Go Green, Go Dutch, Go Bike!

Ahhh, the easy life! Kicking back in a café on a cobblestoned square, tasting the local brew, watching people pose for pictures in front of a massive statue, craning your neck to look up at the insanely old and intricate cathedral and feeling just a little underdressed for the occasion.  What city, you ask? It could be almost anywhere, but one thing’s for sure: we’re definitely in Europe!

This particular square was incredible- the lovely Bruges!

We flew into Amsterdam and what a perfect city to kick off our Tour de Europe! The Dutch people sure are innovative and organized. You can tell just by looking at the place: perfectly manicured roads, buildings, landscapes. You can never get enough of the endless canal bridges bordered by old skinny buildings, housing cafés spilling out onto the streets. Everything looks picture perfect- even the sex stores and coffeeshops look posh! We were lucky enough to be able to stay with Chris’ friend Mel (and boyfriend Dugan) for the duration of our time in Amsterdam. This was perfect because it meant we had a) a free place to stay, b) someone familiar to show us around town, and c) a sweet as free tandem bike so we could join the masses while touring the city.  Awesome! We had good times watching the Euro Cup Final and having a picnic in the park.  They’re moving to Vancouver in August too so it’ll be cool to catch up back home!

This could have been taken anywhere in Amsterdam, all these canals and buildings look the same after a while!

All you can eat chicken and ribs - dee-lish!

We would highly recommend the free walking tours to anyone traveling in Europe’s main big cities. They are usually about 3 hours long and give a good background of knowledge and history of the area.  We learned about the true identity of Amsterdam (beyond the stereotypic sex and drugs), which is that the Dutch are all about two things: business and tolerance.  The East India Company led to Amsterdam being the first official stock exchange, for example, and made Amsterdam the wealthiest city in Europe ages ago. The tolerance comes with respect to, for example, the fact that though Catholicism was against the law it was still known to be practiced and tolerated as long as it wasn’t blatantly obvious.  Apparently the Dutch follow three basic guidelines for what they will tolerate: 1) is it good for business, 2) is it hurting anyone, and 3) is it discreet.  This is also the reason why even though marijuana is officially illegal in the country there are coffeeshops openly selling it all through Amsterdam.

Bikes decorate the streets everywhere in the Netherlands!

We also visited the red light district on the tour as well as one night when we were out with the NZ crew: Mel, Dugan, Regan and Chris.  The prostitutes are registered workers and tax-paying citizens but more interestingly, they’re beautiful (most of my hooker sightings have been around East Hastings, if you know what I mean)! It’s set up like window shopping – you walk down the street and take a look at the girls in the windows, then pick out one that you like for your 15 minutes of… entertainment of your choice! What a crazy different world, but clearly it works for them. Plus it’s a really cool thing to see! No pictures allowed in that area though… you’ll have to take my word for it!

This sculpture just randomly appeard in the Red Light District one day.  When the city tried to take it away the people protested as it was believed to appropriately represent the women of the red light district: firstly, the sculpted woman is anonymous, and secondly the lock put there shows that the women are free to work as they wish... thanks tour guide!

 Even though their national colour is orange, this place sure is green! Lots of parks surround the outskirts of Amsterdam and everyone has a bike kitted out with pannier bags, dog baskets and kiddie bike add-ons! We loved being able to bike everywhere, we are so over public transportation right now! Speaking of which, we detoured to Dusseldorf, Germany for a couple of days to hire a rental car and have our first couch surfing experience.  Both Chris and I have parents who ‘donkeys years’ ago did the classic Europe trip –buying a van and touring around in it with a bunch of buddies, sleeping on the side of the road however far you made it before your eyelids got overly heavy, eating cheap with a hunk of baguette and brie cheese as a snack from a local supermarket, c’est la vie! After having such a fab time van camping in NZ, we naturally wanted to travel the same way through Europe. We researched on the internet, emailed friends in the area, asked at information in Amsterdam. Short answer: it’s just not done anymore.  With the extensive train system in Europe and the complicated process for registering and insuring a vehicle if you aren’t a registered resident of the country, people just don’t bother. Not to mention the fact that it is illegal to freedom camp in many areas.  If you’re planning on doing this, it is possible, but you have to do it from the UK. So anyway, we rented a swank new Hyundai that is great on gas and just big enough that we can squeeze into the back to sleep for the night when needed. Well, it’s not the ultimate set-up, so we are couch-surfing our way through Europe! 

For those who aren’t familiar with couch surfing, basically it is an online community of avid travelers who are either in need of a place to stay or willing to let others stay at their place.  Not only is it a cheap night’s accommodation for those budget-conscious travelers, but it is also a great way to meet like-minded people from all corners of the world! We met Joe, our first CS host, in Dusseldorf and had a great first experience with him showing us all around the city and sharing a few good meals and drinks. It’s great to have a personal tour guide and be filled in on local foods and places that are not on the main tourist trail. Fun times!

A stroll along the Rhine in Dusseldorf with Joe, our awesome first CS host!

 

Pretty cool park walkway, the park benches are made of fluorescent lights!

Randomly we asked a bunch of Bavarian men in lederhosen for a picture - not sure why they gave me a potted plant to pose with, nor why they happened to have it at the bar with them.

 The other places we visited in the Netherlands were Haarlem, the Hague, Gouda and Kinderdijk.  What a beautiful country! It’s so manicured and scenic with farmland, windmills and sometimes even individual houses will have a small canal mini-moat surrounding them – not too shabby! Highlights include obviously Gouda, the hometown of the cheese! We got to taste test and bought a 3-year old hunk of Gouda, it was so good, ah! (Couldn’t help it) We also hit the beach town near the Hague, which was totally different and cool because the beach was lined with restaurants set up right down on the sand. In order to sleep in our car, Dugan and Chris had to take out the bottom part of the back seat, so every time we want to sleep in the car we need to put this giant seat in the front resting over the steering wheel and looking extremely conspicuous.  Not the most subtle situation. In the Hague we had our first exciting overnighter in our rental.  We got all set up and climbed into bed somewhat apprehensively, mostly just because no one does this in Europe! Well, we lasted all of five minutes before being blinded by the lights of a security car and being rather brusquely told to find a hotel.  We have a new method – we drive to a campground later at night so the gates are closed and then we park outside of the gates.   We can sleep easy without worrying about trouble because if someone says anything we can just say that we were fully planning on paying in the morning but arrived to late to check in. So far, so good!

On the coast of the Hague in the Netherlands, right before our sneaking van-camping experience!

This is an Escher drawing - a famous Dutch artist who combined 2D and 3D drawings.. above is one of our favorites!

I think Chris is in heaven, holding this giant Gouda in Gouda! Sweet!

This is Kinderdijk, a collection of old windmills that were used to collect excess water from the area (which is below sea-level) and deposit it back into the nearby river.

The beer-monacle Chris used is considerably less flattering than 'beer goggles!

In Belgium we had our second couch-surfing experience with Valerie, one of the friendliest people ever! We felt at home straight away and cooked some meals at home with her over our two night stay. We had a great plan all set out to explore Antwerp, but unfortunately it was raining like crazy the next day.  This meant all we could really do was check out a few of the different local brews in the area. Tough life! Valerie introduced us to Vla (a kind of Dutch pudding, delish!) and melting stroopwaffels by placing them on top of your tea cup.  We’ve been really watching our diets in Europe so far in case you couldn’t tell from everything we’ve had so far! Belgium would be about the worst place ever I think to try to be healthy.  I mean their best known foods are beer, chocolates, waffles and French fries! Is this my kind of heaven or hell? I can’t decide! Anyway, we left Antwerp after a second night at Valerie’s and checked out a couple of other Belgian cities on the way to Westvleteren, home of what is by many considered the best beer in the world, Westveleren 12⁰…! We hit up Ghent, where we bought a small box of Belgian chocolates to indulge in and hit up our first castle. We continued on to Bruges where we really didn’t spend much time, other than taking a few more pictures of canals and cathedrals! The beer in Westveleren didn’t disappoint and we indulged once again. When in Rome, right?

Fridge full of Belgian beer!

Enjoying Vla with our CS host Valerie. We had such an awesome time in Antwerp getting to know her. She is kick ass cool!

Check out the train station of Antwerp! Incredible!

Often named the "Best Beer in the World"!!

So on the European countdown so far:  Netherlands, check! Belgium, check!

It’s so easy to fall back into the familiarity of comfortable transportation options and western foods. Hard to believe that just a couple of short weeks ago we were in Thailand and then Egypt.  There are good aspects to both types of travel; in Asia traveling may be less comfortable but also day-to-day experiences are a lot more fascinating and you feel like you are constantly learning and opening your mind to new experiences.  In Europe, however, traveling is a lot more comfortable and there are more subtle cultural differences as you are traveling in another Westernized part of the world. So far we have been really happy with the balance and by doing walking tours and hitting up me essential tourist spots, we are still able to learn about the deep history of various European cities.  Our next stop will have a ton of history and culture to soak in we’re thinking,.. we hit up Paris next- time for me to brush up on my French!

We're definitely starting to wonder how long we'll be able to bounce from place to place before we get tired of moving around and decide to stay somewhere for a while...? We will see!

Lauren and Chris :)

Walk like an Egyptian!

From temples to mosques, pad thai to falafels, jungle to desert, tuktuk to camel (?!) and hot to... still so freakin HOT!

Landing in Egypt, we had our preconceived ideas of what to expect.  We imagined Cairo to be a fairly modernized big city, similar to how in Thailand, Bangkok is a whole lot less Asian than the rest of the country. We’d seen the sand dunes of Oregon and the desert in Phoenix, surely this would be somewhat similar! Needless to say we were astounded with Egypt and how different it was from our original picture of it. Luckily our culture shock was eased by the fact that my parents shouted us two nights at the Cairo Marriott as a birthday present! We got to live in the lap of luxury, gazing out from our 19^th floor balcony looking out over the Nile and Cairo city.  We could even see the tip of the Giza pyramids from here. With an early check-in (7am!) and a late check-out, we squeezed 3 full days in at the pool and fitness centre and our swanky room – a great way to get over jet lag and chill after some hardcore sightseeing in Cairo! Thanks mom and dad!

Not bad... :)

Living the high life, enjoying a glass of wine on our balcony in Cairo!

Speaking of sightseeing, Cairo has taken a major hit in the tourism department. Since the revolution, most travel advisories are saying to avoid travel through Cairo whenever possible. Luckily we didn’t have any problems or safety concerns at all while we were there (mind you we were staying at the Marriott), other than being told not to go near Tahrir Square because of protesters. When one thinks of Egypt, probably one of the first things associated with it is the Pyramids. As impressive as they were, they were basically a ghost town – maybe 15 tourists around the whole place! We couldn’t believe that such a hotspot tourist destination could be so dead! This was bittersweet for us – on the one hand we got some great pyramid pics with no one but us in the foreground; on the other hand, the ratio of tourists to guys trying to coax you into buying a camel ride is about 1 to 30.  It was really frustrating not being able to walk two steps without having to turn down a camel, a horse, an Egyptian Cadillac (horse and carriage), photos, guides, you name it.  Everything in Egypt has a price and will doubtless lead to someone asking you for “baksheesh” (money). Even if someone comes up to you, asks if you’d like them to take your picture and you say “Yes, thank-you but I am not going to pay you money ok?”,they will swear up and down that you’re a friend and they would never even think of asking you for money…. And then they will ask you for money. Always. So in the end we ended up just getting a damn camel ride – I mean, can there be a more quintessential Egypt experience? Let me just say that those things feel nothing like riding a horse. They have a lot more sway, and getting up and getting down is a roller coaster ride! It was a fun experience and our guide was really good and friendly and gave us some good tips for sightseeing that day. To be fair he did earn that extra 20 Egyptian pounds that he took because he ‘didn’t have enough change’. Like I said, always. Anyway, the rest of our time in Cairo involved seeing a few churches and Old Cairo city, navigating through the insanely busy metro to experience local forms of transportation (and avoid getting ripped off on taxi fares), attempting to make it through an old market without actually having to buy anything, and drinking the best orange juice I’ve probably ever had, for just 20 cents, with a bunch of locals at a stand on the side of the street! We had a great time navigating Cairo amongst the friendly locals and then being able to kick back at the pool in the hotel to relax after a long day!

Best OJ ever!

Egyptians pronounce this as the 'Sphinkus' - priceless! Body of a lion, head of a man, hair of a woman = awesome!

The traditional pic, what a great personal photographer!

For the next few days in Egypt we left the comforts of our new luxurious lifestyle and jumped on a night train to Aswan.  Getting off the train here was probably the most overwhelmed I have ever felt from culture shock.  Not only were we bleary-eyed from sleeping on the train and stepping into 45-degree heat that makes every mundane task just a little more difficult, but the city was experiencing a sand (dust?) storm for the first time in a couple of years. Everything was covered in a fine film of brown dust and people walking down the street would seem to disappear in the cloud. The air felt thick with dust and we had our big bags on and no map to have any idea where we were going.  Enter taxi drivers, hotel owners, camel riders, restaurant owners, preying upon the lost look on our faces, and trying to disguise the dollar-signs in their eyes with the façade of ‘trying to help’… like I said, so overwhelming and frustrating, especially when you’re on a budget and need to find somewhere decent to stay that also happens to be cheap and have air conditioning (that works). The good news is that that was our hardest day in Egypt!! 

Shisha!

Still, we had a great time trying to dance with some kids at a local fresh juice stand and yes, I tried shisha for the first time (and probably the last - as expected, I don't really 'get it').  Anyway, we spent the next day on a mission to Abu Simbel. Abu Simbel is one of the most incredibly intact temples we have seen.  What makes it even COOLER is the fact that they moved the entire thing 200m up a hill over a period of 4 years to avoid it being submerged when the Aswan dam was constructed! Egyptian logic required us to awake at 3am to make the 3 hour drive to the temple -mental! We had to also go in a government-controlled convoy, which was quite awesome I must admit. It was a long drive straight out into the middle of nowhere, but seeing that huge temple was totally worth it! Asides from Abu Simbel and the discovery of falafel sandwiches for only 1 EGP (delicious!!!), Aswan just really wasn't our flavour and we decided to move on. 

One of the towns we passed on the trains. Doesn't it look like an old photograph from back in the day?

The dust / sand storm and our first view of Aswan.

The incredible Abu Simbel, way out in the middle of the desert.  Pretty awesome :)

So damn big!!

On to Luxor, a much nicer city, home to Valley of the Kings, and the most tourists we saw in Egypt. Our favorite sight was not actually Valley of the Kings but rather Karnac, the largest temple complex ever built by man.  It seemed to be never-ending, with impressively huge sculptures, obelisks, sphinxes, and all of it amazingly well-preserved. In the heat I kept having to give pep-talks to myself, “you’re only here once, suck it up!”, “nowhere is hotter than Angkor Wat”, “don’t drink too much water or you’ll run out and you don’t want to have to pay five times the price of water back in the city, do you?”, “how the hell can anyone be wearing long sleeves in this weather”,.. At Luxor Valley of the Kings we were able to see three tombs, with colourful pictures and hieroglyphics lining the walls as you walk down into each one.  The colours are still so intact it makes me think they must've painted them, but I'm hopeful that it actually is legit.  In any case, we had another jam-packed day of sightseeing and finished just in time to jump on a 19-hour bus ride (actually maybe this was the worst part of Egypt) to Dahab, where we would go diving again, yeah! 

So damn big!

The impressive Karnac - I can't believe I never even knew this place existed!

Dahab was the highlight of Egypt for me (and I’m sure for Chris too, though he gets more excited about old ruins than I do)! The reason we extended our stay in Egypt from 5 to 11 days was because we had heard that the diving in the Red Sea is some of the best in the world.  Back in Thailand posts I described how awesome the feeling of diving is, and we loved it just as much in Dahab.  We spent two full days (3 dives per day) diving at sites near Dahab.  Not only are the fish life and corals beautiful and diverse, so are the dive sites diverse in their layout.  We did one dive where we got to go down inside an underwater canyon, swim through and pop out on the other side; we dove the Blue Hole, an 800m hole in the reef where in the middle of it you are surrounded by 360-degrees of corals and marine life; we entered on shore through a hole where you go through a small-ish tunnel and pop out at the coral wall, where you float along the reef wall being pulled by the current and if you look the opposite direction there is nothing but blue water that appears to be infinitely deep. We dove a shipwreck called Thistlegorm, a English world war II supply boat that was bombed by the Germans (and sunk) in 1941, which is now rated as one of the top wreck-dives in the world.  We got to tour around the outer decks and see the giant propeller, guns and tanks on the deck, and then we went inside to explore the three levels of the boat, where we saw trucks holding hundreds of motorcycles, piles of soldiers boots, spare airplane parts, and the captains quarters including kitchen and bathroom. To cap it all off our last dive was at Shark and Yolanda reef, our favorite dive to date.  We saw schools of absolutely massive fish (an arm’s length long and almost as wide), soft and hard corals, and Chris even saw a shark deep down below us (just a small reef shark or something). It just had everything and being a more shallow dive (18m) we had a longer time down below to explore and observe the interactions taking place on the reef.  To cap it all off, when our boat was leaving the last dive site, five or six dolphins swam up to the front and followed along with our boat for a good 10 minutes. Heaven!

Our dive guide and one of the crew members.  It totally sucks we can't take pictures underwater, but here we were on our way bay from a perfect day in and on the water!

One of the many deserted resorts around Dahab. The main area was populated though!

Camel in traffic!

Egypt wasn’t somewhere we had originally planned on traveling to, just an added bonus.  As a country it has so much to offer- city life of Cairo, historical sights and wonders of the world, and beach-side towns with endless snorkeling and diving opportunities. Coming from Thailand, Egypt is a Whole New World! Speaking of Aladdin songs, I’ve had many in my head since we’ve been here, specifically “Price Ali, mighty is he, Ali Ababwa…” -everyone here is named either Mohammed, Ahmed, Hassan, or Ali. Outside of the delta, Egypt is the most barren land we have ever seen.  The deserts we have seen before have at least some small trees, cacti, or brush.  Egypt has only rocks and dirt, as far as the eye can see.  The standard buildings all look the same: rectangular brick rooms stacked up like lego blocks except for everything is brown. We have never seen so many incomplete housing or building products. Sometimes we’d pass a place that looked completely deserted, a city where 75% of the buildings were empty or incomplete- these made conditions look that much more harsh and the land that much more barren. We were completely puzzled by this as even in Cairo there were hundreds of buildings that were vacant. We asked Oolesh, our dive guide, and he explained that it was because of Mubarek and the revolution.  The streets of the cities outside of Cairo were navigated by run-down donkeys with carts, camels and horses. While in Cairo both women and men could be found who dressed in Western style clothing, elsewhere the men wore full-length gallibayas (long shirts, down to the ground) and turban-style white headdresses, and the women showed only their face and sometimes only their eyes wearing their bur'as. A different world and as a female traveler, I was extremely grateful to have Chris by my side.  It is a great place for one’s confidence, as no matter how long a bus ride we’d been on or how much of a sweaty mess I was, Chris would still have someone telling him he was a lucky man (yay!) and he even got asked “How many camels?”.  Priceless!

Typical mode of transportation.  Can't help but feel bad for the donkey :(

It might be a surprise to some that we found Egyptians to be some of the friendliest people we have met on our travels so far.  Yes, in the touristy parts of town and top sightseeing destinations, you could feel the desperation for ‘bakshish’ and would constantly be fending off harassing vendors.  Still, we had some unforgettable encounters with people outside of these areas.  On the buses and trains people would go out of their way to try and speak English to us and make sure we were headed in the right direction.  We had a coffee shop owner teaching us phrases to say in Arabic that helped us to get by during our visit.  A man invited us into his shop for mint tea and we stayed and chatted for a good half hour (mostly he told us about his three different wives and their stamina in bed – very odd!), after which he gave us a free bag of ginger tea (‘Natural Viagra’ he said with a wink –ew!) and sent us on our way not asking for anything. All of the people running the hostel we stayed at in Dahab went above and beyond to make sure we had anything we needed. Even on our last bus ride, young Egyptian soldiers asked the bus to stop as we were passing the airport and saved us what could easily have been an hour-long taxi from town. 

These adorable kids were just fascinated by us! We hung out while we were waiting for our fresh-squeezed orange juice and danced to some traditional music.  One of those perfect spontaneous moments in life!

All in all, we learned so much in Egypt, and though it was overwhelming and we had some of the longest and worst bus rides we’ve had in the last five months, we saw some amazing things unlike anywhere else in the world. We hope that now that Morsi is president, changes will come for Egypt that allow the people to live more freely and the tourists to return to Cairo and the rest of the country.  The camels need the work!

We can't believe there are only two months left in our travels! We can't wait to discover the roads of Europe, and return to Western civilization!!! 

Missing everyone back home, hope the weather in Vancouver is improving! 

Lauren and Chris :)

The Final (Asian) Countdown!

24 deathly bus rides, 21 tuktuks swerving, 15 boats-a-rocking, 10 scamming taxis, 8 scooter rentals , 5 moto taxiiiis…. 4 yellow kayaks, 3 sleeper trains, 2 rides on elephants and a crapload of ziplining! (it’s not Christmas I know, but it just worked out!)

It’s been an amazing, eye-opening, educational and at times trying three months. We have seen both ugliness and beauty in different forms in all the places we’ve visited.  Thailand was hands down our favorite country for the food (we even took a cooking course!), Cambodia for the friendliest people, Vietnam for its amazing scenery and Laos for the laid-back mentality and awesome activities (i.e. Elephants and Gibbon Experience!).

It seems like we’ve been here for much longer than three months and I can’t believe we’re moving on! We spent our last couple of weeks in Thailand gearing up for the next leg of our trip. Translation: we really didn’t do much for the remaining time we had in Thailand.  We checked out Northern Thailand – Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai and Pai, each of which was awesome and unique in its own way.  

The Highlights:

1. We took an awesome cooking class with “Sammy”, a quirky Thai man who has an organic farm where he hosts a small cooking school. The day included making five dishes each: Tom Yam soup, Green/Red Curry, Pad Thai, Mango Sticky Rice, Papaya Salad, etc…  mm., my mouth is watering just thinking about them! We had a siesta in between making the mains and the appetizers, snoozing in the hammocks around the farm and enjoying the scenery.

This is a candid shot - act natural!

Sleeping off our food in the afternoon.. so cozy!

2. The delicious hippie food in Pai (the dreadlock capital of Thailand) was some of the best food we’ve had on the whole trip! The sightseeing definitely left something to be desired but we had a great time spending our final days on motorbike around the city.

Last motorbike ride in Thailand!! So hardcore..

One of the sights in Thailand, and a traditional jumping photo - don't think we've posted one yet!

Yes, motorbikes do cross this bridge - crazy!

We reunited for yet another final night with Pierre and Lucie.  It was one of these girls' birthdays so we got to share the delicious cake! Yum!! 

3. Chiang Rai was the jumping off point to see two of the craziest sights we’ve seen on this trip: the White Temple and the Black House.  The pictures say it all, but both of these places were created by rich Thai artists with extremely different tastes.  We were feeling a bit templed-out but the White Temple didn’t fail to impress!

The beautiful white temple.  The other side as well as the inside is not yet completed - I think it's 2050 or something it's supposed to be finished by.  Quite the long art project!

One of the sculpted messages at the temple - I like it!

The Black House - quite the contrast!

The Black House is adorned with hundreds if not thousands of animal skins and skulls, bones, etc. A creepy place to wander around in the dark that'd be for sure!

So tempting!

4. In Chiang Mai, one of the hill tribe women was extremely persistent and somehow Chris ‘accidentally’ got talked into buying her hat. She was trying to sell a bunch of other crap so Chris thought he was being a smart-ass when he asked how much she wanted for her hat.  Well, everything is for sale in Thailand! She then proceeded to spend close to thirty minutes bartering with herself.  She started off at 500 Baht (about 16$) and Chris said no.  Then we sat and chatted over a beer while the woman kept lowering her offer: “450… ok 400… special price, 300…”. Chris adamantly said he didn’t want the hat so it didn’t matter how much it was, but at this point we were stifling laughs as best we could.  Eventually she got down to 160 Baht and Chris bit the bullet and bought the stupid hat.  Little did we know that it would later feature in a McDonald’s photo shoot after yet another gripping game of Yanno!

The pro saleswoman - who knew she had another hat in her bag to replace the one on her head!

 

5. So Southeast Asia is home to innumerable stray cats and dogs and after having been in the area for a few months, one becomes rather desensitized to seeing them scattered through the streets, restaurants, hotels, you name it.  There is a general mutual understanding of “you don’t bother me, I don’t bother you”…, or so we thought! One night after perusing yet another Night Market in Chiang Mai, we got caught in a heavy rainstorm and were innocently making our way home when we crossed the path of two dogs.  It’s like it was a group effort- Chris’ attention was brought towards these two dogs who were growling unimpressed under their breath at him when a third dog came out of nowhere and actually bit him on the leg! To be fair, the dog wasn’t locked onto his leg in a death grip or anything, it was just a nip.  But it drew blood! If that wasn’t a rabid dog (hello, unprovoked vicious attack?!) then I don’t know what is! I barked angrily back at the dogs in my best intimidating voice and thankfully they retreated.  But we were left with the Rabies Dilemma – do we wait to see if Chris starts foaming at the mouth before we jump to any conclusions or do we get him treated? Well, apparently when it comes to dogs in Thailand there is a 0.01% chance that it may have rabies.  BUT, if it does have rabies and it bit you, you’re a gonner if you ignore it! So now we have to get a series of five shots for Rabid Chris – 3 in different cities in Thailand, one in Egypt and one in Amsterdam! Can you say pain in the ass (actually the ‘jab’ is in the arm)?!!

 6. We splurged for a sweet place in Chiang Mai and stayed there for 6 nights! It was like an actual hotel, where they cleaned our room every day and we got free water and breakfast included – deluxe!! Worth the $15/night!

7. In Bangkok on our second to last night we met up with travel buddies Frank and Cat to head up to Sky Bar, the one that featured in Hangover II. The bar is incredible – on the 64^th floor of a hotel, it opens to this super-posh expanse of patio with cool lighting and virtually hanging above the city with 360 degree views. Sounds awesome right? And I’m sure it would have been had we not chosen to go there on a night where it was raining! We had to sit inside for the full duration of our single 15$ cocktails (when beers cost less than $1 in some places, you can imagine how ridiculous this is), filling up on delicious bar nuts and olives, trying to get our money’s worth.  Too bad, but you can’t win ‘em all! Chris even had to buy pants in order for us to be able to go up!

8. We also, finally, entered to realm of bug-eating! We didn’t go all out – it actually wasn’t as readily available as we would have thought- but we did try fried crickets! A bit anticlimactic really, as they put so much oil on them that all you taste is fried oil with a crunch! Interesting, but definitely a box I am happy to say that I’ve now ticked!

To Southeast Asia: Kap kun kaa,.. Okun,.. Cam On,.. Kap Jai Lai Lai,..  or just Thank-You! It has been an unforgettable part of the journey.  We will miss the fruit shakes, pancakes and definitely the fried chicken! Each country we visited was so different and yet still, so Asian and somewhat similar.  In Southeast Asia, this is known as “same same… but different”, and it’s so true!

There are so many things we’ll miss, but at the same time we are ready to move on to new places where honking horns actually means something and you don’t have to walk for an hour to find a garbage can on the street! 

Our next stop is Egypt, we're pretty sure it's going to be a lot less same same and a whole lot more different. Bring on the camels!!

With love,
Lauren and Chris xo