Chiang Mai - Round 1

January 30, 2017

Phil, Jeff and I hopped on a short flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai (northern Thailand), where Phil would stay with us for 5 more days before heading back to Chicago, and where Jeff and I would stay for almost 2 weeks. During the hour long flight, I ended up chatting with very nice Indian man from Cleveland. It really is a small world!

For the next 5 nights, we stayed in the Old City of Chiang Mai. The Old City area is about 2 km by 2km square with a ton of bars, restaurants and temples. We knew it would be touristy, but we were still surprised to see more Westerners than locals. Our first night in town, we ate dinner at a place recommended by our taxi driver from the airport and it was a small noodle shop, definitely more local than places like the U.N.Irish Pub that lined the street near our hotel.

Then we walked outside of the Old City walls and found the Night Bazaar. There were a lot of knick-nacks to buy, but we were more interested in all of the food stands...and the fish spa! We had some delicious ice cream fresh made for us from sweet and condensed milk and chosen toppings mixed on a cold stone, and then spread it out nice and thin, and served it all fancy and rolled up!

It was hard to take a good photo since we were both laughing so hard- it tickled!

The next morning we didn’t do much since all the green curry had finally caught up with Phil’s stomach. He was a trooper, and after lounging by our hotel pool:

CANNONBALLZ (cation credit goes to Phil)

We went to dinner and to see a Muay Thai fight! Tickets were about $11 each for the cheap seats. It was a little sketchy when we first walked in. We were escorted by a man-lady to our seats, and in the ring duking it out were two 10 year old boys. After the children were done, there were about 5 more fights that night. There was one women’s fight, and the last fight was an international fight. Some American and a local Thai dude. We though the American won, but clearly, we didn’t know anything about Muay Thai rules.

We think that you get more points by kicking your opponent and using your feet. These guys are super flexible! Also, there are 5 rounds of fighting. Each round lasts about 3 minutes and 30 seconds (or seemingly, whenever someone decides to gong the bell.)

I think I got more into the fights than the guys did. Maybe it was the beer, but I was really enjoying watching these people kick the crap out of each other. My favorite part, besides the Thai commentary that I couldn’t understand, was the live music. There were three musicians who played the entire night, throughout each round, and only took a 5-minute break before the last fight.

The fights didn’t end until midnight, so we got a few hours of sleep and woke up early the next day and rented scooters. After my last moto experience, I wasn’t too keen on the idea of getting back on a bike. It was a good thing we got an early start to beat most of the tourists, and we headed outside of town, into the mountains!

We drove all the way up to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. It is one of northern Thailand’s most sacred Buddhist temples. It was beautiful, and offered great views of the city below!

Apparently it's cool to bring your dog...to a temple...in a baby carrier....

On the way back down the mountain we explored a little bit of Doi Suthep Pui National Park. We stopped at a few waterfalls and went on a hike in the jungle.

We got back into town, ate some Khao Soi, the local curry noodle soup, and later went to the Saturday night market. There seems to be a different market every night here in Thailand, and this market was packed!

Phil bought a bag of crickets for us to try at the market. When we asked the lady selling the bugs which ones she thought tasted the best, she pointed to the crickets and the grubs. The crickets just tasted like little fried crunchy things- not my f… — Phil bought a bag of crickets for us to try at the market. When we asked the lady selling the bugs which ones she thought tasted the best, she pointed to the crickets and the grubs. The crickets just tasted like little fried crunchy things- not my favorite, but better than I expected! A few days ago, Jeff and I asked our taxi driver if the locals eat fried bugs. He told us they were only for the tourists...

Our last purchase of the night was a giant Belgium waffled filled with chocolate sauce. It made up for the crickets.

-Cara

PS. I’m naming the Chiang Mai blog posts after rounds in a Muay Thai fight....stay tuned to see if we make it through all 5 rounds!

Poor Phil had to deal with budget traveling while he was with us. Which meant $11 each/night (included breakfast!) at the MD House in Old City. Let's just say it was a cozy fit!

Pattaya - What Is This Place?

January 29, 2017

When our time in Bangkok came to an end we hopped on a bus and rode the two hours down to Pattaya to see Phil and Cara’s friend’s parents, the Wagner’s. It turned out that Mr. Wagner had to travel for work, but Mrs. Wagner was an incredible host and showed us the best of Pattaya.

We only had two nights, and we made the most of our time. The first night in town she took us out for a great dinner of pizza and beer, and they had wheat beer so it was great to drink something other thanthe Bud Lights of Asia that have been our only option for a while. We also took a stroll down Walking Street in downtown Pattaya. Did I mention that Pattaya is the sex capital of Thailand (and maybe the world)? The street was crazy, and I think I’m still trying to process everything that was going on. We also got in a few games of euchre that evening, so it was definitely a great day!

The next day we got up and went for a run/explored the local park and then headed out to see some more of town. We spent the first part of the day at the Sanctuary of Truth, a very unique temple/building that is entirely made of wood. It seems old, but was actually started in 1981 and is still under construction (hence, our hard hats). The creator of the park wanted to make a place independent of a specific religion but showing the commonalities and a place to bring people together, and it is a really cool place to see. Mrs. Wagner told us that after the King died last year, there was an event with leaders from 5 religions that came together and each did their own ceremony to honor his life. Most of the carvings were taken from Buddhism or Hinduism, but they seem to want everyone to be welcome.

We had lunch at another great restaurant in town and then checked out a little tea shop, which I think made Cara’s day. I’m pretty sure her dream job would be professional tea drinker. If anyone has a line on that, let her know! On the way back we stopped by the giant Buddha on a hill nearby and got a great view overlooking the city. We had dinner in and played some more games that evening, wrapping up a great stay in Pattaya!

It is hard to see, but the green lights in the dark photo are squid fishing boats out on the bay, they use bright lights to attract the squid and the fish the squid eat and then use nets to haul them in. We also had to share a photo of Mrs. Wagner's dining room table- she made us delicious pumpkin soup and salad for dinner one night! We haven't had a home cooked meal with company in ages and it was amazing! Thank you!!!

The next morning we went back to Bangkok and flew to Chiang Mai to start the next leg of our adventure!

-Jeff

Backpacking Mecca

January 26, 2017

After our amazing time in Vietnam, we flew into Bangkok, Thailand to see Cara’s brother Phil. We spent four nights in Bangkok and explored the city as much as we could. We crossed everything off our list that we wanted to do, and we had a great time doing it!

The first evening in town we took a nice long walk around town, exploring and gradually making our way to Lumpini Park. It’s a giant park and probably the nicest green space in the city. The locals and expats/tourists all flock there, and it’s great to see a space like that used and well maintained. On the way back we stopped to grab groceries (they have Tesco - our favorite British grocery store!) and decided we would take an Uber the mile and a half or so back to our AirBNB since they were so cheap (plus who wants to carry a couple 5L jugs of water that far?). Little did we realize it was prime rush hour and it would take us over an hour (way longer than walking)! It wasn’t the last time we would wish we would have just walked instead of using Uber while we were there. Later, we followed the best rule in dining that night by just going to a place along the street that had a lot of people in it, and it didn’t disappoint. A lot of Thai cuisine seems to be family style, so we ordered a few dishes to share.

The next day we went to see the Wat Pho temples and the reclining Buddha statue, which was enormous! Once again, we decided to take an Uber and drastically underestimated how long it would take.

Since we were now on the other side of downtown from where we were staying, we took advantage of being out and took a water taxi along the river to see some more of the city and then explored Khaosan Road, which is the biggest expat party street in the city. It was a little too much for Cara and I, but it was really good people watching. We grabbed dinner nearby, walked about that part of town a bit more, and then took a blissfully quick Uber back to the apartment. (Below: Phil, Megan, Cara and Jeff on Khaosan Road before all the hardcore party people were out. Jeff is sharing his opinion of the backpacker district...we went to bed that night while Phil and Megan returned to Khaosan to have a good time!)

The next day we wisely used the skyrail to reach Chatuchak market, which is a ginormous open air market, selling mostly knock off goods and tourist junk, but some nice clothes and household goods, plus some food stuffs. Ginormous doesn’t describe it well enough as the market covers 27 acres. We felt like we saw a ton of it, but I’m sure we barely scratched the surface. There are sections for just about anything, although it didn’t seem as organized as the maps wanted you to believe. There was even a whole section dedicated to pets. Want a crazy Asian outfit for your cat? They’ve got it! The food stalls were pretty good though, and we had plenty of meat on a stick, spring rolls, and some ice cream. After we couldn’t take the crowds anymore, we headed home to rest a little before going out to grab dinner on Soi Sukhumvit 11, the other major expat hangout. We ended up grabbing some Mexican to fulfill Cara’s need for chips and salsa, and while it was okay, it definitely wasn’t great.

Our last day in town we went to see Chinatown and walk through all the market streets there, which was another adventure. The Uber ride there took a long time again and the markets were full of all kinds of different things. We decided to walk back to our apartment, partly to avoid rush hour traffic, and partly to see some more of the city. That night we wandered into another crowded restaurant and other than the bamboo shoot salad that was awful, the food was great.

Overall, we weren’t impressed with Bangkok. The street food and local restaurants were cheap with pretty good quality and the markets were interesting, but it was just a big city, it didn’t have as much character as some of the other places we have visited. The major party/expat hangout streets were more than we bargained for, and it definitely could be a great place to party and meet other travelers if that is what you are hoping for. The food has been good though, and so far that has been the major focus of our adventures in Southeast Asia, so we’re really not complaining. We have plenty left to see here and I think Thailand is going to keep getting better!

-Jeff

We had to share a few more photos, from all the goodies Phil brought us, to Cara's favorite environmental friends in one of the parks, grilled corn that you could buy everywhere, the crazy exercise parks, Bangkok traffic, the crazy crushed ice/chocolate/sweet and condensed milk/banana/who knows really dessert we had, and a delicious plate of pad thai!

Good Morning, Vietnam

January 21, 2017

I really should call this post ‘Goodbye, Vietnam’ but it just didn’t have the same play on words…

We had such an amazing time in Vietnam that I thought it deserved another blog post, just to talk about food and shopping! It was such an easy country to get around; you don’t have to plan anything ahead of time and almost everyone speaks at least a little bit of English. The only thing I would have changed about our trip is that it would have been better to start in the South (Saigon) and end in the North (Hanoi). We found the shopping to be a better in Hanoi than in Saigon, and we liked the character of the city more. We highly recommend making a trip to Vietnam if Southeast Asia is in your travel plans!

Jeff and I had never had Vietnamese food before getting to Hanoi- but it only took a meal or two to fall in love! We quickly began our mission to find the best pho and bun in the country! Pho is on the left, and 2 different types of bun are on the right:

A bowl of bun normally cost us 60,000 dong, or a little less than $3. Pho is a noodle soup with your choice of meat, and thicker rice noodles. Bun is similar, but served with less broth, skinnier rice noodles, and you add as many herbs and lettuce as you want! We added as much romaine lettuce, sprigs of fresh mint, cilantro and sweet basil as we could eat!

For the most part, everywhere we went, we ate outside on tiny stools. It was like eating every meal at the kids table- good fun! Here we are eating pho in Hanoi.

Vietnam was colonized by the French, and once the French left, they were kind enough to leave the legacy of baguettes behind. (I thought the bread in Vietnam was just as good as the bread in Paris!) Bahn mi is any type of sandwich made on the baguettes- most commonly with eggs for breakfast!

Bahn mi normally ran 15,000 dong for a breakfast sandwich, or about 75 cents. We did see a lot of different food on the streets (dried squid), and advertisements for interesting foods. We skipped this delight from Pizza Hut:

Pizza with hot dogs, shrimp, and cheese (that looks like eggs) in the crust, anyone?

Jeff voluntarily ordered coffee in Vietnam. This is a big deal!!!! Vietnam is one of the largest exporters of coffee in the world, and they had a unique coffee culture. Vietnamese coffee is small and strong, and you wait while it filters in front of you. Typically, it is served with sweet and condensed milk. We found that we liked the taste of the coffee once it was iced, more than when it was served hot.

Many of the photos in our Vietnam blog posts I have stolen from Bri, Marie and Chip- thanks guys! I think this one is a Prisma creation from Chip while he is waiting for his coffee to filter on top of that sweet and condensed milk. Yum!

Vietnam is also a popular place to purchase civet cat coffee. Supposedly, the coffee tastes better after the cats eat the coffee fruit, digest it, and then someone collects the digested beans. Crap coffee! We didn’t try any, it was pretty expensive compared to the regular stuff, and we were looking for egg coffee the whole time anyways:

Coconut coffee (more like a cold coffee-coconut milkshake) and egg coffee (described in this blog post) set us back about $1.50.

Since you can stuff your face while eating super cheap, it means you have plenty of money left to go shopping!!!! I was so excited that Bri and Marie wanted to shop, because it meant I got to help them spend their money. Vietnam is one place that I plan to return to with a shopping budget. Unfortunately, everything I wanted to buy wouldn’t fit in my backpack. And I’m not sure what I would have done with a knock off pair of Jimmy Choo’s or Christian Louboutin’s considering my current wardrobe...

So many name brands are made in Vietnam (like the store above states). Northface and Columbia for sure, and then there were great knock offs of every other brand you could think of. From the quality of some things, they may be the real deal! I know I'm going to have a really hard time paying full price for things from now on. Bri picked up a huge North Face duffel for $20 and Marie got a cute Patagonia messenger bag for $11.

Hoi An is the place to get tailored clothes or shoes made! Bri got a pair of boots made, and Marie got 2 pairs of boots and one pair of sandals. They turned out great!

A pair of custom boots like these will only set you back $120. The girls got the high-end options- full leather inside and out. They are amazing!

Chip scored this awesome robe in Hoi An for about $6! Keeping it classy!

We discovered a Russian Market right next to our AirBnB in Ho Chi Minh City- dangerous! They had stalls and stalls full of bags, shoes, jackets and clothes. I LOVE haggling with people over the cost of things! I happily bartered on behalf of Bri and Marie, although I probably scared them at first. I have to put on my scary bitch face, and then you have to be willing to walk away if they aren't giving you the price you want!

Hard to believe we walked away from this beauty! If they had a different size, Bri would be the proud owner of this amazing winter coat right now...She did end up getting a pair of Helly Hansen snow pants for $30. They had full Burton snow suits (ja… — Hard to believe we walked away from this beauty! If they had a different size, Bri would be the proud owner of this amazing winter coat right now...She did end up getting a pair of Helly Hansen snow pants for $30. They had full Burton snow suits (jacket and pants) starting at $70!

There were piles and piles of Adidas, Nike, Underarmour, and Reebok clothes and shoes everywhere we looked. There were some great looking North Face coats, and even some Victoria's Spring or Vctria's Scetret underwear hanging around! Marie and Bri picked up some Nike and Underarmour leggings and shirts for $4-$6 each!

I picked up a Frada wallet for 150,000 dong, or $6.60. All of the Louis Vuitton bags I saw looked pretty legit too!

-Cara

Vietnam Summary:

Modes of transportation: Uber, sleeper bus, dragon boat, kayak, motor scooter, van

Total amount spent in Vietnam (including flight into Hanoi): $1419.76

Avg.: $83.52 per day

We were told that Vietnam is cheap, but we were still pleasantly surprised with how cheap. We didn’t hold back from doing things, and while we didn’t go crazy partying or buying all kinds of souvenirs, we did eat a ton and drink a lot more beer than is normal for us. You could definitely do Vietnam even cheaper if you wanted too, especially if you picked one or two cities to visit instead of moving as much as we did. Vietnam is a great place to visit on a budget, and you can live like royalty for very little.

-Jeff

The following is the theme song for our time in Vietnam. HAS ANYONE EVER HEARD THIS SONG BEFORE???!!! I consider myself an avid ABBA lover, but I did not know that this existed until we were in Vietnam. It played everywhere, before and after New Year’s Eve (just the ‘Happy New Year’ part on repeat…)

And we thought the only New Year’s Song was Auld Lang Syne….

PS. So many thanks to Chip, Marie and Bri for being incredible travel buddies! As I write this, it has only been 3 days since we were in Vietnam together and both of us have been coming down from a ‘vacation high.’ We aren’t sure if the rest of SE Asia can top it!!! Love you guys!

Checking out Ho Chi Minh City

January 19, 2017

Our last few days in Vietnam were spent in Ho Chi Minh City, and while it was an enjoyable few days, we enjoyed the rest of Vietnam more. Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) was named Saigon before the war, but was renamed after ‘Uncle Ho Chi Minh,’ the revolutionary communist leader after the ‘reunification’ of the country.

The first night in HCMC Cara wasn’t feeling great (whoo-hoo questionable street food!), so the rest of us wandered out of our AirBNB to find some dinner. The first place we stopped was a hopping place spilling out onto the sidewalk and seemed like a great place to grab a bite. Ironically the busiest and biggest place on the street had zero English speaking staff and we ended up with a few beers and some random food. We really weren’t sure what we were getting, and the beers ended up being warm and they brought around big ice chunks and dropped them in your glass. They even changed them out for you periodically, keeping a nice fresh chunk of ice watering down your drink. After a disappointing first dinner, we struck off down the street the other direction to hope for a better result and just get a little more food.

We were waved into a little street side table and cart grilling something that smelled delicious and thought we would give it a shot. We laughed that maybe this random street vendor would know more English than the entire staff of a large restaurant, and what do you know, he spoke pretty good English! We got another round of beers and then the food just started showing up. We didn’t order anything, and ended up with more food than fit on our table. The little pork patties were fantastic, and everything else was pretty tasty too. The basic meal was meat, greens, sprouts, and some pickled veggies with rice paper to wrap it all up in.

The next morning we went to the War Remnants museum, which is a large museum with all sorts of photos and stories from the American War of Aggression (the Vietnam War). The hardest part was all of the photos and stories about the after effects of agent orange, and overall it was a very sobering experience. It is always interesting to get the other side of the story, although Cara and I felt that the story here brushed over all the details of the actual interaction between South and North Vietnam during the war, which is some of the history we would have liked to learn, and what happened after the US left the country. After the museum we grabbed some dinner at an open food stall area, which was like a much smaller version of the hawker stalls in Singapore.

We spent the next day touring some of the Cu Chi tunnels outside HCMC, which were some of the major operating areas for the Viet Cong. The tunnels are tiny, and many of the ones that you can go in have been widened for western tourists, so it’s hard to imagine the conditions during the war. The tunnel network was extensive in Cu Chi- the entire network connected to the Saigon river and even to Cambodia. The network is over 250 km long, and the Viet Kong even tunneled into many of the American bases nearby to use them for attack. The jungle traps we were shown were pretty scary- and even though all of the jungle we were in was new growth (due to agent orange), it was still extremely dense and we couldn’t imagine anyone trying to fight there.

After the tours, we explored the Russian Market near our apartment (more on that in the next post!) and got some more delicious Vietnamese food.

Our last day in HCMC we went to see the old post office, got some more coffee, had one last bowl of Bun Cha at a highly rated place (still not as good as in Hanoi), and had one more meal at a street side restaurant. We’ll miss the food and the friendly people in Vietnam!

-Jeff

Same Same, But Different

January 15, 2017

After Phong Nha, we hopped on another bus (well really it took 2) and headed to Hoi An. Hoi An is a very touristy section of Vietnam, and we spent a few days exploring and shopping.

In all honesty, Cara and I didn't shop much, but we encouraged Bri, Marie, and Chip to shop as much as they could take. Hoi An is a great place to have clothes and shoes made, and Marie and Bri both got knee high leather boots made, and Marie had some custom sandals made. The Friendly Shoe Shop did great work!

One of the downsides to Hoi An is that they want to gather more tourist dollars, so they try to collect an admission ticket to the old town area, which is where all the shops and restaurants are located. We unknowingly walked by the first day, thinking it was a scam and inadvertently found out you can just walk with a purpose and they won't pursue you. We also found some of the smaller alleys and streets into old town didn't have a ticket booth so you could enter without anyone bothering you. Hoi An is famous for its lantern festivals during the full moon, but you can see lanterns in the city all the time!

One of the days I wasn't feeling to well, so Cara, Marie, Chip, and Bri rented 2 scooters and went to see the beach and some temples and had quite an adventure. I'll let her tell that story though.

-Jeff

Since Jeff had probably spent too much time making out with Bri (who arrived to Vietnam with Minnesotan winter cold/flu symptoms), he needed some time to himself to rest one day in Hoi An. (I secretly think he wanted to get rid of the rest of us so he could go enjoy coffee and eat street food all day.) Chip, Marie, Bri and I rented 2 scooters after breakfast and headed to the beach!

It wasn't super sunny, but we enjoyed the beach for an hour or two, and Bri introduced us to Acroyoga:

Chip and Bri were brave enough to get into the water!

Driving by rice patties just outside of Hoi An

After we grabbed lunch near the beach, we decided to head to My Son to see ancient temples around 1:30 pm. Easily the worst decision we made while in Vietnam. It took us much longer to get to My Son from Hoi An than we anticipated, and traffic was chaotic to say the least. Note: driving a scooter on the highway in a foreign country probably isn't the wisest choice. Shout out to Bri who scooted my butt around, and she pretty much learned how to drive a motorscooter 3 days before! We finally made it to My Son around 3:30 pm and quickly walked around the temples.

This area was heavily bombed during the Vietnam War (War of American Aggression). Many of the temples survived, and there are still giant craters near some sites that are depressions from bombs.

The depression in the lower left corner of this photo is a giant hole from a bomb during the war

The temples were beautiful and serene, and there weren't too many tourists. Our entertainment was watching the Asian tourists be tourists...in Asia....

We left My Son a little before 5 pm. Sunset was around 6. At this point we were still optimistic about making it back to town before it got pitch black. But that was also before we followed google maps onto dirt paths.....that turned into mud....because we were trying to drive through a rice patty....

Chip and Bri did an awesome job getting us back to town! We only had a few close calls with big buses and the people we rented the scooters from made no comment about the amount of mud on their motos! We were all wide-eyed (maybe a little shaky) when we found Jeff. Nothing a few beers couldn't fix! Please note that the smiles in the photos above do not accurately display our feelings for the situation (nervous smiles???).

We immediately followed our worst decision of the trip with the best decision! The best part of Hoi An was the cooking class we took at the Green Mango. As a part of the class, our teacher took us to the local market and showed us some local ingredients and some of the things we would be using, and let us taste test a few things. Below I am trying Tin Cho- a sweet soup (breakfast food). It was much better than my face lets on, it was just a weird consistency. Jelly-like coconut, black beans, and a few other spoonfuls of stuff were mixed together (from the pots in the first picture).

We made quite a few dishes including spring rolls, pork for bun cha, and mango sticky rice for dessert, as well as slicing some fruit and veggies for an appetizer tray. We had a great time and we will definitely be trying to cook some of these things when we're back in the States!

In the afternoon after our cooking class, we went in search of a massage. The Vietnamese have a very large 'spa culture.' You can find places to get your nails done and massage parlors everywhere! We found a place that could take all 5 of us at the same time. After we bartered them down, they ushered us inside. It was one large open room with see-through sheets dividing the beds. Needless to say, it was a bonding experience for the 5 of us. There's nothing quite like taking off your clothes and getting rubbed down next to your friends. There was also a startling part near the end, where all the massueses rubbed a lot of Tiger Balm on their hands, then covered our faces with them. I enjoy sniffing menthol, but everyone else didn't seem to keen to be suffocated by Tiger Balm. It wasn't the best massage we've ever had, but for $6 it was a solid way to spend an hour!

Overall, Hoi An was a fun city, but not our favorite. We flew from the nearby city of Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and spent our last few days exploring!

-Cara

Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park

January 09, 2017

We had our first overnight bus trip from Hanoi to Phong Nha. We left Hanoi about 7:30 pm and arrived in Phong Nha 11 hours later. Chip was awake enough to inform us in the morning that the bus was 2 hours late because we were stopped by government workers who unloaded and searched the bus- the rest of us slept through it!

Jeff's view on the sleeper bus-  everyone had reclining seats, and the girls grabbed a 3 seater in the back- cozy! — Jeff's view on the sleeper bus- everyone had reclining seats, and the girls grabbed a 3 seater in the back- cozy!

Phong Nha is home to Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park. It is home to an extensive cave network, including the largest cave in the world that had only been discovered recently. We arrived to our hotel, ate breakfast, and headed out on motorbikes to see some caves!

The jungle was gorgeous. Vietnam keeps surprising us with how fabulous it is!

We visited Paradise Cave. It was about $10 per person to see, and we hiked about 30 minutes to the cave entrance. This cave was discovered in 2015 by British Cave Explorers, and there are 31 km of continuous caves. Conveniently, they have extensive walkways through the parts that were accessible.

Thiê Đu’ò’ng Cave (Paradise Cave)- Fun Fact: we visited this cave on our 200th day of international travel!

Chip’s fun facts: it took them 5 years to survey the cave, it is the longest cave in Phong Nha national park, and they discovered a new species of scorpion there in 2008!

We hit the end of the rainy season in Vietnam, which has been great because there aren’t many tourists, but that means we have had some wet weather. Phong Nha was pretty damp. We lucked out on the day we went to Paradise Cave and it only rained on us right as we were pulling into town. The next day, it was raining all morning, so we relaxing and had 1 (or 5) egg coffees. Egg coffee is a drink native to Hanoi, and it is a dessert coffee. Think: liquid tiramisu. Egg yolks are whipped with sweet and condensed milk until they reach an almost custard consistency. They are poured on top of the coffee, and some places top it with whipped cream, or whipped egg whites. Mix it all together and drink- it’s delicious!

After we were buzzed on coffee, we decided to try to see another cave. We walked down the road to the ticket office for Phong Nha cave and bought boat and cave tickets. We ended up finding a tour group and joined their dragon boat (it saved us a few dong! Dong=Vietnamese currency. Cue all inappropriate jokes). Thankfully, our dragon boat was covered and we motored up the river for about 25 minutes. To our surprise, the boat entered the cave and our boat captain removed the roof of the boat. We were then rowed into the cave!

There was a point where we got off of the dragon boat and were able to walk around one of the grotto’s. We weren’t sure what to expect with Phong Nha cave, and I’m so glad we decided to go! I enjoyed it more than Paradise Cave, and we had the whole place to ourselves.

Once we were back in town, we ate an early dinner at ‘Thang Nhung- The Best Spit Roast Pork & Noodle Shop in the World (probably).’ That was the entire name of the restaurant…and it was great!

We meant to take pictures before we ate, but it was too good. We may have gone back for late dinner round 2...(AKA-we ate first and second dinner there- twice in a span of 3 hours!)

-Cara

PS. Chip, Jeff and Marie have become obsessed with becoming ‘Google Local Guides’ by leaving reviews on Google of hotels, places and restaurants we visit. I am convinced that they have single handedly increased the reviews in Vietnam by 100%. I hope everyone finds them useful!!!!

PPS. Here are some bonus scooter shots just for fun!

Ringing in the New Year

January 05, 2017

After spending a few days in Hanoi, we headed out to celebrate the New Year on the island of Cat Ba.

So far, Vietnam has been pretty easy to get around. You do not need to plan anything in advance. We had most of our lodging booked before we arrived in country, but you don’t need to reserve bus tickets until a day in advance. We picked a random travel agency (there are seriously hundreds of travel offices all over Hanoi) and bought a round trip ticket to get from the city to Cat Ba island, with return a few days later. Looking back, we should have asked many more questions at the travel office, but it all worked out.

We were told that a bus would come pick us up at our AirBnB in Hanoi and take us to the ferry in Hai Phong, where we would take the boat to the island, then get on another bus to get to Cat Ba town. The ticket for 5 people only included a receipt that told me I paid. It did not have the bus company, separate ferry ticket, or any other information. (Hence, more questions should have been asked.) So we really shouldn’t have been surprised when this guy showed up on his motor bike to pick up all 5 of us.

He ended up putting us all in a taxi and getting us to the bus. There is a lot of following people and making blind assumptions here, but eventually we made it to the island! (No one ever asked to see our ticket during the whole journey.)

Cat Ba is in Lan Ha Bay, the smaller brother to Ha Long Bay. If you have ever seen gorgeous pictures of the coast of Northern Vietnam, you have seen pictures of Ha Long Bay. Lan Ha Bay is less touristy, not as populated, and absolutely took our breath away. It definitely did not disappoint. It’s just too bad that we can’t capture all the beauty in the pictures!

Bri, Chip, Marie and I walked up to Cannon Fort to get some good views of the island.

That night was NYE. Cat Ba town is just a small strip of hotels and restaurants so our choices for New Year’s parties were limited. Many hostels were offering free (questionable looking) beer, but we ended up bar hopping after dinner. Dinner was a communal ‘hot pot’ of rice noodles, veggies, tofu and beef that we cooked ourselves in the boiling broth. Many Hai Phong’s (type of beer) later, we rang in 2017!!!! Note: beer was $0.66 a bottle. We’re a bunch of cheap dates!

The next morning, we woke up early to spend the whole day kayaking. I’ll be honest- I wasn’t that excited to be on a boat after all of the Hai Phong I had consumed the night before. But once we got out on the water, it was incredible! Ha Long Bay means ‘The Bay of Dragons.’ The legend is that a dragon was defending villagers on the coast from pirates, and whenever the dragon would breathe fire, it turned into the beautiful rock formations that exist in the bay today.

Bri, Chip, Marie, Jeff and Cara in Lan Ha Bay!

Besides kayaking, Bri spent a day rock climbing with new friends on the island while the rest of us rented motos and explored the island by bike! We spent our last dinner on the island eating in an alley. We had gotten a recommendation, with really poor directions, to find a lady who cooked Vietnamese pancakes/spring rolls with some sort of meat (?). We found her! And were served pancakes with pork and beansprouts that we wrapped with greens in rice paper. It was fantastic and only cost $1.32 each!

After some confusion about what bus to get on, we made it off of the Island and back to Hanoi. We had a few hours in Hanoi before we caught a nighttime sleeper bus to our next stop. We visited the gravesite of ‘Uncle’ Ho Chi Minh, saw the changing of the guard, and got our 3rd bowl of bun bo (noodles, pork, greens, topped with peanuts and hot sauce) at our favorite restaurant before leaving Hanoi!

-Cara

Vietnam

January 03, 2017

A few years ago, I remember Jeff randomly telling me, 'Vietnam is the new Thailand!' At that time, I don't think he knew that we would actually be going there. (We will reserve comparison with Thailand until after we visit both places.) More recently, our friend Bri told me, 'I'm planning on going to Vietnam with Marie and Chip!' (or something like that...) Jeff and I thought it sounded like a great time, so we pretty much invited ourselves on their vacation. These rockstar friends have already starred in some other blogposts- back in June when we were in Sweden and again in Italy!

-Cara

We started our Vietnam adventure in Hanoi, which is the capital and is in the North. We'll be spending our time here gradually working our way south to Ho Chi Minh City. We flew into Hanoi two days after Christmas and upon arrival found out this is probably the one country we will visit that our Google Fi phones don't have coverage in. Good thing the airport had free wifi and we were still able to get an Uber to the AirBNB we stayed at. Uber makes things very convenient when there is a language barrier because you don't have to explain where you want to go, it's all taken care of via the app. Courtesy of offline Google Maps we were still able to follow along and make sure we were going in the right direction just to be sure.

After arriving in town and getting checked into the house for the four nights we spent in Hanoi, we went to a restaurant our host recommended. It turned out to be more like a tapas place, but it allowed us to try several different dishes which was awesome. This started setting the tone for Hanoi, which really became all about the food. Note: We have never had Vietnamese food before!

After a good night's sleep our friend Lauren (from our India tour) showed up to spend a few days with us. We spent the day exploring the city, including the Temple of Literature (Vietnam's first university, a Confucian temple/education center), the Vietnam Military History Museum, and getting plenty of food. During the day Lauren booked an overnight excursion to see one more area of Vietnam prior to her moving on to Laos, so early the next morning she left. I also got a haircut on the street corner right near our AirBNB, which also happened to include a shave. Things got a little sketchy, but I survived, and it was less than $3.

The next day our friends Bri, Marie, and Chip made it into town about lunch time and toughed it out until night time, despite having been traveling for a really long time across way too many time zones. It's great to have some familiar friendly faces around and a great start to sharing this leg of the trip with them! We went to the Women's Museum and thought that we had dinner at the restaurant that Anthony Bourdain and President Obama recently dined at together, but turns out Google Maps gave us the wrong address.

The next morning we explored some more of the city and got lunch at the real Obama/Bourdain location (also delicious, but our favorite spot wasn't either of these, it was another random place we went with the same type of food). We spent the afternoon exploring town before getting our first bowls of pho for dinner and checking out the night market, which was much bigger than we expected. After the market, we caught a water puppet show, which is a traditional Vietnamese show where the stage is a pool of water hiding the mechanisms that operate the puppets. It was a really interesting experience: the entire performance was in Vietnamese, but you could still understand most of what was going on.

We got up early the next morning for our trip to Cat Ba, and we'll have a post about that soon! Hanoi was a great intro into Vietnam, and the food was phenomenal at every turn.

-Jeff

Staying Busy in Singapore

December 31, 2016

We spent much of our two weeks in Singapore relaxing around the AirBnB apartment we rented (photos below), catching up on travel planning, but we also ventured around town and played tourists!

It was a little strange to both of us to be in a tropical place to celebrate the holidays, but Singapore had so many ways to get into the Christmas spirit! We went to the Gardens by the Bay, which is a huge botanical garden complex (not to be confused with the Singapore Botanical Garden). The city has so many green spaces and parks. It’s common to see trees and plants on apartment balconies; they are really trying to be an urban city inside a forest- it’s great!!! Anyway, Gardens by the Bay has a lot of free outdoor gardens to walk through and they also have 2 gigantic greenhouses, complete with waterfalls, that have even more plants. We opted not to pay to go into the greenhouses, but we did pay a few dollars to go into their Christmas festival area:

The huge light up trees have plants growing up the sides and they are covered in solar panels, plus they collect rain water to help water the gardens!

A few days later we went to Orchard Road, saw the new Star Wars movie, and walked though too many malls to count. Orchard Road has a bunch of high end shops, but it is also lit up for the holidays!

I just like the girl awkwardly posing in the background. She posed with all the different figures in the nativity scene...

Singapore has wicked lightning storms almost every day. It will normally downpour for 30 minutes to a few hours, but then clear up without warning. On the day we decided to go to the Night Safari, it poured in the evening, right until we showed up at the gate!

The Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo was incredible. It is an entire zoo dedicated to nocturnal animals- so it doesn’t open until 7pm. Jeff and I stayed up way past our bedtime, and all of the animals were very active! Sorry the photos aren't very good, but it was dark!

It also rained on Christmas Eve, but we went out to explore Chinatown and ate dinner at a Hawker center. We also found a few Santa's:

After mass on Christmas day, we went to the Singapore National Museum. Most museums had free admission on Christmas day, so we took advantage!

On our last full day in Singapore, Jeff took me out to Reservoir Park. It was beautiful! We hiked a little over 10km and went across the treetop walk.

Lets pretend it had been raining, not that it was 90+ degrees and 90% humidity...

We had a great, relaxing time in Singapore! We would definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for an easy, comfortable introduction to Asia. Everyone is friendly and speaks English, and it’s extremely easy to get around. Even if you only have a layover in the airport- it’s a great place. We got to the airport a little bit early on the day we flew to Vietnam, just to hang out in the airport! (photos below)

-Cara

Singapore Summary:

Modes of transportation: Uber, taxi, bus, subway

Total amount spent in Singapore (including flight into Singapore): $2033.61

Avg.: $156.43 per day

Singapore was a little pricey, but we'll make up for that over the next few months in Southeast Asia as the cost will be much lower. That being said we spent less than we had planned (although we really didn't have a budget for this leg of the trip) because we didn't end up scuba diving or biking. Public transit was also very cheap and convenient so getting around town is easy and inexpensive. Cabs and uber were cheap too and from the airport as well.

Just a glimpse into bus riding and airplane food!

-Jeff

Christmas Eating in Singapore

December 28, 2016

Singapore was not on the list of places we had planned on visiting when we left the States, but we’re really glad we went. We were looking for a place to spend Christmas and thought our gifts to each other would be Cara getting her scuba dive certification there and Jeff doing some mountain biking, but we ended up not doing either of those things. After spending a couple of months in Africa and India not really having to plan ahead, we showed up expecting just to be able to book a dive trip whenever we wanted. Turns out Singapore is a bit more modern than that, and people plan ahead (and instructors take Christmas vacation…).

Singapore quickly became about food for us, both since we could cook for ourselves for the first time in about a month and also experiencing some of the food culture here. Our fist night we went to a popular tourist joint and tried some frog (pics above). Hawker centers are these crazy cafeteria type places with 100+ different vendors selling all kinds of food, and there are a ton of them all over town. There are also smaller places on street corners with only a few stalls, but the real fun is seeing the massive selection and just looking for a place with a long line and trying it out. Most of the plates of food were 5 or 6 (or less!) Singapore Dollars, which is about $3.45 USD. We usually had a juice or two and plenty of food for less than $15.

We ate pretty well on Christmas Day too!!!!

The AirBnB we stayed at only had one hot plate with one pan, but I think we did pretty well cooking all that stuff above! We spent a relaxing holiday and had a pretty quiet Christmas.

This was after we demolished an entire bag of chips with the whole jar of salsa…I would say that we were enjoying them since we aren’t sure of the next time we will get decent tortilla chips, but eating that much is normal to us- haha. We spent a relaxing holiday and had a pretty quiet Christmas. We hope everyone had a great Christmas!

-Cara and Jeff

North India Unplugged...Conclusion

December 21, 2016

During our 24 days in India we visited many cities.

We had pretty good weather- it was mid to high 70's for most of the trip, but as we got further into December and moved East, it began to get chillier at night (high 40's).

I think we hit all of the modes of transportation in India: car, train, bus, boat, bike, camel and tuk tuk. If you have ever wanted to have a near-death experience, just hop in a tuk tuk!

Uploaded by Jeffrey Decker on 2016-12-16.

We are extremely happy with our decision to spend a little more money to book a guided tour through India. We used Intrepid Travel (an Australian company) because they had a tour that was in our price range and allowed us to see a lot in 3 weeks. India is unlike any other place we have been. I was hoping that spending 5 weeks in Africa would prepare us, and give Jeff a good glimpse into the 3rd world. However, if we had decided to visit India without a tour group, it would have been hard.....doable, but difficult. I think we avoided many arguments and awkward social situations by doing a tour. Most people here speak English, so the language barrier isn't too bad, but we would have had a hard time with directions and we probably couldn't have figured out any public transportation without significant help.

While I am extremely grateful that we got to experience this part of the world, I don't see us booking another trip to India. Jeff and I learned so much about Indian culture and religion. Some of it was hard to grasp at times, since it is so different from our own backgrounds, but beautiful in its own right. However, as an environmentalist, I am leaving this country with a broken heart. I know there have been initiatives to clean up the country- and I sincerely hope they continue, but this is the dirtiest place I have ever been to. How do you go about changing an entire culture where a significant part of the world's population lives?

The parts of Northern India that we saw were pretty smoggy, covered in garbage, cow shit, dog shit and sometimes human shit. It seemed acceptable for men to pee where ever they wanted (literally anywhere- in full view of anyone). Many cities we visited didn't seem to have any wastewater treatment (perhaps dilution is the solution?) and there didn't seem to be any municipal rubbish collection. When we stopped at a rest stop and put our trash in the bin, a worker immediately took the bin and emptied it in the grass behind the toilet block (also near where they were cooking lunch. Appetizing).

It hasn't all been bad! One of my favorite things that seemed to happen daily, was taking selfies with locals. Some Indians are fascinated by Westerners and wanted photos with us. Now we know how celebrities feel!

We also met amazing people through our tour group- Claire, Rita, Lauren, Laura, Lina, Sam, Adam and Shakti- thank you so much for being great travel buddies! We were able to bounce so many travel ideas off of all of you, and can't wait to visit you all in other places! Until then- travel safe!

-Cara

But what about the food??????

Modes of transportation: car, train, bus, boat, bike, camel and tuk tuk

Total amount spent in India (including flight into India): $3841.85

Avg.: $167.04 per day

We ended up slightly under budget in India, despite getting some custom clothes made and shipping a bunch of our un-needed stuff home. So far we have managed to stay under budget and keep our overall daily average low enough that we should make it through the year of planned travel!

-Jeff

Varanasi and the Long Trip Back

December 19, 2016

Our train from Agra to Varanasi took about 8 more hours than it was supposed to due to the thick winter fog. The whole group was definitely ready to get off that overnight train! By the time we reached our hotel, we had been in transit for almost 24 hours.

The next morning after breakfast, our group went on a tour of the ghats with our guide, Shakti. Varanasi is located on the Ganga River (what we call the Ganges River) and has many steps leading down to the water that are called ‘ghats.’ Varanasi is the oldest living city in the world, believed to be over 3500 years old. The city is for Lord Shiva, and the river is extremely important to Hindu’s who pilgrimage here in order to receive ‘moksha.’ Moksha is the release and emancipation from the cycle of death and rebirth and is the ultimate goal of life (similar to Buddhist ‘nirvana’).

Every morning at sunrise and sunset, Hindu priests perform a ceremony to pray on behalf of all Hindus. We were lucky enough to be able to see it at both times of day! One night we took a boat on the Ganges to view the ceremony from the water.

It is also popular for Hindus to light a candle and release it on the river while making a wish.

The bowl is made of leaves and it has flowers and a ghee candle in a small clay pot, so supposedly it is all biodegradeable.

The next morning, we woke up early (and bundled up- it was cold!) to join in the free yoga at the ghat near our hotel. As we arrived, we saw the priests performing the morning ceremony.

After waiting for an hour (we were on ‘India time’), we participated in yoga with the locals. It was very basic, and covered a little stretching and a lot of deep breathing practice.

Later that day we took a tuk tuk to Sarnath Temple, which is the place where Buddha received enlightment

-Cara

We were supposed to take an overnight train from Varanasi back to Delhi, but due to the weather trains had been delayed even more than we were getting to Varanasi and our train was cancelled. We weren't the only group who was now in a lurch, but I can't imagine a tour guide handling the issues better than ours. Shakti made all the options known, and this included offering to help people with their travel insurance if they needed to fly back to Delhi to ensure they caught their flights out.

He ended up booking us a private "coach" to drive us from Varanasi to Delhi, and we left about 4 in the morning. The drive ended up taking about 18 hours due to some slow driving in the morning because of thick fog, traffic in various places, and the roads not being the best. Like in Africa, the roads all go straight through towns and there are often speed bumps along the way so there is little time spent truly cruising at a relatively high speed. Some of our tour group was flying out early the next morning, so this was the last day we all had together. When we finally arrived at the hotel in Delhi, we said some good byes and made plans for the next day with the remaining tour group.

Our last day in Delhi was spent getting breakfast with the remaining group, getting packed up and making sure our flights were still on time and we were checked in, and then checking out one last (monkey) temple and some more of Delhi with the last 2 tour members before a last dinner in town.

-Jeff

Quarterly Report V2.0

December 18, 2016

It has been 7 months since we quit our jobs and left Virginia. It has been 6 months since we left the States. They say that time flies when you’re having fun, and we have to agree with that! It’s crazy to think that we have been traveling internationally for half a year already, and that we have a long way to go still! While I’m (Jeff) really enjoying the trip and it’s incredible to see all these places and experience the culture, there are days when I do really miss routine and having a home base.

Us 6 months ago, right before we left the States!

# of countries visited: 14 (Iceland, Finland, Sweden, United Kingdom (England/Scotland), France, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Tanzania, Dubai, India, Singapore)

# of passport stamps: 16

Favorite place: Glencoe, Scottish Highlands

Favorite Food: Greek, especially eggplant salad (we are going to try to make some for Christmas!)

# of days internationally: 183

# of nights of free accommodation: 82

Thing we wished we would have packed: another voodoo band, less shirts, GR1 instead of the ruck we brought (different carry on for Jeff)

Thing we packed, but haven’t needed: an alarmed door stop, travel alarm clock, 4x usb port

Thing we miss most (besides friends and family- you are always our #1!): heavy ass barbell to throw around-my butt is shrinking as we speak (same answer as 3 months ago, and it still stands!)

Transportation used: Plane, rental car, ferry, train, bus, taxi, subway, walking, tuk tuk, camel, safari jeep

Amount of USD spent: $29,676 (this includes a few upcoming flights around Asia and some housing we have already reserved)

Places we have bookings for next: Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia

Favorite thing in my bag right now: Lululemon vest (Cara), New elephant shirts (Jeff)

Jeff misses ketchup, Cara misses chips and salsa (and everything at Tienda Jessy's)

Best booze: Beer in a beer garden in Munich (this wins for ambiance, I have no idea what kind of beer it was -Cara)

Worst booze: Retecina (local wine in the Peloponnese, Greece)

Surprisingly decent booze: 2 liter cider in Scotland

Best Phrases to learn in foreign languages: 'Hello', numbers '1-10', 'how much?', 'thank you'

Language we learned the most of: Swahili

We have been extremely blessed thus far in our travels as we haven’t had many issues and have only been really sick once. We now laugh about the 4 days we spent in bed in Africa after what we assume was some bad water, joking that it saved us a bunch of money as we didn’t eat for a few days. We both fought some small stomach issues in India, mostly just individual meals that didn’t agree with us and adjusting to the mostly heavy starch and curry diet, but nothing that kept us down.

We have spent the last three months of our trip exploring more of the developing world (minus Dubai and now Singapore), and Greece was a great intro. No one really talks about anything between the first and third world, but we think that Greece is in this “second world” sweet spot. The people and food are great, and most of the modern amenities are there in some form, but the infrastructure and economic development is still coming along. If you’re hesitant to travel to the third world, check out Greece first to prep yourself! We have been lucky that our plans unintentionally set us up for success in that we have gradually worked away at our comforts and eased into strange situations solely by the route we have taken to travel. Europe was easy and helped us get used to traveling and figuring out new situations, Greece prepped us for Africa, Dubai was a great intro to a very different culture and Arabic people while in extreme comfort, and so far it all lead up to India which was the most different and challenging place we have been. Now Singapore is a very comfortable introduction into Asian culture in a somewhat western, mostly English speaking way. By dumb luck we have made this whole trip much more manageable!

If you are STILL reading-we want to thank all of you for taking this adventure with us. We can feel your love from the other side of the world, which means so much to us, especially during the holidays when we are so far away from home!

-Jeff and Cara

The Indian Adventure....Continued

December 16, 2016

After Pushkar we spent a few days in Jaipur. Jaipur is another big city, it is the capital of Rajasthan, and on the first evening there we took a walk around the old town and saw our first Bollywood film, Dear Zindagi. I say first because Cara really wants to go see another. There wasn’t as much dancing and singing as we thought a typical Bollywood film would contain, although there was the bonus of the children running around the theater and people having full conversations during the movie. Apparently that was all normal though, and you’re not supposed to be upset that the kid behind you kicks your chair over and over…

The next day we took some tuk tuks and went and saw the Amber Palace. It was a gorgeous fort/palace up on a hill, and we really enjoyed exploring the area. After that we went and explored the Monkey Palace which wasn’t as overtaken by monkeys as we thought it would be. We really enjoyed the walking about both of these locations, and made a few more stops for photos as we rode around that day. Jaipur is known as the ‘Pink City’ because of all of the sandstone used to build it. It turns out that sandstone is actually brown, but Indian’s didn’t know the English word for ‘brown,’ so someone translated it as pink!

The next day we hopped on another bus and rode to Bharatpur, which is just known for the Keoladeo National Park. This park is a great bird sanctuary and draws photographers and naturalists from around the world. We rented bikes and rode around for a couple hours, and it was very fun to just ride and relax for an evening.

As the bird sanctuary is really the only attraction in Bharatpur, we got a ride to Agra the next day. Jaipur, Delhi and Agra make up India’s golden triangle (a popular tourist route). Agra is the home to the Taj Mahal, and is also home to tons of Indian weddings. We got a small taste the one night we spent here, as the music from the wedding lawn next door was pumping late into the night (~2 am) and that was just for the ring ceremony. The proper wedding was the next night (which we missed) and we were told it would go all night. Weddings here are at least 3 days for most people from what we’ve been told.

The first afternoon we were in Agra we went to the Taj and experienced it in all the foggy/smoggy glory. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the McDonalds, and we had to try some just because the selection, while mimicking the selection in the States, was so different.

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then went to check out the Red Fort of Agra. It is giant for complex, ¾ of which is still being used by the Indian military. You can walk around some of the palaces and grounds in the remainder of the fort, and on a clear day you would have a great view of the Taj. We grabbed some snacks and fruit on the way back to the hotel and got prepared for the second of our three overnight train rides in India, this one taking us to Varanasi.

-Jeff

A Grunge Backpackers Dream

December 14, 2016

After a great stay in Udaipur, we were up early to catch a 6 hour train to Ajmer and then hopped in cars for the 30 minute drive out to the small(ish) town of Pushkar. There are only about 5000 residents of downtown Pushkar, however it is a major pilgrimage location for people of the Hindu faith, as it is the location of the only temple in the world to Brahma, the Hindu god of creation. There is also a holy lake here that people come to bathe in before going to Brahma’s temple. It is the location of the largest animal gathering in the world, a camel fair. Luckily, we missed the main pilgrimage and fair times, however there were still a lot of people (by our definition) in town and walking the streets. I can’t imagine this place during the camel fair or when there are 5000+ people a day bathing and visiting the temple.

While most Indians are vegetarian, and a lot of the restaurants we have been to and seen only serve vegetarian food, Pushkar takes it a step further. There is no meat or eggs available anywhere in town, and there is no alcohol either.

Pushkar is a very cheap destination however, as the restaurants have been the cheapest we have been to (the food is still good though!) and apparently many of the hotels and guest houses are also very cheap. This brings in the budget backpacking crowd, and we saw quite the interesting cast of characters in town on our first night. Our tour group quickly coined the phrase “full Pushkar”, as in “you never go full Pushkar”, referring to the many travelers of all ages that we saw in quite grungy clothes, many with elaborate dreads, some with bare feet in the cow manure filled streets, and most in need of a shower. While we have developed a great appreciation for the grunge and extreme budget backpackers, these guys and gals are taking it to a whole new level. There is never a reason to go “full Pushkar.”

Let’s back up a little though: the train ride from Udaipur to Ajmer was very uneventful and since we had real seats (it wasn’t a sleeper car) it was actually fairly comfortable. On arriving in Ajmer most of the train disembarked though, and we entered the busiest train station we have been in yet. It took some boxing out to get a spot in line to get up the stairs and across to the exit, and we got a fun show of a guy yelling at a woman that was sitting on the stairs obstructing the flow of traffic. I wouldn’t have minded him telling them they picked a terrible spot to sit, except that he yelled for so long he held up progress way more than the people sitting there. We definitely felt like this was a more “normal” Indian train station experience, as it was quite hectic and there was zero personal space.

Our passenger train before it filled up!

After exiting the station, we piled into a few cars and took the ~30 minute drive to Pushkar and were dropped at the hotel. We had a delicious lunch and took a little nap, then our group went for a walk into town and checked out Brahma’s temple. After the temple, we wandered about the markets (Pushkar sells mostly cheap imitation goods and souvenir trinkets) and then had dinner at a restaurant overlooking the lake with a good view of the sunset.

Sunset (and cows) over the holy lake in Pushkar

After a great dinner everyone was pretty tired and we called it a night early. This was a good plan though, as most of our group and our guide were up and out of the hotel at 0530 to go hike up a nearby mountain where there is a temple, and to watch the sunrise. It turned out to be a beautiful morning, and we had a great breakfast on the way back through town. And by great breakfast, I mean sugar, sugar, and more sugar. After years of eggs or some sort of protein for breakfast and little carbs in the morning, this is the time I struggle most with the vegetarian diet. Don’t get me wrong, the yogurt, fruit, and granola plus a Nutella and banana crepe were delicious and filling, but it doesn’t really start my day out right. I guess I could’ve just gotten a fruit bowl or some potatoes, but where is the fun in that?

After breakfast, we grabbed an Indian flag patch from one of the little shops (the one souvenir we have tried to get in every country is a patch) and headed back to the hotel to relax. The following day was off to our next city!

Other than the temples and the tourist market, there isn’t much to Pushkar so we were glad we only spent a day and a half there. After Udaipur, which has been our favorite place so far in India, Pushkar was a little disappointing, although it was great to be in a smaller town for a bit.

-Jeff

Udaipur

December 09, 2016

To get to Udaipur, we took an early morning bus from Jodhpur. This bus station was extremely calm compared to our bus station experience in Africa, and we even scored a short ATM queue! We arrived safely to the White City of Udaipur around 12:30 pm. Note: Indian rest stops are far worse than African rest stops. Score one for Tanzania, Just in case you were keeping track.

Upon arrival we hopped in some Tuk Tuks and were driven to through the city to our hotel. The hotel very near the lake and had a great view from the roof top restaurant. Our guide explained the best things to do in town and we took a short walking tour to get our bearings. The streets near the water in Udaipur are very windy and hilly, so the town can be a little confusing at first. It’s also one of the major tourist towns in India, so there are tons of shops and the owners/employees constantly try to get you off the street and into their shop. During the walking tour we stopped into a miniature painting shop/art school (the miniature paintings are any size you could want and done with very fine detail and a squirrels hair brush, they are not the tiny paintings I had imagined based on the title), a tailors shop, and a silver store. Two of those stores come into play later…

There happened to be an ATM working with almost no queue so all of us jumped on the opportunity to get some cash. The group spirit definitely was lifting as some of our cash worries were eliminated. We ended up visiting this same ATM with the good results several times over our stay, and in theory, we now have enough cash to get through the rest of the trip. Hopefully we estimated correctly and won’t have a ton left when we’re leaving India.

Later that day we ended up going back to the tailor and getting a coat made for Cara that she had fallen in love with during the tour, and I got two shirts made. Cara also got a shirt made, and while we spent more than we had planned. We’ve been under budget so far on the trip overall and in India, so we decided to splurge a little. It also worked out to ship some of the clothes we weren’t going to be wearing anymore back to the State’s with Cara’s coat, so our bags are slightly lighter now. ‘Slightly’ being the key word.

On the following day, we took a cooking class, where we learned to make several Indian dishes, as well as chapatti. We had hoped to learn to cook some Indian desserts and were a little disappointed that the key part of the meal was left out, but overall it was an awesome experience and the food was delicious. We also went back by the tailor to check the fit of our clothes and to have them finalized for pick up the day after. That evening we attended a cultural dance show with a large variety of dances from around Rajasthan, which is the region of India we are currently in. The show was about an hour long and we really enjoyed it.

Ladies perform this dance with fire on their heads to celebrate weddings in Northern India.

The next day was a free day all day, so we slept in, worked out, and had a late breakfast at the hotel. They had really good omelets and we tried a vanilla lassi, which was delicious. After eating we took a walk about town to find some fruit for our morning train ride the next day to Pushkar and to pick up some postcards to send off to some friends. We ended up going back to the art shop and Cara bought hand painted cards instead of post cards. She has also been carrying a few US stamps for some reason, so we addressed and stamped the cards and tossed them in with the clothes we shipped back so her parents could toss them in the mail. Another win as we didn’t have to pay for international postage here. Just don’t ask Cara what she paid for the cards as the conversion rate got her (in her defense, this is the first time its happened anywhere we’ve traveled) and she bought more cards than she intended. Of course this was the time I figured she had it all under control and really wasn’t paying attention to the transaction or the cost until the deal was finalized (normally I’m the annoying guy asking her if she really wants to spend money that could be used for food later, even though we are very far from starving). We also took a boat ride around the lake in the evening, which was very beautiful. We had hoped to take a sunset cruise, but apparently it sold out before our guide reserved us spots, so we settled for the ride just before it. Udaipur is a very pretty city, although much like every part of India we have seen so far; there is a lot of haze and pollution in the air around the city.

A side note about Indian weddings: Apparently yesterday there was a wedding in the city palace and they had an ice rink, which is a bit excessive. Not Dubai excessive, but definitely over the top. Then today on the boat ride we were going around some of the hotels out on the lake (oh yah, the lake here is manmadeand they built palaces that are now hotels before they dammed up the water and made the lake, so now there are gorgeous buildings out in the middle of the water) and there were some pretty crazy wedding preparations going on, including what looked like a life size set up of the It’s a Small World ride from Disneyland, but classier. They aren’t messing around in this town. We also heard that it’s popular for Bollywood stars to get married in Udaipur…

Udaipur was a much slower paced city then our previous Indian stops, and Cara and I really enjoyed the down time. We also spent a lot more money here, so maybe it’s not a good thing!

-Jeff

Jodhpur

December 07, 2016

We woke up pretty early on day 6 of our tour to catch a 6-hour train to Jodhpur. After we got settled in our hotel, we had a delicious buffet lunch and went to explore the town!

We first stopped at the Mehrangarh Museum and toured the fort and palace. They had an excellent audio tour and was a great museum that taught us a lot about Rajasthan (the state of India that we are currently traveling though).

From the fort, we walked down into town. They call Jodhpur the ‘Blue City’ because many people mix indigo in their whitewash on their homes. The blue color is appealing to the eye, but it also keeps the homes free from mosquitos. The bugs don’t like the smell of indigo.

Near the clocktower in town we tried our first lassi. Lassi is an Indian yogurt snack. Our guide told us that they make the best plain lassi in this city. Many places add different fruits to flavor the yogurt, but we tried it plain. It was sweet, flavored with some spices, and totally delicious!

During our second day in Jodhpur, we went on a ‘Village Safari.’ It was more like a cultural tour of the local villages with a few animal sightings thrown in. We made multiple stops; peacock, deer and antelope sightings; to a pottery shop, a block printer, and a local home. Below are some photos from the day- pottery, carpet weaver, woman in red (means she is married), a man showing us how to filter water through opium (you then drink the water), woman drying cow pies to use for cooking fuel, more pottery, and block printing on fabric...

We had lunch prepared for us by Vishnoi people. They are a sect of Hindi’s that follow 29 (vishnoi) rules. Some of their rules include: they are strict vegetarians, do not drink alcohol, do cut down any trees, and do not harm any animals. We had millet chapatti, lentils, curry, chutney, small beans and lassi (which they called curd but tasted like soured milk) to drink.

After lunch, our cultural tour was over and our driver was nice enough to take us around town trying to find open ATM’s. We finally found an ATM that had cash, and a HUGE line, but our driver told us that women can cut the line. In a country where women traditionally dress very conservatively and are warned about travelling alone, I am receiving very mixed messages. However, our driver was right! We were told by the locals in the long line to go to the front of the line. So we did!

Lauren, Claire and I were only able to make a few transactions. It got a little uncomfortable at the front of the line because as foreigners, we could make multiple withdrawals where the locals couldn’t. It also takes about 3 minutes per transaction because the machines are so slow. Claire and I heard the line get a little rowdy outside and decided we had pressed our luck long enough. I did notice that when we exited, no one seemed upset that we had jumped the line. It seemed like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Since we weren’t able to get enough cash to cover the men that were with us, we traveled to a few more ATM’s.

We have seen a lot of weird stuff on our trip so far. Or at least things that are extremely different from our own life, and things we may not understand because we come from different cultures. Many things have been strange and foreign, but I would not call any of them shocking. Until now. I can honestly say that I experienced my first culture shock while using ATM’s in India. In the middle of an economic crisis.

Tears are dripping off my face as I write this, because what happened was so beautiful. It restored my faith in humanity. These people #1: clearly have so much less than me. #2: are dealing with a really crappy situation that was thrust upon them by the government #3: are frustrated: they didn’t ask for it, and they sure as hell didn’t plan on spending every day in a freaking ATM line #4: are waiting for what could have been hours, then some foreigner pops up and they get automatically get ushered to the front of the line #5: are faced with the real possibility that the foreigner is about to deplete the ATM of all of its cash.

Again, Lauren, Claire and I are ushered to the very front of the line, past 20 women who have clearly been waiting for a long time (some of them were sitting on the steps looking bored). We were completely ready to wait in the female line, but we were told that we were ‘guests of India.’ I was floored. I was also avoiding eye contact- because I’m sure that we were getting dirty looks from all the locals. We were herded through the guarded doors to the one working ATM. We were able to (extremely slowly) make a few more withdrawals.

Picture note: No one is pushing or shoving or getting violent in these lines. I’m pretty sure that I the States if a crisis like this happened, someone would end up getting hurt in a mob…in each transaction, you can only withdraw about $30. Not much. That alone would be the cause of an uproar…

Now I’m sobbing. As we walked out, I again avoided what I assumed we would be getting- stares of death. I muttered ‘thank you’ while I looked down and headed back to our driver. Soon, Lauren told me that as we were saying ‘thank you’ and exiting the bank the men and women in line were smiling back at us. No one seemed upset that we completely skipped the line. One woman even said to her, ‘you are most welcome.’ WHAT?! Are you kidding me? Not only did I completely line jump, I took more money out of that ATM than you are allowed to, and I don’t even live here. I only have to deal with this for a few short weeks on my holiday. This is your reality! (Pause while I go mop up my face.)

We did nothing to deserve the kindness that was given to us that day. I love the Hindi concepts of karma. I have never experienced something like that before. All of the people waiting in line that day definitely earned a lot of good karma that I hope they get to cash in someday. Pun intended.

-Cara

The Golden Fort

December 05, 2016

After arriving via overnight train to Jaisalmer, we were taken to drop our luggage at a guesthouse inside of Jaisalmer Fort. This fort is the oldest living fort in India, built in the 11th century and about 2,000 people call this Fort 'home.'

The fort is in the distance, on top of the mountain in the center of the photo.

After packing a small overnight bag, our group piled into jeeps and were driven outside of town to meet our new furry friends:

We rode camels for about 2 hours to reach some sand dunes in the Thar Desert. We stayed here overnight and slept outside under the stars. In the morning we mounted our camels again and headed back to town.

We had the next 2 days to explore Jaisalmer and the fort. We took tour of the city with a local guide:

A really neat tradition families have is that when someone in the family gets married, they hire an artist to paint a mural outside of their home to announce the marriage. The mural stays there until the next person in the family gets married.

Let’s get to the important stuff. THE FOOD! Jeff and I have been mentally preparing ourselves to eat vegetarian this month. Many Indians are vegetarian, for religious reasons, and because meat isn’t readily available here. We knew that even if we were able to order meat at a restaurant, we might not be able to trust the refrigeration process. This has been proved by the stomach aches we get when we tried meat here during the first few days in Delhi.

What’s even harder for us carnivores (Jeff and I have been known to make half bacon/half beef burgers, then top it with pulled pork and homemade bacon), is that the definition of ‘vegetarian.’ Here it is almost what we would call ‘vegan,’ minus the milk products (read above, cow is holy; milk and cheese are good). Eggs do not make the cut in the ‘vegetarian’ diet. This means we have to find a Non-Veg. restaurant if we want eggs. Luckily, we have been able to have eggs with about half of our meals.

We’ve been eating a lot of rice with ton of different curries, vegetables in gravy, potatoes, more curry, and lots of chapati/naan bread. We’ve really enjoyed the food so far (even if we would like some meat) and we are excited to see what different foods we can try as we keep exploring different cities.

Fun fact: It took 5 days for Jeff to start sweating curry. He literally smells like it. Good thing I love curry!

Before coming to here, I don't think Jeff had ever tried Indian food. This picture is of our breakfast in Delhi. We wandered into a vegetarian resturant and ordered vada (sort of a savory donut), and dosa (the large crepe) stuffed with cooked onion.… — Before coming to here, I don't think Jeff had ever tried Indian food. This picture is of our breakfast in Delhi. We wandered into a vegetarian resturant and ordered vada (sort of a savory donut), and dosa (the large crepe) stuffed with cooked onion. The food came with lentils (the yellow bowl), and 2 other sauces (no idea what they were).

-Cara

Well... we're trying?

December 01, 2016

So our fitness hurts. Quite a bit...

Our last few days in Moshi, Tanzania we started a program that I had saved from a long time ago that was all body weight movements, nothing super crazy, but we still scaled down the workouts and we still felt wrecked. We hadn't done pullups in a long time, and after a workout with quite a few strict pullups we both had t-rex arms for a day or two. Simple workouts with jumping squats and lunges left our legs and glutes pretty trashed, and it was great to be sore again. Then we went back to Dar es Salaam and had a tiny hotel room and the neighborhood wasn't really conducive to running or exercise, so we struggled a little.

Cara came up with a great workout in our limited space though, and it went like this: EMOM 20 minutes, 1st minute 10 pushups, 2nd minute Jeff squats Cara 5x, 3rd minute 10 pushups, 4th minute Cara squats Jeff 3x (so really repeat that sequence 5 times).

We got to Dubai and neither of us felt great after traveling and we let that keep us from doing much besides walking about town for 2 days, but now we've been taking advantage of the nice gym in the building our friend and amazing host lives in.

So far we have done the following:

10 down to 1 reps of KBS, KB goblet squats, and KB deadlifts

7 rounds: 7 DB squat cleans and 7 burpees

Free yoga class at Lululemon and then some benching and squatting in the gym.

Free yoga is the best yoga! okay, so it wasn't the best class ever but we still enjoyed it!

We're going to keep taking advantage of the gym while we're here, and hopefully we can keep this streak going while we travel in India!

Oh, and there was a scale in the gym here, which may or may not be accurate. According to the scale here I weigh 69 kg, or about 152 pounds. I haven't been this light since right after college when I first started CrossFit and stopped drinking so much beer, and I'm not sure I got down this low even then. Since leaving Virginia I've lost about 15 pounds, mostly muscle. The silver lining is that the first few months back in the gym once we're home will be back in the sweet times of hitting PR's constantly and making fast progress. Or at least that is what I'm trying to tell myself...