We're Coming Home

Hello Everyone!

Some of you may have noticed that we've been a little quiet recently - thats partially because Chris and I have been debating leaving Vietnam. We have reached a decision and will be traveling by bus to HCMC tomorrow (Tuesday), and flying out on Wednesday morning. After 24 hours of flying we will arrive in St. Louis on Wednesday evening. (The international date line messes with your head!)

We have nothing bad in particular to say about Vietnam. We merely feel that the costs have come to outweigh the benefits. While Kim does enjoy teaching here, Chris has had trouble finding ways to contribute. Originally we were meant to go to Can Tho, about three hours south of HCMC. There we would have been teaching in a diocesan seminary, but we also would have been close to the Spiritans and their programs as well as an AIDS clinic. Unfortunately, because of the unexpected death of a Filipino sister at the AIDS clinic (she had a stroke), the local government there forbade any further foreign volunteers. As such a last minute spot was found for us in Nha Trang where we are teaching at a diocesan seminary. In Nha Trang there are little to no opportunities for involvement outside of teaching. Furthermore there are already three other English teachers here who are far more qualified than us. While the seminary certainly doesn't mind putting us up, we are in sort of a make work situation.

Given the above the daily annoyances of living on the other side of the world have come to bear. Taken each in their own right the early mornings (mass begins at 4:30a and its noisy from there on out), the lack of sleep (the bed is essentially bamboo tile), the unfamiliar food (fish and rice every day for lunch and dinner), the isolation (we have yet to have a conversation in Nha Trang with anyone other than a student), and the omnipresent gastro-intestinal discomfort would be manageable. However, taken together, and in turn with our lack of purpose we have proven not up to the task of living here.

Both of us underestimated the challenges of living here, our experiences studying and volunteering abroad did not prepare us as we thought they might. Volunteering as a couple where there are no other volunteers is radically different from studying abroad as a single person. Perhaps we should have known better, but it has certainly proved a humbling experience. We have learned a great many things about ourselves and each other, and we do not regret the experience in the slightest. We have decided, however to take what we have learned and return home, where we will return to working and living in a society we can fully participate in.

We hope that you will keep us in your prayers. And we hope we have not discouraged anyone from volunteering abroad or visiting this beautiful country. Thank you all for following our journey.

Nha Trang

So. We have arrived in Nha Trang. In fact today will mark a full week in this beach side hamlet. Nha Trang has a population of about 400,000 people, as opposed to Saigon's 8.2 million people, and covers only about 251 square kilometers. Nha Trang is primarily a tourist town. Situated in Nha Trang bay its's long sandy beach is fronted by hotels and resorts of every type. Behind the hotels rise the mountains which run along Vietnam's spine. It is generally considered the best beach in Vietnam, and one of the prettiest bays in the world. Dotted throughout the bay are islands with nature reserves and private resorts.

Panoramic of the bay. 

We are lucky enough that the bishop's compound where we are living with 100 of our closest seminarian friends is located almost directly on the beach. All that stands between us is the main north/south road through the city. So far we have been to the beach almost every day we have been here. While the breeze off the ocean pushes clouds inland for a clear blue sky, it also means the sun on the beach is very strong. Most hotels provide beach chairs with umbrellas for their customers, but there are also several enterprising restaurants who provide chairs and umbrellas so long as you are eating and drinking their food. We posted up at one of those establishments last Tuesday to recoup from our day long bus travel on Monday (memorial day in the states). It was called The Louisiane and it is also a brewhouse which makes a good dark beer. Chris was very happy.

Us on the beach - the large building behind us is the Bishop's compound. 

We didn't begin teaching until Thursday, and even now we only have three students. We will not reach our full class size until next week as seminarian students are still coming back from their summer holidays. We aren't sure exactly how many students we will have total, or if we will be able to continue teaching together or will need to split up. There are around 80 seminarians studying here during the year, but I don't think we will have all of them in class. Our current small group of students has actually already finished seminary, and will be ordained deacons in November, so we are working with them to improve their English should they want to do further study. Most advanced books on theology and philosophy are not available in Vietnamese, and masters level study would have to be undertaken in the Philippines, Australia, or even the US - in English.

Panoramic of one side of the courtyard in the Bishop's compound. 

We are currently only teaching for 3 and a half hours a day, much like in HCMC. We aren't sure what our schedule will look like once the year starts in earnest, but we have had lots of free time here, especially since we neither cook nor clean! We are responsible for our own laundry, but we eat with the seminarians who take care of all of the dishes. There is a group of sisters here that takes care of the cooking for the entire compound.

Nha Trang is an international tourist town, although not of the English speaking variety. There are many Vietnamese tourists, but the international ones are mostly Russian or Chinese. As such it seems that Chris and I will have to double down on our Vietnamese here. There are no English masses for us to attend and all prayers at the seminary are said in Vietnamese.

We will continue to update you as we settle into our new beach life - we always love getting comments and questions - so don't be shy!

-Kim and Chris

Taipei, OR Leaving the Country to Get a Visa

On returning from our Australian adventure our plan was to renew our visas, and then head north to Nha Trang where we will be teaching this year. We arrived home on Saturday evening, and Fr. Trinh began looking into our new visas on Monday. The community here has a visa agent of sorts that they use here. Our options were three months, six months, or one year. We opted for a year long visa, it was slightly more expensive than three additional three month visas, or a six month and a three month, and it means we do not have to go through this process again. By "this process" I mean that we had to transfer money in American dollars to the company here to pay the visa fees, acquire passport photos, and then leave the country. Had we known about this process prior to leaving for Australia we would have set the wheels in motion so that we could pick up our new visas on entry to Vietnam from that trip, but as it was we needed to schedule a new trip. We chose to go to Taiwan last weekend.

We chose Taiwan because there is another Spiritan community there, it does not require a visa for American visitors on short stays, and it is easy to navigate as an English speaking person. We were supposed to leave HCMC on Friday evening and arrive in Taipei late at night but a thunderstorm rolled in and delayed all of the flights in the airport. Our flight was delayed so long that it had to be canceled and rescheduled for the next day because of work limits for the crew. While spending six hours in an airport on a Friday evening is not exactly my idea of fun, the airline did put us up in a hotel for the night where we had hot water and covered our dinner and breakfast. Our flight was rescheduled for noon on Saturday, which was fine, although I'm not sure we needed a 5am phone call to alert us of that information.

As they say, misery loves company, and we made some friends in our never-ending wait in various line (for meal vouchers, hotel rooms, to get on the bus, to find out our new flight... etc.). One was an American woman who is also an English teacher here in Vietnam who was trying to visit here family in Seattle for a week. Another was an Australian man trying to get back to Melbourne. There was also a German couple who were desperately in need of getting back to Munich by the next day. All of these passengers were transferred to flights on other airlines, though I don't know the fate of their connections which they undoubtedly missed. Apparently Taipei is quite the hub for budget connections.

When we did finally make it to Taipei it was late on Saturday night, but we had to wander the city a bit until our AirBnb host, who was admittedly quite accommodating about the delay, was off of work and could meet us at his apartment. Taipei is much like any modern capital city. It reminds us in size and scope of Chicago - but all of the signs are in Chinese. In fact those two cities have almost the same population at around 2.7 million people.

Our hosts in Taipei.

Sunday morning we were able to attend mass, in English, at a Salesian church down the road. We stopped off at a bakery beforehand  for some breakfast, and ate it in a park. Mass was mostly Filipinos, as is typical of English masses in non-English speaking countries. After church we headed downtown for lunch at a typical bento counter where we had fried chicken and then over to a cat cafe (of course) called Mask Cat. The concept of the cat cafe started in Taiwan, and Mask Cat was rated as having the cuddliest cats, but a rambunctious 6 year old at the table next to us unfortunately kept the cats away from our table.

Left: Friend chicken lunch. Right: Banana Waffle at Mask Cat

After lunch we did a short sightseeing tour of the Chiang Kai Shek memorial and the Longshan temple. Chiang Kai Shek is, in essence, the founder of Taiwain. Taiwan's official name is the Republic of China and still claims to have rightful rule over all of mainland China, as mainland China, or the People's Republic of China, claims rule over Taiwan. When Chaing Kai Shek's party lost to the communists in 1949 they fled to Taiwan where he was dictator until his death in 1975. Taiwan was slowly democratized in the 80's and 90's under Chaing Kai Shek's son. 

Longshan Temple

Both the temple and the memorial were nice places to visit, with lots of people, both locals and tourists, taking advantage of the cooler temperatures from the morning's downpour. We didn't stay long at the temple, but we did wander through the gardens at the memorial and enjoyed the people watching. We also managed to catch the relieving of the guard at the memorial which featured some very theatrical marching and some rifle tossing. 

Chaing Kai Shek

Looking down the steps at the Chaing Kai Shek memorial towards the national theater and opera house. 

After the memorial we headed across town to get a good look at Taipei 101 which is notable because it is very tall. We did not go up to the top of it, but I hear the view is great. We then had dinner at on of Taipei's famous night markets where we had a giant piece of spicy fried chicken, grilled corn, sweet tea, boar sausage, and a variety of stuffed waffles in the shape of kitten paw prints. We then retired to our AirBnb stuffed and happy.

Night Market!

Monday morning we visited the National Palace Museum. This museum is a huge treasure trove of Chinese art an culture dating back several hundred years. Chris and I enjoyed the museum, and spent several hours there, but I would say the experience would be improved by knowing more about Chinese history. The main explanations of the exhibits were in English (as well as Japanese and Chinese) but the individual items were not labeled and there was little explanation of historical context. After the museum we stopped for burgers at a little corner joint we happened across and they were delicious.

Enjoying the walk through he gardens up tot he National Palace Museum

We then headed up to visit the Beitou Hotsprings. Taipei is well known for its hotsprings, and there is a public bath house in a park where one can enjoy them without paying the pricy resort fees at the neighboring hotels. Unfortunately, because of bad maps and the throngs of people in the park playing Pokemon Go, it took us a while to actually find the entrance. Once we did, we really enjoyed the experience. There were very few tourists, it was mostly just Taiwanese grandparents taking the waters. There are three pools of varying temperature fed from the hotspring, and then two cold pools. We enjoyed all of them, though in the heat of the summer one can't sit in 100 degree water for very long!

We had intended to go to another night market for dinner, but it still wan't late enough after the hot springs and we had eaten a late lunch. Instead we opted to visit Eslite, a bookstore in Taipei which is open 24 hours! They had an excellent English selection and Kim ended up with three new books. Having burned an hour or two in the bookstore night had fallen and we caught some food on our walk back to the AirBnB. There was an interesting place that specialized in frenchfries so we had some with sour cream and chives.

Eslite

Tuesday morning was our chance to visit Hsinchu - a small town about an hour outside of Taipei which is the residence of the Spiritan community in Taiwan. It took a little doing to get on the correct train, we ended up on a slow one instead of a fast one, and then a little more doing to locate the Spiritan parish, so we didn't actually arrive until 2pm. Nonetheless Fr. Issac and Fr. Joseph (from Ghana and Nigeria respectively), the fathers serving there, provided us with a delicious lunch. Afterwards Fr. Joseph showed us around Hsinchu, which is a seaside town. As such we were able to enjoy some lovely walks around the coast and many beautiful parks, which were of course packed with people playing Pokemon Go. In the evening we had a delicious dinner at a local noodle place, and took the train back into Taipei.

A timeless clock in a seaside park in Hsinchu

Tuesday morning we were on our way back to Vietnam. Although the flight itself is only about two hours the additional time spent getting to the airport and going through customs, as well as waiting at customs in Vietnam for our new visas meant that we left the AirBnb in Taipei at 11am and didn't arrive at home in Vietnam until 5:30 in the evening. On the plus side two of the seminarians met us at the airport so we didn't have to catch a cab, and we then enjoyed dinner with the seminarians who were all back from summer break. 

We have spent the past couple days recouping, doing laundry, and packing, as tomorrow we (finally!) head to Nha Trang. We will be sure to update you all again when we get there and have some idea of our teaching schedule. 

Thanks for following along and feel free to drop us a comment or a question at any time!

P.S. Our travel to and around Taipei was funded by ourselves and fundraised monies go to cover only the costs associated with our mission work. 

Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef

One of the reasons we chose to visit Australia was to go diving in the Great Barrier Reef. It had been a dream of Chris' for a long time, and both of us enjoy diving. Chris was certified as a Scuba Diver in Mexico, but that was almost ten years ago, so he opted to redo the course with Kim. In fact, given the quality of instruction available in Australia, we both decided to go straight through to the Advanced Open Water certification. The major difference between the two certifications is the first carries a depth limit of 18m (~60ft) while the second goes up to 30m (~10ft) and the second includes some experience with a variety of diving specialties. Both certifications are though PADI. Diving being the impetus for our trip it was the first thing we did and what we spent the majority of our time doing.

As noted in our previous post we arrived in Cairns on the 9th of August. We spent the afternoon getting lunch, going to the grocery store, and generally settling in. We stayed in another AirBnB so we had a kitchen again, which was nice because Cairns is just as expensive as Sydney, but the quality of food isn't great. Cairns is basically a beach town. With a population of only about 150,000 the entire city is basically supported by the tourism industry. The food is about what you would find in many American beach towns - burgers and a handful of "ethnic" restaurants and every single one of them is overpriced - even for Australia. 

Our Air BnB in Cairns. A simple beach house open to the outside air!

A picture of the Cairns Harbor at sunset.

It was nice to have a slow day because we started the pool component of our dive training at 8am on Wednesday morning. The only person in the class besides Chris and I was a 19 year old German girl named Julia who was taking time off to travel the world before she started university. As we saw throughout our trip this is a popular option for many people who use "working holiday" visas to take jobs at coffee shops and the like while traveling for a year or two in a country. 

The pool and classroom portion of the course consisted of five video lessons with worksheets, four quizzes, a final exam, and a variety of pool based skills like learning to share air underwater or how to empty a flooded mask. We took the whole day on Wednesday, but given that there were only three of us (class sizes are more typically closer to ten) we made pretty quick work of the material and only needed a half day on Thursday. That gave Chris and I the opportunity to visit the mall in the afternoon - we each picked up a rash guard and spandex to provide a little extra warmth under our wetsuits and Kim chopped off all of her hair because she was tired of it getting tangled in her mask. 

Friday morning we embarked on a four day live-aboard trip through the great barrier reef on the Cairns Dive Center's boat - the Kangaroo Explorer. Its a medium size ship that hosts about 9 crew and dive professionals and up to 40 guests at a time. It has a kitchen, water desalinater, and hot water heater so it doesn't have to come to port very often and passengers are taken out to it on a smaller day boat. The day boat, called the Reefkist, was the bumpiest ride we have ever been on. Kim, who is no stranger to boats, managed to get seasick. The Kangaroo Explorer, or KE was much smoother. 

The Kangaroo Explorer.

We did a total of 12 dives in our four days aboard the boat including four open water training dives, three free dives, and five "adventure dives" which are those needed to qualify for the advanced certification. In addition to the navigation dive and the deep dive, which are required, we chose to do the night dive, the drift dive, and the peak performance buoyancy dive. All of the dives were very interesting - and got to see tons of cool fish while we were completing our required skills, but the peak performance buoyancy dive was definitely the most fun. It helps the diver to understand maneuvering underwater with gear on and involves swimming through hoops and hovering upside down. Some of the volunteers on the boat, young people who help cook and clean in return for free diving, joined us on the dive and it was fun to compete with them. 

Living on the boat in close quarters wasn't too bad - we did get to have our own room - but there wasn't enough hot water for more than one five minute shower a day - which isn't enough when you dive four times in a day and you're constantly freezing! Cairns was certainly warmer than Sydney - in the mid 80s, but the water temp was mid to low seventies and that can feel pretty cold! There was no wifi on the boat (which is partially why we're catching up on blogs now) but it gave us time to get to know some of the other passengers and volunteers aboard. I'm not sure that I would recommend that particular boat to older or more experienced divers, some of whom were on the boat, but it's great for young people who don't mind being a little light on comforts. One of our dive instructors was 26 and the other was 19. I think the average age of the dive masters and crew was about 25. 

Once we were back in Cairns we took a couple of days to allow our bodies to redissolve all of our nitrogen, and we took the last day before we left to see waterfalls. The Daintree rainforest, which surrounds Cairns is home to spectacular waterfalls, of which we saw the Babinda Boulders, Josephine Falls, and the Milla Milla Falls. We drove through the tablelands, which is the area the rainforest has been cleared from and is now used for farming, visited the curtain fig tree, the Milanda Environmental Park, and lake Echam, as well as did some wild platypus spotting. The waterfall trip was a blast, and it was a good end to our trip.

The waterfall tour is what we are going to remember as the end anyway, as getting up at 4am for a 6am flight out of Cairns wasn't the most fun. Additionally there were only three check in agents for about 200 early morning Quantas passengers so we spent a full hour in line to check in, resulting in a sprint through the airport to make our flight. Good thing we didn't have any checked luggage! Once we got to Sydney we only had half an hour to make the boarding time  for our connection so we got to sprint through that airport as well. Luckily we had more time in the Singapore airport and made it home to HCMC without issue. 

Thanks for following along with our adventures! Please feel free to leave any comments or questions in the comment box, or to drop us a line via email. We will be updating soon about continued life in Vietnam after our brief "summer vacation".

-Kim and Chris

P.S. Please note that this trip to Australia was entirely personally funded. All fundraised money is used exclusively for missionary activities. 

Sydney!

So we've been off the grid for a bit - but now we're back, and ready to update you on our adventures in Australia. Our total trip was 17 days, including flights, but we spent the first 6 in Sydney, then 11 days in Cairns with a four day trip on a dive boat, so we'll break the blog posts up along those lines.

We flew out of HCMC on Wednesday, the 3rd of August, in the afternoon. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, but I'm glad we did because the lines to check in were horrendous! We waited in line for nearly 90 minutes as a variety of people in front of us unpacked and repacked their bags to make luggage limits.  We did make friends with some Danes in line though. We made it to our gate with barely enough time to catch our flight to Singapore. We got in to Singapore in the late evening and tried to check in for our next leg only to be told we needed to apply for a visa! We felt understandably silly for not realizing we needed one, but the process is quick, painless, and entirely online, so it only took about 30 minutes to complete. We then had a few hours in the Singapore airport, which is very clean, orderly, and easy to navigate, until our midnight departure to Sydney. We arrived in Sydney at around 10 on Thursday morning. Both flights were fine, very full, and a little cramped, but no screaming babies.

From the airport it was an easy, if expensive ($17.50 each!!), subway ride to our AirBnb in the neighborhood of Woolloomooloo. Our AirBnb in Sydney was fabulous! We had views of the harbor, bridge, and opera house, and our hosts were very friendly. One was a Brazilian man getting his PhD in nutrition and the other was an Australian woman who is a personal trainer. They weren't around much because of work, but it was great to have a kitchen and laundry to use, and Chris got to talk about mountain biking with them.

Day 1 - Thursday Afternoon - Sightseeing

Once we were checked in and settled, our first stop was Foodcraft, a small cafe in Erskineville, which is well known for it's Tella Ball Milkshakes. They were out of Tella Balls, which are basically doughnut holes filled with Nutella, but I got a milkshake anyway and it came with a Nutella waffle on top! We also got sandwiches, tandoori chicken for her and cheese sausage for him, and they were both delicious.

From left to right: tandoori chicken sandwich, Nutella milkshake, cheese sausage sandwich

After stuffing our faces, and taking some leftovers to go, we walked back up to central Sydney to see Mrs. MacQuarie's chair, the opera house, and the bridge. Mrs. MacQuarie's chair is a rock perch overlooking the harbor which was enjoyed by the wife of Governor MacQuarie. The governor had the perch carved for his wife in 1810, and then a road cleared through the bush to it between 1813 and 1818. It features a lovely walk through the Sydney Botanical Gardens and The Domain to get to it and is an excellent spot to take photos from.

After our eating and walking and sightseeing we were pretty well worn out and headed back to the AirBnb for an early night. We didn't catch much sleep on our overnight flight and the bed at the AirBnb was possibly one of the nicest ones either of us has ever slept in.

Day 2 - Friday - Blue Mountains

We had an early morning on Friday, we were up at 6 to be picked up at 7 for a tour of the Blue Mountains. We went with Sydney Great Escapes and had an excellent time. Our pickup was prompt and our tour guide was very friendly. We were in a small group with three other Americans - a mother daughter pair from SoCal and a Navy virologist from Puerto Rico - and a family of four from Nice, France. Our first stop was Featherdale Wildlife park. We were there right as the doors opened, and we were the first ones in. Featherdale features a variety of Australian animals, and lots of opportunities for feeding and petting. We got to pet a Koala, and feed some pretty aggressive wallabies and kangaroos - one even tried to bite through Chris' jacket to see if he had food! Kim had really hoped to see some quokkas, but it was drizzly and chilly, so both they and the wombats were hiding in their nests. The dingoes were out an about though, as were many of the birds. Apparently in New South Wales, the state Sydney is in, you can keep a dingo as a pet, just like a dog.

Clockwise from top left: Chris feeds Wallabies, Koala, Kim feeds Wallabies, Dingo

After the wildlife sanctuary we made our way into the mountains. It was still pretty rainy, so instead of hiking about in the mud, we drove around some back roads looking for wild kangaroos. We found lots, as well as a variety of wallabies and emus. Lunch was at a tiny hotel in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. It was fine - mostly food of the pub variety. Once we were all done with lunch we headed further up into the mountains towards Katoomba Scenic World. We stopped to look at Katoomba falls, and then headed further up the mountain towards the cable cars. While the rest of the people in our group opted to take the cable cars down into the forest, Chris and I chose to walk along side of the canyon to the three sisters rock formation. It is a beautiful walk with woods to one side and beautiful views across the other. Unlike the Grand Canyon, the gorges through the blue mountains aren't formed by any particular river. Instead they are from the gradual erosion of the sandstone by rain.

Top: a panoramic with Katoomba falls on the far right
Bottom: The Three Sisters rock formation

Our day ended with a drive down the mountains to a ferry, and a river ride back to Circular Quay in Sydney Harbor. Back in Sydney we headed down to China Town and happened upon a street festival. We loaded up on dim sum and Emperors Garden Cream Puffs before heading back to the AirBnb for some shut eye.

Freshly made cream puff - hot off the pan

Day 3 - Saturday - Bondi to Bronte

Saturday morning we had a bit of a lie in preparation for another day of walking. Instead of cereal and milk for breakfast we held off for a big brunch at Speedos cafe at Bondi beach. It was another cold, drizzly day, so the cafe was packed (although there was no shortage of swimmers in the 65-70 degree water!). Kim had an excellent green smoothie and Pokemon themed cronut, and Chris had a full English style breakfast. The food was delicious, but it was super cramped, and very noisy.

Left: English Breakfast, Right: Pokemon Cronut

A fortifying brunch in our bellies, we set off on our 3km coastal walk. Given the rain it was pretty empty, so we didn't have to contend with too many other people, but it was a lot of stairs and hills, especially to get around parts of the walk damaged by a recent storm. The full walk took us about an hour, with plenty of stops for goofy photos. But also given the rain we were pretty well done with being outside by the end of it so we took a bus home.

Left: Bondi Beach, Right: Chris falls off a cliff

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at the AirBnb before we headed to a local place called Waterman's Lobster Co. for dinner. We had, as can be expected, lobster rolls. We did one with just butter and lemon and the other with mayo and celery and they were both delicious. Even the sides, brussels sprouts and mac and cheese, were on point. We didn't take any pictures because we ate it all too fast!

Day 4 - Sunday - Church, Australia Museum, Cat Cafe

Sunday donned sunny, if not exactly warm, and we made the short walk into downtown to attend St. Mary's Cathedral for mass. St. Mary's is an imposing hulk of sandstone done in the Gothic style, with less detail, but construction wasn't started on the building until 1869 and it wasn't complete in its present form until 2000. The inside is dark and cold, and if it weren't for the sandstone it could have been April in some 13th century church in Europe. The mass was nice, if somewhat poorly attended, and afterwards we had a nice wander around to see the windows or the arches built in honor of various dead people from the 1800s.

We made it out of the Cathedral just in time to miss the giant tour of Chinese adolescents on its way in to sightsee in order to go for brunch. We stopped for brunch at Bahista, a cafe on the opposite side of Hyde Park from the Cathedral. Most things in Sydney still bear the names of of their British colonial past, the state Sydney is located in is New South Wales. Brunch was good: Turkish eggs Benedict and a green smoothie for her, English breakfast and a coffee for him, though it wasn't $50 good, which is what it set us back. Everything in Australia was outrageously expensive, even more so that Europe or the US, and made only slightly more bearable by the $0.75 to $1.00 AUD to USD exchange rate.

Brunch accomplished, we wandered back across the park to the Australian Museum. It holds the distinction of being the first museum on Australian soil, and holds true to its 18th century roots with its catch all exhibits of Australian history, geology, and zoology. There were many exhibits featuring rows and rows of insects, birds, or rocks, meticulously labeled and otherwise unidentified with function, location, or value. The features on the Aboriginal way of life, which were somewhat newer, were excellent, but the exhibit on dinosaurs were forgettable. While modern Australia holds the distinction of some of the world's most unique flora and fauna, prehistoric Australia appears to have been much the same as the rest of the world. We did, however enjoy the exhibits on all of the deadly Australian animals roaming the sea and land, especially the great barrier reef - which we were looking forward to visiting. While we did spend nearly four hours in the Australian museum, I'm not sure that I would recommend it on itineraries for others. It is a great catch all museum if one is in Sydney for only a day or two, but longer stays allow visits to the many varied and more specific attractions like the Hyde Park Barracks, the Maritime Museum, the Taronga Zoo, or the Aquarium.

Having explored the Australian Museum top to bottom we made our way south on the metro to the real highlight of the day: the Sydney Catmosphere Cat Cafe. We have been desperately missing our own feline, Naboo, and as such took the time to visit Sydney's only Cat Cafe, which is like a regular cafe with coffee and drinks, but it also has cats to snuggle, play with, and pet. We enjoyed a full hour in a room with 12 beautiful felines and only four other human guests. You have to make reservations ahead of time to maintain an optimal human to cat ratio as generally only two or three cats are interested in interacting at any one time. I sat most of the hour next to a sleeping cat who graciously allowed be to pet her. Cat cafes are springing up all over the world, and there is even one in Saigon which we are bound to check out soon. 

Beauties from the Cat Cafe

Our cat needs briefly sated we went next door for tacos. They were fine, if a bit pricy at $6 a taco. From the Mexican themed bar we went on an adventure for dessert. We first walked the three quarters of a mile back to china town for cream puffs, which were as delicious as the first time, and the line was slightly shorter. Also, they're three for a dollar, so you can't beat the price - we got six. We then walked an additional mile to Darling Harbor, where we alighted at San Churro, a chain outfit specializing in, you guessed it, churros. We enjoyed ours with Nutella and salted caramel sauce. Having eaten a half dozen cream puffs and a half dozen churros between the two of us, we were ready for the mile and a half walk home. I'm certain even three miles of walking doesn't cover the calories we ate, but both the cream puffs and the churros were well worth it and we had both a sugar coma and exhaustion from walking to lull us to sleep that night. 

Day 5 - The Taronga Zoo

I would like to say Monday got off to an early start, but by the time we left the house it was nearly 10am. It then took us almost an hour and a half to pick up lunch at the grocery store, walk to circular quay, get cash, and top up our opal cards. Sydney has recently switched to refillable plastic cards instead of paper tickets for basically all passengers and has drastically reduced the number of machines issuing single ride paper tickets. It just so happens that the single ride ticket machines are also the only machines that let you top up your opal card, which we had, with cash, and our credit card refused to work at any of the credit card top up kiosks. So we waited for nearly 20 minutes in line with other tourists at the singular working cash machine to top up our cards. By the time we had accomplished that we had missed the ferry and had to wait an additional half hour. As such, by the time we made it through the 20 minute ferry ride and the line to buy tickets into the zoo we were ready to stop for our picnic lunch. 

The zoo as a whole was pleasant. Not nearly as exciting as the Featherdale wildlife park because we couldn't touch any of the animals, and the big cats exhibits were all closed, but we did get to see some tree kangaroos and walk through a lemur enclosure. There were also penguins and seals as well as the typical elephants, bears, and giraffes. It was an exceedingly pleasant day with little rain and not too many other patrons. 

Clockwise from top left: giraffes, a baby gorilla rides on it's mother's back, mountain goats

After the zoo, and on our last night in Sydney we went for Italian at a local place not too far from where we had previously had lobster. Fratelli Paradiso is a cozy Italian place with a small menu waiters with Italian accents. We were seated close enough to our neighbors that we could have eaten off of their plates if we had wanted to. While nothing can beat the food we had in Italy itself, the food was very good, and very filling. We split two different pasta dishes, one of which had Tasmanian truffles in it, and the rolls were endlessly resupplied. Having stuffed our faces with carbs we stopped for a more pure sugar on the way home: ice cream. Good Times Artisan Ice Cream actually serves soft serve, but its the toppings that really steal the show. Kim had one with caramel filled chocolates and Chris had one with cheesecake bites. 

Day 6 - On to Cairns

Tuesday was simply a travel day, we packed up our stuff and took a morning flight to Cairns (pronounced Cans) where we checked into another AirBnB. Generally we traveled without issue, except for the brief hiccup where Chris accidentally pushed the button on the kiosk that said we were flying with banned substances like weapons and aerosols. All this necessitated was a trip to the almost empty check in counter (basically everyone was just using the automated kiosks) where the Quantas agent laughed at our mistake and quickly issued us our boarding passes. 

Thanks for following our adventures (or at least looking at the photos) and please feel free to leave comments and questions! We'll follow up shortly with another post about our adventures in Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. We are in fact back to HCMC now to renew our Vietnamese visas, and will be on to Nha Trang within a week or so to continue teaching. 

-Chris and Kim

**Disclaimer, all travel is funded by us personally. Fundraised moneys were used exclusively for costs related to missionary work. 

Angkor Wat - Cambodia

**All photos can be clicked for larger size**

Given that we have about a month off for traveling before we return to teaching in September we decided to take a short trip to see Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Angkor Wat is actually the name of a specific temple ruin, but is used to refer to the multitude of temple ruins of the ancient Khmer empire in the Siem Reap province of northwestern Cambodia. The temples were built by various Khmer kings between 790 and 1327 c.e. and are most commonly recognized from the movie Tomb Raider which featured the temple Ta Prhom. It is a UNESCO world heritage site, and the largest religious monument in the world.

Map of the Angkor UNESCO park

We caught a bus out of HCMC at 7am on Wednesday morning, which involved a 6:15am cab ride downtown, and some wandering around the bus depot to find the correct bus. The bus ride itself was fine, it took about 5 hours to get to Phnom Penh, the capital, with about an hour at immigration, and then we waited at the bus station in Phnom Penh for an hour before getting on another bus to Siem Reap. The bus to Siem Reap took another 6 hours, and we got in around 8pm. The bus rides were uneventful except for the One Direction and Celine Dion sing alongs. Apparently the Vietnamese and Cambodians like Karaoke and Chris decided to serenade me with his *cough* wonderful voice *couch*.

We stayed at a little budget hotel called the Naga Angkor hotel. Its perks include AC, wifi, and American food. In fact, in Cambodia, US currency is widely accepted, and in Siem Reap you can get just about any food you could ever want. Siem Reap is a tourist town frequented by visitors from all around the world, and as such has comforts from many countries.

On Thursday morning we got up, had an American breakfast in the hotel cafe, and took off for the temples.  We rented a tuk tuk for three days of sightseeing for $65. A tuk tuk is a like a rickshaw, but with a motorbike at the front instead of a person. On the first day we did the "small tour" comprised of Angkor Wat, the Bayon at Angkor Thom, Ta Keo, Ta Prohm, Banteay Kdei, Srah Srang, and sunset at Bakheng. Our sunset was interrupted by a thunderstorm, so we called it quits ahead of time and went home. We had dinner at the hotel again, poutine for Chris and green curry for Kim, and went to bed.

Tuk Tuk

Top: the front entrance, or gopura, of Angkor Wat. Bottom: the front entrance of the wall surrounding Angkor Wat.

Left: The central tower of Angkor Wat. Center: the bridge over the moat surrounding Angkor Wat. Right: An apsara engraved on a wall of Angkor Wat

Two sides of a crown of a tower at Angkor Wat

One of the more than two hundred faces on the towers of the Bayon at Angkor Thom. The Bayon was the state and religious temple of the city located at Angkor Thom.

The many steps at Ta Keo

A tree grows over the temple walls at Ta Prohm, a temple made famous by the movie Tomb Raider, and has been intentionally left unrestored. 

Carvings on the many columns at Banteay Kdei

On Friday morning we were up early, 4:15 to be exact, to catch sunrise at Angkor Wat, along with about 1,000 of our closest friends. After sunrise we headed off to Banteay Srei, and then returned back to central Angkor for the big circuit. The big circuit includes Preah Khan, the East Mebon, Ta Som, and Pre Rup. We finished around lunch time and grabbed lunch at an Italian place and then took a nice nap. Kim was feeling a bit under the weather that evening so Chris ventured out on his own to a beer hall for dinner.

This is what they call the "money shot"

Top left: the exceptionally intricate, and well preserved Banteay Srei. Top Right: the elephants guarding the East Mebon. Bottom left: the serene, and unusual, Jayatataka. Bottom right: the guard of Preah Khan.

Saturday we took it pretty easy and didn't see any temples.  We had planned to hang out by the pool, but intermittent thunderstorms kept us away. Instead we hung out in our hotel room and watched movies because there really isn't anything to do in Siem Reap. Much like other tourist towns built around a single major attraction, the non-temple options included diversions like mini golf or a miniature replica of the temples. We did however have an excellent breakfast at a cafe, and then dinner at an indian place.

Sunday was more temples.  We took a trip out to the Roluos group, which is south of the main temple complex, and is the oldest set of temples.  It took about 20 minutes to get out there and another 2 hours to see all three temples in the complex. We were back for lunch at another cafe, this one a non-profit which supports local NGOs. We did some wandering around in the afternoon and found some excellent gelato, and then were back in the hotel room until dinner at a wine bar. The wine bar was a little overpriced, and didn't have a great selection, but did have a very good honeycomb ice cream.

Left: Lions guard the entrance to a temple. Right: Apsaras carved into sandstone. 

Left: we couldn't resist a little yoga! Center: The top of a temple viewed through one of its entrances. Right: the long approach of a temple. 

Monday morning was up early again for another 12+ hour bus ride back to Vietnam. This time without the sing alongs.

Overall the experience was good. We really loved the temples, and it was really cool to see the development of religion and architecture over several centuries. Siem Reap is fine for a tourist town. You can get any kind of food you like, and all the western amenities (hot water!), but it consists mostly of bars and hotels, and there were certainly a lot of young backpackers doing a lot of drinking - which is not really our scene.

Thanks for following along. If you have a question feel free to comment or drop us a line!

-Kim and Chris

P.S. We would like to note that all of our touristing activities are funded out of our own pockets, and not from any of the fundraising we did. Fundraised money is used only for costs related directly to our mission work (Vietnamese visas, vaccinations, flights to Vietnam and flights home at the end of our trip, etc.)