrupted two goats having sex. We barely commented on the event and turned to go back, when it finally hit us. We have become totally desensitized here! We're not farmers, so stumbling across two goats having sex on the sidewalk in a city of 1.1 million would have been the craziest thing about two months ago, but instead we just shrugged our shoulders and walked away. Just as we were going to climb the steps back to our guest house we saw a monkey, who had just stolen a guy's shirt, run right in front of three water buffalos that were now headed down fifty steep steps running to escape the consequence of a whip-holding boy at their rear. Now, buffalo on their own, just standing or walking don't seem to be the most agile, coordinated creatures, and these guys were huge, so watching them running and stumbling, trying to steer all of their great weight in the right direction, down an entire flight of concrete steps was both entertaining and scary...we had to run to get out of the way. But once down, we realized that they were just excited about their bath in the Ganges, and followed them and the boy with the whip toward the water. Around this time we really took in the scene. About forty feet away at least three bodies were burning, men were sifting human ashes at the bank of that very ghat, two human bodies were bobbing up and down near the middle of the wide river, three water buffalos were getting the dip they deserved, and, yes, indeed, about five seperate groups of at least six people were bathing, swimming, and splashing in the water on this very hot day. This whole picture might be a bit more digestable if we didn't know that this particular part of the Ganges is septic, meaning no dissolved oxygen exists in the river. Apparently water samples show that the river has 1.5 million faecal coliform bacteria per 100ml of water. But, get this, the figure should be less than 500 per 100ml for water that is used for bathing! This is largely due to the fact that most of the country's sewage runs directly into the holiest river in Hinduism. (R - After seeing the Ganges as it runs through Varanasi the expression, "Holy shit" was redefined for me.)

It was around this time that our colds kicked into high gear, and we both started to feel really sick. We headed back to our guest house and began the same sickness ritual that most of our India time had been marked by--bed rest, excessive use of toilet paper, large consumption of 7-Up, keeping buckets close, etc. The only exciting event before we boarded our train back to Delhi was watching two monkeys uproot a plant at our restaurant to munch on its flowers, and steal an ashtray and attempt to eat its contents before being chased away with sticks by the waiters. What a place!

2006-05-14T02:39:00.000-07:00

Ah, the Himalayas! On the 6th of May we headed out of our small safe haven of Rishikesh and into mountains for some much-needed treking and camping. We booked our expedition with a company called Garhwal Himalayan Explorations and they promised us a guide, a cook (B - Who made us popcorn and six course Indian dinners...yes, this was the most ridiculous, unneccessary, plush hiking and camping that we have ever done...but we didn't know the area and wanted to be safe so this was the way we found to do it.), 6 porters, and 7 days of great times. They fulfilled all their promises beautifully! No ripoff, no taking us somewhere we didn't want to go--just fun and rivers and trees and wonderfully huge mountains! It was a great taste of our Alaskan home! The trip kicked off with a 10 hour drive north from Rishikesh to Gangotri, a tiny town and very holy place for Hindu's on pilgrimage. (B - The long drive was made all the more pleasant by several catchy signs that lined the way and were fun to spot. With signs like 'The Road is Hilly, Don't be Silly' and 'No Race, No Rally, Enjoy the Beauty of this Valley' it was hard to choose a favorite, but 'The Mountains are a Pleasure if you Drive with Leisure' takes the cake, but only because I had to read it twice and remember to use true English pronunciation for the rhyming to work. The least catchy, but perhaps most profound road sign was 'A Man is the Architect of His Fortune'. So true, I thought, so true as we dodged two donkeys carrying sacks of rocks for the road work underway, narrowly missing a speeding public busing coming around a corner...so true...) The town of Gangotri itself is so holy that ginger, onions, garlic, and alcohol are not allowed in. Our trek took us 54 kilometers from Gangotri to Gomoukh (the glacier which is the source of the sacred Ganges River) and then on to Tapovan (one of the world's highest alpine meadows perched directly above the glacier) and back, and just 28 kilometers from Tibet. Tapovan is at the head-splitting altitude of 14,720 feet, so our lungs got quite a workout!
Our trip started out on a bad foot when the girl we met and invited to come with us started throwing up immediately before we got in the car for the 10 hour drive north. Everything eventually calmed down until Ryan awoke sick on our first morning of hiking. Fever, diarrhea, etc. He could walk without throwing up, so he went despite feeling miserable. After about 5 hours of hiking, we met some pilgrims coming back down the trail from the glacier and they told us a girl had just died back there. We were a bit taken aback by that, but it’s a dangerous place and stupid people pay the price, right? But we never thought we would get close to it all. How nieve we were. We arrived at camp that night to people screaming at some Indian authorities about finding a body. It was the dead girl's friends. They could not find the body to bring back for her parents. She had died only 2 hours before. They were stupidly walking on the front of the glacier during the hottest part of the day and it calved, sending her plummeting 50 or so feet into the freezing river. She was about 21. Her friends ran from the scene back to camp and tried to organize a search party. We offered to help because we had headlamps and good clothing , but we had to set up our camp. Then our guide came and told us not to go, that the authorities would help them. So we stayed until the party came back, carrying her body. We have never seen a dead person before. Ryan stayed outside the tent and watched the group go by carrying the body. (B - At this point I was definitely feeling my first round of what would become a daily wave of afternoon nausea from the altitude and just couldn't take looking at the poor girl.) She was wrapped in a blanket and stretched between two logs, like a stretcher. About 15 minutes later Ryan went to find our guide to ask about the best place to go to the bathroom. Our guide was down watching the rescue crew inventory her belongings, and she was unwrapped. (R - It was a horrible sight to see her, blue and cut badly. It actually really affected me.)
There was no place for a helicopter, so her friends had to carry her the 10 miles back out to the town. A dismal beginning to such an amazing trip. The next morning we had to forget everything that had happened the previous night because we ourselves had to cross the glacier. We hiked much further back from the calving front, of course. (B - The first night of our hike I woke up to find Ryan shaking in his sleeping bag...it was so scary because he couldn't stop! He complained about being cold but clearly had a fever. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and drapped it over him, but could only sustain that for an hour because it was so cold! Everyone else was asleep so we laid there in the dark whispering trying to figure out what was going on...yikes, it was bad! His heart was racing, and I had no cure or helpful ideas, so (little did he know) I had him do the same yoga breathing stuff that I was taught days earlier to calm down.) Ryan was really sick at this point, shivering and having bowel movements the whole way, and all with a terrible headache and the added effect of the altitude, which at that point was about 12,500 feet. (R - I was really not well during this whole trip. It was my first experience being sick while camping or climbing. I was quite scared myself and felt horrible for Brittany, who was probably out of her mind not knowing what to do with me. She was great yet again and took care of me very well. But for a while there I didn't know what was going on, I had never felt like that before...) (B - I thought R was going to pass out, but he insisted that we keep going, so to ease his burden I carried both of our bags for several kilometers. I went so, so slow with the extra weight...it was quite a test.) All worked out, however, and after the glacier crossing and the steep climb we eventually got to our highest and most beautiful point, called Tapovan, at 14,720 feet. One of the highest alpine meadows in the world, Tapovan was stunning. (R - It made me smile even in my sickness.) It was gorgeous. We camped there for two nights, right below the massive peak of Shivling, standing at 21,650 feet. Amazing. Our last morning at Tapovan, Brittany helped Ryan decide that it was time to take Cipro because he had been sick for more than 4 days. (B - Somehow through all of our sick spells we have managed to always swap 'sick time'. Our hike really proved this to be true. When I was affected by the altitude R would be okay, when he got bad my headache would go away. Sometimes these swap-offs would only be by a minute or so.) He took it and with Brittany's help he was feeling almost 100%the next day (which was a very good thing because we had to down-climb and then cross the glacier again). (R - My little stomach friend wasn't gone, oh no, he was just hiding in the lining of my stomach waiting to make his comeback...) We camped that night in a pine grove a few miles below the glacier, a place that really reminded us of home (the trees, the river, the mountains, a camp fire, etc). On this night, the guide and cook surprised the girl we were hiking with because it was her birthday. Somehow, they made her a special brithday cake and set up a bonfire, at which point the porters, who were all Nepali, began to dance and sing Nepali songs in tribute. (B - It was pretty damn cool, because the six porters that helped carry our stuff were badasses. They were all really nice guys, who had interesting stories about Nepal and their time in India, ...and they were able to carry about 20 kilos of weight via a strap that was balanced on their forehead...which looks as crazy as it sounds. On a different note, it was really funny when the entire bonfire group turned to us and said, 'now it is your turn'. We all kind of looked at each other and then tried to explain that we don't really have any collective songs in the US. They did not believe this and really pushed us to perform. Ryan got out of this because he was asked to learn a dance (R - I was a dance machine...) from one of our porters, so when the group turned to us, they were really just turning to me and the other girl on our trek. I felt that I must oblige on some level and subsequently chimed out the most pathetic version of 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' that has ever been performed. Our always-singing-guide Dron, turned to me and said 'that is a poem, not a song, you must perform a song'. After a bit of debate, Dron humored me and began to sing while I pulled Maylee, the other girl with us, up to dance. In just a bit of time everyone was up dancing and singing around the bonfire. We probably looked crazy, but it was great, and we were feeling well again which gave even more reason to celebrate.) We had only a little more than 3 hours hiking the next day and we were done, with only the long drive back to Rishikesh left in front of us, which ended up going well, minus a bit of car sickness for Brittany. (B - The last night in Gangotri was really interesting because Dron took us to view the evening ceremony at the Hindu temple. After sitting through a few hour-long church services in my youth I was really impressed at the simple, sicinct nature of the 15 minutes that passed. Many of the attendees were the same that had been bathing in the sacred (and freezing cold) water of the source of the Ganges earlier in the day. Entire families would show up at the bank of the river and in front of every passerby douse family members with a bucket of sacred water.) So we got back and both of us felt pretty good. We started drinking relatively clean water and eating ok food again. Things were going well on the whole.

On the evening of May 14th the time had come to move on. Varanasi, to our southeast, was our next destination. It is India's holiest city and promised to be a very interesting place...

2006-05-13T06:54:00.000-07:00

Rishikesh (the town where the Beatles came to study the sitar with Ravi Shankar in 1968) was our next stop. Though Rishikesh became world-famous from the "Fab-Four's" visit way back it has lost none of its notoriety as throngs of Western tourists decend upon this place every year. Full of yogis, sitars, marijuana, and ashrams, Rishikesh is a quaint little town nestled below the hills of the Himalayas and straddling the great Ganges River. (B - This was probably one of the most unique places we have been. Crossing over the Ganges River via a pedestrian-only bridge that was constantly bombarded by motorized traffic allowed us to enter a very interesting world across from our guest house. At dusk this area became a sensory overload of color, noise, and religion. From the bridge we saw dozens of followers chanting on the steps of temples which ran into the Ganges, groups of women in saris half emmersed in the water, families lighting candles in little cups of orange marigolds performing pujaa, bushy-haired sadhus (a type of Hindu holy man) wearing bright tikka on their faces lining the streets in their nearly as bright orange loin cloths, barefoot tourists decked out in yoga clothes with a single dreadlock planted on the side of their otherwise shaved head probably in need, but maybe not knowing it, of a ticket home, and of course roaming cows, who if not careful often accidentally ended up stuck on the steps of temple complexes that ran straight down into the Ganges.) If one looks just a little deeper than the hippie-surface of this place the town's fun and outdoorsy side comes shining through. Rishikesh is also home to many river-rafting and Himalayan treking companies. It was from here that we booked our full-day raft trip down the class IV rapids of the Ganges, (B - The glacial water of the Ganges was so cold! But if felt incredible considering that it was easily over 100 degrees. The funny thing was that they made us wear these bright yellow helmets the entire time, and our life jackets even when we took the plunge off of 'Jumping Rock'.) (R-This was actually a really fun time. It was the first thing I looked forward to doing in India.) and our 7-day trek to the source of this massive river, at the Gangotri Glacier. After our hectic start in Mumbai and our very quiet stay on the farm in Dehra Dun, our first day in Rishikesh was our first real chance to relax and do what we wanted. (B - I started doing yoga in the morning with an Indian instructor named Yogi Ram. In the beginning I thought this guy was quite a kick. His Hatha yoga style was fantastically simple, but just perfect for me. The only oddity was being alone with this guy every morning! His comments at first were just about me 'remembering my womanhood' which I could roll with because they weren't ellaborated on, but by the third day, just when my head stand was coming along, he made some strange homophobic comments, and I decided our sessions were done.) (R-I think this place is full of crazy yogi-like men who just want to be in authority positions, especially to get women. The whole thing is just creepy.) The hotel we stayed at made it such that we didn't have to fight people off just to be outside and the town's location in the hills gave it an easy-going but exciting feel, something that no place we had been in India up to that point possessed. Because of this quality, Rishikesh became the first place in India that we both agreed we could actually return to. We spent our days in the hot sun of pre-monsoon North India running errands and doing laundry in between hours at the internet cafe working madly on our blog. (B - Even with its relaxed tone this city was hectic. We tried to walk around as much as possible, because we were in desperate need of exercise, but it was just so dangerous. The worst was returning back at night through the streets and realizing that about 30% of all automobiles were driving without their lights on to "conserve gas"...this concept still baffles me...) Not much happened here other than that, as we just relaxed for a bit and tried come to terms with India. We ate some good food (spaghetti, lemon-mint juice (B - Once I got sick of Masala Chai...yes, it can happen...I found this fantastic drink that you have to try. Simply blend mint leaves into your mixture of lemonade...so good.), and toast at the Bhandari Swiss Cottages, our hotel, and pizza at the Green Hotel across the river), slept as well as we could given the heat, and just watched the Ganges drift by. (B - Rishikesh was the second place I got a Ayurvedic massage. I should have learned in Udaipur, where I got the first one, and consequently laid nearly naked on a table while a woman kept her finger in my belly button for a good three minutes, that I was really taking my chances, so I specifically asked for a 'relaxing massage'. About half an hour into this one, I was oiled up, with about a half gallon, I would say, of really potent smelling Ayurvedic goo, totally naked this time, spread eagle on my back with a woman rubbing my spine with her feet. When she asked if she could rub my head, I should have thought it through, but seconds after consenting I could feel an extra cup of oil being doused on my scalp. By the end, this woman had touched me everywhere, in ways I didn't think possible, and ways that I don't really want to think about again, mostly because it was painful! Ryan could see me coming for miles after I was done being 'relaxed'. Although the moonlight reflected off my greasy oiled skin, it was RK's sense of smell that first picked me up. It took many bathing attempts to get all of the oil off!)
In the wee morning hours of May 6th, we set off in an SUV for a crazy 10-hour drive north to "the Rooftop of the World", the Himalayas...

2006-05-13T01:59:00.000-07:00

After about twelve rough days in India we were finally headed to Dr. Vandana Shiva's farm, called Navdanya, in Uttaranchal Province. We made a quick pit stop in Delhi and hit up a well-recommended cafe called 'The All American Diner', which provided a bizzare but wonderful taste of home. This cafe is quite notable for us, because we finally got to have real American-style pancakes again. (B - It is the little things, you know? Actually, in India it seems to be the little things, the big things, and everything in between.) Anyway, from Delhi we kind of got manipulated into taking a 'deluxe' bus to Dehra Dun, the capital of Uttaranchal Province, and the town closest to Navdanya farm. By 'deluxe' our salesman meant, of course, that the seats reclined. We suppose it must be the 'super deluxe' bus that has seats that will also adjust back to their upright position, because ours didn't. The ride itself was hot (like drink-enough-water-to-avoid-heat-stroke-hot) and extra long (about 3 hours longer than our salesman quoted). But the real fun began when we arrived at the bus station in Dehra Dun. While most people would expect a taxi driver to take you where you request to go, this cannot be an assumption made in India. We had to fight with several taxi drivers to avoid being taken to their brother's bus station, or their friend's hotel, or their own hotel, which seems to always be 'cheaper', 'better', 'open', 'not burnt down', or 'not closed'. It has been all of these little details that have really swamped us in India. In Dehra Dun we had just had it. We tried to get to a hotel (we had a map and a name and all the proper information) two times with two different autorickshaw drivers before we found a third who just happened not to know anybody who would give him kickbacks for bringing them customers. (R - Because Brittany is not allowed to talk to anyone in India (due to the deep sexism here) it was on me to always deal with everyone. By the time we got off the bus in Dehra Dun from Delhi, 3 hours late and freshly ripped off, I had had too much of dealing with people. I was short with our first rickshaw driver, but I was clear..."Bring us to Hotel Meedo, here's the map, bring us there please, " I said. He said ok. We agreed on a price and got in. He offered to bring us to a better hotel, I told him no, we didn't want that. He nodded and kept driving. Next thing I know we are pulling in front of a gorgeous, new, Hilton-looking hotel. Clearly this was not our place, we wanted a budget hotel and that's what Hotel Meedo was. I said to the driver sarcastically, "Is this Hotel Meedo?" He said no, this was a better hotel. I then got out of the rickshaw, stood in front of him, and looked at him and said, "Look at me...look at me: bring us to Hotel Meedo. What do I have to do to get you to bring us to Hotel Meedo?" He looked away and said, "Ok, ok, sorry." I got back in and we rode in silence to Hotel Meedo. We didn't end up staying there as they had no rooms, and that started another similar episode with another rickshaw driver. Baffling the audacity.) We finally made it to our hotel and paid too much for it, but we just wanted our day and our autorickshaw troubles to end. It is such an engulfing, intense, visceral experience that unless you have visited here, it is almost not worth explaining. Our saving grace was our autorickshaw driver who took us from Dehra Dun to Navdanya, which was explained to us as being about an hour away. Unfortunately, no one in Dehra Dun knew where the farm was, but our amazing driver took us all around town from the post office to the train station asking everyone how to reach this farm. A good two hours later we were rumbling along an ill-kept, narrow road into dusty farm country where people had never seen an autorickshaw. By the time we actually reached the farm our faces were black with an hour's worth of dust, dirt and rickshaw fumes. It was in this state that we met Dr. Singh, the lead scientist working at Navdanya farm.

Our farming project here was a bit different than our work with WWOOF farms in New Zealand and Australia, because we had to pay for our room and board, but at a reducted rate because we were volunteering. It is probably best to give some context for this stop. Brittany met Dr. Vandana Shiva when she spoke at the University of Washington in 2004. When Brittany and Ryan made India part of their trip, Brittany contacted Dr. Shiva to see if volunteers were needed on her farm. Navdanya farm is a 100% organic farm that is nearly self sustaining, at the forefront of the biodiversity movement, and home to an extensive seed bank. The farm itself has been accepting volunteers and offering classes (taught by Dr. Shiva, Satish Kumar, Arundhati Roy, and Ela Ghandi for example) for more than four years and was founded by Dr. Vandana Shiva a prominent scientist and environmentalist. For more information about the farm and Dr. Shiva check out: http://navdanya.org/ and http://navdanya.org/about/index.htm.

Our first project on the farm, however, had nothing to do with plants. A group of Buddhist social workers was using the facility for a week conference focusing on educational development in their communities and Buddhism. Within our first hour on the farm we had been solicited to help a group draw children on a poster they were creating to use in the villages they visited to show what a healthy community looked like (the picture included a hospital, school, library, mosque, Hindu temple, Sikh temple, playground, etc.). The group explained that many of the villages they work with don't have hospitals or schools. The presence of this group during our stay provided an entertaining backdrop for our work. They were all quite excited to see us volunteer, and had endless ideas about what we should see during the remainder of our stay in India. During our stay we met many social workers, a documentary film maker, and the Prime Minister of the Tibetan-Government-In-Exile, Professor Samdhong Rinpoche, who was attending the part of their conference that focused on Buddhism.

We stayed on the farm for five days, three of which we helped in the field harvesting wheat with our hands and sickles. By the end of our third day we had helped harvest nearly two entire wheat fields, which was a lot of work! It was incredible to be working out in the fields with workers, mostly women, who could hold their squat for hours. After our first day our quads and backs were so sore. The women we worked with, two Muslim mothers from neighboring farms named Imrana and Kerun, and an incredible 59 year old grandmother named Bija Devi looked at our uncaloused hands and laughed. Even with our many mistakes (and trust us, making mistakes with a sickle usually involves blood), imperfect harvesting form (Imrana really got on us about that), and a serious language barrier (Bija Devi spoke a bit of English which allowed us to learn a bit of Hindi) we were a very productive team! (B - I really didn't know what I was doing with that sickle at first. But after you bleed from wacking your pinky a few times you become a much better field hand. I admit, however, that even on our last day my hands were dotted with tiny pricks from a poorly aimed sickle tip!) (R - After the first day, this harvesting thing was just bad. I never want to see another stalk of wheat again.) (B - After being in India for about three weeks, this was our first chance to really interact with women. Unlike what we had experienced in the rest of Asia, it has been incredibly challenging to find women in the public eye. Up until this point the only woman that we had met was selling skirts in a Mumbai shop. For this reason, I was excited to head to the fields, which, even after the farm, has been the only place we have seen women.) Besides working in the field we tried to volunteer in the kitchen as much as possible. This was made all the more enjoyable by a humorous cook named Butola and his assistants Binod and Gomel. Butola was incredibly kind and patient, and a fantastic teacher of Hindi and Indian cuisine. We are proud to say that we have rolled over forty-five roti (flat bread) balls and could make you a pretty decent cup of chai. (B - Working in the kitchen usually also meant extra treats and an additional cup of chai. You don't have to twist my arm...) The meals, while basic, were incredible in that they really settled our stomachs and bowels. Thank you Navdanya! (B - Most meals included rice, roti, two dishes of subji (veggies) and an orange chutney like paste that everyone told us was "good for digestion". We clicked our heals on the mornings that Butola made porrige and avoided this formula as it takes a bit of time getting used to Indian style breakfast.) By our last day at the farm our bodies could not work in the field any more. Dr. Singh, thankfully, found us other work with a German volunteer named Madlen counting, weighing, and measuring different wheat plant samples. (R - Again, there was just too much wheat.)

Our farm time, of course, was not perfect. There were several peculiarities about the farm that made us all the more happy to get back to town. Our biggest critique was the feeling of a lack of purpose and direction given by the organizers on the farm itself. While it was great to help out, we didn't always get the sense that our work was needed, or wanted. The farm provided a great place, however, for our time in India to really slow down, allowing us to relax, get more grounded, and stay well. (R - Now I may come off as a nay-sayer, but this farm experience for me looks much better in hindsight. I did not like it that much. It just wasn't my thing, but good to have done.)

2006-04-22T04:54:00.000-07:00

While in Thailand we saw television ads from the India Tourism Board. Their slogan was "Incredible India". In our experience this is much more than a stretch. After arriving, we were thinking that something along the lines of "The Last Place You Want to Get Sick, but the First Place You Will: India" would be more fitting. Or maybe "Ill-credible India", or "Ill-meaning India". Those are all better slogans, but I guess they just won't bring the tourists like the original. Oh, well... (R - For those of you out there who are planning a trip either to or through India, let me just give you a bit of advice, take it or leave it, your choice: DO NOT GO TO MUMBAI. If you want the big-city experience while in India, just visit Delhi instead. It at least has a tree or two, and a great place to eat.) Seriously, though, India is just intensity manifested in a country. Mumbai is the most pure form of that intensity. Everything that bothers you or that annoys you or that puts you on edge or that makes you feel sad or happy or angry is real, alive and vibrant in India. In Mumbai, all of those things are just a few degrees more real, more alive, more vibrant. There are 17 million people in Mumbai, and those are only the ones accounted for. Rural farmers and their families are migrating to the cities, so surely there's closer to 20 million. It feels like it, at least. It is huge and dense and fast and tough. (R - I consider myself a person who is not scared of much and there are few things that I completely shy away from. The streets, even just the concept of the outside world, of Mumbai terrified me from the moment we arrived. I just wanted to stay inside our hotel room and be. I am not like that at all, I hate not doing things, but Mumbai made me not want to do anything. I did not want to interact with the people, I did not want to walk on the streets, nothing. I just wanted to hide. It was the weirdest thing. I think it changed me in a way I can't quite identify precisely yet. It was a brutal, brutal place for me. India as a whole makes you different. We had been travelling for about 4.5 months by the time we arrived in Mumbai and got our first glimpse of India, and this surely had something to do with our outlook at the time. But India would have seemed very similar if we had just come from the comforts of our home. Granted, things had been grating on us during our travels, but India was a whole different world. It will eat you alive. If you are not 100% alert and on your game, India will devour you whole. Just to walk around the corner from your hotel you have to prepare yourself. Don't look at things, don't look at people, be resolute, walk with intention, have plans, have things to say at the ready, have your negotiating wits turned full on. You could not survive even the smallest amount of time outside if you did not steel yourself in this way beforehand. It was amazing.) With this said, it needs to be mentioned contrarily that India is one big crazy experience that can be had no other place on earth but in India. It is a good experience to have had, not, however, to be having. Every day life here is completely different from anything we know. You become desensitized to things that would normally startle you, such as huge African elephants and lumbering cows just strolling down nearly every street no matter how large the city. It makes you think about where you live and how different it actually is there. (B - We probably did not have the best start to India. We experienced so many negative things before we reached Mumbai that we were tired and not on our game. With that said, India is the hardest place we have travelled to and was the hardest transition to make. I think one of the most challenging aspects of our initial time in India was struggling with the in-your-face poverty of Mumbai. India is a place where you can't help but examine your assumptions, expectations and privileges as a Western traveler, and a white traveler at that. It is incredibly hard to deny the six year old girl that meets you outside of your hostel every morning the hardly-full bottle of water that you have started your day with. While in my head, I hear this voice that says this is not the way to help this girl, or this mother, or this child, it is incredibly hard not to yield to their wishes and buy them the crackers or the water they ask for. In other places, including the US, I have been asked for money, but being asked to buy food for a child is a sad, profound experience that we continue to struggle with.)

After making it out of the dirty and odd (but relatively tame) Mumbai International Airport, we took our first crazy Indian taxi ride through the bustling hypermetropolis that is Mumbai, bound for a hotel we found on the internet off of Khar Road, in what is known as North Mumbai. The guidebook (which we used for the first time on our trip in India because we expected we might need it...and were we ever right) said that Mumbai is the most cosmopolitan city in India, so we expected something like Bangkok, at best, or Beijing, at worst. Instead we got something completely different than both. The streets were crawling with life, elephants, cows, thousands of people. Everything was incredibly dirty and hot, and things were just strewn everywhere. To add to this already different place, the first place we stayed did not offer windows that closed or locked, but were accessible to anyone walking by. (B - This was a pretty hysterical moment for us. It had just really hit us that India was going to be, well, India, so to not have a room where we could leave our bags locked was really tough. We didn't have much at our disposal, so we put our bags in the bathroom and drooped a pair of Ryan's underwear through the door handle hoping this might deter any would-be intruders...all I can say is we didn't get robbed.) Then, just because it couldn't get too much worse for us, Brittany got really sick--a mild case of dehydration probably helped along by the stress of the previous two days.
(R - It was our first morning in India, in the Hotel Surrat off Khar Road, and I awoke to the horrible sounds of coughing and vomiting. It was Brittany and she was in a bad state. The horrors of all that we had heard about getting sick in India became very real to me at that moment. That was when things went from bad to worse and things just piled up on us. We knew we had to leave our hotel. We just had to get Brittany better, get in a taxi, and make it to somewhere better...)

As soon as we could, on our first full day in India, we left our hotel on Khar Road and headed south for what was known as the backpacker's district of Mumbai, an area called Colaba. (B - This ride through Mumbai was rough. I had been throwing up all morning, and poor Ryan had been fanning me through it all--about six hours. My funniest memory was in between vomit sessions Ryan would just be ranting about how we were going to hop on a plane and leave.) It took us about 30 minutes to get there through all the traffic and people and animals and weddings in the streets. We made it and as soon as we got out of the taxi, Ryan was solicited to be an extra in an advertisement. (R - I had not gotten all of the stuff out of the taxi or even paid the driver when this excited guy came up to me and asked if I wanted to be in this advertisement. I was not sure of this guy, but I asked for his business card and told him I'd meet him later in the same spot where I met him. He agreed. I eventually cancelled on him and he was furious. There were a number of reasons I cancelled: he kept changing the times on me, the whole thing seemed shady (it was being shot from 9pm to 3am), but mainly, Brittany was still quite ill and had just thrown up in the street in front of our new hotel...) Colaba was much nicer than Khar Road, but also more expensive and congested. It had all these shops selling tourist things to tourist people: drums, yoga pants, lighters, you name it, they had it. We went and saw a movie there and it was horrible. It was Basic Instinct II. (B - Watching Sharon Stone in this movie theater filled predominantly with men felt particularly uncomfortable as a foreigner and as a white woman. Wearing the long skirt and shirt I had recently bought in the market, and having been in India for only four days I was already thinking, "Sharon that outfit is so scandalous!" When the movie was finished I felt a bit embarrassed, and wondered, "what are all these men thinking about me?" The particular highlight of this experience, however, was before the movie started. Previous to the playing of the Indian national anthem, a hand written advertisement was projected on the screen reading: What to do in case of an explosion. At that point Ryan was buying popcorn, so it was just me looking at this screen thinking, "People are worried enough about an exposing to make a list of ten things I need to consider and obey?!" But the list only flashed for a few seconds--just long enough to catch the first few requests--and then the anthem began to blare. I wish I was a quicker reader!) After our movie, we walked to the city's most prominent feature, the Gateway of India, this big stone Arc de Triumph-like arch on the water. It was put there in commemoration of King George landing there in the mid-1800's, and attracts throngs of tourist daily. Another challenge that day, and every day, as it turned out, was getting money. (R - One of the hardest things we have had to figure out in India is where to get cash. ATM's were suprisingly hard to find in a city as big as Mumbai. We spent all day and quite a few rupees trying to find one. We had a map and everything, but they were all out of order or non-existent. It was frustrating to say the least.)

What is amazing to see in India are stark contrasts between new and old, clean and dirty, seemingly rich and seemingly poor, thrown into the middle of one city block. Down one derelict street with scavaging cows and a Hare Krishna pigeon sanctuary you might find a brand new five-story office building with green tinted glass and guards at the gate. Many places in Mumbai provided this visual juxtaposition. One such place was a very Western-looking coffee shop called Barista's, which is surrounded by trash and ruble. After several days of hectic, intense interactions we were happy to find this spot and escape into a cup of coffee. Not really paying attention to what we were doing, we sat right in front of the picture window of this cafe which was on street level and right on the sidewalk. The result was crazy. People would just stop and stare. Some of the less bold would stop their conversations but keep their feet moving, turning all of the way around to see us. We thought it was interesting that we were such a spectacle in the backpacker's district of Mumbai. But it happened all night, for about 4 hours. It is an odd feeling to be on display, one that we hadn't experienced with that kind of intensity since China. (B - It has been quite different to be an American woman, raised with certain expectations about gender equality, in India. For the first time, perhaps in my life, I have felt like a second-class citizen. While this might sound a bit extreme, I have virtually had to forgo any interaction with cash or people, because when I am with Ryan only his money, and his request for the check seems to do the trick. Not only is it frustrating for me to not be acknowledged while we are booking train tickets at a hotel, for example, but it also makes it harder for us to coordinate and collaborate our plans. The flip side to this, of course, is that when I am out and about by myself I get endless offers to go get chai, and have a really hard time finishing my errands without being engaged in endless conversations...that is unless I wear a wedding ring. Although it seems somewhat deceitful for two people who never plan to get married and don't believe in marriage to wear rings, it has made a huge difference here. There were certain times when we would not have been allowed to stay at a hotel if we were not married!)

One of our obscure little goals for India was to be in a Bollywood movie. We had heard that people get picked up to be in the movies and we figured we could make a little money and have a memorable experience all at once. So though Ryan turned down his initial solicitation, we were both approached later and we felt much more comfortable about the guy who did the approaching this time. So we spent one entire night on the set of a Bollywood movie, from 8pm to 5am. We were to get 500 rupees (about $11US) for our time and effort. It was very different from what we thought. Ryan got pissed off and unbelievably bored and Brittany had her first go at prostitution... (B - I wouldn't say that I am a shy person. In fact, I don't think anyone would say that about me either, but when I was handed a hanger with red fish net stockings, a pair of black vinyl booty shorts, and a zebra halter top, I admit, I blushed. While, at this point, a more experienced Bollywood actress would have asked for more rupees and inquired about her exact role in the film, I innocently, and very naively assumed that I would be some extra in the background for a club, which was what we were initially told. A blue wig, orange boa, and 2 hours worth of make-up later you could barely tell who I was...which was delightful considering how I looked in those shorts! After much pampering and prodding we five foreign girls (Japanese, Swedish, Finish, Australian, and American) were transformed into...well, we don't know exactly what. No one would answer that question. After we walked onto the set, which laughably had about thirty of the same signs that said "sex shop", we banned together and decided that we would call ourselves sex workers. If we had had more time my plan was to unionize. Anyway, we were pushed into the backdrop of a scene in which there was a car crash, some kind of confrontation with a gun, and bad Bollywood blood. The whole process was very confusing, because the director kept screaming in Hindi long after he yelled "action", and it was quite dangerous! The neon lights used to create the needed seedy effect of what we later learned was the Amsterdam red light district tended to smoke and explode a bit. The best part was when the director asked us to run in a particular scene, during which we had to skip over the live wires running in an intricate anarchy at our feet. The Australian girl had the foresight to ask about the wires and inquire about insurance should we get hurt, at which the director just laughed and sternly told us not to get hurt--this was about 20 minutes before the same Australian girl, who had been asking around for cocaine all night, was electrocuted by accidentally sitting against a neon sign. After about two hours of work, which under stage lighting was quite hot, we were no longer needed, but this is when the real work began. I joined a disgruntled Ryan who had been sitting patiently for hours and stayed awake until 5am. One of the funniest things about this experience was the requirement for me to cover myself when we were not filming. I thought it was interesting to have Indian people dress me up in revealing clothing for an Indian movie, but insist that I wear a blanket to and from the set. One night as an ambiguously titled sex worker was plenty to cover about three experiences: being a sex worker, being an actress or extra, and working in India. The experience, although highly unique and probably worth it besides hours of sitting and waiting, was made a bit sour at the end by having to fight for extra rupees. Thus, my advice is, should you find yourself being solicited in Mumbai to be a Bollywood extra, be up front about additional pay for extra work!)
(R - I was initially excited about the experience, that is for about the first 1 or 2 hours of it. Then it was just mind-numbingly boring. They didn't need me for anything, not even to run around in the background of a scene or something. But Brittany, she got scooped right up, pulled right into a dressing room, and got decked out like a stripper or prostitute--make-up, boa, and all. It was just weird. And the people who show up at these things are very fringe sorts, both the Western travelers and the Indian guys. It was surreal, all these hundreds of Indian guys running around yelling at each other and Brittany and 4 other backpacker girls being led around dressed in clothes that Indian society would never, ever allow anywhere but on the movie set. We got one bottle of water between us for the night and a plate of food. The 500 rupees that were handed to us at the end was a joke in the context of what we went through. It was really miserable...but Brittany is in a movie and the story, what a story!)
One of the coolest things about our night in Bollywood was interacting with other foreign travelers, many of whom were American and two of which were from Seattle, and had previously worked at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington campus, which is where Brittany got her degree. Eli and Faryn, the couple from Seattle, helped us more than they could know. At the end of their one month India stay, they helped us laugh out many of our 'oh, India...' stories, awkward situations, and continuing issues. With their help, we reached our 5am mark with only a 15 minute nap toward the end.
Eli and Faryn, however, were not the only Americans we met in Mumbai. In fact, during our second day Brittany ran into an old friend, Jessica Blat, from the UW honors program, who we walked around with until Brittany vomited in the street. (B - There is a certain art to vomiting in the street that I really think should be discussed here. I had kept down a few crackers and a Sprite at this point in the day. I really thought a Gatorade would help even more, but when the sweet lemon-lime hit my tongue my stomach opted against electrolytes and within the course of about 20 seconds I had informed Jessica and Ryan that I was probably going to vomit, walked to the end of the block, down a side street, and was headed for the gutter when I missed, vomited up my crackers, and handed Ryan the camera for a quick picture. I am sure the shopkeepers thought we were nuts, but I got better right after that and have a great picture to show for it.) So, to our happy surprise there are at least some Americans travelling, it just seems that about half of those we have met are travelling in India, and thus far, the majority have been from Alaska and Seattle.

We had stayed in Mumbai much longer than planned, but this was due mostly to Brittany's sickness. After she was nearly back to normal (B-...close to normal is probably the closest I will ever get), we decided it was time to move on. After fighting our way out of central Mumbai, we managed to make it to one of the 63 train stations in the greater Mumbai area. From there we caught a train (the tickets of which are damn near impossible to figure out how to buy on one's own) to Ahmedabad, and then took a bus to Udaipur. (B - Our train ride north was fantastic. We shared bunks with two computer tech specialists, one of which had just turned 24. Within our first hour on the train we had been invited to help celebrate this young man's birthday and get our first taste of Rajasthan cuisine. It was so good!) Now Udaipur was supposed to be the most beautiful place in Rajasthan (India's most visited province), and it was, we admit, very nice. (B - It is a gorgeous city. Every night we saw fireworks over the lake which we later learned was the sign of a wedding taking place.) It was also, unfortunately, tainted by sickness in a similar way as Mumbai, but this time it was Ryan who was under the weather. Fever set in, as did violent vomiting and diarrhea, and things were not good for the first three days there. (R - After the tiring night on a train and the 5 hour bus ride to Udaipur, we were tired so we laid down in our beautiful, ornately painted room to take a nap. I don't nap, so I just relaxed and wrote in my journal and played Sudoku. But my stomach just kept turning and it kept getting worse. I just thought I was really hungry. We hadn't eaten in about 24 hours, so it made sense. But two hours later, after dinner, I was sure it was more than just hunger pains. I was sick, and feverish, and I hated India then worse than ever. I thought I was going to die in Udaipur. Brittany and I had just talked earlier that day about how Udaipur was the place we would not want to get ill. No airport and at least a 5 hour bus ride from any major city with an airport. And even then, you're still in India. Every CDC report we read said if you need medical care in India, fly to Singapore. We were a very long way from Singapore. This is the first thing I thought. Brittany called our travel doctor and gave me water and cleaned up after me and took care of me. She was so great, especially since she wasn't feeling 100% herself yet. I felt so bad for ruining the best city we had been to in India. But the thought of the huge distance from Udaipur to Singapore just kept running through my head. I didn't want to die where a Bond movie was shot, it would be so cliche...) (B - Cleaning up each others vomit probably made us closer on some level, but it was pretty gross. Ryan usually doesn't get sick, so I was really worried, and just kept thinking about how I was going to get us and all of our stuff out of there. Lucky for us Ryan's sickness had passed by the next day, which retrospectively made it all the more cute that he kept taking his temperature every half an hour.) (R- I'll have everyone know that while I stopped vomiting after the first night, I was running a high temperature the entire next day...thus, my thermometer usage was completely justified.)But after this initial setback, Udaipur and the staff of our hotel gave us the first glimpse of India's good side. For the first time in India we felt that we had a place we could go for help and for objective, reliable information. It was a welcome oasis in journey that had previously felt like a desert of con-artists and liars, and we highly recommend them if anybody out there ever happens to find themselves in Udaipur. They are called the Hotel Udai Niwas and they are great people. (R- A shelter in a storm is what it was, I tell you.)

Once Ryan was back on his feet, we visited the City Palace, a massive building that was home to the ancient Mewar rulers. It sits right on the lake, which is the highlight of the city. We also visited the Monsoon Palace, the rulers' home when the rainy season came to Udaipur. It is built on the side of a mountain on the edge of the city. We went for sunset and it was gorgeous. There were monkeys everywhere, hundreds of them, and they seemed to get as much of a kick out of watching the people as the people (mostly Udaipur families who had come to watch the sunset)did out of watching them. It was a great time and a beautiful night looking out over the city and the hills of Rajasthan. Both of the palaces we visited were used in the famous early Bond movie Octopussy, and everyone who lives in Udaipur is very proud of their city's Hollywood appearance. (B - Our visit to the Monsoon Palace provided great interaction with a local family who took it upon themselves to introduce us to Indian snack food. Anyone who has tried Gulab jamun, deep-fried balls of milk dough soaked in rose-flavored syrup, knows that one was plenty!)

From Udaipur we hopped a train to Delhi (a metropolis we were confident would be much better than Mumbai, and we were right!) where we ate at the All-American Diner (it had actual buttermilk pancakes!), and then promptly got ripped off on a bus ride to Dehra Dun, the northern town where we were to farm for the next week. It was good to be back in a big city...

2006-04-19T01:55:00.000-07:00

Everything that could go wrong did...(but we are still alive!)

After Thailand's beautiful and relaxed atmosphere and our good travel luck so far, it was hard to forsee what would happen to us during our last hours in Thailand and our first few days in India. In this short amount of time our happy adventure became a near maddening nightmare. The easiest way for us to write about this episode is to compose a list of the mishaps, pitfalls, and unfathomable coincidences that went on to define our first week in India. Just before we left our room to head to the Bangkok International Airport we realized that:

1. Brittany's credit card and US cash were stolen from our guesthouse room

But we had,
2. No time to call the cops
3. No time to really confront our guest house

Thus,
4. No time to make an insurance claim

Therefore we,
5. Had to run through a million water throwing, sand pasting people who doused our bags with buckets, yes buckets, of water,
6. Push through six full city blocks, packed with people to find a street that allowed cars

And,
7. Literally chase a taxi on the highway after several failed attempts
8. Wait for our cabbie to use the bathroom at a petrol station

Then...
9. Our tickets were rejected by Sri Lanken Airlines as invalid

We
10. Were told to go find the Northwest office and get a ticket reissued
11. Found the NWA ticket office only to realize that it didn't open until 9pm
12. Realized that our Sri Lanken Airlines flight left at 9pm
13. Made our case to Sri Lanken Airlines...unsuccessfully...(apparently we needed some kind of missing stamp)
14. Tried to brush off some of the sand paste stuck to our cheeks and bags because people thought we were clearly nuts
15. Called NWA in New York, who told us that any ticketing mistake was Sri Lanken Airlines, not theirs...

So then we,
16. Made our case a third time to Sri Lanken Airlines, who printed off a sheet explaining that they didn't get all the information about our ticket program from NWA so hadn't given us seats--again, we were missing some kind of stamp

At which point upset Ryan,
17. Grabbed our bags off the weight scale at the ticket counter and threw them across the airport terminal...to the amusement of most of the airport workers watching our little game

Stressed and upset we,
18. Ate dinner and tried to think of a plan
19. Started laughing at each other and lightened up

Then Brittany,
20. Freaked out her mom by calling her at 5am explaining her credit card woes

By 9pm we had missed our flight, but
21. Visited the now open NWA office who got us on a flight to Mumbai, via Delhi, with Air India

All was good until we arrived at the Mumbai hotel that we found on the internet and learned that
22. It was twice as expensive as stated online and
23. The window in the room neither closed nor locked, providing easy access from outside

But we ate dinner and rested until
24. Brittany woke Ryan up around 6am vomiting her stomach up
25. Brittany couldn't retain any fluids and became totally pale

With Ryan's amazing help we managed to get to a new guesthouse in southern mumbai, where 26. Brittany pomptly vomited in the street (one last time)

...that was our introduction to India!

2006-04-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

After our one-of-a-kind experiences in Thailand's northern area, we set off for the south for a much needed "vacation" from our travels. In order to save time we booked a cheap flight to Phuket, a large island off the west coast of south Thailand and one of the centers for travellers to Thailand. While we have run into very few Americans here, and during our travels in general, Phuket is some what of a European mecca. The Swedes, for example, have a non-stop flight from Stockholm to Phuket.

We only spent one night in Phuket because we had our sights set on spending a week on the unbelievable shores of Koh Phi Phi Don, the largest of the two tiny, gorgeous, and famous Phi Phi Islands. Both Phuket and the Phi Phi Islands were hit very hard by the December, 2004 tsumami. While it is hard to see any remnants of disaster in Phuket, Koh Phi Phi's main beach, Ton Sai, looks like a mix of over-development and barren splotches of land with scrap and trash piles. It is certainly one thing to see the catastrophy via CNN, and another to visit the victims memorial near Ton Sai beach. The memorial plaques, poems and pictures were quite sad to look through, but an important reminder about what is boss: nature. This spot definitely reminded us to stay vigilent during our travels.

We were extremely lucky to have found a cheap remote (as in only accessable by boat during high tide) beach called Rantee on the eastern side of the island, north of the main tourist area. We esentially had a beach to ourselves for nearly a week. While several other groups of travelers came and went, the only other couple to stay during our week was a guru and his overly contemplative student who were great fun to watch during their "getting the demons out" yoga pillow-pounding sessions. During our week we snorkeled (and got to see an octopus and a sea snake), went on an island-circling boat trip that included a peek and a swim at Koh Phi Phi Lei (the smaller island of the two that is a protected National Park and was featured in the movie The Beach), kayaked north and uninetentionlly found a Holiday Inn (which was a little bit weird), finished and started new books, hiked to Sunset/Sunrise Point, drank a copious amount of coconut fruit shakes, and just generally enjoyed our slow-paced beach break. It is quite an understatement to say that it was absolutely fabulous!

After a week of near isolation and quiet, peaceful bliss we decided to head east toward Koh Samui and Koh Phangan, two other islands on the eastern side of the Thai isthmus, and throw ourselves back into the mess of tourists and backpackers--and what a mess it was! While both islands offer fun activities and beautiful beaches, they are hectic places with a mess of motor bikes driven by a ton of expats plus fresh loads of drunken Swedes and Isrealies. Although we intended to rent a motor bike while on one of these islands we constantly bumped into tourists recovering from severe bike accidents. One night in particular on Koh Phangan we met a man who had just had an accident in 7-11. He was bleeding from his head and had a two inch gash running vertically from the corner of his mouth up his face. Yikes! So...the bikes never happened, probably for the good of all (we would have been driving on the left hand side of the road, and neither of us have driven in a while). Koh Samui, on which we stayed for about six days, had the best frisbee beach we have yet encountered anywhere. Shallow, warm water with clean white sand provided hours of great free entertainment. On Samui's Chaweng beach we also got to participate in a free, practice beach dive with two real PADI instructors. The intent of the dive was to test Brittany's ears to see if she could handle the pressure of a real dive as we were hoping to dive at Koh Tao the next day. Unfortuneatly, her ears went nuts on the way back up, and it took her about nine hours to regain normal hearing. Dang! It would have been amazing to dive at Koh Tao, but at least we didn't sink the money and have a disaster. Instead, the following day we went to a fantastic transvestite cabaret show offering the best rendition of Queen Latifa's Chicago movie hit 'If Your Good To Mama, Mama's Good To You' performed by the beautiful Miss Guang of Gui Lin, China. It was truly the best show either of us have ever seen. These girls were pros.

The other highlight during our time in Koh Samui was witnessing a huge protest down the main road in the Chaweng Beach area. Hundreds of anti-Thaksin (the current Prime Minister of Thailand) supports rallied Thai's not to vote in the April 2nd election. We watched this rally through the second-story windows of Pizza Hut, in which all staff, including servers, cooks, busers, and even the matredie (because for some reason all the Pizza Huts in Asia have them) stopped what they were doing and came to the window to watch. The yellow-headband-wearing ralliers clearly did a good job, because the current political situation in Thailand is a bit confusing at the moment with no clear leadership. It has been quite interesting to be in a country with a burgoning democracy in which newspaper titles like 'Democracy moves to next level: Demonstrations, particularly peaceful ones, really are part of a heatlhy and vibrant political system' have been common. Unlike the protests in Nepal, which have changed our travel plans so as to not visit that area, the political action here, from all sides, seems to be peaceful, and we, perhaps niavely, feel safe.

From Koh Samui we spent four hot days in Koh Phangan, the site of huge dance and music parties called the: Full Moon Party, Half Moon Party, and Black Moon Party. Although we miss the internationally renowned Full Moon Party on April 13th, we managed to arrive on Koh Phangan for the Half Moon Party. Our initial interaction with the island was going to be a brief day trip that included staying up all night for the Half Moon Party and then returning to Koh Samui on the ferry the next day. However, due to the 'previous king's birthday' the April 6th Half Moon Party was celebrated on April 7th, forcing us to change our travel plans and take the ferry to Koh Phangan twice. The Half Moon Party, with its backdrop of physcedelic UV decorations, vodka/red bull drinks served in buckets, DJs playing CDs, and black light glowing body art stands provided quite an night. We danced until about 5am, and then managed to get back to Haad Rin's Sunrise Beach on southern Koh Phangan for sunrise. While the party itself was a faciniating study of human desperation and debatchery, featuring about 3,000 travelling kids on drugs (fresh from Burma) and massive amounts of alcohol, it was really not our scene. Can't say we would do it again, but definitely worth the first-time experience (due to the great music). Our remaining time on Koh Phangan was spent eating crepes (the nutella/snickers type was our favorite), picking up trash on the beach (because for some reason it is really hip to leave hundreds of bottles of water, straws, beer bottles, and soda cans on the beach you will come back to tomorrow...), watching the Simpsons and movies that restaurants show to get your business (you wouldn't think you could miss a thing so much, but we really hadn't watched TV in a long time), hanging out with stray dogs (wait that was just Ryan), playing frisbee, and marvelling at the topless, spedo-clad Europeans romping in their fabric-less freedom. We don't mean to stare, but we are just not use to it. I suppose three months in Europe should do the trick!

Our trip back to Bangkok from Koh Phangan is noteworthy, simply because on our bus we witnessed our first anti-smoking ad in all of Asia. Maybe it will catch on in China...we can only hope!

After our 18 hours of travel we were tired, which is the wrong way to be during the Songkran Festival. Thailand's New Year festival, which is highlighted by water fights, kicked off last night and of course one of the main place to be was/still is on Khao San road, a block or so from our hostel. As foreigners, we have been advised to start the day by dousing ourselves with a bucket of water to avoid becoming the number one target of locals and other "farangs" (tourists) alike. At first we were just going to walk down Khao San road and see the festivities, but in our attempt to get down our street we got soaked and decided to join in the festival. 500 Baht later we each aquipped ourselves with a water gun and were ready to settle the score. We paced up and down Khao San for about three hours with thousands and thousands of Thais participating in the largest water fight we have ever seen. Minus getting some of the water in our mouths and getting hit with eye and ear shots at close range, it was a great time! Besides water guns, water bottles and huge buckets Thais also equipped themselves with a sandy paste which got smeared all over us for good luck and blessings in the new year. I think we will be set for the next ten!

Even with minimal sleep we managed to pick up much-needed Mefloquine anti-malaria tablets at Bangkok International hospital during our first day back--luckily the day before Songkran started. It seems that the international branch of this hospital is well known in the region and attracts a ton of business from Japanese, Chinese, and Arabic speakers. Like many other operations in Asia, the hospital seemed overstaffed to the point of chaos. We were greeted by about four women in smart, pinstriped pink skirt suits, and further helped by several other women in white suits with the ever-stylish 1950's nurses cap. After we were taken by private golf cart to the hospital wing that could assist us--the hosptial wing incidentally was about a block away--we got our Mefloquine without a perspcription, but with many giggles and smiles, it seems we may have been the first Americans to have visited this particular hospital, most likely because it is so new (and so few Americans seem to travel). We also made it to the U.S. Embassy and got additional pages in our passports, which were running dangerously low and could have caused serious problems when we went to get our Egypt visa. With all of these errends and travel experiences done we head on to India next. After a short layover in Columbo, Sri Lanka we should arrive in Mumbai, India on April 14th. With two months in India awaiting us we are excited to start a new adventure, and hope it will be as fantastic as our time in Thailand.
Happy Thai New Year, Brittany & Ryan

Interesting things about Thailand:
1) Thais really seem to love their king. While in Bangkok for the second time we learned that King Bhumibol Adulyadej is the longest ruling monarch still alive today. His picture is literally all over the country, at most intersections, on every piece of money, on fridge magnets, and on Lance Armstrong-style orange braclets which read "Long Live the King", which it seems are worn by every Thai person in Thailand.
2) In all of our travels we had only run into a handfull of Americans: two Texans at the Great Wall in China and one Colorado student near the Tiger Leaping Gorge in China. In Thailand, however, we met seven more Americans, five of which were from Alaska. That means out of the ten American travelers we have met while visitng eight countries over four months half have been Alaskans. Our first Alaskan was from Bethel and was in Chiang Mai for our same cooking class with the amazing Permpoon, and just today we ran into a family of four from Juneau at the US embassy. Coming from a state of about 600,000 people this seems a bit weird.
3) Thus far in our travels we had only seen a couple of street kids selling things or asking for food, which was far surpassed in Thailand. Particularly on Koh Samui we witnessed big groups of street kids selling necklaces, and to get your attention and your money offering to play the game Connect Four. It was particularly fun to watch these kids target young farangs at the bar, where they seemed to make the most money, but particularly sad to think about who actually gets the money these young kids bring in and what happens to them after they are too old to sell necklaces...thus bringing us to interesting point four...
4) We saw more prostitutes of all sexes and genders in Thailand than we had ever thought possible. We read that the industry can be an acceptable way for young people to support their families and actually has Buddhism to blame/credit initially for its wide acceptance and growth. Regardless, Thailand also has a notorious level of child prostitution, which makes you wonder who is looking out for those young necklace sellers.
5) As our cabaret pictures from Koh Samui may show, there are many transvestities in Thailand. They are considered to be the "Third Sex". It is a position accepted by Buddhism, and thus society at large, however, while dressing like a woman may be okay, being gay, we have read, is not. It seems like a bit of swap with American culture.

2006-04-06T06:44:00.000-07:00

From Bangkok we travelled north to an area considered by many to be the cultural heart of Thailand-Chiang Mai. In Chiang Mai we managed to fit about a week's worth of adventures into three full days. This all, of course, started with a long, cramped overnight bus ride from Bangkok in which the air conditioning dripped on us for ten hours. Although we intended to give ourselves a day of rest after arriving at 6am, Brittany spotted a Thai cooking class that started at 9am that same day. Any plans for sleep were dashed, and by 8:30am we had been picked up by our Thai Chef Permpoon who was headed to the market to pick out fresh veggies, tofu, curry paste, etc. We are pretty convinced that Permpoon could become the next Emeril, and would easily outbid the Iron Chef as best cooking performance if syndicated. He made us laugh, filled our stomachs past a healthy capacity, and provided our first hands-on lesson in Thai cuisine. Although a reluctant cook at first, Ryan became the class star and even got to participate in "doing adventure" with Chef Permpoon. ("Doing adventure" could mean a lot of things in Thailand, so to clarify Ryan got to set his wok on fire while making Phad Thai). While Brittany makes one hell of a Panang Curry, Ryan's Phad Thai is truly tops.

After our full day of Thai cooking, we earned some long awaited sleep which prepared us for the next day in the jungle. Day two in Chiang Mai consisted of treking to a Hmong village tribe, riding an elephant and riding a bamboo fraft down a river with Somporn Tours, a local tour group that's name means 'everything is alright'. Although it was particularly interesting to visit the Hmong tribe in Thailand after staying with a Miao/Hmong family in China, the highlight of the day was the bamboo rafting. The hot weekend day brought many local families down to the river, and with them were there kids who provoked many water fights along our journey downstream. By the end of our ride, during which Ryan steered our raft into a huge rock and nearly bit it, we were completely soaked. Before this, however, we had our first real elephant experience. The elephant ride, while sounding fun, turned out to be quite depressing because the animals were not treated well at all! This challenged one of the main goals of our trip, which has been to stay guidebookless, or at the very least Lonely Planet free. Up until this point we had found it very benefitial to avoid the beaten path provided by LP, but looking back such books would probably have been very helpful in figuring out which tours included animals that were well treated, etc. We regret not doing better research in this area, as with the drugged tigers at Tiger Temple. This lack of research provided the same disappointment during our third day in Chiang Mai during which we visited several hillside tribes in the northeast near the Burmese border. Again, our perseption of the tour and expectations of the day were shattered by being taken to a random hill in which three tribes the Akha, Lahu and Karen Long Neck have all moved to accomodate tourists who do not want to trek through the jungle to visit them. While we were happy to support these tribes our visit raised interesting questions about what is appropriate and where boundaries should be set! Needless to say, we felt like really shitty tourists that day. In retrospect, it provided a good lesson for the future, not neccessarily about refering to guidebooks, but about asking the right questions before you sign up for a tour. The fuel behind our hillside tribe visit were specifically the Karen Long Neck group whose female members are quite identifiable by the bronze coils worn around their necks. We were told that the myth about why these women wear the coil dates back to the tribe's origins in Burma and relates to constant tiger attacks on Karen women. The story goes that the coils developed as a defense against tigers. While that may be true, the coil is now viewed as a beauty adornment. The longer the coil, the more beautiful the woman is considered. We were surprised to learn that the coil doesn't actually lenthen the neck it just pushes down a woman's shoulders, and with 5 kilos of bronze coil it is easy to see how!

Before our hillside tribe visit our spirits were uplifted by a visit to an elephant dung paper making business. An explanation isn't really needed, dung becomes paper, that's pretty much it. We're not sure what genius is credited with this process, or how long it has taken to perfect, but it is a great way to reuse a lot of shit. It is probably best to end on that note, but just know that many dung puns have been made. Our final outing in Chiang Mai was to a Muay Thai Boxing match which featured eight rounds of ten minute matches with contestants' weights ranging from 35 kilos (approximately 10 to 12 year olds) to 60 kilos (professionals). This is Thailand's national sport and was very entertaining to watch, if not a little brutal. After a month full of rapid travelling we said goodbye to Chiang Mai and "Sawasdee" to a full week of rest and relaxation in southern Thailand.
Our best, Ryan and Brittany

2006-03-19T23:13:00.000-08:00

From Bangkok, Thailand!
We have made it thousands of miles over land and water, using busses, trains, boats, motorcycles, tuk-tuks, and our own feet, to Thailand, our last stop before taking to the air yet again to Mumbai, India. It has been quite an adventure, and in a few days we plan on relaxing a little on a beach in south Thailand as a reward for all our efforts.
We walked across yet another Southeast Asian boarder, between Cambodia and Thailand this time, and it was very exciting on the Cambodian side, and only mildly fun (in comparison) on the Thai side. After crossing the border it turned out that we had missed the last train of the day to Bangkok. This was bad because the trip would have only taken 3 hours on train, but instead we had to pay more for a bus and it took almost 6 hours!
When we finally arrived in Bangkok, the city glowed and bustled just as we expected. Bangkok is known worldwide as a travellers mecca, truly a city that never sleeps (and consequently never gets quiet!). After our bus ride from the border we took a fast taxi into the city. Bangkok as a whole is exciting, but the real action centers around a legendary street only one block long called Khao San Road (above and below left). Khao San is completely alight with neon, completetely loud with music, and completely teeming with people. Thailand as a whole gets 9 million visitors per year, every one of which starts and ends their journeys on Khao San Road. It is an amazing blur of life! Everything is happening all at once and one can buy or sell anything in the world on this one little stretch of pavement. The frantic pace keeps up each and every night of the 365 days per year and it doesn't appear that it will ever slow down! This is the environment in which we have been living for the last 5 days. It is nice, but it does make the beaches of the southern ismus look all the more appealing.
We had some very specific and important tasks to complete upon getting to Bangkok, the most pressing of which was to catch up on our blog being that Bangkok has wonderfully fast internet connections. We think we have done well with this job (let us know if we're wrong!). Secondly, we had to locate and visit the Northwest Airlines offices to confirm the last 6 months of our trip from Egypt back home. Check. Having completed these tasks, we got to actually see and do some of the things to see and do while in Bangkok. We went to the Chatuchak Weekend Market (left, Ryan shopping), a huge market occupying 4 square blocks located on the outskirts of the city. After shopping around a bit there, we went to the Grand Palace (above right), a shiny royal Thai complex. Yesterday we got to visit the Floating Market (a market area that has no streets, just canals, pictured right), the Death Railway Bridge over the river Kwai, and the Tiger Temple and hang out with (actually sit with and pet as Brittany demonstrates on left!) the enormous 500-pound tigers they have there! That was a truly unique experience!
All in all we have gotten a pretty good taste of Bangkok (including the tasty Thai and Indian food here!) and feel we only need to come back to this city to get to the airport. It is a busy and fast-paced city, but our minds are on the beaches ahead! More from the north, in Thailand's second largest city, Chiang Mai...
Our best,
Ryan & Brittany
Oh, also we got our picture taken by this random unknown guy while we were on a boat. Afterwards we were walking down the sidewalk and on a table we found this, a plate with our picture on it. It is not often in one's life that they find their likeness emblazened for posterity on a plate, so a picture was surely in order. Maybe someone will buy it one day...we didn't.

2006-03-17T04:46:00.001-08:00

After our sweaty boat ride up the Mekong River we were greeted to Cambodia by about 30 small children from the local village where our boat docked, and by a festive, elegantly dressed wedding party. This was the first of many wedding parties we drove past during our first day in Cambodia. Although March is hot as hell it is close to Cambodian New Year and apparently a great time to get hitched. We were sad to be moving through Cambodia so quickly because we were invited to a wedding in Phnom Penh...maybe on the next time around.

From Phnom Penh we (plus two awesome Swedes we met on the boat, Tommie and Jens, right) spent our first day seeing the local sites. We accompanied our Swedish friends to a shooting range they were jokingly interested in. The range was quite secretive, most likely due to the illegal weapons it offers to its clients. They wouldn't let us take a picture of the menu which read something like...
"Gun: AK 47; Rounds: 25 Price $30.00
Gun: Tommy Gun; Rounds: 20 Price $25.00...
Fanta $1
Sprite $1..."
After much relenting the owner allowed the Swedes to get a quick photo with their guns, and we didn't hestitate to snap a shot of this crazy section of the day. So many serious foreigners were arriving by themselves to shoot, relax and chat. It was a bit scary, but very interesting to think about where those guns have come from, how they got in, and which foreign governments were involved.

Coincidence or not, this was the same day we visited S-21 (the torture chambers used by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge) and the Killing Fields (the mass graves where bodies were dumped). Pictured left is the main monument where the skulls of the dead are stacked 5 stories high in rememberance. It is hard to describe the feeling of walking through the chambers where 20,000 men, women, and children were tortued and killed. We did our best to document the horror with our camera, but just like visiting the incinerators in Germany you have to experience it first hand to truly see and understand. It was crazy to see the mass graves, piled skulls, and clothing (which is still coming up out of the dirt paths, worn on those of whom have not yet been dug up) and know that only seven people survived their stay in S-21. The worst experience was to see the marked tree against which small children were beaten to death after being forced to implicate their parents or siblings in antirevolutionary activities (right), and then to visit the torture chambers of S-21 where we learned that pregnant women were held until they gave birth so that both mother and baby could be tortured and killed. It was quite haunting to view the images of all these victims, which were methodically taken and organized by the Khmer Rouge. Seeing mug shots of kids and mothers holding their babies was chilling. We learned that Pol Pot's regime killed between 1.5 and 2.3 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. Brutal and sick are the only proper words to describe their actions.

With these thoughts and experiences still whirling in our minds, we bused to north to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world. Our tour of Angkor was, appropriately, assisted by a Tuk-Tuk (a motorized rickshaw-like machine built on the back of a motor bike) which is how we got around for most of our time in Cambodian cities. At Angkor we viewed the faces of Bayon, Banteai Srei Temple, Ta Prohm (which is being taken back by the forest), Ta Keo, The Terrace of the Elephants, The Terrace of the Leper King, and Angkor Wat itself. It is a huge complex that was added to for a century and represents tributes to both Hinduism and Buddhism. During our walk through Angkor we were able to see lizards in the sun, green snakes, and about six monkeys being fed watermelon by locals (Ryan fed them our remaining bananas). Our time in Siem Reap was also highlighted by our place of lodging which housed a backyard pool full of crocodiles. These crocs clicked and cooed all night long! Ryan was in love. It only took two nights and he has perfected his crocodile call...just ask him for a sample.

To cross our last southeast Asia border into Thailand we travelled on the worst stretch of road, through the most heavily landmined section of the most densely landmined country in the world...and through a former Khmer Rouge stronghold ('former' as in there was still activity there up until Pol Pot's death in 1998, and supporters still exist...) via the world's best, but happy-to-scare-Brittany-with-his-maneuvering-feats-driver. We are pretty sure that he tried to hit someone just to make us yelp. We, however, had it plush with our speeding taxi because we passed (and we only passed -- we were NEVER passed) many pick up trucks full of goods and about 15 people sitting in the bed (on the piled goods) and hanging off the sides in some cases through extreme potholes, scattered asphault, huge clouds of dust, detour signs (our driver ignored these), an occasional oxen and huge public and tourist buses that looked like they would fall over at each pothole. And all the while we saw Halo Trust (de-mining organization) trucks head the other direction. It was a sobering ride. We are happy to have made it through. (Note: read the small print on the top of the sign on the right.)

Interesting things about Cambodia: 1) Literally every kilometer of road had a Cambodian People's Party sign up. We read that opposition was killed in the last election in 2002...perhaps there is a connection to the popularity of this party. 2) We witnessed a plethora of weddings, wedding parties, and bridal taylors all over Cambodia. Getting married seems to be quite en vogue. 3) As in Vietnam, it was mentioned many times to us that there has been so much violence and people just want peace. Given America's current endevors we hope that the same might be said for the hopes of Americans in the future. It seems that our generation has had the luxury to be seperated and distanced from the type of violence and war that defined previous generations in America...it was extremely sobering to go through Vietnam and Cambodia and see the reult of genocide, violence, and war first hand. Our parents' generation could not have done the same without going to war at our age.
More from Thailand, where things are quite a bit brighter...

2006-03-17T03:58:00.000-08:00

We made the choice to walk across the border of China to Vietnam (on left) because 1.) it would be a cool story, and 2.) it was supposed to be much cheaper. The first was true, the second was not. Our crossing into Vietnam was precarious at best. Not only did we transition into a new place where we didn't know the language (which is one reason that made China so navigatable, Brittany speaks some Chinese), but the location of the Pingxiang border crossing put us in a remote northern part of Vietnam and thus at the mercy of taxi drivers. Long story short, we were scammed out of a lot of Dong, but happy to leave China's cold winter.

Entering Vietnam immediately provided a stark contrast with China. Unlike mainland China (which was not colonized), we could truly see a French colonial impression all over Vietnam from the crepes and baggettes to the brightly colored (but only on one side), tall and slendor houses. Even on a huge farm, surrounded by nothing other than rice fields, houses would be three slendor stories high, with many balconies and paint on just one side; the other three showed only grey concrete. So different! We also stopped being 'foreigners' as in China, and began to gain an acute awareness of our national identity and war history. Our parents could never have come here at our age. Their 'tour' would have been quite different. So much has changed in just 30 years. With that perspective, it was quite interesting in Hanoi to have the first person approach us (a Vietnamese book seller - selling knock-off Lonely Planet guides) be wearing a US army issue camo jacket, and to see many women wear American flag dust masks or masks that said 'Texas' on them as they biked to work (alas, we were not quick enough to get these pictures). It seemed that most people in Vietnam biked to work, not on a bicycle, but a motor bike. In fact, it seemed like they did absolutely everything on a motor bike. Above left is one guy moving his office desk, no problem. We read a statistic somewhere that said about 75% of the Vietnamese population is 25 or younger. We are pretty sure they all have motor bikes. We had been warned early on by other travelers that China's fleet of bicyclists was dwarfed by the Vietnamese motor bike population - and they were right! If you need a visual, add the chaos of driving and street-crossing in China to millions of people screaming down the street every which way on motor bikes and you will have the streets of Hanoi. Look out! When crossing the street you cannot back track or make any sudden moves or you will mess up the flow. It was a bit crazy!

Our actual stay in Hanoi foreshadowed our stay in Vietnam: it was rushed and short. We gave ourselves one week in Vietnam which really began in Ha Long Bay (left) just east of Hanoi. We spent one night aboard a beautiful boat with only 8 other travellers. Even in the off-season Ha Long Bay's limestone rock pillars, caves, and turquoise water were incredible. A few particular highlights were our kayak trip through and around the Cat Ba National Reserve area - breathtaking - and our climbing through unlit caves (us in claustrophobic darkness, right) - rather frightening, but fun! From the north we took a 26 hour train ride to the beachside town of Nha Trang where we snorkeled off of Mun Island. Nha Trang was the first chance we had to really get clean. We hadn't showered since leaving John in Kaili. Our clothes reaked...we smelled really bad. Nha Trang was the first place where we had two full days to really pause and take care of ourselves in non-winter conditions. We then hurried south through lovely Mui Ne (where we wished we could have stayed), to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). From Ho Chi Minh we vistited the amazingly elaborate Cu Chi Tunnels used by the Viet Minh against the French and by the Viet Cong against the Americans. This tourist site is particularly interesting if just to watch the 25 minute propoganda tape from 1967 which describes the Cu Chi people's resistance from the 'crazy American devils.' It was very enlightening to learn about their perspective on the war and on America during that time.

Ho Chi Minh City was also our jump off spot for a Mekong Delta tour that brought us to our second border crossing and then finally to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Through this journey we were able to taste Vietnamese fruits (including delicious Dragon Fruit and overly sweet 'sa-mu-chee'), visit a coconut candy making business (yes, we sampled everything), get a photo with a python, ride through a Mekong Canal, see a floating village with a fish farm, and visit a Cham (Muslim) minority village built on stilts due to the unpredicatable flooding of the Mekong River.

Our final day was, in fact, the hottest day of our lives! We spent four sweaty hours cruising up the Mekong River to the Cambodian border in a small and stuffy boat. Vietnam was beatutiful. We regret only having a short stay (there is too much to see and do!) and would definitely like to return soon.

Interesting things about Vietnam: 1) The women are fully covered when they are in the sun. They don long pants, long shirts, gloves, hats, and wrap-around masks that make them look like bandits (right). We assume that this practice (in 40 degree C weather) is related to the same practice of buying whitening soaps and creams: both are done to prevent dark skin. 2) We found huge groups of women wearing tradiational Vietnamese dress and long pants, but all in white. All wore the exact same outfit. Literally hundreds and hundreds of women in the same outfit. We think they were students (?), but would appreciate any clues if you have them. 3) Getting continually scammed and ripped off in Vietnam really made us appreciate the honest approach taken by China's hostels and guest houses. 4) There are so many expats that live in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city. 5) Travelling in a non-tourist way was very difficult here. Unfortuantely, the tourism in Vietnam (at least what we found and had access to) has a very Disneyland-like approach.
That's it for Vietnam. We now moved on to one of the most dangerous countries to travel in on the planet: Cambodia...

2006-03-17T03:06:00.000-08:00

From the Lijiang bus station we took a 10 hour bus ride to Kunming, the capital of the Yunnan province and one of the more liberal cities in China (it is known as the "Seattle of China", pictured right). As far as busses in China go, this was comfortable. It was a modern "sleeper" bus and had decent leg room and stayed pretty warm. We slept for most of the ride (with the exception of the 2am dinner stop) and arrived in Kunming early the next morning to the bustle of a Chinese city once more. This was a cleaner city than the other, however, and was a nice place to spend the 10 or so hours we had until our train to Kali left.
Upon walking to our train car at the station, we noticed on the side of the train that it said "Kunming to Guiyang" (in Chinese, of course!), and this concerned us a little because we had asked the ticket lady if our tickets were for actually for all the way through to Kali. She told us yes. Guiyang is a city about 4 hours from Kali, and that meant we had to buy more tickets, which was risky because there were times before where we got stuck in a city for an extra night due to lack of available seats. This time it all worked out, but it kind of ticked us off. Anyway, we got to Guiyang and then through to Kali and there we meant our friend John Wheeler (left). John went to high school with Brittany and now volunteers for the Peace Corps in Kali. He was nice enough to put us up for two nights in the spare room (right) of his apartment and show us around the city. Through a friend of his he hooked us up with a guy who owns a guesthouse in Xijiang, a tiny mountain village east of Kali. We all stayed a night with him and ate some interesting traditional food. We also had to drink baijiu, an extremely potent rice wine that is homemade by most Chinese farmers. Like Russians and their vodka, baijiu is to be drunk at all meals for the entire duration of the meal, usually amounting to large quantities being consumed. This was not a good thing for Brittany and I as it tastes literally like gasoline and burns everything down to your stomach. But we obliged our host by drinking his baijiu and all is well now, we think. It was a beautiful little village with its terraced fields and rice paddies-- a very unique rural China experience. After our time in the village and in his apartment in Kali we thanked John for his hospitality and hopped on a bus to Nanning, a very modern city a few hours from the border of Vietnam. This bus was a sleeper, just like our ealier one, but this time is was completely uncomfortable. It must be noted here that the Chinese smoke everywhere, and the Chinese government embraces the smoking culture (20% of China's population smokes, but China comsumes 33% of the world's cigarettes). This means that people (mostly the men) smoke on trains and busses, in cars and buildings and houses. We smoked probably 2 packs a day just by being in China! And this sleeper bus to Nanning had some amazing smokers on it. Further, it was absolutely uncomfortable, being cramped and overcrowded. But we got there at sunrise (left) and then it was just a quick bus ride to a border city (forgot the name), and a 25km ride in a tuk tuk (a motorcycle with a truck bed welded onto the back; on right, the view from the back of one) to Chinese customs. We said our quick goodbyes to a very interesting and exciting country and walked through the dead zone in between China and Vietnam, hoping for a far more tropical experience there...

2006-03-17T01:13:00.001-08:00

From Chengdu we took a train to Panzhihua, a town on the southwest border of the Sichuan province. Upon arriving there tired and road-weary, we went about the business of purchasing bus tickets to Lijiang, a small city in the northeast corner of the Yunnan province, south of Sichuan. There was no train to Lijiang and the bus ride was an adventure in itself. Winding dirt roads and hairpin turns taken while passing around blind corners by our anxious bus driver made the trip extremely exciting. We hit a guy on a motorcycle, but all was well after the guy got up and rode away and our driven stopped to check the body of the bus for blood and paint. Also, they let us off the bus for what appeared to be just a bathroom break. So we got out to use the toilet and stretch our legs, no questions asked because it was no big deal. We didn't take our bags, money, or anything. So I was standing on the side of this dusty road, happy to be standing for the first time in 6 hours, when all of a sudden I hear an engine start. I whirled around to see our bus driving away, up the road and around the corner, out of sight. So I keep standing there, in a bit of a daze, thinking primarily of the humor of our now terrible situation when Brittany emerges from the bathroom. She doesn't notice our bus is gone at first because another of similar color pulled up in its place. So I tell her our bus just left in a kind of questioning and astonished voice, yet not quite a frantic one. She thinks I am joking the first three times I tell her until she recognizes the bus sitting in front of us is not actually ours. She very openly starts to worry. We ended up finding a group of kids who spoke a bit of English and they told us the bus would be back, it had just gone around the corner to fix a tire. All was well, but it was a good scare. (Sadly, since our camera was on the bus, there are no pictures of this.) Ten hours aboard this bus wondering whether or not we were going to live or actually get to Lijiang was enough to make the lights of the city a welcome sight.
Lijiang is known around China as a tourist center. Not foreign tourists, however, but Chinese tourists, and there were tons of them. Becasue of this, there were many traditional Chinese restaurants and also many Naxi (pronounced nah-shee) eaterys. The Naxi are the indiginous people of Yunnan. They are marked by their colorful dress and shiny silver, mostly seen on women as they are a matriarchal society. We ate at one of these Naxi restaurants one night and ordered a spicy chicken dish and an eggplant dish. The chicken dish was a mistake as it was served in the traditional way, feet, head, bones and all--an entire chicken cut up on a plate. So, our appetites steered us away from that to the eggplant dish, which ended up defining our entire next two days. Sometime later that night Brittany complained to Ryan about an upset stomach...which escalated into a 20 hour vommit session which culminated in both of us not wanting to eat Chinese food for a while...which is hard to do when you are in China. The entire situation was complicated by the fact that we had already booked our bus to the Tiger Leaping Gorge where we would hike for two days and then head on southeast to Kunming. After making a few changes to our tickets and only losing a bit of money in the process we were finally able to get out of Lijiang and into the mountains. All in all, we would prefer not to experience that again.

The Tiger Leaping Gorge finally took us off the beaten path, away from polluted, drab Chinese cities, and into the hills surrounding the deepest gorge in the world. This trip defined our month in China. It was simply incredible. It was only a short 3-hour bus ride from Lijiang to Shang-ri-la, the town at the head of the trail into the gorge. After a little bit of the usual sketchyness concerning the price of our tickets to the gorge (we were forced to buy them for the "local price", which is cheaper, but we were very unsure about whether or not our tickets were actually real!) we were dropped off on the side of the road and pointed in the direction of the trailhead--we were finally on our way into the mountains. With every step it seemed that there was a picture that demanded to be taken. (Go see our shutterfly.com page for all the pictures!) It was a rugged place as the trail balanced on the edge of cliffs over 3,600 meters (over 10,000 feet) above the rushing Yangtse River below. We read in a guidebook before we went that an average of 10 hikers are killed every year on this trail by landslides, so we were alert to any noise we heard the entire time. At one point we decided to stop and eat a snack. After a few minutes we felt a rumble and heard the crashing of a huge boulder tumbling down the slope, crushing trees, only about 15 meters behind us. We packed up and ran down the trail to relative safety. Only relative sately because we could always hear the echoes of rocks falling from cliffs all around us. Everything about the gorge was steep. The myth that gave the gorge its name is about a tiger who ran from some poachers and ended up on a precipice overlooking the gorge. He had nowhere else to run, so he leaped across and landed safely on the other side. The gorge is so narrow that this suppossedly happened in during the Ming Dynasty. When one looks across, the myth is almost believable.
We spent two days in this wild environment, eating and sleeping in the few small villages along the path, hiking on one of the most beautiful trails we've ever been on, eating the best food we had in China. It was easily one of the most awe-inspiring places we have ever been. We agreed we could easily spend a week back in the gorge. After we returned from the hike, we had to board a bus to Kunming so we could quickly get to Kali to visit a friend teaching English there. It took a bit longer than planned...

2006-03-16T23:32:00.000-08:00

After a 12 hour flight, we landed in the ice and snow of Beijing. Showing up in Beijing on the 6th of Feburary was like going home to Alaska during the same month. In other words, it was freezing and it even snowed during our first night and the entire next day. This was a dramatic change for us. When we left Australia just a day and a half before it was 105 F and we had bad sunburn. Due to the climate change (and Beijing's horrible pollution) we were sick in a matter of three days. But that is jumping ahead a bit...soon after landing we were on a bus from the airport to Beijing. This is a sprawling mass of traffic, pollution, and horrible looking buildings. Beijing has a population of a little over 15 million, which is large, but the city's physical space is far larger. No matter where we were we could never see past the smog and buildings, it was like being smothered by steel and tile and dirt. There were things to see in Beijing, however, so we had to stay. On our second day we went to the Forbidden City, located directly across the street from the infamous Tienanmen Square. The Forbidden City was the palace of Ming and Qing dynasty emperors and was built in the 14th century. Everything is symmetrical once one is inside the palace walls. It was very cool to see it in the snow.
On the morning of our third day we went to the real must-see of China, the Great Wall. It was a quick 3 hour ride in a packed van from our hostel to a tiny rural town nestled at the base of the wall. It seemed like every person in the town was out in the street selling their wares, calling to every one of us who got out of the van and grabing our arms, pulling us to their displays. As soon as we got out of the van, they were on us. Yelling, pleading, "Hello, hello...hello, sir, mam, CD, DVD, only one dollar! You want hats? Chopsticks? Jade dragon carvings? You want this! You need this!..." and it continues for as long as you are anywhere near them in the streets. Its freezing cold and they are standing outside in all of their clothes waiting all day for 15 western tourists come in a van. It is truly amazing.
After escaping the resident salespeople, we made our way up the thousands of steps to the wall itself. As I said earlier, it had snowed so getting to see the Great Wall in the snow was a great experience. Because of the cold there were many less people there than usual, so we got to walk around nearly alone. The landscape was stunning and the pictures here were unbelievable. We wandered atop the wall for three hours or so and then did something totally unique: we tobagganed down on this old ricketty sled setup. We got on these little sleds and were sent down a steel track (resembling a bobsled track) to the bottom. The ride took nearly 10 minutes and was well worth the money. No one else did this and we figured it would be a great story to tell. It was a great time, too!
On our third day we visited Mao's body. He's been dead since the late 1970's but was preserved and is laying in a masoleum (they really should have called it the "Mao-soleum," hehe). It was free to get in and every day there is a long line of Chinese tourists and locals waiting to pay their respects. They all buy flowers from the government-run flower retailer located immediately before the entrance to the masoleum and lay them before him once inside. They ran to buy them, so excited to be able to show their respect for him. Being an outsider, it was an interesting thing to be a part of.
One of our jobs while in Beijing was to get our Vietnam visas. We devoted our fourth day to this. On the walk back from the Vietnamese embassy, some pickpockets tried to get into our bag, but we averted them and they got nothing but some choice words from us. We did, however, make out better than an Israeli girl who we met in our dorm. She got her camera stolen a few hours before us on the same corner.
Brittany had arranged for us to meet up with some of her old friends from when she studied at Beijing University in 2002. We met them (Texas Dave and Lizhi) and they were kind enough to take us to a great restaurant (where we had duck, fish-head soup, and pork and taro root) and then show us one of the best coffee shops in Beijing. Dave works at an art gallery in the city's art district ans invited us to come visit him there the next day. We did and his gallery (and surrounding galleries) was great!
Finally, after a week, our time in Beijing had come to an end. We were tired of the constant pollution and we had seen all we neded to see there. So we hopped a train to Xi'an and 12 hours later we were there. Xi'an is the jump-off point for travellers hoping to see the Terracotta Warriors. They are located about 40kms outside the city. Looking at them and thinking of the massive amount of work involved in making them is enough to make the whole experience worth the trip. They are housed in huge modern stadium-like buildings constructed with a little help from UNESCO, as the warriors are a World Heritage Site. The whole area was quite a sight to see.
It was in Xi'an that we met Emma and Rebel, two Aussie girls who would become our travelling companions for the next 4 days. We met them at our hostel and then ended up bunked next to them on the train ride to our third stop, the city of Chengdu. It was great to have two other travellers who also loved to play cards (because that is one of the only things to do on very long train rides). After 15 hours on the train we finally pulled up to the station in Chengdu. We decided to all go to the same hostel. The hostel was located on a road that was very much under construction. It was completely dug up and muddy. The plan was to restore the street to the way it looked during the Ming dynasty, but the government was not moving fast enough for the local business owners, so they took things into their own hands. Every day we would see men in suitcoats and slacks digging up trenches for pipes and moving huge loads of bricks up and down the muddy street. Things in China are still done in the old way, with pick-axes and shovels and rickshaws. No matter how heavy the load it is carried by human power. It is astounding what they get done using only rudimentary equipment. I imagine the street our hostel was on will be back in use in a matter of weeks!
Chengdu is the city nearest the Giant Buddha, which the four of us came to see. The Giant Buddha is the worlds largest Buddha, standing 71 meters tall. It took 90 years to carve (from 723-813ad) and was envisioned by a crazy monk who convinced the government the project should be done by blinding himself! Thanks to his sacrifice, the Giant Buddha was a notable stop on our route through China.
From Chegdu we also visited the town where Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed called Huang Long Xi. It was an easy-going little town with beautiful boats in its quaint harbor and very clean streets...a remarkable difference from the polluted and dirty mass of Beijing.
From Chengdu our Australian friends headed east to Shanghai while we went west to Lijiang. This was the town where we would launch our hike into the high mountains of southwest China and finally breathe some gorgeous, clean mountain air...

2006-03-16T23:04:00.000-08:00

We are still alive...and in Bangkok, Thailand!
Holy crap do we have a lot to catch up on. I do believe our last post was from Australia, which means we have to blog the following countries: Malaysia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and here, Thailand. I suppose we ought to start from the beginning...
So after our alpaca farming experience in Richmond, Australia we boarded a plane from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (upper right). After an 8 hour flight, we were eager to get some food and some rest at the airport. We initially thought we had only a 4 hour layover during which we would just hang out at the beautiful and new KL airport. However, it turned out that we got to stay in KL for 20 hours, which was quite a long layover but worth it because we got to go into the city and experience at least a small bit of the country. We headed directly for the most prominent feature of the city, the Patronas Towers (left, right). These are the tallest towers in the world were amazing to stand below. We went inside and found that the first three floors house an enormous shopping mall (lower right), one that would rival the size of any mall we've ever been in. After our mall time, we took the monorail back to the bus station and headed for the airport. Malaysia was a bit of a blur for us, just enough time to grab some laksa (lower left), a traditional Malaysian noodle soup, then we were off to the frigid land that is China in its winter...

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

Reporting from alpaca central, Richmond, Australia...
Sydney was great, but still a big city, and after about a week and a half it was really starting to wear on us. We wanted something different from our Australian experience. So in to save the day came Lyn and Graeme Dickson, the most gracious and kind of hosts one could ask for. We boarded a train at Central Station in Sydney and about 2 hours and a number of kilometers northwest later we disembarked and walked out into the sun of the quaint city of Richmond. Lyn and Graeme are alpaca breeders and own Warralinga Alpaca Stud, a farm about 15 minutes outside of Richmond. Warralinga is a stunning piece of land, home to 108 of the finest alpacas, 3 of the most loyal dogs, a lone cat, and two of the best people we have ever met. We got to help Lyn and Graeme weed one of their paddocks, feed their alpacas, cut down a few dead Black Wattle trees overhanging their driveway, and help sort alpaca fleece. In exchange for our work we came closer to finalizing our knowledge of the game of cricket thanks to our hosts, we were allowed to hold a cria (baby alpaca), and have the great company of Lyn and Graeme for 6 days.
There was one downfall to our farm experience--the food was too good! We are on our way to China, where things will get a little, well...sketchy in the field of culinary delights. So as to contrast this future experience, Lyn and Graeme fed us very well. We already miss their food and we are eating well; will surely miss their food tomorrow when we arrive in Beijing!
On our third day we had to go back into Sydney to pick up our Indian visas, so Lyn volunteered to take us with her on a drive through the Blue Mountains. They were beautiful in the early sun and morning fog. We also got to look around an old town on the west side of the Blue Mountains called Bathurst, which we found to be a very friendly place for a cup of coffee.
Working with and around alpacas was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us. Their intelligence fascinated us. Instinctively they go to the bathroom (or the "loo" if you are in NZ or Australia) in the same place and when they move about their fields (or "paddocks" downunder) they basically use the same walkways over and over. It is seriously amazing. They are kind and inquisitive animals and thus they were a kick to be around!
Brittany got lucky enough to hold one of the baby alpacas, known to breeders as a "cria". After the initial shock of getting picked up, the cria didn't mind being held at all...but its mother did and came over to Brittany immediately to see what this girl was doing with here baby!
Sorting alpaca fleece takes a specific and keen kinesthetic ability, which both of us lacked completely. Luckily, Graeme and Lyn taught us how to pull the rough hair from the soft fleece in order to sort the fleece for sale. This was a very unique experience, one which we will probably never be able to have again (unless, of course, Graeme accepts our invitation to come to Alaska and coach our soon-to-be newly formed cricket team, and Lyn joins him to help us get our alpaca breeding straight on our future alpaca farm!) We can only hope...
The dogs, Molly and Riley (loyal and playful Australian cattle dogs) and Eliza (a warm-hearted and gentle English pointer) made our stay on the farm all the better. They were always looking for a good pet from any willing person (some things are just completely universal). The three of them made a great team. (dogs, learning Australian phrases, etc.)
We can't express properly how fantastic a time we had with Graeme and Lyn and their animal crew! We only hope we can rightfully return the favor in the near future. Thank you both very much for the experiences!
More from Kuala Lumpur, en route to China, where the real adventure begins...
Our best always,
Ryan and Brittany

2006-01-29T03:00:00.000-08:00

From Sydney... After spending a little less than three weeks in Sydney, the verdict is in--Sydney is really beautiful, really exciting, and really, really expensive. Finacial matters aside, though, Sydney is a great place full of gorgeous beaches, helpful cityfolk, and one heck of an opera house! More on that later... A lot of Sydneysiders (residents) and travelers alike questioned why we chose to visit Australia for only 2 and a half weeks. We had two answers: 1) Australia was really expensive, and 2) it was more of a visit for business rather than pleasure. Our main task in Australia was to obtain Chinese and Indian visas so we could continue our journey. We did just that but only after aimlessly wandering through every street and back alley in Sydney proper due to some very bad directions. In the end, both governments decided to let us in. A wonderful choice on their part, we think. The expense of the city caused us to find cheap or free ways to amuze ourselves. Luckily, we are creative kids. On our second night we decided to take a walk over to the Sydney Opera House. We made a great choice in going that night as it was gorgeous--the evening sun was setting, a refreshing breeze had come about, and many sailboats were out in the harbor. It was a stunning night, and we took some fantastic pictures. Then, after admiring the opera house, we came around the front and noticed that there was a huge screen set up to show the Australian Open (a tennis tournament happening in Melbourne during our stay in Sydney) and it was being broadcasted live on the opera house steps. We sat with a few hundred other folks and watched a match. That night out was surely one of the highlights of the trip thus far. Later that week, we played ultimate frisbee in Hyde Park among the Ibis, possums, bats, and Rainbow Lorikeet Parrots (we really got stared at here -- perhaps frisbee isn't a local game?), visited three famed Aussie beaches (Bondi, Maroubra, and Manly, the last at which Brittany was stung by a Blue Bottle Jellyfish), soaked up Australian pride via "Australia Day", and took in a free opera in The Domain near Hyde Park (Puccini's "Madame Butterfly"). Throughout our stay we continued finding ourselves at a Sydney district called King's Cross (known as "the Cross") which is home to the most diverse range of prostitutes (age, size, gender, ethnicity, you name it...) we had ever encountered. Among the prostitutes, of course, are the cheaper hostels...thus drawing us and many others into the area. The area provided an amazing array of drug and sex deals during every hour of the day and it became clear why it was known as the center of the "Sydney Underworld". (On left, just one of the many "massage" signs which served as a contant reminder of what kind of neighborhood we were staying in). Living in this area for much of our stay in Sydney meant we had to always be on our toes. Our saving grace and what/who kept us out of King's Cross for a full 5 days was a program called CouchSurfing and a Navy communications expert from Tasmania named Ryan (pictured right). Ryan hosted us in on his couch (which offered a breath-taking view of Sydney, left) and toured us around the city, showing us Sydney's Chinese New Year celebrations, his Navy ship, the Sydney Harbor Bridge, and the cheapest pub meal we experienced in Australia. On top of this he introduced us to Aussie programming ("Kath & Kim" is a must see if you have a chance) and local bands such as The Cat Empire and Powderfinger. Thank you Ryan! We hope to see you in Alaska sometime to return the favor! A few crazy things about Sydney: the damn bus system makes zero sense whatsoever (much of our time on Australia Day was spent trying to get to an Aussie BBQ that we finally arrived to after it was over!), everything, literally everything, is named after stuff in London (e.g.- Paddington, Hyde Park, King's Cross, the list goes on and on), the general lack of bathrooms in public businesses (painful), the unbelievable amount and the ambiguity of prostitutes working the streets. On another, more subtle, note we noticed that in many cases there is a seperate shop for the butcher, the baker, and fruit, and people buy their meat, bread, and produce from them rather than larger chain grocery stores. Just like the old days... Best wishes always! The alpaca stud farm posting is next, so look out... Ryan & Brittany

2006-01-22T19:45:00.000-08:00

Old McDonald had a...kunikuni?
Yes, indeed (see picture on left)! Brittany's folks drove us to our final New Zealand destination, a six hectre organic farm with 100 macadamia nut trees, Maori potatoes, Yacon (a South American root), three main vegetable gardens, sheep (to Ryan's sweet delight), cows, pigs, chickens, one goose, and a kunikuni (what we would call a pot-bellied pig) named Babe (unfortunately the other kunikuni, Elvis, was too aggressive and had to be given away). Also, possums are the primary pest on New Zealand farms so most of them that got anywhere close to our farm looked like this, on the left(Raymond and Geneva invested in these brilliant little possum traps). Beyond these fantastic features we were lucky to start our WWOOFing experience with two wonderful hosts, Raymond and Geneva, who taught us how to weed with a hoe (c'mon we are city kids!), pick oranges, pull potatoes, and feed the animals. The orange picking was quite exciting as Ryan received his "welcome-to-the-orchard" pair of wasp stings. Apparently, wasps like to live in the tops of orange trees which Ryan (being tall and all) got to pick from. But the picking had to go on, and so it did.
On many of the days after work on the farm Raymond became an incredible local tour guide showing us thermal pools (which nearly burned our britiches off -- one pool, "Favorite", was literally boiling...at left, Ryan looks cold, but he assures you he is not!), the local Saturday market (which sells only organic fruits and veggies), the Waipoua Forest (which houses huge, 2,000 year-old Kauri trees - the largest in New Zealand, pictured behind us, right), Hokianga Harbour (below), and Opononi.

It was a treat to work an entire week on such a dedicated farm. We learned about using rhubarb as a natural pesticide (and Brittany demonstrated her vast knowledge of rhubarb making a strawberry rhubarb pie!) and using comfrey as a natural energy booster for the plants (the leaves can literally be made into a sun tea that is poured onto needy plants). Geneva and Raymond use the Maori Calendar in their planting and farming practices. Although there are many facets to the process we learned that planting is best done on the day after the full and new moon. We had the priveledge to learn quite a bit about Maori culture, myths, language, and the social struggle that still exists between the native Maoris and the government of New Zealand.

From day one Ryan did his best to bond with the animals. Each night he would go out with a hand full of orange wedges and make friends with the pigs, cows, chickens, sheep, and Babe. At one point we had about 60 pictures of him feeding oranges to the cows! By the end of the week the animals would come up to him or follow him as he worked around the farm during the day. Whether it was true love or just the sent of oranges, we will never know...
An excellent time with two excellent people! We wish we could have stayed longer! Thank you for an amazing week Raymond and Geneva!
Our best always,
Ryan & Brittany

2006-01-22T15:45:00.000-08:00

G'day, all,
We are still in Sydney, about to try our first Couchsurfing experience. I'll save the explanation of what this is because there is a link to the website at the bottom of our page. Anyway, we still have some catching up to do...where were we?...ah, yes, the end of the Routeburn. After completing the hike/swim (hehe) we took off toward the south island's east coast, our sights set on camping in Christchurch that evening. However, in a place as beautiful as New Zealand, plans change. So we ended up rerouting to a place called Hanmer Springs, known for its hot pools. The water was tremendous and after a very relaxing day-and-a-half there we ventured finally to Christchurch and got to see kiwis (the nearly extinct flightless birds) in their natural habitat. They were so great to see, just little egg-shaped furballs with huge beaks pecking around at everything! We stayed that night in a little place called Kaikoura where whale whatching was all the rage. We didn't have time to partake and we have all seen plenty of whales being from a coastal city in Alaska, so we pressed on immediately the next morning to Picton, where we caught the ferry back to Wellington on the north island.
Our original plans called for skydiving in Queenstown right after completing the Routeburn. Weather made that an impossibility. With jumping out of a plane on our minds, we planned then to jump at Lake Taupo on the north island. But we were too pressed for time...so our hope is to eventually skydive with the Goodnights and the Kingreas back in Girdwood, AK (eh, what do you guys think?). Sounds great to us!
Our remaining time in New Zealand with the whole Goodnight family was spent on the north island swimming in Lake Taupo, hiking the Tongariro Crossing (a nicely sized volcano with awesome lava formations), and fishing for world reknown New Zealand trout in the Tongariro River. It was great to see Greg (Brittany's dad) completely giddy over the fishing! Sadly, the day came to say goodbye to Tyler (Brittany's brother) as we dropped him off at the Auckland airport. As for the remaining four of us, we continued north to Whengarie, the largest city north of Auckland. This was the weirdest part of the trip. In a town of 70,000 people fully equiped with shopping malls and large buildings and expressways we saw no more than 10 people and fewer cars still. This was very odd feeling, somewhat like being on an abandoned movie set, built only for one film. Crazy. After one night in this erie city, we drove further north to Paihia and swam one last time in the New Zealand ocean. We ate a great lunch here and then were dropped off in the smallest of small towns, Ohaeawai to begin our first WWOOFing experience. We said our sad goodbyes to Greg and Engle as they turned around to catch their flight home to Alaska from Auckland.
In the next update, we will cover our farm time...
Our best,
Ryan & Brittany

2006-01-19T16:02:00.000-08:00

Allo, mates!
We have now made it to "the land-down-under," "the Oz," "Roo land"...Australia, that is. However, we have plenty to catch up on before talking about any of this. Accordingly, we are going to start from where we left off, which was right before we left to hike the Routeburn Track, a 28km trail in Fiordlands National Park. A bit about the Routeburn Track...it is an ancient Maori trail originally used by them for mining Greenstone (I understand this to be something resembling jade). European settlers discovered it sometime in the 17oo's and continued to use it for mining purposes. Then in the early 20th century, it became part of the New Zealand national park system. The track is a notoriously wet and rainy place, as we soon found out (upon returning to Queenstown after the trek we discovered that Fiordlands National Park actually has the second highest yearly rainfall of any place in the world, averaging 21 feet per year!). We wanted to see the sights so we planned for a 3 night/4 day hike though the trail only requires 2 nights/3 days. This was very much to our benefit seeing that we only got one rain-free day, but what a day that was! This was our second day, the day that contained our largest gain in elevation, a majority of the hiking in terms of distance (11.8kms) and the most spectacular views. If there was a day that needed to be gorgeous this was it, and we got very lucky as you can see! The Harris Saddle, the highest point on the trek, had a fantastic day hike which Brittany, Tyler (Brittany's brother), and I did! The scenery was quite similar to what one would see in Alaska, but the flora here was very different and much more dense. Beautiful! Day three was uneventful, overcast and drizzling, but we only had an hour of hiking to do. Our final night and morning were other stories altogether. We thought we had seen some rain on day 1...we were sadly mistaken. The forecast called for a massive front to move in and cause rain for the next 3 or 4 days. We thought it was going to to be wet, so we prepared accrodingly (or so we thought!). Well, it turned out like this...it rained 200mm (8 inches) from 6pm to midnight and blew like crazy. Then for the next morning we got a little over an inch per hour, during which everything we had got completely soaked. The trail was washed out in three places, and when I say washed out, I don't mean little trickles here and there, I mean there was a knee-high river where the trail was the day before! Most exciting was when we had to pass under a waterfall which usually falls harmlessly by the side of the trail. During this storm, however, we were forced to pass through the waterfall. The river that fed it had swollen such that the falls actually spilled out over the only passable section of trail! At this point, bodies, clothes, backpacks, and their contents were drenched completely. Luckily, this obstacle was very near the end of the trail, so we were wet, but out of the rain finally.
This was a great adventure in great country with great people. Having to struggle always brings people closer together and our struggle against the elements on the Routeburn did just that to our group. It was a wonderful and memorable experience indeed!
More later as we catch up on our trip to date!
Best always,
Ryan and Brittany
As with our Fiji post we thought we would continue with the interesting and odd observations we have had here. Probably the most consistent differences are the extreme paternalistic regulations. We have witnessed excessive meningitis warnings, a cornicopia of public service announcements about not falling asleep at the wheel (we should have taken pictures of some of these billboards), and what feels like an overly cautious and wary system at large.

2005-12-28T16:36:00.000-08:00

Hello from New Zealand! We are now about a week-and-a-half (out of four) into our NZ experience. currently we are located in a campground in Queenstown. However, before we get into discussing NZ, we have a bit to catch up on regarding Fiji. Our last post was from Suva was early on in our stay on the east side of the island. We left Suva on Dec 18 (Ryan's b-day) and took a bumpy bus ride to an awesome place about 35 minutes north of Suva called the Raintree Lodge. It was by far the most upscale place we stayed to that point. Very, very clean and fantasticly good food! The lodge was located near a dense jungle, in which we got lost with two great English folks we had met 6 days earlier on Mana island! We all set out on a hike to find Waisila Falls, a cool little waterfall in the middle of the jungle, and the Upper and Lower Pools, the terracing pools surrounding the falls area. The hike to find all these things was only suppossed to take 30 minutes...but we took a few adventurous wrong turns and 30 minutes turned into 4 hours. We saw a lot of that jungle, and the hike was quite strenuous, but it all made our jump into the pools that much more refreshing when we actually got there! The experience turned out to be awesome, easily one of the highlights of the entire trip! We returned to the lodge and ate a great meal (Ryan's b-day dinner!) and then played pool with our fellow jungle wanderers. It was a tremendous night! The next morning we took the bus back to Nadi (an incredibly uncomfortable 4 hour affair) and stayed our last night at Horizon Backpackers (the place with great pizza which I believe we discussed earlier). After one cooling swim in their pool we endured the hottest and most horrifically uncomfortable night of our lives in a 20-person dorm room. So on zero sleep we boarded our Air Pacific flight bound for Auckland, NZ--a modern bustling metropolis very similar to Seattle.
In Auckland we met up with Alex (one of Brittany's grandmother's friend's nieces) who was kind enough to show us around NZ's largest city. She hooked us up with a great place to stay for our first night (thank you so much, Alex!). The next morning at 7am we met Brittany's family at the airport, picked up a rental car (just small enough to make our travels interesting), and embarked on our NZ adventure. As if the small car (stuffed full of camping gear) wasn't a sufficient challenge, driving on the left side of the road was! Crazy...but we now have the hang of it, no problem...well, some problems, I guess, but we've done fine. From Auckland we stayed with Iris and Allen, two more of Brittany's grandmother's connections, who fed us very well and gave us soft beds to sleep on (thank you, Iris and Allen!). On the morning of the 22nd we left Iris and Allen's house and drove to Rotorua, the hot-spring hot spot in NZ, to experience the hot springs for ourselves. They were wonderful! After meeting some locals and camping at a farm of some sort, we continued our journey, stopping that night at a campground in Wellington. On our way, we ate lunch in a town notably called Bulls. We thought the name was a kick in the pants, especially considering that every square foot of NZ land to that point was covered in sheep! The next leg of our trip was by ferry, across the Cook Straight, to a little port town called Picton. From there we got a different rental car (amazingly, one with a smaller truck!) and drove to the Able Tazman National Park. This is truly an unbelievably beautiful place. The clearest water, the most perfectly formed rocks, the most amazing white sand beaches! We will probably return to the Able Tazman. The pictures should tell the story about this place! We stayed there for 3 nights and spent every minute of every day swimming, climbing, and hiking. Completely amazing! After packing up (regretably), we pushed on to the gold-rush town Hokitika, where we spent the night in a beautiful and quirky little campground next to a milk factory. On the way to Hokitika we stopped in the most incredible berry farm we've ever seen in Richmond. Berries and berry ice cream abound! A very refreshing stop for 5 road weary folks! We also stopped at Punakaiki, a geologically crazy place with "pancaked" limestone formations carved by the sea, and blow holes, geysers caused by the waves hitting the rock formations. This is a stop that must be made by anyone coming to NZ! From Hokitika we had the longest leg of our trip, a 7 hour epic drive to Queenstown, where we are currently camping. Tomorrow we will leave Queenstown to hike for 4 days on the Routeburn Track in Fiordlands (sic, they don't spell "fjiord" with a "j" here...makes sense!) National Park. Whew...that's it so far! I am sure it will be an eventful 4 days of hiking, climbing, swimming, leaping, jumping, etc, etc. So until later, our best, and thanks for keeping up with us on the blog!
Happy New Year and Best Wishes always, Ryan and Brittany

2005-12-14T15:31:00.000-08:00

In Fiji!

Bula (hello, welcome, etc) from the hub of the South Pacific! After 15 hours on planes we reached Fiji on December 6th. We were barraged at the Nadi International Airport by aggressive Fijian travel agents who saw fresh meat off the plane from LA, but we managed to make it out alive and with a good deal on a week-long stay on beautiful Mana Island.

After a night's stay at the Traveller's Beach Hostel we embarked on a picturesque 45 minute boat ride to our next hostel, Mereani's Backpackers Inn on Mana Island. Mama Martha (pictured right) and her staff of Mana Island locals took wonderful care of us. Our stay at Mereani's was refreshingly rustic. Aside from Ryan's dislike of corn, pea, and carrot pizza we have done quite well for ourselves food wise. Brittany even ate ground beef with pasta!

After our first few days we got into the island groove, which meant a lot of relaxing, playing card and dice games, beach walks, and snorkeling the beautiful reefs surrounding the island. Translucent tourquoise water surrounded the island and allowed amazing clairty for snorkeling and an amazing foreground for the sunsets. At most the water was 30 feet deep, allowing us to see a diverse array of fish (parrot, angel, etc) and aquatic wildlife (sea stars, sea cucumbers, urchins, eels, etc). Even on the overcast days the underwater views were great--the sunburn, however, was not!

As luck would have it we are in Fiji for its hottest month. The temperature has not dropped below 80 degrees F during the day since we arrived, and the humidity has been completely relentless to boot. While Ryan is just starting to tan, Brittany's skin has reached a whole new level of redness. Even with 10 applications of 45 spf sunblock per day, the heat and humidity don't allow her skin enough dry time to absorb the block. Ahhh, the equator!

We've made great friends from around the world (Fiji, Denmark, Australia, and England thus far). Pictured below are Andrew & Rhiannon (right) of Cumbria (Go Villa!) and Mark, Heidi, Brittany, and Kebee (center) of Australia, Denmark and Fiji, respectively. These are awesome people with whom we had a wondeful time on Mana Island.

Both in Nadi and on Mana we got to see traditional Polynesian dances, including Somoan Fire Dancing (below). Andy and Rhiannon told us they saw one female performer who accidentally caught half of her head on fire while dancing. While our experience was not that extreme, the dancing was amazing!

We have noticed a few interesting things during our first week. First, it seems like many dogs do not get fixed here, causing a ton of milk-toting mothers and many cute puppies. Second, while there is a recycling program in place for bottles, what does not fit into this category--any other trash--gets burned. Third, we are some of the only Americans here. We have met a ton of Fijians, other Pacific Islanders, Europeans, and Aussies on holiday, but thus far we are some of the only folks from the US (literally we have met only two others).

We are now in Suva (the capital) with five days left in Fiji, after which we will travel to Auckland, New Zealand. There we will meet Brittany's family (Greg, Engel, and Tyler) and begin a three-week car camping adventure on the North and South Islands. Until then, we plan to explore Suva and the Coral Coast. Suva is a modern city with all of the services and amenities one would expect in any major city (government buildings, port, UN regional offices, and rugby and soccer stadiums). On the local bus ride to Suva (three hours...or so..."Fiji Time") we were treated to six seven-man rugby matches featuring the dominant Fijian team. From the information in today's paper it looks as though Fiji won the Hong Kong Rugby Open by beating the New Zealand All Blacks in the championship. For those who know rugby that is a pretty big deal!

Overall, Fiji is an amazingly beautiful place with great people--but its just too damn hot! Signing off with promises of a full Fiji report in a much cooler place, Auckland, New Zealand...

Best,
Brittany & Ryan

2005-11-06T14:14:00.000-08:00

In Alaska!

Here are some pictures of us in our homeland of Alaska in November. It is particularily cold for this time of year, even for Alaska. Anyway, here we are three weeks from our departure to Figi...

We leave Alaska in five days! After many family meals, odd jobs, and immunizations we are ready to leave--as ready as we will ever be.

2005-10-30T10:40:00.000-08:00

In Seattle...

Here are some pictures of our last frisbee game at the University of Washington IMA fields with math and computer science students.

We say goodbye to Seattle tonight at 8:45 as we take off for our homeland, Alaska. We will enjoy a good long month with our family and friends before embarking on our worldly adventure. I will miss this city and my experiences here. However, I am very excited about seeing my people again and then flying around the globe. It is a matter of hours now...

...Are Ryan and Brittany?

2005-09-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

Hello All! Welcome to the little corner of the internet that has been designated for us, Ryan Kingrea and Brittany Goodnight, two young and wonderful people embarking on an amazing adventure for one year of our lives. What is that adventure?

To take one year and travel all the way around the world...and not die!

Ambitious? Yes. But with a solid plan and a little help from our friends, it will be an unbelievable experience.

Before answering the question of where we posed in the title of the blog, it seems important to find out who we are.

Now, for some basic info about us as individuals...

Ryan Kingrea
Age: 25 (26th birthday will be celebrated in Fiji)
Home State/Country: Alaska, USA
Hometown: Eagle River, Alaska
Education: BA, Philosophy, University of Alaska-Anchorage
Power Animal: Goose
Language Background: English, studied Russian in high school and a bit in college
Favorite Movie: Fight Club
Favorite Book: Candid
Loves: Hiking, biking, hockey, paintball, reading, frisbee, climbing, coffee shops, and Brittany

Brittany Goodnight
Age: 23 (24th birthday will be celebrated in China)
Home State/Country: Alaska, USA
Hometown: Chugiak, Alaska
Education: BA, International Studies w/minor in Chinese, University of Washington-Seattle
Power Animal: Penguin
Language Background: English, studied Japanese in high school, 3 years of Mandarin Chinese in college, and trying to learn Spanish...
Favorite Movie: Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing
Next movies to see: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and David Lynch's Blue Velvet
Favorite book read in 2005: Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club
Book I just finished: Amy Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife
Loves: Ryan, trips to the Alaskan beach with my family, books for a $1, being a student, not being a student, + everything that Ryan mentioned (except for paintball!)

So that's us in a very small nutshell.

==================================================================== BLOG COMPASS
Now for some notes on how to interpret our blog. We will be making posts both jointly and separately, so to help alliviate the confusion we will have color coded posts denoting whose it was.
Ryan's Posts= Red
Brittany's Posts= Blue
Joint Posts= Black
This should simplify things at least a bit. This way there won't be any questions about who the "I" was referring to in a post, or anything like that.
====================================================================

Ok, now that we have that out of the way, we can get to the good stuff...

~ Our Official Itinerary for the Year ~

From December 2005 to December 2006 we will travel to:

USA -> Fiji (Dec. 6-20) -> New Zealand (Dec. 20-mid Jan.) -> Australia (Mid Jan.-Feb. 6)-> China (Feb. 6-...)-> Thailand -> Laos ->
Cambodia -> Vietnam (...-April 6)-India (April 6-...)-> Nepal (...-June 2)-> Egypt (June 2-...)-> Turkey -> Greece -> Italy -> Spain -> Morocco -> (If possible: Wales - > Ireland -> Scotland) - > (If possible: cheap trips around Africa, the Middle East, or other parts of Europe) - > Netherlands -> Brazil -> Argentina -> Chile -> Peru -> Panama -> USA

This trip is largely being made possible due to two organizations: couchsurfing.com and Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF). We plan to participate in both programs as we cross the globe in order to find a greater range of deapth and interaction with folks, and to help offset our living costs. If you know of other programs that could help serve these purposes please let us know!

==================================================================== RESOURCES

Thinking of planning a trip yourself? The following resources are particularly vital to our trip and seem like good tips to pass on:

Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOF): www.wwoof.org

Courch Surfing: www.couchsurfing.com

Hostel Locator - Lonely Planet Website: http://reservations.bookhostels.com/lonelyplanet.com/ OR http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travel_services/trvl_accomo.cfm

"A Rough Guide Special: First-Time Around the World, A Trip Planner for the Ultimate Journey" by Doug Lansky

International Student Identity Card/International Youth Travel Card (supported by UNESCO): isic.com

Northwest Airlines (ask for the Around the World Trip desk): 1-800-225-2525