Photos!!

Thanks to everyone who has followed our blog. We noticed that most people don't really ask questions about the trip, so it may make more sense to check out some pictures. A really important part of traveling is being able to educate others at home about what you learned.

Sara has more too, but here are mine!
http://virgoandrea80.shutterfly.com/

If you're not super internet-savvy, here are direct links to each album from the 2010 Adventure:
Tanzania
Morocco
Egypt
Turkey
India
Nepal
Cambodia & Vietnam

the Adventure Comes to an End; ✈ Homeward Bound

We're on our way home; right now in the middle of layovers (two 9 hour layovers each, by the way!). We've had such issues on these flights home, including the airline not finding our tickets for quite a while- we said to ourselves that it must work out that way, just to get us in the end. But after about another day, we'll be home! Thank you to everyone who has followed this blog and who sent us messages throughout the trip. We love you!! 

There are a lot of things that happen abroad that we realize we won't see at home- the awkward stares, the lack of personal space at all times (which we've nicknamed 'nothing like hugging a stranger'), the laughing tuk-tuk drivers, the accents ("Ladyyyyyyy, you want cold drink, one dolllaaaaaa?).

I'll post pictures soon, so check back soon!

Last set of photos stolen from Jody

One day at a temple we got caught in a downpour!

Cells at S-21 Prison in Cambodia

S-21 Prison

Killing Fields

Hole in the ground for mass grave



War site in Vietnam



Killing trap used during Vietnam War

Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnam and Cambodia have been some of my favorites throughout this trip. We've seen so many famous sites and learned a lot about the history. I've really liked seeing everything here.

Today is our last day of the trip. Tomorrow, we start flying home, although it will take a couple days. I'll be posting all my pictures online in the next couple weeks, so check back for those!

No Money, No Honey

Yep, that's the phrase that our awkward Vietnamese tour guide loves to use. Besides that though, our communication is comically limited. He also keeps calling Jody by the name of "Jary" so we've now nicknamed her as 'Jaaar.'

Ho Chi Minh City is awesome! Besides my obvious favorite of Delhi, I'd have to say this is my favorite city of the trip. It's modern and has lots of places to explore, the shopping is amazing (I don't even know what I've bought at this point), and there's so much history here.

Today, we went to a War Museum which was really amazing. The three of us got the opportunity to really check out photos from the Vietnam War and I learned a lot. I can't imagine what any war veteran has really gone through and seen. Yesterday, we went to the famous Cu Chi Tunnels and saw some war death devices and also got to go underground into the first level of the tunnels.

 Vietnam has been wonderful!!

Sara Andrea Jody - in the Cu Chi Tunnels

Yet another photo stolen from Jary's blog - The women in Ho Chi Minh dress in full pajama outfits!!!!

Tomorrow, we're taking a bus back to Cambodia. We'll have to go through customs again at the border, which is really interesting to do when you're not at an airport! They swindled us into not getting multiple entry visas, so we'll have to pay again to re-enter the country and waste another page with a 2nd visa in our passports. They win.

Winding up the flights

After a full day and three flights later, we are in Cambodia! I'm excited because I've been wanting to come here for about 10 years now. Tomorrow morning, we leave on a bus for Vietnam for a few days, and then we'll be back to Cambodia. We're with Jody now, so it's the 3 of us! Here's another pic from India:

Here are some of our plans for what we'll be seeing during the next 10 days in Southeast Asia!!!
Phnom Penh – Ho Chi Minh – Cu Chi Tunnels – Phnom Penh – Seim Reap – Angkor Temples:

 Ho Chi Minh City; wartime American Embassy, Reunification Palace, Notre Dame Cathedral, Old Sai Gon Post Office, Saigon’s Chinatown aka Cho Lon, Jade Emperor Pagoda, Ben Thanh Market, Cu Chi Tunnels.

 Phnom penh; Mekong and Tonle Sap Rivers, Silver Pagoda, Wat Phnom.

 Siem Reap; South Gate of Angkor Thom, Bayon Temple, the Royal Enclosure, Phimeanakas, the Elephant Terrace, the Terrace of the Leper King, Angkor Wat, Phnom Bakheng Hill, temple of Ta Prohm, Banteay Kdei, Sra Srong, Ta Keo, Thommanon, Chau Say Tevado.

"You're going to Shitwad?"

No! We went to a town named Chitwan and got to see the Chitwan National Park. We saw a lot of animals!! Highlights were: Sara getting bitten by a leech, Me eating a chilli.

Our tour guide at one point casually said, "If the rhinos get too close, we can hopefully find a tree to climb." Oh ok, didn't realize I even knew how scale a tree, but at this point we've scaled many a mountain, so why not, right? Anyway, we saw a lot of birds, rhinos, and elephants. One guide we met had a crack nail that was about 8 inches long, but he wouldn't tell me what it was for. I've convinced myself that he plays some unique instrument with it.

Leaving Nepal on Thursday, and then we have a full day of layovers until we arrive at our next destination on Friday. Apparently, there aren't a lot of flight options from Nepal to Cambodia, even though they're so close and it should be a short travel time! We'll be spending quality time in Duty Free and the book stores lol, we've come to know them well!

Nepal is the only country without a rectangular flag

Nepal is cool! We've been going to a whole bunch of temples which are really beautiful. Of course, after a while they all start to look the same. But still, seeing temples is always a favorite sight-seeing objective for me! Kathmandu is both dirty and crowded yet grassy and beautiful, depending on where you go. There's a lot to look at and take in.

Today, after a billion and one people asked us if we wanted tour guides, one man in particular decided that 'no thank you' wasn't good enough and he followed us around trying to convince us. No matter how many times we said no, he still followed. I finally said, "Can you please leave us alone now?" To which he replied, "You are the two ugliest Americans I have ever seen in my country!!!"

We also saw a lot of dead animals today near some temples. Most of them were missing heads and had the blood all around them. It was pretty gross but interesting to see. Obviously, this happens at home every day too, just not in front of us! Pre-wrapped Foodtown meat seems totally different than blood-soaked sidewalks with hooves on the side.

More stolen pics from Jody!

This past Sunday, we went to the Taj Mahal. The security women were very concerned about the fold-up neck pillow I had in my bag. One finally said "Ma'am, make sure you don't use this inside." I looked at her and said 'Um, it's a pillow." She replied, "Yes, please don't use it inside." Um.... ok. Wasn't really planning on taking a nap at the Taj.

On Monday and Tuesday, Sara and I took a train to the city of Amritsar to see the Golden Temple. The highlight was driving about 35 kilometers away to the Pakistani/Indian border to watch the changing of the flags. It was so cool!!  We could see Pakistan and the guards, and the guards on our side did a whole ceremony.

Here are some more pictures stolen from Jody to hold you over until I'm home:

Anj Jody Sara Alex - crammed into a rickshaw

Jody & Andrea at a tomb in Delhi



Andrea Jody Sara - at Taj Mahal



i love smelly delhi.

Delhi has been great! Hanging out with everyone has been fun. We've all been enjoying dinners, rickshaw rides, and the Delhi Metro together. Shopping and bargaining has been a success. I'm buying a lot of scarves and materials! Most of the sales people laugh at me because I bargain so hard and then they give in and tell me I must be an experienced bargainer. Too good!

On Saturday, Sara and I went with Jody to see her placement at Mother Teresa's Home for the Dying and Destitute. I was excited to see it because Mother Teresa's started in India originally. Jody's been working there for a couple months and I can't even imagine how attached she must be to all the women there. The women who live there have been abandoned and it's not the easiest place to wrap your head around.

We also went to the movies this weekend to see the latest movie 'Anjaana Anjaani.' I really liked it! Here's a little clip from it. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAdGr0KRx0I

Today, Sara and I went to a Mobile Creche to volunteer with the kiddies! They are so cute I can't stand it! There's a little boy I already want to steal, of course. Today, I spent time with some of the older girls and they laughed at the Bollywood songs that I know and sang along with them. We looked through newspapers and pointed out the Indian actors. They asked me to bring in nail polish and eyeliner for tomorrow to play with. Love the kids!

Jody just posted some pictures so I'm going to steal them and post some here for you all to see:

Sara and Vicky

Andrea - Jody - Sara         -         Foot Mendhi

Rickshaw

Back in Delhi !

Finally, after 2 years, I'm back!

Since I was in India in 2008, I've had many dreams about the children I worked with last time in India, I've imagined coming back, I've come up with a million ideas in my head. But now I'm finally here. I have a 10 year visa now and I hope I can come every couple of years.

So far we've had a totally NON Indian experience- right now we're staying at a nice hotel with a really comfortable blanket and a tv and we went out to eat with Jody at a nice place and I had pesto pasta and chocolate dessert. We're going to have to find a hotel that's less expensive, but for now this is nice to have!

I saw some of the CCS staff today. In 2008, they were really like my brothers and I've missed them so much since then. It was great to finally see them again and know that I'll be seeing them during these weeks!

Can't wait to go shopping. Last time, I only bought what I could fit into my suitcase. Not this time! In each country, we've been shipping home all of the things we buy- we're only traveling with backpacks so we don't have room to carry any souvenirs with us. So, we've been having day long searches in each country so that we can ship home big boxes of things. I plan to buy a lot here!!

This will be interesting- it will be totally different from last time, when I was totally consumed in my volunteer work and spent every minute thinking about the kids. We hope to volunteer some this time around, but with a shorter period of time, it will be so different.

http://unknowndestinations2010.blogspot.com/
Also, check out this link! It's a blog written by one of my best friends, Jody, who has been here in India for several months. She's volunteering right now at Mother Teresa's and her blog is really amazing- great stories about the people she's met and worked with. If you are interested in truly learning about Indian culture and people, read this- it's really amazing!

Gobble, gobble... lol..

The constant harassment from men is beyond annoying at this point! Even telling them we're married doesn't work. And the lack of personal space baffles us!

We've been throughout Istanbul several times over the past few days. 97% of the country is in Asia, but it really feels like a 'typical' European country (not that I would actually know). The Blue Mosque and Agias Sofia were def the highlights of the sights. The insides of these places were beautiful. Actually, I think the prettiest place we saw here was the inside of an area of the Topaki Palace.

Tomorrow, we'll be spending a fortnight in the Dubai airport. We have a 13 hour layover starting just after midnight on Monday/Tuesday. We'll be entertaining ourselves by buying new books, magazines, junk food, trying to exchange all our random money built up throughout this trip, and hopefully finding a spot to set up camp and sleep a little.

Picture Preview

Not posting our pics and videos until we're home because our tiny computers will crap out on us, but here are some highlights!!

Tanzania


Washing our clothes out back in Tanzania.






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The place we stayed in Tanzania. The dirt road sums it up!

  


The boys at the Center in Tanzania. They taught us so much about Bagamoyo culture!


Morocco



Marrakech

  

Me with Hicham's wonderful sisters, Nadia and Latifa!




2nd largest Mosque in the world, Casablanca.




Sar & Anj

 
Egypt





Um... the Pyramids.

  Turkey

Blue Mosque



Agias Sofia



Egypt hotel tip!

Hotel tip for Cairo! We have a definite recommendation for anyone going to Cairo: American Hotel. They are amazing!! Not only was it a nice hotel, but they booked everything for us in the country! The manager at the hotel was so nice and booked a ton of things for us that came to $350 USD. Here's what it included: one night in a 2 star hotel, one night in a 3 star hotel, a day tour of Giza and Cairo, a tour guide in Aswan all day, a tour guide in Luxor all day, guides to pick us up at our trains, all taxi transfers, and two nights on overnight trains. And, on top of this, they were reliable and always there. Oh, anddd they let us sleep in the rooms and shower in Cairo even when we weren't staying there that night- for free.
 http://www.hostelbrothers.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=5&lang=en&7384144da80e8619edbecf373c02aef2=5279a16b1d48152c99339f4811840bed

Caged Lions

Wow, everyone in Egypt is awkward with us! Every where we go, we feel like caged lions on display for all to stare at. Men are constantly watching us, yelling things at us, asking what country we're from, or pretending they want to help us. Everyone is also trying to get a buck- they jump out to try to help you, you tell them you don't want help, you tell them to go away, but they still want money. Anyone you do accept service from then has no problem asking for a tip from your heart. Also, in most conversations we've had a lot of awkward blank staring contests back and forth with whoever we're talking with.

Other than that, Egypt has been great. We've been very busy! The Pyramids were amazing!!!!!  We also traveled down to Aswan and Luxor and had great tours there. The overnight train was an experience for sure, and then we came back to Cairo.

Tonight, we're headed to Turkey.

Our flights are officially changed now and we'll be home November 1st. We miss you all!

Into Egypt

Tonight, we landed in Cairo, Egypt. The streets are so busy and crowded- its like Times Square but more people. Apparently this is the 2nd most populated city in the world? Who knows if that's true.

After a couple of hours at the airport, we finally got to our hotel and got some food recommended by a teenager working at the hotel. It was $1 and really good- some type of pasta with daal and rice and I'm not sure what else.

Our hotel also helped us to book out the rest of the time in Egypt. Tomorrow, we're taking a day tour of Giza to see all the famous things like the Pyramids. One of my best friends, Jeff, asked if I've seen the Mummy yet lol - maybe. Saturday night, we'll be taking an overnight train to the southern part of the country, seeing one town there, taking a midnight train to another town for the day, and then taking yet another overnight train. We're happy the hotel could book this for us! It's nice to not have to wing it ourselves and figure out everything. The $350 price we're paying for even includes transfers, tour guides, 2 overnight trains, 2 nights in hotels, and taxi's so it will be nice to have things planned out for us.

For those of you Skyping and contacting us, we're now 7 hours ahead of Jersey. We hear it's cooling down there, but it's still pretty hot here!
On another note, I won't be posting pictures until I'm back in Jersey, so sorry! You'll have to wait, but there are a million good ones and I promise to share them once I'm home.

More Morocco Memories

If you're lucky, you can find a temporary home anywhere. Last night, shortly after I fell asleep, I awoke to the sound of Latifa laughing in the other room. I just smiled to myself and fell back asleep, with the comfort of knowing a 'loved one' was near. Early this morning, it got a little cooler, and while I was asleep, I felt Nadia cover me in a blanket. I will miss them so much when we leave Marrakech.

Being away from friends and family can make you appreciate them even more. I want to thank everyone who has been keeping in touch with me often, letting me know of their updates, and supporting me through my travels. It really means a lot to me and shows me how important our friendships are.

Tonight, we crashed a wedding! We heard it going on down the street, so we thought we'd try to get a peak of it. Before we knew it, we had seats right inside with the rest of the guests. It was cool!

Tomorrow, we'll be getting on a train for 9 hours or so and then traveling through northern Morocco this week. Monday and Tuesday we'll be in Tangier; Wednesday we'll be in Chefchaouen. Then, we'll be back in Casablanca at the end of the week for our flight out of Morocco.

Leave us comments if you're reading!

Love.
Andrea

Eid Mubarak & Ch-ch-ch-changes

Eid Mubarak!

Our big update here, is that we are changing flights around. Here are some reasons: 1. I'm homesick and can't wait until the very end of 2010 to be with everyone. 2. We're not volunteering like we planned to. Volunteering consumes much more time and requires more time in a location to truly bond with the people you work with. Without volunteering now, we don't need that time.  3. We didn't plan as well as we should have and we realize now that you can really see a city in one day. Once you see the sites, you're kind of done. We don't want oodles of idle time. 4. We can't get our China visas, so we won't be going there.
     So, in short, we will be back in November, instead of the end of December. Not all of the flights are changed just yet, so we don't have an exact date, but that's our big update.


This week, we took day trips to Agadir and Ouarzazate, where we saw the studios that they filmed Gladiator and Cleopatra at. It's always nice to come home to Marrakesh though, and be with the family, have a place to lounge and people to laugh with!

Today is Eid, the end of Ramadan. Last night, the streets were bustling with excitement. Everyone had the Eid prayers this morning at 7:30 and then came back home to eat. Then, it's common for them to go visit other family members if possible and go to Friday prayers. Today, Hicham's sisters are dressed up and we were given tons of pastries, cookies, breads, and cakes to eat. We're sure tonight will be a great experience too!

Random thoughts in Morocco

- We're learning a lot about Islam. It's such a way of life here; not only a religion. We are surrounded by people praying all day, we can hear prayer calls, the Quran is always being read on TV and on the radio, everything is truly practiced here.
It's interesting to think about the contents of the Bible and the Quran; the stories within are the same. If you're interested, here's a website that breaks down some of the differences: http://carm.org/differences-between-bible-and-quran

- Eating dinner at 1 am can make you feel really fat, yet so hungry in the morning.

- One might think that you need sneakers to climb to the highest point in Morocco; but sometimes you just gotta go with only your flip flops and two Moroccans.

- Bus trip to Agadir: 100dh, McDonalds in Agadir: 50dh each, Bus back to Marrakech: 100dh, Spending less than 2 hours in Agadir = priceless.

- Don't be surprised if it takes up to 2 hours to get a taxi.

- Sometimes in order to learn how to put on a head scarf, you just have to video record someone else doing it for ya!

Out of East Africa, onto Morocco!

This week we flew to Morocco from Tanzania. We had a layover in Qatar, which had a great airport! I bought a book, a magazine, and ice cream to keep myself entertained the American way lol. Then, we had no idea, but we also had a layover in Libya. That was weird since we didn't know!!

In Casablanca, we visited the Hassan Mosque. It's so beautiful. It is the 2nd largest mosque in the world, after the mosque in Mecca. We stayed at a nice hotel, which we left this morning. We took the train to Marrakesh where we are now. We are staying with Hicham's family here. They are so nice! They don't speak English and we don't speak Arabic, but it's nice to be in a home. It's so hot- 45 degrees C!

Since it is Ramadan, most businesses are closed all day. In Casablanca, the only place we could eat lunch was McDonald's because everything else was closed. It was funny because at night, everyone finally comes out. During the day, it's quiet and no one is out. Two nights ago at 11 pm, the town was crowded with people out on the street, which is typical for the month of Ramadan. People walked along the beach, families sat outside by the mosque, people at popcorn and ice cream, restaurants were bustling.

Here in Marrakesh, we will be breaking fast with Hicham's family around 7:30 tonight. Then, they eat their real dinner around 11:30 pm. They will also wake up in the middle of the night to eat, as our friends and boyfriends do at home, but we don't eat then since we're not fasting during the day.

"Are you ok? Are you sure?"

The questions we got asked every three seconds in Tanzania! Are you ok? Five minutes later- are you ok?

East Africa was interesting! In Tanzania, we spent most of our time in a town called Bagamoyo. We couldn't update posts because of the internet situation, but soon we'll post pictures and videos. Bagamoyo is an artsy beach town. Most people there do not work and instead spend their time hanging out, painting, making bracelets, playing drums, singing, being high. The town itself has mostly dirt roads and no street lamps.

The highlight of our time there was def spending time at a center called Mtoto Mchorajil Center.  If you want to send them art supplies, check out their mailing address here on their blog: http://mtotomchoraji.blogspot.com/.  There, we made friends with young men who live in town and wanted to practice their English skills. We spent time exchanging information about our cultures. They thought it was hilarious that we drive everywhere at home instead of walking, they told us they didn't know what a subway was, and they were shocked that the man in a relationship doesn't have to pay for our weddings. We also were able to learn a lot about them and their culture. It was so interesting to hear what they had learned about America- mostly through rap songs and they'd refer to those songs and ask questions about 'black america' and could not believe that we have black friends at home who we live peacefully with.I asked them to clarify that and one of them said "when white and black people see each other in the United States, don't they shoot at each other?"  One time they asked "What's a chick?" I asked where they heard that, and they said "You know that Ludacris song, my chick bad my chick hood."

Despite the boys not knowing the movie The Lion King, I'm guessing that "Simba" means lion because they always said that to us about our hair! Another cool experience was watching them cook at the center. We got to eat with them and had to use our hands which we were not good at.

When we left, they all gave us bracelets that they made for us and thanked us for helping them with their English. We are so lucky that we met them all! Without them, we would not have really learned what it was like to grow up and live in Bagamoyo. They were special people and we hope that they can achieve great things through their artwork!

Videos coming soon!

Maps!

Here are some visual aids that might be helpful or interesting to you! There's also a chart that will help you figure out what time is best to call us on Skype!

One week left until we depart for our first destination.  We start taking our malaria pills tomorrow, we have our travel insurance set to go, today we booked our hostel for the first night abroad, and in general we're just running around finding things to pack. I think half of my bag is going to be toiletries! We're only bringing about one week's worth of clothes since we're only bringing backpacks. It's so strange that this trip is finally upon us. It seems so long ago that we started planning this in 2009.  Don't forget to add us on Skype!

I leave you with some quotes from a travel journal I found:

"As you grow older, you'll find that the only things you regret are the things you didn't do."

"When I travel I have no idea what's in store for me, but if I'm wise and understand the art of travel, I let myself go into the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit."

"Once in a while it really hits people that they don't have to experience the world in the way they have been told to."

Welcome to our Blog!

Our trip is approaching quickly (less than 2 weeks away), so we decided to make a blog that friends and family can follow while we are gone. For those of you who don't know, we are about to travel for four months to several countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

This idea started in 2009 when Anj and Sar (aka Andrea and Sara) started talking about traveling the world. Wouldn't it be nice to quit our low-paying jobs and travel? But that's crazy, right?  Then we thought, wait a minute- if we're going to do something like this, now is the time! We don't have kids, we don't have a mortgage, and if we don't do it now, we'll regret it for the rest of our lives always wondering what it would have been like.

After playing with the idea, in late 2009 we sat down together and made a list of places we'd want to go. The list was pretty long and allowed us to travel for one full year, which we feared, would not be enough time. Fast forward a while, and we both got serious boyfriends and decided to shorten the trip (much to our families' happiness too).  We had to cut out many countries and plan out how long we would stay in each remaining country. Long story short, after months of planning, we finally booked our flights in May of 2010 through STA.

2010 Adventure Around the World will begin August 17th and we will return to the US on December 21st. The countries we are officially planning to visit are: Tanzania, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, India, Nepal, China, Cambodia, Vietnam.


Naturally, being two females in their 20's, we've dealt with a lot of people telling us that we are crazy, that we will become sex slaves, or get kidnapped- but we've also had a lot of people encourage us and who have been excited for how much we will learn and experience. Hopefully, if you're reading this blog, you are someone who has supported us and we appreciate you for it!!  Preparing for something this big has been a huge project for us and your support really helps!


Traveling has always taught me more about myself and about the world than I could ever imagine. Personally, I've only traveled in the past with the company I used to work for: Cross-Cultural Solutions.  Through CCS, I've learned a lot about traveling, but I've also been spoiled by constant in-country support and guidance.  This time around, things will be a lot different for me and I won't have staff members to help me with everything.


Here are the countries we have previously traveled to:
Sara: Greece, Morocco, Mexico, Costa Rica, The Caribbean
Andrea: India, Peru, Thailand, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Costa Rica again


We have less than two weeks now to finish our preparations and figure out what to pack in our bag!

Love,
Anj