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April 30th:
The 30th was our last official day with the Peace Corps. We're free! Vacation,
here we come!
May 4th:
Lisa's friend Johanna (from Redmond, now living in Pittsburgh) arrived in Thailand
on May 2nd. Lisa and Johanna headed out to Surin to show off Sangkha and to
meet a student living in Surin whom Johanna's mother sponsors through CCF (Christian
Children's Fund).
Denny, meanwhile, went to Krabi in southern Thailand to go rock climbing and play on the beach. He rented a motorcycle and zipped around the countryside, thrilled that after two years of being in the Peace Corps (where volunteers are not allowed to ride motorcycles), he finally got to experience the most common mode of transportation available in Thailand.
May 11th:
Lisa and Johanna left Surin after a couple of days and headed up to Chiang Mai,
passing through Ayutthaya. Lisa and Johanna headed out on a few 1-day trips
around Chiang Mai, including a trip up to a Karen Hill Tribe village, where
they still wrap brass rings around women's necks from chin to shoulder, (starting
when they're about 5 years old and adding more rings as they get older), and
"stretching" out their necks. Traditionally the Karen people have
believed that swans are representatives from heaven, and wearing the rings mimics
the long necks of the swans. In reality, the neck doesn't actually get longer;
instead the rings press down on the shoulders making the neck appear longer.
The average set of rings that an adult woman wears weighs about 15 pounds.
While Lisa and Johanna were exploring Chiang Mai and shopping at the famous night bazaar, Denny passed through Bangkok and visited with our old Cambodian neighbors one last time. They are still waiting for the UNHCR to send them to America.
May 14th:
Denny arrived in Chiang Mai on May 12th, and we all (Denny, Lisa & Johanna)
took a 3-day course in Thai massage. It was very fun, although we doubt we will
be opening a health spa any time soon. You can see a picture of us together
with our massage instructor in the Thai section of our photo album here. http://photos.yahoo.com/dennyandlisa
May 15th:
We left Thailand today (co-incidentally the last day of our Peace Corps issued
Thai visa) and headed into Laos. (Johanna headed down to a southern island in
Thailand to go diving). We crossed the border from Chiang Kong, Thailand to
Huay Xai, Laos (pronounced Hoo-ay Sie). The currency of Laos is "kip,"
which trades at about 10,000 kip to the dollar. The largest note that is printed
in Laos is 20,000 kip, while the most common bill is a 5,000 kip note. This
means that when you go to the currency exchange, even trading in something like
$25 gets you a fairly sizable stack of cash in kip.
May 20th:
We left Huay Xai the morning of the 16th and took a 2-day slow boat down the
Mekong River to the town of Luang Phabang. Two days on a not-so-big boat allowed
us to get to know some of our fellow travelers, and we joined up with some of
them to go on some local tours of Luang Phabang as well. Luang Phabang is an
old capital of Laos, has an amazing number of very old (400+ years) wooden temples,
and the French colonial influence shows up in the architecture of the buildings
in town. We spent one day visiting some local caves, and nearby villages that
included a weaving village, a black- smithing village, and a whiskey-making
village. Our second day was spent visiting a Hmong hill tribe village and playing
at a scenic waterfall. Our final day (the 20th), we rented bicycles and cruised
around the town of Luang Phabang; we visited a great palace-turned-museum that
had been the home of the last several Lao kings.
Incidentally, the language of Laos is Lao, but it is so similar to Thai that we have spoken Thai here, Lao people spoke Lao to us, and we understood each other just fine. Although there are a few state-run Laos TV and radio stations, the vast majority of Lao people tune into Thai TV and radio (thus they all speak Thai).
May 21st:
We spent the day traveling the astoundingly beautiful road from Luang Phabang
to Vientiane. The first half of the road was going up and down mountain ridges
through the smallest of towns and all through morning fog/clouds. Unfortunately
we arrived in Vientiane we didn't have time to stay but instead hurried across
the border back into Thailand and took an overnight train to Bangkok.
May 24th:
We arrived in Bangkok with just enough time to meet up with Johanna before she
headed back to America. Then we were off to Chantaburi, southeast of Bangkok,
to visit some other Peace Corps volunteers and a few Thai teachers that we know.
Chantaburi is known for its international gem markets, and our friends took
us to one. It was pretty amazing to sit at a table and have crowds of people
walk up and pour gems on the table in front of you in hopes that you may be
interested. Lisa had no problem being interested, come to think of it. We ended
up buying some nice gems, took them to a shop to get them set, and spent so
much time in those two places that we decided to postpone our trip to nearby
Chang Island until tomorrow. Women and sparkly things - they go together like
peanut butter and jelly.
May 27th:
We headed out to Ko Chang ("Elephant Island") in the Gulf of Thailand
for a couple days and now we're back in Chantaburi. We rented a motorscooter
on Ko Chang and explored the island - the island is pretty much overrun with
tourists and resorts, although at this low season there are no tourists, only
the resorts. We got a bungalow on the beach for cheap, visited a couple of waterfalls
and had a relaxing time. Tomorrow night (Wednesday night / Thursday morning)
we're off to Frankfurt!
June 2nd:
We have arrived in Europe! Our flight from Thailand was full of security – after the routine checking of passports at the immigration checkpoint and x-raying of bags to enter the secure area, our passports were again checked, our baggage hand searched, and our bodies patted down before we got on the plane. And then upon landing we were screened for SARS.
Aside from that, things are going quite well. We arrived in Frankfurt, Germany and Denny’s brother Andy’s father-in-law Doyle Searcy picked us up. We have been staying at the Searcy’s for several days, and Doyle has taken us around to see nearby sights, including a day trip to the Heidelberg Castle (a beautiful place at the head of a valley destroyed by the French about 200 years ago), and a day walking around downtown Frankfurt. In Frankfurt we got to see an area that had been flattened in WWII that has been completely rebuilt and to see the old Cathedral where Roman Emperors were crowned for about 400 years. Yesterday we spent the day driving along the Rhine River. It was extremely beautiful. Every little valley to the side had a quaint village with a massive Cathedral at the entrance to the valley, and a castle overlooking the valley from the ridge behind.
Denny has found that he remembers very little of his German from high school, and that when he does try to say something in German, Thai is often inserted in the phrase too.
June 5th:
We are now back in Frankfurt after renting a car and driving around southern Germany for 3 days. (And speaking of cars, gas here is more than $4/gallon. Yikes!) We drove through the “Black Forest” on our way to Munich. “Forest” is perhaps too generous a term. A better term would be “the Black mini-woodlands.” About every five minutes you alternate between driving through forest and driving through farmland. Nonetheless, the drive was wonderful and very scenic. We passed through several mountain villages that looked like postcards, and we drove on winding mountain roads. And we saw a lot of shops selling coo-coo clocks.
We then headed east along the border with Switzerland and stopped for a few hours at Neuschwanstein Castle – the architectural inspiration behind Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle. (See photo on our photos page.) It was only a short distance from the castle to Munich, where we headed to the highly recommended Hofbrauhaus. It is a Bavarian pub that sells beer by the liter (approx. 3.8 liters to the gallon), serves huge portions of Bavarian food, and engulfs you in live music at high volume (yodeling free of charge).
From Munich we headed out to Dachau, the site of the first Nazi Concentration Camp – an appropriately somber place. We continued east to the town of Ulm, who’s claim to fame is a.) it’s the birthplace of Albert Einstein and b.) the cathedral has one the tallest steeples in the world. After having difficulties finding some of our destinations, it was nice to have a steeple easily visible for miles as a goal.
We left Ulm and headed up the “Romatic Road” which winds through medieval towns, the most popular of which is the walled city of Rothenberg on the Tauber. This is one of the few walled cities left in Europe that is still in its original form (if not original contents – as evidenced by the McDonalds neatly housed in a 400-year old building).
An interesting cultural comment about Germany – this is a country that opens late and closes early. Shops and businesses don’t open until 9:30 or 10:00 a.m. (the only exceptions are the bakeries that open around 7:00 a.m.) and everything close by about 4:30 or 5:00pm. There are no 24 hour super markets. 7-11 doesn’t exist. Even hotels lock their doors and employees go home around 6:00pm (hours before sunset). Coming from a 24-hour culture in Thailand, and raised on a 24-hour culture in the US, this has been an interesting and challenging difference.
After our whirlwind tour of southern Germany, we have relaxed a bit back in Frankfurt and have stuck to day-trips. Doyle was nice enough to take us to a Birkenstock Factory outlet (for those who may not know, Birkenstocks are famous high-quality German sandals that are $80+ in the US and can be bought for $20 - $30 here). Yesterday we visited the absolutely fantastic cathedral in Cologne, and the Guttenburg Museum in Mainz (Johannes Guttenburg invented the movable-type printing press and subsequently published the Guttenburg Bible).
We are flying off to Rome in the morning!
June 23rd:
It has been a long time since our last update, and we've covered a lot of ground.
We flew into Rome, and after dropping off our bags at a hotel we headed straight out to the Vatican. St. Peter's Bascillica was the most amazing church we have seen on this trip - very awe-inspiring. In 4 days we managed to see the Vatican Museums (including the Sistine Chapel), the old Roman Forum, ruins of a Roman bath house, the Colusseum, and various other sites.
We then moved on to Florence, where we got to see Michelangelo's statue of David - perhaps the most famous sculpture in the world, and with good reason. It is really impressive and beats the socks off modern art sculptures. (Oh wait, David's not wearing any socks.)
We stopped briefly in Pisa where we did the obligatory tour to the top of the leaning tower, and then headed up the west coast. We stopped in St. Margherita, an Italian beach town, for 1 night. The town was crawling with Italian beach-goers, but there weren't any "beaches" to speak of - just rocky coastline cordoned off into private clubs. So, we moved on to Genoa for a couple of days before heading to France. Genoa (the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, if you remember your history...) was an ancient city with small lanes often no wider than a person.
We then flew to Paris, at night. A mistake. After walking the streets for 3 hours looking for lodging (everywhere was booked solid), we slept in front of the train station, waiting for it to open so we could get out of town. We headed out to Normandy, to see the D-day beaches (very somber) and a day trip to Mont St. Michel, a small island on the coast with an immense Gothic Cathedral on top that takes up most of the island, and a tiny medival village around the edges that takes up the rest.
We headed back to Paris, arriving in the morning this time and succesfully finding a hotel. We have seen the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame, Arc de Triumph and other parts of town. We're about to head out on a bicycle tour of Versailles tomorrow.
PS - We've also noticed that both in Italy and France "Silky" Terriers are very popular - we see dozens every day (that's for you Mom, Dad & Andy :)).
We have visited 4 countries since our last update, so this update may be a bit long, but we promise it’s full of high adventure, fascinating facts, dumb jokes, and brilliant literary wit.
In France, we concluded our stay with a couple of bike trips. We went on a bike tour of Paris at night, and decided that the tour itself wasn’t worth paying extra, but having bikes definitely beat walking. Soooo, the next day (our last day in France) we rented bikes, hopped on a commuter train, and visited Versailles. Versailles was very lavish and bicycles were a great way to see the extensive grounds. Not only is there a large chateau, but also acres of gardens, a cross-shaped pond several kilometers long, and an artificial Norman village in which Marie Antoinette liked to play peasant. We got back into Paris, and took an overnight train to Frankfurt, Germany.
We had returned to Germany to see The Century Men concert. Doyle Searcy, (Andy’s father-in-law) is part of that choir and we had gotten concert dates from him before we left Germany the first time. The concert was excellent, and the day made a great pause in our busy travels (hey, everybody needs to do laundry sometime).
Then we traveled on to Salzburg, Austria. Salzburg is very proud to be the hometown of Mozart and "The Sound of Music" (and it seems to have an inferiority complex reflected in T-shirts with the words, "There are NO KANGAROOS in Austria" - apparently people get it mixed up with Australia…). The main hill in Salzburg is crowded with the highlight of the town, the Hohensalzburg fortress. We made the obligatory visit to Mozart’s birthplace, and took advantage of a city-wide tour pass to visit the local brewery museum (with complimentary samples) as well as visiting the fortress.
Within sight of Salzburg is a small castle called Hellbrun that a bishop had created in the 16th or 17th century. (Historically, parts of Europe had been controlled directly by the Catholic church, hence bishops were the political as well as religious leaders of Salzburg). This bishop had a sense of humor, and so he built the castle grounds with elaborate rooms and fountains to entertain his guests - most of the entertainment involved trick fountains designed to soak his guests. As an example, the bishop had a stone-carved picnic table with a fountain nozzle hidden in everybody’s stool except his own (you can see a photo in our photo section). If his guests got too rowdy, he would signal his servant to turn on the water. And naturally, no one was allowed to stand up and leave the table if the bishop was still sitting at its head. There were also fountains that shot water across the walking path, and rooms that rained. It was good fun on a hot day.
One day in Salzburg we saw a post card of a chalet on top of a mountain shaped like a wedge - one side a nice grassy hillside to hike, and the other a cliff face. Denny asked where it was, so on our last day in Austria we boarded a bus into the countryside to visit our postcard scene - Schafburg. We ended up traveling to the small town of St. Wolfgang on beautiful blue Lake Wolfgang in the middle of the mountains, and there we rode a cog railway up to Schafburg. It was beautiful. Denny had not had the opportunity to go hiking in the mountains for nearly 3 years, so he hiked around while Lisa stayed on top of the mountain and watched the paragliders take off. We enjoyed being within view of snow covered peaks, being above the tree line, and being in the midst of alpine wildflowers. We had a wonderful day. By the way, the hills are alive, but it’s not with the sound of music, it’s with the sound of buzzing insects.
Then we set off for England, where Denny’s distant cousin Guy Wells and his family picked us up from the airport and have been great hosts. The Wells’ live north of Cambridge (north of London) near a cute town called Ely (pronounced ee-lee), which has a long history as an island in the middle of the Dels swampland (a swamp that kept invaders at bay until it was drained for agricultural use in the 17th century). After visiting the local Ely Cathedral, we headed out of town for a couple of days. We stopped briefly at Stonehenge because, well, there’s no reason to stop there longer than briefly. It’s a bunch of rocks. Neat rocks in a cool layout placed there 6000 years ago, but rocks nonetheless. We then pushed onward to a small down named Wells. Our hometown perhaps???? Wells had one of the most interesting Cathedrals we’ve visited. Where the main sanctuary and the nave meet in the middle, criss-crossing arches were installed in the 15th century for support - you can no longer see down the entire length of the church, but the views created by the arches are really interesting.
Next on our list was Bath, home town of a Roman bath house, fed by natural hot springs, dating to the 1st century AD, whose ruins were only rediscovered in the 19th century. You can no longer bathe there, but they will let you taste the water - ew. Bath was also the place to be if you belonged to the English aristocracy in the late 18th century (as anybody who’s read Jane Austen’s work can tell you). We then moved on to Warwick Castle. It was one of our best stops to date. The majority of the rooms in the castle were open to the public - a stark contrast to other places we have been. There were rooms set aside to show what castle life had been like in the middle ages, and what it had been like in Victorian times. The rooms not only had the furnishings of the various eras, but also had wax figures from Madame Tussaud’s of the actual past residents of the castle. In the courtyards of the castle there were displays of falconry, knights in shining armor, knights in not-so-shining armor, and our personal favorite: the archer. Shooting with a medieval style bow and arrows he was astonishingly fast and accurate, and cracking jokes the whole time ("Keep your kids behind the rope line. We had one run out here last week. It took me 4 hours, but I finally got her.") and his demonstration alone would’ve been worth the price of admission.
We came back to the Wells’ house and enjoyed an elaborate 4th of July fireworks display on a nearby US Air Force Base. And, if you think celebrating independence from Britain while in Britain wasn’t ironic enough, the base had opened up to the public for a carnival, so we Americans watching the fireworks were probably outnumber 3 to 1 by the Brits anyway.
We will visit London on our way out of the country, and will be back in America on Tuesday, July 8th for the first time in 2 ½ years!