A Very Bavarian Birthday

Neuschwanstein Castle - Germany

Well I’m 31 now. I’m into my 30’s officially. To be honest, I’m not feeling super great about it. I liked being 30 and wasn’t totally ready for that to be over. But oh well, no real choice about it, so I figured we should get on with the celebrating!

We debated on where to go for a while – a birthday in Paris would be so romantic, a birthday skiing in the Alps would be so exciting, or maybe Amsterdam? But turns out that Europe is stinkin’ expensive!! Just the train ticket to Paris is $350 Euros! And that’s before you get a hotel. And I’m quite certain that if I was in Paris for my birthday there is no hope of me stopping myself from going out to incredible meals, eating my weight in cheese and pastries and drinking ridiculous wine – that is to say it would have gotten really expensive really fast. Same goes for skiing (plus, the snow reports say there’s not any good snow yet).

So we decided to go to one of the “must see” sights in Germany – the Neuschwanstein Castle. It’s this gorgeous castle set up on a rugged mountain surrounded by gorges, and it’s right on the border of Austria in the beginning of the Alps. It was the inspiration for Disney’s Sleeping Beauty Castle, you can really see the similarities.

Neuschwanstein Castle - Germany So that was the plan, but of course plans go awry! Its supposed to be a four hour drive to the castle, so we left early in the morning with plans to make to the castle, then spend the night in the hour-away mountain town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Oh important tidbit, while we didn’t get a white Christmas, we got a white day after Christmas… and every day since then! So there’s a good amount of snow already, and as we’re leaving it starts coming heavily down again. So our four hour drive turned into eight+ hours to get to the castle. We arrive there and park, but can’t see the castle because of the snow coming down. We go to buy tickets to go up, and learn that we got there 10 minutes AFTER the ticket office closed. So no princess castle for Lizzy on her birthday.

Snow Driving - Germany

Knowing it’s taken twice as long to drive as we had planned, we decide to leave for our hotel immediately since it’s going to take a couple hours and make the most of it. The drive was absolutely gorgeous and took us through Austria for the majority of the time. The snow was really fluffy and I just couldn’t help myself, when we got stuck in traffic I jumped out and made snow angels!

Snow drive to Neuschwanstein Castle - Germany

Snow drive to Neuschwanstein Castle - Germany The hotel was great and we quickly headed into town to grab dinner and figure out where to celebrate. We walked a couple blocks and found the “Grill und Wein” restaurant we were hoping for, and then found it was closed for the holidays, as were most of the other nice places in town. So what did we do??? Exactly what you do anywhere in the world when you’re celebration plans don’t work out… you find the Irish Pub! And there was one just down the street. After a birthday pint of Bavarian brew there, we went to grab pizza for dinner, promising our new Irish pub friends to be back shortly.

Birthday Bavarian style

After our quick dinner we returned to a big welcome from the Irish pub. Seriously, how is it that every Irish pub in the world consistently delivers a guaranteed good night?! We made lots of friends there and closed the place down at about 4:00 AM!

Birthday party

The next morning we were up early and ready to see this castle! We made it back to the castle and this time were able to get tickets AND we could see the castle from a distance. It definitely lived up to the hype!!

Neuschwanstein Castle - Germany It’s a 40 minute walk up the hill, which was like walking in a winter wonderland.

Neuschwanstein Castle - Germany

We took the required tour to see the inside and it was equally as impressive. Both Rick and I agreed that of all of the famous, historical buildings we’ve seen on this trip and others, this was our favorite! It’s beautifully made inside, and intricate and in great condition. Sorry, no photos allowed inside so I don’t have any share 🙁

Neuschwanstein Castle - Germany

King Ludwig II who built it was considered insane. I can see why from even just the exterior design, it’s so different from other castles. It took 23 years to build. The king moved in before it was completed… and good thing because he only got to live in it for one year before he died. King Ludwig was a recluse and built it for complete seclusion, the plan was for the castle to be “sacred and out of reach” from people… and only six weeks after he died the castle was opened to the public. It’s in the top three most visited places in Germany. Guess that didn’t work out so well for him!

It was pretty awesome to see. I’m really glad we visited while we were in Germany.

Neuschwanstein Castle - GermanySnow Flake

But I have to admit the 18+ hours of driving was kind of a beat down so it was really great to get lots of emails and Facebook comments from everyone back home! Thanks for making me feel special on my birthday! Cheers!Birthday Bavarian style

Christmas Time in Germany

Its feels really cold to us here, but we’re told it’s actually very unseasonably warm for Christmas time in Germany. Usually there’s snow on the ground, but since it’s in the high 30’s-40’s its just drizzle. But they’re reporting that we’re about to get some really cold weather – starting the 26th temperatures drop and there’s supposed to be heavy snow.

I’ve also gotten to cook while we’ve been here at Song’s – YEA!! I really did miss cooking, and Rick says he missed my cooking (although may be he’s just tired of eating Asian street food?). What was the first meal he requested? Chili of course! So I made a big pot of chili and Rick has eaten just about all of it already.

We are going to a friend of Song’s for Christmas Day. They are also Americans in the military stationed here. I’ve been emailing with Mel (our host) and she is going ALL OUT for the Christmas meal. And I’m excited to get to make some favorites to bring – mashed potatoes, lil smokie crescent roll wraps and a kale salad. It’s funny to look at that list of things and think I’m excited and proud to make them, since I’m usually trying to do something much more interesting, fancy, unique. But I think Rick and I are both craving some of the basics from home.

Speaking of which, we got to go to the BX and Commissary on the air force base, and it was awesome! It’s like a full American grocery store, Walmart and Macy’s all wrapped into one. It’s the first time we’ve seen products we’re used to in months! Plus being able to say I went shopping at the Commissary is just really cool. We have our official military IDs now too!

badges

It has been so incredibly nice to have a “home” to be in for the last few days. We’ve been staying pretty close to “home”, plus there are cool castles and markets to see right around here.

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But after Christmas I think we’re going head out a bit further. I’m hoping we can either go to France or go skiing for my birthday. And Song has made plans for us to spend New Years in Brussels! I don’t know anything about Brussels, but we’re excited!

Since we hadn’t really planned to come to Europe, we don’t have any idea what to do or see in France or Belgium. (Germany has been easier since Song knows it really well). Any one have any suggestions for France or Belgium?

What I’m Learning So Far: 3 Months of Travel

What I'm Learning So FarWe have been traveling for three months now. As predicted, it feels like it has flown by! When we were preparing for this trip, we thought through what we wanted to get out of it, what we wanted to learn, how we hoped it would change us and grow us. It was intimidating to come up with those big scary goals, and it was impossible to say how we would grow. But almost daily as we are traveling, Rick and I find ourselves talking about something we’re learning, or something we had as head knowledge, but is really sinking in now.

So I figured I would share a few of those thoughts. As I got into writing this, it turned into a MUCH longer post than I initially thought. So I’m breaking it up into a series of them. Here’s the first installment, in no particular order:

1) Stop Spending Your Energy Looking for The Best

You’re better off making the most of where ever you are, than trying to figure out where you should be. I’m really bad at this. Like really, really bad.

I’m learning that with perpetual travel like we’re doing, you are basically constantly in planning mode. It’s very different from a vacation – where it’s super fun to plan, you spend weeks or months learning about a place, what to see, where to stay, eat, what are the “can’t miss” things there. But when that’s everyday, it’s gets really overwhelming and there’s just not enough time. I can’t plan for the next country we’ll be in because I’m trying to figure out where the heck we are right now, what we’re not supposed to miss, where we’re sleeping and how we’re getting from the train station to somewhere that’s not in the ghetto. So if I let it (and sometimes I do), every moment of every day could be spent planning where to go next, what to see – and even if you have time to do any of those “best things” at that point, you have no energy to because you’re beat down from all of the researching.

Confession: I am TERRIBLE about this!! (And if you knew me back in Texas, you’re probably nodding along that I was terrible about this at home too) What’s worse is that I’ve dragged Rick down into this habit with me – he didn’t used to do it – but I’ve brought him to the dark side. And this habit is what starts the majority of our frustration and fights I think.

As I’m writing this, God is definitely speaking to me, “Liz, why do you think you do that?…. Hint, hint, is it because you struggle with control? Is it because you too often forget that I have a plan for where I want you to be and when I want you to be there? Do you forget to trust my timing and hand on you?” Yes, nailed it, God!

You’re better off going to one of the first places you find, it may be mediocre or flat out crappy, but you’ve saved yourself a ton of stress and you actually have energy remaining to enjoy it. That goes from the smallest things, like the restaurant you’re eating at or which temple to visit, to the bigger travel things like which country in Southeast Asia to go to or which island to stay on.

There’s a danger to always looking for, seeking out the best, always trying to figure it out and get to it. I’m an addict though. I always want to figure out what the best option is and go for that one. But it’s easy to miss where you are when you’re mid-super-research-and-planning-extravaganza looking for the best. And certain moments in a mediocre place can be so much more fulfilling, memorable, and meaningful than the time you would spend in that perfect place. Make the most of where you are, instead of looking for the best place – I’ll be working on this one for the next leg of our journey.

Learning - Good Luck

2) I Don’t Have To Have It All Figured Out

Actually I only have to have a very, very little bit figured out – Who God is, and who I am to God. Everything else will work out, as long as I’m focused on those two things.

 

3) Learning What I Like: Mountains, Countryside

Being free to be where I want, having those options, has helped me to realize things I enjoy most. Previously, living in a city, I kind of assumed that I liked getting out into nature, the country, just because it was different that what I saw everyday. But now that we are bouncing around between cities and more rural places, Rick and I have both found that we really like being out in nature much more that being in even the most interesting and beautiful cities. Not a huge break though here, but good to know. I’ve also determined that I’m a mountain person. I’m just happier at altitude and with mountains as my backdrop. Even when I’m at some of the most beautiful beaches in the world I would rather be in the mountains. I’m looking forward to continuing to learn more of these innate preferences as we continue the journey.

PS – For Rick, definitely countryside over city. He could do beaches or mountains, definitely not as strong of a preference as me, but he leans towards mountains.

Learning - mountains…well that’s probably already too long for one post, so I’ll stop there and pick up in another post.

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas… in Germany!

We originally planned to be somewhere in Southeast Asia for Christmas, before heading to Africa. But while in Thailand we started missing the usual surroundings of Christmas season – the cold weather, the decorations, people getting into the holiday spirit. We also wanted to be around friends, people we knew at Christmas, not just strangers.

So we kinda went rogue! We started thinking about where we would be Christmas-y and where we knew people. And places that were somewhat on the way from Asia to Africa. Our friend Song came to mind. We had met him while trekking the Annapurna Circuit in September. It was a total shot in the dark, but we emailed and asked if by any chance he would be around and up for a couple of house guests. To our delight, he said “Come on!” So we booked our tickets for Christmas in Germany.

P1100475It’s been so much fun to hang out with Song and meet his friends. And Germany is the capital of Christmas Markets! We took an outing to a couple of Christmas markets. The first one was in Bernkastel-Kues, an adorable valley with vineyards all around, the drive was beautiful. It was a small market, but the town itself was so cute and festive. We had our first Gluehwein (pronounced Glue-vine), which is hot spiced wine. Thank goodness for it because the weather was COLD!! Maybe it’s coming from the beaches that makes it feel so cold to us, or maybe it’s that it’s damp and windy and there’s no sun. Either way, I was very happy to have hot wine!

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The next day Song took us to the Heidelberg Christmas Market. We got to see the lights up at the market and enjoy more gluehwein and some bratwurst. It was so much fun.

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There were beautiful Christmas decorations everywhere! P1100505 P1100495Yesterday we were on our own since Song had to work. We planned to drive to Baden-Baden, but when were about halfway there we stopped for a coffee in this small town and the sweet owner of the shop told us there was a really nice old city we should see just ten minutes away, Wissembourg. We thought “sure, why not?” and reset the destination in the GPS. About ten minutes later we realized Wissembourg is actually in France! Its so crazy to us to be able to just drive over to another country.

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The old town was beautiful and we decided to forget about Baden-Baden and just wander around Wissembourg.

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And since it was our first time in France, we couldn’t leave without getting some cheese and wine.

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We headed back to meet up with Song for dinner, and enjoyed a really pretty drive through the German forests and hills. The countryside here is beautiful!

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Lovely Lanta and Scuba Diving

Scuba diving with Phoenix Divers - Koh Lanta, Krabi, Thailand

We spent about five days in Ao Nang/Krabi, and while the trips to islands were beautiful, the town and beach there was trashy, overdeveloped, overcrowded and you could tell the locals were just beat down by rude tourists and in no mood to be nice at all. So when Alvin and Jennifer headed back to the states, we headed off to find a different island base. We went with Koh Lanta – described on a travel review as “The Island for People Who Can’t Decide What They Want”, as in it has waterfalls and caves to hike to, great scuba diving, a little town at one end, a bunch of uncrowded beach, some rocky areas and the occasional all-night beach party. With our travel ADD, it was great for us!

Koh Lanta, Krabi, Thailand

We arrived in a bit of a funk, tired of the trashy overdeveloped, not-quaint-whatsoever cities… and were immediately relieved by the cute little port. We hopped in the back of a pick-up truck that our beach bungalows had sent to pick us up and rode to the other side of the island, where we quickly found the island paradise we had been hunting for!

Paradise - Koh Lanta Krabi, Thailand

Koh Lanta, Krabi, Thailand

Complete with idyllic sunsets and hippies practicing their fire dancing and hula hoop skills. (by the way, these photos don’t have filters or anything, its just that gorgeous).

The next day we went in search of where we would take our scuba course. We had thought about doing a one day “fun” dive where you don’t have to be certified, just to see how we liked scuba diving since neither of us had done it. But we quickly agreed “of course we’ll love it” and with our standard go-big-or-go-home attitude, decided to go for the 3-4 day course that gets you a PADI Open Water Diver Certification.

After talking with over a dozen different shops, landed on Phoenix Divers with kind owners and amazing staff from all over the world. We didn’t realize that Koh Lanta (Koh = Island in Thai) has a huge Swedish ex-pat population. Especially in winter when Sweden is getting only 3-4 hours of sunlight a day.

So we were off to studying, we had about 100 pages in a textbook and 3 quizzes to complete before our class started the next morning. Lots of studying, but not a bad place to do it!

Studying on the beach - Koh Lanta, Krabi, Thailand

The first day of the course we reviewed the theory at the scuba shop with our instructor in the morning, then headed off to a pool to put on the equipment and practice all we had heard about. Basically you’ve read a bit about how it works and what’s supposed to happen, and then you’ve read A LOT about what could go wrong, what you’re supposed to do to prevent it, and what you do when it goes wrong anyway…. And that last part is what you’re practicing in the pool.

This did not go so well for me. Turns out I take things very literally when it comes to life-or-death instructions, and I took things a bit too literally… when the book said “#1 Rule: You must breathe constantly. Never hold your breath”, I did that, which made me feel super uncomfortable breathing from the regulator, and made me want to breathe through my nose which doesn’t work well in scuba because it makes water come into your mask, which means when you breathe through your nose the next time water comes into your nose. Combine that with all of the drills where you lose your mask and have to hang out underwater without it, lose your regulator (thing in your mouth where your air comes from), swim without your mask, swim without your regulator, rescue your buddy who’s lost his air supply, do that while you’ve lost your mask, do backflips while singing the national anthem while underwater without your airsupply, on and on and on. Okay, maybe not that last one, but you get the idea.

I did not enjoy it. It was like acting out “1,001 Ways To Die” Scuba episode. I was not sure I’d make it the next day when we went out into the ocean. And to add insult to to injury, we had to go home and study three more chapters for about 5 hours!

Fast forward to the next morning and we’re out at the dive location, Koh Bida, I’ve talked myself out of freaking out, but I’m not excited about this adventure. I now know that both Rick and our instructor, Alex, were rather apprehensive that I was going to bail out when we started having to do all of the “ways to die” drills underwater. But as soon as I jumped in, it all disappeared! For once my ADD paid off, and as soon as I looked underwater and saw all of the fish and coral and amazing creatures, I was like “SQUIRREL!”

Squirrel

My distraction by all the cool stuff to see, allowed me to stop overthinking every little thing I was supposed to do, and instead just do it. Even when I managed to breathe in a lungful of sea water during our “lost your mask, swim around” drill – my lack of panic when it happened and completing the exercise despite it, convinced Rick and Alex that I would actually make it as a diver! (what I was actually thinking was “Liz you can’t quit now because if you do, you’ll have to do this whole stupid exercise over again!”)

Scuba diving with Phoenix Divers - Koh Lanta, Krabi, Thailand

At Koh Bida we saw a ton of fish! A huge cuttlefish (kinda rare, we were told), stingrays, lion fish, parrot fish, puffer fish, banded sea krait sea snake, lots of more eels. I think my favorites were the dozen different kinds of clown fish playing in the anemones. The funniest thing was when Alex kept signaling us with all of these underwater signs/charade signals, and we had no clue what he was talking about. I keep trying to figure out that drill it means. We get to the surface at the end of the dive and I’m thinking “wow, I must have missed a ton of the drills”. Well turns out each fish has a “scuba signal” and he was just telling us what to look at! Some of them are quite humorous… like the one for grouper… here’s a hint it includes groping yourself 🙂

We weren’t able to bring our camera with us, even though it’s waterproof because it only goes to about 45 feet and we were diving deeper than that. So these pics aren’t ours, just a few from Wikipedia to give you an idea what it looked like.

 

The next day was the last day of our course, went to Koh Haa. We successfully passed all of our drills and exams – YEA!! I finally got that you don’t really have to breathe in and out constantly, and got really stinkin’ good at the buoyancy stuff, so I could control all of my vertical movement with my breath. Apparently I’m really good at managing my air supply, too. I would come with almost double the air supply left that Rick had.

Phoenix Divers - Koh Lanta, Krabi, Thailand

 

Rick loved scuba diving! But not so great at the air management. He was so excited to see everything around him that he was sorta spazzy and flitting all over the place. Our instructor kept motioning to him “slow, slow”, “calm, calm”. So a little work to do there.

 

We got do to more fun diving on this day than the previous, including going into an underwater cave sort of.  Sign language is a big deal underwater when you can’t talk to each other.

We wanted to go for another day of diving to one of the best sites in Thailand that was very close to where we were staying, Hin Daeng and Hin Muang, known for whale sharks and giant manta rays. But the weather was too rough, so no trips were going. So we’ll have to get our first “officially certified” dive in somewhere else – Africa? South America? We’re taking recommendations!

We spent the next few days enjoying our beach front bungalow and exploring the island. A very relaxing way to close out our time in Asia.

Sunset - Koh Lanta, Krabi, Thailand

Amazing Beaches around Krabi

Hanging out on the Islands

You’ve seen the pictures of gorgeous sunsets, and the famous Thai beaches with white sand, crystal water and limestone karsts jutting out. Let me tell ya, it’s harder to find in Krabi than you would think, but when you do finally, it’s spectacular.

Here’s my travel advice warning before you get carried away with these incredible pics: I still don’t recommend staying in Krabi or Ao Nang. They’re really overdeveloped, haven’t been taken care of and, frankly, the food and service sucks. But there are pretty day trips from there… but you could take those same day trips based out of somewhere far less trashed out.

Ok – so on to the beautiful pictures to make you all jealous while you’re bundled up in winter clothes!

Sunset Ao Nang Beach, Krabi,, Thailand

Our first night we got to enjoy the most beautiful sunset I think I’ve ever seen, just off Ao Nang beach. Choosing which pictures to post for this is really hard – and really they don’t even begin to capture it!

The next day we went on the “Five Island Tour” on a longtail boat.

Longtail Boats - Krabi,, Thailand

We started off at Railay Beach – the perfect “play in the water” beach. It’s not an island, but you do have to take a boat to get there because it’s cut off from any road due to the rock formations.

Cave Railay Beach, Krabi, Thailand

Railay Beach, Krabi, Thailand

It’s known for it’s rock climbing and a cave that you can only get to in low tide.

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Then went to Poda Island

Poda Island Krabi, Thailand Poda Island Krabi, Thailand

Then we stopped at a couple spots to snorkel. There were a ton of fish, but it didn’t have the coral or variety we were hoping for. But it did remind us how we had wanted to learn to Scuba drive (… foreshadowing for future blog post).

 

Then we went to Chicken Island… can you see why it’s named that? The couple Americans on the boat agreed Turkey Island would be better, but they don’t really have turkeys in Thailand.

Chicken Island, Thailand

Chicken Island is attached to a few other small islands at low tide by giant sandbars that, so you can basically walk between them. So of course we did… Childhood flashback to Land Before Time and the land bridge to The Great Valley… except our land bridge took us to the only island where you could buy beer! Didn’t exactly save us from extinction, but we were excited nonetheless!

We enjoyed swimming around and playing on the islands the rest of the afternoon.

That night we thought we had upgraded our accommodations from where we spent our first couple nights – the desk lady was still not a fan us due to our vagrant-style introduction. I guess first impressions stick.

We did have a location closer to the main beach… but here’s our “Ocean View” bungalow in Ao Nang. Yep, that’s the Ocean View. It was rustic charming though.

Ocean View room

The morning we got up to pack all of our stuff up we found THOUSANDS of ants had moved their colony into our clothes that we had sitting on the floor of the bungalow. There wasn’t any furniture or places to hang clothes, so we just had them stacked up in packing cubes and piles. The bungalow is built on short stilts, the floor is bamboo with small gaps between the planks. We didn’t have any food in our room, no idea why they picked our clothes as their new homestead. But it was terrifying and a huge pain in the butt. They had moved in the queen. And ants in your pants don’t shake off. They refuse. It took us over an hour and we still didn’t get all of them off – we just had to prioritize the clothes we were wearing that day and hope that being packed up in our backpacks would kill the others.

AntsWe spent the next few days enjoying the beaches and exploring with Alvin and Jennifer! We had so much fun – they are a blast!! We had some really great times, and even when things didn’t go our way we still made the most of it and made some memories that will be forever be really awesome stories!! Alvin and Jennifer rock!! We are so grateful to have them as friends and couldn’t have imagined more fun or awesome people to be the first to meet up with us on our trip!! YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME – WE LOVE YA!!

Phi Phi island

Our Arrival to Southern Thailand

Ooops!

Ooops!

Well we had our first significant travel logistics ooops. We flew from Chiang Mai down to the beaches in Southern Thailand. We found a cheap flight into Phuket, but Alvin and Jennifer were going to Krabi, so we really wanted to just get to Krabi. We thought, no problem, it’s just a 2 hour ferry ride from Phuket to Krabi… a few minor details we overlooked.

  • That’s the time it would actually take, yes, BUT all ferries make it a day long trip with a stop on Koh Phi Phi for 5-6+ hours.
  • That means that the ferries really only run in the morning
  • Also buses only run mid morning
  • Our flight landed in Phuket at midnight
  • The Phuket airport is in. the. middle. of. nowhere. – an hour and half cab ride into the town of Phuket. An expensive cab ride. And the bus to town quits running at 8pm.
  • The bus to Krabi leaves from in town, not out by the airport.
  • The Phuket airport shuts down at midnight and kicks everyone out.

So basically our options were, sleep outside of the airport until the morning (not really an option, there was no where to sleep), cab ride to Phuket (expensive), or cab ride to Krabi (slightly more expensive, but at least at our destination).

We did the cab ride to Krabi, and arrived at 2:30am. We tried to book a room online en route – when we got there we looked for the place for about 40 minutes. It was a little guest house. Everything was shut down. Our sweet cab driver was so nice and got our and helped us walk up and down the street searching for our place, asking the 7/11 clerk, more searching, trying to call. Finally Rick walked really far down this alley and found our place. It’s now after 3:00am… and there’s no one to be found. The front of the guest house is this sorta open courtyard, there’s one leather-ish couch.

So I pull out my camping air pad (thanks, IMM!) and hunker down on the ground, and Rick takes his spot on the couch. And we slept semi-peacefully amidst the mosquitos and cats. Until 6:30am when the front desk lady found us and woke us up yelling “No! No! No! You can’t do this. You can’t sleep here!” we tried to explain what happened, but really she didn’t care, she kinda shoved us into an empty room and told us to sleep there. Heck yea! Free night’s stay!

sort of.

Tigers and Trails: Chiang Mai

Tiger Kingdom - Chiang Mai, Thailand

After hot and sweaty Bangkok and spending a few nights in a brothel (unknown to us until we put all of the pieces together), we landed in Chiang Mai and immediately loved the weather. It was cool and dry in the mountainous north of Thailand…. Okay, mountainous seems like an exaggeration, after going to the Himalayas in Nepal my standards for “mountainous” have been elevated a bit. But it was still really nice.

Chiang Mai, Thailand We booked the hostel next door to Alvin and Jennifer’s hotel, which turned out to be quite nice (especially compared to the brothel in Bangkok! … “hmm, why is there this random green light bulb over our door?”)

Our first day we rented bicycles to explore the city. And of course the four of us managed to find a bar with beer pong! Rick and I got sounded beat in both matches.

Chiang Mai, Thailand

Chiang Mai, Thailand Beer Pong

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The next day we decided to expand our exploration and rent a motorbike. We came across Tiger Kingdom, and were skeptical about actually going to play with tigers… were they drugged? Mistreated? We did an elephant trekking activity in Chitwan Park, Nepal and were so saddened by how the animals were treated that we couldn’t even finish it. We did not want to support something like that again. But we went by the Tiger place, and they invited us in to just look around and see if we liked it before we bought tickets or anything. We were really relieved to see that the cats were actually playing and running around. I’m not going to say it was the best conditions ever, or an ideal thing, but they looked a heck of a lot happier than most tigers you see in a zoo. So we decided to go in and play with the tigers and it was pretty cool!! Yeah, so we played with tigers – what else can you say about that?!

After the tigers, we went on to explore the countryside around Chiang Mai. It was so fun to drive the curvy roads through the mountains. We visited a hill tribe village, where there were no westerns tourists. Beautiful views and the best strawberries we’ve ever had! They had really cool terraced gardens all around. Chiang Mai, Thailand

We wound our way back with our jackets on – it got quite cold on the bike!

Our next day was even better, thanks to Alvin and Jennifer for booking a whitewater rafting trip for us! But first Alvin cashed in on a bet he won against Rick… Rick’s lack of accuracy in the carnival shooting game cost him – Alvin got to pick one thing that Rick had to eat.  Alvin was pretty kind, all things considered that he had to choose from at the roadside market. That’s a deep fried chicken head. Rick said it was surprisingly delicious.

We had so much fun. And how often is it that you get to raft by elephants in the river?! We also got a special surprise at the end of the trip. As we were pulling up to the side of the river to get out, a random guy was there bathing… well, we’ll say bathing, but really it seemed like he was just hanging out naked on the shore of the river right where the rafts were coming in. We named him Steve. And inviting “Steve” to our activity for the day became a running joke.

"Steve" Rafting Chiang Mai

While in Chiang Mai we explored some of the many waterfalls. We found one river that had 10 “levels” of waterfalls over the course of a couple of kilometers.

We  spent or last day in Chiang Mai hiking the trail up the back way to the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. Which also passes another smaller Buddhist temple. It was a fun little hike that ends in the little neighborhood the monks live in. Both temples had a bunch of awesome statues.

Angkor Wat Temples: Siem Reap, Cambodia

Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Biking around Siem Reap

Our first day, we biked around a bit. Then went to see sunset at the temples – unfortunately we weren’t the only ones with that idea!

Angkor Wat Sunset crowd

Angkor Wat Sunset

Angkor Wat Sunset

Then out to Pub Street, but we didn’t last long.

Pub Street, Siem Reap, Cambodia

We enjoy good local food much more than cheesy tourist drinks, so off to the market we went to get Amuk Fish (win!!) served in a banana leaf bowl and Lok Lak Beef (so-so). We had to be up early for our sunrise tour of the temples. Totally worth it, sunrise was awesome!

Amuk

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The Temples of Angkor Wat were really impressive and beautiful. It’s a HUGE area – like probably 10 square miles of jungle with temples throughout. Our favorites were the ones that had been taken over by the jungle.

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The fascinating thing about it is the duplicity of the jungle that has taken over the temples. The roots that grow over and through the stone temples in some ways destroys them, as you would imagine, as it grows pushing stone blocks aside. But we learned that it also preserves them in some ways, acting like ropes that hold the stone in place and prevent it from breaking apart and falling over. There’s also a great debate about how much to let the jungle take over and when to stop it. Archeologists realize that the thing that makes these temples really special is how they were “forgotten” for decades and the jungle took them over… but how much more do you let nature take over? Nature vs. Preservation.

Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia

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We had a pretty crazy experience with our tuk tuk driver…

Rick and Liz in a Tuk Tuk

Here is the story as Rick tells it:

He was our driver from the bus station to the hotel, and as most of the drivers that take you anywhere do in this part of the world, they really want you’re “drive you around; full-day” business. He seemed nice enough and his price seemed reasonable for a full day of driving us around so we agreed and made plans for the next day as he’s dropping us off at our hotel; pick up at 5:00am for sunrise.

The next morning, on our way to the temples, we asked about going to Ta Prohm temple as we had heard it was less crowded than Angkor Wat for sunrise, he told us it was closed and Angkor Wat was the only option for sunrise. Ok, no problem. When we arrive at Angkor Wat, about 5:30 (along with 5 million other people) he tells us he’s going to the bus station to pickup someone else and take them into town then he’ll be back at 8:30. We were a little shocked but he insisted he’d be back by the time we were ready to go to the next temple. We said we moved pretty fast. He said he’d be waiting.

We watch the sunrise beautifully, then wonder around the temple with the other 5 million people and it’s now 6:30 am and we’re ready to move on. We walk to where he said he’d meet us and he’s not there, we ask a few other tuk tuk drivers, no luck. We wander around looking for him for 30 minutes, no luck. So we decided we’ll try and walk to the next temple and look for him later. We start walking after the bunch of tuk tuk drivers pass us asking us if we need a ride, one informs us that it’s more than 4 kilometers to the next temple, so much for that plan. At this point the new tuk tuk driver offers us a full day tour (promises us he won’t leave us and agrees it was weird of the other guy to ditch us like that) at about 60% of what the other guy was charging us. Done deal!

We enjoyed the rest of our day, found out a number of the temples really do open at 5:30am for sunrise and saw everything we wanted to before noon, and never saw our old driver again.

Later that night we’re out in the night markets and all of a sudden Rick gets tapped on the shoulder and in a super creepy voices hears “Remember me?!?” – it was our original tuk tuk guy. And he starts shaking me down for a full days fare.  I said “No way you left us.” He said he was waiting right there the whole time. I said no way we looked for you for 20 minutes and all the other tuk tuk drivers said you left.  I give him $5 for the sunrise ride out there (which was the standard rate for a sunrise tour) and said I wasn’t going to give him anymore than that for leaving us out there. Liz and I were both annoyed – are we really being shook-down by a tuk tuk driver who ditched us?! And more than a little creeped out – how’d this guy find us?!

On the bright side, we snagged ourselves a really great deal, thanks to Rick’s negotiating skills, and stayed at really cool hotel our first night in Siem Reap. It even included a welcome drink and cool towels!

Welcome bowls

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The next night they were fully booked, so we went exploring for new accommodations. We accidently walked into a boutique hotel that was still being built, we apologized, but they insisted we look at the one room that was done. It was SO cool, very modern and nice looking. We knew it would be way out of our budget… but they insisted on knowing what our budget was. And a few minutes later we were the first people to stay in this adorable boutique hotel! – for $15/night!

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We totally lucked out on the lodging in Siem Reap!! (good thing, too, because we had spent two nights on sleeper buses before that!)

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Throughout Southeast Asia we’ve seen all of these “mini markets” of offerings to either Buddha, monks or ancestor spirits. Including live birds, flowers, fruit. In Siem Reap it was lotuses and hawks and swallows.

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So that’s whirlwind Cambodia – oh, don’t forget the 3 hours in immigration leaving the country… surrounded by a giant Russian tour group. Whah whah whah.

Leaving Cambodia

 

Phnom Penh, Cambodia & The Killing Fields

We only spent about eight hours in Phnom Penh, we had planned on spending the night but bus schedules didn’t work out that way. I had heard that there was history there not to be missed, but I didn’t know much, hardly anything really.

We hopped in a tuktuk and headed to Cheung Ek, where from 1975-1978 over 17,000 men, women and children were tortured and killed and thrown in mass graves. We learned it was only one of hundreds of  “killing fields” in Cambodia, that have been found so far.

One of MANY mass grave areas at the killing fields
One of MANY mass grave areas at the killing fields

Starting in 1975 the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia and killed over 3 MILLION people, a third of Cambodia’s population. It hit me hard that this massive horrific        genocide happened just a few years before I was born, yet it’s not something that is ever taught or talked about in our history books.

The killing fields were an orchard before the Khmer Rouge took them over, and it still looks beautiful from a distance, and peaceful. There’s a memorial now.

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But as we walked around we heard the stories of torture. It was heartbreaking.

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The Khmer Rouge wanted Cambodia to be a completely agricultural society and anything or anyone associated with other trades, with city life, with arts, education, business was wiped out. They had a saying “better to kill an innocent, then chance leaving a guilty person alive” – what’s a guilty person? Anyone who could be considered a business person or intellectual, for example, they killed people with soft hands, people who wore glasses. And they killed the whole family so there was no one left to want revenge – down to the babies.

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They were killing so many people that they didn’t want to have to buy bullets – so they bludgeoned people to death with whatever tool was handy, a hoe, a bamboo stick. And some were just thrown in the mass graves alive and covered with other bodies and DDT to kill them.

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There are so many bodies there that they haven’t collected them all. Bones and clothing are still coming up in the ground as you walk – at such a rate that they only collect them once a month, and only the big pieces. As we walked along the path, we would step over a tooth, or a femur.P1080197

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One of the most bone chilling areas is a tree they call “The Killing Tree”, here the Khmer Rouge would take mothers and babies. They would take the babies, hold them by their feet and swing their head into the tree to kill them. There is a pit right there of children’s bones.

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And what’s crazy is that until the 90’s the U.S. recognized the Khmer Rouge as the governing body of Cambodia, welcomed them in New York City for meetings. And the leaders are still living out their lives in Cambodia, not having been brought to justice yet.

 

P1080205Even those that were not  taken to the killing fields or tortured in the camps, nearly died of starvation when the Khmer Rouge forced all city dwellers into the country with no land, no knowledge of farming and no way to feed themselves.

It was heartbreaking to look around at our tuk tuk driver, the lady selling fruit in the market, the man sitting next to me on the bench and think “you’re a survivor. You lived through that, and were probably tortured and lost family members.” But there’s still this incredible joy that radiates through the huge smiles everyone has, and Phnom Penh really is a beautiful city. I’m sad that I didn’t know more about this atrocity before traveling here. I’m sad this ever happened. It has been really eye opening and heart breaking.

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