Coming Home!!!

Yes it's true, we have decided to head back home!  We are rounding the 8 month mark and we've decided to spend the summer in Vancouver with plans to tour around BC and other parts of Canada.  We are very excited to be heading home!  Long term travel really gives you the opportunity to shed all your (and other's) preconceived notions of your priorities, your wants, and your needs and we now have this desire to put our new ideas and desires into practice.  Don't worry, we are still the same Rhonda & Terry that you knew and loved 8 months ago but we now have more clarity and confidence in our own internal thoughts and processing.  As an example, some of our most memorable experiences on this trip incorporate outdoor adventures such as canyoning, camping, hiking, caving, etc.  Sure we loved most of those activities before we left but we never placed them as high on the priority list as we did with work for instance...and why not?  Why not consider how to make it part of your work and/or scheduled time in your life?  We do happen to live in one of the internationally renowned outdoor meccas of the world! These are the type of questions we had time to ask ourselves and, even more importantly, the insights we had time to realize.

Long chats at coffee shops (this one's in Barcelona)

Life can be crowded and full.  Did we need to go away to figure some of these things out? No, not at all but it does make it easier when you can remove yourself from your everyday life and have a major adventure while you're at it!  Also, there's the new environment that supports these new thoughts; we have seen so much of life outside Canada, outside of 1st and 2nd world countries and it has an effect....a profound effect.  We are so grateful and sooooo spoiled to live in Canada.  The freedoms we have are immense and we live in an amazingly beautiful and clean country full of abundance.  It's something we want to embrace fully and maximize its potential.  Yes, we are also a little travel fatigued and miss home but we also have this intense desire to shape our lives and live it fully according to our own self-derived directions and goals.

Random mosaic mural in Barcelona

At the beginning of our trip, we discussed how we would feel if we came back before completing an entire year of travel and Terry felt he'd be a little disappointed. When we discussed it again four months into the trip, his response changed.  We realized that we wanted to incorporate long-term travel into our every day lives and that it was no longer about completing this one particular year of travel.  We've now learned about how we like to travel (slowly and outdoors related), what types of activities and places are most memorable to us and we have more comfort and know-how in the process to get there and back.

The past 8 months has gone by quickly and when we look back it really doesn't feel like we've been gone for such a long time.  The constant intake of travel keeps things fresh and new and time passes by easily. However that being said, when we look back over our blog posts, we are amazed at the experiences we've had and the places we've been.

No comment

It doesn't feel real yet that we're coming home, as we continue to explore and see a new city (Barcelona) and its culture.  In many ways we feel like Canada is our next destination and not necessarily "home" but the conflicting thought in the back of our minds is that it is "home" and with that comes all the associated things, thoughts, emotions and memories. It's new but it's not.  We wonder what may have changed or how it may appear different because of how we've changed.  We wonder how we'll handle the "cold" Canadian summer, what it'll be like to have clothing options, to cook in a familiar kitchen, to no longer require the constant assistance of Google Maps when we're out and about, and to eliminate the need to use "traveler's sign language" to find, order and buy things.  We love, love, love traveling but we are crazy excited to be coming home.

Over the Atlantic

-Terry & Rhonda

Cruisin' the Mediterranean

Decided to take a boat ride!!

So how on earth did we get from backpacking SE Asia to a cruise in the Mediterranean? Well long story short, we were invited by my parents to join them. Initially we were hesitant because the timing didn't work according to our "master world tour plan" but then we thought "well, why not disembark in Spain and head back to SE Asia over land?" Essentially flipping our travel path. Next hesitation was...perhaps we were a few decades too young for a cruise? With a bit of convincing from my parents we said Ok! So we committed to joining them and made the long flight from Hong Kong to Rome (12 hours).

St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican

Inside the enormous St. Peter's

Inside the Vatican Museum:  Opulence & beauty beyond imagination

Rome: A city full of history and ruins

Landing in Rome for 5 days prior to embarkation, we toured this ancient city and visited/revisited several "must see" sights, had some very nice Italian cuisine, and met up with friends and family who just so happened to also be in Rome/area at the same time! (Hi Diego, John and Louise!) I have to admit, there were numerous times when we were scratching our heads on the proper "Italian" way to do certain things and I took advantage to thoroughly abuse the saying "When in Rome..."

Family visit in Orvieto, Italy

The Mediterranean sea and all it's glory

Cruise day comes and we leave behind the Romans for the big boat. Our itinerary would take us to Italy (Pompeii, Sicily), Greece (Athens, Crete, Santorini), Turkey (Kusadasi/Ephesus), and Spain (Barcelona). We soon come to realize that as exotic as many of these locations are, you have an extremely limited amount of time to explore these places and are largely restricted to only glimpses of the tourists attractions (in other words, a glimpse of a glimpse). The restricted time also means time is at a higher premium than money so if you want to see/do the things that one "must do" in the port of call, you've got to really pay for it. Not to mention the cruise took us to a more expensive part of the world so there was the currency to factor in as well. Case in point, the cost of the cruise tickets alone (12 days) was about the same amount as our entire 2 months in Vietnam!

Mt. Vesuvius, Pompeii - dormant for now

Pompeii - mummified bodies from 79AD

The Parthenon, Athens, Greece 

The town Oia (pronounced Eeya) in Santorini, Greece

Now...with that said, we certainly enjoyed ourselves thoroughly in all the luxury that comes with such pampered traveling. Everything was amazingly easy, food was excellent at every meal, everyone was ultra polite and mannered, and our biggest concern was making sure we didn't get left behind at the port. We didn't have to spend any energy on figuring out all the details of daily life. Compared to our time in SE Asia and New Zealand, we were granted the luxury to focus on simple things such as a regular routine, good diet, and exercise, really getting into a good book, playing card games/mah jong, etc.

Our home on the sea

Feasting in Turkey

With 9 days of port calls (3 sea days), the highlight destination for us was Kusadasi/Ephesus in Turkey. Although we only had several hours to see the area, the little we did experience of its culture only served to re-affirm our belief that Turkey is a major destination that deserves spending a lot of time in. The history of its multiple empires, blend of ethnic cultures, focal trade point of the ancient Silk Road, and it being at the intersection of 2 major religions (Christianity and Islam), all within the past couple millennia offers so much substance it just oozes out of every crack and stone in its land. We will be back.

Our last stop and disembarkation was in Barcelona, Spain where we enjoyed 6 days on land exploring the city with my parents before saying goodbye to them.  Here we learned about the architect Antoni Gaudi and had the opportunity to tour the Casa Battlo and the Sagrada Familia Basilica.  This church has been under construction since 1882 and is estimated to continue until 2026 (144 years of construction!).  His work is absolutely magnificent and his vision incorporates nature in every element, making it a Christian church inspired by God's creation (nature). Despite it being "another church" it is unlike any other building we've ever been in, we compared the experience at Sagrada Familia with our time at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Truly stunning.

Beautiful fountain in Parc de la Ciutadella, Barcelona

Casa Battlo by Gaudi, inspired by the ocean

Sagrada Familia, current entrance

Interior, inspired by trees and their canopy

Hong Kong - Back Again!

Great to be back in Hong Kong (HK). Growing up my parents took me here every couple years to visit family and landing in the airport gave me a very welcomed feeling of familiarity and comfort. Being able to speak both primary languages of the city (Cantonese + English) also makes life much easier than having to resort to sign language and charades (although that can be super entertaining sometimes).

  

Walking around in the streets we have a sense of ease that first world societies impart despite being in the concrete jungle of one of the most populated places on earth.  This ease makes us extremely aware of the magnitude of things we take for granted and it gives you insight into different cultural norms (ex. I used to wonder why people sat directly on the ground or walked around barefoot in Canada... It's because it's so damn clean!)

One particular new observation we had this time is how Hong Kong’s retailers have a natural organization where common themes and products group together on common streets, and similar to a department store it seems to provide for every kind of need.  To mention a few of our favourites there was a very smelly Dried Seafood Street, Sneaker Street, Ladies Street (lady's fashion and accessories, not actual ladies! sheesh!), Flower Street, and Goldfish Street which was wonderfully colourful and entertaining to walk.

Staying in HK, we rented a teeny, tiny, 130 sqft, 2 story, AirBnB in a very central area of Kowloon (the city of Hong Kong is made up of Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon peninsula), it was a 10 minute transit ride from the city center.  We spent the majority of our time visiting family and friends which involved catching up and lots of really good food.  As usual, we were spoiled by everyone and thank them all for their generosity.

I think it's natural for most people to associate Hong Kong with that of a vast, chaotic, concrete and glass city, myself included.  So another first for us, was to wander out beyond the concrete jungle of the city center into a very lush, green, mountainous and beautiful oceanfront area.  I took Rhonda on a 1-1/2 hour hike called the Dragon's Back which ended up being a 4 hour hike in +30C weather…oops! Fortunately, it is breathtakingly scenic and well worth every, extremely hot, minute.  We also explored Repulse Bay and had a quick dip in Deep Ocean Bay, both areas being little, waterfront villages on the southern shores of Hong Kong Island.

Our time here was quick but we thoroughly enjoyed catching up with family & friends and exploring beyond the city center.

-Terry & Rhonda

Caving - Phong Nha-Ke Bang

Picking up from the motorcycle trip, we found ourselves in Da Nang with still 300km to the caving town of Phong Nha. So we caught our first sleeper train from Da Nang, arriving at 4:30 am in the town of Dong Hoi where we walked thru dimly lit streets and waited at a random street corner for the bus to Phong Nha, as instructed by our caving tour company.

It's like being rocked to sleep!

As we waited for the sun to rise we witnessed the early morning stretches and yawns of a rising town: bakeries and restaurants preparing the morning's fragrant dishes, the first buses, and the early bird customers.  Eventually the mini green and white bus arrived and we flagged it down. Hopping on board we traveled another hour via the local's route to the gateway town of Phong Nha (situated in the national park of Phong Nha-Ke Bang). This little farming town was once out of the way and unknown until the recent discovery of the largest and third largest caves in the world (Son Doong and Hang En. Son Doong can fit an entire NYC block inside it, including skyscrapers!). Over the last several years the town has been developing it's tourist infrastructure but is not yet overrun by the industry. We suspect it will quickly evolve due to the increasing popularity of caving and the low soil quality which limits the productivity of their agricultural industry.

Cambodian jungle boots used for Vietnamese caving!

So now with a bit of lead up, let's talk about caving!! We first heard about the caves and the tours thru lonely planet and looking at the options they offered, we chose the one with the most amount of water time since we had so much fun canyoning in New Zealand and Da Lat, we wanted to keep a similar style of adventure.

We all had a chuckle at the umbrella
but ironically, it was the best
piece of "equipment" anyone brought!

Our tour was a 2 day/1 night trip. Day 1 started with us hiking over a small mountain and thru untouched jungle grown atop sharp, jagged limestone rock. Fortunately for us (but unfortunately for our wallets), the tour included porters so we only had to carry very light loads in the sun and 32C heat. The scenery was absolutely unreal. A land before time, untouched for as long as memory serves (especially because of the Vietnam-American war that once made this park and surrounding area home to one of the greatest concentrations of landmines in the world). The natural landscape was straight out of the movies... ironically we hiked thru the very area that King Kong 2 was recently filmed!

Camp site eating area with a view

After the hot morning hike we arrived at camp late into the afternoon where everything was already set up for us. Our campsite was located at the bottom of a white, vertical, limestone cliff complete with a small cave, waterfall and swimming area.  We had the choice of hammocks or tents for the night, 75% of us opted for hammocks, the rest for tents. Before our simple, camp-cooked, traditional Vietnamese dinner, we had a few hours to explore the cave and go for a quick dip under and around the waterfall.

Swimming into the first cave the darkness was overwhelming and turning on our headlamps lit up images like the dwarf kingdom in Lord of the Rings. Vaulted ceilings with enormous stalactites hanging down. We felt like puny little fish swimming thru the cave...and this was one of the small caves! (We didn't do the big cave because it's booked up 12 months in advance and costs $3000USD!)

Coming back to camp we bathed in DEET and then filled our bellies. After a couple games of cards, we headed to our hammocks and discovered they weren't as comfortable as we thought they would be. Rhonda chose one that was strung up way too tight and had difficulty even getting in. Once we were in (Rhonda changed hammocks) our next learning curve was the lack of airflow due to the mosquito netting. I just tried to get used to it and Rhonda unzipped the netting seeking out the cool air and braving the mosquitos.  We ended up getting little sleep although strangely enough, we got up in the morning with great energy. Maybe the fresh air? Maybe the DEET? Maybe the excitement of the new adventure?

Down into "the long dark of Moria"

Day 2 our guides led us back to the mountain we climbed over on Day 1 but this time we swam, hiked, and tunnelled through using a series of connected caves that emerged back at the start. Again we were humbled by the enormity, darkness, and absolute silence of these natural wonders. Exiting the caves and hiking back, we were grateful for the opportunity to witness such raw and untouched nature. Although, arriving back at our hotel we were also very grateful for a comfy bed, hot shower, and AC...Glorious!!!

-Terry & Rhonda