Liz, Author at The Agostins

December 2, 2014December 3, 2014

Food Fails of Vietnam; and some Epic Wins!

I think I have a bit of a love/hate relationship going with Vietnamese food. Food here is a symphony of fresh bright herbs, crisp greens, addictively salty savory umami, subtle sweetness and spice. It’s complex, satisfying, yet refreshing. It’s also why I’ve gained about ten pounds since we got here!

Y’all know I love trying new foods, and I’m game for trying pretty much anything, so Vietnam is a playground for my curious taste buds. I love experiencing a culture and people through the food.

In our travels through Nepal, India and a little of Thailand, my curiosity had not led me astray, but alas, my winning streak comes to an end here in Vietnam. Even with a few food fails, I’d say I still came out on top.

Bahn Xeo

Build it yourself spring rolls of heaven! I don’t even want to admit to how many of these I’ve eaten. They bring them out by the plate and count your empty dishes and skewers to calculate the bill.
Verdict: WIN!

Bo Taye Chahn

Like a cross between beef carpacio and ceviche but with Vietnamese flavors. Thin sliced steak that is marinated in lime juice to cook it a little. Then topped with a slightly sweet, spicy, garlicy vinegarette, green onions and cilantro. So good!
Verdict: WIN!

Tasting Menu of Vietnamese Tapas style dishes

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One of the highlights was getting to go out to a very locals spot with our friends’ Vietnamese tutor. She and her husband just kept ordering and delicious small plates kept coming.
Verdict: WIN!

Banana Blossom Salad

It’s awesome flower power. I’ll leave it at that.
Verdict: WIN!

Mantis Shrimp

Have you heard of the magical creature that is the Mantis Shrimp?!? It is one of the coolest animals on the planet – The Oatmeal does a pretty great job explaining it.

It’s a specialty of Ha Long Bay but it was a fail because I didn’t get to try it. And we kept meaning to get it, but it was either too expensive, or the place would run out of it, or we wouldn’t have time to sit and enjoy the meal. Check out these bad boys though!

Verdict: FAIL!

Che

Crazy dessert drink, there are dozens of varieties, but most include some form of sweet bean custard. The green bean custard is more mild, red bean is more fibrous and beany, think flan meets kidney beans cooked like refried beans. Then layered on are these cubes of “jelly” made from seaweed and flavored with black sesame or coconut; while they’re called “jelly” I would say it’s close to the result of that time you tried to make Jello but only added half of the amount of water called for. Then you might get these little things that look like tiny pink and yellow caviar. You might get some fruit pieces in there. And it’s finished off with coconut milk. You mix it all together and switch off between spoon and straw to get all of the delicious sweetness. I’m a bigger fan than Rick is, something about “if it’s a vegetable, it’s a vegetable. If it’s a dessert, it’s a dessert. No playing both sides.”

Verdict: WIN!

Snails

Unlike our French friends, the Vietnamese don’t mask the snail flavor with a butter bath and the results are equally, if not more delicious.
Verdict: WIN!

Hot Pot

Sort of a fondue style experience. A burner and pot of broth come to your table, along with a big plate of fresh veggies, raw shrimp and squid and a packet of dry noodles. You make it yourself. Fun experience and some of the freshest most flavorful shrimp I’ve ever had.
Verdict: WIN!

Sour Fish Soup

I asked the owner of the restaurant what he recommended and this is was I got. It was sheer will that I ate it. The fish that came in it (as you can see the gray lump of ick) had been cut into sections like you would cut a summer sausage, so you got pieces of spine surrounded by cartilidge, bone, organs, vessels and buried in between a smidge of meat. But the broth was the really special part. You know when you pour off the water that’s in the can with your canned tuna? Well they took that water, made it about three times as strong, then they somehow extracted the sour flavor from Sour Patch Kids and Warheads and added that to it. And then maybe let it sit out for a day or two. I think there were veggies in it to, I can’t remember though, my memory and taste buds were seared with the lingering flavor of the fishy-foulness of the broth.
Verdict: FAIL!

Fresh Grilled Squid

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I had no idea how good squid could be. Super fresh, right off the boat, on to a skewer and over some charcoal — it just melted in your mouth. Makes for some entertaining photos as well.
Verdict: WIN!

Pho

It’s not just for breakfast… ok, maybe it mostly is because it’s near impossible to find good Pho any other time of day! But we did get some very delicious pho that puts anything I’ve had in the U.S. to shame.
Verdict: WIN!

The Jars of Doom

Filled with potent rice liquor and a whole bunch of dead animals – lizards, snakes, starfish, scorpions, birds and more. They are supposed to help your sexual potency. I was feeling pretty confident in that area on that particular day, so I opted out of these. I did try the Honey Rice Whiskey though, mostly because it was offered to us as a gift of appreciation by a local restaurant owner after we had dined with him a few days in a row. It was strong, it burned, it made Jack Honey look good (shout out to Will Jacobus!), but we got it down.
Verdict: FAIL!

Saucy!

The variety of sauces was awesome. We had at least three different kinds of fish sauce with every meal. We also learned from some locals that took us out that you do not mix and match sauces. Each sauce is meant for a specific dish, get it right or be shunned. The sauces were even better when I started putting them with the right stuff.
Verdict: WIN!

Jellyfish Salad

This one is particularly sad for me because I had been wanting to try this from the day we got into Vietnam. It sounds so exciting, light, delicious! And a break from the rice, rice noodle, rice cake, rice dumpling, rice noodle of a different size, rice noodle #3, rice diet. It came to the table as a beautiful tangle of translucent, almost iridescent jellyfish pieces on top of fresh greens, sprinkled with peanuts and a bright acidic dressing. I dug in, big piece of jellyfish, the initial flavor was light, almost lacking in any strong flavor, just picking up a little of the dressing… but then it was time to chew. And oh the texture of the jellyfish…

<<shutter, mild gag>>

Each time you bite into a piece it feels EXACTLY like when you bite down on the inside of your cheek really hard, like really hard, and your tooth goes through and breaks the skin. There’s a softness, then a pop, and you break through, and it’s squishy. It’s truly uncanny. It’s disturbing. I kept trying to eat it, thinking “oh I’ll get over that”, nope, no getting over it. To the point that I could almost taste blood because it felt so much like I was biting through my cheek or tongue. I tried smaller pieces. I tried smaller nibbling action. Nothing helped. I’m sad to say I finally, after gagging down every piece I could, gave up and we left most of the jellyfish there. UGH even just writing about it I have goose bumps from the sensation of biting it. Ick ick ick.

Verdict: FAIL! FAIL! FAIL!

Mi Quang

Half noodle soup, half salad. All delicious.
Verdict: WIN!

Fruit

Crazy varieties of fruits here that I’ve never seen or heard of. Chom choms were my favorites. Followed by Green Dragon Fruit. Oh and Jackfruit, it tastes just like Juicy Fruit gum – it’s super sweet, and the fruit is gigantic, I heard it can be up to 60 lbs per piece of fruit! We ate our fill of Dragon’s Eyes too, dabbled in Custard Apples (or as they call it here Milk from Mother’s Breast, a bit creepy) and enjoyed the usual tropical suspects like mango, papaya, mandarin oranges, watermelon. And I think I drank coconut water from couple dozen coconuts.
Verdict: WIN!

Thịt chó – Dog

Well that’s just another post all together. I’m sorry, Ruger, I swear we didn’t know what we were eating.
Verdict: FAIL!

November 30, 2014November 30, 2014

Danang – Adventures on a Moto

Danang is NOT a tourist city. In fact the guidebooks have approximately a third of a page on it, and basically say “oh it’s a city, nothing major here, you can skip it” which is really too bad because it’s such a cool city and has incredible beaches!! It’s modern and growing like crazy with gorgeous new architecture, and fun hip social scene. It’s definitely not on the tourist trail – which was great for us, we wanted to experience the real Vietnam.

As such, though, it’s not a particularly walkable city and we quickly learned we needed a moto (motorbike, scooter, moped). There are very few cars, but about a one to one ratio of motos to people. We rented our scooter from “Mama’s Motos” at Bread of Life Bakery and Café. It was a Yamaha Deluxe LX edition, with faux leather trim that had “LX” embossed into the naugahyde in a very familiar pattern; it looked exactly like a Louis Vutton purse pattern, Our moto affectionately became known as “Louie!” Rick and I really liked calling it a scooter for some reason – and Rick really liked driving it – and singing about driving it while driving it!

We were so glad we had a moto, we would have missed out on so much without it. Here are our favorite Danang adventures on a moto:

Scootin’ around out on the town with friends

This was just after our friends Christophe and Sakura invited us out to dinner with their local friend and tutor to experience real locals food. It was such an awesome dinner. Afterward we all rode around beautiful Danang!

Exploring the Marble Mountains

We took our moto on and adventure to these crazy mini-mountains made of limestone and marble with caves running throughout them. We climbed mountains and dove into exploring the caves. Many have temples and massive Buddha statues in the caves… we got a secret tip that if you really want to see the caves you have to go up on the alters and around behind the statues and there are stairs and pathways to deeper caves there – we had a blast exploring.

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Historic Hoi An

We met up with our friends from Cat Ba Island here. Hoi An was a great port city in the 1800’s, but then the river filled up with mud and cut it off, so this grand city was basically abandoned and forgotten. Which means that when the American War (as they call it in Vietnam) was going on, it had no value to either side and was left alone, and therefore not destroyed. It’s main economy now is tourism. And at night the city is lit by lanterns which give it a magical glow. Oh and I got a custom made pair of leather sandals!

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Just make sure you know how late your scooter parking lot is open… we found out the hard way when we went to get our motorbike at 9pm and they lot that had hundreds of motors earlier was now dark and empty. Our Louie was nowhere to be seen. Through charades we managed to get a guy to wake-up an older lady that had our moto locked up in her kitchen… we paid a dollar to get it out of “lock-up.”

Admiring the awesome bridges of Danang

Crazy bridges! There are nine in total (some still being built) – We learned a feng shui expert advised the city 20 years ago that to be prosperous it needed to build nine prominent bridges across the river. Here are a few of our favorites: The Dragon Bridge: made to look like a huge dragon and on Saturday and Sunday nights it shoots fire and water out of it’s mouth; The Han Bridge: all lit up with a rainbow of lights that change and at midnight every night it spins sideways; The Sail Bridge: beautiful artistic suspension bridge/scripture that is lit with vibrant colors.

Tam’s epic tales

Christophe suggested we go get a burger at Tam’s Pub & Surf Shop because she had good stories – and that was the under statement of the century!! Tam was 12 years old when the Vietnam/American War started. She was befriended by a Navy man and started selling Cokes and beers to the troops to make money for her family. She couldn’t wait to tell us her incredible tales. She was buried alive once and American troops rescued her. She was told to take a bomb disguised as a Coke can into an American base by the NVA, but instead told the Americans what it was and saved dozens of lives, she was almost killed by the NVA for doing this. She escaped from a war prison. Survived being a cast away on an island. And she absolutely loves to be reunited with American soldiers that she knew during the war – and has the photos to prove it.

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Tam’s joy is contagious and we felt so fortunate to get to hear about her amazing life. Oh and she still surfs and rents out surf boards! Here is a video (that we didn’t make) that gives you a quick introduction to Tam:

See a Real Fire-breathing Dragon

I know we already mentioned the bridges, but the Dragon Bridge’s weekend displays really shouldn’t be missed. We parked Louie on the sidewalk with all the other locals right next to the bridge. There are tons of little pop-up restaurants selling drinks, and street food. We saw a big circles of kids with guitars and drums playing music. Just a fun little party that lasts about an hour or so every Saturday and Sunday night. The vendors start setting up about 8 pm the fire and water show starts at 9 pm and the whole thing is wrapped up and gone before 10 pm. It’s kind of like the moto equivalent of tailgating I guess.

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Beautiful beaches – China Beach, My Kye, Etc.

The beaches were great and stretch for miles – we played in the sugary soft sand and the surf. The waves were quite strong, in fact they have lifeguards out all day everyday and they only allow swimming in a small areas due to the really strong undertow; they even have a lifeguard in the water keeping tabs on the ever changing currents. But in that area we had so much fun body surfing into the beach. The breaks were just perfect.

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Want to know more about what we did in Danang?

November 28, 2014November 30, 2014

Thankful: Random Acts of Kindness on the Road

I’ve been reflecting on some of the best parts of the trip so far, and one of the coolest things has been moments where a random stranger went out of their way to be kind to us. It’s happened in every country we’ve been to, and often in a moment when we most needed it because we were feeling beat down or taken advantage of or just tired and hungry (probably hangry).

It restores your love for fellow humans, your ability to trust others in a foreign place where you often can’t even communicate, but that daily requires at least some leve of blind trust in someone you don’t know. It’s just reminds me of how important those “little things” I can do for others – and how it may not be such a little thing to the recipient – I know they haven’t felt like little things to us when we are the recipients. I’m more determined than even to be vigilant to see when there is a kindness I can provide for someone else, and to stop of make people more of a priority than my plans or productivity. I am so grateful to these people for the help and kindness they have given us – it has made our trip!

So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, and so I have it written down and never forget, here are just a few of the kindnesses we are so grateful for:

Christophe & Sakura: invited us into their home to stay for a week (and a longer invitation if we could have). They welcomed us as part of the family. Not just a place to stay but genuine friends. We ate with them, they in fact treated us to many dinners, showing us the best places in Danang that we never would have found!! And even arranged for their Vietnamese tutor to take us all out for a true locals experience. They opened up their home and their lives to us and it was one of our favorite experiences on the trip!

Beer Guy Between Halong Bay and Danang: We had a couple hour stop over to change busses and decided to grab some street food and beer at one of the sidewalk “pop ups” (a food cart that they set up mini plastic stools and tables around). We had a couple Bahn Mi, then decided to get a couple of beers. We sat for a while and when it came time to pay we asked how much, knowing beers should be 5,000-10,000 dong (that’s $0.25-0.50). The vendors friends (seated near us, but that he had been chatting with) started telling him to charge us 55,000 per beer and telling us in broken English 55,000 per beer. The vendor shook his head at them and showed us with money from his wallet that it was 10,000 per beer. We had been overcharged a few times earlier that day, and were feeling pretty skeptical and taken advantage of… so this was just what we needed to restore our faith in people and bring us back to a positive mindset. Thanks beer guy for choosing the right thing to do, over your friends bad influence and making a few extra bucks!

Wolfpack Hostel Owner: If you’re ever in Dalat you absolutely have to stay at Wolfpack Hostel. Cheesy name? yes. Incredibly kind owner? YES! Can’t say enough great things about this guy, the hostel itself is great, comes with free breakfast, a clean great place, he arranges tours from you that are the BEST and no commission for him. But he goes way beyond that. A couple things that stood out, he booked a bus ticket for us and had them pick us up at the hostel (a challenge to get that)… and if they hadn’t been willing to, he was planning to take us to the bus stop on his moped, for free, because a taxi would have cost us – he insisted. Then that night we asked him where we might buy a bottle of Dalat wine and were planning to walk there… he said, oh no, you shouldn’t do that, I will go get one for you… and I’ll buy a couple more in case the other hostel guests want some too. We gave him $1 for our bottle (which is the cost for it, no extra for him) and he shared the other bottles with us and the guests. And then the next day Rick wanted to get a little money just before our bus got there, he started walking to where he though an ATM was, and our hostel guy sees him going down the rode, picks him up on his moped and takes him to the ATM to make sure he’s not late for the bus and doesn’t have to walk that far. Just awesome!

Friendly Street Informant: ”I’m not selling anything” man in India: Well India was challenging to say the least, the super aggressive culture wore on me… a lot… people in my face yelling at me, grabbing me, pulling me to their tuk-tuk or shop or wherever, touching me, more yelling, literally every step you took in some places. I may have had some times where I turned a bit cynical and put on my “Don’t mess with Texas” voice and mean girl face, I’m ashamed to say, but I’ll own up to it. I felt it was necessary because, in India, “no thanks” usually translates to “yes please tell me more about what you want to sell me, pull me into your tuk-tuk/shop, and follow me for the next 5 minutes yelling at me”. Saying “NO” as I would to Ruger when he’s bad (firm, authoritative, a little angry) and a hand up was much more effective – sometimes they yelled at me, but they were yelling anyway, so what’s the difference? Anyway, after a very long day of being yelled at, we were approached my a man saying “oh, you should look at this temple up the street, it was made by such-and-such king, and has a beautiful viewpoint and mugal architecture…” (this was a typical scam to get you into a shop), so I immediately launch into “no thanks, no, no, no, NO!” and the poor guy looks at me confused. Then he kind of laughs and says, in very good English, “oh, you must have had a LOT of people hassling you to sell stuff today. I’m not selling anything. I don’t have a shop. I just thought I would tell you about my town. Really, no shop, no tuk tuk” I felt quite bad, and apologized. He proceeded to give us some history of the temple and area, we talked about how long he had lived there, where we were from, then parted ways.

Monkey Protector: Little boy with a slingshot that watched over us and kept the monkeys away while we were at the river temple. Each time one would come near us, he would hold up his little slingshot and scare them away, then give us this huge smile.

Security Guard at Phi Yen Hotel: One night we shared a few of the Longan fruits we had bought with him. We got to our room and started eating them and they did not taste as good as we had remembered, but thought oh well. The next morning, he kindly asked us how much we paid and told us that we overpaid for them… and that they were bad fruit. He told us we should always insist on tasting before we buy and don’t pay more than 20,000 dong/kilo.

Drugs to the Rescue: After two nights of no sleep due to the altitude I was feeling a really loopy, and needed sleep. We ran into a couple of American guys in Manang and quickly got to chatting about our experience so far. I mentioned not feeling great because of the lack of sleep. They kindly offered to share their sleep aid with us, and it saved me! As I type I realize it sounds kinda sketchy, but really it wasn’t and it made all of the difference. Thank you friends!!

Meals and Directions on Trains in India: Trains in India are an experience, the biggest challenge is there is no notification of what stop it is or when your stop is, you just have to intrinsically know. Also there is no notification of how long the train will be at a stop or when it’s about to leave – which is important to know if you have a 20 hour train ride and want to hop off at a station to grab food. We had two different train rides where incredibly kind passengers in our berth even though they didn’t speak English at all helped us know when to get off. And when we couldn’t get food on the ride, they insisted that we share their homemade dinner and breakfast. And it was delicious!! They broke their bread into smaller pieces, found plates from fellow passengers, scooped out the curry for us and smiled proudly as we enjoyed. They would watched out the window for our stop and make sure we know when it was coming up. Without them I think we would have ended up in Sri Lanka, and starving!

Blog and Facebook Comments: It may not seem like much, but the comments people leave on our blog or facebook mean so much! This trip is amazing, but occasionally we feel rather isolated and disconnected and just a little comment from someone on the blog or facebook can make us feel so special and like people still know we’re alive and remember us. So THANK YOU so much for doing that. It means the world to us.

Finally, I’m so thankful for our families and friends who have been so supportive in helping us live out this dream. The encouragement and support, patience and understanding has allowed us to chase a dream and calling God had for us. We get to tell that story to other people as we travel – how great we had it with amazing jobs, co-workers we loved, irreplaceable amazing friends, dear families, and how hard it was to leave – and that’s not the story for most folks traveling long term. Many folks were running away from a life they didn’t love. I feel so incredibly blessed to have loved where I was, and to have that as a solid foundation to begin our travels from – not running away from something, but running to something. Thank you all.

We are a little sad today that we are missing Thanksgiving (doesn’t really feel like it in tropical Cambodia). We are missing you all, missing sharing love and laughter and gratitude over turkey and all the fixin’s. But excited to see our awesome friends Alvin and Jennifer Paulson TODAY in Bangkok!!!!!! What will Thanksgiving look like Thai-style?!? No idea, but I’m sure it will be a blast with the Paulsons and we will be thinking of everyone back home.

November 23, 2014November 30, 2014

What We’ve Been Doing in Danang

Ironically, we’ve spent the longest time we’ve been in any one place since we left, in a city we never intended to go to, in a country that wasn’t in our plans – Danang, Vietnam. And it reinforced for us again that God has us on this journey, and is directing our steps as to where to go.

How’d we end in up Danang? God’s perfect timing.

We knew we wanted to do mission work or volunteer work during our time in Southeast Asia and were excited to get started. We had a couple of contacts and potential opportunities from Indonesia to Cambodia, but those didn’t work out when we started getting into specifics, they didn’t have a need for us right now. Rick reached out to one of his good friends from college who had taught English and helped at an orphanage in Danang… Bryan put us in touch with the Orphan Voice and they were willing to have us, said just let us know a day or two before you show up and helped us with our visas, where to stay, all that.

We hop on a bus from Cat Ba Island (well minibus, to bus, to boat, to crappy bus, to crappy bus, to sleeper bus) and what was supposed to be 20 hours later, and turned into 30 hours later, we were in Danang.

We get to our hotel and call Tony, who leads the orphanage, and he says “well, this weekend is a little different. We won’t be here, there’s a retreat with our church. Want to go? The van leaves in 15 minutes!” I’m in the shower at this moment (30 hour bus rides make you want to shower!) and so Rick yells at me to get out and pack up, we’re headed out.

We didn’t realize how badly we needed re-center, refocus, be around other believers, be reminded of God’s purpose, until we got there. It was God’s incredible plan that we were there.

The retreat was put on by Danang International Fellowship (an expat church). The speakers were incredible – Eric and Rachel DuFour. One of the biggest things we got from it is that we don’t have to have our long term calling figured out right now – Rick and I just the weeks before had been really putting pressure on ourselves to figure out what we want to be doing with this travel and after this travel and really started to stress about it, or at least feel frustrated. But they reminded us that we just have to say “Yes” to God each day and do what he has for us that day – not have the future all figured out, that’s God’s job. What a refreshing truth.

On top of the amazing couple speaking, we met a ton of incredible folks. Jeff and Nancy, a couple who have moved their family to Vietnam to help the deaf here. In Vietnam, a person with any sort of a disability is considered a burden to their family and society – they aren’t allowed to go to school, there is no therapy available, no education even. For deaf folks, there is really no use of sign language in Vietnam… so they will live their whole lives without communicating with anyone, being discouraged by their family, no allowed in school, they cannot get jobs, it’s just a sad and hopeless life.

Jeff and Nancy have brought sign language to central Vietnam. They are training kids and adults. And they have a restaurant that employs all deaf staff, giving them an opportunity to earn a living they never would have had, plus a community of others who have learned sign language so they have people to talk to. They are expanding in more rural areas. It’s really incredible. And that’s just one of the couples.

We also met Christophe and Sakura – and instantly connected with them. (INCREDIBLE people – we heart them so so so much!!!) We met them Sunday of the retreat and chatted over lunch and after for a couple of hours – about long term travel which they had done a couple years ago, about their work and mission in Danang, about their passion for business and providing employment, laughing about stories of crazy adventures in Canada and Costa Rica.

Well they just have huge hearts and the next day we got an email from them asking if we would like to stay at their house while we were in Danang. We “moved in” a week ago and have loved every minute we spent with them. They are our kindred spirits on the other side of the world! We got to hang out with Christophe, Sakura, Noah (4 years old) and Saya (almost 2 years old) – by the way their incredible kids speak French, Japanese, Vietnamese and English!

What about the babies?

We went to Danang to work with Orphan Voice – they run two orphanages and provide vital help to eight other orphanages, as well as run a therapy school for kids with disabilities, and a home for victims of sex trafficking, and a home for youth at risk of being forced into sex trafficking among other things (they’re pretty busy!). We got to help with the elementary aged kids one day and help the prep/paint part orphanage alongside a World Race team which was super fun! The next day we went to see the baby orphanage that was in the rural area. I know this will be a shocker for y’all but as Rick put it I “took to those babies like a fish to water.” I changed my first cloth diaper (really 3 bandanas and a combination of multiple knots that would make a sailor squirm). Sweet faces and sad stories, but in the middle of it you’ve got the laughter of these kids. It was heartbreaking and heart warming at the same time.

We had a blast playing with them but my arms are still sore from holding babies all day!

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But then Rick’s graphic design skills were discovered! There were so many things that needed to be designed for Orphan Voice, for the therapy center, for a deaf school, for a Christmas in Danang musical. It was really cool to see him be so willing to jump into dozens of projects and give help that was so valuable! We spent the next few days working on design projects.

From there it was really cool to see how we both got opportunities to put our skills and abilities to work to help a bunch of different folks. Rick got to design art for the walls of Christophe and Sakura’s business’s new office. He helped with newsletters, signage, business cards, letterhead for three different organizations. I was asked to write a marketing plan for a new business that teaches and certifies people to teach English abroad. I also got to teach marketing 101 to a group of college student interns. And (most exciting for me) I got to work on some menu strategy and marketing for a restaurant that trains and employs people who are deaf, and where all proceeds go to continuing to help the deaf community in central Vietnam.

Rick and I were both surprised by how much we had been craving getting to do some work and thinking and be productive and contribute to something bigger than ourselves. We really enjoyed it! God puts people right where he wants them right when he wants them there.

But it wasn’t all work hard… we played hard too! Check it out in our next post!

We would love for you to consider helping the groups we partnered with in Danang, Vietnam:

Orphan Voice – Sponsor one of the super sweet kids from our photos!

Danang International Fellowship & Bread of Life – Help employ the deaf in Danang.

Eric and Rachel DuFour – Pray for their ministry

Hands for the Harvest – Sign up for Jeff and Nancy’s Newsletter

Code Engine Studio – Need some web development?

November 23, 2014November 23, 2014

I’m sorry, Ruger. It won’t happen again.

So, I’m 97% Sure We Just Ate Dog…

Yep. You read that right.

It was not by choice. We had been riding our motorbike all around Cat Ba Island all morning and into the afternoon and we skipped breakfast. So we were HUNGRY.

We were on the far side of the Cat Ba Island, away from town, and wanted to take the long beach road back, so if we wanted to eat it was going to be at one of these houses we were passing that magically turns into a restaurants if you slow down and look at them. It’s really just a house… but if they think you might buy a meal, you’re suddenly being flagged down and called in (in Vietnamese of course!).

It’s mostly fields around us, but we finally find a strip of little houses, and pick one that seems ok and has a friendly lady flagging us down. There’s no sign really… and there is definitely no menu. So we ask

“Rice?” ..we get a perplexed look

“Bo?” (Vietnamese for beef) …shaking head

ok, last try…. “Pho?” …big smile and a big nod!

We feel like it’s a victory. We signal that we want 1 Pho, and then we are able to point to a beer can and get 2 beers. She hurriedly goes off to prepare our Pho.

In the mean time two very sweet Vietnamese girls, about ten to twelve years old come over and start trying to practice their English with us – really it’s limited to Hi, How are you, What your name, My name _____. But we have fun trying to talk with them and playing our now standard game of charades.

Our pho comes out, delicious and steaming, full of cilantro, fresh greens, tender noodles, fragrant broth and sliced meat. We dig in. As I get my first bite of meat, I noticed it was not the chicken I thought it might be… no part of a chicken has that texture. I look closer, and ask Rick “hmm… what do you think this is?”. It’s not a red meat, like beef or goat. It doesn’t have the texture, look or taste of pork. It’s a light gray in color. We keep eating, not thinking too much of it…

But then almost in unison, we notice there a couple of mama dogs with cow-sized udders, running around the house and street but strangely only one puppy. We had learned from our guide the day before that while people ate dog meat, they didn’t eat the dogs they considered pets. They will basically keep a mama dog or two and a male dog, and don’t ever plan on eating those… but they do get those “pets” to make puppies, and the puppies are enjoyed…on a plate.

Almost as soon as we give each other a questioning look, both thinking “there’s no way,” a teenage boy pulls up to the house on his motorbike holding a puppy by the scruff of its neck. We curiously watch as he walks from one house to another exchanging brisk words with the lady of the house, pushing the puppy towards here, showing some money, and then getting what appears to be “no.”

But surely no… not our pho.

The two girls are still sitting with us, taking pictures with us and trying to talk. So we decide, we’ll just ask them what’s in our soup. We point to the soup, hold up a piece of meat, and make the questioning face and shrug our shoulders…. Then we start the animal imitations.

We moo – they laugh and shake their heads.

We point to a chicken across the street and cluck, cluck, cluck – they shake their heads no.

We oink – they laugh at us and shake their heads.

I do my best goat baa, Rick has to follow up with a head-butting action to get the point across – they shake their heads again.

We quack – more head shaking.

We look puzzled… so the girls try to act it out for us.

I’m still not 100% on what they were going for, or maybe I just don’t want to be, but it involved bending down and makes a handsign like you were motioning for something to come to you, and they made a sound like “puh, puh, puh” or “ruh, ruh, ruh”, and motioned in the direction of a near by dog.

I suppose we’ll never know for sure, and I’d like to think otherwise, but all signs seem to unavoidably point to dog. For what it’s worth, Rick says he thought it tasted pretty good. I can’t quite get there.

And after that, it seemed like everywhere I looked I saw signs for dog restaurants. I know it’s not in English, and I don’t know Vietnamese, but I can promise you this is not Mutt’s Cantina, not a sign for a dog-friendly restaurant. Do not bring your pooch to the patio here.

It’s definitely on my list of meals to be avoided in the future. And as a public service, I’ve created this handy chart to help you know if you are eating dog in Vietnam.

I’m sorry, Ruger. It won’t happen again.

November 13, 2014November 13, 2014

Rock the Cat Ba, Rock the Cat Ba! …and getting lost in the South China Sea

We just spent three days on Cat Ba Island, Vietnam – it’s kinda of like a fantasy island. The main draw is the crazy topography – all around it is a bay of limestone karsts, fancy word for giant hunks of limestone splashed down right in the middle of the ocean. It’s surreal.

Our favorite day was the boat tour day, which took us out right into the middle of all of the karsts… and got Rick and I lost in the South China Sea for a little while!

We met some great folks from the west coast at dinner the night before and they were going on a boat tour with a guy from their hotel and asked if we wanted to join. Well the price was right and we happily agreed to join. Funny thing about cheap boat tours…. Let’s just say our motto for the day was “Safety Third!” (Mom, Dad: Kidding it’s really wasn’t that bad)

We were pointed to a van to ride to the dock, where we got on a “junk boat” (which is the real name for these boats, although, it was also a good description).

On our way out to the bay we stopped at one of the many fish farms… different than fish farms I’ve seen before, these are floating fish farms. Apparently they catch them as baby fishes and feed’em, fatten them up, then sell them as big fat fishes (hello, Never Finding Nemo). And these little itty bitty ladies balance on narrow floating pieces and flip 30lb fish from one netted enclosure to another.

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So our next stop is kayaking. We’ve been totally entranced boating through this landscape, but now we actually get to get IN TO it! Our boat pulls up to a dock surrounded by kayaks and we are pointed to get out…. Then ushered over to the edge.

We wait, thinking surely our guide is going to give us some direction. Or some timing, when to be back. Maybe what direction to go… Or not go… Like go around that island, or stay between these. I mean we’re in the middle of the South China Sea, not just that, but it’s not like we can see more than a quarter mile in any direction because there’s a giant, 10-15 story limestone island.

So… We wait… Nope, no direction. Just a push into a kayak and a hand pointing us out to the bay.

Ok, so surely our guide will be right behind our group. Duh. I mean it’s gotta be self explanatory if he’s just setting us out there.

Oh – by the way, I also note at this time that we do not have life jackets. Why did this stand out to me? Well because every other tourist in a kayak has a bright orange one on. Worrisome? Slightly. More so when I notice the inch of water in our kayak. But it does make it easier to spot the other folks in our group – they’re the ones without the life jackets!

So we’re off paddling towards… Well who knows, just paddling in the direction pointed to us. The group is around us… We see a really cool opening in the limestone, just high enough over the water for a kayak to go through. So of course we have to see what’s on the other side! We veer left and head for the secret lagoon – another couple in our group has already headed that way.

The sea is super peaceful. It’s like being in a giant dream lagoon. I guess the giant rock islands put a stop to any waves or currents.

The lagoon is beautiful, we paddle around for a couple minutes. Take pics. And see we’re the only ones in there… So we head off to find our group…

<< cue the Gilligan’s Island theme music. “A three hour tour…” >>

We come out of the lagoon back under the arch, and there’s no one from our group anywhere to be seen. But no worries because we know the direction we came from… So they must have continued on the trajectory past our little lagoon. Take a left, and paddle ho! We’re cruisin!

We make it around the next karst, and between a couple giant ones. There’s an awesome looking, wide, but very low arch cut out of the limestone and we can see light and water on the other side… That must be the big lagoon we imagine our guide us taking us to. There’s another tour group coming out of there… It’s so cool to smoothly glide under the rock. We emerge into a huge lagoon surrounded by jungle – we search the trees for monkeys, but really each of us is secretly, silently, with a calm smiling expression searching the horizon of the water for our un-life-jacketed guide and tour group. No luck!

I finally admit out loud that I’m a bit nervous that we’ve lost them. Rick too. So we decide they must have come this way (there’s yet another group in the lagoon with us, clearly it’s THE spot to go to). You can’t see the whole lagoon because it’s got a twisty, curvy, hidden “shoreline” which is really just islands surrounding us. So we decide we’ll kayak the perimeter so we can find the exit they took. All of the way around… Nope, no exit except the way we came in. I’m feeling those paddling muscles at this point!

So we decide to head back to the floating “dock” more of a big boat/dock because it’s not attached to anchored to any land. We’ll find them there for sure!

Paddle paddle … See other groups, but not ours. As we approach the dock, we search the boats for ours. It’s definitely not at the dock anymore. We search the horizon for it… Nope can’t find it.

Rick suddenly remembers that he thought he heard something about we were supposed to kayak to another rendezvous point on the other side of some island and that’s where the boat picks us up. But doesn’t remember where that point was or what time, or what direction…. Or if it was even the tour we went with… because we had talked with a few different companies before going with this one, so it could have been a different company.

We go to the dock thinking that at least they can tell us if we’re supposed to be there or somewhere else, or maybe which direction our group went, or if they had come back yet or not. We paddle up to the guy at the dock and ask about our boat, if we are supposed to be back or not, if they are coming back. We get very perplexed looks… and eventually get “Noo Eng-liiish”. But maybe we can say our boats name or our guides name and at least get a hand pointing us the right way…. Until we realize we know neither our boat’s name, our guide’s name, the name of the tour or anything. We know the name of the hotel we left from…. And I don’t think “Take me to Ali Baba’s Hotel” is going to get us very far here.

This may be when we start to get a little freaked out. I declare that I will commandeer a different tourist boat if we don’t find them in the next hour.

We start paddling back towards the direction we explored… because… well there’s nothing else to do really. As we round the corner, we see a platoon of un-lifejacketed kayakers headed our direction!! YEA!! It’s our group… well at least half of our group. But no matter, we are celebrating no longer being lost in the South China Sea!

The other half of our group seems to have gone missing like us. Our guide, smiling and completely unaware that we were lost at sea for a good 40 minutes points us toward the sign that says “Here: Danger. No Entry.” And hands us a flashlight.

And somehow I feel much safer entering a pitch black water cave with this guide than I did paddling around on our own. We enter this cave, and it’s awesome – we are going through completely pitch black, narrow, and VERY low ceiling sea cave! How cool is that?! Just when we’ve been paddling for 10 minutes in the dark, we see a light on the other side and make our way out into a secluded lagoon (maybe this is how we lost him, he went through one of these things?!)

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After exploring a bit more around the lagoons, we board the boat again and have delicious fresh seafood lunch. The sun has come out now – we’re lucky because it’s rainy season – so our guide tells us we get to go to Happy Beach and swim. It was not so beach because of high tide, but we had so much fun swimming in the clear green-blue water.

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After that, off to Rick’s much awaited Deep Water Soloing (the fancy name for when you rock climb up from the water, with no harness, just the water to catch your fall if you fall). I manned the camera from the boat. Turns out it really is an acquired skill to be able to climb all of the way up the limestone rock that manages to be really slippery and really sharp at the same time. Rick made it up the bottom portion really well, but wisely chose not to slice up his hands by continuing to the top.

We slowly made our way back to port, toured a couple of islands on the way and got to see a beautiful sunset.

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October 30, 2014October 31, 2014

Childhood Bucket List Item: Ride Black Beauty — Check!

Riding Black Beauty - Marwari Horses of India

If you don’t know, as a kid I was a obsessed with horses. I rode competitively for a while in hunter jumper and dressage, and when I wasn’t at the barn, I was reading the entire [amazon text=The Saddle Club series&asin=B00J2J20P8] (shout out for Stevie! She was so cool. Did anyone else kinda want to be her?!) and Black Beauty and My Friend Flicka and Misty of Chincoteague… or playing with my horse figurines… or studying different kinds of horses. You get the idea.

So on every trip Rick and I take I scheme to find some way to horseback ride while we’re there. Rick is a really good sport about it, in fact, he might not admit it, but I think he has a little horse fever now too! And he would tell you that my scheming is never really all that sneaky because A) I’m predictable. If we’re going a trip, I’m going to be looking for what kind of riding options there are in that area. (“Rick, Antarctica has horses, right??” j/k… kind of), and B) I get way too excited when I find some where we can ride and can’t contain myself.

So far we’ve ridden in

Costa Rica, tied for my favorite, Esteban and his family are amazing!
Colombia, my other favorite
Mexico, Manuel at Tierra Chamahua, love him and the vaqueros
In the U.S. lots of places, but most recently Colorado
…and now add India to the list!

So the childhood bucket list item – the dream of riding Black Beauty! And I got to do it yesterday!! He was seriously, movie-worthy gorgeous horse. My Black Beauty was a Marwari horse, a rare breed only found here in Rajasthan India. One of the characteristic features are the curved in, crescent shaped ears – so cute!

They are warm-blooded horses, known for their stamina in the desert and for being very brave. They were bred as warhorses, and learned very fancy moves because they would have to carry their riders into battle against enemies who were riding elephants. So these horses were trained to stand on their hind legs in battle so their rider could reach his opponent on an elephant’s back and attack him. Now they are generally trained in dressage. They have a beautiful gate.

My wonderful horse was incredibly affectionate, smooth gaited and a bit high spirited. It was a dream riding him.

So childhood dream to ride Black Beauty – CHECK!

October 29, 2014October 31, 2014

17 Things We’ve Loved about India

The People.
Super friendly people everywhere that just want to chat. To ask where you’re from, how long you’re here, tell you about their city, the culture. It was amazing – true genuine hospitality and friendliness. Everywhere!
Diwali Lights.
It is the festival of lights and, boy, do they decorate accordingly! There are Christmas lights everywhere – it’s really festive and puts you in a fun mood. And while the strings of lights were cool, my favorite part were the little candle flames everywhere giving off this warm glow.
Rick is a celebrity. Photo ops!
We had a lot of folks asking to take photos with us. It was quite funny to us. And as soon as we would say okay to one guy, there were 10 more that appeared wanting pictures too! Like they were just waiting for the first brave guy to ask. We humored just about everyone that asked… even when it meant we were standing around for photos for 15 minutes. And we just get a picture with them too – because, why not? It’s fun… but the staring does get a little weird after a while. Crazy eyes!
Party Cows.
We call them Party Cows – they were painted and decorated for Diwali and all over the streets. There were also Party Donkeys, Party Goats… pretty much if you could get it to stand still for long enough, it was painted!

“Party until the cows come home” – uh oh, I think the cows came home. Knock, knock.
Jaipur Shopping Festival.
In celebration of Diwali, Jaipur has a huge shopping festival. The stores decorate their store fronts with crazy elaborate scenes – it’s like NYC at Christmas.

Popular Indian night club? Nope, just people waiting to get into the temple for Diwali.
Diwali.
Ok, I know that’s three things for Diwali, but it was so fun! Everyone was super friendly on the “big night” of Diwali Oct 23 when we were in Jairpur. Cheery people shouted down the street at us “Happy Diwali”… came out of houses to tell us “Happy Diwali”.There are also poo sculptures involved. Not so sure on what these mean or what they are for (or if it’s real poo), but all over the streets on the 24th there were little “gingerbread man” sculptures made of poop.
Street Food.
The best food we’ve had on the trip so far! Street food in India is delicious. From dahl and chapatis, to lassis, to samosas with curry flavors inside. We basically never really know what it is, but if it’s popular with the locals and there’s a line in front of the cart, we’re in! The flavors have been incredible.

We are in Delhi until this evening, so more street food is in our near future!
Sunsets.
Absolutely stunning sunsets. Everyday. So the cause may not be so sexy… I think a lot of it has to do with the pollution, but the results are amazing.
Palaces.
Lots and lots of palaces. I think Udaipur had the best ones! We spent 4-5 days in Udaipur, it’s a beautiful city, said to be the most romantic city in India. I can see why, it’s set on a couple of lakes and has beautiful palaces surrounding the lake, and even in the middle of the lake.
Marwari Horses.
I loved getting to ride them so much, it’s a separate post.
Trains.
The trains are awesome. You can get everywhere by train… and it’s like a moving hotel if you get an overnight one (awesome for us budget travelers!). And it’s a nice, comfy hotel – I think I got my best sleep on the trains in India. And you wake up and you’re in your next destination.
Henna.
It really is beautiful how intricate the designs are.
Taj Mahal.
Pretty impressive place.
Elephants and camels everywhere.
Tuk tuk rides.
Always an adventure – but far better than to be in one, than dodging them on the street, they can be ruthless.

Pay up, buddy! No free ride here!
Rooftop cafes.
“Everything is possible!” … and “it’s not possible”
We heard both. A LOT. We made a wonderful friend in Agra who took care of us at his rooftop restaurant every night we were there. The first time we walked in we were greeted warmly and told “what would make you happy? Everything is possible!”

On the flip side, when someone here wants to say no to your request (like “May I take a picture of your shop?” or “May I have another beer?” near closing time)… the answer is a very proper sounding “Not possible.” It’s very disarming…. We’ve come to find it kind of endearing and funny now. But there’s a little part of me that always wants to argue, “It’s not really that it’s ‘not possible’, sir. I think what you really mean is you don’t want to!”

We have one last day in India to enjoy the wonderful culture, people, sights and flavors.

October 27, 2014October 28, 2014

Today Sponsored by Rox!! Whitewater Rafting the Seti

Today was an epic day!! We got to go whitewater rafting, care of Roxanna! As a going away gift, Roxanna Martinez gave us such a cool gift – she wanted to gift us one awesome day of adventure on our trip. And I promised I would make it an a most excellent day that she “sponsored” and do something special. Oh boy and we did!!! THANK YOU, ROXANNA!!

So thanks to Rox, we got to do a special treat that Rick and I had both been dreaming of doing, but didn’t think it was possible in our budget – enter Roxanna’s gift! 🙂 We both love whitewater rafting, but had only gotten to go on our honeymoon We each secretly hoped we’d get to go on this trip… but hadn’t said anything to each other yet. And Nepal is know for it’s rafting (think Himalayan mountain range rivers!). So we happened to start talking to a couple of guides in Pokhara and learned instead of taking a bus to Chitwan National Park (our next destination), we could do a day and a half whitewater rafting trip down the Seti River.

Our river guide - just kidding! This was the owner's son playing in front of the shop. So cute with this rafting helmet and mini-kayak — Our river guide – just kidding! This was the owner’s son playing in front of the shop. So cute with this rafting helmet and mini-kayak

We met our guides in Pokhara and rode to the put in point. We were the only guests on the raft. The Seti is the warmest river in Nepal, and goes through gorgeous gorges and jungle forest, and has views of the Annapurna range.

It wasn’t long after we got our instructions on “Paddle forward”, “Paddle back” and “GET DOOOOWN!” that we hit our first rapids. The raft twisted around and we paddled hard and made it through – I only thought I was going to fall out of the raft once. Rick says he wasn’t going to, but I’m pretty sure his back touched the water.

Then we reached a calm stretch and the guides said time to swim. In the back of my mind I’m thinking… hey, once we get to Chitwan, aren’t we going on a crocodile watching expedition? And we’re rafting to there now. And I’m swimming in this warm river. Hmmm…. But we jumped in anyway! We actually got to swim through some small rapids which was really fun!

We continued and hit a couple more sets then reached our stopping point for lunch. The guides made this amazing set up. They prepared everything from scratch and we got to eat on the beach, and relax a little. P1040981

More rafting, with the rapids getting a little bigger each time! It was so fun!

We were tired when we reached our camping beach. Since it was an overnight trip we got to camp right next to the river. I was totally surprised by everything those four guys were about to pull out of the raft – we had a sweet camping set up. We got a tent, and they created a “lounge area” out of the raft and a tarp.

P1050026 P1050021

And then we started to learn that our guides were also chefs. I think we got a 7 course dinner that night… the food just kept coming and it was all good! We started with f freshly popped (over an open fire) popcorn. Next was this “party mix” of what I think were dry ramen noodles, popcorn, diced up cucumber and onion and spices – it was super addictive! Then we had soup. Then we had bread. Then we had the main meal, which was spaghetti with meat sauce and a couple of sides of vegetables. It was all delicious and it all came from our raft!

As they prepared the meal, we played games with them… just little games with rock and sticks but it was fun. Rick was building things out of little bamboo sticks – and he, feeling highly confident in his skills, challenged me “ok, Liz, what do you want me to make? Anything!” first thing that came to mind was a rocking horse! Rick did not like that challenge so much at first… but of course, if you know him at all, he’s going to take it on and figure it out. So about 30 minutes later, here is the bamboo rocking horse! J pretty impressive!!

As we played and ate, it grew dark and our guides set up us with a campfire on the beach and lanterns throughout camp. The stars were spectacular!!! I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many or seen the milky way that clearly. I guess that’s the upside of the constant power outages… very little light pollution in Nepal! We found a bunch of constellations and a couple shooting stars. And when we were finally exhausted, we slept very well in our tent.

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The next morning we woke up to tea ready for us to go, and breakfast. We packed up and got ready to go. It was cloudier today and we were told we would cross into a new river the Tiraslu, which is much colder than the Seti River… so we got wetsuits! I don’t think I’ve worn one before so that was an experience! But they certainly worked to keep us warm! We went through many rapids that morning and then got to swim in this new colder river – Rick jumped in first and I could tell by the look on his face it lived up to it’s cold reputation! I wasn’t really planning to get in, but Rick said I had no choice as he grabbed the back of my life jacket and pulled me into the river with him. It was cold, but with the wetsuit quickly warmed up to bearable.

The crew joked with us and taught us more Nepali words. I have to say, it’s the most fun rafting crew we’ve ever gone with. All smiles and really knew what they were doing -plus excellent chefs!

We finished our trip (back in the raft) with one last great set of rapids! What a treat!! ROXANNE THANK YOU SO MUCH!! We loved every second of it!

October 27, 2014October 28, 2014

Home Sweet Home, Pokhara!

Well, we completed our trek, it took us 14 days in total. As most of you know we were incredibly blessed to have gotten through the mountains before the blizzard and avalanches hit. The tea houses varied quite a bit, all of them simple accommodations, but some were still quite comfortable and had hot gas showers (a hot solar shower is just a lie. Never believe it!). Some of them were very new and quaint, with sweet families that welcomed us. Others were…. Uncomfortable to say the least… let’s just say some of the bathrooms made me prefer to use the woods trail-side instead of going into the bathroom. ICK!

So after our little three day extra bit of hiking, we returned to Pokhara. Its funny to say but it felt like going home! We actually knew the town we were going to, we knew we were going to stay at Banyan Tree and that they had hot showers and a nice balcony, we knew where our favorite restaurants were. We were excited to get there! It was so relaxing when we arrived.

We had been running low on money for the last three days, so had to limit what we ate and drank… we got into Pokhara, got to the ATM, and got a big lunch at Silk Road, which has safe salads (I am craving fresh veggies constantly here… it’s hard to get them regularly because only a few places wash them in iodine water).

We started working on what we were doing next, but first a little relaxation! Rick had found a spa in Pokhara. We checked our budget and we had been saving money, so time for a treat!! A spa day!! It was awesome and cheap. We ordered a full day spa for the next day. Which turned out to be perfect timing because it started raining that night and the rain continued non-stop the entire next day and night – it was the remnants of Cyclone Hudhud, which then moved into the Annapurna area and caused the massive snowfall, blizzards and avalanches that caused the disaster.

The spa was so cool because everything was done by hand. I was taken to this little clay hut, where the ladies brought water they had boiled from the house to wash my feet. Then my spa day started with a full body scrub – it was intense! I think it was walnut shells. I probably needed it after hiking for two weeks with limited showers. Then I got hot oil hair treatment. And then we got a full body massage – wow, it was the best massage ever! They call it the “Trekkers Deep Tissue Massage” and they were not messing around (Rick and I still have slight bruising on our calves from it, but without it we would probably still be hobbling around, we were so sore from the crazy hiking). I then got a facial, spa lunch and a pedicure and manicure (those are not their specialities. They were so sweet, attentive and tried really hard, but I’m pretty sure they learned the techniques from YouTube and didn’t really get the purpose of the actions they were doing. Like the cuticle cream… just went on my nail… and then they used the cuticle tool to just scrape over my nail… same actions as a normal manicure, just in the wrong place. It was pretty amusing.)

I felt so relaxed and clean after the spa, it was wonderful!

And that night we went to dinner at a new restaurant – it was a Turkish restaurant. We were a bit confused by the menu (since it was in partial Turkish, partial Nepali, partial Chinese and a smidge of English). The owner/chef came out and talked with us. He was so proud of his restaurant and told us all about his garden, and well water, and where the meat came from and how he had learned to cook from his grandmother, and the history of the restaurant. He told us that he would prepare a special tasting for us! We got a chicken gyro platter, and Alexander the Great kebab platter, and these little garlic breads with a dipping sauce. Everything was SO good!

Rick and I were so excited – after eating Dal Bhat (rice, lentil soup, and curried veggies) for almost every dinner for two weeks, we were ready for something different. Dal Bhat is the traditional dinner of Nepalis and it’s the main thing served on the trek at tea houses (the saying goes “Dal Bhat power. 24 hour!”). Even when you get something else, it’s basically same flavor different form. Momo – same spices, just in a dumpling. Noodles – same veggies, same flavors, just on noodles not rice. Omlette – yep, same spice, same veggies just on eggs. Macaroni – same, same, different noodle shape. Soup – you guessed it, same veggies, same spices, just more liquid.

We hadn’t even realized we were so tired of it, until the Turkish food. And it tasted so different and SOOO good! I definitely took for granted the variety of food flavors I was able to get in the US… either at restaurants or when I cooked. Asian one night, Italian another, Mexican another… or even just different spices.

So we thoroughly enjoyed our little break in sweet Pokhara — comfy place to stay, hot showers, spa day and yummy food! We’re happy campers!

Bahn Xeo

Bo Taye Chahn

Tasting Menu of Vietnamese Tapas style dishes

Banana Blossom Salad

Mantis Shrimp

Che

Snails

Hot Pot

Sour Fish Soup

Fresh Grilled Squid

Pho

The Jars of Doom

Saucy!

Jellyfish Salad

Mi Quang

Fruit

Thịt chó – Dog

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Scootin’ around out on the town with friends

Exploring the Marble Mountains

Historic Hoi An

Admiring the awesome bridges of Danang

Tam’s epic tales

See a Real Fire-breathing Dragon

Beautiful beaches – China Beach, My Kye, Etc.

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How’d we end in up Danang? God’s perfect timing.

What about the babies?

We would love for you to consider helping the groups we partnered with in Danang, Vietnam:

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So, I’m 97% Sure We Just Ate Dog…

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