Blue Lagoon Tree Jumping Vang Vieng

Currently working on the blog for our travels in Laos, but while that happens, here is another video while you wait :)

How to Eat in Asia!

Let’s talk about one of my (Kaitlyn here) favorite subjects; food. I enjoy trying new foods and have tried to be pretty adventurous on this trip. Before we left, a big question we were asked was “what will you eat and how do you know if it’s safe?” Here’s a few tips, tricks and opinions from two newbs. 

Lets talk about the CDC. While this organization is a wonderful resource, sticking to their rules would equate to eating only at expensive restaurants. No street food, local fruits, vegetables, etc. As backpackers, we have adapted some of their suggestions. 

1. The CDC recommends not eating any fruits/veggies that do not have a thick peel. We stuck to that rule for about 2 days and then it went out the window.  It made eating extremely boring/more expensive. In general, fruits and vegetables do not need to kept at a certain temperature to stay good, they simply need to be cleaned properly. If something looks questionable (like lettuce), we just tell them to leave it off.  Although I say this…in all honesty, we pretty much eat whatever comes with the meal now, vegetables and all.
2. The CDC states to only drink, brush and rinse with bottled water. We have stuck to that rule, until recently…we’ve seen other backpackers brush/rinse with tap water, so we have began to do the same and have been just fine. We do not drink any of the water though and don’t intend to as our goal is not to get sick. Bottled water is fairly cheap—less than a dollar for 1.5 liters— and we are content to purchase it.  Also, for those, like me, who are wondering how showering works with contaminated water…it is the same as in the US. Before leaving, Nicholas and I read the “correct” way to shower…turn away from the shower head, don’t put your face directly in the stream and don’t get the water in your nose and mouth…I don’t know about you, but those are a lot of rules to follow when showering.  I like to enjoy my showers, so don’t over think it, just shower like normal, but maybe don’t shower with your mouth open. ;) 
3. The CDC encourages travelers to avoid ice in developing countries. We originally stuck to this rule strongly but have since relaxed about it. Fruit shakes in Laos are cheap, amazing and made with ice. So far, so good. Generally, ice made with holes in it (instead of chips) is more likely to be clean. We also felt that, for example, Cambodia’s ice was a little more sketchy than Thailand, Laos or Vietnam.  One thing to remember is if locals are enjoying the same drinks, most likely that ice will be okay for you to enjoy as well…I promise you their goal isn’t to intentionally get anyone sick. However, in the end, going with your gut is often your best bet.
4. Street food is extremely common throughout Asia, and is in fact their way of life and making income. The CDC states to eat it with caution, which we have tried to do.  We’ve also learned a few things about picking the right street food vendor.  Rule 1: look for the crowds, if locals and other travelers are eating there, it is for a reason.  Rule 2: Find vendors that make the food in front of you and serve it hot, ESPECIALLY all varieties of meats.  Rule 3: Avoid stacks of food unless in a high traffic area.  Most likely that food is older and there is no means of rotation. Rule 4: If you go to a local restaurant and you can’t watch them make the food, know it is a slightly higher risk, BUT…almost ALL of them serve good quality food prepared properly.  Follow these 4 simple rules and you’ll be eating street food like a pro and finding your way into some awesome local restaurants.  Almost everything we’ve tried has been delicious and we’ve only gotten sick once!  But in the very beginning when everything was new to our systems. :) Also, shout out to Laos, which has a huge number of sandwich stands that we have frequented, providing great quality, filling food! 

Unfortunately, we did get food poisoning day 3 of our trip. However, this was NOT from street food! We got it in a restaurant from, we think, fish. We didn’t notice at the time, but the fish came out very quickly (10 minutes quick) and had probably been cooked that morning (or day before…who really knows) and left out all day. Lesson learned: fish goes bad much quicker than other meats. Again, if possible, try to watch them prepare the food that needs to be cooked correctly.

Ultimately, there is only so much you can do to avoid food poisoning. We met a guy who got sick from pizza, and a guy who had traveled for 5 months and never been sick. Using common sense and being cautious, but still adventurous, is a skill we are honing as we go. Praying over our food has taken on a whole new meaning, but that’s just one little reminder out of many of how our God looks after us. Luke 12:7 says, “Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” How encouraging that He watches so closely over us. 

I’ll end on this note in addition to the previous paragraph…It is amazing how God designed our bodies.  So perfectly designed in to adapt, heal, sense, etc…wow, our God is amazing and we are experiencing many more of His beauties in our travels, which is by far the greatest thing we are experiencing. Psalm 139: 13 “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb”.

Until next time!

K

Activities in Vang Vieng, Laos

Thailand

This blog will give you a general run down of our time in Thailand and share a few of the things we enjoyed while there!

Kaitlyn and I arrived in Bangkok, Thailand around 7:30 pm on March 8th. We took a large tourist bus from Siem Reap that took 11.5 hours, which means it was a full day on the road. On our way to Bangkok we met Bert, a fellow backpacker from Utah, who provided us with many insights about traveling! We stayed in a hostel located 100 meters from the BTS sky train, which we used about 3 times. Our first night we went and wandered about to see what was around our hostel.  Our drive in allowed us to see how big Bangkok was and how little we would see in our short time there.  The city was loud and noisy…TukTuk's sounded like little race cars! There were elegant cars, sports cars, street bikes and more. To us, it seemed like another big city as if we were back in the U.S. Our hostel was nice and clean, however, we quickly learned that Bangkok is a big party city and unfortunately so was our hostel. We did not get the best rest due to all the noise. You could hear noise from the street and, because the building was fully cement, we heard everything that happened in the hostel. It honestly wasn’t our favorite city, but we’re still glad we got to experience it!  With that rather captivating intro…let’s talk about what we DID enjoy doing!

On our first full day, Kaitlyn and I (along with our new friend Bert) began a long 5km hike to see the Grand Palace. About 3/4 of the way there, we were stopped by a Thai student at the university who told us the Grand Palace didn't open until 2:30, plus we needed pants to get in (we were all wearing shorts). He pulled out a map and showed us some local places to go see before returning to the Grand Palace. He also told us that the Tuk Tuk's with yellow license plates are subsidized by the government and cheaper than the others. So we jumped on board a tuk tuk and were off to see some of the other sites.  We went and saw a reclining Buddha, a standing Buddha, Thai fashion and then to the Grand Palace. The standing Buddha we saw was unbelievably tall…so tall it once was the tallest in the world, but it was overcome by a Buddha erected in China. The Grand Palace was something quite spectacular. All the temples within were stunning and housed many precious gems, metals and buddhas. It is quite possibly the most beautiful temples we have seen so far! Everything glitters and shines due to the meticulous maintenance of each temple. 

That evening Kaitlyn, Bert and I went found some street food for dinner; we tried the most delicious banana crepes for dessert. Sweetened condensed milk was used as syrup to sweeten it even more. We also had some pretty awesome Pad Thai from a street food vendor. Overall, we did a fair bit of relaxing in Bangkok.

On our third day we went to the Marble Temple, walked to the King’s residence and the Chatuchuk market, where Kaitlyn finally got her coconut. She has wanted to try one since she lived in the USVI, so finally that dream came true, and she drank most of it. Sharing is caring, but so is buying your wife a coconut, so it worked out. ;) 

On the 12th we headed onto our next destination, Ayutthaya. It is a UNESCO Heritage sight with many old temples. We were somewhat “templed out” by this point, so decided to see them all in one day via a scooter (motorbike)! Also, it was the hottest and most humid day we had experienced yet, so it was not pleasant to walk around. So…the scooter was by far one of the most fun things we’ve done.  And it only cost 220 baht for a whole day (6.25USD)! Nicholas loved it, and since Ayutthaya is smaller the traffic wasn’t nearly as crazy. We also had the BEST street food EVER there. Each night we went and tried something new; fish balls (yes we know this sounds weird, but how else do you say balls of fish?), mango with sticky rice, grilled pork on a stick with some kind of sweet/spicy sauce, coconut pancakes, little pork sausages, a big pork sausage (that was the only gross thing we tried) and fried chicken. Our favorite thing was a egg omelet/scramble that had mussels and veggies in it. If you ever go to Thailand, you have to try one! 

From Ayutthaya we took a night train to…Laos! But you have to wait for the next blog post to hear all about that country. ;)

XOXO, friends and family!

N + K

P.S. I forgot to mention our trek back to Bangkok to pick up the over night train tickets we forgot to pick up that we purchased earlier on through an agency. Luckily 1 ticket only cost 15 baht which was about 47 cents.  One thing we continue to learn is truly going with the flow…lucky for us, it was an easily correctable mistake. :)

Here is another video of Ayutthaya, Thailand!

Temples of Siem Reap Cambodia

You can see the fun we had visiting the temples in Siem Reap! Hope you enjoy this video!

Here is a taste of the nightlife in Siem Reap as well. :)

Phnom Penh Cambodia

Still working on mastering the GoPro so bare with us. ;)  In the meantime, here is a 60 second video of a few of our experiences!

Cambodia

Hello family and friends! 

Here is our first blog written from another country! Cambodia was our first stop in this grand adventure. Hard to believe Nicholas was here 10 years ago on a high school trip;  Thus, he had more an idea what we were getting into, I however, had no idea what to expect. 

We arrived at 1030 a.m. on March 1st. In approximately 31 hours of travel we got between 5-6 hours of sleep. We were, to put it nicely, mentally fried. I have never been that exhausted before in my life. Upon arrival, we did not go right to sleep in order to beat jet lag faster, which worked well; that night we slept for 11 hours straight. All of our flights went relatively smooth, we each had our own little tv, we were provided 3 meals and some extremely spacious seating with great lounging capabilities (sarcasm intended).  On our long 13 hour flight, we had the window seat and middle seat and were stuck with a guy that got up one time the whole 13 hours the last 20 minutes of the flight. Apparently he needs to be adding some water to his diet!  Really, the only issue we had was upon arrival to Cambodia.  We attempted to do currency exchange at an exchange office, however, they said our card would not work and that we needed to call our bank.  We did and everything checked out fine, we were told to use an ATM.

Our first day we visited the central market, Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. We did about 6.5 miles of walking and weren’t wearing sunscreen, so needles to say, our pasty selves burnt pretty decently. Don’t worry parents, the next day we picked up sunscreen and a hat for Nicholas. The market was DEFINITELY worth walking to though. We tried some street food including a Khmer Meat Crepe (filled with bean sprouts and meat), traditional Khmer donuts, Bahn Mi with some kind of beef on a stick and Rambutan fruit. The Royal Palace was beautiful and it was interesting to learn about some of Cambodias history and religious beliefs. It’s amazing how much wealth is displayed there compared to the poorness of the country. We saw a diamond that was 25 Karats on the forehead of the Buddha inside the Silver Pagoda. 

The second day was a somber one. We visited the killing fields and the S21 museum. It was emotionally draining for both of us. If you don’t know what those are, here is a link with more information ( http://www.killingfieldsmuseum.com/s21-victims.html). Some of the pictures in the museum were so graphic they turned my stomach and I literally had to walk out of the room. You also stare at the floor a lot; it’s eery to walk on tile visibly stained with what would have to be gallons upon gallons of blood. The fields were also sickening; pieces of clothing and shards of bones are still visible on the ground. I have never experienced anything like it.  We all know what genocide is, but it takes on a new meaning when you experience what we experienced emotionally here in Cambodia.  Walking the blood soaked path where events actually occurred, remembering too, this was not the only genocide that has taken place in this sinful world (Holocaust, Holodomor and others).

That evening we decided to go to a local restaurant that was recommended on one of the blogs I used while researching. BAD IDEA. We ordered goat curry (that had ants in it) and a fish curry. The fish tasted amazing and the goat wasn’t actually that bad. Our stomachs, however, disagreed, and we spent spent all of day 3 sitting on a couch or the toilet, attempting not to vomit from a lovely mixture of nausea and dizziness. Food poisoning is no joke, and I am hoping that since we got it day 3 of our journey, it is now out of the way for the upcoming months. WORD OF ADVICE: If you order something from a restaurant that is supposed to come out cooked from raw, send it back if it come out in 5 minutes fully prepared…something is up with that food, take it from some newbs that learned the hard way. ;)

The fourth day of our trip we travel by bus to Siem Reap. It was about 6 hours long and they played Fast and Furious 7 for the passengers.  The bus was quite big and spacious and had WiFi on board! It is too bad we didn’t know it had WiFi until we got off the bus though…we had a veteran bus driver for sure, he was flying and passing cars, trucks, tuk tuks left and right…and hardly slowed for the many cows wandering about in the middle of the road.  There were a few times I found myself questioning whether a chateaubriand or NY strip was included in the ticket price, but unfortunately it wasn’t.  All in all, it was a nice trip to Siem Reap! 

Our first day in Siem Reap we went to the Angkor National Museum. I was glad we visited; it made going to all the temples the next day more enjoyable. Being able to put some of the pieces of history together with what we were seeing was a fun experience. 

On Tuesday we explored the temples of Angkor. Out of 40 some temples we saw 5. That’s just how huge they are.  It amazed Nicholas and me both the true vision these people had to create something so spectacular and all by hand. It’s easy to see that the carvings covering all the temples at one point were basically perfect.  The temples that we saw are were: the sunset temple, Angkor Wat, Bayon, a small temple (not sure what the name of this one was), Baphuon and Ta Prohm Temple (the Tomb Raider temple).

Our hostel in Siem reap was nice, we were on the 3rd floor, this was our first private room and it was great. We didn’t have an air conditioner in our room, so it was quite warm, but we did have a turbo fan that may just have had enough power to move a small plane…regardless, we were thankful for some air movement in our room to help keep us cool. 

All in all, Cambodia was a great experience. Nicholas enjoyed coming back and I enjoyed experiencing Khmer culture for the first time. We met some wonderful people and learned so much. Until next time, Cambodia. 

XOXO 

N & K

Prayer Requests

Well, friends and family, we made it.  Kaitlyn and I are currently sitting on the roof top terrace of our hostel here in Cambodia.  While we sit here and reflect on our current situation, we thought it’d be nice to write a post asking for YOUR help.  Kaitlyn and I feel very blessed to be given this opportunity to travel and we feel even more blessed to have so many people praying for us on this journey on which we are embarking. Following are our prayer requests.  

1. That through this journey Christ is kept the center of our relationship with this being a great time to reflect and grow spiritually.
2. Our ability to work together as a team and communicate efficiently and effectively.
3. Our overall health and safety.
4. Opportunity to be a light to those around us.
5. That we have a blast and keep it a low stress adventure. 

We thank those of you who have already been avidly praying for us.  Kaitlyn and I feel those prayers and we know they have helped us get this far. 

That’s all for now folks! 

Love,

N+K