Beach – Worn Out Shoes

Raja Ampat

June 3, 2019June 18, 2019ryankate889

If you’re wondering how to get to paradise, you should know that getting there is not quite as easy as being there. For us, the process was as follows:

Schedule a doctor’s appointment to get malaria medication and begin taking it several days prior to the trip
If you’re leaving in winter, are far away from an airport and trying to take as little as possible with you to the tropical destination (as we were), stave off frost bite as you spend an entire day commuting to the airport in freezing temperatures wearing nothing but jeans and a light sweater
Board a plane for Indonesia
Spend a week or two traveling around the country (optional, but recommended)
Take a red eye flight to Sorong after spending the night on an airport bench under the glow of a television screen airing coverage of the CrossFit Games
Arrive in Sorong and haggle with a taxi driver to take you to the ferry dock
Buy ferry tickets and board the cramped, liberally air-conditioned cabin for Waisai
Shiver to stay warm for the hour-long ride all the while listening to and watching the offensively bad Indonesian pop music videos on the cabin’s TV
Arrive in Waisai and wait in line for an hour to pay $70 for a permit to enter said paradise
Take an hour-long motorboat ride across choppy waters with no shaded protection from the sun overhead
Arrive in paradise

Are there more convenient routes to take there? Probably, but this was the one available to us and, as we would quickly find, the hassle of getting to paradise is a worthwhile price to pay.

22384432 — The view of our bungalow and island from the ocean

While the collective idea of paradise, uninhabited beaches on remote islands void of responsibility and stress, has many representatives around the world, ours was located in Batanta, one of the four islands the make up Raja Ampat, or four kings, a Papuan archipelago lying at the easternmost edge of Indonesia.

For many visitors to Raja Ampat, accommodation comes in the form of a homestay, which usually consists of one to several bungalows lying on the beach or overtop the ocean itself, most of which are owned and operated by locals. Choosing to go the traditional route, we stayed at Yenaduak Homestay, which was run by a man named Sam and consisted of four bungalows that lied within ten yards of the ocean. Having seen pictures of similar scenes on postcards and in magazines for most of our life and assuming them to be unattainable, we were surprised at times to find ourselves actually staying in such a place.

24158418 — Our bungalow and the ocean which lied just steps away

The thatched bungalow consisted of a bed, one small table and a bathroom with a seatless toilet that also functioned as a sink. To flush, we would have to use a ladle to wash the toilet’s contents through its pipes. The ladle also served as our shower and, since the color of the ground water that filled it looked murkier than the contents of the toilet bowl at most times, we made the easy decision to forego showers for our week’s stay.

18468594 — The inside of our bungalow with our bed covered by a mosquito net

18494527 — Our bathroom facilities. We used the red spigot to fill the bin with groundwater, which we would then ladle out to flush the toilet.

24249669 — One of our biggest fears before going to Raja Ampat was about what critters and insects would be sharing the bungalow with us. Luckily, this spider, which barely moved an inch during our stay, was the worst we would see. As for the worst we wouldn’t see, one night we woke up to a large thud near the window of our bungalow followed by the scampering of heavy feet and scraping of claws across the floor and walls. As the island is home to large tree lizards (most notably the Varanus indicus–monitor tree lizard), we assumed that that was what it was. To our relief, it was gone by morning.

While far removed from anyone’s idea of luxury, we found the bungalow to be perfect, an idea furthered by its other feature, a front porch equipped with a hammock and two chairs that would bear the brunt of our lethargy during the lazy mornings and afternoons that are an inevitable byproduct of being on a remote island with no internet connection or phone signal.

The paradisiacal setting wasn’t the only reason people, us included, travel to the islands of Raja Ampat though for, as serene as the above water setting might be, what lies under it can’t be seen anywhere else on Earth. Home to 75% of the world’s coral species and over 1,500 different species of fish, the underwater world of Raja Ampat is one of the richest biodiverse ecosystems anywhere on Earth. Being lovers of snorkeling and aware that finding beautiful and intact coral reefs will be increasingly more difficult in the future we were eager to visit what many snorkelers and divers call the best place in the world for both.

37788864 — A sampling of the coral lying just off the shore of the homestay

40556480 — Schools of fish were a common sight…

38495232 — We even got to see more unique creatures like sharks, giant parrotfish, and this cuttlefish which was about the size of our torso.

So, with plenty to keep us busy below the ocean and plenty of lazy pursuits lying above it, our time on the island, while limited, was always well spent. A typical day went as follows:

23665227 — At dawn we would wake up to the sound of tropical birds cawing from the jungle behind us and waves gently lapping from the ocean in front…

WechatIMG284 — …and walk out to the beach to catch the sunrise.

Then we would get some coffee and sip it on our porch…

37742848 — …before heading out for a morning snorkeling session.

Once the tide got too low and the sun too hot to continue snorkeling, we headed back to our bungalow where we awaited the appearance of the green basket that signaled that lunch was ready (the basket covered the food to keep bugs out)

24084158 — Enjoying lunch, which sometimes happened alone and other times was in the company of our fellow guests at the homestay

24008567 — Afternoons were lazy and usually spent reading books…

…and playing mancala on a homemade board comprised of seashells and rocks we found on the beach.

37104448 — The coral reef sat so close to the surface of the water that, when the tide was low in the afternoon, it was very difficult to swim overtop of it. So, to know when it was okay to go snorkeling again, we would sit on our porch and wait until the fields of sea grass that sat in front of the coral were no longer visible above the water.

23452040 — After snorkeling, we would watch the sunset and eat dinner with the homestay’s other guests before going to bed.

Occasionally we would break from routine to explore the reaches of the shore:

25207029 — On one part of the beach there were dozens of these clinging to the burnt remains of a tree. When we got close to them they would skip across the water, using their tail to propel them.

19498230 — In one tide pool we saw this starfish that we thought was an octopus at first because it was writhing around in the water and then quickly tucked itself under a rock once it sensed our presence.

23217835 — Every now and then we had to remind ourselves to look up as the trees were often full of surprises as well.

With no proper waste disposal system, guests in Raja Ampat are encouraged to take all of their garbage with them upon leaving the islands. Only being there a week, this was very easy for us to do. However, there was nothing we could do to stop the collection of plastic on the island’s beaches. Even after collecting all of it one morning, by the afternoon a fresh supply had washed ashore.

Apart from exploring the immediate surroundings of our homestay, we would also go on a few of the excellent tours that Sam offered guests. The first was to see Wilson’s bird-of-paradise. Never having gone bird watching before, we had a naive pie-in-the-sky picture in our minds of what it would be: the now laughable image of casually strolling through the jungle while birds of all colors and sizes swooped overhead and perched themselves on nearby branches for our enjoyment. Our first indication that it would not be so easy was when Sam told us that we would be leaving for the tour at 3:30 the next morning so that we could get to the lookout in the cover of dark without the birds seeing us.

After waking up at 3:00, having considerable debate about which clothes to wear, and boarding the boat which nearly tipped over a couple of times as everyone got situated, we were on our way. It was slow goings at first as we had to maneuver around the coral reef that boxed the bungalows in to the island. One thing we really liked about Sam and his family was that they always took precautionary measures to make sure that the boat and motor weren’t running over the reef and damaging it. In the pre-dawn darkness, this meant pulling up the motor, using a flashlight to see where the coral was, and then using a long stick placed where the coral wasn’t to push the boat out to sea. Once the reef dropped off, Sam put down the motor and sped away.

With nothing much to look at other than the faint outlines of islands standing against the nighttime sky, our attention turned to the water below, whose unwavering blackness was interrupted by the fluorescent glow of tiny jellyfish which speckled the water. There are many times when the ocean emulates the sky above it, but this was the first time we had experienced it doing so at night, the hundreds of jellyfish illuminating the black water much in the same way the stars do the sky.

As the world brightened, the glow of the jellyfish faded and our attention shifted to the scenery above water. Surrounding us were a handful of islands which sat sleepily behind clouds of mist that were much more vigorous in their early morning pursuits as they hurriedly pushed past the islands in route to blending into the overcast sky above. On the shores of one of these islands our boat would finally slow to a creeping pace as we floated inland, past groves of trees that marked the fringes of the island’s reach into the ocean. The trees, whose exposed and gnarled roots clawed menacingly out of sight into the water below, created an eerie setting when paired with the gloominess of pre-dawn.

22173424 — Our boat floating through the mangroves after bird watching (it was too dark to capture the trees before it)

As our boat approached a mound of gloppy mud that marked the inner-island’s shore, we emphatically disembarked and began a mad march through the jungle in a race against the sunrise. As we traipsed through swampy patches of earth and pushed through fields of reeds that stretched up to our waists, we were thankful that our wardrobe choice earlier in the morning included hiking boots and long sleeves, both of which we deemed essential to traverse the dark and wet jungle. Our adventurous spirits were put to shame though as we looked ahead to Sam who was walking barefoot over the broken twigs and jagged rocks scattered about the ground and wearing nothing more than a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, which he would later remove. In the Darwinian image of survival, Sam was most definitely the fittest.

The end of our trek was marked by a climb up a steep and muddy hill where we used trees and vines to pull ourselves up to the lookout – a collection of tattered boards lying behind an equally tattered screen meant to keep us hidden from the elusive bird of paradise. As we climbed onto the wet and muddy boards, a couple of which snapped in two while walking across them, Sam gave us some leaves to sit on while we waited for the bird, which was far from a guarantee. Luckily for us, Sam was quite experienced at eliciting the presence of the bird which he did by the almost comically simplistic task of tossing a couple of wet, brown leaves onto the wet, brown earth in front of the screen. Wondering if a trick had been played on us at first, we were quickly applauding the technique as the cartoonishly colorful bird swooped down and began clearing the leaves away. The male birds, as it turns out, are known for setting up their own display courts on the jungle floor where they perform dances for potential suitors. As a dirty court could spell doom for a bird’s chances at securing a mate, they work tirelessly to keep them clear of debris which explained the irritation and immediate rebuttal of Sam’s having made a mess in this particular bird’s court.

WechatIMG312 — Waiting for the bird to arrive, which took around two hours

20599419 — While waiting for the bird to appear, we became entranced by a millipede on the ground that we confused for a snake at first due to its size.

Despite our close proximity to the court, the bird still managed to prove elusive as our line of vision was often hindered or blocked entirely by the screen in front of us. Still though, we luckily managed to get a couple of photos of the brilliant bird which we were surprised to find out later only existed on this and one other island in Raja Ampat and was quite rare to see in the wild.

20637830 — Even high in the trees above the bird was captivating

21207135 — Hiking back through the jungle

Before going back to our homestay, Sam stopped off at another point on the island to show us a waterfall.

21737177 — The path leading up to the waterfall

22096854 — Ancient-looking trees were a common sight in the jungle around the waterfall

Apart from seeing Wilson’s bird-of-paradise and the waterfall, Sam would also take us to swim with manta rays and go on another, less fruitful, hornbill watching tour. Through our sporadic conversations with him over the course of the week, we learned that he originally worked in a mine with his brother. After the mine collapsed one day, killing his brother, Sam’s dad convinced him to take a safer job working at a resort. While sweeping leaves and picking up plastic that had washed ashore day after day, Sam would hang English words from trees and memorize them as he went back and forth clearing debris off the beach. Eventually, once he had an adequate level of English, he decided to open his own homestay which had expanded from one bungalow to four at the time of our staying there. As more people become aware of one of the last paradises on Earth, we hope that it can remain a paradise, where visitors support locals and everyone recognizes and respects the incredible wildlife that exists there.

Sam (in the red hat) with our bungalow in the background as we left Batanta

Read on for a poem by Kate:

Musings from an Amateur Ornithologist II

Hidden between trees
in the shadowy dawn
rustles a millipede,
gliding over dry leaves,
serpentine, but for his baleen legs
swinging in tandem.

In the canopy,
a regal song rings out,
piercing the morning air
with its vibrato.
The bird,
holding court in paradise,
flutters from branch to branch
dancing for us onlookers,
aware, yet determined to remain aloof.
A flash of red,
a glint of blue,
swooping to the ground,
then flying off to the latticework above,
leaving us awestruck,
reflecting on the privilege
of being granted an audience.

Meanwhile,
the thousand-legged jester
continues his crawl
across the forest floor.

Trincomalee

December 17, 2017June 18, 2019ryankate889

If asked to picture a romanticized version of train travel, your mind may disappear into black and white images of women in Victorian dresses waving handkerchiefs at a departing train or to the Hogwart’s Express chugging through the British countryside or perhaps even into the lyrics of a Johnny Cash song. Where this question will most likely not take you is to Sri Lanka, a place that people don’t normally think about when it comes to train travel or in any other context for that matter. Yet, from the moment we stepped up to the counter to purchase our first ticket in Colombo, we found ourselves entering a process that would charm us at every turn through the duration of our journey through the country.

Our train winding through the Sri Lankan countryside

Our heads usually weren’t the only ones poking out of the train’s windows and doors

The unattainable nostalgia that trains evoke first hit us in the station itself. Train timetables etched in chalk hung from the walls, hand drawn signs as worn and outdated as the language they used directed you to the “Gent’s Room” or the “Ladies’ Waiting Area,” workers dressed in a crisp white paced about the platforms in anticipation of the next train’s arrival, and each train’s departure was accompanied by a last call before slowly setting itself in motion.

A train table hanging from the wall at Gal Oya Junction

Passing the time during a layover at Gal Oya Junction

On the train, a moderate clickety-clack marking the trip’s passage eased us into a state of sustained comfort as we watched the lush Sri Lankan landscape pass away outside our window. Vendors frequently made their way down the aisles, their walk a contained stagger as they battled the sway of the train. Fried treats and tropical fruits filled the baskets slung around their necks as they called out the details of the treat in tow in a repetitive fashion that slowly faded as they passed further away. It was from one of these vendors that we bought one of the most delicious cups of tea we’ve ever tasted, a sweet concoction that was poured shakily into a paper cup and practically boiling as it spilled over the cup’s fragile edges and onto our legs. As avid train lovers, the experience was blissful and despite being on the train for nearly half the day, we were a little disappointed when we reached our destination, the beach town of Trincomalee.

If we grew tired of our seats, we could always go sit in the train’s doorways…

After several long plane rides, even longer layovers, a lengthy train ride however enjoyable, and our fair share of travel frustrations along the way, a few days stay on the beach was an appreciated finale to our summer travels through Myanmar and Sri Lanka. A short tuk tuk ride from the train station brought us to our hostel: Orion Beach Way, which sat a mere two minutes walk away from Uppuveli beach. Wanting some sense of adventure in the relatively unadventurous setting of a beach, we decided to book a cabana instead of one of the hostel’s standard rooms.

While the appearance of the cabana, walls made of wooden planks and a roof of leaves, excited us upon seeing it, once inside we found that our proximity to the nature outside was a little too close for comfort. No better example of this could be found than with our bathroom. When you first enter your hotel bathroom, there are many things you are hoping to find such as free bars of soap, a plush, luxurious towel, an elaborate bathtub and so on. What you don’t want to find are palm-sized spiders that, when they move, stand erect on all of their legs before darting menacingly across the floor and out of sight. You also don’t want to turn on the light to find a startled squirrel rabidly crashing around before leaping over your head and squirming through the hole it came in from. Sadly, as you might have guessed, our cabana had none of the former and all of the latter. Like checking for a zombie before entering a room, each trip to the bathroom, and into the cabana for that matter, entailed a fierce banging on the door a few times before entering. However, in spite of these unfortunate encounters, we did enjoy our stay in the cabana not only for the uniqueness of it but also for the shady refuge it provided us during Trincomalee’s unbearably sweltering afternoons.

Spiders and squirrels weren’t the only creatures calling our cabana home; we found this lizard scuttling about on our roof

However enjoyable our time on the beach was, it was nothing to write home about and certainly not worth mentioning in a blog as it consisted mainly of three components: sitting, swimming, and drinking. What was noteworthy about Trincomalee, like anywhere else we had gone in Sri Lanka up to that point, was its wildlife. The most immediate representation of this, the crow, could be seen from our beach loungers and just about anywhere else we cared to go along the coast. Taking the place of the familiar beach staple of sea gulls in both quantity and annoyance, the ominous creatures made it very clear that it was them, not people, who owned the beach. Nowhere was this more clear than one morning at breakfast when a crow swooped over our table and snatched a pancake from our plate shortly after it was set before us. As if this wasn’t agonizing enough, after doing so, the crow perched itself on a ledge a few feet away, refusing to eat the pancake dangling in its mouth for such a time that made us convinced we were being taunted.

Cricket was the game of choice on the beach

A crow snooping around someone’s discarded belongings

Apart from crows, another familiar sight on the beach were cows who either moved along the shoreline in a herd, busy to be somewhere as they moved at a pace that was hard to keep up with, or stood alone seemingly just as surprised to see people on the beach as people were it.

A herd of cows speeding off along the shoreline

This cow stood in the same spot the entire day watching all of the people intently as they walked past

However unfamiliar the familiar crows and cows were in a beach setting, we were hoping to see animals we couldn’t see back in Ohio or Iowa and more specifically ones that spent their time below water, not above it. To do this we would have to secure the help of a boat which wasn’t too hard to do as the only thing that seemed to outnumber the hostels and restaurants of the town were the dive shops whose shacks hugged the shoreline every hundred yards or so. The one we decided on for no good reason at all other than it was there, was called Trinco Water Sports. The owner had all of the charisma you could want from a beachside dive shop owner and gladly signed us up for a snorkeling expedition one day and a dolphin watching excursion the next (we had apparently just missed whale watching season which came at great disappointment to us).

A fisherman we passed on our way to Pigeon Island

For snorkeling we would have to venture to Pigeon Island which luckily inhabited none of its namesake bird and lied only a few hundred yards off the coast. After puttering up to the island’s shell-filled shores, we slipped on our snorkeling gear and dipped our heads beneath the surface. As we looked down the first thing that caught our attention was the hodgepodge of corals spanning all shapes and colors that rose up in a heaping fashion from the sea bed making it look like a landscape out of the pages of a Dr. Seuss book. The coral, however interesting in its veined textures and sporadic designs, quickly faded from our attention as the waters were teeming with life, the likes of which we had never seen before. Pufferfish teetered about like a toddler taking its first steps; families of cuttlefish squirted by; parrotfish swam about smugly, seemingly aware of their vibrant beauty; needlefish flickered into view, their long flat bodies only visible from the streaks of silver shooting across them as they swam; and blooms of gelatinous jelly fish floated by, each with neon streaks of red and green coursing through them that dared you to reach out for a quick touch; among others. All of it seemed hardly real as the mixture of creatures fluttering about our faces and out of the dark crevasses of the ocean floor were to us like a foreign entity, aliens living in another world that we were lucky enough to sneak a peek at.

The highlight of our snorkeling trip came as it neared its end. Separated from Kate at this point and sensing that our time was coming to a close, I ventured as far away from the island as I could, following the trail of slimy buoys floating on the surface that marked off a protected area of coral closed to snorkelers. After about fifteen minutes of this, and with a burnt back and increasingly tiring legs, I decided to hang up my flippers and swim back to shore. Just as I turned around to make the return journey, two black-tipped reef sharks, one about the size of me, swam within a few feet of my face. Now, logic should have told me that the sharks were harmless given that there were countless tourists that came to the island every day for snorkeling and, as far as I knew, none were ever attacked by the sharks that inhabit the reef. But, logic isn’t the first thing that crosses your mind when a shark glides past your face and you’re at least a fifteen minutes swim away from land. So, I gave a quick and pointless scream, swallowed some salt water in the process, and began flapping in a panicked manner towards shore. As adrenaline gave way to the biding logic that I was most likely safe, my mind became flooded with how incredible it was to see a shark in the wild, if only for a few seconds. After getting back on our boat, we motored back to shore, the entire way being mindfully aware of the plethora of life lying below the surface we were cruising over.

Passing the rest of the day away on the beach

Enjoying the refreshingly cool ocean water

The next day would see us returning to the same shack early in the morning for dolphin viewing. Our boat was scheduled to leave at the crack of dawn, but our fellow boat passengers had apparently missed the memo. As we watched the sun rise higher and higher on the horizon, our frustration turned to panic as boat after boat shot off from the shore. Most of them departed without a hitch, but a few struggled to get going due to their size and the fact that only the captain and a few others were attempting to push it. So, to pass the time, we decided to wade through the cool morning water to lend a hand. In one instance, a boat full of Chinese passengers watched in amusement as we helped dislodge the boat from the wet sand underneath with not one member of their party of twenty or so getting out to help, instead snapping pictures in our faces as we struggled to push their large party of the shore.

It would be good practice for when the passengers in our boat finally arrived behind the furious stomping of the boat’s captain who had to walk to their hotel to wake them up. With dark sunglasses covering their eyes and showing signs of being severely hungover, they stood and chatted while we pushed our boat into the water, upon which they hopped in alongside us with an infuriating aloofness amidst a spattering of accusations directed at one of their members who was a disappointment for having called it quits at 3 A.M the night before. At that moment, we couldn’t think of any worse a companion to have as we set off.

If we weren’t awake prior to boarding the boat, the ride to see the dolphins surely would have done the trick. The ocean, a dark navy blue in the slanted rays of morning, was violent, and our boat’s path traveled directly against the cresting waves it was mustering up one after the other. After shooting off each wave, we would crash down with a violent thud that we could feel in our bones, a process that repeated itself many times over before the boat finally came to a halt near the numerous other ones also on the prowl for dolphins. After the engine hummed to a stop, it didn’t take long for us to spot the rapid rise and fall of dorsal fins slicing the surface of the water in our direction and then past us and out of sight, after which the boat drivers scrambled to start their engines, shooting off in some communal direction in hopes of another sighting and happier client. The dolphins, intelligent as they are, probably found this all amusing as they drug us about from here to there, luring everyone in with their graceful sprint through the water.

The dolphins were extremely hard to capture as they moved very fast and our boat was rocking about

A lucky shot just before they slipped underneath the water again

Eventually the dolphins must have disappeared for good for our driver began heading back towards Trincomalee. Before making it back to the beach we would stop off for an impromptu snorkel session at a secluded rock far off the shore. The session, which we were thankful for, came at the request of our boat companions who had paid a little extra. With this in mind, it came as a surprise then when the group upon putting their snorkel gear on, swam directly to a small rock which they proceeded to climb on and smoke cigarettes for the duration of the 30 minute session.

The trip back to the beach was bittersweet. We had another great experience to add to the many we had already had in Sri Lanka, but our time in the country (and Myanmar before it) was at its end. As we skimmed over the now smooth ocean surface, a flock of flying fish jumped out in front of our boat, flickering into the sky for a few seconds before dropping back into the water, one last unexpected pleasantry in a country that had given us many.

Qingdao

August 26, 2016June 18, 2019ryankate889

When in a coastal town, the ocean, whether seen or not, can be felt. From the smell of the breeze coming in off the water to the rows of inner tubes and goggles stacked outside convenience stores to the lightness of the people ambling about, you’re always reminded that water is near. It’s a feeling we often crave, but hardly get to experience living in Shanghai, which, despite being a subway ride away from the Pacific, feels about as landlocked as Marshalltown, Iowa. So, with summer dwindling and with it our chances to enjoy the beach, we headed north to the city of Qingdao, which, we were pleased to find, was practically overflowing with the feeling of being on the ocean.

Wanting to make the most of the two days we had there, we booked the earliest flight we could find which served our itinerary well but required us to wake up at the unamusing time of 3:30 a.m. After sleepily staggering out of our apartment, we climbed into a miraculously free and waiting taxi, drove to the airport, boarded our plane, and were soon being greeted by our friends, Emmett and Olga at the arrivals gate. Unlike other trips of ours in the past, the purpose of this one wasn’t just to see the place, but also the people who lived there.

After saying our hellos, the first thing on the agenda, naturally, was breakfast. We went to a place near Emmett’s school and loaded up on the aptly named full English breakfast. Delicious as it was, the meal would have been best followed by a trip to the sofa, not to the beach as we had intended. In no mood to take our shirts off any time soon though, we decided to head to Qingdao’s Germantown instead to get a taste of the city’s historic side and walk off the gargantuan portion of food we had just devoured.

Like other coastal cities in China, Qingdao was the recipient of heavy Western influence at the turn of the 20th Century. While other ports like Shanghai or Hong Kong are best remembered for their French or British ties, Qingdao is remembered for its German ones. This influence has mostly disappeared over the course of the last hundred years but can still be seen today in the handful of centuries-old buildings scattered around the hillsides of the city, each one serving as a remnant of a bygone era.

As we began walking the streets of the Germantown, we found the most interesting thing to be not the buildings themselves, but rather the setting they were in. The two and three story structures would have looked perfectly normal lining the lanes of a European town, but they sat along the streets of a Chinese city which meant that the scenery and atmosphere that existed around them was a far cry from what one would expect to find in Europe. Shiny skyscrapers jutted up from behind their roofs, Chinese characters hung from their exteriors and souvenir shops selling stuffed anime dolls filled their interiors. Like an abandoned house reclaimed by the nature around it, so had the Germantown been overtaken by China.

All of this made the town rather enjoyable to walk through, which we did until our stroll carried us to within sight and smell of the ocean and we promptly left the curiously contrasting Germantown and headed towards the water.

With no beach in sight, we decided instead to explore the boardwalk and take in the scenery that accompanied it. There were pavilions and lighthouses poking up from the outcrops of land that dotted the water, the Qingdao skyline stretching out to sea until there was no more land left to accommodate it, amateur fisherman searching for clams and crabs in the crevasses left exposed by the low tide, and, of course, the people, who all seemed to be enjoying themselves thoroughly.

View of the lighthouse and pavilion from the boardwalk

While the sights were enticing, the thought of the beach loomed in our minds and we slowly made our way along the coast, winding through parks, both natural and industrial, before coming across the unimaginatively named “No. 2 Bathing Beach.” After arriving we filled up on ice-cold Tsingtao beer, our first of the trip, before tiptoeing out into the frigid water. If the beers had for some reason affected our ability to stay afloat, there was plenty of debris to grab onto whether it be the occasional bobbing chicken drumstick or the more unsettling unidentifiable floating objects that blocked our path to the open water straight ahead. After making it past the fleet of garbage, the ocean became much more enjoyable and we swam around in it for the rest of the afternoon.

Enjoying a well-earned beer after our walk along the coast

A nice view to accompany our time in the ocean

As the sun began to set, we were reminded of just how quickly the day had passed and decided to leave the comfort of the ocean and begin looking for a place for dinner. Our search took us back to Emmett and Olga’s apartment where we settled on a barbecue joint along the street. Instead of a menu, they had all of their dishes on display inside of a glass box. All we had to do was tell the waiter which things we wanted and they would gather it all up and cook it on the grill behind them. Worried that we might miss something delicious, we pointed to nearly everything behind the glass like eager children in a candy shop. If ever the phrase “eyes bigger than your stomach” was appropriate, it was here, a fact we soon realized as the slew of dishes that we had ordered began to be brought out to our table and, in a matter of minutes, there was no longer any room left to put things.

Bit by bit, we picked away at the mound of food before us, but our efforts were futile as more and more skewers of meat or tofu or dishes of fried eggplant were piled on top. By the end of the meal, we looked at the unfinished dishes before us not with delight but with disdain and the process of eating, a normally enjoyable endeavor, became a chore. As we picked away, we slowly began to realize that finishing the meal would be physically impossible so we hung up our chopsticks and called it a night.

Our agenda for our second day in Qingdao was beer-centric since the city is home to China’s oldest and most recognized beer brand, Tsingtao, as well as Asia’s biggest beer festival, which happened to be taking place during our visit. The night before we had excitedly looked up information about the festival in anticipation of going and were met with photos of packed beer gardens filled with smiling faces holding giant mugs of beer and testimonies of gleeful foreigners whose beer tabs had been covered by drunk Chinese businessmen. Eager to get in on the action, we hailed a taxi after eating breakfast, leaned in the window and told the driver the only word necessary to get us to where we were going: pijiu (Chinese for beer). To our delight, it was enough and we arrived at the festival without a hitch.

As we got out of the taxi, the scene before us was vastly different from the one we had seen in the pictures the night before. The shots of happy drunkards clinking their mugs together all had one thing in common: they were taken at night, which is usually when people go out for a beer. We were at the festival at 11:00 a.m., which is precisely not the time that people go out for a beer. After entering the festival grounds, we were met with the sight of endless rows of wooden tables sitting completely empty and, even though the festival opened at the alcoholic hour of 8:30, the workers seemed shocked and perhaps a bit judgmental as they watched us stroll through. The thought of getting a 1.5 liter mug of beer and sitting alone amidst the apocalyptic spread of empty tables was pondered briefly before being quickly abandoned and replaced instead with a trip to the beach. Beer festivals, as we now know, are not happening places before noon.

The closest we came to drinking a beer at the beer festival

What beer festivals look like before noon

The beach, on the other hand, was much more populated. As we were in a different part of Qingdao than the day before, we decided to skip the numbered bathing beaches that lied on the other side of the city for the more creatively dubbed Stone Man Beach, whose name came from the large rock sitting on the horizon which is said to look like a fisherman at sea. We didn’t see the resemblance, but then, at times, it seems that the entire creative capacity of the Chinese mind is spent on deciding what rocks look like, kind of like China’s version of cloud watching.

Confusing stone comparisons aside, the beach itself was great. The water, cool and refreshing, was much cleaner than the beach we had gone to the day before and the views, temple-dotted hillsides and an expansive beach that beautifully reflected the sky and people standing above it, much more accommodating. As we waded out into the water the afternoon slipped away and we soon found ourselves up at the boardwalk, snacking on some fried squid to keep our grumbling stomachs at bay.

After finishing our squid, we had a choice to make: return to the beer festival to see if it had livened up or go to the Qingdao Beer Museum. With a bad taste in our mouths from our first experience with the festival (or was it the squid?), we decided to go to the brewery for a tour and what we hoped would be a thorough sampling of the beer that they made there.

We were not disappointed on either front as both the tour and the hour-long free beer binge at the end were equally enjoyable. Perhaps the coolest part about the brewery were the buildings that contained it. Like the parts of Qingdao we had seen the day before, the architecture was uniquely Western. Big brick buildings draped in ivy with currents of wind running through them stretched up several floors, with some being capped by what appeared to be giant beer cans.

The first building we went into introduced us to the brewery’s history which dated back to its founding in 1903 by homesick Germans stuck in Qingdao. As we entered, we passed giant vats and machinery that had been used by the brewery during its infancy at the turn of the 20th Century. As we wandered further inward, black and white and then colored photos filled us in on everything that had happened since and we even got a brief glimpse into the beer making process, which, to our surprise, dated all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia where the drink was discovered by accident.

One of the big vats at the entrance of the museum

While the tour was interesting, it was noticeably lacking in the important category of actual beer. All the pictures and information about Tsingtao without the real thing had made us thirsty so we began making our way through the museum at a more ambitious pace, passing through various rooms and exhibits before finally making it to the end of the tour where we descended a staircase into a huge, wooden-clad room and began our one hour of limitless beer.

Surprisingly, this was one of Tsingtao’s labels long before World War II

The idea of all-you-can-eat or, in this case, drink, is always a tempting offer, but the reality of it is that, in one hour, you can’t really eat or drink all that much. This was true for everyone except Emmett, who, in the one hour allotted to him, managed to fill and finish four mugs of beer, prompting the bartender to declare that his fourth would be his last. Apparently the title of all you can drink is a courtesy and no one expects you to actually follow through with the offer.

Enjoying our beers at the end of the tour

After sitting and chatting for a couple of hours in the brewery, we headed across the street to grab a bite to eat. With bellies full of beer and feet wary of walking, we chose the nearest restaurant and ordered a spread of food in a similar fashion as the night before, though this tIme we were a bit more cautious as to how much we ordered. The warm atmosphere of the brewery carried over to the restaurant as did the conversation and, for the next couple of hours we sat and ate and talked until our plates and mugs were empty, upon which we hailed a taxi to take us back to their apartment.

Eating a starfish across from the museum

After getting back, we said our goodbyes and retired for the night. The next morning, we tiptoed out of the apartment to catch our 6 a.m. flight back to Shanghai, leaving our friends and Qingdao’s wonderful ocean vibe behind us.

Hoi An, Vietnam

June 19, 2016June 18, 2019ryankate889

As we dipped our feet into the warm ocean waters, taking in the last remaining traces of sunset, the sky before us caught fire. Deep oranges and reds sat hovering over the mountain-lined horizon, contained by a thick plume of dark and smoky clouds. We were barely two hours into our time in Hoi An, an ancient trading town along the coast of Central Vietnam, and were already beginning to discover the many charms it had to offer, chief among them beautiful scenery. To our delight, the fiery sky remained unchanged for the entirety of our time on the beach, but this didn’t stop us from looking up every few minutes to remind ourselves of where we were or what surrounded us. And so began the theme of our six days in Vietnam. It was never a matter of seeking out new things but rather making sure not to miss them. The sights and tastes and experiences were there, all we had to do was just walk out the door.

Long before coming on the trip we had designated our first full day in Hoi An as an unequivocal beach day. While we were aware of the abundance of cultural activities to do around the town and the limited nature of our itinerary, we were also aware of the novelty of being on the tropical shores of Vietnam and that, we deemed, deserved spending at least one day entirely sea or sand bound.

Our day, like all the rest, began with a free breakfast at our guesthouse, Loc Phat Hoi An Homestay, one of the most accommodating places we’ve ever had the fortune of staying at. Pho, a spicy beef noodle soup, was the dish of choice on the menu and we slurped up two delicious bowls of it before renting a couple of bikes and peddling off towards An Bang Beach, our first and only destination for the day.

Enjoying a hot bowl of Pho for breakfast

I’m not sure how one could feel eager to do absolutely nothing for an entire day, but that’s exactly how we felt as we parked our bikes at An Bang and began the short walk to the beach. As we approached it, we weren’t met with the view of an expansive blue ocean as we had expected but instead with a canopy of grass umbrellas, each with a pair of cushioned loungers neatly situated underneath, stretching across the sand as far as the eye could see. The umbrellas, we had read, belonged to one of the many restaurants looming overhead and we braced ourselves for what would surely be an onslaught of sales pitches to choose one over the other. Before our feet even touched the sand, shouts of “free chairs” filled the air, serving as lures meant to startle us into unwittingly committing to a certain set of loungers and therefore into getting all of our food and drinks from that particular restaurant for the rest of the day. However annoying the attention being thrust on us was, it seemed like a small price to pay for the comfort of cushioned seats and shade on an already hot day and we chose two loungers at random, thus beginning our day of nothingness.

As we sat in our loungers, the pleasant but unfamiliar feeling that comes with having no agenda or real sense of time in a place where the feeling is mutual overcame us. Our obliviousness to the rate at which the day was passing first became evident as we ordered two beers only later to find out that it was barely 10:00 a.m. For some reason, perhaps due to the fact that the sun was more overhead than before, we had assumed it was closer to noon. In any case, we savored the beers, especially the first few sips, knowing that the cold and refreshing nature of them would be quickly erased by the now sweltering midday heat.

As the beers warmed, our pace of drinking them quickened and, by the time we had finished, our appetites had grown and we abandoned our comfortable seats to fulfill the oath that had secured them for us in the first place. After painstakingly climbing the six stairs to take us from the beach to the restaurant, we sat down and rewarded our effort with an assortment of dishes, one of which was Vietnamese spring rolls, kicking off a six-day love affair with the crispy treat that was a far cry from any version we had had before.

The trajectory of our day after lunch stayed pretty much aligned with our pre-lunch activities of either sitting or swimming. By this point in the day, the latter of the two became more difficult as any trip to the bath-like waters of the ocean required a frantic sprint across the now scorching beach, igniting a series of “oohs” and “aahs” until our feet finally hit the refreshingly cool touch of the wet sand. In spite of this, we still went often and had even purchased some goggles to explore whatever life existed under the surface.

To our delight, there was plenty, most notably the scattered legions of jellyfish that had somehow managed to slip through the fleet of fishing boats sitting off in the distance. Unsure of whether they stung or not, we kept our distance aside from the occasional poke of their squishy caps with our fingers. It wasn’t until later when we unknowingly swam into a small crowd of them (they were sneakily transparent) that we realized they were, in fact, not the stinging type. Apart from the jellyfish, we also saw starfish, rainbow shrimp and even small colonies of hermit crabs, who, in this particular case, failed to live up to their name as there were hundreds of them clustered together on the sea floor.

One of the many jellyfish we encountered

The longer we were in the ocean, the more tempting it became to return to the shade of our loungers. And, usually after a half hour or so, we did exactly that, plopping our bodies down on their cushioned surface. While we sat, the rest of the afternoon slipped away as we took in the scenery around us. Looking out, our gaze couldn’t help but be drawn first to the mountains and islands in the distance, jutting out from the perfectly straight line separating sea from sky. A bit further in, boats bobbed on the otherwise open sea and heads and bodies eventually joined them, black silhouettes evenly spaced from one another so as to create the illusion that the ocean was theirs. Waves would move around them, washing ashore in their mesmerizingly endless fashion. On the beach, between the sea and the shade of umbrellas, not a soul was to be found, only fisherman’s boats which resembled a giant overturned tortoise shells or the occasional sandal or T-shirt that was thrust aside as its owner madly dashed from one heat haven to the other.

One of the beach bound tortoise-shell boats

For most of the day, this view remained relatively unchanged until the late afternoon when local Hoi Aners began arriving to the beach and the quiet wash of the waves became inaudible under the shouts and shrieks of children celebrating the end of another school day. It was strange for us to think of it being a normal day for them as well as imagine their lifestyle, a full day of work or school followed by a quick dip in the ocean.

Most people just wore their clothes into the water

That night, the sun set in as equally a spectacular fashion as the night before and we sat and watched as the sky was transformed into a canvas of colors. Wisps of clouds, which ran across it like brushstrokes, seemed to change color by the minute as the sun crept further into the horizon. As beautiful as it was, the colors, like the crowds, didn’t last long and began to fade as darkness set in and, with our enjoyably long day coming to an end as well, we grabbed a bite to eat before biking back to our guesthouse.

A fisherman taking his boat out for a night on the sea

With our beach day now behind us and eager for a taste of Hoi An’s historic side, we decided to spend our third day exploring its old town, a cluster of centuries-old buildings sitting along the banks of the Thu Bon River. After a pleasant 30-minute walk from our guesthouse, we arrived at the outskirts of the town and entered it through the “new market,” which, like most other parts of the town, resembled nothing close to what you would describe as new, starting with the people who occupied it.

Window shopping on the way to the old town

One of the many tailor shops we passed along the way

Old women, crouching under the shadow of their pyramid hats, lined the outer edges of the market, a rainbow of vegetables neatly contained in baskets spread out before them. Overhead, tourists and locals shuffled through each other in a manner that suggested that they were either unaware of the other’s existence or else didn’t care to acknowledge it. Baskets of chickens and ducks, slabs of meat, and even the occasional bucket of fish filled the spaces in between, leaving a hodgepodge of odors, none of which were in the least bit pleasant, lingering in the air. All of this, along with a temperature rapidly approaching 100 degrees, made for quite an uncomfortable atmosphere for 8:30 in the morning and we pushed through the market rather quickly, emerging into the immensely more charming lanes of the old town.

As we began exploring the town, the views stayed delightfully consistent. Two-storied houses and shops, stained in a mustard yellow, lined the lanes, their exteriors showing the effects of time with worn wooden panels hanging from their windows and long, streaky water marks running through their paint like age lines on a tree trunk. From their roofs, long locks of disheveled plants hung down, a mangled mane of vines and flowers exploding out of the clay tiles. Above the street, a web of wires and cables, from which dangled a colorful assortment of lanterns, stretched from one building to the next. The town looked every bit its age, but that was the point. When you stepped into it, you stepped back in time. Sure the interiors of the different buildings were redecorated and filled with souvenir trinkets and tailor shops, but if you could look past that, it wasn’t hard to imagine what life was like there centuries ago.

One of the more elaborate yellow-washed buildings in the town

Rooftop flowers providing a rare escape from the sun

As we wandered further into the town, we began to notice one of the few unpleasant things about it: a complete lack of shade. This was particularly problematic because, at 9:00 in the morning, we were barely into our day and already the fully harnessed power of the sun was beating down on our heads. At first we tried to beat the heat, slogging through the streets like a couple of snails with a trail of sweat in our wake, but, after about a half hour of this, we decided there was no beating it and opted instead to go inside one of the many buildings bookending the lanes to escape the sun. Among the abundance of options, we chose the Fujian Assembly Hall to serve as our oasis and happily entered into its moderately cooler, but abundantly less sunny interior.

Outside the front gate of Fujian Assembly Hall

All around Hoi An, there were assembly halls like the one we were entering, all of which were dedicated to different nationalities. Like the town itself, they were remnants of the bygone trading days, when merchants from all corners of the globe would set their sails for Hoi An to do business with the Vietnamese. As we stood in the same halls that a Chinese person undoubtedly stood in centuries ago, we couldn’t help but think just how different our journeys had been to get there. What would they have thought of us getting into a big, metal tube thousands of miles away, shooting off into the sky, and landing safely near the town just a few hours later?

View of the gate through the trees in its courtyard

After touring the hall, we ventured back out into the streets refreshed and ready to continue our exploration of the town. For the rest of the day, we made sure to take frequent breaks in the shady interior of a shop, and, when we did happen to be out in the sun and feeling sorry for ourselves, we would just have to look around at the local women to instantly feel better about our circumstances.

Most of them, to our shock, looked dressed for a blizzard, wearing jeans, two or sometimes three sweaters zipped up to their necks, gloves, big hats, and even face masks. We had also seen it on the beach the day before and, curious as to why someone would put themselves through that, we inquired about it and were told that Vietnamese society prefers women to have light skin, which we thought was a rather ambitious beauty standard for a tropical country. In any sense, it put into perspective any sort of misery we were feeling due to the heat and kept our complaining to a minimum.

A woman we had seen the day before on the beach

As the afternoon rolled around, we finally hit the edge of the town, marked by a 16th-century Japanese bridge, which looked in every sense the way a centuries-old structure should. The wood of its handrails, cracked and bare, had long since seen the refurbishing touch of a paintbrush, the porcelain that decorated its roof was either chipped or missing entirely, and the red paint covering its exterior was faded. But, like everything else in the town we had seen up to that point, it worked, which was the allure of Hoi An.

The roof with some of its plates missing

Outside the bridge before beginning our walk back

Despite being a very old place, it was neither in disrepair nor did you get the feeling of over-preservation as you walked through it. Everything fit so well together, even the different influences in architecture didn’t seem to clash. The faded red of the Japanese bridge didn’t look at all out of place in between the mustard yellow buildings, whose endless run along the lanes would be broken up by an occasional sky blue or teal storefront. It all worked, the age, the colors and we enjoyed every bit of it. As the day wore on though, we decided to leave the town for another day and head to the beach to take in another sunset.

We would pick up our fourth day in Hoi An where the third one had left off, near the ocean. For a majority of the day, we passed the time either in, around, or on the ocean. Our first stop of the day was Cham Island, which we would have to take a speedboat to get to. The ride there, while bumpy, was enjoyable and, after about twenty minutes, our feet were back on solid ground and our tour guide, who vastly overestimated his own English skills, began taking us around the island that he called home.

On the boat getting ready to head to Cham Island

One of the many fishing boats we passed along the way

One of the consequences of going on a tour, and the reason why we don’t take them unless we absolutely have to, is that the guide decides what you see and how long you see it. Often times, their ideas about these two things are vastly different from our own and this time was no exception. We were there for beaches and snorkeling, but upon arriving we were instead paraded around the island’s interior, making a stop at the village temple, going by the schoolhouse and eventually going through the village itself, which had long known the advantages of tourism as the streets were practically lined with vendors selling treats and trinkets. We appreciated the tour for what it was though, being grateful for the small pieces of information we were able to gather about the island we were inhabiting for the day.

Trying a sweet green bean treat on the island

As we began walking back to the boat, our tour guide sought us out (we were the only English speakers on the tour) to tell us a joke he seemed particularly proud of. As we mentioned earlier, his English was elementary at best and, because of this, we were only able to understand a few words of it. We gathered that it had something to do with two chickens comparing their breasts with those of humans with the punchline having something to do with claws. Confused, we asked him to repeat it again and, after the third time, we nervously laughed in a manner that wasn’t fooling anyone. That was the last time he talked with us for the rest of the tour.

After getting back to the boat, our next stop was to go snorkeling, the thing we had been most looking forward to on the tour. Ever since we had gone Boracay two years earlier, we had been anticipating doing it again and were giddy to finally be doing so. As we pulled up to the snorkeling area, our tour guide plopped a bag of goggles and breathing tubes on the back of the boat and set us free to explore. As we dug through the bag of snorkeling gear we were appalled by the fact everything had some degree of mold growing on it and we pulled out the least affected pieces we could find and wearily strapped them on.

Our worries about the mold were soon forgotten though as we jumped into the water and peered beneath the surface of the ocean. Fish of all sizes and colors swam around each other, dipping in and out of the numerous holes and crevasses strewn across the sea floor. Coral stretched up towards the surface like mountains to the sky, swaying in the currents in a similar fashion as trees in the wind. Slivers of light shone down through the water, running over the entire scene like a system of veins. It was like dipping our faces into an entirely different world. Every now and then we would poke our heads out of the water and were amazed each time at how normal the surface looked, giving no hint at the entire ecosystem that existed just a few feet below it.

After about thirty minutes we were summoned back to the boat where we boarded and promptly set off towards the island’s main beach to have lunch, which consisted of a wildly inappropriate amount of food. Plate after plate after plate of meat and vegetables and fried snacks were laid out before us and, not wanting to waste any of it, we shamefully emptied the contents of each plate into our stomachs until there was nothing left. Uncomfortably full, we lumbered to the beach where we wasted away our bloated misery on a couple of shade-covered loungers until we were called to the boat to head back to Hoi An.

Our lunch…if you can believe it, there’s more food outside of the frame!

We got back to our guesthouse around 2:00 and immediately grabbed a couple of bikes to head to the beach to spend the rest of our day. We decided this time to try a less touristy beach than the others we had been to and were pleasantly surprised that the perks (a lounger and umbrella in exchange for ordering food or drinks) remained the same along with the added bonus of relative seclusion.

After arriving we noticed the sky darkening around us and became worried that an ensuing thunderstorm would force us back to the guesthouse earlier than we had wanted to. We expressed this concern to the woman working at the bar and were assured that the storm would only last a few moments. This would have been believable had the crisp blue skies stretching across the horizon not been overtaken by an expanse of dark, gray clouds stretching as far as the eye could see in a matter of minutes. Nonetheless, we decided to wait around and see what would happen, retreating to our loungers as the sky opened up. Sure enough, after about a ten minute wait the rain stopped and our view once again consisted of sunny blue skies. We should have known better given our experience with thunderstorms in the tropics: intense but short-lived.

The sky ten minutes later, clear and blue as promised

The rest of the afternoon and evening was perfect with a mixture of cocktails, dips in the ocean, and lazing around on the beach. As the sun began to set, we hopped back on our bikes and began to look for a good restaurant along the beach, of which there were many. We chose one at random and spent the rest of the night picking at seafood and watching as the last remaining light was sucked under the mountains and the sky and ocean became synonymous in the black of night. With one more full day ahead of us, we headed back to our guesthouse to get some rest before our early rise the next day.

The agenda for our last full day in Hoi An was a long one and like most other days we had spent there, aimed to be a blend of both cultural and coastal activities, the first of which was a trip to the ancient Cham ruins of My Son (pronounced “mee-sohn”). We had read that walking around the ruins was akin to exploring the inside of an oven, which after 4 days in Vietnam was entirely believable. We also read that the sight is swarmed with people around midday once all of the tourist buses roll in. So, wanting to avoid both of these as much as possible, we woke up at 5 a.m., started up our motorbike and were on our way.

To find our way there we followed a surprisingly clear hand-drawn map from one of the workers at our guesthouse. Despite its clarity, the simplicity of it made us constantly question if we were going in the right direction or had missed our road. So, every few miles, we would stop and ask a local shopkeeper or passerby, who were always friendly even at 6:00 in the morning, how to get to My Son. At one point we were sure we had gotten ourselves completely lost and pulled over to ask a fruit vendor for directions and our gazes were shamefully guided to the giant sign right above our heads that read “My Son” with a big yellow arrow pointing us in the right direction. The motorbike couldn’t have taken us away faster.

You would think that feeling completely lost in the Vietnamese countryside while cruising around at 40 m.p.h. on a vehicle that you’ve only driven once before in your life in a country that has no observable traffic laws would be a bad thing, but it really wasn’t. In fact, it was one of our favorite things we did in Vietnam. The sense of adventure we got riding around and taking in vistas of expansive fields, mountainous skylines and small villages just beginning their day all while other motorists and even a truck with pig feet hanging out of it whizzed by us was incomparable to any other experience we’ve had in our travels. It was uniquely enjoyable and, after 35 miles and nearly an hour and a half on the road, it was almost disappointing as we rolled up to the gates of My Son and parked our bike.

At this point, it was still only 6:30 in the morning and the park had just opened. No other motorbikes were parked in the garage nor cars or buses in the parking lot. We seemingly were the first ones there, other than the workers who sleepily greeted us as we bought our tickets and made our way towards the ruins.

We entered the grounds through a dense expanse of trees, whose browns and greens dominated the scenery as far as the eye could see. After about ten minutes of meandering through this, we spotted a speck of orange off in the distance and began walking towards it. As we did, a half-standing tower slowly materialized before us and we soon found ourselves at the first of what would be eight different sights of ruins. Some were small, consisting of just one or two buildings like the one we were at now, others were sprawling, but each deserved at least some degree of contemplation of their role in the society that built them and what the lives of those people were like.

View through the jungle of one of the temples

As we bounced around from sight to sight, we began to notice the relationship My Son had with the jungle around it. After centuries of existing side by side, it was almost as if the jungle had decided to reclaim what was once it’s own. Hills of grassy earth climbed up the walls of the different structures, almost making it look like they hadn’t been built but rather grew out of the earth like the trees around them. It was difficult to imagine one without the other.

One of the temples appearing to have grown out of the ground

One of the more ruined sights we came across

Butterflies were everywhere around the ruins, this particular one we found resting inside one of the temples

Of the many incredible things we saw at My Son though, there was one unsettling one that was present in almost every sight that we visited. Giant craters, so big that one could easily confuse them for small hills, littered the landscape, remnants of the Vietnam War when the ruins were used as a hideout for the Viet Cong. Because of this, the sight was heavily bombed and many of the buildings that once stood were lost forever. It wasn’t until a My Son historian wrote a letter to the US President at the time, urging him to stop the attack, that the bombs finally ceased falling, but the damage had already been done and it was still very much visible fifty years later as we walked through the ruins. Maps and signs pointed to piles of bricks that were identified as once towering buildings and the ones that were still standing were often half-reduced to rubble. It was the first time we felt truly ashamed to be Americans.

Even with the bomb craters, it was very difficult to imagine a war taking place there or anywhere else in Vietnam for that matter. And this is for two people with admittedly very large imaginations. We would see black and white photos hung in shops of helicopters on the horizon and soldiers on the ground, but the Vietnam we saw and experienced was a world apart from this. We didn’t think about this too often though as there were many other things demanding our attention, all of which were much more pleasant than the thought of war.

There were a lot of interesting carvings in the buildings too

A headless statue outside one of the main temples

After wandering around the ruins until about eleven o’clock, the valley they sat in began to fill with heat and tour groups and we decided that it was a good time to leave. So, we made our way back to our motorbike, hopped on, and began the return journey to Hoi An.

Exploring the inside of one of the buildings

Apparently following a map backwards is much more difficult than forwards because the frequency with which we got completely lost (not just thinking we were lost) was exponentially higher than the journey to My Son. During one of these times, while we were knowingly driving in circles waiting for some familiar landmark to reveal itself, we noticed that our ride was getting increasingly bumpier despite the smooth road we were riding on. Panicked and determined to ignore the obvious, which was that we had a flat tire, we slowly crept along the road in hopes that the problem would fix itself (it didn’t). Just before losing all hope, we heard a shout from the opposite side of the road and looked over to find, to our relief, a man waving us in the direction of his home which doubled as a garage. After pulling up, he pointed us in the direction of some chairs, and, several minutes and $2.50 later, we were back on the road. Cheap and friendly are two things you can always count on in Southeast Asia.

Cooling off while waiting for our motorbike to get fixed

After getting back, we made a quick run to the beach before hanging up our motorbike keys for good and heading into the old town on foot to catch their monthly celebration of the full moon. The town, like most everything else experienced in both the light of day and dark of night, took on an entirely different form. The yellows that dominated the city during the day now gave way to the red and white glow of lanterns hanging along and above the lanes which were significantly more crowded and filled with life now that the sun was no longer looming overhead.

As the sun slipped completely under the horizon, the moon, which oddly enough wasn’t full, showed up for its own party and we headed to the riverside where everyone in the town had begun to gravitate towards. After arriving, it didn’t take long for us to figure out how exactly they celebrated the festival.

All along the river, little girls and old women carrying lit candles in paper lanterns impressively maneuvered their way through the crowds asking people if they’d like to buy one. If you did, you were given a big hook that you could use to place the lantern in the river and make a wish. We bought two, happily placed them in the river and excitedly watched as they floated into a pile of other lanterns and were then rowed over by a boat. We weren’t sure how the rules applied, but we imagined that meant that our wishes would go unanswered. Destruction by boat wasn’t the worst fate though as some, after being placed in the water, proceeded to catch on fire and become reduced to smoldering piles of ashes. Hopefully no one wished for world peace.

A group of lanterns collecting in the river

Most of the lanterns did what they were meant to though and floated along the river unobstructed, illuminating the water in the same way as the stars do the sky. Despite the bustling crowds around us, it was an incredibly peaceful experience as we watched the different-colored lanterns slowly float off into the distance. It was so peaceful in fact, that, as we watched them, we were reminded of how tired we had grown and began the long walk back to our guesthouse.

Our last day in Hoi An wasn’t as much a day as it was a morning. We had an early flight leaving at 9:00 so, wanting to make the most of what little time we had left, we decided to get up at 4:30 a.m. to catch the sunrise. After rolling out of bed and suppressing the protests from our bodies about being up at such a time, we grabbed our bikes and cruised through the eerily quiet streets towards the beach. As we pulled up to it, we found a seat and watched the scenery unfold around us. If some pictures are worth a thousand words than this was a moment worth a thousand pictures. Hopefully three will do.

The view of the sunrise as we pulled up to the beach

The clouds in the sky made the scene even more beautiful

Once the sun had fully come up and the yellows and pinks and oranges that had occupied the sky just moments before turned to a uniform blue, we hopped back on our bikes to head back to the guesthouse in hopes of catching one last breakfast before our taxi arrived. To our delight, we made it back in plenty of time and, with a full belly of beef noodles, we sadly got into the taxi and bid farewell to Hoi An.

Jeju Island

April 7, 2016June 18, 2019ryankate889

Although we’ve never been to the tropical shores of Hawaii, we now have the pleasure of saying that we’ve been to the “Hawaii of the East,” the often used tag line to describe South Korea’s Jeju island, where we spent the entirety of our time on the Asian peninsula.

The island, we assumed, got the nickname due to its natural wonders, warm waters and the fact that it was the honeymoon destination for practically all Korean newlyweds. Going in early April, we worried about whether we would have enough to do in our five days there without the prospect of wasting one of those away sitting on a beach. We would find just how misguided this fear was though as we sat in our hostel, Jeju Hiking Inn, for the entirety of our first day, confined to our rooms due to an incessant downpour taking place outside.

With time to kill, we began planning out our days on the island and the lines of our notebook quickly filled up with must-dos and must-sees. The problem of finding enough things to do was now one of finding a way to fit everything in. Little by little, we dwindled the list down to one that consisted mostly of outdoor activities and went to bed content that our time on the island would be spent in the best way possible: hiking around its UNESCO recognized natural landscape.

The next morning, we eagerly sprung out of bed and scurried down to the kitchen for our breakfast of toast and eggs. The hostel’s owner spotted us eating and, in his naturally friendly way, used his severely broken English to ask about our plans for the day and then offered to drive us to the bus stop. It’s amazing how much can be communicated with the word “okay” when accompanied with a series of hand gestures and head nods. After driving us there and dropping us off, we hopped on the bus and took off toward our first destination: the Seonsang Ilchubong volcano crater.

Throughout the ride there we sleepily looked through the foggy windows at a consistently gray and wet landscape and wondered if the sun would ever be coming out during our time on the island. While it would eventually make an appearance, it wouldn’t be anytime soon, a fact we came to terms with as the bus rolled up to the crater and we got our first glimpse of it. While the base was partially visible behind the blurring effects of the mist, the top was completely hidden behind a veil of fog. Not wanting to sulk too much in our weather misfortunes, we decided not to curse the fog, but rather enjoy it and the mystical effect it created as we ascended the crater.

The view of the crater as we walked up to it.

On our way up, we were never quite sure where exactly the top was so we climbed until we couldn’t anymore and it was at this point that we found ourselves on a wooden observation deck with nothing to observe. The signs and outlooks pointed towards the volcano crater, but all we could see was the by now all-too-familiar fog, rolling across our line of vision without actually going anywhere. We stayed to see if it would clear up, but the fog clung stubbornly to the crater so we decided to give up our wait and move on to what we hoped would be less-obscured sights. On our descent, to our surprise and delight, the blanket of fog covering the landscape below us began to be pulled away and lying underneath were sweeping views of the ocean and shore. At the sight of this, we quickened our lumbering pace as the prospects of the day now seemed endless with the world now in clearer focus.

The fog beginning to recede on our way down.

Our first order of business after getting to the base was to find a way to get down to the ocean, which ended up being rather easy and one of the more beautiful places we’d happen upon on the island. The one thing that struck us most once we got down was the color black. It dominated practically every plane of vision we could find, whether it be the rocks scattered across the shore, the sand of the beach, the volcano crater standing formidably in the distance or even the water at times if you looked at it a certain way. Unlike most other things around it though, the water took on many other colors apart from the ubiquitous black. Sometimes, it would be an ominous shade of turquoise, nearer to the sky it would seem almost gray, but mostly it would stay within the range of a foamy white as the ocean was violent that day, swaying and cresting into waves that would crash over the black rocks, creating a beautiful contrast. We explored the different nooks and crannies of the shore finding seashells, crabs, sea anemones and the like along the way. After walking around for a while we came to the painful conclusion that, while the scenery would never get old, the day would and, with a couple of worthy-looking shells in tow, we left that section of the coast in search for another called Seopjikoji.

Watching the waves crash into the crater.

The walk to Seopjikoji was extremely enjoyable. The rain and fog had all but disappeared leaving a cloudy and gray sky behind, which was all the same to us as it made the different colors of the island more vibrant by comparison. Among these colors, the ones that caught our attention the most were those of the rapeseed flowers, whose petals blanketed the ground from which they grew in a bright yellow. We had seen them out of our window on the bus, but to experience them in person along our hike was another matter entirely. After walking through them for a short while and taking plenty of pictures (that later all looked the same), we continued our walk along the coast.

One of the many fields of rapeseed flowers we’d come across.

Finding the rest of our way from the rapeseed field wasn’t too difficult, we just had to be moving away from the volcano crater. So, as long as it was shrinking on the horizon behind us, we knew we were going the right way. With the crater at our backs, we worked our way along the coast. As we walked over the crest of one particular hill, we noticed a brown, four-legged speck in the distance that promptly began making its way towards us. As it got nearer, we made it out to be a horse whose steady gallop didn’t stop until he was standing face to face with us. With a clear understanding of where it’s food supply came from, it sniffed around our jackets and pants pockets, leaving strings of gooey slobber behind. It quickly lost interest though as it realized we had nothing to offer apart from a few strokes of its mane. So, we parted ways, the horse clearly unshaken by our departure as it stood on the hill waiting for the next passerby.

Walking along the coast towards Seopjikoji.

Waiting for a more food-friendly passerby.

We walked for another hour or so, cutting inland until we came across a large brown sign pointing us towards a peninsula and notifying us that we had finally reached Seopjikoji. We weren’t sure what awaited us there, but we had read that it had some of the most beautiful scenery on the island so we anxiously pushed on towards it despite the aching protests from our tiring legs. The first noteworthy sight we came across after winding around the tip was an expansive field of black lava rocks. As we looked out at the field, colorful dots that we made out to be people through squinted eyes poked out of the rocks in the distance and we began making our way towards them, awkwardly stumbling down into the field one rock at a time.

In front of us as we walked, crabs scampered into dark crevasses at the sound of our heavy feet. If they had been spiders, we may have avoided the rock field altogether, but for some reason crabs don’t seem to demand the same level of fear despite looking almost as equally sinister as their arachnid counterparts. After maintaining a constant balancing act across the field for one hundred yards or so, the rumblings of our long empty stomachs persuaded us to leave the rocky terrain in search of some food.

After climbing back up to solid ground, our noses picked up an alluring aroma of grilled seafood and we followed it to a shoreside food stand where octopus, squid, sea cucumber and abalones were being grilled up and dished out to tame the appetites of hungry hikers. We examined the different options closely and found the price of the abalones and sea cucumbers to be too steep for their abundance and their cooking process, which consisted of the stall attendants plopping them down on the fiery grill alive and writhing in pain, too cruel. So we made the financial and ethical choice of the squid and octopus which was neatly cut up into convenient bite-size pieces and handed over to us in an equally convenient to-go bag. Lunch in hand, we found a nice spot to sit overlooking the ocean and dug in, feeling slightly guilty eating the invertebrates so close to their home.

With our stomachs now moderately full we continued our walk around the peninsula, all the while the scenery remained unchanged: white waves crashing into the black rocks, grass-covered hills rolling off into the distance, the crater lying flat on the ocean. In other words, the perfect accompaniment for a walk through the countryside. With nowhere to be, we walked on and on until the light gray that had dominated the sky all day began to darken and we sought out a bus to take us back to Seogwipo (the city our hostel was in) for some rest before what would be another busy day.

The view along the rest of our hike around the peninsula.

In front of the lighthouse on the peninsula.

Our third day on the island started much like the previous one had right down to the car ride from the hostel’s owner to our first destination. The only difference was that on that particular morning we weren’t heading to a bus stop but rather to the Jeongbang waterfall. On our ride there, we were bewildered to look out the window and find not the gray-tinted landscape we had become accustomed to during our short time on the island but instead at a blue and sunny sky. For a day that would be spent almost entirely on the ocean, we were extremely grateful for this fortunate turn in the forecast and began taking advantage of it almost immediately with the waterfall.

The sound of the falls, booming and ceaseless, reached us well before the view of it did, serving as a guide down the steep path towards its rocky base. At the bottom, necks jerked back, we stared up at the waterfall as it tirelessly crashed over the edge of the island and into the ocean. The sunlight, now unobscured by clouds, illuminated the water and and everything around it, including most spectacularly the mist spraying off the violent collision between the plunging water and the rocks, creating a faint rainbow that hovered over the ground. Every angle was a good angle and, after exploring them all, we chose what we deemed to be the best one, a secluded rock across the outgoing flow from the falls, to sit and enjoy the scenery.

Getting to the rock proved to require some amount of effort as, before we could plop down on it, we had to take off our shoes, roll up our pants legs and maneuver across the cold slippery rocks that served as a dividing line between the waterfall and the ocean. The effort, minimal and enjoyable, paid dividends once on the rock as the tranquility of the spot was unparalleled. No one else had crossed the stream and, while the crowds on the other side of it were still visible, their rumblings were muted by the roar of the falls. So we sat, taking it all in until the urgency of our agenda forced to cross back over. Once on the other side, we were alarmed to find that a wave of Korean pubescence had crashed down from the hills above, flooding the surrounding area with shrieks and shouts. At the sight and sound of this, we hastened our exit from the park and began making our way towards the Jungmun Daepo stone columns.

We never were quite clear on how the columns formed despite multiple signs informing us of the exact, albeit highly scientific, process, but they were interesting to look at all the same. Hexagonal and varying in height, they fit together snugly so that if you looked at them from above they would give an appearance of a flattened soccer ball. Staring at them from level ground, they looked like a stone forest growing out of the almost glowing turquoise waters beneath. We bounced around from one outlook deck to another, waiting for the scenery to change (it didn’t), so we just stayed at one and appreciated the stillness of it. As we looked out, our enjoyment of the scenery slowly began to diminish with each passing tour group and, after an elderly Asian man poked Ryan in the chest and called him “monkey, monkey” to the amusement of his friends, we decided it was time to go.

Before heading back to our hostel, we decided to look for a place to get lunch since we were in the hub of Korean honeymoon resorts and assumed the options would be abundant. We ended up settling on a buffet overlooking the ocean due to the fact that it served a lot of the food we had wanted to try on Jeju: black pork, the candy-like tangerines native to the island, seafood in various forms, and abalones, albeit in soup form, but abalones nonetheless. We were so anxious to try the latter because we had seen them being sold all over the island by shrunken old women in diver’s suits at the heart-dropping rate of ten dollars per shell (they were one hearty bite at best), so we were happy to get to try them without compromising our financial morals. Since we got to the buffet so late in the afternoon, we only had about 45 minutes to eat so we unashamedly stuffed our faces for the entirety of the time allotted to us, washing everything down with a tall glass of beer before paying our bill and waddling out of the restaurant.

Wanting to walk off the ungodly amount of food we just inhaled, we found a beach nearby to stroll along. As we walked, we were surprised to find not one, but four of the aforementioned abalone shells washed ashore, alive and kicking. Not quite in the entrepreneurial mood, we tossed the shells (forty dollars worth of them) back into the ocean and hopped on a bus to take us back to Seogwipo.

Some grandfather stones – ancient protectors of the island – near the beach.

Once back, and with a little daylight left to spare, we went to the nearby Cheongjiyeon Waterfall (not to be confused of course with the Cheong-JE-yeon falls further west). If you haven’t noticed by now, Jeju was not lacking in its supply of long and confusing names, perhaps another reason it was given the title “Hawaii of the East.” Cheongjiyeon, as it turned out, wasn’t too different from the first waterfall we saw that day. Instead of rainbows, oceans, and blue skies, the setting was a dim, misty forest, but, other than that, it was essentially water violently falling over a cliff into the rocks below. The familiarity of the scene in no way diminished our enjoyment of it though for, while the concepts of nature–mountains, rainstorms, forests, etc.–are extremely familiar, to witness the power and size of them in person is always an experience worthy of admiration. So, again we sat, bookending our day perched on a rock and gazing out at the mesmerizing endlessness of the waterfall.

Our fourth and last full day on the island, sadly, was a combination of misfortune and missed opportunities. Our agenda was full with plans to hike up Mt. Halla, the island’s central peak and tallest mountain in Korea, visit the world’s longest lava tubes that ran under the island, and, if time, go to the Jeju Folklore and Natural Museum to learn a little about the island we had inhabited for the better part of a week. To our disappointment, none of these would come to fruition.

After hiking up the mountain for nearly two hours the skies opened and, with the scenery now blurred by the haze of a rainstorm, we decided to turn back before reaching the peak. The lava tubes, perfect for a rainy day, were closed due to the fact that it was the first Wednesday of the month…silly us. And, to top things off, by the time we had exasperated both of these options, the museum was nearing closing time. In a desperate attempt to salvage the day, we randomly hopped off the bus back to Seogwipo to search for a beach in the illusion that it could still be enjoyable in a downpour…it wasn’t.

If our tone comes across as bitter, that’s because at the time it was, but there were some bright spots throughout the day (none coming from the weather) that made it worthwhile. One of these came on our way to the mountain in the morning. As we walked to the bus stop, we stumbled upon a street lined with cherry blossom trees so big and full that they formed a canopy over the road, creating a floral tunnel for the cars to drive through. On the ground below them, thousands upon thousands of tiny white petals laid scattered about, making it look like a fresh coat of snow had just fallen. For us, it was one of those unplanned moments that you can never recreate, just pure contentedness with where you are and what you’re doing.

Cherry blossoms hanging over the street.

Another of these moments came as we walked back from the lava tubes after finding out they were closed. Despite every excuse to be downtrodden, we found ourselves enjoying the rain-soaked hike back to the bus stop. The rain and wind, while no friend to our shoes or pants, gave the surrounding countryside a sense of beauty that might not have existed on a sunny day. The green seemed greener in the fields of grass that swayed hypnotically in the fluctuating patterns of the wind. Yellow and purple flowers dotted the landscape. Even the humble stone walls, which cut through the entire island, were stunning in the rain, blacker than ever and serving as a neat divide to the palette of colors surrounding them. It was a scene worth walking through very slowly, which we did until the rain picked up and our pace with it until we were back at the bus stop.

We spent the next two hours in the humid interior of the bus and, after finally getting back to Seogwipo, it was safe to say that all of the satisfaction we had managed to soak up throughout the day had now been rung dry. Wanting to end our time on the island on a good note, we decided to try a black pork restaurant that would have been way out of our price range on our first day but now seemed perfectly reasonable. It was worth every penny, or won for that matter, and one of the more unique restaurant experiences we’ve ever had.

Shortly after being seated, our table, which also served as our grill, was filled with plate after plate of appetizers by the waiter who culminated his back and forth kitchen runs with two slabs of black pork on the grill. After that, the warm, orange charcoals burning underneath did the rest of the work and in no time we had a feast. For the next hour or so, we existed in a state of bliss as we delicately sampled the different tastes before us with a pair of steel chopsticks, paying extra attention to the juicy, flavor-filled strips of pork that went down like potato chips. It was the perfect meal for an imperfect day.

Our last morning didn’t consist of much. We woke up early, made a mad dash to the bus station in the pouring rain, by now as omnipresent to the island as the ocean surrounding it, and spent the remainder of our time in the airport. As we waited for our flight and reminisced about our trip, the rainy days and missed opportunities had all but washed away in our memories. Only the good things remained, and there were plenty of those.