Planes, Trains and Automobiles...Laos!!!

I left Thailand on a night train headed to Loas. It was my first time to be alone for 3 weeks...it was a very strange experience. I enjoyed being with my friends soooo much. We became like family and those memories will be forever etched in my mind. But I was excited to take my own adventure!!! I LOVE adventure, I'm sure that's a surprise to you;-) So, my night train...well, let's just say that night trains in Thailand are a little different from China. China night trains are very comfortable to me...I love to sleep on the train. I get a hard bed sleeper and sleep all night:-) But this night train was a little different. they told me they only had soft sleepers...so I thought this would be nice...ha...it was like I was being rocked all night...I could feel every stop and turn and almost thought I cold feel the wind hit my face through the cracks:-)I'm sure that wasn't happening though:-) I had bought "The Hiding Place", the biography of Corrie Ten Boom, at a used book store in Thailand and read most of it the first night on the train:-) I was just loving the time of quiet and relaxing! It's no fun to read when your friends are around so I was taking advantage of my alone time. I love that book and hadn't read it since my mom read it to my sister and I as a little girl. After I arrived on the border of Thailand and Laos I had a very easy border cross. Customs was pretty much a man who looked at me and then I walked mast him:-) I got another stamp in my passport and headed to my next train that took me to Vientiane, Laos. This train was awesome! All the windows open and lots of different people...it was only about 15min and we arrived. I had arranged a taxi to pick me up and take me into the city. The funniest thing was that my taxi was a little short bed pick up truck and my seat was in the bed...holding on to the side of the truck:-) I loved it!!! It took us about 30min to get to the street where the hostels were. I walked around and found a place to stay. This little city was such a mystery to me. Many foreigners, tourists, and many people who were soooo lost. It was written all over them. Many monks and temples. I knew that my time here was for a bigger purpose than I had realized.

Vientiane is right on the Me Khong river. I took lots of walks by the river and all over this little city! The days were very nice...I sat by the river and read my book and then went to a little local coffee shop and read more:-) Very relaxing...there wasn't much more to do here. I chose to come through Laos because I really wanted to experience the culture here and also because i really wanted to get into China through this route! I had planned on taking a bus from Vientiane to Kunming to day after I arrived but the bus was delayed one day so I had an extra day here. I PR walked the city for many hours.

Another shot from the river but this one is at sunset. When the sun went down this little family filled city turned into a very different place. There were many prostitutes on the streets and other filthy things that went on. I had not experienced the darkness that this city contained in such a deep way before. It really opened my eyes to just how on guarded we need to be and that sin is such a destructive thing. Like I said, I know the meaning of my time here was for much more than I originally thought. I PR there are people here sharing the truth. Please join me in this PR!!! The people need HIM!

So the day came for me to take my CRAZY 38hr. bus from Vientiane to Kunming! I was sooooo excited! I had seen these nice bed busses and had an idea of what mine would be...but to my amazement, when I arrived at the bus station we passed up all the nice busses and they dropped me off at this bus:-( I was thinking as we pulled up "Oh Dear Lord you are kidding me, right?". But, He wasn't kidding...LOL my bus was very crazy...I don't know if you can see from the picture but the beds are in 3 rows and about 18in. wide. But you see, my bed is where the pic is taken from and I was int he very back. My bed, along with the 4 other people that slept with me, didn't have sides!!! We were in like one "big" bed...the width of the bus....5 of us:-( Oh My Word is all I thought as they yelled at me and told me to get to the back...ha! I was the only "foreign" looking person on the bus. Everyone was chinese except one guy from Thailand. But everyone thought he was chinese because he looked the same and he spoke chinese very well. But to my excitement he also spoke a little english. i found this out because of a slight problem I had:-( You see...if you remember back to my Thailand blog you will remember my sun poisoning. Well, my legs looked like I was shedding a layer of skin(or to someone who wasn't used to sun burns, it looked like I had a horrible disease!!!). When the couple next to me got in "our" bed the lady looked at me and I thought she was gonna scream. She started speaking chinese like crazy and I could understand enough to know she thought I was going to give her this horrible disease and there was NO WAY she was sleeping next to me fot 38hrs!! So i quickly said, "can any one speak English?" and the guy on the opposite side of "our" bed said he could a little. I told him about my sun burn and asked him if he could explain to her in chinese what was wrong...lol. Then she laughed and smiled at me and then quickly scolded me and told me never to go in the sun again!!! Oh and she reminded me of this throughout the trip:-) "Thank you mother", I thought:-) Chinese women are very bossy...I fit in well here:-) So the bus and I had a pretty hard battle the first night. You see Laos is pretty much all dirt roads and mountains...and huge buses are not really the perfect vehicle to cross that kind of terrain...but, after being up all night because of all the air time I got as the bus hit every bump and my head hit the roof of the bus, I remembered how much I love adventure and got over myself!

The trip was amazingly beautiful!!! I LOVED seeing all the Father's creation and at night i could see more stars than I have ever seen in my life...if you know me, you know I and a geek about stars:-) I could look at them for hours and never get tired of it.

This is a side view of the bus that I took on one of our VERY few bathroom breaks...and when I say bathroom I really mean side of the road in the bushes...the best "restroom" we used was a ditch divided by half walls and the girls had on and the boys had one...we all got to know each other more than I would have liked:-(...lol next Blog...CHINA!!!!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles...Thailand!!!

YAY for Thailand!!! I was sooo excited about this place I had heard so much about and couldn't believe I was actually there:-) We had a less than fun time getting though customs in the EXTREMELY HOT weather(Although I wish for nothing more than a little warmth as I sit in my apartment in multiple layers of clothes and a hot water pack on my lap!). But we made it through and finished our bus ride to Bangkok! As we arrived in Bankok it was like we were in America...the signs were in English(some of them) and roads were half way organized(except they drove on the wrong side of the road:-)) But we were dropped off in a random area and had to walk around to find our hostel. We had kinda gotten used to this by now. We had to walk many places at all times of the day and night. We finally found our Bangkok home:-)

The first night we went to have dinner and I got fresh watermelon juice!!! We were all pretty tired but we wanted to plan our time in Thailand so we went to the travel agent attached to our hostel to get info about the sights!

We decided to take a tour to ride elephant and to the Tiger Temple...So on the way there they made a tourist stop at a museum...haha..we had seen ENOUGH "History" so we opted out and walked around. Then we happened upon this little guy! The zoo had an exhibit and so we got to pet him and feed him!! HE really liked crawling on me:-) I loved it!!!

Next we drove a few hours to the place we rode the elephants!!! I was SOOOOOO Excited about this!!! It was one of my dreams coming true! We went down a steep hill into a river and then up the bank...it was crazy fun!!! Chelsie and I rode together and kept each other safe...lol

I loved the sweet face of our elephant!!! I just wanted to take him home!!!! but yeah...i would take every animal home...just ask my dad:-)

Next we went on a river raft ride! It was a blast!! We had to wear these beautiful bright orange life vests...lol Go SHSU is what I felt like:-)

So after the river raft we went to look at a waterfall but as we walked I saw a man playing a violin for money:-) I had already seen one of these this day and had the same experience:-) I put some money in his case and then asked him if I could play...haha...so since he didn't understand me he just gave me the instrument and I played for him:-) It was so much fun!!!

Next up...Tiger Temple...We thought we were going to see the monks fighting the tigers...haha not so much! The monks were pretty happy to sit in their chairs and watch. This place was like a zoo...animals everywhere! I was in Heaven! Although the last time I had a pic with a life deer was when I was about 3yrs old at the County Fair petting zoo...since then they have all been dead:-)

YAY fro petting the HUGE Tigers!!!! This one was the biggest one I petted:-) But please take note of his cute tail...I reached down to pet him, just like the pic shows and she snapped the pic...then...

He slapped me soooo Hard with the tail I about lost my lunch! I didn't want to make a sudden move but the hit was so strong I almost fell over...lol it was quite funny that she snapped another pic of my face after he slapped me:-) It was an adventure:-)

On the way out this little guy was following me:-) If you know me, you know how much I loved my little goat Will:-) I think this goat knew I was a kindred spirit and really wanted me to take him back to Wuhan...but my friends just laughed at me and made me get in the van:-(

After the amazing day with animals we left for our 3 days on the Island of Koh Semet!!! It was soooo amazingly beautiful!!! The first full day we were on the Island we stayed out ALL DAY!!! OK, now I promise I wore Sun Screen! But after lunch I wore this cover up because I could tell I was burning...

On the trip we always said we are "Livin' the dream, 2012"...So we wrote it int he sand! But after this I sort of fell asleep in a beach chair under an umbrella...But I think my legs had too much sun:-(

This day was also Chelsie's Birthday!!! YAY for an awesome beach Birthday! But as you can tell we are all a little burned...I was in so much pain in this picture:-( But it wasn't until the next morning that I was soooo swollen and couldn't even move:-( I had a horrible sun poisoning and had to stay in the bed for the rest of our time on the island. Unfortunately my friend Paul had gotten food poisoning the night before and had been sick all night and then Jacqueline got a little of it too...So we were all in bed for the rest of the Island trip:-( Chelsie and Beau had a great time though:-) HA!

So after returning to Bangkok we were all supposed to go to the Flight of the Gibbon, a really fun day of zip lining through the jungle! But I was still too swollen to wear shoes and didn't get to go:-( I was soooo sad:-( But one of the great things was that my friends from Huangshi(another city in China) were also in Bangkok that day and we met for lunch:-) Oh and we ate Tex-Mex!!!! I was pretty happy about that:-) The day after this Paul, Beau and Chelsie flew back to Wuhan:-( Our 3 weeks of being a happy family were over:-( Jacq stayed in Bangkok to see her friend from America who was visiting for a day and Left for my own adventures for the next week...Next blog....Laos!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles....Cambodia!!!

YAY for sunny, blue skys and a brand new stamp in my passport!!! Cambodia here we come! We were all SOOOOO excited to get into a new place:-) After our not so welcoming visit in Vietnam, cambodia was awesome! When we went through customs the man who check our passport spoke to us in Chinese:-) He asked where we were from and we said America but we live in China! Then he asked where we lived and what we did there, all in chinese and we answered in Chinese:-) It was such a great feeling!!!

The landscape and buildings in Phnom Penh were amazing! This is the capital city...all around the city was very poor "third world country" area...but here is was beautiful.

This is just one example of the millions of Buddhist temples we saw as we traveled through the country side. There would be miles of nothing and then a massive temple. They were all very much used daily and you could tell the poor people who had nothing did all they could to have a temple on their land. It was so sad.

We only stayed for one day in Phnom Penh and then headed to Siem Reep...I loved the travel days because of the beautiful sights!!! The bus was crazy but oh well...When we arrived in Siem Reep we walked to find some dinner and found a great place!!! The food was so amazing! I loved my cocoanut juice!

The next morning we had a great breakfast on the porch of our hostel! Then rented bike and headed to Angor Wat!!!

This place was massive!!!! I have never seen anything like it!

I really wanted to ride that horse but it was the smallest little thing I had ever seen so I passed:-) It was fun to see animals here too!

A view from the top of one of the Temples...

I saw this girl walking through and noticed her SHIRT!!! ASTROS??? Like as in Houston Astros??? I just had to talk to her:-) She Is Korean and played on a company team called the "Astros"...She has no idea there was a real team..but she was super happy to take a picture with me:-)

Ok, so one of my favorite things to do in China is get my hair washed...now you may think that is strange...but thats what we do! It feels amazing! They wash your hair for like 15min! Then blow dry and fix it and it only cost about $4. So in Cambodia on our last night we decided to get our hair washed and nails painted....This was the best wash I have ever had in my LIFE!!!! Oh and the nails and hair were only $4!!!! It was great!! Girls night at its best! Next up...THAILAND!!!!

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles...Vietnam!!!!!!

Welcome to Hanoi...Oh Vietnam...you were such a unique place and I must admit, not my favorite country to visit. I mean, I know The USA bombed your country but you could have been a little nicer!!!! I didn't fight in the war!

This is how i felt the WHOLE time I was in Vietnam...not exactly a welcoming place towards Americans. But we made the best of it and had a good time any way!

Maybe you know this place? The "Hanoi Hilton"...I didn't get any closer...there were guards all around this place. But it was a very interesting feeling being in the place that held so many Americans captive.

Very important lesson I learned in Vietnam...No matter how much you love your daddy you probably shouldn't wear one of his fire department shirts with an American flag on the back, while touring Vietnam. Just sayin', They weren't too excited about my presence in the place that held Ho Chi Minh's body:-( In the pic you can see I am wearing my jacket...but they made us take off all our jackets and bags, sooooo yeah...never again. Apparently they thought I was walking too loudly and the guards got on to me for being too loud. I was about to crawl out of my skin...I just walked through quickly at that point. I had to get out of there. The darkness that was in that place was sooo extreme.

After the crazy experience at the body of HCM we decided to find some lunch....haha..that was not exactly what we were expecting. We walked for about an hour and a half and got turned away from 2 restaurants...and finally had to eat street noodles. I'm thinkin' that it must have been dog meat because it was about the nastiest food I have ever had. It smelled pretty bad, but I tried to smile bigger to mask the overwhelming feeling of being sick. We were all pretty shot by this point and were ready for some down time. It had been a pretty stressful morning.

Before we left Hanoi we wanted to see the Lake and some kind of special "Hanoi scenery"...So we walked along this path and found the "World in the eyes of Vietnam". We didn't realize Vietnam took up so much of the world...I mean look at all that red area!!! It was quite amusing! But at this little area as we were walking Chelsie's Camera was stolen out of her purse:-( It was just about the straw that broke us all...We were ready to LEAVE!! So that night we flew out to the south of Vietnam..to Ho Chi Minh City, used to be know as Siagon.

The morning after we arrived, the sun was shining, it was in the 80s and everyone was instantly in an amazing mood:-) It didn't matter about how much Vietnam hated Americans at this point...we were all happy. We had a pretty rough time when we arrived the night before. We had a taxi to take us from the airport to our hostel and when we arrived they didn't have the room we reserved. Oh this was NOT good. Remember, it was the same day that all the horrible things had happened in Hanoi...so we tried to reason with the woman but she wanted to still charge us for more than we were going to stay and not give us the right room...after 30 min of getting no where we told her would find another place to stay(at midnight) and to give us our money back. She had our money in her hand at that point. But she looked at us and put her hands under the table and said she would not give it to us...lol, I wish I had a picture of Chelsie's face at this point...she had remained quiet most of the time. Paul and Jacqueline had been doing most of the negotiations but at this point Chelsie look right at the woman and in an amazingly firm voice said "GIVE HIME THE MONEY!"....The lady handed the money to Paul and we walked out. One of my favorite Chelsie moments of the whole trip! She was sooooo upset but held her composure amazingly well. After we got out of their we all congratulated her and then laughed for days about this. Oh the adventures we had!

We decided we hadn't heard enough about how horrible Americans were so we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels. These are the tunnels the Vietnamese made to hide during the war. now remember how small Vietnamese people are...they were like you are all welcome to crawl through the tunnels...ha...OK! i was excited...but they were VERY small!

This was an American tank...YAY we all ran over to it and had our tour guide take a picture of us:-)

One of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to shoot an AK47!!!! WooHoo...i loved it!!! We paid for 10 shots and all shared them. It was a little strange shooting this gun on a war ground but lots of fun!

After hearing about how the "Devil loving Americans came to Vietnam and shot all the women and children and even the pots and pans" we left the Tunnels....We had had just about enough fun we could have. So we ended out day at the night market and then found Tutti Fruity! AHHHH Chelsie and I were so excited! Great ending to the day!

The next morning we got all packed up and headed to Cambodia!!! This was my new backpack I got in Hanoi! Best purchase EVER! It was about $20 American dollars...it is a 75lb pack and by the time I got home...it was at least that much! lol

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles...Vietnam!!!!!!

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles...Yangshuo and Nanning!

The Trip started great!!! We left on a bus from Wuchang to the train station! We left in plenty of time...we thought:-) We were very excited...we had an overnight train from Wuhan to Guilin.

This is us! when we were waiting at the bus stop...we had to wait quite a long time for a bus...and when we finally made it to the train station we had to run to the train:-) It was quite the adventure before we even left Wuhan! But we made it!! from left to right...Beau, Paul, Chelsie, Jacqueline and me!!

This was our little cubby in the train! We had tickets all together and it was fun to talk and visit about our adventures ahead:-)

When we got to Guilin, we took a bus to Yangshuo. We never really decided on a place to stay until we arrived in each city! We tried to travel at night if we could so we could sleep on the train and save money and time! But we found this hotel when we arrived in Yangshuo! Maybe this looks a little different for you, but it was quite a nice place for us! The people there were very kind and we all stayed in one room! It was great!

The first day we were all pretty tired and it was raining outside so We took full advantage of the hotel:-) Jacq taught me how to Knit! It was so much fun...we sat on the bed and Knitted for hours. YAY for fun times together!

The last day were were in Yangshuo it had stopped raining and we decided to take a 16 mi. bike ride. We rode all through villages and mountains. It was beautiful!!!

I really loved being with nature and riding my pink bike:-) It was soooo cold:-) I had on about 4 shirts and long johns and 2 pants. The hat and gloves were a must...even thought we were riding for hours.

About half way through the bike ride we arrived at the cave where we were going to stop and enjoy:-) This was a mad cave/hot spring:-) We brought our bathing suits and all covered ourselves in the freezing cold mud...then we had to wash off in the even colder waterfall before they would let us get int he hot springs!!! It was soooooo cold!!! But it was incredibly fun!

After the caves we rode our bike to Moon Mountain. This was a beautiful mountain with the shape of the moon cut out at the top. We hike up the mountain and had a beautiful view of the countryside! It was pretty foggy so you can see as much in the picture:-(

This is "Peter":-) Is was our amazing travel guide on the bike ride. He was the sweetest man! His English was pretty good and I was able to share quite a bit with him!! It was so wonderful to hear how he already knew about the Father from some other bike riders he had taken around the villages in the past. We were able to talk about the book they had given him and about the Creator of all the beautiful nature we were around!! It was so much fun!

We found this cool restaurant and enjoyed the good food twice while there! It was a really amazing place:-)

After 4 days in Yangshuo we took the bus back to Guilin and then another night train to Nanning. This train experience was not quite as enjoyable....we had seats instead of beds. It was MUCH Cheaper but quite miserable:-( LOL It made for a good story to laugh about 2 weeks later...but we arrived in Nanning at 5am and had to walk around the city in the rain to find a place to stay. It was quite the adventure. Nanning is in a province made up of primarily minority groups. We live in Wuhan, a place made of of mostly "Han" people. Han people are the majority in China. We didn't know what a difference it would be to stay in a place like Nanning. When we tried to speak Pu tong hua, "Mandarin Chinese", the people were very hostile towards us. Many of the people only spoke the minority dialect and didn't even know Mandarin. So needless to say, our time in Nanning was very interesting. We even met some other foreigners in this city that were very closed off towards us. We had to travel here to get our visas to enter Vietnam so we had to stay for 4 days. But we tried our best to make the most of it!!

There are many things in China that I have come to grow VERY used to...one of them is "little oranges". We eat these all the time. This is a man who sells little oranges. Many people sell their goods from their cart on wheels:-) Chelsie and I went out one day while here in Nanning to see the recent movie made in China, "Flowers of War". It is the story of the Nanjing massacre. It was sooooo sad and very eye opening. Although there are many people who believe this story is propaganda. It was our first Chinese movie to see in the theater here and we were both in tears by the end. If you are not familiar with it I encourage you to look it up. It played in a few cities in America. The reviews were not very good but I think you have to be Chinese to fully understand the depth of the movie. We were both very effected by it. We had given our passports to a man who knew the lady who worked at our hotel. He said he knew a good place to get visas and could get them for cheap. We were a little nervous about this but, we handed them over and after the allotted time he brought them back and we headed to Vietnam. We took a buss there:-) It was quite a ride! Look for the Vietnam story in the next blog!