The End

We are writing this final post sitting at Gus' parents' kitchen table in Fort Collins. Our trip has officially come to an end. And what a trip it was. We knew it would be a fantastic adventure, but the things that we got to see and the people that we met were even more amazing than we could have imagined. We know that the experience has changed both of us at least a little (and hopefully for the better).

We feel so lucky for the good fortune that followed us through our whole journey. Along the way, we were afraid to state our good luck out loud for fear that we would jinx ourselves. But we can now say that neither of us got sick or injured, we didn't have anything big or small stolen from us, and we didn't lose anything along the way. This is probably a big part of the reason that we never really got tired of traveling (and why we are already talking about when we can take this kind of trip again).

But for now, we are relishing the little things in life that we missed while we were away (for Gus, cheddar cheese, of course...for Sarah, a mind-boggling array of clothing options) and preparing for our drive to DC. We plan to be Colorado for another week or so and then will begin the drive, hopefully stopping to see a few friends along the way. By mid-April, we should be in Washington, and hopefully great jobs and that perfect house will follow soon thereafter.

So, the end of one adventure, but the beginning of another. It makes us think of a line from that silly movie 'Hook' (about Peter Pan) that has for some reason stuck with us. A little boy says to Peter Pan upon returning home from Neverland, "So the adventure is over, Peter?" And Peter replies, "No, never. Life...life is the adventure."

Thanks for reading.

Best of Africa

After racking our brains over New Zealand & Asia bests, we couldn't leave Africa out of the fun. So a short list of some of our favorite memories from Africa:

Best Hotel: The Plantation Lodge, just outside of the Ngorogoro Conservation Area. This is a restored home on a working coffee plantation, and it had beautiful rooms, spectacular food and an amazingly peaceful setting. We think this might actually have been our best accomodation of the entire trip. And it was set up by our safari company, so we had nothing to do with finding it. Just good luck.

Best Sunset: We saw some spectacular African sunsets, but the best had to be watching the sun sink below the horizon of the Serengeti.

Best Meal: Our dinner at the Zanzibar Palace Hotel in Stonetown (on Zanzibar Island). We weren't expecting much, but the owner of the hotel whipped up a delicious curried soup, an amazing red snapper and Gus' dream dessert (involving chocolate ice cream, bananas and chocolate syrup).

Best Character: Our Nile rafting guide, Peter, whose continuous percentile estimations throughout our rafting trip ("I think there is a 5% chance the boat will not flip.") provided us with a new form of communicating for the rest of our trip. ("I think there is a 93% chance that this cafe will serve ice cream." "I think there is a 1% chance that this cab driver will not try to rip us off.")

Best Thing Witnessed Balanced on a Head: In Asia, it was the motos laden with stuff that amazed us. But in Africa, we couldn't stop marveling at all that they carried - for not insignificant distances - on their heads. We saw all kinds of impressive stuff, but I think the 40 pound sack of potatoes probably takes the cake. It's heavy and lumpy and not at all conducive to being balanced on anything. And yet a woman walked down the road with the potato sack on her head...and a baby strapped to her back. Puts our 10 pound dumbbell workouts to shame.

Tanzanian Safari and a Little Beach Time

In what turned out to be one of the best decisions of our trip, we decided to go on safari with a very small company called Green Footprint Adventures. We chose them because they offered activities like canoeing and mountain biking in addition to more traditional driving safaris. What we didn't know until we arrived is that they are the only company in Tanzania that had permits to do these kinds of things. We canoed with hippos in Arusha National Park, went on a nighttime drive where we saw huge groups of elephants and hippos grazing out of the water, took a wet and very muddy bike trip in Lake Maynara National Park, visited a missionary hospital and a public elementary school, ate a Tanzanian home-cooked meal, and visited a banana beer "brew-pub."

Of course, even the "normal" game drives were spectacular. Our guide, Protti, had the amazing ability to find animals almost on command. Highlights included two cheetah enjoying an afternoon meal and giraffes that definitely knew that they had the right-of-way on park roads. We thought that we would be lucky to see lions at all. But in one day we saw a half-dozen prides with lots of cute cubs. But even without animals, the endless plain of the Serengeti, the Maasai villages dotting the valleys around Ngorongoro Crater, the forests of acacia, and sunsets and sunrises were incredibly spectacular and impossible to capture fully on camera or even to describe.

The last few days of our trip were spent on the island of Zanzibar, just off the coast of mainland Tanzania. It was a wonderful, relaxing way to end our adventure. We drank "Kilimanjaro" brand beer while sitting in hammocks and playing an uncountable number of games of mancala. Our one exciting activity was a snorkel trip which started out as a quiet day looking at starfish and parrotfish and ended with a bone-jarring speedboat ride through a driving thunderstorm. Ah, the travel gods weren't going to let us off too easy at the end of the trip. We spent the afternoon commiserating about our bruised butts and the state of world politics with a friendly Belgian couple. It was great way to spend our last day of vacation.



On our first day of Tanzanian safari in the small Arusha National Park we witnessed what can only be described as an elephant traffic jam. Once we started eeking our way through, this young guy looked up and seemed to say to us, "What the heck are you doing with your head out the roof of a car? Don't you know you look really goofy?"



The Serengeti sunset. This photo was taken from the porch of one of our lodges.



We thought we would be lucky to see even one lion during our safari. But we lucked out and saw several prides, some of which were only a few feet away.



Cheetahs on the Serengeti with a young wildebeest that hadn't had a great day.



Sadly, the last photo taken on our wonderful trip while standing on the beach at our last stop on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar. The clouds were gathering over as if to say "now you have to go and get a job, ha ha ha ha."

Monkeying Around in East Africa

Well, it was entirely by accident that our first weeks in Africa were dominated by exploration of the Nile River, but it has certainly made for a great trip. Right after landing in Uganda, we made our way out to the small town of Bujagali Falls. Our accomodation was a "luxury" tent that overlooked the White Nile only about five miles from where it empties out of Lake Victoria - an absolutely beautiful spot. (Thanks to Yve Heit & Adam Saville for telling us about it!)

As we hinted before, we had a fantastic whitewater rafting trip through tons of Class 4 & 5 rapids - much more extreme than any of our previous outdoor endeavors on this trip. We had a great crew paddling with us - a Lithuanian, his German wife, and a hilarious Irishman who recently quit his job as director of "fem care" marketing for Proctor & Gamble in Great Britain. Our guide was a very competent but slightly crazy Ugandan named Peter who liked to say things like, "In this rapid, it is 50% that we will go upside down." It turned out that his figures were surprisingly accurate, as we did do a lot of swimming on our trip down the river. Sadly, no pictures to share from this adventure, as the camera would have been a bit too waterlogged. But we do have a video to prove that we really did conquer the Nile by raft.

While in Bujagali Falls, we were excited about spending some time doing volunteer work with a local education organization. But, as often happens with short-term volunteer work, the organization couldn't put us to as much use as we had hoped. Still, it was great to see an organization at work and meet some of the students participating in their program. And, in the end, we did paint enough walls and haul enough woodchips to call it a good day's workout.

We spent a day in Kampala before undertaking a journey to Cyanika, a remote Rwanda-Uganda border crossing. This turned out to be our most 'Amazing Race'-esque adventure of the trip. We needed to cross the border by 5 pm and thought things would go smoothly when we set out from Kampala at 6 am. However, a broken fuel pump, an uncomfortable wait in a crowded mechanics lot, an argument about bus fares, and a speedy drive in a Toyota Corolla over 80 kilometers of nearly impassable dirt road found us running across the border at 4:58. And, in true 'Amazing Race' fashion, we arrived breathless on the Rwandan side of the border only to learn that there was an hour time difference. We could have stopped to use the bathroom after all...

Safely in Rwanda, we spent the next two days tracking the very cute golden monkeys and the utterly amazing mountain gorillas. It is impossible to explain what it was like to stand amidst the gorillas, but suffice to say that it was a magical experience. And, of course, we were relieved that they were too busy eating to recognize Sarah as one of their own and drag her off into the forest as we had feared. Phew, another primate kidnapping narrowly averted...

The rest of our time in Rwanda was spent touring Kigali and the incredibly well-done Genocide Memorial Museum. Obviously, the memories of the genocide are still very fresh for nearly all Rwandans, but they appear to be making a great effort to come to grips with what happened and to look toward the future with optimism. The Rwandans that we met were incredibly friendly and open, and it is hard to believe that such a terrible thing could have happened in such a beautiful country. The conclusion of the museum's exhibits put forth a hopeful message, and we can only share in the hope that Rwandans can truly make it work.

We must give a another shout-out to our friend Yve for putting us in contact with her wonderful friend Julie, who is living and working in Kigali. Julie kindly invited us to stay a night in her house and took us to the neighborhood bar where we were greeted with hugs and kisses and participated in an impromptu English lesson. It was a great end to that leg of our trip.

Now we are just wrapping up our first day of safari in Tanzania. We canoed in Arusha National Park, and Sarah successfully overcame her greatest fear of the whole trip - death by hippo.

We're having a tough time with pictures right now, but we have managed to add a few to some of our earlier posts, so scroll down for shots from Beijing & Egypt.


Sarah and Gus with gorillas. We have about ten thousand more photos of them. Some are eating, some are climbing trees, some are sleeping, some are picking their noses... Pretty much par for the course with mountain gorillas and we loved every minute of it.

Rock Like An Egyptian

We can sum up our week in Egypt in a few words: best old stuff ever! We were so lucky that Gus' parents, Nancy & Tom, were able to join us for the week. As a Christmas present (to us & to themselves), they set up a full-fledged tour that included a Nile cruise and, best of all, our very own Egyptologist. Hesham, who insisted on us calling him "H" (he apparently had little confidence in our ability to pronounce Arabic names), had vast knowledge of ancient Egypt... and plenty of opinions about modern day politics, all equally interesting to us. He also correctly identified us early on as an audience open to salacious tales of pharoahs and gods, as well as a plethora of off-color camel-centered jokes.

Speaking of camels, we did do the obligatory Egypt camel ride near the Giza pyramids and at least one "Walk Like An Egyption" pose for a photo. The Nile cruise was fantastic - a perfect mix of lounging on the sundeck and exploring lots of really, really, really old stuff. And since Gus and I have been traveling for a while (and trying our best to have at least some semblance of a budget), the buffet food was a true godsend (thank you, pharoahs, aka Nancy & Tom).

It's hard to put into words the size and complexity of all the different ruins and monuments that we saw. We marveled at all that civilizations 5,000 years ago were able to accomplish, although the things we marveled at were a little different. Gus constantly asked 'H,' "Now how exactly was this constructed?" while Sarah was primarily obsessed with putting together a detailed pharonic timeline and intricate chart of Egyptian gods. (Definitely stories fit for 'US Weekly!')

We knew before we got to Egypt that we would see pyramids and tombs. But what we hadn't thought about were all the cultures that had passed through since. We were so surprised - pleasantly so - to see that many of the most famous Egyptian ruins had gone from pharonic temple to Christian church to mosque and back to a tourist-attracting Egyptian temple. This was the first predominently Islamic country that either of us had visited. We never got tired of hearing calls to prayer, and Hesham was happy to fill us in on the practicalities of being a Muslim in a relatively liberal country. For two people whose main prior knowledge of Islam had come from books and CNN, it was a really good experience to see the religion and culture firsthand.

We're now in Uganda, typing from a bug-covered computer screen (don't worry, we took our malaria pills!). The connection isn't so fast, so there are no photos for now. As a consolation, you might someday get to see a video of us flipping upside down (multiple times) while rafting the Ugandan White Nile. This was today's adventure, and definitely one of the best of our trip. But more on that later...


Of course we rode on a camel!


Mom lunges for the prize during a cruise-sponsored cutthroat game of "Spoon Pickup" that was alot like musical chairs. Competition was tough, but she took home the gold against a tenacious Spaniard and a plucky Canadian using a diving-slide technique that could not be matched by her adversaries.


Some of the Moore family at Ramses' Abu Simbel temple. This was going to be covered by water in the 60s when they built the Aswan High Dam. It was cut up and built into a concrete mountain above where it had been before.

The Much Awaited Asia's Bests!

With such an amazing continent & so many fantastic stops, this one was tough. But here we go...

Best Transportation: We've traveled by planes, trains & automobiles...and boats...and bikes...and cyclos...and tuk-tuks. But the ride that will stick in our memories was our very first trip in Asia - our moto ride from the Phnom Penh airport to our hotel. It was the one form of transport we had been told to avoid, but it was amazing.

Best Meal: This one was a tie between Shanghai's Bellagio with Jesse & Christy and Beijing's Source with Thaddeus & Kris. We discovered dragon beans and a wonderful concoction of beer and beef...and that, when in China, we get the best food when someone else orders for us!

Best Hotel: Phu Thien II in Hoi An. $30/night for a huge room, a balcony view of rice paddies, a 5 minute bike ride to a 60-mile beach, and free breakfast to boot!

Best Thing We Witnessed Carried on a Moto: Being in Vietnam for Tet, we saw some truly giant kumquat trees strapped precariously to some not-so-giant motos. So they win. However, runners-up include a 3x8 pane of glass, a brand-new 36 inch tv (not strapped on & with only the driver to hold it on), and a 7 foot tall curio cabinet.

Best Biking Adventure: For those of you keeping track, we rode bikes in many of the places we stopped. But our best had to be the ride around the entire city of Xi'an on top of the wall. Where else could you do this?

Best Random Encounter with a Local: A young Vietnamese university student who screeched to a halt on his moto on a crowded street in Hanoi to practice his English with us. However, his English wasn't great and the encounter consisted mostly of him jumping on Gus to bear-hug him while exclaiming, "I idolize America!" Oohh-kay...

Beijing: More Old Stuff

Beijing was a great end to our time in Asia. Thaddeus & his girlfriend Kris were outstanding hosts. Kris is actually a PhD candidate in Chinese Art History, and so we really lucked out when she offered to give us a tour of the Forbidden City. She enthusiastically pointed out some of the quirkier things that we never would have seen on our own, making our visit all that much better. We also visited Tianamen Square and shuffled past a very pickled-looking Chairman Mao.

Of course we made the obligatory journey out to the Great Wall. We went to a less popular part of the Wall and enjoyed whole sections to ourselves at times. We also had our first (and last, since we're headed for the desert) snow while hiking on the wall. It was beautiful, but it really made us glad that we weren't the ones stuck there for years at a time watching for Mongol invaders.

And now we're in the Dubai Airport on our way to Cairo. Yesterday, when we were heading out to the Great Wall, we passed by a billboard displaying the Pyramids. Our cab driver, making conversation, asked, "Have you ever been to Egypt?" Gus responded matter-of-factly, "No, but we're going there tomorrow." He looked pretty skeptical, but it reinforced for us how lucky we are to be seeing both the Great Wall & the Pyramids in the same week.

We're racing the internet rental clock, so watch out for Beijing photos later.



Sarah and Kris at the Forbidden City.



Who is this guy? We have no idea. Everywhere we went in China, random people would come up, put their arms around us, smile hugely, and have their friend take our photo. We have no idea why. This was the only time that we thought quickly enough to hand our camera to the photographer so we could get our own photo.

Sarah Turns 30 & Other Urban China Adventures

So we still know only three Mandarin words (hello, thank you and dumpling) and the temperatures drop with every city we stop in, but we are still enjoying China a lot.

We had an excellent time in Shanghai thanks mostly to our amazing tour guides & hosts, Jesse & Christy. They took us all over the city - from the tops of huge skyscrapers to the older, much less developed neighborhoods to a propaganda poster museum with artwork from China's early communist period through the Cultural Revolution. They also treated us to some of their favorite food spots in the city, which were all delicious. For those of you who know Christy, we want to tell you that anything that she has probably told you about her progress in learning Chinese has been way too modest. We would have been lost without her (and a few times, when we were on our own in the city...we were), and we are so impressed with how well she is able to talk with and understand people in a language that is totally opaque to us.

One of the best things that we did while in Shanghai was attend a Chinese acrobatics show. Sarah left the theater determined to practice yoga more often so she, too, can be that flexible, and Gus left a little obsessed with this guy who could balance a huge ceremic pot on his fingertip, toss it 20 feet in the air and catch it on the back of his neck.

On Friday, the four of us headed up to Xi'an, a small city by Chinese standards even though it is home for 7.5 million folks. There was a great section of town known as the Muslim Quarter, and under Jesse & Christy's guidance, we dove into many tasty street food treats there without worrying (too much) that our bellies would later regret it. (And they haven't yet...)

Xi'an is an ancient capital of China and is surrounded by a 13 kilometer wall that you could climb up onto and rent bikes to ride along the top. The 2004 guidebook that we were using said that parts of the wall had collapsed and not yet been rebuilt, so we didn't think that we would be able to ride all the way around. So we were pleasantly surprised to learn that we could circle the entire city on the wall - with great views to boot! We also went out to see the famed Terracotta Warriors.

Christy & Jesse had to head back to Shanghai on Sunday evening, so we said our sad goodbyes to them and were then on our own in Xi'an. As some of you know, yesterday was Sarah's birthday, bringing her into a new decade. Without our trusty translator Christy, we were unsure of how our day would go (since very few people in Xi'an speak English). However, we had a great morning in the city. We successfully arranged a birthday massage for Sarah without also signing her up for full body hair removal, liposuction or collagen injections (all possible options, we think, had we pointed to the wrong set of characters on the brochure). Gus succeeded in navigating a department store to purchase a new pair of socks for Sarah (if you could see the current state of her other three pairs, you would appreciate what a great birthday present this was), and we also bought dumplings from a street vendor and actually got the fillings for which we had hoped.

So we were feeling very good about ourselves when we headed out to the bus station to catch a bus to some nearby tombs. Yet this was when our pride in our charades and massacred Mandarin phrases evaporated. There was a long row of buses, all looking very promising, but none with the number that we needed. After much pointing and gesturing and some friendly but thoroughly unhelpful advice from some bystanders, we gave up and decided our visit to the tombs just wasn't meant to be. So we did the next best thing - went back to our room and took a nice nap!

As many people that we've met in the past days have reminded us, China is a developing country, but it is developing very fast. Being here as the nation really starts to transition, what has stood out more than anything else for us are the number of seeming contradictions that you see all around you. A Louis Vitton store packed with eager Chinese shoppers right beside a pay squat toilet without available toilet paper. Business men in nice suits talking on $500 cell phones while hawking giant loogies that come inches from hitting our feet. A young mom sporting the latest runway fashions encouraging her toddler to squat on the sidewalk to pee. And, of course, the craziest contradiction of all - China is a communist nation that actively restricts freedom of information (no Wikipedia for us!) and yet it is simultaneously a hyper-capitalist society, with sprawls of malls and enterprising vendors that definitely rival those of the U.S. It's very interesting to see all this and to think about what will happen next.

Now we are in Beijing, enjoying the wonderful hospitality of Thaddeaus Law. We are looking forward to spending the next few days seeing some of China's most famous sites. We were greeted at the Beijing airport by an ad for the Olympics promising to, "Convey civilization and share dreams together." Not exactly as we'd have said it, but we get their point. And we appreciate it.



Space efficiency in Old Town Shanghai. Frankly, we prefer "Bounce."



Looking out at Shanghai's changing waterfront from the historic Bund.



Christy and Sarah pose with their bikes on the Xi'an wall.



Christy and Jesse surprise Sarah with some tasty cake a few days before her 30th on their last night in Xi'an.



Sarah's 30th birthday night out took a turn for the memorable when a Chinese engineering student named "Mark" struck up a conversation with us. While the initial conversation revolved around Mark's proclamation that Brad Pitt is the greatest actor, it soon turned to a wide range of topics, including Mark's requests for romantic advice. Soon Mark had introduced us to nearly everyone in the bar, including the manager, the owner, and some guy who loved coming up to us and yelling, "Happy New Year!" at the top of his lungs. Before we knew it, they were all sending shots of Mongolian rice wine and Chinese brandy our way. The bar started out as a nice place with some live music but turned into a karaoke hotspot after midnight complete with a "regular rotation." Our rendition of "Summer Lovin'" was foiled when the DJ put on "Summertime and the Livin's Easy." Our "Friends in Low Places" fared better but we're pretty sure that our new friends didn't quite get the humor in that selection.

Hong Kong and Yangshou, China

Ni Hao from Yangshou, China! We have officially passed the mid-point of our little adventure and it seems like it is moving faster and faster.

First off, we would like to give a little shout out to Dan Gestwick. His generous gift of Holiday Inn points set us up very well during our time in Hong Kong. More importantly, his great advice pointed us to a taquaria owned by a former resident of So-Cal who flies in her ingredients and makes a mean carnitas burrito. Oh, what a fabulous Mexican fix right in the middle of the trip.

The big story here in China is the Lunar New Year. In Hong Kong, we watched the whole city setting up and rehearsing for their annual equivilent of the Macy's parade complete with floats, dancing children, and an unlikely guest appearance by the Arizona Cardinals' cheerleaders (for some reason, their publicity photo - Lycra uniforms and all - was one of the more visible on the parade ads).

New Year's eve here in Yangshou was like festive little warzone. Our hotel looks out over the Li River and it was a perfect spot to launch very big rockets and light off meter-long strands of fireworks. After getting through that first night we thought that it might calm down a bit as the week wore on, but no, we were mistaken. Two days later, kids are still sling-shotting little bombs at one another while their parents look on and laugh. Initally, we felt that maybe Americans are just a little wimpier than people in China when it comes to chaotic celebration with potentially maiming devices. And then, when a man lit fireworks into the tree directly outside of our hotel window, we gained a renewed appreciation for the illegality of fireworks in most parts of the U.S.

In order to get out and do a few things that weren't just "on the beaten path" and to temporarily escape the endless explosions, we arranged for a guide to show us around the areas outside of Yangshou where it would be rare for folks to speak English. Stephen was great to us and taught us a lot about Chinese culture. He was also excited to chat about Chinese and U.S. history and politics, which we of course enjoyed as well. We hiked alongside the Li River, ate lunch in a little village, rode bikes 4 hours out into the countryside and rice fields, and visited a small buddist temple with an amazing view of the karst landscape. Sadly, we did learn that fireworks are enjoyed everywhere in China.

Throughout our time in Cambodia and Vietnam, we were always amazed that nearly every sign and menu was written in both the local language and in English. While we see much less English here, they are trying, particularly in places visited often by foreigners. But, for some reason, there are wonderful mistakes everywhere. Some of our favorites: "Please place trashery in the bin," "Wonderful shopping place for your face soil" and "Jack Naniels."

Tomorrow we head to Shanghai to reunite with Jesse & Christy. We are very much looking forward to seeing them again and are bracing ourselves for the big city fireworks that undoubtedly lie ahead.

More Karst, this time on the Li River. The scene behind us is shown on the 20 Yuan bill. Speaking of, we discovered the pain in the butt that is counterfeit money the other night. Turns out it sometimes comes out of the ATMs. Lots of places check and reject it but it didn't turn out to be hard to get rid of it later on. We guess some merchants figure there will always be another gullible foreigner coming down the pike.

Sarah and Stephen pose in their borrowed flip-flops and helmets before we head into a limestone cave that houses an underground lake and mud-bath. After shimmying through tight spaces and wading in knee deep water, we realized that a similar attraction in the U.S. would require a minimum of 40 pages of liability waivers.

Gus, never before a huge fan of Chinese food nor a practiced user of chopsticks, shows off newfound skills while taking his malaria pill.

Vietnam: Hue Tour in a House(boat) and Lots of Limestone

Happy Valentine's Day! Before we head out for our last Vietnamese meal, we thought we would take advantage of the free internet at our hotel to give a little update.

From Hoi An, we took a bus up the coast to the city of Hue, where we spent just one afternoon. On our way to lunch, we were approached by a young guy offering us a tour on his boat down the river to a famous pagoda. While we've declined literally thousands of other tour offers during our time in Vietnam, we didn't have much else planned for the afternoon. So we worked out a good price and headed for the boat. We quickly realized that it doubled as the family home, and so in order to take his house out on tour, our "guide" had to kick half his family out (the other half came along for the ride), throw clothes in the closet, and clean up lunch dishes. Although the tour itself wasn't necessarily all that informative (after getting the boat off its mooring & turning the driving over to his mother, our "guide" took a nap on the floor), it was an interesting insight into the life of one Vietnamese family.

From Hue, we took a quick flight up to Hanoi. Hanoi is a nice city with a lot of history and culture (we visited Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and saw a water puppetry performance), but its streets are incredibly narrow and are exceedingly busy right now due to the upcoming Tet festival. Our experience walking around the city led us to coin a new term: Hannoying (adj.) - the needless, excessive and loud honking of horns in the midst of a complete and total gridlock of motos, cars, street peddlers, bicycles, pedestrians, and scared-out-of-their-wits tourists.

Thankfully, the next day brought a refreshing break from crowded Hanoi as we journeyed up to Halong Bay. We did an overnight cruise on a very cool boat with only six passengers and got to spend the afternoon kayaking among the magnificent limestone karst islands (oh, how Gus wished he had his climbing gear). Our cruise manager was great and we learned a lot not just about Halong Bay but about many aspects of Vietnamese life. Language has definitely been a barrier in having many meaningful conversations with a lot of the other Vietnamese people that we've met, so it was great to get to ask him all the questions we've gathered up over the past few weeks.

Tomorrow we set off for Hong Kong. While we're looking forward to the next part of our adventure, we are definitely sad to be leaving Vietnam behind (not to mention Vietnamese food).

Could you imagine a more typical Vietnamese scene? We found out that a typical rice-farming family makes about $600 per year and is allocated their land by the local communist party office every five years.


The youngest inhabitant of our "tourboat." She liked the game "gather up all the shoes into a pile and kick it."


Tet is celebrated with Kumquat Trees. Above is a strong contender in our "Best Of" category: craziest-thing-carried-on-a-moto. This one was only average-sized.


The karst islands of Halong Bay were incredible in the mist.

Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong Delta, and Hoi An

We began our time in Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), a city with 8 million people and 4.5 million moto-bikes which, at times, it seemed must all have be on the road at once! While we were at first overwhelmed with the prospect of crossing the streets amidst all the motos, we soon mastered (almost) the art of walking directly out into a street with motos and cars speeding by. Our quickly-adopted theory of "follow the locals" also helped, although we undoubtedly unnerved a few of the people that we hovered behind to get across the larger intersections.

We spent most of our time in Ho Chi Minh City just walking around - past many of the historical attractions, such as the Reunification Palace, but also exploring neighborhoods off the beaten tourist track. We really loved the city and all its activity and energy, and we also found some amazing Vietnamese cuisine in our wanderings.

As part of our time in Ho Chi Minh City, we visited the War Remnants Museum, a reflection on the Vietnam War (known as the American War here) that is fairly one-sided and obviously from a different side than we as Americans normally experience. Sides aside, the museum shows the horrors of war for everyone involved. We were left wondering if our own kids will someday be visiting a similar museum in Iraq.

From Ho Chi Minh City, we set out on a two-day tour of the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. Previously not knowing that the Mekong Delta is one of the most populated regions of Vietnam, we had expected to see only rural river life. Instead, we saw how, in many places, city life coexists with traditional ways of life like rice farming and floating markets. We also saw how much the river is a part of people's daily lives, from transportation to a food source to a place for tasks like washing clothes.

Now we are in Hoi An, a lovely town alongside the vast stretch of beach that comprises Vietnam's eastern coast. We have very much enjoyed a few days of relaxing in the sunshine and wandering around the charming old town area of Hoi An. Today we biked out of town and into some of the smaller villages nearby. We got a few surprised looks when we pedaled through neigborhoods that don't get many tourist visitors but almost all of the kids shouted an enthusiastic "Hello," to which we responded with a butchered "Xin Chao."

Tet, the major Vietnamese holiday, is on the 17th of February, and so there is an extra sense of excitement right now in each place we have visited. Tet is like New Year's and 4th of July all rolled into one, along with the celebration of every single Vietnamese birthday! (We've also noticed many signs reading, "Merry Christmas & Happy New Year," but we think that is more likely attributed to the bargain costs of acquiring Western holiday paraphanalia in January than to anything else.) So, needless to say, people are gearing up for their celebrations, and it's a fun time to be here.

Chuc Mung Nam Moi! (Happy New Year!) Enjoy the pictures below.

Sarah doing her best "Old Hollywood" pose in front of Ho Chi Minh City's Reunification Palace.

On a canoe trip down a side canal on the Mekong River. Sarah wore her borrowed hat very well, don't you think?

Boats big and small ply the Mekong river buying goods from farmers and co-ops and bring them to the Cai Rai floating market near Can Tho to sell to everyone from restaurants to wholesalers. There are literally hundreds of boats tied up to each other selling everything imaginable.

Gus gets schooled by the Mekong Delta's top foosball team.


The view from our hotel in Hoi An. Rice paddies one direction, fish farms the other, and the beach right down the road.

There is no doubt that Vietnam is an amazing vacation spot. All you need to do is look down the 60 mile long beach from Danang south (we're taking this from Hoi An), to see why.


A little afternoon bike ride outside of Hoi An took us through palm swamps where locals were raising fish and cutting fronds for thatching. We interrupted a Vietnamese couple trying to get some time away for this photo. We doubt they were too happy.

Cambodia Photos

Finally! Here are a few photos from our time in Cambodia.

Sarah and Christy share some sodas at an off-the-beaten path restaurant in Phnom Penh.

Clothes scattered around the excavated burial pits that the Cheung Ek "Killing Fields" outside of Phnom Penh. For Gus, this was the most powerful image of the whole trip. Stomach turning.

Our wonderful travel companions Jesse and Christy in front of the amazing Angkor Wat.

Our rented steeds for our second day at Angkor. They would take us far but our rear ends would not be happy at the end of the day. Not pictured: Gus' powder blue "City Rider" girl's bike complete with a pink basket and broken pedal.

We are standing in front of one of the famous fig trees that has swallowed the ruins of Angkor. This was a fairly crowded locale for a few minutes and Sarah had just finished being the unofficial photographer extrordinare. Someone would ask her to take a photo of them by this tree, she would and then be promptly asked to do the same for another group. Our favorite was a group of 5 Slovenians who attempted model-like poses in strange scattered positions on the rubble in front of the tree. Yes, gustook a photo of them at the same time, but it is too weird to waste blog space on.


A gratuitous photo of a kid in Siem Reap village, just outside the Landmine Museum. Make love not landmines, is what we think he is trying to say. Either that, or "I need a smaller bike."

Cambodia

Well, our time in Asia started off with a bang when we unintentionally hired two moto taxis to take us from the airport to downtown Phnom Penh, rather than the more traditional taxi-with-four-wheels-and-doors that we thought we were getting (sorry, moms!). Our drivers escorted us to our vehicles, stuffed our bags into the frame between their legs and instructed us to hold on (which we did - tightly!). The surprisingly low speed ride right through the center of town will definitely be a highlight of our trip.

Along the way we saw a microcosm of Cambodia: kids playing a game similar to hacky-sack, but played with a feathered shuttlecock; little roadside moto repair stations; a number of cell phone outlets right next to stalls selling live chickens; and ox carts packed with fruit on their way to the local market. We were most impressed at how a family of four can ride a single moto, all without really holding on (unlike us).

After an afternoon of wandering and watching the city's activity from the balcony of our hotel, we met up with Jesse and Christy, our friends who are currently living in Shanghai. We caught up over our first yummy taste of Khmer food (very similar to Thai) that night.

The next day was spent touring Phnom Penh, a busy city with lots of street markets and relatively few tourists. Sadly, many of the key sites that we saw were not necessarily that uplifting. We visited both Tuol Sleng Prison and the Cheung Ek "Killing Fields" where thousands of Cambodians were tortured and killed in the late seventies during the reign of the ultra-communist Khmer Rouge. Tuol Sleng had been a high school prior to the take-over and amazingly sits right in the middle of town. The killing fields are still being excavated and you have to be careful not to walk on half buried clothes that litter the paths between the pits. The two "museums" are very rudimentary. Not very surpising when you think about it since the history is so recent and Cambodians are themselves just coming to grips with it.

Early the next morning, we headed north through the countryside to Siem Reap to spend three days touring the HUGE site at Angkor. Wait, HUGE doesn't even describe it. There are HUNDREDS of sites in addition to the well known and quite crowded Angkor Wat. Almost everywhere you walked, you ran into some amazing monument just sort of half buried by the jungle, Indiana Jones style. Highlights included spending a whole day on rented bikes tooling around in the dust seeing the sites and watching the sun rise over the rice paddies from a tower that we had entirely to ourselves.

After three days filled with lots of rock (beautiful rock, but rock just the same), we visited a small landmine museum run by a Khmer man who teaches villagers how to spot and avoid the many millions of mines that still exist in the country. It was unnerving to see the piles of landmines that this small group has disarmed in the last few years, but also inspiring to see the work that they have accomplished with few resources.

Cambodia has an extremely turbulent recent history that has impacted nearly all Cambodians. At times, we have been overwhelmed by some of the poverty that we've seen and by the inequity between our lives in the U.S. and the daily lives of many Cambodians. And yet, we are trying to be careful to not put our lens for what equals happiness onto a completely different part of the world. Then again, we see so many kids working in street markets during the day, and the teacher in Sarah just wants to scoop each kid up and plop them in a classroom.

There is a lot of construction in both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, and you get the sense that tourism within Cambodia will soon explode. We feel very lucky to have had the chance to visit before this happens and to experience Cambodia as we have. We also feel very lucky to have been able to spend our time here with Jesse and Christy. We couldn't have asked for better travel companions, and we can't wait to meet up with them again in China!

Due, once again, to a slow connection, photos will be postponed for a little while. But we have some great ones!

New Zealand Bests

Anyone who has spent a New Year's Eve with us knows that we love our "Year in Review" tradition, which involves coming up with all kinds of "best of" categories for the year & then thinking back on all the best moments and events of the year. So we feel that it's only appropriate to throw out a few New Zealand "bests" (some more obscure than others):

Best Holiday Park: Aspiring Holiday Park, Wanaka. Nice people, excellent view, and not crowded with monster-size tent compounds.

Best Motel/Hotel: Heritage Hotel, Queenstown. Views of the lake, giant room...and best of all, an in-room washer/dryer!

Best Beach: A deserted beach on Otago Peninsula, complete with lazy sea lions.

Best Meal: A tie between the Boat Shed in Nelson (excellent seafood) and a random Indian place in Dunedin that we stumbled upon.

Best Public Toilet (here's the obscure one): A fully-automated bathroom in Franz Joseph that speaks in soothing tones ("the door is now locked. You have ten minutes until the door will automatically reopen,") and pipes in the song What the World Needs Now (Is Love Sweet Love) while the occupant goes about his/her business. Best thing we did for under a dollar.

Best Ever Campervan: No contest in this category. We drove him into curbs and bottomed him out on windy dirt roads, but Ernest never gave up on us. While others might have snickered about the bright orange bus, we were proud of our spaceship.

Last Day in NZ

It's hard to believe that the first leg of our trip is already coming to an end. We are in Christchurch, and tomorrow we head to the airport to fly to Cambodia (after one night in Bangkok). Our last several days in New Zealand have been fantastic. A quick recap:

After Wanaka, we headed to Queenstown. We contemplated a tandem paraglide (Queenstown is the home of bungee jumping and other such extreme activities), but alas, it was not in the stars, as the weather was too windy. So instead, we headed out of town on a rigorous hike that took us almost 2,000 meters above the town and gave us views of both the lake and town below and the snow-capped peaks that surround that area.

The next morning, we headed back out to the coast to visit Fjordland. We did two different cruises of the fjords - the first on Milford Sound, which was unbelievably windy but strikingly beautiful, with vertical cliffs rising out of the sea and tons of cascading waterfalls. The next day, we did a full day trip to Doubtful Sound, which was also amazing. Gus spent a lot of the trip fretting that the tour was going to miss the big West Arm hydroelectric plant. But a very dark trip down into the mountain past lots of rock to the "turbine room" was as exciting to an engineer as could be hoped. As often happens on adventures like these, we ran into an American couple whom we had met a few weeks ago at a winery. After the cruise, we joined the two of them and their Kiwi bed and breakfast hosts for a few glasses of wine and some good conversation... and of course an earful from the New Zealanders about the current U.S. administration (pretty par for the course around here, we have found).

From Fjordland, we continued our journey around the southern tip of the South Island and up to Dunedin. Dunedin is a great city - home to a big university and so full of life. We spent a day on the nearby Otago Peninsula, watching for penguins (to no avail) and walking through sheep fields (New Zealand's standard hiking terrain, it seems). In our trekking around, we did stumble upon a beautiful, nearly deserted (aside from several very large, very lazy sea lions) beach & enjoyed a quiet walk there.

And now we are in Christchurch and soaking up the last bit of New Zealand (and knowing that this is the last bit of mostly familiar territory that we are going to be in for quite a while). We did a mountain bike ride today ("that looks like a nice trail" - whoops, we're on one of Christchurch's most popular technical downhills) and have spent the afternoon wandering around; we happen to be here for the World's Buskers Festival, and have consequently witnessed more juggling of fire and assorted objects than we ever would have expected to see on our travels.

Our next post will be from somewhere in Asia... so stay tuned!

On top of Ben Lomond with Queenstown in the background. We took the gondola up the first part to get a jump on the hike and scramble.

Sarah is blown-away by the beauty of Milford Sound.

Gus standing in his new New Zealand jacket at the southernmost point on the South Island. We hiked through sheep (as usual) to get here.

Gus standing on the winner of our "best beach visited." Yes, we are recycling our clothing from day-to-day.

Mountain Biking in Christchurch with a great view. The bikes we rented weren't quite as good as our own at home so the rest of the Kiwi riders mainly thought of us as speedbumps.

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p.s. We were missing one of our favorite pastimes so much that when we stumbled across a completely empty karaoke bar in Dunedin, we couldn't resist going in to belt out a few tunes, much to the amusement of the fairly bored staff. See American Idol impersonation below:

Franz Josef Glacier and a Rainy Day in Wanaka

We are now in Wanaka, catching up on email as we wait out what we hope to be a quick rain shower. Wanaka is an amazing spot - a valley surrounded by Mount Aspiring National Park with a giant, beautiful lake. There is a triathalon happening here today that is just about equivalent to an Iron Man. Watching the triathletes pedal by inspired us to hopefully rent bikes or go for a run later on today if the weather clears up, though our athletic endeavors will probably be significantly less impressive than those we witnessed this morning.

Yesterday, we did our hike on the Franz Josef glacier - one of only three glaciers in the world that are advancing, rather than retreating. It was pretty neat to climb on the ice - glaciers are crazy things, indeed. Our guide was a little overzealous in his efforts with the ice-pick, seemly desiring to carve something equivalent to the Spanish steps into each rise in the glacier rather than just the small footholds that we really needed. So going was a little slower than we'd expected or hoped. But the sun came out just when we got to the top of our hike and we had excellent views of the whole glacier. Most importantly, Sarah looked ravishing in her gigantic borrowed rain jacket, wool mittens, pants tucked into her green wool socks and black rubber hiking boots with spikes.

The drive from the base of the glacier to Wanaka was spectacular. In four short hours we went from the rainforest on the western coast, through tundra, past snow-covered peaks, and down into the Lake Wanaka valley. Now Ernest has his best view from a holiday park yet.

Sarah in her glacier gear.

The Franz Josef Glacier - one of the few in the world that is advancing rather than retreating. The hot continent of Australia heats the air flowing east so that it picks up moisture from the Tasman sea. This drops a lot of snow on NZ.

The beautiful scenery on the drive to Wanaka. Fields, mountains, puffy clouds, and, of course, sheep.

Wellington, Nelson, and Abel Tasman Photos

As promised, here are some photos of our time in Wellington, Nelson, and Kayaking in Abel Tasman.

Wellington was a great little city on the sea. We had a gorgeous sunset.

Sarah scares some of the local inhabitants on her mountain bike.

We cleaned up for dinner and some live music in Nelson.

A nice little beach in Abel Tasman during our kayaking trip...

Yes, we do really only have one pose when we have our picture taken together.

Bikes, Kayaks, and Some City Time

Hello from Kaiteriteri! We have made our way to the south island of New Zealand via the beautiful city of Wellington where we spent a couple of days wandering around town, learning lots about the Maori culture and the history of NZ, eating very well, and soaking up the city life a little bit. Monday & Tuesday, we were in Nelson, visiting some great wineries and trying to act like we learned something about wine while living so close to Napa Valley. Yesterday, we rented mountain bikes in Nelson. We got a little lost in the hills, ran into some very excitable sheep, and eventually made our way out the beach.

But, so far, the highlight of the trip was today's kayaking adventure in the Abel Tasman National Park. We had a fun group and guide, perfect weather (not too hot and not rainy), and were lucky enough to see seals climbing rocks (who knew?!) and dusky dolphins playing in the waves.

Ernest (our spaceship, aka campervan) is treating us very well and our time spent with him has exposed us to a very interesting side of New Zealand life. During the few weeks around Christmas, most New Zealanders are on holiday. So they pack up the car with the camping gear and head out to their favorite "holiday park" where they get a tent or campervan site near all of the friends that they have made over the years. Now, these parks are not like the spacious sites that we know and love in US national parks. They are a small field separated into little spaces about the twice the size of your average SUV. New Zealanders, however, have figured out how to squeeze huge tents, a boat on a trailer, a truck, and the biggest BBQ you have ever seen onto each one and topped it all off with carpeting, string lanterns, and sound systems. All of this creates a very festive atmosphere complete with roving bands of teenagers.

Our other observation has been that we could really make a killing by opening a great sandwich shop. New Zealanders love great bread, cheese, and heaps of deli meat but really have not yet figured out that if you combine them that you might get a good lunch. And while we have discovered every imaginable combination of food put together in pastry form, we continue on our quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. So we've decided that our first official alternative to returning to a life in D.C. is to open a sandwich/half-baked Nestle Tollhouse cookie shop and easily afford our own giant tent/boat/truck and BBQ.

Sadly, our connection is a little slow tonight. So stay tuned for photos next time when we tell you about our time on the west coast visiting NZ's glaciers and fjords.

Kia Ora!

We have begun our travels in New Zealand. Our ability to be flexible in our travels was tested right off the bat, when our flight from Denver arrived to Los Angeles too late for us to make our connecting flight. So our first night of foreign travel was spent in the not-so-foreign (though some might argue otherwise) city of Los Angeles (on United Airlines' dime). We actually had a nice day walking around Manhattan Beach & reminded ourselves that flexibility is everything on a trip like this.

The next night, we were off & have been enjoying the beauty of New Zealand ever since. We picked up Ernest, our trusty "spaceship" (known to pretty much everyone else as a campervan) in Auckland & set off for the Bay of Islands, a beautiful spot north of Auckland. From there, we headed south and spent the past few days in Tongariro National Park, hiking on what they(whomever "they" are) dub one of the world's best one-day hikes. It truly was an excellent hike. The weather was a bit cloudy & drizzly, but it didn't dampen our spirits at all. Tongariro was also the location for much of the Lord of the Rings filming; take a look at the pictures below for a shot of "Mount Doom" and a few others. Next we're off to Napier & Wellington, and then we'll head down to the South Island. Stay tuned for another entry soon...

Our trusty "spaceship," Ernest, parked amongst all his friends - New Zealand's version of a "quiet holiday park."

Ernest, after Sarah's first experience with driving on the lefthand side of the road. Behind Ernest, the very nice mechanic who hammered out our rim for $20 NZ & sent us back on our way.

And, because we believe in second chances...

"Mount Doom," aka Ngauruhoe Volcano. Our hike took us through the saddle to the left of the volcano.