It was a whirlwind 14 day adventure through one of the most interesting parts of Asia yet. Bouncing over mountain passes we covered 1200 km in the first 6 days on motorcycle with our personal guide, Minh. He was, sadly, a bit of a twit – but an endearing twit. We witnessed the very best of what it means to be human as we were greeted with smiling faces and enthusiastic waves while riding past the locals in remote villages. We stopped several times just to play with the children and what a delight that was. We bought some indoor basketball sets in Hanoi and passed them out while teaching the kids the game (soccer after all IS the primary sport over here). They loved it and many of these kids didn’t even have a real ball to play with. We took many memorable photos and video clips. One of the most stunning portions of the ride was Heaven’s Gate on Vietnam’s highest pass. Earth and Wind combined to give us breath taking scenery. The wind howled endlessly and blew the clouds by us almost as fast as the eye could track them.
While the ride was a great time it was hard because Tara got sick…really sick. She peaked a temp at 102.5 and that’s the last thing you want when you are quite obviously, in the middle of no where. She spent several nights with a temperature and had an awful stomach bug. It could have been from the dorms we stayed in or it could have been the food we ate. The food quality in Vietnam leaves much to be desired… However, Tara spent the next week recovering and is feeling much better now!
Once we finished motorcycling we slowly worked our way south to Ho Chi Minh(aka Saigon). We took many buses, including our first sleeper bus. I speak for both of us when I say we much prefer the sleeper trains. They go a nice even speed whereas most bus drivers in this side of the world are on a mission to meet death without actually having to die. We also took a 26 hour sitting bus…ugh. Those damn buses would cramp a midget.
Ho Chi Minh was a place we enjoyed. They had great Italian food and we even (finally) found some Vietnamese food that was delicious.
After 4.5 months in Asia it’s time to say goodbye!! We’ll continue our Journey in Australia starting with Tasmania…that update will come soon!!!
Love,
Jonathan and Tara
Vietnam Photo Album
Beijing Album *fixed*
Monday, December 31, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
The 8th Wonder of the World, a Shanghai Thanksgiving, and freezing in Beijing!
The 8th Wonder of the World, a Shanghai Thanksgiving, and freezing in Beijing!
After the visit with the Pandas in Chengdu we flew to Xi’an, which is the third largest city in China with about nine million people! It is such a neat place. The entire city is walled in with ancient fortress walls. The reason for the venture to Xi’an was to explore the area of the Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses. It is a UNSECO world heritage site as well as being the 8th Wonder of the World, which was a pleasant surprise! It was absolutely amazing and we tried to capture it the best we could through the photos. There are three large pits that are available for viewing and a museum. We were only able to visit two of the pits and the museum because one of the pits was being renovated. The restoration effort for the Terra Cotta Warriors is huge! There is a continuous effort to reconstruct the warriors and horses and maintain the pits. The rest of the magic can be explained through the photos!
Xian Web Album
I can think of thousands of reasons why I am thankful that I am a member of Pi Beta Phi Women’s Fraternity, but on Thanksgiving I got to add a lot more reasons to that list! On Thanksgiving we flew to Shanghai, where my sorority sister Nicole and her mom, Vicki, met us at the airport! Nicole and her family are currently living in Shanghai while her dad is on a business assignment. Nicole happens to be living in Shanghai with her family right now and attending a local university and learning Mandarin! Nicole had seen that we were traveling through China and her and her family invited us to stay with them! It was wonderful! Our first day there the McCarty’s treated us to a wonderful lunch of REAL milkshakes and hamburgers! Including American sized portions! It really did feel like we were back at home eating someplace like 66Diner!
We got the VIP Ex-Pat tour of Shanghai. We went to the Jin Mao tower, the Bund and got to see the knockoff market that they typically go to. On Friday we went to a friend of the McCarty’s, Bob and Marilyn, for Thanksgiving dinner! There were a lot of American Ex-Pat families there to celebrate and we had all of the usual Thanksgiving dinner things; Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, Jell-O, rolls with butter, and pumpkin pie! Not only did we get that Thanksgiving dinner on Friday on Sunday we got to have another one! Remember how I said that Nicole was taking classes to learn Mandarin, well her family invited all of her classmates, who are from all over the world, to participate in a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. So on Sunday Vicki cooked three turkeys, made so much stuffing, lots and lots of mashed potatoes, four pumpkin pies and one apple pie, fruit salad, and lots of other things! We had a feast! It was really fun because we got to meet all of Nicole’s classmates and her teacher and we all got to bond through karaoke and Dance Dance Revolution!
Speaking of dancing, Jonathan, Nicole and I went out dancing one night at a club called Bon Bon! We also got to take Nicole on her first trip on the Shanghai subway, woohoo! Jonathan and I hadn’t been out dancing at all during our travels so it was nice to go out and have a friend to show us the good places to go! We had a blast! Apparently we were such good dancers that our pictures ended up in the Shanghai Daily, the local newspaper, on the picture pages of the “cool” places to go on a night out! Our pictures were on the page almost as many times as Paris Hiltons! How cool! I think that makes us semi-celebrities!
The day after Vicki and Nicole took us to Xitang, which is a local water town. It also happens to be the town where Tom Cruise filmed Mission Impossible III. Haven’t seen it?! Good neither have we, it’s just what we were told! We had such a great time in Xitang. We visited all the little museums and took tons of pictures of the wonderful architecture and got to see Nicole’s favorite spots in Xitang as well! We also ate lunch at a fabulous restaurant and had some really different Chinese food. We had some wonderful eggplant, a fried corn and a fried pumpkin dish that were so yummy! When you have been traveling in China for about three weeks and have been living off of rice noodles a change in diet is a very welcome thing!
Throughout the rest of the week we got to see more of Shanghai. They took us to the Yew Yuan Gardens and we got to do some shopping and exploring, the history museum to see the development of Shanghai over the last few decades. It was fascinating because its one of the fastest growing cities in the world! Shanghai is a must see in China!
Shanghai Web Album
We were sad to leave the comforts of home and friends but were excited for a new adventure! We took the overnight sleeper train into Beijing to finish out the last few days on our Chinese visa. It was about 12 hours, but this time we took a soft sleeper which was really nice. The train ride flew by and we woke up in Beijing! We began our first day by putting on all of the warm clothes we had because it was only about 40 degrees! The air was much cleaner than I had expected but nowhere near my expectations of clean. It is said that breathing the air in Beijing is the equivalent to smoking 50 to 70 cigarettes a day, GROSS! Also I was expecting the yellow haze everywhere, but the skies were blue and there was no visible yellow cloud!
The first morning we explored Tianmen Square and the Forbidden City, which was just down the street from our hostel. Of course when you are in Beijing you have to go the Great Wall! Jonathan was unable to see the Great Wall last time he was in Beijing so he was really antsy to see the Great Wall this trip. We made quite the adventure out of the Great Wall trip. We met another American couple, who was also traveling for a year, and we all went to the Great Wall together! In a country where you don’t speak their language and they don’t speak much of theirs and you want to take the local bus instead of doing a tour, sometimes it is a little complicated and takes much longer. After about five hours we got to the entry to the Great Wall, phew! It was cold, but it was so beautiful! There was snow on the ground and the air was clean and the skies were bright blue! We could not believe our luck, we could see for miles once we got on the wall. We climbed the Great Wall from Jingshaling to Simatai which is about a 10 km trek up and down steep parts of the wall that have not been restored. It is a thousand years old you expect it to look that way, and it did! It was just a perfect day! We celebrated our Great Wall victory that night with a meal at a restaurant called “Amuseful/Happy Customer Easy Meal!” I love China!
Our last two days in Beijing we went and explored the Summer Palace, which was beautiful, and again we lucked out because the skies were so blue. We took a trip back to Tianmen Square so that we could visit the mausoleum where Mao is preserved. We had tried to get in the first day but we couldn’t bring anything that could break glass in, which includes cameras or tea thermoses…. Anyways we got to see him. It was a surreal experience, but we were glad we went! That evening we raced to the airport shuttle station only to figure out we were running too low on time and would have to take a taxi. Our taxi driver raced us to the airport and we made it with only 23 minutes until the check in counter closed! China was a blast!
Beijing Web Album
All of our Love,
Tara and Jonathan!
After the visit with the Pandas in Chengdu we flew to Xi’an, which is the third largest city in China with about nine million people! It is such a neat place. The entire city is walled in with ancient fortress walls. The reason for the venture to Xi’an was to explore the area of the Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses. It is a UNSECO world heritage site as well as being the 8th Wonder of the World, which was a pleasant surprise! It was absolutely amazing and we tried to capture it the best we could through the photos. There are three large pits that are available for viewing and a museum. We were only able to visit two of the pits and the museum because one of the pits was being renovated. The restoration effort for the Terra Cotta Warriors is huge! There is a continuous effort to reconstruct the warriors and horses and maintain the pits. The rest of the magic can be explained through the photos!
Xian Web Album
I can think of thousands of reasons why I am thankful that I am a member of Pi Beta Phi Women’s Fraternity, but on Thanksgiving I got to add a lot more reasons to that list! On Thanksgiving we flew to Shanghai, where my sorority sister Nicole and her mom, Vicki, met us at the airport! Nicole and her family are currently living in Shanghai while her dad is on a business assignment. Nicole happens to be living in Shanghai with her family right now and attending a local university and learning Mandarin! Nicole had seen that we were traveling through China and her and her family invited us to stay with them! It was wonderful! Our first day there the McCarty’s treated us to a wonderful lunch of REAL milkshakes and hamburgers! Including American sized portions! It really did feel like we were back at home eating someplace like 66Diner!
We got the VIP Ex-Pat tour of Shanghai. We went to the Jin Mao tower, the Bund and got to see the knockoff market that they typically go to. On Friday we went to a friend of the McCarty’s, Bob and Marilyn, for Thanksgiving dinner! There were a lot of American Ex-Pat families there to celebrate and we had all of the usual Thanksgiving dinner things; Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, Jell-O, rolls with butter, and pumpkin pie! Not only did we get that Thanksgiving dinner on Friday on Sunday we got to have another one! Remember how I said that Nicole was taking classes to learn Mandarin, well her family invited all of her classmates, who are from all over the world, to participate in a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. So on Sunday Vicki cooked three turkeys, made so much stuffing, lots and lots of mashed potatoes, four pumpkin pies and one apple pie, fruit salad, and lots of other things! We had a feast! It was really fun because we got to meet all of Nicole’s classmates and her teacher and we all got to bond through karaoke and Dance Dance Revolution!
Speaking of dancing, Jonathan, Nicole and I went out dancing one night at a club called Bon Bon! We also got to take Nicole on her first trip on the Shanghai subway, woohoo! Jonathan and I hadn’t been out dancing at all during our travels so it was nice to go out and have a friend to show us the good places to go! We had a blast! Apparently we were such good dancers that our pictures ended up in the Shanghai Daily, the local newspaper, on the picture pages of the “cool” places to go on a night out! Our pictures were on the page almost as many times as Paris Hiltons! How cool! I think that makes us semi-celebrities!
The day after Vicki and Nicole took us to Xitang, which is a local water town. It also happens to be the town where Tom Cruise filmed Mission Impossible III. Haven’t seen it?! Good neither have we, it’s just what we were told! We had such a great time in Xitang. We visited all the little museums and took tons of pictures of the wonderful architecture and got to see Nicole’s favorite spots in Xitang as well! We also ate lunch at a fabulous restaurant and had some really different Chinese food. We had some wonderful eggplant, a fried corn and a fried pumpkin dish that were so yummy! When you have been traveling in China for about three weeks and have been living off of rice noodles a change in diet is a very welcome thing!
Throughout the rest of the week we got to see more of Shanghai. They took us to the Yew Yuan Gardens and we got to do some shopping and exploring, the history museum to see the development of Shanghai over the last few decades. It was fascinating because its one of the fastest growing cities in the world! Shanghai is a must see in China!
Shanghai Web Album
We were sad to leave the comforts of home and friends but were excited for a new adventure! We took the overnight sleeper train into Beijing to finish out the last few days on our Chinese visa. It was about 12 hours, but this time we took a soft sleeper which was really nice. The train ride flew by and we woke up in Beijing! We began our first day by putting on all of the warm clothes we had because it was only about 40 degrees! The air was much cleaner than I had expected but nowhere near my expectations of clean. It is said that breathing the air in Beijing is the equivalent to smoking 50 to 70 cigarettes a day, GROSS! Also I was expecting the yellow haze everywhere, but the skies were blue and there was no visible yellow cloud!
The first morning we explored Tianmen Square and the Forbidden City, which was just down the street from our hostel. Of course when you are in Beijing you have to go the Great Wall! Jonathan was unable to see the Great Wall last time he was in Beijing so he was really antsy to see the Great Wall this trip. We made quite the adventure out of the Great Wall trip. We met another American couple, who was also traveling for a year, and we all went to the Great Wall together! In a country where you don’t speak their language and they don’t speak much of theirs and you want to take the local bus instead of doing a tour, sometimes it is a little complicated and takes much longer. After about five hours we got to the entry to the Great Wall, phew! It was cold, but it was so beautiful! There was snow on the ground and the air was clean and the skies were bright blue! We could not believe our luck, we could see for miles once we got on the wall. We climbed the Great Wall from Jingshaling to Simatai which is about a 10 km trek up and down steep parts of the wall that have not been restored. It is a thousand years old you expect it to look that way, and it did! It was just a perfect day! We celebrated our Great Wall victory that night with a meal at a restaurant called “Amuseful/Happy Customer Easy Meal!” I love China!
Our last two days in Beijing we went and explored the Summer Palace, which was beautiful, and again we lucked out because the skies were so blue. We took a trip back to Tianmen Square so that we could visit the mausoleum where Mao is preserved. We had tried to get in the first day but we couldn’t bring anything that could break glass in, which includes cameras or tea thermoses…. Anyways we got to see him. It was a surreal experience, but we were glad we went! That evening we raced to the airport shuttle station only to figure out we were running too low on time and would have to take a taxi. Our taxi driver raced us to the airport and we made it with only 23 minutes until the check in counter closed! China was a blast!
Beijing Web Album
All of our Love,
Tara and Jonathan!
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