Beijing, China

Honestly, I’m not sure how to approach writing this blog without writing a book, as there are so many different feelings, thoughts and experiences that surrounded our trip to China.  I have to say that Kaitlyn and I were a little intimidated when it came time to travel to the country due to the pre-conceived notions and ideas with which we arrived.  It wasn’t fear for our safety, but more of an uneasiness of what to expect from the culture.  The history of China is rich with tradition and is very interesting as it is vastly different from U.S. history.  Kaitlyn and I had little knowledge of China, making this experience a wonderful (and overwhelming) introduction to the Chinese people.  In addition, we knew communication would be more difficult; most people in China are friendly to foreigners, but don’t interact because of the lack of English.  Also, most signage is also in Chinese, making it more difficult to navigate.  

Upon arrival, we prepared to be questioned at the boarder, especially because my passport photo looks different from what I look like now, however, we had no issues (hallelujah).  We even managed to find our guesthouse without trouble.  Our access to GPS has made navigating each country fairly easy…well, for the most part ;). Our hosts were very kind and spoke great english; they gave us a map of Beijing and walked us through all the directions to the major sights. They also had a handout with line by line directions and suggestions of what to visit in a day. Without the handout and help, it would have been much more difficult to get from place to place (due to the sites being out of walking distance.)

We hit the ground running and went to the Forbidden City on our first day of sightseeing. Tourist season officially begins in April, causing all the ticket prices to rise, and it was March 31st, so we were able to get a cheaper entrance fee (30 Yuan/ticket). To go, we took bus #5 five stops to the entrance of the Forbidden City.  After spending 3.5 hours inside the huge complex, the exit left us within walking distance to our guesthouse.  Afterwards, we ate dinner at a local restaurant that was able to provide an english menu for the non-Chinese speaking ;). We’d heard that real Chinese food is nothing like American-Chinese food, and that is correct! Authentic Chinese food is very good with a wide variety of dishes to choose from (Although Kaitlyn will probably never loose her love of beef and broccoli.)  Plus, we never saw fortune cookies delivered with any meal.  It was here that Kaitlyn and I also witnessed our first (of several) disgruntled Chinese individuals.  While sitting enjoying dinner, a conversation between one of the owners and the chef began to escalate quickly. It was evident she was upset based on her tone of voice and body language. Finally, she became so angry, she picked up a cup and threw it on the ground causing the glass to shatter and go everywhere.  She then stormed out of the restaurant with the chef chasing behind. We still enjoyed our meal though! 

The next day was the Lord’s Day, so we went to church. In China, foreigners are allowed to attend church quite easily; however, if you are Chinese it is illegal. Every church website we reviewed stated, “Please note that due to PRC regulations, our church is open to foreign passport holders only.” We were told that if you look Asian, guards will check your passport before admitting you entrance. It is very sad, but a reality for the oppressed Chinese people. 

After church we wandered around a mall/park area (kind of like a huge Bradly Fair for our Wichita friends) and then ate some lunch. Lunch was a comedy in and of itself.  As everyone knows, we are trying to stick to a budget. Going out to eat is quite expensive in Beijing if you want something other than a fancy plate of rice (60-80 yuan per plate, or 40 yuan for fancy rice, 3.7 yuan to a dollar), so we decided to go to find a grocery store and buy a few things instead.  After wandering around for an hour (or 2 hours) LOOKING for that one grocery store we finally found it exactly where any American would expect it…tucked underneath a 30 floor ritzy hotel.  We bought (and I kid you not): Ritz crackers, peanut butter, a can of tuna and garlic cream cheese. We dipped the crackers in the cream cheese and topped it with tuna. Classy, right?  To top it off, apparently Beijing doesn’t believe in park benches…anywhere…so we could either walk back 1 kilometer to the mall area or we could sit smack dab in front of the ritzy hotel on the ground on the edge of the sidewalk.  We chose the sidewalk option with the homeless look.  Also, in the process of devouring the food, I was thinking about the cost of our groceries…112 yuan…realizing we still only saved $5 or so dollars on our over-priced groceries.  What can I say, desperate times call for desperate measures, but we were full and happy!

After our lunch we went to the Olympic Stadium. It was incredible! The buildings and surrounding area are huge (we walked 23 kilometers that day). We found it interesting how useless the area is, however. China reportedly spent $42 billion on the Olympic park; today the buildings are unused and either falling apart or being dismantled and the pieces repurposed. The escalators are all covered with trash and blocked off, glass art is being destroyed, windows are removed from buildings and the birds nest is covered with wiring. Still, it was fun to see and we greatly enjoyed a 3km walk through a lovely park at the end of the Olympic walkway. 

Monday was our day to hike the Great Wall! We had been looking forward to this since arriving! We booked a tour to go to Jingsling, an area of the wall that is less touristy. It was busy due to a Chinese holiday, but manageable and not extremely crowded. The hike itself was a little more difficult than people expected; Kaitlyn had done quite a bit of research, so knew the wall was steep in some areas. One of the people in our group exclaimed, "Oh my gosh, you have got to be joking. This is a joke." This part of the wall is along mountains making the steep parts unavoidable. We hiked to the spot we were suppose to meet our group and still had an hour of hiking time left, so we decided to be extra adventurous and keep going. We then hiked Simatai West, which barely had any people on it and is less maintained. We connected with a path that led through the hills to a small village and managed to find our group down the road from there. One lady was not so fortunate; she attempted to hike the same portion we did, but missed the path and got extremely lost. We were lucky in that there was a Chinese woman by our path who verified for us that it led to the village near the entrance to the wall. Our fellow hiker ended up on the wrong side of the mountain and had to take a taxi to meet the tour group. Oops!

After hiking the Great Wall we were exhausted and spent day 4 recovering. That evening we took an overnight train to Xi'an - Watch for a separate blog post. 

Before ending this blog, I want to talk about the people of China. As stated in the beginning, we were intimidated at the thought of traveling to the country.  Throughout our time, we took note of several events and experiences.  One common theme we saw was the unrest of people there.  Generally speaking, the people are not happy. The people rarely smile, even when you smile at them. We saw one fight on a public bus between an old man and woman; they reached for their canes to hit each other and security had to step in. A man  forcefully picked up a woman to make her go with him in the middle of a street. A young couple was fighting and she hit him and he forced her to take a picture while smiling. We were woken up multiple mornings by people yelling at each other in a near by house. Our guesthouse host was kind, but was an alcoholic. We saw multiple people crying alone in public places. There are more cameras than you could imagine and soldiers everywhere. The internet is censored. You feel constantly watched. A non-Chinese person we spoke with stated, "They know they're not happy." How can you be happy when you are oppressed? There were days we felt sad after our interactions with people; joy is visibly lacking in their lives. It was an eye-opening experience. We left China feeling overwhelmingly grateful for the freedom we have in the states. That freedom should NEVER be taken for granted, and no matter how bad we think we have it, it is thousands of times better than people all over the world. God has been and is so gracious in our lives; we should never lack in praise and thankfulness towards Him. 

I will say, after traveling there, it is interesting to see the effect news, media, entertainment etc. play in shaping our world views.  Our pre-conceived notions and our experiences made us think about the things we DON’T know about places unless we travel and experience it for ourselves.  This trip allowed us to do just that.  It opened our eyes to a whole new China from the one we “thought” we knew.  In a way, some of our perceptions were correct, however, we were also very wrong.  From this blog, I want everyone to understand my point: although we may have ideas about what a place may be like, one cannot really know until experiencing it personally because it is so different than what we imagine. News doesn’t tell you the whole story, movies don’t portray it accurately, radio can’t take you there etc.  Although China is an oppressed country, it does have a lot of natural beauty within…it has beautiful colors, beautiful people, great food, spectacular mountains and big history…and just think, we only saw a little bit in 10 days.  We went in with little expectations and walked out with big experiences, and we hope someday you get to do the same.

Love,

N + K

P.S. One piece of advice for those new travelers to China, especially Beijing, use the subway system…it is the easiest, most efficient way to commute and the easiest to navigate!

Beautiful Vietnam

So…remember in one of our last blogs we said Laos may just be our favorite country? We’ve changed our minds; Vietnam is now our favorite! Well, in part.  We say this remembering we haven’t seen any country 100% and knowing each country is different from one another…From the parts we did see, we experienced more natural beauty in Laos. We loved, however, the city of Hanoi in Vietnam, the people, and the little bit of the bay we saw. Vietnam is one country we’ve visited that we both have said “Let’s come back here.”  Many backpackers take a month, or more, to travel across the entire country of Vietnam on a motorbike…we’d love to do that some day, but unfortunately this trip doesn’t allow the time for such fun.  But, back to what we did get to do!

Our hostel in Hanoi was located right next to a cathedral in the Old Quarter. We loved staying in that part of Hanoi; it was very beautiful and most of the tourist activities were close to there…but we still walked a lot! 

Our first day in the city, we met up with a Dutch guy named Joost that we had met in Cambodia. The fates aligned so that we were able to enjoy lunch together at a small, local restaurant. This local restaurant, however, famously hosted former President Obama for lunch! (Here is an article about his meal there. https://www.google.com.kh/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/23/barack-obama-treated-to-6-noodles-in-hanoi-by-anthony-bourdain/amp/ ) We had a bowl of bun cha, which is a Vietnamese noodle dish made with grilled pork. It was very good! After our meal Nicholas and I decided to go to the water puppet theater for an afternoon show. It was unique and quite different than anything we have ever seen! For dinner we decided to be adventurous and ate at a street restaurant. I got rice, but Nicholas ordered frog with vegetables! Maybe you'd be surprised, but it truly does taste like chicken. It came out as, basically, a full frog, little arms with webbed frog-fingers and everything.  It was very good and even I found myself surprised to enjoy it so much. But hey, you only live once right?? 

Our second day we went to see Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. His body is preserved in a glass coffin so people can pay their respects.  For those that may not know, he began communism in Vietnam.  Each year they ship him to Russia for "upkeep," and I must say they do a great job. He looks like a wax figure. It was amazing to us how much the Vietnamese people love him-we waited in line to visit for 2 hours. We met a sweet family with 5 kids and played with them while we waited. Afterwards, we went to the Hoa Lo Prison. That was interesting because of all the propaganda. They called it "The Hanoi Hilton" and showed videos of POWs playing sport games and describing the holiday meals they ate. The amount of propaganda throughout the country is crazy, but what's crazier is that people just don't know any differently. I've realized freedom of speech and the press is something for which we should be extremely grateful. In the states we take so much for granted; going on this trip has been eye opening in that way.

Our third day was Sunday. We went to a French mass in the cathedral in the morning. Mass was the only time the church was open, so we decided to stay so we could experience it. In the afternoon we went an International Christian Church. It's always fun to meet other believers! 

Each night in Hanoi we would walk around Sword Lake. There was a night market during the weekend, a beer corner, people playing games in the square, people performing and students wanting to practice their English. We ate way too many popsicles and had way too much fun. ;) It really was wonderful; Nicholas and I got to spend a lot of time talking and relaxing while experiencing local culture and learning. People in Hanoi were very kind, the coffee was very good and the city was sweet. It will always be a special place for us. 

Monday morning we left for a 2 day cruise in Halong Bay. We took a bus ride to the bay and boarded a Junk boat with 14 other people. It was very nice- one of the fanciest places we've stayed in. ;) During the cruise we kayaked, walked through a giant cave, and walked to the top of one of the karsts. The weather was slightly gloomy, unfortunately, more rain then sun, but Halong bay is definitely one of the most beautiful places we've been.  I would love to go back again. 

After getting back from our cruise we were both in need of some western food; we enjoy asian cuisine but tend to miss our proteins after a while! We found a restaurant called Moose and Roo Smokehouse. We ordered ribs, mac'n'cheese, fries with gravy and cheese (Putine), and cheesecake-don't judge. It was AMAZING. We met one of the owners, Tien, and she was so kind!  We learned that her husband was from Canada (which explains the Putine) and had a passion for food and Vietnam.  We greatly enjoyed talking and learning about Hanoi. If you ever find yourself in Hanoi, visit this restaurant for your western fix, you won't be disappointed. 

Our final day in Vietnam was spent wandering around and, finally, trying some famous egg coffee. We went to Giang cafe, founded in 1946, which is locally famous. Nicholas ordered egg coffee and I ordered egg hot chocolate. We didn't really know what to expect, because eggs in drinks is weird, but it was sooo good. Somehow the egg is sweetened and thickened, making the drink taste like it has marshmallows in it! That is something I would like to re-create! 

We missed a huge part of Vietnam and would love to go back someday. There was just something about it we adored. It's funny how that happens; you can't really describe it, but you just fall in love with a place. 

TTFN Ta-Ta For Now!

N & K

Here is a video of our time in Hanoi, Vietnam! And the 2nd video is of our time in Halong Bay.  Enjoy!

Our Favorite Eateries in Laos

Vientianne is full of little cafes and coffee shops, but this one was our favorite!

Bitter Sweet: This cute little place had a great menu! It had a nice mix of Laos food and semi-western food, which was nice for me. I prefer to eat rice every other day, not every day, so ordered a delicious pasta dish with chicken. ;) It was nice to order some comfort food, sit down in some air conditioning and simply spend time together. 

Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng has been one of our favorite stops during this trip! The beauty of the mountains, caves and lagoons is breathtaking. Besides all of the wonderful activities we were able to do, we also were able to enjoy some AMAZING food.

Il Tavolo: You wouldn’t expect it, but in the middle of Vang Vienng there is an Italian restaurant. Apparently an Italian man and his son decided to move to Laos and open a restaurant named Il Tavolo. We never found out why they decided to do this, but I’m certainly glad they did. We tried two wood-fired pizzas, one with a white sauce base and another with goat cheese, walnuts and raw ham. It was the best pizza we have ever had. There is literally nothing I can compare it to. Although pricey compared to other places, this restaurant is worth the splurge, and by splurge, I mean we spent 20USD! In the states our meal would have easily cost approximately 50USD. 

Cafe Eh Eh: This little coffee shop is located next to the Elephant Crossing Hotel. We tried the fresh kombucha, and although I’m usually not a kombucha fan, I must say this was quite good! It is also slightly pricey, so if you’re looking for cheap this isn’t the best choice. They have air-con and free wifi, however, so we enjoyed just relaxing there.

Sababa Organic Restaurant: This cute little place is located close to the river by Cafe Eh Eh. It is locally owned, and Mama, as she calls herself, created all the recipes, took our orders, made our food, served it and chatted with us. Everything is extremely fresh and, oh, so good. We actually went back for two dinners we liked it so much! Try the chicken kebab-you will not regret it. Mama is very sweet and loves to chat with travelers. 

There are many sandwich/pancake/fruit shake stands, but we found the best just to the right of Cafe Eh Eh. This Laotian woman works around 12 hours a day making food at her stand, and she is quite popular. We went there four times! By the second time she knew our order and would wave when we drove by. :) She made the meanest sandwich, and I am positive the sandwiches I make Nicholas will forever be compared to hers. She loaded them with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, cheese, mayo, ketchup, chili sauce, bacon, meat, egg, chicken…it sounds strange, but it was delicious. She also introduced us to lychee pancakes, which is more like a fried crepe. The one we ordered (four times) had cooked bananas, Nutella, sweetened confessed milk and some kind of sweet white sugar. Hello, carbs and chocolate, I’ve missed you in the sea of rice dishes. ;) 

We ate a LOT of good food in Vang Vieng, so if you ever decide to visit, definitely stop in these favorites!

Laos

Hello! Ready for another blog? We are…and we’re excited to share with you our time in Laos!  I’ll begin by saying Laos is a beautiful country and so far our favorite out of the 3 we have visited thus far.

Our journey began in Vientiane, which is the capital and largest city of Laos.  It is located on the banks of the Mekong River near the border of Thailand.  As mentioned in a previous blog, our travel started on an overnight train from Ayutthaya.  We didn’t have any expectations of Vientiane as we had heard several different opinions.  We had only planned 2 nights in the city, using it as a small resting hub from our travels.  Although our time there was short, it was still sweet. We were able to enjoy some down time in the many little cafes and coffee shops, which exhibited the french influence of the area.  These cafes and coffee shops are very cute and spread all over the city.  In fact, there are so many it is hard to choose just one, which is why we enjoyed many.  Small temples were also spread throughout the city, which we experienced from the outside.  One of our walks led us to a large mall that was joined with an existing street market, which made it one of the largest shopping centers for the area.  On this walk we also found Patuxia, a city park designed after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.  It so closely resembles the original that the people of Vientiane also refer to it as the Arc de Triomphe.  In the evenings we would go to the night market, located by the river.  The night market was surrounded by many local restaurants that ran down the main streets, with some random carnival booths for some added fun.

Next, we headed to Vang Vieng by bus, which took us approximately 8 hours.  The ride was long, but not terrible, just a tight fit;  They follow the rule “one extra seat means 3 to 4 extra people.”  Vang Vieng is a small town with a big party scene in the country side of Laos.  Kaitlyn and I called it the asian Colorado; it was so beautiful.  We had scenic views of the mountains from every direction.  The town was easy to navigate and the food was wonderful (to be discussed in another post).  On our first full day, we decided to take a tour that included zip lining, caving, swimming in blue lagoons and kayaking (as you saw in the posted videos).  It was day full day for $27 USD each, well worth the price (in my opinion). The group was made up of us, some Chinese girls and 6 Korean middle-aged men, who were hilarious.  The Korean men were very friendly and loved to laugh and make fun with the others in the group.

On the 3rd day of our visit, we decided to rent a scooter and see more back country…we took the motorbike across the bridge and into the native farm land of Laos.  While on this adventure, we attempted to find all the blue lagoons (5 in total).  We found all but blue lagoon #4.  We also found a cave with a tunnel entrance that was about 3 ft. by 3 ft. So tight neither of us could wear the small backpack!  We had to army crawl 25 meters before getting to a larger cave inside. Prior to this cave adventure, we were told by one of the locals that Laos has large cave spiders and to watch out.  Once inside the larger portion of this cave, Kaitlyn’s light caught a spider the size of an orange hanging above our heads…if only Steve Irwin was still around to tell us about it. :( Going through that cave was intimidating because it was a tight squeeze into complete darkness. One funny experience was when we were flashed by a 5 year old. We were pretty deep into the country side and we knew not many tourists come as far as we had, because when a little boy saw us on the scooter, he took one look at us, grinned, and whipped out his little man parts. We immediately cracked up!

After 4 days in Vang Vieng we moved on to the city of Luang Prabang. This bus ride was utterly terrible. In an effort to avoid the terror we had heard from others, we purchased tickets for an air conditioned bus on “the new road” taking 4 hours.  However, this was not the case.  We ended up in the very back of a non-air conditioned bus that took “the old road” and took 6 hours. The driver was a maniac on the road. Imagine this: Think of the bumpiest dirt road you’ve EVER been on, going up and down steep roads, around “S” turns with no guard rails, in an old van, gears grinding and jerking at unsafe speeds, passing cars and trucks left and right…then feeling like you’re going to vomit or pass out, either one. At one point the driver took a corner too fast and we fishtailed, veering toward the edge of the road.  I think the entire bus thought we were going to careen over the edge.  However, he was able to correct it quickly and keep us on the road.  It was such a hot, uncomfortable ride that everyone in our bus was nauseous by the end.  So…You may try and plan something, but you also may not get what you expect.  We continue to learn that Asia’s system is far different…in a way you have to accept what you get and move on…at the end of the day, we still arrived safely to our intended destination.  It is instances like these though that make us quickly realize how blessed we are back home!

When we made it to Luang Prabang, slightly cranky and tired, we were blessed to find our hostel was clean and comfy.  In addition, we had a very sweet roommate from Canada. We spent 2 and a half days there, relaxing and enjoying a spectacular waterfall. We were able to hike up the side of the falls, swim in the spring at the top and then swim in the pools at the bottom as well. We’ve realized that while we enjoy seeing temples and experiencing bigger cities, we seem to enjoy the natural sights such as caves, pools, waterfalls and countryside even more…it’s all so beautiful. 

Laos was definitely different then any other country we had visited thus far, but it is beautiful and we would definitely head back for a future visit. It was a great experience and truly, our time was so short lived there is much more Laos has to offer.

N+K

P.S. Made the mistake of not posting before going to China and google was blocked, so sorry this is so late!