Milford Sound

For those of you that have been patient enough to sit through our 6 week hiatus, then surprise! You'll now have a whole bunch (well, 3) posts to read at once! Our internet has been strangely limited in both Australia and New Zealand thus far, so we figured we would do our best to put up a quick post on the rare occassion we have a strong enough connection. In fact, this post is about what we did YESTERDAY...a blog first.

We spent the day in Milford Sound, which is on the SW coast of the south island. The entire region is comprised of giant fiords, inlets and mountains. We've heard from many that Milford Sound and the surrounding area is the most beautiful part of the island. While we are still partial to Mt. Cook, it was quite amazing. We were also lucky enough to get one of the rare sunny days (it rains over 250 days a year and the average rain accumulation is over 8 meters!), so we hopped on a boat and took a cruise around the sound. Not a whole lot of commentary to share here, so enjoy the photos! P.S. - sorry about all of the landscapes!

First impression:

Queenstown

Our next stop was in the adventure capital of the world (well, at least of New Zealand) - Queenstown.

Despite Mike's fear of heights, we decided that if we were ever going to bungy jump, this was the place to do it. We went to the original bungy jumping site, Kawarau Bridge, and signed up.

New Zealand: First Impressions

Let's start right here:

Cape Town Post-City Press Conference: "We're on to Tanzania"

While some of you may be asking why we didn't manage to post the promised "flurry" of posts from Cape Town, we're not going to comment on that, as we're on to Tanzania. On Saturday, we begin our attempt to hike Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa. We had a good week of practice on Table Mountain...

...and on the hills of Camps Bay, have no current injuries to report, and feel very confident in our ability to work together as a team and achieve our goal of reaching the 19,000+ foot peak 10 days from now.

Oh and of course, Go Pats!!

The Giant Red Dunes of the Namib Desert

Once we had become experts on Namibia's many species of antelope, we hopped back into our car and drove four hours west to the Namib desert, specifically the area of Sossusvlei. The park is characterized by giant, beautiful red dunes, canyons and dried-up riverbeds/lakes.

Next Stop: Africa!

Our flight from Hong Kong to Johannesburg marked an important milestone: our first flight in business class! A 12+ hour flight seemed like a good opportunity to use a chunk of the airline miles we had accumulated over the last 10 years. And it did not disappoint...

Hong Kong (and 45 minutes in Macau)

Although a proper tour of China wasn't on the itinerary, Hong Kong is one of Alexis's favorite cities, so we managed to squeeze in a few nights there before heading to Africa. A few highlights:

#1: It finally felt like Christmas!

Okay, well maybe more for Alexis than Mike, but coming from SE Asia, Hong Kong was relatively chilly (60s), a bit overcast, and the stores and cafes were playing Christmas carols. Though no match for a New England winter, it was the first time we could wrap our heads around the fact it was December.

#2: We actually had real plans (and real friends!)

In a nice change of pace, we had plans with two sets of friends currently living in Hong Kong. It's always great to catch up with friends, especially when so far from home. We met up with Alexis's friend Lauren, from the Cape, and her husband Tom in what turned out to be a pretty big night out.

Indonesia - Beaches, Volcanoes and Dragons!

We had two destinations planned in Indonesia - a week exploring the remote island of Flores and a few days relaxing on the beach in Bali. Both were fantastic, but couldn't have been more different. But first we had to get there...

We couldn't get directly from Phnom Penh to Bali, so we decided to take a short layover in Singapore. After arriving early in the evening, we went into the city and had dinner with Wei Kai Lee, one of Mike's buddies from Amherst. We headed back to the airport to check-in for our 2:30 am flight to Bali to find that it had been pushed back to 3:50 am. In fact, it was the last flight out of the night!

Sunday Funday, Cape Town Style

With all due respect to 3 Sheets, our favorite NY bar and Sunday home-away-from-home, we had a fairly memorable January 11, 2015. Also, for everyone in the freezing northern hemisphere and/or sitting at work on Monday morning, please accept our preemptive apologies...

The day got off to a rocky start, as the Patriots were struggling and losing to the Ravens when the clock struck midnight. However, by 3 am, the day improved as we watched the Patriots hold on for a dramatic win.

Following the game and what amounted to a quick nap, we got up and walked to the beach.

Happy Holidays from South Africa!

We are sitting at our hotel at the Johannesburg airport, about to meet up with the Johnston family and head out for safari, Christmas and New Years. We apologize for the lack of recent posts, but beleive it or not (likely not...), we actually have written posts for our time in Indonesia, Hong Kong, Namibia and Victoria Falls! However, our new excuse is that we have had pretty spotty internet access over the last two weeks and haven't been able to upload the 100 or so pictures we'd ultimately like to post. So bear with us and expect a flurry of posts early in 2015 when we will be spending about 3 weeks in Cape Town (assuming the wifi works at our AirBnB apartment, of course!). In the meantime, we've managed to post a few pictures here and there on Instagram, where you can find us at "alexisdjohnston" and "miguelitolanger." Happy holidays and happy new year!

Love,
Alexis and Mike

How they do Christmas trees in Bali:

And Scout celebrating her first Chanukah (thanks to Scott Langer for the photos!):

Needless to say, her stufffed dreidels didn't last long.

Cambodia...aka 40+ Pictures of the Angkor Temples

Even at the early stages of our trip, we both knew that this was going to be one of the harder posts to write. The Angkor temples - outisde of the northern Cambodian city of Siem Reap - are the most impressive collection of ruins we've seen to date (and are also unlikely to be surpassed). The scale is impossible to describe or capture on camera, but as always, we'll do our best. Oh, and we also spent a few days in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, which is a fantastic city in its own right.

But before we get there, the approaching holiday season has been a bit strange for us. When we run into scenes like this at the Bangkok airport...

Thailand Beaches

Other than food, Thailand is probably best known for its beaches, so we had no choice but to check out a few! We focused our time on three beaches on the Andaman Sea: Krabi, Koh Lanta and Phuket.

From Chiang Mai, we flew to the resort town of Krabi. Our hotel was beautiful, so we were pretty content to relax by the pool and beach during the day.

Chiang Mai

Before heading down to Thailand's famous beaches, we spent a few days in Chiang Mai. The most popular destination in northern Thailand, Chiang Mai is known for its temples, elephants, and (of course) food.

Beyond these Chaing Mai "basics," our first night in Chiang Mai coincided with the annual Lantern Festival, Yi Peng. We were extremely lucky in the timing of our visit, as the exact date of the festival isn't announced until just a few weeks in advance.

The main event is the release of thousands of lighted lanterns into the sky while making a wish. The resulting scene is really spectacular as the lanterns light up the sky for miles. Photos don't really do it justice, but we'll at least give it a try.

Laos

After a long hiatus...it's a two post day, so don't miss Northern Vietnam below as well!

Landlocked, and not as popular with tourists, Laos has a significantly more laid back vibe than the rest of SE Asia. We spent our time in 3 cities - Vientiane (the real capital), Vang Vieng (the tubing capital), and Luang Prabang (the tourist capital).

We travelled between these cities by bus...our first true SE Asian bus experience (the long delay was intentional). Though the distances aren't far, the road conditions make for a long journey. We will spare you the details, but while the scenery is beautiful, the terrain is mountainous and the roads are extremely windy and in poor condition. Let's just say we considered ourselves lucky to be in the fewer than 50% of passengers who made the trip without using vomit bags.

The roads:

Northern Vietnam

Our last stops in Vietnam were in the north, where we spent two days in the capital, Hanoi, sandwiched around a two day trip to Halong Bay.

Hanoi, while similar in size and pace to Ho Chi Minh City, seemed somewhat less "western-ized," i.e., we didn't see McDonalds or any other major chain stores or restaurants. Upon our arrival, we were treated to the most impressive honeymoon display to date in our hotel room.

Suppose they don't call it the "Hanoi Charming Hotel 2" for nothing.

Central Vietnam

This post is a tricky one. We have almost 450 pictures from the two cities we visited (Hue and Hoi An) and as we flipped through them, we realized that some folks might like them and others may find them boring. So, we decided to just post a ton of them (many without specific captions or descriptions) and you can make up your own mind!

Hue (pronounced "Hu-way", as we learned, much to our embarrassment), was the old imperial capital of Vietnam. As such, there are many ruins and tombs throughout the area.

Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam

We arrived in SE Asia with virtually no plans, so when we started reading about Phu Quoc - a small island being touted as Vietnam's next big thing - we figured we would adopt the Vietnamese mindset, "why not?"

Located off the southwest coast of Vietnam, and just a 45 min flight from Ho Chi Minh City, the island is quite quaint with abundant, beautiful beaches that are still relatively untouched. However, this is likely to change in the near future, as there is a staggering amount of construction on the island (and as we would soon discover, in many of the coastal Vietnamese towns as well). Perhaps the best indicator of things to come is the brand-new airport that just opened in anticipation of increasing tourism over the coming years.

Ho Chi Minh City

Luckily, Singapore eased us back into city life, because we were thrown into SE Asia city-living head first in Ho Chi Minh City.

The city is growing quickly and is literally buzzing as a result of the millions (yes, millions) of motorbikes on the road.

Singapore

Fully rested and sick of ice cream (nah, who are we kidding?!), we eased into the Asian leg of our trip with three days in Singapore - city shots are back!

Maldives

You'll likely notice that we are officially way out of order now. To prevent ourselves from falling further behind, we decided to skip ahead to the (almost) present in an attempt to update more frequently. But don't worry, we'll be sure to fill-in the rest of the European cities at some point. As the chronology gets more and more jumbled going forward, if you're looking at the desktop version of the site, you should be able to click on a European city on the map and it should take you to that post. So stay tuned for posts on Oktoberfest, Alexis's drunkest night to date (you'll be surprised where it happens!) and the dramatic conclusion to Mike's European root canal saga.

Which brings us to the Maldives! We called this week of our trip our official "honeymoon," in part to justify how expensive and out of the way it is, but it ended up being worth every penny.