So...after a year and a half and 8 countries later, we are ready to settle back into urban Nebraska life…for a while anyways. Ely thinks the title of this blog is an outright lie. We can’t say we’ve been to 8 countries, she says, since doing so would include our own country, the US. I am just going by what the Travelblog service tells me, 51 entries in 8 countries. I have recently been contemplating putting these last 6 months of wondering travels on my résumé, citing them as valuable experiences which add to my marketability as an employee. I don’t [View Full Entry]

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Uncle Mo had so much fun meeting us in China that he decided to meet us in yet another country. This time, in Honduras. Though the people, the food, and the surroundings were entirely different, the ease of passing time together remained the same. We could be in the Arctic Circle in bikinis and still enjoy the company of our uncle. For Mogens, we decided to squeeze 2 months of our experiences in Honduras into 2.5 days. He traveled like a youngster here, jumping from rocks into spring fed pools, refusing to take unnecessary showers (or any showers at all come [View Full Entry]

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After spending 3 weeks at the farm with Ely´s grandparents, we moved our way closer to the coast, staying with her aunt and uncle for a week in 17. The name of the town is 17 because it is 17 kilometers from the nearest bigger city, Tela. Not exactly the most creative of names, but it does the job. Sort of reminds me of something we read a while back. In Bali, they give their first born the name ´1,´´the second born ´2,´ and the third born... you get the picture. So there are a lot of 1´s 2´s 3´s and [View Full Entry]

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The blood was sure running through our veins when we took off for our next adventure, gripping the handles with both hands on the sides of our seats. Little did I know that that was the only thing that was going to be running, or going at all remotely fast for that matter. The pace of life here is definately on a whole different level. Little did I know. The police officers in the airport weren´t wearing uniforms, only in street clothes. They had big guns. Maybe they were just civilians. Wasn't expecting that either. So far, we have stayed with [View Full Entry]

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Well...we finally made it back to the great state of Nebraska. We were anxious and happy and sad to be back, paradoxially, all at the same time. The weather is going to take some getting used to. We have been spoiled by 80 degree heat. But, nothing feels better than being back in the presence of our families, making up for lost time. Sometimes it feels like we just left last week, and now we are back, when in reality it has been almost 1.5 years. And friends...well... the good ones, they are seriously hard to find! Another perk of being [View Full Entry]

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After 30 days in the country, tourists need to head out to get a new stamp and a fresh 30 days. Our northern trip was for this purpose. We have enjoyed taking the local buses around this area. They are dirt cheap, and you get to be around the locals more, who are very pleasant and friendly. We spent 1 night in Mae Sai. In the evening, we found a guest house where the South African manager briefed us on the area. There are legal border crossings, and also illegal ones. While on the balcony, he told us we were actually [View Full Entry]

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We stayed in Chang Mai for a couple of days, then bused off a few hours to Pai. The bus ride was ridiculous. It was an early morning gig, so we thought we could catch a few z's on the road. The mountainous highway road sports incredible views of the forest, but has more hairpin turns than....well...difficult to make a metaphor out of that, but it had a lot of them..over a 1,000. Enough of them to throw us around the bus and give both of us uneasy stomachs. Pai is a really small town, yet it is overwhelmed with foreigners. [View Full Entry]

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After N'Gai we were ready to go north. Because I am such a tight ass with money, flight travel is simply out of the question. Therefore, we need to use the train, and mostly the bus system. Ely was frustrated because it just takes a lot of time to get from south to north. She didn't want to waste 2 days getting somewhere. So, we took a 1 hour boat ride to the mainland, then a 1 hour ride to Trang, a decent size city with public buses linking it up with Bangkok. We then mozied around town for a few [View Full Entry]

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An ad in Pai lured us to a small village near Soppong, about an hour and a half from Pai. Albert, an eccentric expat American, married a Lisu woman and offered a home stay program in her village, where he now lived. The Lisu people are a semi-nomadic people originally from eastern Tibet. They have been around for thousands of years, gradually making their way down to Thailand, Laos, and Burma. Compared to other ethnic groups, they remain largely as they were many years ago. Wow, you really should see these buses the locals use for means of transportation. They've gotta [View Full Entry]

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I think on every traveler's odyssey, at least in Thailand, an attempt is made to 'get away from it all' and find your own private little paradise. Koh N'Gai was our place. After an hour long boat ride from Lanta, we were there. Our guidebook said something about this island being Robinson Crusoe-like without an indigenous population. Whatever that means, we soon realized the comforts we appreciate so much on more traversed islands were no-where to be found here. No convenient stores, Electricity is only on from dusk to dawn, no cars, no motorbikes, no ROADS!! You get the picture. We [View Full Entry]

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