Luang Prabang

Hello everyone!

We just got back to Bangkok after spending five days in Luang Prabang, Laos. Definitely one of the most beautiful places we've been so far.  It is surrounded by beautiful mountains and is right on the Mekong River. It had really good food (Lao food is similar to Thai food) and was really cheap. 

The mountains and the Mekong made for spectacular sunsets and the best place to watch was from the top of Phousi Mountain, which was just a short walk up the hill, right in town. Phousi Mountain was also something of a joke around town as it is pronounced with a hard "P".  The many Australian dudes in Luang Prabang would ask the locals about the mountain and then giggle like schoolgirls when they would pronounce it.

        Sunset from Phousi Mountain

We did a really cool trip where we got to paddle down the Nam Ou river, which had some little class one rapids and beautiful limestone cliffs.  We also saw an elephant just causally grazing on the side of the river.  After several miles on the Nam Ou it flowed into the Mekong where we visited the cave of 4000 Buddhas.  It is a large riverside cave where the monks brought many Buddha statues during the Vietnam war to protect them from the bombs.  After the caves we paddled downstream to the village where they make Lao Lao Whiskey.  We tried some of the whiskey which tasted liked burning and luckily didn't make us blind.  It did however severely decrease Gina's desire to continue paddling so we lazily floated the last couple of miles to the finish.

                     Nam Ou River

               Look who we found on the side of the river

         Chilling on the Mekong River

     Paddling hard on the Nam Ou River

         Pak Ou Cave (Buddha Cave) 

            Small group of the many Buddhas in the cave

       Our lunch on the river Lao style

      Very complicated Lao Lao whiskey making process

                 Trying the whiskey- It burned going down

       Limestone cliffs on the Nam Ou

The next day we took a trip to the Kuang Si waterfall, which was quite an adventure just getting there. We ended up in a 12 seat van with 16 other people.  At one point we got pulled over, probably for having too many people in the van, and our driver had to make the necessary bribes before we could continue.  The waterfall was really amazing with multiple levels and great swimming holes.  There was also a bear rescue center there for Moon Bears, which look a lot like black bears. The rescue center exists because the bears are hunted for their bile, which is used in Chinese medicine.

                 Lao Moon Bear- They were all about the papaya!

                    Kuang Si Falls

              Top of Kuang Si Falls

        Testing out the water- it was cold!

     Lower Kuang Si Falls and one of the many swimming holes

      Last night's sunset on the Mekong (It got even better after some Beer Lao)

We are back in Bangkok now, staying at the wonderful Hickey residence overlooking the Chao Phraya River and being constantly entertained by little Houston McCoy Hickey. We're headed to Phuket tomorrow with the Hickey family for a few days of relaxing on the beach.

All the best to everyone back home.  Lots of love.

B and G

Konnichiwa!

We have completed the first section of our international adventure with our week in Japan.  We had an awesome time visiting Tokyo, Kyoto and Nara.  It was really cool to see three cities of very different sizes.

Tokyo is amazing. There are so many people, but everything is so well organized and things are so efficient. We had an awesome little hotel that was near Kanda station so we were able to walk most places and the subway trains come every three minutes. There are also lots of parks, temples and shrines that provide a lot of beauty within the city.  

         View from department store on         

               Omotesando (Harajuku)

         Takeshita Dori (so many people!)

One of the coolest things we did in Tokyo was going to the fish market, which is the largest fish market in the world. It was a market that was the size of a small city and sold pretty much anything that came from the ocean. We spent probably an hour just walking around and looking at all the crazy sea critters that could be purchased. We also visited the Imperial Palace, Meiji Jingu Shrine, Ueno Park and walked around Ginza, Shinjuku and Shibuya.  

                      Tsukiji Market

                     Unagi Anyone?!

We rode the bullet train to Kyoto, which was an experience in itself. We stayed in a cool little hostel near Kyoto station and spent most of our time walking around the city. Our favorite parts of Kyoto were visiting Kinkakuji Temple (the Golden Temple) and Kiyomizudera Temple and walking around the Gion district and seeing all the Geishas. If we had stayed in Japan longer I think Gina would have been heading to Geisha school.  

            Shinkansen train to Kyoto

      Had to get a bento box for the ride

          View of Mt. Fuji from the train

                   Kinkakuji Temple

       View of Kyoto from Kiyomizudera

From Kyoto we took a day trip out to Nara, which was just a 45 minute train ride. Nara has a large beautiful park that we spent most of the day walking around. The park is home to many many deer who are friendly as long as you are feeding them these special crackers that they sell in the park. As soon as you stop feeding the deer they become quite disgruntled and start head butting people until they get more crackers. They weren't really doing it that hard, but it was definitely hard enough to put a good scare into the kids that were feeding them, which never stopped being entertaining to us. 

                  Feeding the deer

                        Deer selfie!

Nara park also is home to the Todaiji Temple, which has a very impressively large statue of Buddha. Behind the statue is a wooden pillar with a very small square hole that is very good luck to pass through. Despite the fact that most of the people going through we're small children (who needed the good luck to get back through the park with out being viscously rammed by crack(er)ed out deer), we decided to go through. It was a pretty tight squeeze, but hopefully we now have some added luck for the trip.

                       Todaiji Temple

             Huge Buddha in Todaiji

          We made it through, barely

We also spent a lot of time in Japan eating. The food was great and surprising less expensive than what we had been expecting.  Our best meals were a bowl of spicy pork ramen in Tokyo (Kinkabou) and a sushi boat place in Kyoto (Musashi). I think we tried everything on the sushi boat except for the the horse sashimi, which we just couldn't bring ourselves to eat.  

                      Best Ramen!

The weather in Japan was quite cold.  It snowed on us as we were leaving Kyoto and while on the train we passed through a blizzard so we are very much looking forward to some Thailand sunshine.

                   Huge flakes of snow!

A big thanks to Marcia, Bill and Brent for all the great recommendations in Japan.  They really helped make our trip great.

Hope everyone is doing well at home.

B and G

Figures, Favorites and our International Itinerary

The Numbers

Days on the Road: 100

Miles Driven: 14,826
Average Miles Per Day: 148.3

Gallons of Gas Used: 922
Average Miles Per Gallon: 16.1
Most Expensive Gas: Banff, Canada - $4.38/gal
Least Expensive Gas: Phoenix, AZ - $2.79/gal

Number of miles hiking/walking: 986

States/Provinces Visited: 34
National Parks Visited: 19

Nights in the Suburban: 61
Nights in a house: 29
Nights in a tent: 6
Nights in a hotel: 3
Number of different places we stayed: 59


The Favorites

National Park: Glacier (but so hard to choose)
River: The Gauley, West Virginia
View: Blackface Mountain, Colorado (Eagle Peak in Yosemite a close #2)
Best Scenic Drive: Durango to Telluride

Favorite Big Cities: DC and Chicago
Favorite Small City: Milwaukee
Favorite Big Town : Bend, OR and Durango, CO
Favorite Small Town: Fayetteville, WV

Burger: Eddie Burger and Bar, Banff
Burrito: Bravo, San Diego
Best Seafood: Carrier's Mainely Lobster, Bucksport, ME
Best Breakfast: The Victorian Cafe, Bend, OR

Brewery: Mammonth, CA
Runner up: Marble, New Mexico

Best Beer (of places where we didn't go to the actual brewery): Dogfish Head

That's the summary of our road trip. We'll be heading out for the international portion of our trip on the morning of January 6th.  Here's a rough itinerary of where we will be and when:

Jan 7th - 13th: - Japan
Jan 13th - 31st: Thailand/Laos
February 1st - 6th: Bali
February 7th - March 8th: New Zealand
March 8th - March 31st: Australia
April 1st - April 24th: Chile/Argentina
April 25th - May 17th: Bolivia and Peru
May 18th - May 26th: Ecuador

So if all goes according to plan we should be back in the US in late May.  We will continue to try to keep people updated through the blog, but we'll also be posting pictures to our Facebook pages and to our Instagram account (notoriousbng23). We'd love to continue to hear from all of you through the various means of contact. We'll both be checking our e-mails (ginaboccio@gmail.com and brycewfleming@yahoo.com) and we'll have a cell phone (415-847-7531) that we'll probably be checking less frequently.  For those of you with IPads and IPhones we can IMessage for free.

OK, back to packing.  Happy to New Year to all!

Much much love,

B and G