The Long and Winding Road

So since our departure from Thailand, we have finally arrived in Zion National Park, Utah. We made a beeline for the area, spending 3 weeks in the Philippines hanging out with my cousin, Eloy. Then we hit up Brett's homeland of Oregon, spent time with his family and friends, bought a car, got geared up for camping, and thanks to his mom Sharen, put together some last minute details for the wedding. We took the LONGEST way possible to get from Grants Pass, OR to San Francisco, taking every scenic byway we could. The trip took 14 hours. While it was a gorgeous trip, we won't be doing that again. We arrived in San Fran where I got to reconnect with old High School and Peace Corps friends. We continued on to Lake Tahoe to visit another friend then traveled down the loneliest road in America (Hwy 50) through Nevada stopping to camp at Great Basin National Park. We went on a cave tour, got back on the road, and finally arrived at Zion National Park. The scenery coming in kept smiles on our faces. As we drove into the park, I kept laughing at how ridiculously beautiful it all was. Words fail. We're here, last details have been cemented and now we will be enjoying the park while we wait for our family and friends to arrive for the big date. Brett's mom will be arriving early as well as his brother and some friends. It's all very exciting. Here's a photo progression of our journey.

My birthday present: Parasailing at White Sands Beach, Mindoro, Philippines

With my cousin and his friend in Puerta Galera, Mindoro, Phil.

Baby Bump in front of our new car! Portland, Or.

With friends and family in front of Multnomah Falls.

With Sharen and Jack in the Lava Caves.

A garden complete with unicorn, pegasus, and elephant:
The hard work of a 3 year-old girl and I while visiting friends in Grants Pass, OR.

California!
Redwood Forest.

California Poppies along the highway.

We couldn't drive through because of our roof carrier.

So we parked on top of a tree instead.

Highway 1, the Shoreline Highway in California
Again.

Little River Inn where we had an surprisingly AMAZING dinner.

Their garden

Driving into San Francisco at night.

Brett and I in front of Bridal Veil falls.
Apparently there are alot of "Bridal Veil" falls.

Entering South Lake Tahoe! Pretty, woodsy, mountains!

Tempting.

A shoe tree along the highway

Pony express territory in Austin, NV

Loneliest Road driving into the Great Basins

Deer? Elk? Moose?

Marmot!!!!!!!!

Barn swallow takes flight at our breakfast cafe.

Dead drunk things in cars
Its a drunk dead horse.

Another Roadside Attraction


Entering Great Basin National Park

The very, very ornate Lehman's Cave

Great Basin NP

Marmot Crossing

Cows on skateboards crossing into Utah!


Entering Springdale, UT and the Zion NP Area.

Our first home in the US.

Our backyard

Our Kitchen

Our Living Room

Our Bathroom

Overwhelming? Perhaps.

A whirlwind doesn’t even begin to describe my/our past 5 months. Since I left off in Phenom Penh, it goes something like this:

·Go to Siem Reap. See Angkor Wat by bicycle. Try not to frown at the throngs of Japanese tourists endlessly posing in the places where I would like to take a picture of Angkor Wat WITHOUT Japanese tourists in the shot. See a floating village in the middle of a lake. Make friends with a wonderful Indian guy who is also a fabulous shopping partner.

· Go to KL to meet with a friend and former coworker, Sara.

· Go to Sumatra with Sara and trekked around in our quest to see more orangutans up close and personal. Mission accomplished.

· Say goodbye to Sara and take up with an unlikely duo (young, quiet, singer/songwriter/climber from Cali and a very verbose older organizational psychologist living in Houston, prouder than any native Texan to be living in Texas) as travel partners to Lake Toba where we explore the island on the lake by scooters and almost get trapped in the mud. Pass little girl on water buffalo.

· Return to Bangkok just in time to join Brett and our friends on a trip to Koh Samet.

· Meet up serendipitously with other friends in Koh Samet, eat mediocre to bad food but get plenty of beach, kayak, and massage time.

· Return to Bangkok.

· Leave for Chiang Mai. Trek for 2 days and wade through a long river cave lit only by bamboo torches.

· Spend a lovely New Years with old friends and coworkers in Mae Rim, north of Chiang Mai.

· Return to Bangkok.

· Go to India (Kerala to be exact).

· Go to Varkala Beach.

· Go to Amritapuri, the ashram of India’s Hugging Saint, Amma. Get hugged.

· Go to Sivananda Yoga Ashram. Do yoga. Chant. Meditate.

· Find out I got into the University of Sussex. Barring an exceptional financial reward package from Clark, decide that we’re probably going to Sussex.

· Go through the Panchakarma treatment program at the ashram and do not fare well. The program, which is almost medieval in terms of the amount of discomfort I had during the treatment caused an intense and unwavering nausea and repulsion to food as well as anything oily. The treatment included a lot of oil going on my skin, up my nose, down my throat, and up my, well, you can figure that out.

· Meet absolutely lovely people, many of whom are from England which – at the time- I considered my soon-to-be-home, who help me through this horrible period and brought me apples and water. Apples were the only thing I could stomach. Consider that never in my life have I ever actually desired an apple. But there I was, searching for apples.

· Ditch the ashram as soon as the treatment was over in search of food that didn’t make me want to throw up. But, not before I got my headstand down pat.

· Go to the same beach that I went to where I first arrived.

· Return to Bangkok and still feel pukey from Panchakarma.

· Talk with Brett and decide it would be good to try to defer Sussex for a year and make money in the Middle East.

· Find out from Sussex that we can’t defer. Mentally prepare to move to England in the fall.

· Welcome Brett’s mom, Sharen, to Bangkok. Try not to kill her with Bangkok traffic and spicy food. Try not to puke on her. Continue to blame Panchakarma.

· Go with Brett’s Mom to Krabi. Feel awful the whole time and dry heave and throw up all over the place. Try not to let Brett’s Mom die of heat stroke. (No pictures to include here due to constant puking activity and the cursing of Panchakarma.)

· Return to Bangkok. Find out I’m pregnant. It wasn’t the Panchakarma after all.

· OMG. I’m pregnant.

· Realize that there’s no way to go to England, afford grad school and have a baby on the first week that school starts. Decide to go to Austin to have the baby.

· Go to Chiang Rai with Brett and his Mom. Try not to have a heart attack while Brett’s Mom had several close calls while driving a scooter. Later, happily take over driving duties from Brett’s Mom.

Sightsee.

Brett and Sharen did a 1 day trek while I stayed in movies.

· Go to Laos for the Gibbon Experience. Sharen twists her ankle on the way out of the hotel as we walked to the GE office. The GE includes about 3 hours of hiking up Laotian jungle and zip lining across the jungle canopy and staying in tree houses. We are understandably concerned.

· Sharen, being the trooper that she is, insists on continuing on and Brett fashions an ace bandage from a strip of t-shirt.

We all hike, Brett blazing along while I dry heave and vomit all over the Laotian jungle and Sharen hobbles up mountains on a strained ankle. We do this for 3 days.

· Return to Thailand and go to Chiang Mai. I relax while Brett and Sharen sightsee. Lose Sharen’s camera only to find it the next day via an honest tuk-tuk driver. Whodda thunk?

· Return to Bangkok and say goodbye to Sharen.

· Find out I was accepted to Clark University with a 40% tuition fellowship. Think about going to Clark and having the baby there.

· Pack up our belongings and decide to try to defer Clark for one year. We read somewhere it’s possible. Return to Austin plan.

· Say goodbye to Thailand and our friends there.

· Go to the Philippines. Pat ourselves on the back for our transition out of Bangkok being MUCH smoother than our transition out of Japan. We DO learn!

So there you have it. In the span of 5 months we have mentally prepared to live in four different places in three different countries. And we get married in little under 2 months. And we’re having a baby.

That said, we’re enjoying the calm before the storm in the Philippines while walking around the city in search of air conditioning. The nausea of the 1^st trimester is s l o w l y subsiding and I am again able to experience emotions like excitement. We’re excited about how things have actually played out. We’re excited to see family and friends again. And have a big ‘ol American style apartment. Oh, and have a baby.

For more pictures and a video of me ziplining into the tree house:

Chiang Rai - Laos - Chiang Mai, Feb - March 2010

In the words of one old man

Brett and I are a big fan of the somewhat crass but exceptionally funny website, "Shit My Dad Says."

For our current circumstances we have found his pearls of wisdom:

"It's never the right time to have kids, but it's always the right time for screwing. God's not a dumbshit. He knows how it works."

Yup. We're pregnant.

Phnom Penh: Recovery

After a grueling day 12 hour bus ride on a bus that didn't work,

I arrived at the Phnom Penh bus station to a convenience store containing kettle chips. I do love kettle chips. A few minutes later a friendly and welcoming Spanish documentary filmmaker came along on a motorbike and took me to join him with his friends at a Cambodian BBQ restaurant. This wasn't a chance meeting. He was the couchsurfer who graciously let me stay at his apartment during my time in the city. His apartment was a welcome change to the endless strings of guesthouse. I enjoyed a morning coffee on the terrace staring out into the city that was ravaged by the Khmer Rouge and in a state of recovery. My host was fairly busy with different projects but was so kind as to show me around in the limited time that he had.

In the afternoon, I made my way to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, also known as S-21. As you can tell from its name, it was a rather heavy afternoon. The former prison turned memorial gives you a glimpse into what occurred here. Blood still stains the floor. Rooms are lined with pictures of those who were killed both within the walls or executed in the killing fields. The pictures, headshots of the victims contained the span of human emotion, from beaten down and defeated to indignant and defiant.

In one of the buildings, the rooms are partitioned into cells. On the first floor, the partitions are cement. Visitors can walk down the aisle in the middle of the rooms and look into the different cells, entering them if you chose. On the second floor, the partitions are made of wooden walls. Visitors are given similar freedom as on the 1st floor but I couldn't bring myself to walk in. The wooden cells gave me a feeling of present evil. I stood frozen, looking at a cell and then turned and continued upstairs.

The museum had a guestbook and a small space under some stairs where people graffiti'd the walls with messages. Messages such as RIP, and "so sad" but it was the messages that said "Never again" that made me frustrated and angry. Has the writer watched the news lately? Sudan, Congo, Somalia its happening again. It's happening right now.


I left the compound and wandered the different stores. They were filled with goods and handicrafts attempting to give people a better livelihood. Cambodia, a land filled with friendly, smiling people has a long road of reconstruction ahead littered with traps of corruption and greed. I suppose that can be said for many countries. The city itself is filled with activity and it's hard to imagine it as the ghost town it became after it was evacuated by the Khmer Rouge. After returning to the apartment, my host and I shared a beer with a friend at a bar then retired to a nice, relaxing dinner and a movie. The movie: A Series of Unfortunate Events.

After another lazy morning, I headed off to Siem Reap.

Si Phan Don: Buck up, you're still on vacation.

They can't all be wonderful days, can they? From Pakse, I signed up for a tour to kayak in Si Phan Don which means Four Thousand Islands. It's a part of the Mekong river littered with little islands and broken up with waterfalls and one of the few habitats of the beluga-looking irrawaddy dolphins. The tour did not start off well, starting with a rude mini-van driver followed by a less than confident guide telling me it was his first time to do this. At some point, the scenery took care of my mood. We saw some lovely waterfalls.


My inexperienced guide had us join up with a group with a guide who actually knew where he was going. We paddled out to Cambodia, to a lookout of the irrawaddy dolphins' stomping ground. We hung out and looked and looked and nothing. Disappointed, we climbed back into our kayaks and rowed away. But in our rowing, we saw them. Small little rounded dolphin backs rolling up and out of the water. Dozens of them. We took turns pointing them out, then set off, paddling into the sunset. What started on low notes definitely ended in a high note.




Back on land, I found amazingly cheap accomodations. Amazingly cheap. So cheap, I didn't have much desire to spend much time in the room. So I didn't. I went of for dinner and some well-deserved beer after a rather emotional rollercoaster of a day. I met more lovely people to pass the night drinking and conversing with and one little kitten who routed into my nap. It's impossible to have a bad time with a kitten in your lap and a Beer Lao in your hand. Traveling is always good. Even when it's not.