Floyd and I enjoyed a wonderful vacation in Myanmar and Vietnam over Christmas break! Scroll to the bottom for links to blog posts about other parts of the trip.
Here are some of our memories from the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, which is definitely the number one thing to put on your list if you’re picking sites to see in Yangon.
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| The front entrance. There’s a lot more to the temple complex than you can see from here. |
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| This man was our guide, which was really helpful since the pagoda complex is so big. He explained a lot about the history and purpose of the different buildings, as well as quite a bit about Buddhism in general. |
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| Dress code is serious business in Myanmar! All the temples we saw around the country had signs about how to dress appropriately. |
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| Since Floyd was in shorts (not considered “civilized dress”), he was required to buy and wear a “longyi” (wraparound skirt commonly worn by both men and women in Myanmar) before he could enter the temple complex. Everyone had to take off their shoes before going in. |
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| Artwork by the eaves of one of the buildings. |
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| There are lots of separate temples buildings in the Shwe Dagon Pagoda complex. There’s no angle from which one picture could capture them all. |
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| Everything that looks like gold in these pictures really is! Most of the temples were plated with gold leaf. |
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| As you can imagine, idols were everywhere, both in and out of the temples. Many of the people we saw were actively worshipping them. |
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| The sky that day was perfect for photography! |
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| I was impressed by all the elaborate details in the decorations on the temples’ roofs. |
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| This temple is the actual, famous Shwe Dagon Pagoda itself. |
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| There were lots of other tourists and locals there. |
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| Every pagoda was topped with these dangling decorative “umbrellas” (yes, that’s actually what they’re called). |
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| The floor in the whole complex was smooth, cool, and clean (marble, I think?), so it was no problem to go barefoot on it. |
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| Beautiful Shwe Dagon! |
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| Gold was in evidence everywhere, but other building materials added nice color contrasts on some of the roofs. |
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| Some people were there to worship, others just to hang out. |
After our experience at Shwe Dagon, on the evening of our first full day in Myanmar, we got on a bus (the “JJ Express”) for the overnight trip to our next destination: the highland region of Inle Lake. We were pleasantly surprised when we saw what the bus was like!
Want to see more memories from our trip? Click on the links below!
Floyd and I enjoyed a wonderful vacation in Myanmar and Vietnam over Christmas break! Scroll to the bottom for links to blog posts about other parts of the trip.
Here are some of our memories from the first few days in Myanmar, which we spent in the capital city of Yangon.
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| These Christmas decorations greeted us in the airport when we arrived. |
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| We stayed in the Royal Star Guest House: nothing special to look at from the outside (kind of a hole in the wall, actually), but it was clean and comfortable, and the staff went above and beyond the call of duty to be helpful. Above left and center: the upstairs lounge area. Upper right: the entrance from the street. Lower right: the breakfast they served us (we discovered that fried rice with a fried egg on top is quite a common dish in Myanmar). Lower left: the view from our bedroom window. |
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| It was too late in the evening to do much sight-seeing when we arrived, but the folks at our guest house recommended the Sule Pagoda just down the street. It was closed for the night, but it looked pretty impressive from the outside. Unfortunately, it wasn’t well lit. Actually, nothing we saw there after dark really was. It was strange to me to see stores open and active night life going on in a place with hardly any street lights. |
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The next morning we enjoyed walking around town and seeing our first real glimpse of Myanmar.
This will give YOU a glimpse of what it’s like walking down the sidewalk in Yangon!
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| This is the famous Scott Market (more commonly called Bogyoke Aung San). We spent a couple hours in there and didn’t even make it through the whole thing. I bought some traditional clothes, and Floyd and I purchased three oil paintings. They sell almost any kind of souvenir you can imagine, and all the prices are negotiable. Definitely the best place for tourists to shop in Yangon! |
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| Star Wars was showing in the theater near our guest house, and we were sorely tempted! (We hadn’t had a chance to watch it yet before we left Taiwan.) But we decided to use our limited time in Yangon for things we COULDN’T do back home. |
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| We asked the staff at our guest house to recommend a nearby restaurant where we could try Myanmar cuisine. They directed us to the Super Wonder Bowl Restaurant just down the street, where we enjoyed a delicious lunch! We especially recommend the stuffed eggplant (bottom right). Like many restaurants in Myanmar, it had several options for different flavored smoothies and lassis (Indian yogurt drinks) on the menu. (I ordered the papaya lassi.) Yum! |
A quick look at what it’s like to drive through Yangon.
The other activity we did in Yangon was visiting the incredible Shwe Dagon Pagoda complex. Stay tuned for my next blog post!
Want to see more memories from our trip? Click on the links below!
One of my favorite activities on my recent Vietnam vacation was watching a “water puppet” show. According to the program, you haven’t really visited Vietnam until you’ve watched the water puppets!
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| The outside of the theater. It seated several hundred people. |
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| The puppeteers stood behind the green curtains, waist-deep in water. I can only assume they controlled the puppets through horizontal rods attached to the puppets’ lower ends. Each little skit portrayed some aspect of traditional Vietnamese life and was accompanied by live music (the musicians sat to the left and right, just off the edges of the picture). This one was about ploughing the fields with oxen. |
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| At first it surprised me that the water was so dirty. But I think they did that on purpose so the audience couldn’t see into it. That way, it functioned almost like another curtain – the puppets could disappear into and rise from the water as well as swimming in it and seeming to walk on its surface. |
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| This skit was entitled “Two Unicorns Playing with a Ball”. Obviously the Vietnamese idea of a unicorn is very different from the Western kind! |
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| This cute skit was called “Fishing”. |
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| At the end, the puppeteers all came out to take a bow. |
Click here to read my post about arrival in Ho Chi Minh and our hotel, the Golden Dragon
… or my blog post about seeing the sights in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)
… or the one about my boat tour of the Mekong Delta
… or the Cu Chi Tunnels (from the Vietnam War)
On my recent trip to Vietnam, I got to take a guided tour of an area called the Cu Chi Tunnels. Most of the tour was above ground; it was a site where local villagers had turned guerrilla and violently opposed the US army. They dug over 150 kilometers of tunnels, where many of them lived in hiding for over a decade.
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| We saw a number of these bomb craters in the area. |
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| One of the guides showed us this secret entrance to an underground tunnel. The “lid” was well camouflaged! |
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| Guerrilla fighters created many hidden traps like this one to catch and kill enemy soldiers. |
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| Notice the sharp spikes inside! |
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| We got to see and even climb in an old American tank. |
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The guide explains a series of recreated traps that the
guerrillas set for American soldiers in the forest.
Every one was ingeniously designed – and horrible
to imagine falling into. |
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At last we got to actually explore one of the tunnels. That was my favorite part of the tour!
It wasn’t nearly as big as it looks in the picture – definitely not for the claustrophobic!
(Several people in our tour group chose not to go in.) |
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The tunnel got even lower and narrower than this!
Needless to say, it was pretty dark (though the camera flash lit it up nicely).
It was hard to imagine villagers living in these tunnels for so many years. |
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| Looking up toward an exit from inside one of the tunnels. |
One of my favorite activities on my recent trip to Vietnam was a boat ride on the Mekong River Delta.
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| The water was the color of chocolate milk and had all sorts of things floating in it. Houses and small businesses were clustered along the bank, leaning over the water on stilts. |
Some of them were less sturdy than others!
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| This was a fueling station for boats. |
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| Many of the buildings had stairs going down to the water for easy boat access. |
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| This was part of the Mekong Delta’s famous “Floating Market”. Vendors fill their boats with produce from their farms and then live out on the delta for a couple weeks at a time until they’ve sold it all (to customers in other boats). |
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| Most of the boats sported a tall bamboo pole that served as an advertisement. Near the top of the pole, they would tie a few samples of whatever vegetable or fruit they were selling. |
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| The vendors sleep in hammocks on their boats and do their cooking and laundry onboard with river water. The guide assured us that they don’t get sick because supposedly their immune systems are used to it. Considering what the water looked like, I find that difficult to believe! |
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| Closeup of a boat full of fruit for sale. The proprietor gave us a few free samples! |
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| This lady was selling iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk in it from her boat. I bought a cupful – it was the strongest coffee I’ve ever had! |
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| As part of the tour package, our guide also brought along free fruit for us to munch on the boat. The red spiny ones are called rambutan. Delicious! |
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| Our tour guide also provided us with fresh coconuts. He cut holes in the tops and stuck straws in for us to drink the coconut water. |
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| This is where he had been storing the drinking straws we used: up in the rafters of the boat’s ceiling. |
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| We stopped and got out at several different places along the bank. This was a bee farm. They have hundreds of these boxes where the bees have made their hives. |
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| At the bee farm, we were served jasmine tea with fresh honey and kumquat squeezed in. Yum! |
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| Besides honey and bee pollen, the bee farm sold royal jelly by the jar. Here a man was mixing some with honey for us to try. |
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| Later, we got off the boat for another activity: a short bike ride down a path near the delta. |
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| Amazing. Rickety little houses perched on stilts at the water’s edge – with satellite dishes! |
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| After the bike ride, we watched a traditional skit/dance with musical accompaniment. |
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| The musician in black is playing a single-stringed instrument called a monochord. |
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| We were given tea and more fresh fruit to eat while we watched the show. Rambutan, longan, guava, mini bananas, and jackfruit. |
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| Eventually we switched to a smaller boat and took a ride down one of the many little canals beside the delta. |
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| This was our guide for the day, Kahn (sp?). He spoke great English and was very knowledgeable about Vietnam’s history, geography, culture, and folklore. |
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| There were lots of little homes along the canal. Many of them had homemade docks with boats moored there, like this one. Note the poles that keep it from drifting away. |
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| Later we got out at a “historic house” for lunch. |
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| The house is open to tourists to look around in and provides a set meal for lunch. |
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| However, a family actually lives there. Though the living room and some of the other areas were as clean and fancy as though they were part of a museum, bedroom doors were open, and we could look inside to see that the place is very lived-in! |
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| The main course at lunch. |
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| It was quite tasty – not as scary as it looked! |
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| Vegetable and lotus seed soup. |
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| These wraps were good, too. The ones at the right and left were made from some kind of flower, stuffed with fish and then deep-fried. My favorite part of the meal! |
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| Another of our stops on the boat ride was at a small factory where we got to watch rice paper being made. |
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| Here it was being spread out to dry. |
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| We also got to see people making popped rice (sort of like popcorn, but, well, with rice instead of corn). |
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| Packaging the popped rice snacks. These are popular in Taiwan, where I live, too. |
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| At another little factory, we watched coconut candy being made. |
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| Coconut candy spread out to dry before being cut into pieces and packaged. There were lots of free samples available. I thought it tasted good, but the toffee-like consistency was too thick and sticky for me. |
All in all, I really enjoyed the Mekong Delta tour and all the accompanying activities. What a fun, culturally interesting, and delicious experience!
Click here to read my post about arrival in Ho Chi Minh and our hotel, the Golden Dragon
… or my blog post about seeing the sights in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)
… or the Cu Chi Tunnels (from the Vietnam War)
… or a water puppet show!
On my first day in Vietnam, I arranged through my hotel for a guide to take me around on a little motorbike tour of Saigon (also called Ho Chi Minh City). Here are some of the buildings and sites that I saw.
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| The Reunification Palace. The guard wouldn’t let us in since it was about to close, so I took this picture through the fence. |
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| Notre Dame Cathedral. You can definitely see the French influence in the architecture (as well as the name!). |
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| Another view of Notre Dame. |
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| A little room inside the cathedral. |
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| Inside Notre Dame Cathedral. The fence was to separate tourist wanting to take pictures from worshippers there to pray or attend a service. |
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| Another little room inside the cathedral. |
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| The Saigon Post Office, right across from the cathedral, is another famous building in Ho Chi Minh. |
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| As you can see, it really is a functioning post office. It was quite busy inside. |
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| This is the Saigon Opera House. My friend and I were thinking of going to see a show there, but it didn’t quite work out. (Plus it was really expensive!) |
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| A fountain right by the opera house. |
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| A random neighborhood in Ho Chi Minh. |
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| Downtown area. The skyscraper you see has a helicopter landing pad. |
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| Ho Chi Minh traffic. Notice all the motorbikes. We were told that Ho Chi Minh has ten million people – and six million motorbikes! |
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| A barge on one of the many canals. |
Click here to read my post about arrival in Ho Chi Minh and our hotel, the Golden Dragon.
… or the one about my boat tour of the Mekong Delta
… or the Cu Chi Tunnels (from the Vietnam War)
… or a water puppet show!
I arrived in Ho Chi Minh for my little vacation late Wednesday morning. My friend Leslie was to meet me there that evening, so I was on my own for the afternoon. It was exciting! I elected to take the bus from the airport, instead of getting a taxi, just for the adventure of it. My online research paid off, and I found Bus 152 just to the right as I exited the terminal, directly across from Burger King. It cost me 5,000 dong for the ticket and another 5,000 for my suitcase. (The exchange rate is 21,000 dong to 1 US dollar). The ride was 25 minutes long, and soon it was standing room only as the bus kept stopping to let people on in the city.
I got off at the Ben Thanh Market bus station, which according to my research was about a ten-minute walk from my hotel. It took my wheeled suitcase and me more like half an hour trundling along the sidewalks, but that was because I missed the hotel, went way too far, and had to turn around and come back. At least there were good sidewalks for dragging a suitcase on!
Along the way I stopped to buy a snack from the woman in the picture. The items on the left side of her cart are cooked, breaded bananas. She cut them up into a disposable container for me and added a few scoops of sweet coconut sauce and a sprinkle of sesame seeds. It was delicious, especially eaten warm.
The Dragon Palace Hotel is so narrow that it’s easy to miss if you aren’t paying attention to the numbers on the buildings. If only I had realized that it’s located right between a Subway and a Baskin Robbins! Looking for those landmarks would have been much easier than looking for the name of the hotel (which was hard to see on that side of the street).
I arrived at 1:45, and my room wasn’t quite ready (the website had said it would be ready by 1:00 p.m.). That was a little frustrating, but I only had to wait five or ten minutes. (The website also said that checkout time was noon, but at the hotel we found out it was really 11 a.m. However, they were glad to keep our suitcases for us between when we checked out and when we were ready to leave for the airport.)
Though narrow, the hotel is eleven stories tall (as you see at the upper left). My room was on the 5th floor, which was really the 6th, since the ground floor wasn’t counted as one of them. The window in the room only looked out to the hallway (I think the picture of the room on the website was fake), so we kept the curtains closed the whole time. This is the nighttime view from the hallway window just outside our room (right).
The purple and red that you see (above right) are tables and chairs at a little outdoor restaurant right across the street from the hotel. As you see in the picture to the left, we ate lunch there a few days later – it was good! (Don’t ask me why I have such a weird look on my face.) We really enjoyed this chicken and pineapple fried rice served in a pineapple!
Anyway, our room in the Dragon Palace Hotel was pretty nice. I mean, it’s a 3-star hotel, so we didn’t expect luxury, but it was clean and had everything we really needed. The free wireless internet was great! I had done a little research beforehand and discovered that the voltage in Vietnam is 127/220, with sockets for two-prong plugs, so fortunately I had brought a converter and was able to charge my laptop and camera.
I took the picture to the right as we were on our way down to check out – it was neater when we first came in!
To the left is the bathroom (again, as we were leaving). No tub, but there was plenty of hot water in the shower. The shower did leak onto the bathroom floor, but the hotel provided flip flops, so it didn’t really bother us.
I didn’t get a picture of the breakfast area, but that was one of the best parts. They had a variety of both Western and Asian items to choose from each morning, including fruit, bread, bacon, sandwiches, noodles, kebabs, etc. There was even a lady behind the counter who would cook eggs for you any way you wanted them done. The only trouble was, breakfast didn’t start till 7 a.m., and one morning we had arranged a tour for which we had to leave right at 7:00. But when we told the front desk about it the day before, they assured us they would pack us a breakfast to take along. And they did; we each got a sub-style sandwich on a tasty baguette, hard-boiled egg, banana, and two plain slices of bread. More than sufficient.
The people at the front desk were very helpful in other ways, too. My first afternoon there without Leslie, I asked them if they had any recommendations for what I could do in the area. They volunteered to call a tour guide who would take me around on her motorbike and show me the sights. In retrospect, I probably should have bargained for a lower price. I paid $50 US for a three-hour tour, which included admission to one museum and a good pho (noodle soup) dinner, as well as a lot of stops by interesting buildings and other sights. The guide was knowledgeable and friendly and happy to take lots of pictures for me everywhere we stopped. I’m not sorry I did it, but I don’t think it was quite worth as much as I paid.
The hotel people also helped us book tickets at the Water Puppets Show, and even went to pick up the tickets for us early in the day. At our request, they called a van service for us to take us back to the airport the day we were leaving (since the bus timetable didn’t fit our schedule well that day – apparently the one going to the airport only comes by once every hour, and not at an exact time). We had booked a couple of tours (of the Mekong River Delta and the Cu Chi Tunnels) ahead of time online, but it turns out that we could easily have arranged them when we got there, through the front desk at the Dragon Palace. (Actually, I passed lots of places between the bus station and the hotel advertising the same tours, plus others as well.)
Anyway, the Dragon Palace Hotel suited our purposes very well, and as long as you’re not the type who has to live in luxury, I recommend it. The staff were friendly, professional, and spoke great English, and they definitely helped make our stay pleasant and memorable.
Click here to read my blog post about seeing the sights in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)
… or the one about my boat tour of the Mekong Delta
… or the Cu Chi Tunnels (from the Vietnam War)
… or a water puppet show!
Well, Floyd and I just enjoyed three days’ vacation on Green Island in a hotel we were not planning on staying at.
We got lost a couple of times getting from Kaohsiung (southern Taiwan) to the harbor in Taitung (eastern Taiwan), but that’s another story. Finally we found the right place to catch the boat to Green Island, and we managed to buy our round-trip tickets with no problem.
The 50-minute boat ride was really fun for me – lots of big billows, and my stomach quite frequently did that going-down-a-drop-on-a-roller-coaster plunge. Wheee! Floyd didn’t find it quite as fun as I did, but he had Dramamine, and he and his stomach somehow hung in there.
Well, we disembarked on Green Island with our duffel bag, two backpacks, the laptop in its case, my purse, Floyd’s satchel, a second duffel bag with two foam pads in case the hotel mattress was hard (as many of them tend to be here), and the address of our hotel written in Chinese. (We didn’t know the name of the hotel in either language.) I should mention here that a friend had recommended the hotel to us as one that she had stayed in, and she’d emailed us its Chinese address and the phone number. A different friend had helped us call the number and make a reservation (in Chinese) for the two nights we planned to stay.
So we lugged all our luggage (I guess that’s why they call it that, huh?) away from the busy port area to a quieter street to figure out what to do next and where to go. Several enthusiastic locals came over to see if we wanted help (I assume they work for tour companies or hotels and were trying to get our business, though we couldn’t understand them). One little old lady on a scooter was very persistent, so finally we showed her the hotel address to see if she could help us get there (and to show her that we didn’t need her help figuring out where to stay on the island). She read the characters and looked perplexed, and I understood her when she pointed at the first two characters and told us the address was in Taitung. Actually, I could read those particular characters too, though it hadn’t occurred to me to look closely or think about them before. Wait – could our reservation actually be for a hotel back in Taitung and not on Green Island? Surely not!
We didn’t have the phone numbers of either of our helpful friends, but we did have our other friend Clive’s number. Floyd called him and explained the situation – and long story short, after about ten minutes and several separate calls and the little old lady hanging around and trying to talk to us and ask us what was going on, we determined that our reservation was indeed in Taitung. Oh no! Here we were in Green Island with tickets to return the day after tomorrow, and no hotel reservation. Thankfully we hadn’t actually paid in advance for our other hotel!
Well, Clive is bilingual, so we passed the phone to our kind old lady, and the two of them had quite a conversation. A couple of times she passed it back to Floyd so Clive could update him what they’d been saying, and then it went back to the lady again. (But we still didn’t really have a very clear picture of what they were figuring out for us.) Finally the lady hung up, passed the phone back to Floyd, and gestured for me to get on the back of her scooter. What else could I do? I grabbed my purse and the laptop case, waved goodbye to Floyd, and got on behind her.
We drove a little way down the street and stopped where – thank goodness – another lady was waiting who spoke some English. (I should mention that the little old lady had made a few phone calls on her own phone a little earlier too.) The new lady asked me if my husband and I wanted to rent a scooter for one, two, or three days; and I told her I wasn’t sure we wanted to rent one at all. Maybe a bike? She spoke to someone who might have been her daughter, who disappeared down the street and came back riding a bike. They insisted I try it out, and I mentioned we had heard there were electric bikes for rent here. Back went the daughter and brought me an electric bike to test ride. They wanted an answer right then, but Floyd and I hadn’t really decided anything, and I didn’t want to sign anything without him there, and where was he anyway?
About that time some man drove up on a scooter with Floyd riding on the back. Most of our luggage was nowhere in sight. After a quick discussion and two test rides, we decided to rent a scooter. Neither of us has a scooter license, and I don’t even have a Taiwan driver’s license, but they assured us that was no problem and we could both legally drive this 50 cc one and be covered by their insurance in case of accident. I had never actually driven a scooter before, but the lady gave me a quick lesson then and there and I discovered it wasn’t too hard. We had to pay in advance and leave Floyd’s license with her, which we’re still a little nervous about, but she seemed very friendly ….
So Floyd got on the scooter, I hopped on behind him (still clutching the purse and laptop), and our little old lady friend got on her own scooter and gestured for us to follow. We had no idea where we were going, but she led the way back toward the dock, where we found the rest of our luggage sitting quietly off to one side, waiting for us unattended. A man who had come with us on a third scooter picked up the pieces we weren’t already carrying and somehow balanced them on his scooter (the little old lady helped). On we drove, and eventually ended up at a humble little hotel. It was run by the same company (Chung Hwa Telecom – the phone company) as the one we were supposed to stay in, so maybe they were able to somehow transfer our reservation.
Our little old lady friend waved goodbye and drove away before we could think of some culturally appropriate way to express our deep gratitude for her help. I shudder to think how we would have coped with the situation without such a Good Samaritan there to assist! All I can say is, I hope she got paid some sort of commission from the hotel or the scooter company, because she didn’t ask for or seem to expect anything from us.
Well, the hotel lady welcomed us in and helped us get our luggage to our room, and we proceeded to have an interesting conversation with the help of her iPhone. She gave us a brochure with a map of the island and touristy spots labeled in both English and Chinese, and recommended certain sites and answered our questions. But she spoke almost no English, and our Chinese certainly doesn’t take us very far. So she would type something into her phone, pull up the English translation, and let us read it on the screen. It worked!
Anyway, we were glad to be able to relax in our room and sort through and unpack our luggage. From the first moment I sat down on the bed, I could tell we would most definitely be thankful for those foam pads (and sure enough, we were)!
But “thankful” really is the theme of the afternoon. We’re thankful there was good phone reception here, thankful we could get ahold of Clive, thankful he was willing to help us, thankful for the little old Taiwanese lady who may just have been an angel in disguise, thankful that it worked out to rent a scooter that we can both legally drive, thankful we didn’t lose any money with the hotel problem, thankful all our luggage rejoined us intact, thankful there was a room available here for us for two nights at a very reasonable rate, and thankful for the technology that helped us work everything out! Thank you, Lord!
Tomorrow we hope to drive our rented scooter around the island, following the map we were given, and stop to see and do various things along the way. Stay tuned for another update – but hopefully this one will be much tamer!
I love travel, and so far in my life I’ve been to eighteen different countries. Yes, this number is tiny compared to what most of my family members can boast of, but I’m not done yet! I finally decided to post a picture from each country I’ve been to. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures from some, but here’s what I’ve got, in order of when I visited/lived there (more or less).
Country #1: the United States of America
I was born in the States and lived there for the first three and a half years of my life. I went back for college and spent the first five years of my married life there as well. Now Floyd and I sometimes return there to spend time with our families over Christmas vacations or summers.
Click here to read my blog post Impressions upon Returning to America from Taiwan.
Country #2: Kenya
This was home to me for my entire childhood. I lived in Kenya for fourteen years, and it will always be a part of who I am. Growing up, I felt more Kenyan than American. My family traveled to the States for 5-month furloughs every three years or so, but when we were there I always longed to return to Kenya.
Country #3: the Netherlands
https://www.cia.gov/
I was only there for a brief layover on the way to one of our furloughs. I remember it, but barely.
Country #4: Spain
http://0.tqn.com/d
Ditto. Overnight layover, and my clearest memory is the complimentary wine at the restaurant that Daddy let Jimmy and me taste. Yuck! (I believe I was all of six years old.)
Country #5: Switzerland
We’ve had a number of separate layovers there, along with one actual vacation that my parents worked into our travel schedule. For some reason I don’t have any pictures with me in them, but I have lots of memories of mountains and trains, chocolate and cable cars, picnics and high prices.
Country #6: Israel
This was a wonderful vacation. We visited several different cities, including Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth, and toured many sites where important Biblical events took place. I have lots of pictures and special memories from the week or so my family spent in Israel.
Country #7: Great Britain
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/
Unfortunately, my stay in Great Britain was limited to a few hours each in the Heathrow and Gatwick airports and an all-too-short predawn bus ride between them, with the same experience repeated in reverse on the way back from my real destination.
Country #8: Mexico
I’ve been to Mexico three times, all short day trips while I was in college. The first couple of times were mini-mission trips with a group from my church and with Biola University’s puppet ministry team. The third time was a fun little excursion with my family.
Country #9: Indonesia
I dreamed of traveling to Indonesia for six years before I finally had the chance to go. Right after finishing my senior year of high school, I spent a summer serving on Java with Teen Missions International. It was an unforgettable and life-changing experience and made me long to go back. I returned for a month-long visit a few years later, and eventually (after college) had the opportunity to spend a year there teaching in a one-room schoolhouse on the island of Papua. Also a life-changing experience, but that’s another story!
Country #10: the Philippines
After my summer mission trip to Indonesia, my team traveled to the Philippines for a week-long debrief, along with teams from various other nearby countries. There wasn’t much time for sightseeing, but I enjoyed what I saw of this beautiful country (mostly Manila).
Country #11: Singapore
http://www.mapsofworld.com/
I’ve had several layovers in Singapore, though I’ve never had the chance to leave the airport. (Yes, that DOES still count as being in the country!) It’s my favorite airport in the world; I’m always impressed at the wide variety of interesting things to do and see there. I’ve never been bored, even when spending eight hours alone there late at night.
Country #12: Canada
Since I don’t remember my visit to Canada with my parents when I was three months old, I’m counting my first visit as the cruise Floyd surprised me with on our honeymoon. Our time there was short – we only had one day to explore Ketchikan – but we were able to make some fun memories. Five years later we had the chance to visit Niagara Falls from New York, and we crossed over to spend a few hours on the Canadian side.
Click here to read my blog post A Day at Niagara Falls.
Country #13: Taiwan
Floyd and I have lived in Taiwan for the last ten years (not counting summers), and we love it here! It has truly become home for both of us.
I don’t think I could ever spend “too long” in Taiwan, but click here to read my blog post You Know You’ve Lived in Taiwan Too Long When…
Country #14: South Korea
I spent about three days in Seoul several years ago while attending a teaching conference. There wasn’t much time for sightseeing, but I used every spare moment in the evenings to walk around with friends and see as much of the city as possible.
Click here to read my blog post It’s All About Seoul.
Country #15: China
Another teaching conference brought me to Hong Kong, which immediately became one of my favorite cities. I especially loved the efficient subway system and the waterfront at night, and I hope I have the chance to go back sometime. More recently Floyd and I had layovers in the Shanghai and Beijing airports, though unfortunately we couldn’t leave the airports since we didn’t have visas.
Click here to read my blog post Four Days in Hong Kong!
Country #16: Malaysia
I’ve actually been to Malaysia twice, once to Kuala Lumpur (peninsular Malaysia) and once to Kota Kinabalu (on the island of Borneo). Both times were for conferences, and both times I was able to squeeze in some brief but memorable sightseeing experiences. Kuala Lumpur is another of my favorite cities – I love the blending of cultures I saw there, as evidenced by the food, clothing styles, etc.
Click here to read my blog posts My Trip to Malaysia and The Wilds of Borneo.
Country #17: Japan
Floyd and I have had a couple of brief layovers in Narita on our travels between California and Taiwan. On one occasion we were there just long enough to leave the airport and take a walk down some quiet streets to a large temple complex with beautiful gardens out back. The last time we were in Narita, our connecting flight was delayed due to a typhoon, and we were forced to make last-minute arrangements to stay overnight in a very expensive hotel at some distance from the airport (since all the close and reasonably-priced ones were already booked solid by other stranded travelers). Not the best memory – but still, I like Japan!
Click here to read my blog post Lost in Narita.
Country #18: Thailand
One November I had the opportunity to teach a workshop (about indie publishing) at a teachers’ conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It was an awesome experience: the conference was great, my workshop was well received, and I loved what I saw of Thailand. Besides making the most of all my evening time, I had half a day free at the end, so I paid for a little tour package. It included visits to an orchid farm, an elephant camp, and Tiger Kingdom. The highlight of the trip for me was petting and lying down with three large female tigers!
Click here to read my blog post A Trip to Thailand.
Country #19: Vietnam
A friend and I spent several days in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon), Vietnam, on a brief vacation. (Later I visited a different part of the country with Floyd.) It was wonderful! One of the most interesting things for me was experiencing the blend of Asian and European cultures (Vietnam is a former French colony). That blend manifested itself in the food, clothing styles, art, and architecture. One of the highlights of the trip was watching a “water puppet” show. Another was taking a boat ride down the Mekong Delta, with lots of stops along the way to watch various traditional snacks being made in little local shops.
Click here to read my blog post Seeing the Sights in Saigon.
Country #20: Myanmar
This one of the most fascinating countries I’ve ever been to. Floyd and I enjoyed an amazing vacation there over Christmas one year. Highlights included delicious traditional foods and drinks (including inexpensive smoothies and lassis at every restaurant), a traditional marionette show, gorgeous temples and pagodas everywhere (and some very old ones), and a town whose buildings all stood on stilts in the middle of a lake.
Click here to read my blog post A Day on the Lake.
What’s Next?
Who knows? I can’t wait for my next opportunity to travel internationally! What’s your favorite city, country, or memory from an international trip? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
Floyd and I just got back from an overnight getaway in Ali Shan, one of Taiwan’s beautiful mountain areas. It’s famous for its spectacular sunrise, which is the main reason most people visit. (However, I must confess that in the picture below, we’re standing in front of a mural!)
We arrived Monday late afternoon, and they let us check in early. Then we got back in the car and drove up to Ali Shan National Scenic Area to make sure we knew how to get there for the sunrise the next morning. It was about an hour’s drive from Mountain Hometown along steep, winding mountain roads. The park entrance fee was pretty reasonable (450 NT – about US$14 – for the two of us and our car, with Floyd’s student discount). We found ourselves in a little shopping area with a visitors’ center, restaurants, gift shops, and even a 7-Eleven, all surrounded by scenic forest criss-crossed with hiking trails. There was a train station there too, where we bought tickets for the next day’s 5:10 a.m. departure to Chushan, the famous sunrise spot.
Ali Shan’s Forest Railway is quite famous in Taiwan. We saw lots of tourists taking pictures of each other in and in front of the little red train, on the tracks, and by the various railway signs.
Back at Mountain Hometown, we enjoyed a tasty dinner (ordered in advance on their website when we made our reservation) and hit the sack early. The alarm rang at 3:30 a.m., which I think is probably the earliest I’ve ever purposely woken up to start my day! We packed up, loaded our car, and drove back up the mountain in some of the thickest fog I’ve ever seen. It was a little scary, but we made it safely back up to Ali Shan Scenic Area with time to spare. We boarded the train (standing room only) and enjoyed a 40-minute ride up to Chushan.
There was an observation area at the top with a viewing platform, souvenir shops, restrooms, and stands selling savory-smelling hot foods and drinks. Yep, that’s how people enjoy the beauty of natural wilderness here in Taiwan!
When we first got there (a little before 6 a.m.) it was still pitch black, but as the sky gradually lightened, we saw that the mountainscape below us was covered in clouds. Gradually the clouds began to clear, and everyone waited breathlessly, hoping hard that there would indeed be a spectacular sunrise worthy of the tales we’d all heard.
The sun was supposed to rise at 6:15, and as the moment approached, more and more of the mountains became visible. But at exactly 6:14, a massive bank of fog came surging in from the south and settled heavily over everything, reducing visibility to a few yards. And that was our Ali Shan sunrise.
We took the train back down through the fog to where we’d started and then enjoyed a long hike along one of the trails through the forest.
Of course, bear in mind that a “hiking trail” in Taiwan is usually a wide, smoothly paved route with handrails when it gets steep and frequent warning signs in the “dangerous” sections. Ali Shan’s trails were no exception!
You can also expect lots of strict signs about what is not allowed in that particular corner of nature.
I guess they didn’t want us to leave the path?
The warning sign above was on a suspended bridge over a stream.
I like the parts that prohibit “frolicking” and instruct visitors not to “make annoying sounds” or “engrave text and graphics” on “panels”!
The trees in Ali Shan’s forest are mostly Taiwan red cypress. They were all covered with moss and were quite beautiful. Through a combination of the growth process and the effects of rot, many of the trees and stumps had twisted themselves into all sorts of unusual shapes.
Various animals supposedly live in the forest, but besides the occasional bird, the warty little guy below was the only wildlife we spotted in Ali Shan.
Below: trees have the right of way on Ali Shan trails!
Partway through our hike we came to a little museum with displays about Ali Shan’s historic railroad, lumber industry, and aboriginal people. It would have been more meaningful if we could read Chinese, but the exhibits were still interesting. I wouldn’t recommend a trip to the area just to see the museum (it only took us about ten minutes to see everything), but if you’re there anyway, it’s worth taking a look.
At one point we came to an open area by a temple where people were selling trinkets and snacks. We bought pork sausages on sticks from this lady; they came with a saucer of seasoned powder for dipping. (The powder was tangy and complemented the salty sausage flavor nicely – but be careful not to inhale as you’re about to take a bite!) We asked what other kinds of sausages she had, and turns out there were several different meats represented. The black ones are cuttlefish!
After several hours of hiking, we returned to the visitors’ center area for lunch. It felt as though we had stayed all day, but of course that was because our day had started so early. We drove back to Taichung tired but satisfied that we had done (as far as we could tell) nearly all there was to do in Ali Shan. Too late, we discovered that the sunset is apparently pretty impressive there too, but for now we’ll have to content ourselves with the pictures we took by a mural.
The Dragon Palace Hotel is so narrow that it’s easy to miss if you aren’t paying attention to the numbers on the buildings. If only I had realized that it’s located right between a Subway and a Baskin Robbins! Looking for those landmarks would have been much easier than looking for the name of the hotel (which was hard to see on that side of the street).
